Writing It!
The Podcast About Academics & Writing
About the show
"Writing It! The Podcast About Academics & Writing" dives deep into the world of academic writing and publishing. Join us for conversations with academics and editors as we discuss challenges, strategies, and insights from our writing lives. As we share our experiences and helpful hacks, we make the process of writing and getting published a bit more transparent and a bit less overwhelming.
Episodes
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Episode 48: Four Decades of Writing Biography
April 21st, 2025 | 47 mins 2 secs
biography; carson mccullers, editors, publicists, self-promotion; trade press; literary agent
When Mary Dearborn finished her doctorate at Columbia University she knew she wanted to write biography. She went on to a forty-plus year career in writing biographies whose subjects including Peggy Guggenheim, Norman Mailer, Henry Miller, Ernest Hemingway, Anzia Yezierska, and most recently Carson McCullers. We talk about the challenges of writing biography for trade press publications; writing the trade press book proposal; changes in the publishing industry; reaching a broader readership; struggling with self-promotion and changing social media norms; and why it’s invigorating to remember that presses actually need good writers.
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Episode 47: Historian-turned-Playwright (With a little help from real estate good luck!)
April 7th, 2025 | 34 mins 5 secs
playwright; historian; dissertation; failure; feedback; tenure
We’re talking with historian-turned-playwright Andy Heinze about leaving academia to begin a different kind of writing career. We talk about how he made this decision, what other factors helped, and why this new path has led to the most fun kind of writing. We talk about how academia prepares writers for failure and the joys of becoming a beginner and a student again.
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Episode 46: Cold-calling works!
March 24th, 2025 | 48 mins 5 secs
biography; e.b. white; katherine sargent white; the new yorker; trade press; literary agent; doctoral program; narrative nonfiction; book proposal.
In this episode, we’re talking with Amy Reading, author of The World She Edited: Katharine S. White at The New Yorker, about why a PhD is helpful background for writing literary non-fiction, and how that background helps us skillfully cold-call agents; the importance of understanding how your book fits in with comparable works; how and why she ended up writing a bigger book than she expected; finding a writing community; why a biography always takes longer than we think; and why it’s worthwhile to reach out to the writers we admire.
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Episode 45: “Before there was therapy, there was religion”
March 11th, 2025 | 48 mins 31 secs
religious studies; spirituality; book two
We’re speaking with Professor Michael Alexander, professor of religious Studies and Jewish Studies at U.C. Riverside, about writing about the history of human spirituality. Alexander’s recent book, Making Peace With the Universe: Personal Crisis and Spiritual Meaning is very different from his previous book, Jazz Age Jews, in part because it includes an honest examination of his own life. We talk about moving from book one to book two; the challenges of including the personal in scholarly writing; and why it’s important follow our curiosity in our writing.
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Episode 44: What AI can do for us academics (and what it can’t do for us without sucking the joy from life)
February 24th, 2025 | 59 mins 22 secs
ai, developmental editor, drafts, students, teaching, writer’s practice, writing
We’re speaking with writing teacher,John Warner, author most recently of More Than Words: How to Think about Writing in the Age of AI, about where AI can be an ally (it’s great a alphabetizing, as a tool for jogging our memory, generating lists and first drafts of abstracts and summaries), and where to steer clear of it. We talk about teaching and learning in the age of AI, and how to remind students of the pleasures of writing and reaching those “can’t be better” writing moments. John talks about developing a writers practice (the subject of one of his books), how to create compelling “learning outcomes/objectives” for our courses, and the tricks and pleasure of moving between different kinds of writing, effectively.
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Episode 43: “Filling the gaps of history… with fiction!” with Lauren Willig
February 11th, 2025 | 54 mins 33 secs
historical fiction; book contracts; regency era; romance writing; book tours.
NYT bestselling author of historical fiction, Lauren Willig, talks about shifting from a history dissertation to writing historical novels. Willig talks about how she discovered she has “fiction brain”; figuring out when and how to use fiction to fill the gaps in historical understanding; finding co-authors; and what makes collaborative writing work. We also talk about competition and envy between writers, writing regrets, and why luck is such an important ingredient in a successful career.
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Episode 42: “Two Years Ago I Quit My Life” with scholar and writer, Anne Boyd
January 28th, 2025 | 1 hr 9 mins
biography; literature; job market; tenure; literary agent; substack; followers; trade press
Less than a decade ago, Anne Boyd was a tenured literature professor and her book, Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy: The Story of Little Women and Why It Still Matters received a rave NYT review from Francine Prose. We talk with Anne Boyd about leaving academia and buying a one-way ticket to Paris. She has been traveling around Europe ever since, writing and exploring new genres, including fiction. We talk about the factors that led her to leave academia; NEH grants; how tenure changes job prospects; how she made her exit from academia work financially; getting those first ten pages ready for a literary agent; writing biography; creating a fanbase on Substack and making it into a community; drawing the attention of Elizabeth Gilbert; and why it all works even when it doesn’t work perfectly.
