Blog

Shawn speaks with poet Antoinette Brim-Bell about trying new things (she’s a professor but also taking a playwriting class), why she’s waited to write about race (until now), and the difference between simply taking up space and being worthy of the space we’ve been given.

You can find out more about Antoinette at her website.

Antoinette’s book, These Women You Gave Me.

If you love the content we’re creating, or if you’d like access to some bonus interviews and other material, or if you’d just like to help us feed our six children, you can contribute $5 / month over at our Patreon account to make all of that happen. This podcast depends on listeners like you! Thank you!

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As always, there are a few ways to listen: click the play button in the image above, go to our webpage to hear this and all of our other episodes, or head on over to Apple podcasts or Spotify!

And keep writing!

Ash Wednesday was this week, and I was reminded that last Ash Wednesday I was in Nashville at a book conference handing out ARCs of These Nameless Things and wondering what all the talk was about this new virus. More has changed in the world during the last year than at any other year in my lifetime. It certainly has a way of sitting you down and making you think, about life, about love, about family.

I remember attending our local Episcopal church with the kids a few Ash Wednesdays ago. I remember walking to the front with the kids and seeing the priest place the ashes on their foreheads while saying, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” This year has, more than any other, served to remind me of this.

And yet life goes on, in the midst of our awareness of death. The snow falls today, the tiny, astounding flakes accumulating. Yesterday, when I took Winnie out for her morning constitutional, I rounded the bend and found, with great surprise, that the sun was rising. It was only 6:15 in the morning, but the sun was rising. I felt like I was in Narnia, when the White Witch’s reign begins to falter and signs of spring peek through the snow.

And then, this verse: “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” Galatians 6:9

There is beauty to be found in the perseverance, in that taking of the next step, even in the waiting. The harvest will come, if we do not give up.

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If you’re interested in signing up for our novel-writing course, time is running out! You can find out more about The Nine Month Novel and sign up HERE. It is going to be an amazing process – join nearly 20 other writers as we come together, encourage one another, learn more about writing, and get these novels written.

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Our podcast, The Stories Between Us, continues! If you’re new to it, I want to take a moment and point you back to some of our most-listened-to episodes:

Janelle Stoltzfus and Walking the Valley of the Shadow of Death
Tsh Oxenreider and Creativity as Therapy
Ira Wagler: Writing Down the Broken Roads
The Story of How We Met (and How Our Writing Brings Us Home Again)
Some More Thoughts on Hope

Happy listening.

Jen Fulwiler is a renaissance woman: she has six children, she’s an author, she once had her own radio show, she runs one of the most popular podcasts on the Internet, and she has even recently created her own stand-up comedy special now airing on the major streaming platforms. But today she talks with us about what it’s like to bomb on the stage and why risk-taking is so crucial when it comes to creativity. 

For everything Jen is up to, including her comedy special, you can head HERE.

If you love the content we’re creating, or if you’d like access to some bonus interviews and other material, or if you’d just like to help us feed our six children, you can contribute $5 / month over at our Patreon account to make all of that happen. This podcast depends on listeners like you! Thank you!

* * * * *

As always, there are a few ways to listen: click the play button in the image above, go to our webpage to hear this and all of our other episodes, or head on over to Apple podcasts or Spotify!

And keep writing!

Shawn and Maile talk about the Great January Experiment–what it was, how their kids reacted to the idea, and the results they saw. They also revisit the idea of setting expectations, goals, and dreams, and then making sure your life is aligned with the direction you’d like to be heading.

Interested in their new course, The Nine Month Novel? Check it out HERE.

Kate Motaung’s wonderful community, Five Minute Friday

And this was the first episode we discussed expectations, goals, and dreams: What Do You Want?

If you love the content we’re creating, or if you’d like access to some bonus interviews and other material, or if you’d just like to help us feed our six children, you can contribute $5 / month over at our Patreon account to make all of that happen. This podcast depends on listeners like you! Thank you!

* * * * *

As always, there are a few ways to listen: click the play button in the image above, go to our webpage to hear this and all of our other episodes, or head on over to Apple podcasts or Spotify!

And keep writing!

“At the beginning of the year I felt like everyone else was moving somewhere, and I was stuck.” Beth Stedman joins us today to talk about rejection, choosing to write no matter the results, escapist literature, and the role creativity has played during the last ten years as her husband has continued his journey with cancer.

Also, check out the two episodes when Maile and Shawn were each guests over at Beth’s podcast, Fable and the Verbivore. Maile’s episode is HERE, and Shawn’s is HERE.

Music by Lucy Leigh.

If you love the content we’re creating, or if you’d like access to some bonus interviews and other material, or if you’d just like to help us feed our six children, you can contribute $5 / month over at our Patreon account to make all of that happen. This podcast depends on listeners like you! Thank you!

* * * * *

As always, there are a few ways to listen: click the play button in the image above, go to our webpage to hear this and all of our other episodes, or head on over to Apple podcasts or Spotify!

And keep writing!