n this episode I'm talking with Antonia Angress, author of “Sirens & Muses” and a 2024 NEA Creative Writing Fellow about the squishier side of creativity–the thoughts, ideas, and attitudes that affect your work, even if you're not fully conscious of it.

(Note–this episode is a replay. We’ll be back to new episodes next week, yay!)

- The part of the writing process that Antonia relishes

- The specific point in the book-writing process where Antonia focuses on making her sentences pretty

- How she only kept “a few paragraphs” from the first draft of her second novel (!!)

- Adapting to the public speaking portion of being a writer

- The thing her graduate school professor told her when she was halfway through writing her first novel and having a crisis of confidence

- The two things that can happen after her inner critic has told her the stuff she’s writing is no good

- How she views her first novel, looking back

- The “toxic narrative” about how you have to suffer for your art

- Continually working to be OK with resting (especially as an about-to-be mother)

- Antonia’s plug for therapy

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Thank you for listening!

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