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Episode 41: Finding your form… and voice
January 13th, 2025 | 51 mins 32 secs
narrative nonfiction; history; creative writing; publishing; trade press; scottsboro; pulitzer;
We’re speaking with Distinguished Professor James Goodman, of Rutgers University, Newark, where he teaches history and creative writing. Our conversation focuses on what Goodman teaches his graduate students about writing, and how these lessons about form, voice, and pacing are rooted in his own writing experiences. Goodman has received fellowships and awards from NYU, Princeton, Rutgers, and the Guggenheim Foundation, and his book, Stories of Scottsboro, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.
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Episode 40: Finding courage to write the broader story
December 30th, 2024 | 51 mins 12 secs
book publishing, history, holocaust, literary agent, survivors
In this episode we talk with history professor Robin Judd of the Ohio State University about writing her most recent book, Between Two Worlds: Jewish War Brides After the Holocaust. Figuring out how to write up her research as a book appealing to a broader audience was a challenge that required new skills and a willingness to edit, while staying true to her sources’ voices.
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Episode 39: How to Write a Lot: A Practical Guide to Productive Academic Writing
December 16th, 2024 | 47 mins 22 secs
psychology; writing groups; editing; academic writing
We’re speaking with University of North Carolina-Greensboro psychology professor and author of How to Write a Lot: A Practical Guide to Productive Writing, Paul Silvia. We humanities folks tend to overthink things, including about the reasons that writing isn’t going well. But what if the solutions to our writing problem are more simple than we realize? Silva studies the psychology of creativity and motivation, and he shares some excellent insight and advice for moving forward when we’re feeling some despair or frustration about our academic writing.
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Episode 38: Relationships and Writing
December 2nd, 2024 | 1 hr 17 mins
american religion., book manuscript, catholic studies, fellowships, jewish studies, religious studies, tenure and promotion, writing coach, writing groups
Today’s episode is with Samira Mehta, associate professor of women and gender studies and of Jewish studies at the University of Colorado Boulder. We speak about the way our relationships feed our writing. The conversation focuses on fellowships, writing groups, writing coaches, and friends and colleagues with whom we exchange writing.
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Episode 37: How a great elevator pitch can make a difference
November 18th, 2024 | 36 mins 16 secs
edited volumes; non-tenure-track; academic writing; co-editing; penguin classics
A conversation with Professor Lori Harrison-Kahan (Boston College) about edited volumes and writing while in a non-tenure track position. Harrison-Kahan shares ideas for creating successful edited volumes, including her own experiences with having a good elevator pitch and creating conference panels that show potential editors a good fit between papers. Harrison-Kahan explains how to involve undergraduates in the creation of volumes; how edited volumes can be a source of community for scholars; and how she and her co-editors actually write an introduction together. With her co-editors, Harrison-Kahan recently published two edited volumes: The Case of Lizzie Borden and Other Writings, a Penguin Classics edition of Elizabeth Garver Jordan's writings, and Matrilineal Dissent: Women Writers and Jewish American Literary History.
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Episode 36: What do book publicists do for academic authors?
November 4th, 2024 | 49 mins 16 secs
book publicity; pr; publishing; academic books; trade press books; book events
We’re speaking with Leah Paulos, founder and director of the Brooklyn-based book publicity firm, Press Shop PR about what publicists do for academic writers: primarily, helping readers find your book! We talk about why an academic might hire a book publicist; at what stages of writing a book it makes sense to hire a publicist; publicist pricing; what authors can do on their own to create more of a buzz around their book.
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Episode 35: GETTING THE READER FROM BEGINNING TO END, WITH MERVE EMRE
October 21st, 2024 | 59 mins 20 secs
book critic; book review; teaching undergraduates; the new yorker; pedagogical criticism;
A conversation with Shapiro-Silverberg Professor of Creative Writing and Criticism at Wesleyan University and contributing writer to The New Yorker magazine, Merve Emre. We talk about the work and goals of a book critic; what it means to think about the reader’s experience of our writing; creating a community of readers; and what it’s like to be edited at the New Yorker.
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Episode 34: When Writing Becomes Like Painting
October 7th, 2024 | 43 mins 29 secs
biography, editing, jewish studies, religion, trade press
Harvard Divinity School Professor Shaul Magid began his undergraduate education as a painter. Over time, as he became an academic and a professor, Magid found that writing took the place of painting – that is, writing is his artistic and creative expression, and the thing that he’s basically always doing. We speak about how changing one’s institutions – Magid has taught at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, Indiana University, Dartmouth, and Harvard Divinity School—has changed his writing and for whom he wants to write. We speak about the appeal of biography, the value of writing for a broader audience and why the editorial feedback can be difficult to take, but ultimately worthwhile.
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Episode 33: Psychedelics & Writing
September 23rd, 2024 | 46 mins 44 secs
chapter structure, history of science, literary agents, margaret mead, psychedelics, trade press
We speak with historian Ben Breen (UC Santa Cruz) about the writing of his recent book, Tripping on Utopia: Margaret Mead, the Cold War, and the Troubled Birth of Psychedelic Science, We discuss how to think about chapter organization; writing about individuals’ lives without writing biography; discovering our main characters through the writing process; books that have served as models for writing; the wonderfulness of Terry Gross; not getting caught up in the apparatus of writing tools; and why it’s most important to just get the ideas down.