The Kin Episode
Babe Cave
The next Babe Cave book chat brings Amanda Polick and Crystal Marie together for a conversation about Kin by Tayari Jones, and the Southern places, family ties, and complicated histories that make the novel feel so real. Crystal, a lifelong story enthusiast and host of Under Told by CM, shares how Kin helped her imagine her grandmother as a young woman, and why words like “trifling” and “no count” made the book feel instantly familiar. They get into the novel’s vivid settings, the communities that help raise children, and the search for maternal love and belonging. They also...
info_outline
The AI & Publishing Episode
Babe Cave
AI is everywhere, and writers are being asked to figure out what it means for their work. So Amanda Polick brought in literary agent Lauren MacLeod for an honest conversation about AI and publishing, without pretending the answers are simple or settled. They get into the risks writers should know about: copyright, reputation, accuracy, and the way AI can smooth the edges off a distinctive voice. Lauren explains why keeping drafts and notes matters, what to be cautious about with tools like Grammarly, and why AI detectors don’t tell the whole story. But this isn’t an all-or-nothing...
info_outline
The Yesteryear Episode
Babe Cave
Season five kicks off with Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke, and people are still mad about it. So, obviously, it had to be the first thing Amanda Polick talked about. Amanda is joined by longtime friend of the show, Jacque, to talk about the novel that set the internet on fire this year. Natalie is a trad-wife influencer who wakes up in 1855 and has to actually live the life she's been selling online. It's weird, it's uncomfortable, and it made both of them furious in the best way. They get into trad-wife culture, the manosphere, unlikable women, and why the people who hate this book might be...
info_outline
The Analog Summer Episode
Babe Cave
Season four is a wrap, and Amanda is taking the summer to go analog. After eight months of taking on too much and being chronically online — including a day job that is literally social media marketing — she is ready to step back, create some white space, and remember what life felt like before the algorithm. This episode is part season finale, part personal manifesto, part permission slip. In this episode: Why she's calling it an analog summer and what that has everything to do with becoming a better writer The advice Brand Builders Group gave to one of their clients about splitting...
info_outline
The Film Adaptation Episode
Babe Cave
Books are having a moment on screen, and Amanda has thoughts — including that Greta Gerwig is going to direct her novel someday. Greta doesn't know this yet. Hollywood has spent years refusing to greenlight anything without existing IP, which sounds like bad news until you realize that existing IP is exactly what a published book is. This episode is about why that matters for writers right now, and what it actually looks like when a book becomes a film. In this episode: The Yesteryear deal: four studios bidding, 15 publishers competing, Anne Hathaway attached — and why that kind of buzz...
info_outline
The Gatekeeping Episode
Babe Cave
No gatekeeping allowed — and that includes yourself. After leaving Jubilee feeling like the real conversations were happening somewhere else, Amanda found them at Copper Books' Book Fair in Nashville. One day, one room, and editors, agents, marketers, and publicists actually telling the truth about what's happening in publishing right now. She's bringing it back to you here, along with a moment of self-reckoning she didn't see coming. In this episode: The honest state of nonfiction publishing right now: who's buying, who isn't, and where cookbooks actually land in that conversation Why a...
info_outline
The Writer's Block Episode
Babe Cave
Writer's block is real. Amanda Polick believes in it, and she's in it right now. She's deep in revisions on her novel: the one she's been writing for years, the one she wrote 30,000 words of in the wrong direction in 2024, the one she finished a rough draft of last year that she's now going back through with brain fatigue and a spring that got away from her. Instead of hiding from it, she brought it here. In this episode: The one-page flash fiction exercise that gets her out of her own head when she's too stuck to touch the actual manuscript Why she thinks she's lost the habit of...
info_outline
The Jubilee Episode
Babe Cave
Cherry Bombe's Jubilee is the conference in THE food world. Amanda Polick has been before, took a few years off, and went back this year with an actual game plan and a lot of thoughts she's whispering to her friends later. This episode is her honest debrief: what worked, what left her wanting more, and what she walked away with that had nothing to do with any of the panels. In this episode: Why going in with a loose schedule and a short list of people she wanted to meet changed everything Her real talk on conference programming that stays too surface when the room is full of people who...
info_outline
The Business of Being a Writer Episode
Babe Cave
If you have a book idea, you really have a business idea. That line — from publisher Allison Trowbridge at a Parnassus Books panel — is the jumping-off point for this episode. Amanda Polick gets into what it actually means to treat your writing life like a business: not in a hustle-culture, monetize-everything way, but in a packaging-yourself-correctly, knowing-what-you-bring-to-the-room way. She's been doing her own reckoning with this lately — restarting after a year heads-down on her novel, going back to conferences, cold-emailing people, and asking herself how to pull...
info_outline
The Writing Workshop Episode
Babe Cave
Writing workshops: a combination of ritual scarring and group therapy — or the thing that actually made you a better writer? Amanda Polick is not sure it isn't both. In this episode, Amanda digs into the history and honest reality of the writing workshop, whether creative writing can even be taught, and why she still has PTSD from the ones she's been in. She also revisits the Girls Iowa arc, which she maintains is the most accurate depiction of workshop culture ever put on television. In this episode: The history of creative writing programs in America, from a Harvard drama workshop in...
info_outlineWhen medical professionals—dietitians trained to identify malnutrition and disordered eating—start flooding social media with concerns about a food influencer with millions of followers who's about to release a "healthy eating" cookbook, we have to talk about it.
Tieghan Gerard built Half Baked Harvest into a multimillion-dollar empire with multiple NYT bestselling cookbooks and massive brand deals. But this episode isn't about her success—it's about the responsibility that comes with influence, and what happens when that responsibility gets ignored.
In this solo episode, Amanda examines years of accumulated concerns: readers who consistently report recipe failures (high-altitude baking issues that never get addressed), cultural appropriation accusations, a New York Times profile where Tieghan refused to cook for the reporter, and now medical professionals raising red flags about potential health issues while she promotes wellness content.
This isn't cancel culture. This is about asking: when do we stop staying silent to be nice? When does our silence become complicity?
In this conversation, you'll discover:
- Why successful food bloggers owe their audiences more than just pretty recipes
- The Netflix show Apple Cider Vinegar that changed perspectives on food influencer responsibility
- The difference between trolling and legitimate professional concern
- How to build a sustainable cookbook career without losing your integrity
- What responsibility actually means when you have influence
- Why staying silent isn't always the kind choice
Perfect for: Cookbook authors, food bloggers, content creators, anyone building a platform in food media who wants to do it responsibly
Amanda Polick is a cookbook and food-memoir coach with 20+ years of storytelling experience, guiding food writers as they shape the stories only they can tell. A former culinary producer whose work appeared across Cooking Light, Time, Southern Living, and Food & Wine, she's been an IACP Awards judge and frequent speaker at industry events like the inaugural M.F.K. Fisher Symposium for Les Dames d'Escoffier. Amanda lives in Nashville, Tennessee now, but a piece of her will be in California forever.
Show Notes: https://www.amandapolick.com/blog/half-baked-harvest-episode
Newsletter: Weekly insights on cookbook writing and food media at amandapolick.com
Connect: @amandapolick on Instagram