This week Brooke and Grant tap into urgency in writing—when we write for survival, write to document our lived experience, write like we’re running out of time. Guest Marcelo Hernandez Castillo, author of Children of the Land, speaks to how #ownvoices contributed to the success of his memoir to the experience of surveillance and interrogation and how that shows up in his writing as a result of lived experience.

This week we’re celebrating 100 episodes, and bringing you Brooke’s conversation with Eimear McBride (author of Strange Hotel and A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing). This is a rigorous and engaging conversation about the merits of literary fiction and why McBride wants her readers to actually take the effort to read her work. She is feisty and refreshing, saying, “I object to art being strangled by idiocy.” This interview will make you want to be a better literary citizen.

Contemporary fiction often offers a window into what ails us and what consumes us. Tackling a hot-button topic like race is never easy, and yet many novelists are drawn to the challenge that controversial topics present—for purposes of sorting things out, sending a message, or capturing a moment. In this week’s episode we talk to guest Sameer Pandya about writing provocative (and debut) fiction, and Grant and Brooke reveal whether or not they work in pajama pants.

This week’s guest, Jamia Wilson, is the director and publisher of The Feminist Press, and so much more—which is how and why this episode turned out to be about storytelling, legacy, and, yes, magic. Listen in to consider how magic shows up in your world, and the ways in which you’re doing exactly what you’re supposed to be doing, or how you might grow toward that as a goal or a calling.

Writing saves lives—the lives of readers and also the lives of writers. In this week’s episode we’re treated to guest Chelsea Bieker’s refreshing take on loving her own writing, how coming from a family of forgetters made her a writer, and why she chose to write her novel Godshot as a novel rather than a memoir when much of it centers on true events of Chelsea’s life. This week’s episode is an interview between Brooke and Chelsea as part of the Bay Area Book Festival’s WOMEN LIT series. Grant will be back next week.

This week’s episode is not only about breaking silence, but also about the ways that silence is often a pile-on due to multiple layers of silencing. This week’s guest, Terese Mailhot, author of Heart Berries, is the ideal author to wall us through what makes breaking silence both difficult and compelling for writers. We also touch upon cultural appropriation, marginalizing and compartmentalizing voices, and the complexities of being raised by a radical mother.

This week we get to hear from two publishing experts whose long careers have been centered on supporting authors—to publish, to be in community, and to trust their own hearts and process. Kevin Larimer and Mary Gannon are the coauthors of a new book, The Poets & Writers Complete Guide to Being a Writer. We touch on a few highlights and are treated to a supportive and encouraging conversation for writers at any stage in their journey.

This week’s episode is an invitation to explore conflict, embrace conflict, and even revel in conflict. Grant and Brooke cite authors—like Vladimir Nabakov, James Scott Bell, and Dean R. Koontz—who will help you feel less conflicted about conflict. This week’s guest, Melanie Abrams, has a lot to share about conflict, from how she’s handled it in her own books, to how she grapples with it as a parent who writes (or a writer who parents), to the formula she urges her students to consider in their own writing: Desire + Danger = Drama.

Get ready to soak up the goodness of indie publishing in this conversation with the CEO of the Independent Book Publishers Association. What does it mean to be indie? Hear about why Grant loves his indie publishers and how indie publishing saved Brooke. In this week’s episode we’re celebrating indie publishing’s inclusivity, its risk-taking, and, of course, its indepence. #ReadIndie