Writing It!
The Podcast About Academics & Writing
Displaying items 1-10 of 16 in total of Writing It! with the tag "trade press".
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Episode 86: "Maybe I Should Write the Way I Teach" with John Kaag
October 5th, 2026 | 46 mins 26 secs
Philosophy, co-authors, memoir, post-tenure, trade press
We're speaking with philosopher and writer John Kaag, who is chair and professor of philosophy at the University of Massachusetts-Lowell. Kaag specializes in American philosophy. In addition to several books, Kaag's writing has been published in The Paris Review, The New York Times, The American Scholar, and Harper's. We talk about learning to write again after tenure; what it means to develop a voice and why that is particularly helpful in writing for trade; moving past writer's block and bringing our personal experiences into our writing.
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Episode 85: "We Thought We’d Just Write an Annotated Memoir," But the Agent and Editor Had Other Ideas With Joanna Sliwa
September 21st, 2026 | 59 mins 14 secs
holocaust history, literary agent, trade press, writing
We’re talking with Joanna Sliwa, a historian of the Holocaust and Polish Jewish history about her co-written book, The Counterfeit Countess: The Jewish Woman Who Rescued Thousands of Poles During the Holocaust about turning a historical memoir into a trade book. We talk about Sliwa’s experience with a co-writer, agent, the trade press book proposal, considering potential editors and trade presses, book tour, and book publicity.
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Episode 73: Luck & a Lot of Preparation: What It Takes to Move to Trade Press for Book Two with Prof. Max Mueller
April 6th, 2026 | 1 hr 1 min
american religion, literary agent, mormon history, religious studies, tenure and promotion, trade press, wakara
We talk with Max Perry Mueller, associate professor of religious studies in the Department of Classics & Religious Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln about why he made the move from academic press, for this first book, to a trade press for his second book, and what that involved. We talk about finding an agent, the agent-author relationship, writing a trade press book proposal, creating your own peer review, how Max writes differently for trade versus academic, why we don’t always get the book title we want, why shorter is better, getting tenure and promotion credit for your trade press book, the role of an academic mentor in writing, and the money reality for first-time trade press authors.
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Episode 69: ENCORE EPISODE 69: Figuring out the Post-Tenure Book with Elli Stern
February 9th, 2026 | 59 mins 48 secs
Editor, Social Media, academia, academic careers, academic job applications, academic job market, academic journal, academic monograph, academic presses, academic publishing, associate professor, book markets, book publishing, book-writing, co-authorship, cover letter, cover letters, creative non-fiction, creative writing, developmental editor, dissertation, editing, editors, first book, full professor, jewish studies, journal articles, literary agents, literary non-fiction, manuscript editing, networking, non-academic job applications, non-fiction, peer-review, personal statement, post-tenure, religious studies, revision, revisions, sample chapter, second book, teaching statement, teaching statements, trade press, women's history, writing, writing academic book, writing coach, writing feedback, writing groups, writing styles
Yale professor Elli Stern talks with us about figuring out what kind of writing we want to do after tenure—and the importance of building a team of friends and colleagues who can read drafts and provide valuable feedback.
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Episode 51: Heather Clark Part II: Maybe you don’t have to “stay in your lane”
June 2nd, 2025 | 31 mins 14 secs
academic jobs, biography, english department, english professors, fiction, trade press
We speak with literary scholar Heather Clark about moving from biography to novel-writing, why it can be helpful to move back and forth between non-fiction and fiction, and why academic writers might want to rethink the “stay in your lane” approach.
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Episode 50: Heather Clark Part I: When the editor says, “We want a doorstopper!
May 19th, 2025 | 28 mins
archival research, biography, cold war, phd; literature, sylvia plath, trade press
We speak with literary scholar and biographer, Heather Clark, author of Red Comet, which was selected for the New York Times Book Review's "10 Best Books of 2021" list and was a finalist for the 2020 National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography and a finalist for the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography. It won the Truman Capote Award for Literary Criticism in 2022. We talk about how Clark made the case for the eleventh biography of Sylvia Plath to her agent, and what it was like for her editor to tell her that she actually wanted a doorstopper of a book. Clark tells us about how she treated Plath’s fiction and poetry in the context of telling Plath’s life story, and how Clark organized her research notes. Clark also tells us about the group biography she wrote after Red Comet, and her next biography subject.
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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.
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Episode 25: The Book Seminar with Sam Freedman
June 3rd, 2024 | 57 mins 18 secs
Journalism, academic press, book promotion, book proposal, columbia university, literary agent, trade press
Today, we’re speaking with the award-winning author, columnist, and professor Sam Freedman, of Columbia Journalism School, and the author, most recently, of Into the Bright Sunshine: Young Hubert Humphrey and the Fight for Civil Rights (winner of the 2024 Hillman Prize for Book Journalism), about his class at Columbia School of Journalism, The Book Seminar. We talk about what Sam teaches his lucky students (this very successful Columbia seminar has been offered for over 30 years, and has resulted in over 100 published books), and about his own decades-long career as an author, and the view of the publishing industry it has provided him. We address what it means to craft a good book proposal; the importance of making the case for your book’s readership; the benefits of landing in an academic press, even if you were aiming for a trade press; how to think about the “comp. titles/authors” section of your proposal; pre-publication blurbs; pitching an agent; planning your own book promotion; and finally, why timing is sometimes everything.
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Episode 23: From writing about a Chicago heat wave to writing about 2020: A conversation with NYU Sociologist and New Yorker writer Eric Klinenberg
May 6th, 2024 | 40 mins 50 secs
biographical availability, biographical profiles, journalist, new yorker, trade press
Today we talk to NYU Professor Eric Klinenberg about how his academic career led to other kinds of writing—and what he's learned from writing a book about a time that many people would rather forget.