Joan Silber on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM

Joan Silber is the author of nine books of fiction. She joins Marrie Stone to talk about the most recent, Secrets of Happiness, which came out last month. They talk about what Marrie has coined as “The Silber Method" of storytelling, which uses the short story structure to create a novel-length work.  

Silber shares her proclivity for being a miniaturist working on a big canvas, and how she discovered that form. She talks about how travel has influenced her writing, her research methods, organizing her material, generating ideas, creating effective dialogue, and so much more.

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(Broadcast date: June 23, 2021)

Mary Camarillo, The Lockhart Women

Mary Camarillo, author of the debut novel, The Lockhart Women, talks with Barbara DeMarco-Barrett about the challenges of being a debut novelist, why her novel is set during the OJ Simpson trial, and more. 

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(Broadcast date: June 16, 2021)

Lionel Shriver on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM

"Lionel Shriver’s contrarianism has made her famous, but fiction is what she believes changes minds,” said the New Yorker last year. Since her 2003 breakout novel, We Need to Talk About Kevin (later turned into the 2011 film starring Tilda Swinton), Shriver has pushed people’s political buttons. She’s a pro-Brexit, anti-woke, #MeToo-skeptical Democrat who eats one meal a day, dislikes babies, and refuses the comforts of either heat or air conditioning.

 

Her novels have tackled tricky American issues such as school shootings, an ongoing healthcare crisis, morbid obesity, and the widening wealth gap. Her latest novel, Should We Stay or Should We Go, confronts aging and western civilization’s obsession with immortality. Kay and Cyril, a couple not keen on facing the indignities of growing old, made a middle-aged suicide pact to occur on Kay’s 80^th birthday, which happens in March of 2020. What will they decide when the day arrives? Shriver explores every last possibility.

 

She joins Marrie Stone to talk about the book, writing contemporaneously with the pandemic, and constructing a novel with several diverse outcomes. They have a candid discussion about aging, death, suicide, and the ethics of behind every decision along the road to the bitter end. 

 

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Broadcast date: June 9, 2021

Lisa Scottoline, author of Eternal, on Writers on Writing

Lisa Scottoline, author of the novel, Eternal, talks with Barbara DeMarco-Barrett about the art, craft, and business of writing.

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(Broadcast date: June 2, 2021)

Music by Travis Barrett