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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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The Friction Episode
Babe Cave
Here's the full description: What if the thing standing between you and your best work isn't a better template — it's not enough resistance? Amanda Polick has been thinking about friction. Not the kind you eliminate, but the kind you seek out: the static electricity of doing hard things anyway, showing up when it's inconvenient, sitting with a sentence until it finally lands. This episode is a case for why writers who are obsessed with removing every obstacle from their process might be accidentally removing the thing that makes the work worth doing. It starts with her handwriting,...
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The Magazine Revival Episode
Babe Cave
Print never died. The people running it just stopped believing in it first. Amanda Polick — former Cooking Light fellow, Time Inc. segment producer, and longtime magazine obsessive — makes the case for why the magazine revival isn't a nostalgia trip. It's a signal. And if you want to write a book, it might be the most important thing happening in media right now. Amanda unpacks what the resurgence of publications like Saveur, the new Gourmet newsletter, and indie food zines like Tomato Tomato actually means for writers and why she's always believed that every book idea lives inside a...
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The Spring Awakening Episode
Babe Cave
Spring didn't just show up on the calendar — it showed up in the work. Amanda Polick recorded this one on the first official day of spring, and it's exactly what it sounds like: a real-time reckoning with hibernation, self-imposed smallness, and what it finally feels like to wake back up. This isn't a productivity episode. It's a permission slip. Amanda gets honest about a winter spent rethinking major parts of her novel, sitting with creative fatigue instead of pushing through it, and quietly realizing she'd stopped betting on herself in ways she used to do without thinking twice. Cold...
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The Hot Garbage Episode
Babe Cave
Hot garbage isn't an insult — it's a practice. Cookbook coach Amanda Polick makes the case for why submitting imperfect, unpolished, still-in-progress work is not just acceptable — it's the whole point. Drawing on her background as an actor and Second City Hollywood graduate, Amanda unpacks why perfectionism stalls more writing projects than any lack of talent ever could, and what it actually takes to break through the wall. In this episode, you'll hear: Why Amanda holds the line on deadlines with every client — and what that teaches writers about their own resistance The Anne...
info_outlineVirginia Woolf published A Room of One's Own in 1929. Nearly 100 years later, the questions she raised — about money, creative freedom, and a woman's right to write — are still the questions women writers are asking.
In this solo Women's History Month episode, Amanda Polick takes a deep dive into the essay that inspired the name Babe Cave itself, and unpacks why its central argument is just as urgent in 2026 as it was when Woolf delivered it as a lecture at Cambridge in 1928.
In this episode, you'll discover:
- The story of Shakespeare's hypothetical sister — and why Woolf believed she lives on in every woman who hasn't written her story yet
- The history of women writing anonymously, and what it means to put your name on your work today
- Why Aphra Behn — the first English woman to earn her living by writing — deserves your attention (and probably a few flowers)
- How financial independence and creative freedom have always been the same conversation
- Why the restrictions facing women writers in 2026 are just as real as 100 years ago, even if they look completely different
Perfect for: Women writers, aspiring authors, anyone who has a story they've been afraid to claim, readers of Virginia Woolf, and anyone who needs someone to tell them to keep going.
Shownotes: https://www.amandapolick.com/blog/room-of-ones-own-episode
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