
QWERTY: A Podcast for Writers on How to Live the Writing Life
Welcome to Qwerty, the podcast for writers on how to live the writing life. Host Marion Roach Smith interviews the best writers in all genres to discover their process. Qwerty is by, about and for writers and explores the real challenges of writing and the steps anyone can take to become a better storyteller. Listen in for writing tips, publishing advice and encouragement on how to live the writing life.
Latest episodes

Nov 29, 2019 • 31min
Ep. 17: Jane Friedman: A Podcast for Writers on How to Live the Writing Life
How do you get an agent for your writing? This, and other questions on the business of publishing, are discussed when Jane Friedman visits the QWERTY podcast and talks with author, writer and teacher Marion Roach Smith.

Nov 15, 2019 • 41min
Ep. 16: William Kennedy: A Podcast for Writers on How to Live the Writing Life
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and a MacArthur Genius grant, William Kennedy knows about how to write from home. He has brought Albany, New York to the world through his work. Marion and David speak to one of America's greatest living writers.

Nov 1, 2019 • 32min
Ep. 15: Annotations II: A Podcast for Writers on How to Live the Writing Life
In this second Annotations segment, Marion and David sit down together to discuss best writing practices and answer several listeners' questions.

Oct 18, 2019 • 31min
Ep. 13: Jill Smolowe: A Podcast for Writers on How to Live the Writing Life
Journalist and author Jill Smolowe discusses her memoir "Four Funerals and a Wedding" and the challenges she faced writing about the many facets of grief and healing.

Oct 11, 2019 • 4min
Welcome to Season 2: A Podcast for Writers on How to Live the Writing Life
Author and memoir writing teacher Marion Roach Smith and memorist and cookbook author David Leite kick off Season Two of QWERTY with a previerw of upcoming guests.

Aug 9, 2019 • 26min
Ep. 12: Julia Siler: A Podcast for Writers on How to Live the Writing Life
Two-time best-selling nonfiction author Julia Flynn Siler gives excellent advice to writers about writing what you believe in, testing your material and setting writing deadlines and goals to have a writing life.

Aug 3, 2019 • 32min
Ep. 11: Elissa Altman: A Podcast for Writers on How to Live the Writing Life
Best-selling memoirist Elissa Altman discusses with Marion and David the hard work of writing about family, getting to the truth, and the importance of what to include and what to leave out in her latest book, Motherland.

Jul 26, 2019 • 26min
Ep. 10: Corvette Hunt: A Podcast for Writers on How to Live the Writing Life
Writer Corvette Hunt recounts how to control your personal details when writing memoir, how to get an essay published in The New York Times and then turn that into a book-length memoir.

Jul 19, 2019 • 28min
Ep. 9: James Barron: A Podcast for Writers on How to Live the Writing Life
Marion and David ask a lifetime New York Times reporter about writing on deadline and how to identify when you know enough to publish.

Jun 28, 2019 • 28min
Ep. 8: Literary Forensics: A Podcast for Writers on How to Live the Writing Life
In this first Annotations segment, Marion and David discuss the difficult process of reporting on one's own life when writing memoir.