Today’s guest is Jessica Strawser, editor of Writer’s Digest, and author of ALMOST MISSED YOU, which was named to the March 2017 Barnes & Noble Best New Fiction List. Jessica joins host Mindy McGinnis to talk about how her career in journalism led to a position at Writers Digest, and how that informs her fiction writing, as well as her novel, ALMOST MISSED YOU, which deals with miscommunication in relationships, the all-encompassing love of motherhood, and the question of if we truly know our significant other.
Tiffany McDaniel: Surviving Eleven Years of Publishing Rejection
Author Tiffany McDaniel, an Ohio native whose writing is inspired by the rolling hills and buckeye woods of the land she knows, joins host Mindy McGinnis. She is the winner of The Guardian's 2016 "Not-the-Booker Prize" for her debut novel, The Summer that Melted Everything. The novel is a current nominee for the Lillian Smith Book Award, and a finalist for the Ohioana Literary Award and the Women's Fiction Writers Association Star Award for Outstanding Debut. Tiffany talks about eleven years of rejection, making sure that human emotion and characters trump the setting, being a female author who prefers to write dark themes, and the cons of using technology in your manuscript.
Kim Dinan: Writing Memoir
Today’s guest is Kim Dinan, author of the memoir, The Yellow Envelope: One Gift, Three Rules, and a Life Changing Journey Around the World. She has backpacked to over twenty-five countries on five continents. Her love of the outdoors landed her a coveted job on Backpacker Magazine’s Get Out More Tour and has compelled her to climb mountains in the Himalayas, raft frigid rivers in Patagonia, and walk five hundred and fifty miles across Spain on her own. Her popular travel blog, So Many Places, was named one of the best outdoor blogs by USA Todayand has been featured online by such sites as Huffington Post and BuzzFeed.
Kim joins host Mindy McGinnis to talk about the difference between querying fiction and non-fiction and her need to write that started with a blog, and culminated with a memoir, as well as writing the truth in non-fiction even when it’s not flattering to yourself or others, and trying not to take reviews personally when you write memoir. Also, Kim’s journeys around the world and her take on active motherhood.