✨Kelly McMasters on metaphor and meaning in memoir✨
Are you confused about how writing workshops work? Our April bonus episode has you covered. Do you need a beta reader? Scroll down to get matched up...
Happy Friday, all you wonderful 💩 heads ! It’s May and spring has officially sprung 🦋
In this week’s Thursday episode, Carly, CeCe, and Bianca are joined by guest author Rachel Kapelke-Dale and her agent, Sarah Phair. Bianca then interviews Kelly McMasters, author of the memoir The Leaving Season. Our April bonus episode dropped on Monday, which included comp suggestions from the fabulous Emilie Sommer and an interview with poet, novelist, and Chair of the Amherst Writers (AWA), Sue Reynolds. You are also getting a look at the cover reveal for true crime narrative non-fiction The Mother Next Door by Andrea Dunlop and Mike Weber, two of Carly’s clients. Finally, we link to Carly and Bianca’s courses, as well as the Beta Reader Match Up.
As usual, we are continuing our TSNOTYAW Membership Program so you can get even more The Shit No One Tells You About Writing goodness! Our podcast episodes and Friday newsletter issues will continue to go out free of charge (we *love* sharing all this amazing content with writers like you). But as TSNOTYAW has grown, so too have the many, many hours our team pours into it, and in order to be able to keep showing up for our lovely listeners, we ask that you consider joining our paid community.
For just $8USD a month or $80USD a year, you can receive our paid newsletter on Tuesdays which features weekly bonus author Q&As, exclusive content from industry experts, weekly access to Carly Watters and CeCe Lyra’s written notes on queries from the podcast’s Books With Hooks feature, monthly bonus podcast episodes, AND regular Ask Me Anythings / Q&As with Carly, CeCe, and Bianca Marais. If that doesn’t kickstart your writing journey, we don’t know what will!
Thanks for reading ❤️
The Shit No One Tells You About Writing Team
This Week’s Podcast✨🎙️✨
In this week’s 📕Books with Hooks🪝, Bianca, Carly, and CeCe are joined by two guests, author Rachel Kapelke-Dale and her agent, Sarah Phair. They discuss:
Ensuring your comps align with each other and with your work
Making sure your query is representative of your whole novel and not just one part
Using your author bio to help show why you're the one to write this story
The concept of auto-fiction
The importance of highlighting the POV you're writing from
Being specific with your plot points in your query
Finding the right balance between what you withhold and what you reveal, and
The need to show your character's emotions, especially messy ones
After which, Bianca interviews Kelly McMasters, author of The Leaving Season which is a memoir in essays. The two unpack:
Writing essays vs a linear timeline in memoir
Publishing essays from the collection ahead of the book’s release
Deciding what to include and what to leave out
How to know where to begin
Using external events and settings as metaphors for your character's emotionality
What memoirists owe their readers vs what they owe themselves
Community vs platform, and
Making it all matter to the reader
More information about Kelly can be found here. She's also on Instagram.
You can purchase The Leaving Season on our Bookshop.org affiliate page here. Buying books through this link supports a local indie bookstore, as well as The Shit No One Tells You About Writing 📚❤️
April’s Bonus Episode 😍
In this month’s bonus episode, Bianca interviews poet, novelist, and Chair of the Amherst Writers (AWA), Sue Reynolds. They discuss the AWA workshop method and how it differs from other workshops; what occurs in an AWA workshop; the importance of giving writers a safe and encouraging space to share their work; the concept of strength-based feedback; the specific practices within the workshops; writing without a 'pricetag'; the AWA method's commitment to holding space for marginalized and previously silenced voices; the connection between disclosure through writing and healing; the point at which an AWA workshop can be helpful in the writing process; and how to find an AWA workshop.
After which Emilie Sommer of East City Bookshop provides the invaluable service of suggesting comp titles to our listeners.
To connect with Emilie Sommer follow her on Instagram! You can find East City Bookshop there as well.
Information about an AWA workshops available near you can be found here
More information about Sue can be found here. She’s also on Instagram.
Writing memoir? 😍🌟
Join Bianca on the 11th of May from 10am-5pm ET as she hosts a one-day virtual retreat specifically for memoirists!
Speakers include:
Catherine Gildiner – Author of Too Close to the Falls, After the Falls, Coming Ashore and Good Morning, Monster: Five Heroic Journeys to Recovery.
Chelsea Devantez - Emmy-nominated writer, comedian, and filmmaker. Author of the upcoming memoir, I Shouldn't Be Telling You This (But I'm Going to Anyway).
Courtney Maum - Author of five books, including the game changing publishing guide, Before and After the Book Deal, and the memoir, The Year of the Horses.
Bonny Reichert – Award-winning journalist, chef, and author of the upcoming memoir, How to Share an Egg: A True Story of Hunger, Love and Plenty.
Abby Maslin – Bestselling author of the memoir, Love You Hard, and a contributing essayist in Moms Don’t Have Time to Have Kids.
Ronit Plank - Award-winning writer, teacher, and podcaster who hosts Let's Talk Memoir. Author of the memoir, When She Comes Back.
Each 40-minute session will be followed by a 20-minute Q & A in which delegates get to ask the presenters all their burning questions.
The retreat will be taped, and the recording will be sent out the next day.
The registration fee is US $ 149.00
For more information and to register, click below!
The Mother Next Door: Medicine, Deception, and Munchausen by Proxy
A groundbreaking work of narrative true crime that investigates three cases of Munchausen by Proxy, unraveling this mysterious form of abuse and how unequipped our medical and justice systems are to handle it, from the host and creator of the award-winning podcast Nobody Should Believe Me and the nation’s top MBP investigative detective.
Available for pre-order here!
Are you looking for beta readers, some of whom might potentially become writing group members down the line?
Are you wanting to be matched up with those writing in a similar genre and/or time zone, so they can critique your work as you critique theirs at the same time?
Your manuscript doesn't have to be complete to sign up for this 3000-word review!
Registrations are open from now until the 2nd of June with the match emails going out on the 3rd of June!
For more information and to register, click below!
Send us your Q&A and comp requests 🥰🌟
Call and leave us a 60 second message (an exercise in being concise 😅) either asking a publishing/writing-related question, or requesting a comp for your novel! Carly and CeCe will answer your questions, and the lovely Emilie Sommer will give you comps that’ll bring your query letter to the next level— she’s the comp master 😍 Give us as much detail as you can, so that we can do our best to assist you on your writing journey ❤️ Further details and the link to leave a message are here. We’ll be recording our responses mid-May so make that call ASAP!
That’s all for this week’s news! If you enjoyed it, why not share the love? 🥰
Until next week, happy writing! Tune in again then for more invaluable wisdom from our wonderful hosts! 😍
❤️ The Shit No One Tells You About Writing Team
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Carly Watters and CeCe Lyra are literary agents at P.S. Literary Agency, but their work in this newsletter is not affiliated with the agency, and the views expressed by Carly and CeCe in this newsletter are solely that of themselves and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, policies, or position of P.S. Literary Agency.
The conversation with Kelly McMasters about the choices she made to infuse her memoir with metaphor and meaning was fantastic! I love when you talk about nonfiction on the pod.
I really enjoyed the conversation between Kelly and Bianca. Thank you!