Great writing (podcasts, etc.) about writing?
August 12, 2020 10:59 AM   Subscribe

Can you recommend any excellent writing about writing, be it creative/technical/academic/professional etc?

I’m teaching a first-year university class on writing, and I’d love some new material to teach. Podcasts, videos, or other media would be great, in addition to writing on the page. I also really like reading about this topic, so all suggestions are welcome. The pieces have to be explicitly *about* writing, not just examples of strong writing. Thanks!
posted by Edna Million to Media & Arts (17 answers total) 26 users marked this as a favorite
 
This is about creativity in general, not just writing, but I think it's incredibly valuable for anyone who's going to be a writer - Liz Gilbert's Ted Talk, Your Elusive Creative Genius. It's about how to stay sane as a creative person, how not to throw your entire self-worth in with the success (or otherwise) of what you create, how to sit down and keep doing the work regardless. It's also more entertaining than it sounds! Even if your class are not all going to be habitual writers (or creators), it's short enough and interesting enough you could throw it in there for the benefit of who will without being too much of a diversion.
She also has a podcast and book on similar themes.
posted by penguin pie at 11:06 AM on August 12, 2020 [1 favorite]


Verlyn Klinkenborg, "Several Short Sentences About Writing" teaches really well, I think.

Ann Lamott's "Bird by Bird" is also good, though I've not taught it.
posted by Dorinda at 11:07 AM on August 12, 2020


Writing Excuses
Tales from the Trunk (published authors talk about a story that they've trunked, i. e. written and decided not to try to get published)
Ditch Diggers
posted by wintersweet at 11:09 AM on August 12, 2020


For a freshman writing class, Steven King's On Writing is a fun, breezy read (split into sections if an entire book is too much).

I haven't listened to it for years, but I remember The Q&A being great. It seems to have veered into comic book movies since I last listened, but maybe find an episode about a recent non-MCU movie you can count on your students having seen, where the interviewee is the writer or writer-director rather than the cast or director. Perhaps Get Out.

And copy/paste of my answer from this question: I haven't read it, but John McPhee actually wrote an entire book (well, collection of essays) about how to write nonfiction: Draft No. 4: On the Writing Process . It was excerpted in the New Yorker under the same title
posted by caek at 11:22 AM on August 12, 2020 [2 favorites]


I'm prejudiced because I know the host, but How Do You Write is a good podcast where she has short chats with writers about their processes.
posted by smartyboots at 11:37 AM on August 12, 2020


The NY Times earlier this week had a piece about an internal group at the Times who get together to read and critique great writing. There's a recording of one of the sessions embedded in the article.

I haven't read it, but John McPhee actually wrote an entire book (well, collection of essays) about how to write nonfiction: Draft No. 4: On the Writing Process . It was excerpted in the New Yorker under the same title

I'm a huge McPhee fan, and enjoyed this, but you will want to be selective about assigning parts and likely not the whole as some chapters are of interest to his fans but less useful to developing writers.

On a similar note, however, there have been a number of fantastic articles deconstructing McPhee's writing. You might want to consider assigning one of his pieces alongside something from the New Yorker, Nieman Foundation, of Paris Review talking about his style and how he structures pieces.
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 11:53 AM on August 12, 2020


The Paris Review runs the Art of Fiction/Nonfiction/etc. series, which I've found interesting, not least because it's how I discovered McPhee. There are hundreds of interviews with various writers about how they write.
posted by kevinbelt at 12:03 PM on August 12, 2020




George Gopen’s The Sense of Structure: Writing from the Reader’s Perspective. The central insight of this book is that, when we read, we expect to find certain pieces of information in certain places. When we write, we should put those pieces of information in the expected places (or have a good reason to break those expectations).

It elucidates (with lots of examples) why so much professional writing is so confusing and hard to follow: it violates our implicit expectations about where information should be found, within a sentence, a paragraph, or a document.

This isn’t about obeying strict prescriptivist rules of grammar and English punctuation. It’s about a bigger picture — leading the reader through the story you want to tell, whether that be fiction or nonfiction.

It really changed my writing for the better — even though I’d always been told I was a good writer, it still made me better. It’s a total perspective shift.
posted by snowmentality at 1:21 PM on August 12, 2020


Here is a shorter (and free) PDF article to give you the flavor: The Science of Scientific Writing.
posted by snowmentality at 1:25 PM on August 12, 2020


It's not about writing per se, but I really dig Fry's "Don't Mind Your Language..." for arguing against pedantry. It used to be available in audio too, but I can't find it.

I've taught first-year writing for years, so if you want to someone to bounce ideas off, memail me.
posted by xenization at 1:52 PM on August 12, 2020


Writing Excuses (Brandon Sanderson, Dan Wells, Howard Tayler, Mary Robinette Kowal, and various guests over 15 seasons.)
I Should Be Writing
Alone In A Room With Invisible People
Six Figure Authors
The Creative Penn
Ditch Diggers

And on Youtube, any of the recordings of Brandon Sanderson's classes at BYU, some posted by him (2020), some by others, like 2016 (318r), not sure year (321), 2012, 2013, and 2014, another 2016, etc.
posted by stormyteal at 2:45 PM on August 12, 2020 [1 favorite]


Hey, I just read King's On Writing. I would recommend confining yourself to the sections "What Writing Is," "Toolbox" and "On Writing," because the rest of it is IMO a bunch of cruft for Stephen King stans. Which I enjoyed since I am one, but which isn't very germane for a general audience looking for writing advice.
posted by zeusianfog at 3:22 PM on August 12, 2020 [1 favorite]


Our Opinions are Correct has a number of episodes about writing, as well as lit crit of fantasy and Sci-Fi. I have a BA in English and have found their discussions exactly the amount of literary nerdery I like.

There's also Lit Reactor, sprung from the minds of a Chuck Palahniuk fan site (?!) I usually stick to the book reviews and the occasional Storyville article but they offer a lot more.
posted by fiercekitten at 8:40 PM on August 12, 2020 [1 favorite]


Tim Clare's Death of 1000 Cuts podcast has some great stuff. In particular, go back to season 1, where Clare gives really tough, precise critiques of short passages sent in by readers - it's very good analysis of how prose works on a word-by-word / line-by-line level.
posted by Jeanne at 6:25 AM on August 13, 2020


I have had many occasions to talk about this excellent essay by John McPhee in the New Yorker: Structure.

I don't know if it was included in another of his collections but it's incredibly interesting, like most things he writes.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 3:35 PM on August 13, 2020


The Open Notebook is a website about science writing. It has author interviews, it has breakdowns of famous articles, it has lots of guides, etc.
posted by Cozybee at 10:36 AM on August 15, 2020


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