Write-minded: Weekly Inspiration for Writers is a podcast aimed at, you guessed it, writers, aspiring writers, and book-lovers. First airing in October 2018, the podcast features hosts Grant Faulkner and Brooke Warner interviewing writers of all genres. Episodes run a little over half an hour and begin with conversations between the two hosts that, while charming and pertinent, lack the free-flowing ease of more improvisational podcasts duos.
The first episode I listened to, Writerly Hang-ups, Obsessions, and Distractions—and Ways to Course Correct, featuring R.O. Kwon, began with an introduction to the underlying theme. Today was the musicality of language. For a grammar nerd like myself, Faulkner’s praise for the dash was delightful. But the theory that jazz had influenced the rhythms and music of authors’ language was most compelling.
When the interview begins, the hosts don’t speak much, but rather let R.O. Kwon speak. She describes rewriting the first twenty pages of her debut novel, The Incendiaries,
obsessively, using the analogy of building a strong foundation for a house, until she realized she couldn’t know what sort of foundation to build until she knew what the result might look like. She describes her writers’ community with a refreshing frankness, admitting it was hard to see others succeed before she had, but also that overcoming this feeling brought her a new found strength. The episode ended with a “takeaway” to keep an inspiration log, full of quotes and passages you love and admire, so you can immerse yourself in it any time you’re feeling blocked.
The next episode, titled Why Fantasy Is Important, featuring Victoria “V.E.” Schwab, explored the theme of escapism. Warner makes the astute point that disparaging literature for being escapism, one of its fundamental functions, is absurd. “It’s like critiquing exercise because your heart beats faster,” said Faulkner.
The interview with Schwab covers many topics—her perspective as a queer female, as someone who feels she is an outsider, and how she gravitates toward the weird. She enjoys the freedom the fantasy genre has to ask questions. What would the world be like if such-and-such were the case? If magic existed? This speaks to why so many of us love fantasy. It provides a medium to explore our curiosity beyond the unflinching confines of reality.
It’s not until the opening conversation closes that the first ad is heard, about twelve or thirteen minutes in. Both most recent episodes play ads for The Great Courses video streaming service. The ads are playful and Faulkner gets Warner to sing in the first episode’s ad (which seemed a clever device to fit The Great Courses name in once or twice more). In the following episode, she gets her revenge by putting Faulkner on the spot by asking the same of him. It’s clearly scripted, but I couldn’t help enjoying the call-back.
As an aspiring writer, I enjoyed hearing what literature means to others, and each person brought a fresh take on what it means to put pen to paper. The back-and-forths were sometimes forced, but the content itself was interesting and concise. The interviews were focused, and I would’ve liked to have delved deeper into the authors’ psyches. All in all, I give this podcast a three stars out of five. It’s fun for a writer, but isn’t quite a timeless, everyday listen.
