Write The Book: Conversations on Craft
Arts:Books
American Novelist and Poet Rosellen Brown, whose latest is The Lake on Fire (Sarabande).
This week’s Write the Book Prompt was suggested by my guest, Rosellen Brown: "Use questions and answers." She has found this an intriguing way to write. She offers the Mark Strand poem “Elegy For My Father” as an example. In the poem, Strand poses a question to his father, is given an inadequate or dishonest answer, and so asks the question again, to receive a more honest answer. He does this several times with many different questions. Rosellen herself used a questionnaire to format a story in her collection Street Games, offering both standard questions like name, address, but also crazy questions, like “Have you ever wished to die at the height of the sex act?” She has found it very fruitful with students.
[Also, during our conversation, Rosellen mentioned the site S for Sentence. Seems like another great resource to check out!]
Good luck with your work in the coming week, and please listen next week for another prompt or suggestion.
Music Credit: Aaron Shapiro
Bill McKibben - 3/20/23 (Special Palindrome Date for Last Show!)
Nathaniel Ian Miller - 3/13/22
Brad Kessler - 2/27/23
Caroline Lea - 2/20/23
Emily Forland - Archive Episode (2/13/23)
Annie Seyler - 2/6/23
Olena Kharchenko and Michael Sampson - 1/30/23
Jessica Nordell - 1/23/23
Green Mountain Book Festival Panel: Mysteries and Thrillers - 1/9/23
Erika Nichols-Frazer - 1/2/23
Andrew Liptak - 12/19/22
Green Mountain Book Festival Panel: Nonfiction - 12/12/22
Tari Prinster - Archive Interview (12/5/22)
Reina Pennington - 11/28/22
Samantha Kolber - 11/28/22
Green Mountain Book Festival Panel: Memoir - 11/21/22
Dr. Millicent Eidson - 11/14/22
Roseanne Montillo - 11/14/22
Thomas H. McNeely - 11/7/22
Gareth Higgins - 10/31/22
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
Lit Society: Books and Drama
Ex Libris
Fresh Air
Grimms’ Fairy Tales
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Myths and Legends
The Foxed Page