Novelist Jeffrey Fleishman

Jeffrey Fleishman, author of the brand new novel, Good Night, Forever (Blackstone), and Barbara DeMarco-Barrett talk about setting your book where you live, side characters, crime fiction and social issues, and so much more. 

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Jeff Fleishman is foreign and national editor at the Los Angeles Times. Previously, he was a senior writer on film, art and culture. A 2002 Nieman fellow at Harvard University, Fleishman was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in feature writing. A longtime foreign correspondent, he served as bureau chief for The Times in Cairo and Berlin, and was previously based in Rome for the Philadelphia Inquirer. He has been a finalist for the Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting and a finalist for the Center for Public Integrity’s Award for Outstanding International Investigative Reporting. He is the author of three novels: “My Detective,” “Shadow Man” and “Promised Virgins: A Novel of Jihad.”

 (Recorded on April 27, 2022.) 

Music and sound design by Travis Barrett 

 Barbara DeMarco-Barrett: www.penonfire.com 

Marrie Stone: www.marriestone.com 

Travis Barrett: https://travisbarrett.mykajabi.com

A.J. Jacobs, author of "The Puzzler"

Immersion journalist A.J. Jacobs returns to the show to talk with Marrie Stone about his latest book, The Puzzler: One Man's Quest to Solve the Most Baffling Puzzles Ever, from Crosswords to Jigsaws to the Meaning of Life. Along the way he shares mounds of writing advice, including the importance of approaching your work with a curious mindset, how finding a toehold in your writing can help you expand, how constraints lead to creativity and so much more. 

A.J. also shares why, after all his many books, the writing process is still difficult and how he overcomes his resistance. Check out this essay for a sneak peek into that conversation. 

Beyond the great writing advice, A.J. also shares his infectious love for puzzles and the many wonderful backstories and interviews behind the writing of this book. Geeks, puzzlers, and writers alike will take much away from this conversation.

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(Recorded on May 4, 2022) 

Music and sound design by Travis Barrett
Barbara DeMarco-Barrett: www.penonfire.com
Marrie Stone: www.marriestone.com
Travis Barrett: https://travisbarrett.mykajabi.com

Gary Phillips, One-Shot Harry

Gary Phillips, author of One-Shot Harry, is my guest. Gary has been a community activist, labor organizer and has published various novels, comics, short stories as well as editing several anthologies including Orange County Noir (which is how we met; I have a story in the Akashic anthology) and the award-winning The Obama Inheritance: Fifteen Stories of Conspiracy Noir. Violent Spring, first published in 1994 was named in 2020 one of the essential crime novels of Los Angeles. He was a senior story editor on FX’s Snowfall, about crack and the CIA in 1980s South Central where he grew up. His newest novel is One-Shot Harry, which has been receiving quite a bit of love from the Wall Street Journal and elsewhere. On the show we discuss why he set his novel in the early 60s, loglines, creating a photographer protagonist, and so much more. 

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(Recorded on May 5, 2022) 

Music and sound design by Travis Barrett 

Barbara DeMarco-Barrett: www.penonfire.com 

Marrie Stone: www.marriestone.com 

Travis Barrett: https://travisbarrett.mykajabi.com

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Robert Kerbeck, author of Ruse: Lying the American Dream from Hollywood to Wall Street

Robert Kerbeck joins Marrie Stone to talk about his memoir, Ruse: Lying the American Dream from Hollywood to Wall Street. From corporate espionage to uncomfortable encounters with O.J. Simpson, Kevin Spacey and others, Kerbeck weaves an incredible tale of deception and redemption, peppered with Forrest Gump-like brushes with fame. 

Kerbeck shares both his incredible story, as well as mounds of writing advice and publishing wisdom—from the benefits of reading plays to insights on how to market your book after publication. Memoir writers will take away insights on how to treat chapters as short stories, the benefits of writing short and tight, how writing groups can help your career, the critical role of networking and more.

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(Recorded on March 11, 2022)
(Podcast on May 9, 2022)

Visit our Patreon page here for additional benefits. 

Music and sound design by Travis Barrett
Barbara DeMarco-Barrett: www.penonfire.com
Marrie Stone: www.marriestone.com
Travis Barrett: https://travisbarrett.mykajabi.com

Poet Kim Dower, I Wore This Dress for You, Mom (Red Hen Press)

Kim Dower, West Hollywood poet laureate, instructor at UCLA Extension and Antioch LA, and book publicist, talks with Barbara DeMarco-Barrett about her latest volume, I Wore This Dress for You, Mom (Red Hen Press). They talk about inspiration, on not getting an MFA, what to do when you hit a wall, and more.

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(Recorded in April 2022) 

Music and sound design by Travis Barrett 

Visit our Patreon page at www.patreon.com/writersonwriting

Barbara DeMarco-Barrett: www.penonfire.com 

Marrie Stone: www.marriestone.com 

Travis Barrett: https://travisbarrett.mykajabi.com