First Draft Episode #200: Special Anniversary Episode

For the 200th episode of the First Draft with Sarah Enni podcast, previous guests sent in answers to questions like, where do you turn for inspiration? What are you hopes and dreams at this moment in your career? What do you do besides writing that makes you a more skillful storyteller? And, of course, any advice! Listen in to hear tips, tricks, and reassurances and encouragement from dozens of bestselling and award-winning writers!

People Featured, and Links and Topics Mentioned, In This Episode

Podcasts I listened to obsessively, which inspired me to start this podcast, include Fresh Air with Teri Gross, WTF with Marc Maron, and You Made it Weird with Pete Holmes
Veronica Roth, author of the Divergent series, Carve the Mark duology and the forthcoming short story collection, The End and Other Beginnings: Stories from the Future (listen to her First Draft podcasts here, here, and here)
Kayla Cagan, author of Piper Perish and Art Boss (listen to her First Draft interview here)
Will Hines, author of How to be the Greatest Improviser on Earth (hear his First Draft episode here)
Sara Farizan, author of Here to Stay, Tell Me Again How a Crush Should Feel, If You Could Be Mine (hear her First Draft interview here)
Kass Morgan, author of The 100 series and Light Years (stay tuned for her episode of First Draft!)
Tochi Onyebuchi, author of Beasts Made of Night, Crown of Thunder, and War Girls series
Tochi recommends playing narrative video games, like God of War, Assassin's Creed, or Red Dead Redemption
Leigh Bardugo, author of the Shadow and Bone series and Six of Crows duology, and the forthcoming adult novel, Ninth House , and more (listen to her First Draft interviews here and here)
Josh Gondelman, author of the forthcoming memoir Nice Try, writer and producer of “Desus and Mero” and Emmy-winning writer for “Last Week Tonight on John Oliver” (hear his First Draft interview soon!)
Maris Kreizman, author of Slaughterhouse 90210 and host of LitHub’s The Maris Review podcast
Ryan Graudin, author of the Wolf by Wolf, Invictus, The Walled City, and more (hear her First Draft interview here)
Sabriel by Garth Nix
Jason Reynolds, author of Look Both Ways, the Track series, Long Way Down, As Brave As You, All American Boys, and many more (stay tuned for his episode of First Draft)
The New Yorker
The Newberry Award; The National Book Award; The Pulitzer Prize
Stephanie Garber, author of the Caraval series (listen to her First Draft episode here)
Elana K. Arnold, author of A Boy Called Bat, Damsel, What Girls Are Made Of, Infandous, and more (listen to her First Draft episodes here and here)
Lance Rubin, author of Denton's Little's Deathdate, Denton's Little's Still Not Dead, and Crying Laughing (listen to his First Draft episode here)
Freedom (computer app)
Deep Work Work by Cal Newport
Courtney Summers, including Sadie, Cracked Up to Be, This Is Not a Test, Fall for Anything, All the Rage, Some Girls Are (hear her First Draft episodes here and here)
“Real Romance,” The New Yorker profile about Nora Roberts
Mary H. K. Choi, author of Emergency Contact and Permanent Record (stay tuned for her episode of First Draft)
The Venice Biennale (La Biennale di Venezia) and Dia:Beacon
Bridget Tyler, author of The Pioneer and The Survivor (listen to her First Draft episode here)
Scientific American, which Veronica just subscribed to
Samantha Mabry, author of A Fierce and Subtle Poison and All the Wind in the World (listen to her First Draft episode here)
Elissa Sussman, author of Stray and Burn (listen to her First Draft interview here)
Abdi Nazemian, author of Like a Love Story, The Authentics, and The Walk-In Closet (listen to his First Draft interview here)
Madonna, the queen of Abdi’s book
The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron
Morgan Matson, author of he Date, Amy & Roger's Epic Detour, The Unexpected Everything, and more! (listen to her First Draft interviews here and here)
Julie Buxbaum, author of Tell Me Three Things, What to Say Next, and Hope and Other Punchlines (listen to her First Draft interview here)
Danielle Paige, author of Dorothy Must Die, Stealing Snow and Mera: Tidebreaker (listen to her First Draft episode here)
David Yoon, author of Frankly in Love (stay tuned for his episode of First Draft!)
Zan Romanoff, author of Look (due Spring 2020) and A Song to Take The World Apart and Grace and the Fever (listen to her First Draft interview here)
Writing Workshops LA
Francesca Lia Block, author of Weetzie Bat, The Thorn Necklace, and so many more (listen to her First Draft episode here)
Aminah Mae Safi, author of Not the Girls You're Looking For and Tell Me How You Really Feel (listen to her First Draft interview here)
Alex London, author of Black Wings Beating, Proxy, The Wild Ones series and more (listen to his First Draft episodes here and here)
Nina LaCour, author of We Are Okay, The Disenchantments, Everything Leads to You, Hold Still and more (hear her First Draft episodes here and here), and listen to Nina’s podcast, Keeping a Notebook
Hamline University’s MFA program
The Slow Novel Lab, Nina LaCour’s online course on writing
Lilliam Rivera, author of Dealing In Dreams and The Education Of Margot Sanchez, (listen to her First Draft interviews here and here)
Pseudonymous Bosch, aka Raphael Simon (author of the The Name of This Book is a Secret and the Bad Magic series, and more) and Shane Pangburn, who together created The Unbelievable Oliver and the Four Jokers (stay tuned for their First Draft episode!)
Amy Lukavics, author of Daughters into Devils and The Ravenous (listen to her First Draft episode here)
Maurene Goo, author of Somewhere Only We Know, I Believe in a Thing Called Love and The Way You Make Me Feel and Since You Asked (Listen to Maurene’s first, second, and third episodes of First Draft)
That time Maurene interviewed Sarah Enni for this podcast! (The Sarah Enni episode of First Draft )

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Every Tuesday, I speak to storytellers like Veronica Roth, author of Divergent; Linda Holmes, author and host of NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast; Jonny Sun, internet superstar, illustrator of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Gmorning, Gnight! and author and illustrator of Everyone’s an Aliebn When Ur a Aliebn Too; Michael Dante DiMartino, co-creator of Avatar: The Last Airbender; John August, screenwriter of Big Fish, Charlie’s Angels, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory; or Rhett Miller, musician and frontman for The Old 97s. Together, we take deep dives on their careers and creative works.

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Tyler Steben

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