Shawn Levy, The Castle on Sunset, joins Barbara DeMarco-Barrett

Shawn Levy, author of The Castle on Sunset:Life, Death, Love, Art, and Scandal at Hollywood's Chateau Marmont, joins Barbara to talk about his new nonfiction book. The only guest for the entire hour, they discuss "gathering string," doing research, writing and revising.

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(Broadcast date: July 3, 2019)

Gary Shteyngart on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM

Novelist Gary Shteyngart joins Marrie Stone for the full hour to talk about his latest book, Lake Success, now available in paperback.

Gary talks about creating effective satire, his pull toward the immigrant story, research, the novel's biggest challenge, and much more.

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(Broadcast date: June 26, 2019)

Karen Russell and Jessica Francis Kane on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM

Novelist and short story writer Karen Russell joins Marrie Stone to talk about her latest collection, Orange World. She discusses how she approaches stories versus novels, the Venn Diagram of character, how copying out sentences of other writers helps her rhythm and more.

In the second half, Jessica Francis Kane joins to talk about her novel, Rules for Visiting. She shares insights into how to deal with an interior main character, how the novel can be structured like a series of stories, what motivated the novel and more.

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(Broadcast date: June 19, 2019)

Deborah Eisenberg on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM, Irvine

Short story writer Deborah Eisenberg, author of Your Duck is My Duck, joins Marrie for the hour to talk about writing, aging, smoking, and life.

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(Broadcast date: June 12, 2019)

Stewart O'Nan and Tara Conklin on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM

Stewart O'Nan joins Marrie Stone to talk about his latest novel, Henry, Himself. He gives a mini-MFA lecture on character development, the creation of conflict by creating character clusters, and taking your character out into the world with you each day to understand their POV. 

Tara Conklin joins in the second half to discuss her novel, The Last Romantics. Among many things, she discusses playing with first person omniscient point of view, moving a narrative across space and time, and how reader feedback led the novel in a new direction.

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(Broadcast date: June 5, 2019)

Patty Seyburn on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM

Poet and professor Patty Seyburn joins Marrie Stone for the full hour to talk about her latest collection, Threshold Delivery. She discusses ways to make poetry more accessible and her favorite contemporary poets. She talks about the ways a poem can gather momentum, how rhythm and language can lead a poem in new directions, how reading across disciplines and mining those disciplines for their own peculiar language feeds her work, and much more.

The interview references a promise to include some of Patty's writing exercises for poets and writers. For a link to those exercises, click here.

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(Broadcast date: May 29, 2019)

Novelist Leland de la Durantaye with Barbara DeMarco-Barrett

Leland de la Durantaye, author of Hannah versus the Tree talks with Barbara DeMarco-Barrett about writing his debut novel (though not the first one he wrote), about patience, and language. Not to be missed.

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 (Broadcast date: May 22, 2019)

Literary agent Claire Roberts with Barbara DeMarco-Barrett

New York City literary agent Claire Roberts talks with Barbara DeMarco-Barrett about books, publishing, trends, self-published books, and more, on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM, broadcast from the University of California, Irvine campus.

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(Broadcast date: May 15, 2019)

Sigrid Nunez and Amanda Marbais on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM

Sigrid Nunez, author of the 2018 National Book Award winning novel The Friend, joins Marrie Stone to talk about enduring themes across her work, her trepidation about writing about a writer, and her general wisdom about the writing process, learning the craft, the role of talent, teaching, and the importance of reading wide and deep.

In the second half, Amanda Marbais discusses her debut short story collection, Claiming a Body. She shares her arduous revision process (confessing that stories often undergo between 25 and 40 revisions), and assembling a collection versus publishing individual stories. Amanda dissects one of her pieces—from original kernel of inspiration to the final revision. She discusses dialogue, the importance of reading your work aloud, and her propensity towards gallows humor.

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(Broadcast date: May 8, 2019)

Amy Hempel and Katya Apekina on KUCI-FM

Katya Apekina, author of The Deeper the Water the Uglier the Fish, and Amy Hempel, author of Sing to It talks with Barbara DeMarco-Barrett about the art, craft, and business of writing.

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(Broadcast date: May 1, 2019)