loader from loading.io

Bad Book Deals, Getting a Good One, & Writing Memoir with Negative Space's Lilly Dancyger

San Francisco Writers Conference Podcast

Release Date: 07/09/2021

Sylvia Plath, Mental Health, & Writing Fiction with Lee Kravetz show art Sylvia Plath, Mental Health, & Writing Fiction with Lee Kravetz

San Francisco Writers Conference Podcast

* Lee Kravetz is author of the acclaimed nonfiction, Strange Contagion and SuperSurvivors. He has written for print and television, including The New York Times, New York Magazine, The Atlantic, Psychology Today, The Daily Beast, The San Francisco Chronicle, and PBS. Lee’s new book is a work of fiction, his novel The Last Confessions of Sylvia P. * The Last Confessions of Sylvia P. is told through three unique interwoven narratives that build on one another, reimagining a chapter in the life of the poet and novelist Sylvia Plath, telling the story behind the creation of her classic, The...

info_outline Storytelling with Storytelling with "Story Power" Author Kate Farrell

San Francisco Writers Conference Podcast

* A graduate of the School of Library and Information Studies, UC Berkeley, Kate Farrell has been a language arts classroom teacher, an author, a librarian, a university lecturer, and a storyteller since 1966. She founded the Word Weaving Storytelling Project, and she has published numerous educational materials on the art of storytelling. Kate edited the anthology, Wisdom Has a Voice: Every Daughter’s Memories of Mother, and co-edited two others: Times They Were A-Changing: Women Remember the ’60s & 70s and Cry of the Nightbird: Writers Against Domestic Violence. She is past president...

info_outline Travel, Travel Writing, & 108 Beloved Objects with Jeff Greenwald show art Travel, Travel Writing, & 108 Beloved Objects with Jeff Greenwald

San Francisco Writers Conference Podcast

* Jeff Greenwald is a photojournalist, author, and stage performer whose experiences in Asia have framed his style of travel writing. His six books include the best-selling Shopping for Buddhas (recently republished in a 25th anniversary edition), The Size of the World (for which he created the first international travel blog), and Snake Lake, a travel memoir set in Kathmandu, Nepal during the 1990 democracy revolution. Jeff’s stories and essays have appeared in print and online publications worldwide, including Smithsonian, Afar, Outside, The New York Times, National Geographic-Adventure...

info_outline The Tarot, Creativity, & Kickstarter with Elisabeth Kauffman show art The Tarot, Creativity, & Kickstarter with Elisabeth Kauffman

San Francisco Writers Conference Podcast

* Elisabeth Kauffman is the Marketing Director for the San Francisco Writers Conference, as well as an independent editor, an author, and an artist. She edits fiction and memoir for independent clients as well as for publishing companies, and she coaches writers on finding their voices and connecting to the magic in their creative lives. Elisabeth offers workshops for local writing groups on topics such as using tarot in the drafting and revising process and tapping your creative potential through visual arts. * Podcast host Matthew Felix and Elisabeth discussed creativity, including how and...

info_outline Writing to Survive & Building Worlds with Charlie Jane Anders show art Writing to Survive & Building Worlds with Charlie Jane Anders

San Francisco Writers Conference Podcast

* Charlie Jane Anders is the author of The City in the Middle of the Night and All the Birds in the Sky. Her fiction and journalism have appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, McSweeney's, Mother Jones, Tor.com, Wired, and elsewhere. Her TED Talk, "Go Ahead, Dream About the Future" got 700,000 views in its first week. Along with Annalee Newitz, she co-hosts the podcast Our Opinions Are Correct. Charlie Jane will be a keynote speaker at the 2022 San Francisco Writers Conference. * Charlie Jane talked about two books that she has published recently: the nonfiction "Never Say You...

info_outline Litquake! with co-founder Jack Boulware and Home Baked's Alia Volz show art Litquake! with co-founder Jack Boulware and Home Baked's Alia Volz

San Francisco Writers Conference Podcast

* Litquake is an annual literary festival started in 1999 in San Francisco that has since spread to cities throughout the country and abroad. The festival consists of readings, discussions, and themed events. Since its inception more than 10,000 authors and 250,000 attendees have participated in the festival. * Event co-founder Jack Boulware shared the origins of the festival and how it has grown over time. * Jack was joined by Home Baked author Alia Volz. Podcast host Matthew Felix, Jack, and Alia talked about the challenges for writers and other creatives, as well as literary...

info_outline Fact, Fiction, & Finding Napoleon with Historical Fiction Author Margaret Rodenberg show art Fact, Fiction, & Finding Napoleon with Historical Fiction Author Margaret Rodenberg

San Francisco Writers Conference Podcast

* Margaret Rosenberg has journeyed more than 30,000 miles to conduct Napoleonic research, including to St. Helena Island in the remote South Atlantic. She is director of the Napoleonic Historical Society, a non-profit that promotes knowledge of the Napoleonic era, and on her website, margaretrodenberg.com, she reports on Napoleon’s ongoing presence in world culture. * Margaret's new novel, Finding Napoleon, was inspired by Napoleon's real-life unfinished novel, which Margaret first learned about twenty years ago. * Margaret shared the origins of her interest in Napoleon, and she explained to...

info_outline Magic of Memoir with Memoirist and NAMW President Linda Joy Meyers show art Magic of Memoir with Memoirist and NAMW President Linda Joy Meyers

San Francisco Writers Conference Podcast

* Linda Joy Myers is president and founder of the National Association of Memoir Writers. Her memoir Don’t Call Me Mother—A Daughter’s Journey from Abandonment to Forgiveness was a Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award finalist and winner of the BAIPA Gold Medal award. She’s also the author of five books about memoir writing, including two she co-authored with Brooke Warner. * Linda Joy shared how an early interest in memory and her family history eventually led to her interest in memoir. * Linda discussed the history of memoir as a genre and talked about current trends. * Linda...

info_outline Poetry, Revolution, & Blood on the Fog with SF Poet Laureate Tongo Eisen-Martin show art Poetry, Revolution, & Blood on the Fog with SF Poet Laureate Tongo Eisen-Martin

San Francisco Writers Conference Podcast

* Tongo Eisen-Martin is San Francisco’s eighth poet laureate. * His curriculum on extrajudicial killing of Black people, We Charge Genocide Again, has been used as an educational and organizing tool throughout the country. His book "Someone's Dead Already" was nominated for a California Book Award. His "Heaven Is All Goodbyes" was published by the City Lights Pocket Poets series, shortlisted for the Griffins Poetry Prize, and won a California Book Award and an American Book Award. * Matthew and Tongo revisited his inauguration as poet laureate - a powerful, inspiring event that has been...

info_outline Millennial Angst, Dark Humor, & Not Giving Up with Mona at Sea's Elizabeth Gonzalez James show art Millennial Angst, Dark Humor, & Not Giving Up with Mona at Sea's Elizabeth Gonzalez James

San Francisco Writers Conference Podcast

Subjects covered Before becoming a writer, Elizabeth Gonzalez James was a waitress, a pollster, an Avon lady, and an opera singer. Her stories and essays have appeared in The Idaho Review, The Rumpus, StorySouth, PANK, and elsewhere, and have received numerous Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominations. Currently she is a regular contributor to Ploughshares Blog. Podcast host Matthew Felix and Elizabeth discussed her new book, Mona at Sea, about an overachieving millennial who, despite her potential, finds herself unemployed, living with her parents, and adrift in life and love. Given...

info_outline
 
More Episodes
Lilly Dancyger is the author of Negative Space, a reported and illustrated memoir selected by Carmen Maria Machado as a winner of the Santa Fe Writers Project Literary Awards. Lilly is also the editor of Burn It Down, a critically acclaimed anthology of essays on women's anger. Her writing has been published by Guernica, Lit Hub, The Washington Post, Rolling Stone, and more.
Podcast host Matthew Felix invited Lilly to be on the show as soon as he finished reading her Electric Literature essay
called, “Canceling My Book Deal Was the Best Career Move I’ve Ever Made: A contract that doesn't suit your needs or expectations could be worse than no book deal at all."
Lilly shared with Matthew her journey from getting her first book deal, to realizing it wasn't the right one, to the agonizing decision to get out of it. She then shared what she did after canceling her deal, including how she applied the lessons learned, eventually resulting in her getting a deal that was right for her and her book.
Red flags with Lilly's first book deal included: no distribution, no help with marketing and publicity, and no round of edits with the publisher.
Lilly discussed criteria she used to find a small press that would work for her, including ones with national distribution, a robust social media presence, and ones that had published books she was familiar with.
Matthew and Lilly discussed her memoir, NEGATIVE SPACE, which explores her grief, anger, and artistic inheritance as she sets out to illuminate the darkness her father—an artist and heroin addict—hid from her, as well as her own.
Lilly talked about what she initially thought the book was about, and how her conception of it quickly evolved into something more personal as the project progressed.
Matthew and Lilly discussed addiction, a central theme throughout the book, including some common misconceptions.
Lilly explained how she did (or did not) reconcile the father she idolized with the man she learned more about—including some things she might have preferred not to discover—while researching the book.
Negative Space is out now.