Write-Minded is delving into this new decade with an exploration of fan fiction and a fun and insightful interview with the amazing and prolific Marissa Meyer. Grant and Brooke look back to some of their favorite fairy tales from childhood, and Marissa speaks about her inspiration, her stockpile of story ideas, and how she once wrote 150,000 in the month of November for NaNoWriMo—which may well be a record (for which Grant offers extra credit).

This week’s episode is a short foray into resolutions present and past. Brooke and Grant offer their best solutions for recharging, share a couple of their goals for the new decade, and look back to where they were ten years ago with as the ’10s were just coming into view. Happy New Year, Happy New Decade!

In today’s episode, Brooke and Grant tackle the side hustle—why all writers do it, how to make peace with it, and how and why now is the best time ever for writers to actually have a writerly side hustle (as opposed to a 9-to-5 job). Guest Caroline Leavitt shares how she pieces together her worklife, multitasking and creating and making ends meet, and gives both encouragement and a dose of the reality of “making it” as a modern writer/author.

At Write-Minded, our hope is that our listeners will write a book they love—and then get it published, in whatever way that might manifest. Traditional publishing is the dream of many authors, so this week’s episode is a hands-on and helpful conversation about the best way to go about finding an agent, as well as do’s and don’ts, from one of the most prolific bloggers around, agent-turned-author Nathan Bransford.

Unreliability in fiction and nonfiction has a long history, and can be something to embrace, depending on your story. This week, Brooke and Grant interview Andi Buchanan, who opens her newest book, The Beginning of Everything, with these words: “I am an unreliable narrator.” Hear the story about why this is the case, and how this ties into memory. As always, this episode is about permission—to write what you’re called to write, embracing unreliability, or imperfect or lost memory, and seeing where the story goes.

In this week’s episode we talk about the peaks and valleys of the writing journey, the fact that it’s never a straight line, and how to weather the challenges as much as you celebrate the successes. Guest Jami Attenberg talks with Grant and Brooke about how she pulled herself up after being dropped by her publisher, and what it was like for her to “go all in” when there was nothing to guarantee that she could make it doing her art. This is an inspiring episode about hard work and resilience in an industry where there are never any guarantees.

SUBSCRIBE: APPLE PODCASTS | GOOGLE PLAY | EMAIL DOWNLOAD This week’s guest, Carolina De Robertis, writes fiction with such intimacy that Grant and Brooke couldn’t wait to hear her take on story, why she chooses fiction over nonfiction when writing stories based...

In this week’s inspiring episode, Brooke and Grant are joined by Jen Pastiloff, author of On Being Human, who shares the story of her leap of faith that was more like a push, the reason why “I got you” and “It’s gonna be okay” are her two favorite sets of words, and why she never wants to be seen as a guru. Join us for a conversation about listening, showing up for other people, and pursuing your dreams even when it’s terrifying and you’re not sure where you’re going to land.

Publishers love authors who generate bigger conversations, which sometimes grow into movements. While many authors will stumble into movements, others are consciously creating, or at least dreaming, into the possibility of a movement they might create. Join Brooke and Grant this week as they talk to guest Hope Edelman about starting a movement, having cohesion across your books, and being the kind of author that publishers have a hard time saying no to.