First Draft: A Dialogue on Writing

Mai Der Vang is the author of Primordial, Yellow Rain, and Afterland. Her honors include th Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize from the Academy of American Poets, an American Book Award, finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry, the First Book Award from the Academy of American Poets, among others. The recipient of a Guggenheim and Lannan Literary Fellowship, she teaches in the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Fresno State. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Erika Krouse writes fiction and nonfiction.   Her book Tell me Everything: The Story of a Private Investigationwon the Colorado Book Award for Creative Nonfiction and the 2023 Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime.  Erika’s novel, Contenders, was a finalist for the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award. Her previous short story collection Come Up and See Me Sometime, won the Paterson Fiction Award, was a New York Times Notable Book of the year, and is translated into six languages. Her new short story collection is Save Me, Stranger. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sarah Gerard is the author of the essay collection Sunshine State, a New York Times Critics’ and NPR Best Book of the Year, a finalist for the Southern Book Prize, and longlisted for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award; the novels True Love and Binary Star, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times First Fiction Prize; a coauthored art book, Recycle; and the chapbook The Butter House. Her new book of investigative journalism is called Carrie Carolyn Coco: My Friend, Her Murder, and an Obsession with the Unthinkable. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Charlotte Wood is the author of seven novels and three books of non-fiction. Her novel Stone Yard Devotional was shortlisted for the 2024 Booker Prize. Her previous books include The Luminous Solution, a book of essays on the creative process; the international bestseller, The Weekend; and The Natural Way of Things which won a number of prizes including The Stella Prize and the Prime Minister’s Literary Award. Her features and essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, Literary Hub, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Saturday Paper among other publications. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Paul Theroux is the author of many highly acclaimed works of fiction and nonfiction, including The Great Railway Bazaar, The Mosquito Coast, Riding the Iron Rooster, and Mr. Bones: Twenty Stories.   In 2015, Paul Theroux was awarded a Royal Medal from the Royal Geographical Society for “the encouragement of geographical discovery through travel writing.”  His new short story collection is The Vanishing Point. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Lidia Yuknavitch is the National Bestselling author of the novels Thrust, The Book of Joan and The Small Backs of Children, winner of the 2016 Oregon Book Award's Ken Kesey Award for Fiction as well as the Reader's Choice Award, the novel Dora: A Headcase, a critical book on war and narrative, Allegories Of Violence, and the short story collection Verge.  Her widely acclaimed memoir The Chronology of Water was a finalist for a PEN Center USA award for creative nonfiction and winner of a PNBA Award and the Oregon Book Award Reader's Choice. Her new nonfiction book is Reading the Waves. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sarah Chihaya is a book critic, essayist, and editor. Her work has appeared in The NewYorker, The New York Review of Books, The Nation, New York magazine, TheAtlantic, and The Yale Review, among other places, and she is the co-author of TheFerrante Letters: An Experiment in Collective Criticism. She has taught at PrincetonUniversity, New York University, and UC Berkeley. She is currently a contributing editorat Los Angeles Review of Books and lives in Brooklyn. Her new book is Bibliophobia. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer has been writing and sharing a poem a day since2006—a practice that especially nourished her after the death of her teenage son in2021. Her daily poems can be found on her blog, A Hundred Falling Veils, or a curatedversion (with optional prompts) on her daily audio series, The Poetic Path, available withthe Ritual app. Her poetry collection Hush won the Halcyon Prize. Naked for Tea was afinalist for the Able Muse Book Award. Her most recent collections are All the Honeyand The Unfolding. In January 2024, she became the first poet laureate for Evermore,helping others through this platform to explore grief, bereavement, wonder, and lovethrough the voice of poetry. She is the co-hosts of a podcast on creative process calledEmerging Form.This episode was recorded live at TACAW in Basalt, Colorado. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Alan Shapiro, a celebrated poet and essayist, dives into the beauty of language and the intricacies of the writing process. He emphasizes the balance between emotional depth and narrative structure, touching on the complex interplay of personal and political identities. Shapiro also reflects on aging and its impact on creativity, revealing how writing can be a joyfully self-forgetful act. His exploration of mortality through poetry highlights the profound emotional insights that literature can bring, connecting the past with present experiences.

David Wroblewski is the author, most recently, of the novel Familiaris, his followup to the internationally bestselling The Story Of Edgar Sawtelle, an Oprah Book Club pick, Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers selection, winner of the Colorado Book Award, Indie Choice Best Author Discovery award, and Midwest Bookseller Association's Choice award, in addition to being selected as one of the best books of the year by numerous magazines and newspapers.This was recorded live at TACAW in Basalt, Colorado. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices