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I knew we’d get a huge response to our callout for first page submissions for a BookLab with Jo Piazza and I was right. I zipped through the google doc, skimming (there is a particular art to choosing the right submissions without ruining the freshness for me when I read and respond) and I did brilliantly, if I do say so myself (including a very funny callback to our sudden Dr. Pepper digression). Listen for our constructive takes on these 3 first pages and some excellent advice on the art of the first page in general.
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The first line of Jo’s current hit, The Parisian Heist: It’s terrible to be rich.
Don’t you want more?
Jo’s the creator of Under the Influence (the podcast) and Over the Influence (the Substack) and the national and international bestselling author of The Sicilian Inheritance, Everyone is Lying to You (KJ’s fave!), We Are Not Like Them, You Were Always Mine, Charlotte Walsh Likes to Win, The Knockoff (KJ’s other fave!) and How to Be Married but most importantly, her current book, The Parisian Heist, is just out and great for readers and writers alike.
Ready to submit your first page for consideration for a future episode of BookLab? That’s a supporter benefit, link below, below the paywall.
#AmWriting is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

More about The Parisian Heist:
Emma, a struggling American artist in Paris, thought she had left her dreams behind when she took a job cleaning for the city’s wealthy elite. Then she meets Stella Swanson, the widow of one of the most notorious art dealers in the business. The Swansons move in a world where billionaires, oligarchs, and heads of state pay fortunes for masterpieces. Drawn in by their dazzling wealth and the pull of a dangerously charming grandson, Emma becomes both a player and a pawn in a family battle to protect their empire and conceal its crimes.
In the late 1800s, the young widow Jo van Gogh inherits hundreds of paintings from her brother-in-law Vincent that the art world deems worthless. Determined to prove their genius, and to secure a future for herself and her young son, she becomes consumed by Vincent’s legacy. As her devotion deepens, a vanished painting and a thwarted love affair leave her unsure who she can trust and how much of herself she’s willing to lose in the process.
From glittering auction houses to the idyllic canals of Amsterdam and the grand museums of Paris, the lives of these two women converge as Emma uncovers the Swanson family’s darkest secrets and agrees to mastermind a daring heist inside the Musée d’Orsay. The stakes have never been higher, and these women refuse to be written out of history, no matter the cost.

On the #amwriting podcast’s Margin Notes, host Jennie Nash talks with Caroline Bicks, Stephen E. King Chair in Literature at the University of Maine and co-host of the Everyday Shakespeare podcast, about her book Monsters in the Archives: A Year of Fear with Stephen King. Bicks describes how she became the first invited into King’s Bangor archives after King called to meet her, and how her sabbatical became a year of researching five formative works (including Carrie, Night Shift, The Shining, Salem’s Lot, and Pet Sematary) to understand how horror language creates lasting fear.
She explains choosing a first-person narrative that blends literary criticism, archival discovery, and her own anxiety, including eerie moments in the archive and insights into King’s word-level edits, literary influences, and Shakespearean foundations, especially The Shining’s ties to Hamlet.
#AmWriting is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Read the Book
* Monsters in the Archives by Caroline Bicks
Transcript
Jennie: [00:00:00] Hi, I’m Jennie Nash, and you’re listening to the #amwriting podcast, the place where we help writers of all kinds play big in your writing life, love the process, and stick with it long enough to finish what matters most. Welcome, everyone. This is Margin Notes, the part of the podcast where we’re talking about the big decisions writers face in their work and creative lives.
I’m here today with a super special guest. I’m so excited to speak with Caroline Bicks. She is the Stephen E. King Chair in Literature at the University of Maine, where she teaches courses in Shakespeare, early modern culture, and horror fiction. And she’s the author of all kinds of very cool books ... about Shakespeare, including one on cocktails.
Um, and, uh, is the co-host of the Everyday Shakespeare podcast, and we are here today to talk with her about her new book called [00:01:00] Monsters in the Archives: A Year of Fear with Stephen King. Welcome.
Caroline: Thank you. Thanks for having me.
Jennie: So this is gonna be the strangest interview you’ve probably ever done. I
Caroline: don’t know.
Because- I’ve talked to a lot of people around the world about this Stephen King book.
Jennie: I couldn’t read your book. I, I couldn’t read it. I can’t read horror. Yeah. Which listeners of this podcast are gonna laugh about, ‘cause I’m actually coaching someone live and they’re writing gothic horror, and they’re probably like, “All you talk about is horror, Jennie.”
But, um, it’s actually the reason why I wanted to talk to you, because you made a decision in the writing of this book that I thought was super cool. Mm. Which was you put yourself in it.
Caroline: Yeah.
Jennie: And you’re a scholar.
Caroline: Yeah.
Jennie: And you’ve written scholarly books, and you approach this with a scholarly perspective, but you, you really put yourself in it.
And, and so [00:02:00] I was reading it for that part of the story and I had to skip over huge chunks of, of the, of the work. Because what you’re doing in this book is you’re getting at this question of- W- what, what is scary in writing? Like, how does it actually work? How does it act- what is the magic or the function that makes us feel this thing?
And you actually feel it yourself while you’re going through it, and I found it quite terrifying actually. So, um, that’s kinda what I wanted to talk about is how did you make the decision? Well, first of all, you were the first person, I wanna make sure I get this right, ‘cause this is very cool. Yeah. You were the first person who was invited to the archives, the Stephen King archives.
Caroline: Yeah. I mean, it’s, it’s a bit of a story, so I won’t spend too much time on it, but just the mo- Oh, no, do. It’s good ... when I ch- when I took this position... So I’ve been a Shakespeare professor my whole adult life, ba- as soon as I graduated from grad school in the late ‘90s, [00:03:00] and I was at Boston College for 15 years.
I took this position at University of Maine nine years ago as a Shakespearean. Um, so it is an endowed chair in Stephen King’s name because he’s our most famous alum. So when I took the position, I, it was because I’m a Shakespearean, not because I’m a horror specialist. Um, I had always been a Stephen King fan since I read him when I was 12, and he scared the beje- Jesus out of me, um, with The Boogeyman story.
Jennie: Right.
Caroline: Um, so when I took this position though I was told, “You’re never gonna meet Stephen King. Don’t even make contact with him.” I’m like, “Fine, you know, this is still a great job. I’m excited.” Um- Thanks
Jennie: for the money. Yeah.
Caroline: Thanks for... You know, no, it’s a wonderful fund. It was funded by the Harold Alfond Foundation, and it’s to support the public humanities, which is an incredible mission.
So, um, I get to give money away to people. You know, it’s a great, great position, but I was not a horror specialist. And particu- a- and as an adult, I actually wasn’t reading horror because it scares me too much. You know? Yeah, yeah. Um, but it had grabbed me when I was a teenager. So it was about four years into the [00:04:00] job when I got a call at home from Stephen King, which just, uh, uh, my jaw hit the floor.
And he said, “You know, I think it’s time we meet.” I’m like, you know, I, I really fan-girled because I really, I have so much admiration for him and respect. Um, I invited him to come talk to our students. He was brilliant, generous, funny, kind, and I felt so at ease that I felt like I could ask... You know, and I got to know him professionally.
We had a good professional relationship that developed from there. When I had a sabbatical year coming up the next year- I could have written another Shakespeare book. I had another one in my head. I’ve written a bunch of them but I knew that he and Tabitha had just collected all of his manuscripts and put them in a climate-controlled space attached to their home in Bangor, and I thought, “You know, this is an incredible opportunity.
I would love to dig in there and be the first one in there, and just read those early drafts of the books that scared me so much when I was a teenager, and try to just explore why. Why were they sticking in my head still?” Um, again, I am not a specialist in... I’m not a cognitive scientist. I’m not a [00:05:00] specialist in horror literature, but I’m obviously highly trained in how to do literary analysis and how to do archival work, not Shakespeare, because we don’t have any of his works, but, you know, I, I understand what that process is.
So back to your question about why I wanted to bring myself into it, which was, you know, I had been experimenting with first-person storytelling after I got tenure. You know, ‘cause it’s a long process, Kate. Right. And most of my writing had been academic writing, but I really had always loved storytelling And I got a piece into the Modern Love column.
I started to have some success with publishing my first-person stories, and I was like, “You know, I love this.” So when I had this opportunity to go into his archives, they generously said yes, was amazing. I thought, “You know, I really wanna tell this story. I don’t wanna write an academic book. I want this to be the story of a literature scholar, but really the story about a scared kid.”
Jennie: Yeah.
Caroline: You know, you, you never lose that scare, you know, I don’t... This is the thing. Fear has stuck with me with those stories [00:06:00] for 40 years. So I was fascinated, and I just wanted to understand how he had crafted the language so that it was sticking in my head still. Because when I was talking to people around, you know, whenever you mention Stephen King to people, you know, if they’ve read him, they remember specific lines and specific words, and I was like, “That’s an extraordinary, um, 50 years on to have that power.”
So, um- Well- Anyway. Yeah. Go ahead. I, I could talk about this forever, so you tell me- Oh, no, it’s- ... where you wanted to pick up from this.
Jennie: It’s so good. Well, I have to tell you this funny anecdote, which is that my college roommate was from Bangor, Maine, and babysat his kids in that house.
Caroline: Oh, that’s insane.
Jennie: So when I went to visit her, she drove me by that house.
There you go. And I was like, “Oh, hell no- Yeah ... would I ever babysit in that house.” Like, it’s-
Caroline: It’s ‘cause it’s like a gothic, it’s like straight out of Haunting of Hill House ...
Jennie: actually, and like these spiderweb gates that, and you describe that in the [00:07:00] book and, and the- Yeah ... archives are in that house. They’re
Caroline: in the house.
They’re attached to the back. I know. And it, it was so, it was, it was insane. It was like a full-on 360 experience writing this book. Um, and I, I knew, like, so I did the research for a year. I didn’t even know if this would be a book. I just knew I wanted to have the opportunity to be in there because it, I knew it was a great opportunity, and I was so curious, you know?
Yeah. So I, I came out of the year with just tons of notes and observations, but I didn’t have a book, you know? Yeah. And then I started experimenting with writing a chapter, and I just, the storytelling just came forward and then when I got an agent and she, you know, s- I, I, I was able to get a contract based on a proposal and that one chapter I had written and I was really fortunate to have a fabulous editor, David Ebershoff, at Hogarth, who is just such a wonderful writer himself, and he really encouraged me to bring my voice in and bring my story in even [00:08:00] more.
Um, so that’s- And- ... that’s the story of that.
Jennie: Was it hard for you as a scholar to do that?
Caroline: You know what? It was so freeing and so fun that it actually wasn’t, you know? Because I, I knew this wasn’t going to be an academic book, so once I let go of that- Yeah ... um, I was like, wow, I have the, and yet I have this skill set I can bring forward, and I knew that’s what would make this unique.
Um, but I can combine my two favorite ways of writing, ‘cause I do actually love writing literary criticism. Like it’s, I get a thrill out of it. I wouldn’t be doing it this long if I didn’t get a thrill out of it, but I also love telling my own stories and drawing a reader in. And so for me it was like just a circus carnival.
Like it was so fun to be able to do it. Once I had the permission and I had a contract, I was like, fine, you know? I, I, who am I writing this book for? I’m writing it for me, you know? Like this is just something I wanna do because I’m so passionate [00:09:00] about it and I, and I love Stephen King. And, um, once I got into it that way and wasn’t thinking about who’s gonna criticize me for this, like how will academics view this, I was like, I don’t care.
I just don’t care. I know I’ve got a great story to tell that people are gonna love to read because there’s so many people that love not just Stephen King, but people who love reading about how great books get written, you know? Yeah. And so that was the audience I had in my mind when I, when I was crafting it.
It was really, in my mind, anybody who cares about books and writing. It doesn’t have to be... So when you say, you’re not the first person who’s said to me, “I can’t read your book,” or, “I can’t read-” Oh, I’m so glad. “... Stephen King books,” you know, and I’m like, “That’s okay. You can skip, you know, the parts that really scare you,” because there’s plenty about just like that first chapter I wrote about Pet Sematary, just his sticky notes back and forth with his copy editor, which is so fun I think.
You know, it’s just like, wow.
Jennie: Totally. Yeah. But the thing that you do is you- Allow yourself to confront that fear-
Caroline: Yeah ...
Jennie: [00:10:00] that, that I feel that the people can’t, that can’t read horror feel. You know, anybody that even allows themselves to be scared feels. And-
Caroline: Yeah ...
Jennie: and you, you do some very specific things, um, which I, I found fascinating, including tracking down on eBay the original copy of that book you read as a- Yeah, I wanted-
as a teenager.
Caroline: Yeah, that was part of the process for me, was I wanted to make sure I was reading... So before I would go into the archives for each work, and I’d spent like two... I only picked five, because I wanted to... First of all, I knew I wanted to make this personal. Um, and those were the five that scared me the most when I was a teenager.
So I grew up in the ‘70s and the ‘80s as a teenager, so for me, it was in real time when the books were coming out practically. So it was- Yeah ... Carrie, Night Shift, The Shining, Salem’s Lot, Pet Sematary. Um, I’m forgetting one of course. Uh, but I went -
Jennie: The other one.
Caroline: The other one. Had a huge impact on me. [00:11:00] So it was those five, and I, I knew those were the ones I was gonna do a deep dive into, and that I wanted to really re-engage with, and bring my whole self to.
So I wanted to find the copies that I had read in the ‘70s and the early ‘80s. And fortunately, it’s pretty easy to find them. Uh, so yeah, but eBay sometimes I had to go on, or go into a used bookstore and, you know, find the like actual 1979 paperback, you know.
Jennie: Um- I mean, that- Um ... I just, there’s some, there’s so much to say about that because-
Caroline: Yeah
Jennie: like, I just, um- We, we just had a new bookcase built, um, which is something I’ve wanted to do well for eight years in this house. But it’s a thing I’ve always wanted to have, which is like a grand bookcase, and it just was finished last week, and we had all the books packed up in storage, and we brought all the books back.
Then we went through this discernment process of what goes [00:12:00] on those shelves. And I, you know, I had all those books from when I was a kid, even when I was a kid-kid, and they’re yellow, and moldy and falling apart, and the covers aren’t on, and they’re taped and-
Caroline: Yeah ...
Jennie: eh, but I cannot let them go-
Caroline: Yeah ...
Jennie: because those...
that was the object.
Caroline: That’s the object. This is what I feel sad for kids now, because they’re not gonna have those same memories, um, of books. Yes. You know? And I don’t think they stick in your head the same way if you don’t have the full sensory embodied experience with a book.
Jennie: Right. You know? Even when you open...
I read on Kindle, which I love for so many reasons. Yeah. But you don’t even see the cover.
Caroline: You don’t see the cover, right. And for me, it’s so much. Like, I remember going to the Scholastic Book Fair and being like- Yes ... “I’m getting Summer of My German S- Soldier because Christy McNichol’s on the cover,” you know?
Yes. Yes. So yeah, that was part of the journey for me was I did wanna just [00:13:00] reconnect with those books again, try to h- and as much as you can, you know, reexperience the feelings of f- like The Shining, I actually... the only one I still have from 1977 is the actual Shining that I read. Um, and that’s, for me, that woman in room 217.
Well, I know you haven’t read it ‘cause you’re probably... What? But, um, it, that particular one I still have from, from when I was growing up. Um, and I love that I still have it, and it still has the photo... You know, it’s the version that has the photo inserts that includes the Kubrick film photos. Oh, okay.
Jennie: Okay.
Yeah, yeah.
Caroline: And I read it before I saw the film, so I remember being- 15 reading it and then seeing the pictures and being like you know? And that’s part of the experience, but it wasn’t, it’s different than seeing the film, you know? And I really, I wanted to write this book as a love letter to language and to books, and not to film.
Like, there’s, that’s a whole other category I think that enters people’s brains in totally different ways. It’s a very different experience. For me it’s about, like going back to your original question [00:14:00] about like why, why, why do stories cause fear, and like what’s the value perhaps in that? Yeah. That was something I came to after this long journey really, and talking to people and thinking about why.
And also by understanding and reading more about Stephen King’s books and talking to him about them, and realizing for him how much these stories are rooted in personal experiences or fears of grief and loss. And- Yes ... that was really profound for me. And like The Night Shift, which is the ur-text that I start with, ‘cause that’s the one I read when I was 12, and that’s his first collection of short stories.
It came out in 1978. It’s 20 short stories. But he ends it with a story about his mother dying, and it’s, I mean, it’s thinly veiled autobiography. It’s about a man who’s watching his mother die in the hospital. Um, but it’s clearly a mirror of his own experience losing his mother when he was 26. And I’m like, wow, what’s that doing in a collection of horror stories?
[00:15:00] And it’s like, what? ‘Cause that is of course, at least for me and I think for a lot of people, that’s the core fear we first have, is that where’s mommy, right? Yeah. Right? You lose the person who’s in charge of taking care of you, and if you’re lucky, does it well and with care. Um, but even if it’s not, like Carrie, you know, the more I was looking through the Carrie drafts, I was like, right, he’s really homing in on Carrie calling out for her mother even though her mother’s terrible and abusive to her, right?
So it’s, there’s just this, I don’t know. It’s a long way around to say I think horror, and he writes about this really eloquently, is a way for us to metabolize our deepest fears. Um, and to look at trauma not head-on but sideways. Um, and he writes about that, um, a number of different places in a really powerful way.
He’s just such an extraordinary human. You know, he’s been thinking about this and for so long.
Jennie: Yeah. Yeah. So, so your willingness to [00:16:00] confront that, those particular fear, fears in your own self and on behalf of the reader, really puts you in it. I mean, like you, there’s a really lovely moment where you are reading I think it’s, I think it’s Pet Sematary, reading the actual book, and you have to turn it over so you- Yeah
don’t see, like on your nightstand so you don’t see the cover. I’m
Caroline: scared, I’m scared of the cover, right, still.
Jennie: Yeah.
Caroline: Yeah.
Jennie: And then there’s moments, se- several where you’re driving And you’re sort of holding your breath while you drive past a place that he writes about or, or- Mm-hmm ... you know, um, well you have to tell the story, I’m sure every interviewer asks you about the, um, the doorknob in the archive.
You have to, like, I was-
Caroline: Yeah, not too many people have asked me about that, but I’m like, that to me was the scary moment-
Jennie: Wait, shut up ... the most, the
Caroline: most sturdy. I’m like, wh- uh, why did that happen? But of course, I mean, there’s a reason why it happened. It’s, it’s, it [00:17:00] automatically locks if, you know, the, if you- Okay
don’t lock it So let’s, let’s play- So but it just happened that we were inside the archive room. It was me and, and Julie Ugli, who is their assistant, who was helping me through this whole process. And I know, and I was, like, literally holding the first page of the first draft of The Boogeyman, the story that had scared me so badly when I was 12, about a monster that comes out of closets, and we’re like in this room.
And the, the archive room, it actually, it almost feels like a closet. It’s not huge at all. You know, it’s just-
Jennie: Yeah ...
Caroline: top to bottom, ceiling to floor stacked shelving with, you know, boxes of materials. And yeah, and we were in there, and I’m holding the first page, and the lock closes on its own. It just goes...
And I’m like, I’m looking at Julie, I’m like, “What is, what’s happening?” We don’t have our cell phones with us. I’m like, “Are we stuck in here? Like, what’s gonna happen?”
Jennie: In the scary archive- In this, I was terrified ... in the back of the scary house. Like-
Caroline: I know, I know. It was like, you can’t make this stuff up.
That’s why I was like, I [00:18:00] couldn’t wait, when I finally got a chance to write the book and sit down and write, I was like, I can’t wait to tell these stories, because they just... I, I’m not a fiction writer. Like, I, I have such mad respect for- I don’t know about that ... well, I’ve m- We’ll see I don’t know. I have mad respect for people who can write fiction.
For me, I only can write what I know and exper- So I’m like, ah. But these stories were just so amazing. Or like when I was reading The Shining, like the first draft of The Shining, which is crazy. I mean, it’s so different from the published version. And like getting to the woman in room 217, and like reading th- and literally my head w- like I thought I was having a stroke.
Like it was like, like... And it’s like, and then I find an interview where Stephen King writes about how he was scared to go back to that scene when he was revising it, the book, because he was dreading it. And I was like, oh, my God, have I just like had some kind of telepathic experience with Stephen King?
Like- Right ... across time, space, and yeah, it was amazing.
Jennie: Well, yeah. I mean, [00:19:00] it’s just, um, uh, I actually made myself go through the whole book skipping giant chunks.
Caroline: I feel so badly I put you through this.
Jennie: I know. I, I feel like why, I kept saying, “Why? Why did I think this was a good idea?” Um, and it- I mean, even just tangentially, I, I don’t know.
It’s interesting. I have, I’m sure you have this too, anybody who reads a lot or spends a lot of time with words, you have a capacity to sort of pay half attention, if that makes sense.
Caroline: Mm-hmm.
Jennie: Um, like you c- could sort of look at it without letting it all the way in. Yeah. But I, I just was, I just was riveted by the thread of, of your story and your putting yourself through that as a scholar and a human.
But, but then some really cool things happen, and I, and I have flagged, um... Do you, [00:20:00] w- would you mind reading a tiny piece? It’s- No, not at all ... it’s on page 82, and it’s the p- the paragraph that starts, “These manuscripts.”
Caroline: Yeah.
Jennie: That would be amazing.
Caroline: Absolutely. So this is actually the moment I just described to you, where my head was like, I got...
Oh, actually, I had just discovered the last 150 pages of the original Shining manuscript in a random folder in the archives, and I was like, “What is this doing here?” And I was getting obsessive about the manuscripts at this point, clearly- Yeah. Yeah ... just like the main character in The Shining, Jack Torrance, who gets obsessed with the manu- with the papers in the basement of the Overlook Hotel.
But here we go. “These manuscripts are definitely getting into my head, and not just its rational part. In his memoir, when King describes books as being a uniquely portable magic, he doesn’t specify what kind of magic. What if manuscripts can absorb and store more than just ink and words? [00:21:00] What if their pages can pass on dark energy along with dark stories?
Ghosts have more than one way of making sure their stories are heard, of ensuring that the past is not forgotten, but rather pressed into our minds, even if we wrench our heads off the pillow and refuse to listen.” And that last is a reference to my, I used to see a ghost when I was five, and I write about that in the book too.
Jennie: I mean, when I read that, I was like, “That’s, that’s me.” Like, these ghosts and horrors are pressing themselves into my mind, and I’m refusing to listen, and they still, they still do. And, um, King’s stories in particular are so iconic, you can’t really escape them. Like, you, you know the scenarios, you know the characters, you know-
Caroline: Yeah
Jennie: you know. And, and so it was interesting for me reading this book that that described my [00:22:00] experience where I was both repelled and magnetized at the same time.
Caroline: That’s beautiful the way you just put that. I mean, I think that is exactly our relationship also, of course, to our own fears. You know, again, what makes these stories endure, and I didn’t go into this book thinking like, “This is a book about promoting Stephen King,” and, you know- Right
like, I don’t work for Stephen King. I just want to put that out there. Right. He, you know, he graciously agreed to let me go into the archives. He’s been very generous about answering all my questions I had about the manuscripts, but he never at any point was like, “You can’t say this,” or, “This is how you’re supposed to say this.”
So, but what I came away with after this process was exactly what you’re describing, why we need these stories, why they endure, actually, is because they tap into our very real human fears. It’s not about the monsters. It’s about the grief and loss that’s coming for all of us if we live long enough, you know?
So you, and you have to at some point confront that, you know? So if it’s- Yeah ... you can [00:23:00] try to run away from it, but it’s coming, and that’s part of being human. That’s the human experience, obviously. Not to be glib, but it’s like-
Jennie: Yeah ...
Caroline: you will experience loss. You will experience grief. And if these stories help you metabolize that or have a cathartic experience with that feeling without having to actually experience your worst fear, right?
Um, like Aristotle says, it’s cathartic, right? It’s you watch a play, a, a tragedy because you experience a catharsis.
Jennie: And did you, did you get to that in your own process?
Caroline: That’s a really good question. Um- You know, I, I think I became more aware of it. You know, I am, you know, and I write about this very openly in the book, that I was an extremely anxious little kid, um, which is part of why I think the boogeyman triggered me in the particular way it did, you know.
Um, and that I grew into a pretty [00:24:00] anxious adult, you know? Yeah. I think anxiety is one of those things that, you know, I... Again, I was born in the ‘60s, so we didn’t have this language for this back then. Like, my parents wouldn’t have known to call me an anxious child, you know? Right. They probably would’ve said, “Oh, she’s shy,” or, “She’s whatever.”
Um, so I think I, you know, like, and I as an adult, I think I’ve, I’ve found ways to manage it pretty well, but I am definitely a control freak. Like, that’s part of how I manage it. I shouldn’t use that language, but you know, it’s like I, I like to just control what I can control, and that makes me feel that I can put the anxiety at bay.
So I will say I think it’s been interesting for me, Nick, now when I have those moments that are my worst fear moments that sometimes still will creep up on me just even though when I think I’ve figured it out, like doom s- doom scenarios. I tend to go to doom scenarios. So, like, if I can’t reach... Uh, I will say Life360 has been, like, the best invention on the planet for me-
with my two kids [00:25:00] and my husband. I’m like, “I know exactly where everyone is.” Yeah. It has saved me a lot of worry. Sometimes Life360 doesn’t work, or sometimes a person still doesn’t answer the phone, and then I have to manage my anxie- And then it’s like... So I will say it’s been interesting going through this process and having to confront or revisit the core of what scares me and, like, why that impacts, you know, why certain moments come forward for me still.
So I think, yeah, I think it has helped me to a degree. Like, I can recognize it more clearly now. I’m like, “Oh, right, that’s why I’m scared of that,” you know? Um-
Jennie: That’s so cool.
Caroline: Yeah.
Jennie: And it feels like that’s the, the, um, the transformation in the book is you’re exploring how that actually works and the language and the stories.
Mm-hmm. But you’re, you’re also exploring how it works in your own self, how it did when you were young, how it does now- Yeah ... these moments when you’re scared. So it- Mm-hmm ... there’s such [00:26:00] a depth to it and, I mean, I just, uh, even in my half reading of it, I just loved it. Thank you. And, um, there’s something that happens That’s kind of crazy, which is, so you’re a Shakespeare scholar
Caroline: Mm-hmm
Jennie: And I ha- I, I know from reading Steve, a- about Stephen King, from reading his book On Writing, of course, and, um, interviews and such that, uh, I’m, I’m probably gonna say this in a disrespectful way, and I don’t mean it to be so, but the, the easiest way I can describe it is that he’s always had sort of a chip on his shoulder that he’s just a popular writer and not taken seriously in a literary way.
Mm. I don’t know if that’s, if that is fair to say, but that’s how I’m saying it. Uh,
Caroline: yeah.
Jennie: And, um, what, what I found incredible was that [00:27:00] here comes this Shakespeare scholar into his archives doing proper scholarly archiver, arch- archival work, and there’s this moment when you begin to see Shakespearean themes in his, in his work, and you can’t ignore it, and particularly in, in Carrie and- Yeah
particularly around exactly the thing you were wrestling with, which is like a young girl’s- I don’t know, sense of, of not being fitting in the world or, um-
Caroline: Yeah ...
Jennie: right? And so that, um, there’s, on page, since you have the book in your hand, um, I think it’s page
Caroline: 202. Mm-hmm.
Jennie: And it refers back to that passage you just read about portable magic.
It’s the one that’s I remembered.
Caroline: [00:28:00] Right. Okay. So this is going back to when I first was, um, I was in the final round of the job for the Stephen E. King Chair in Literature, and I was working on a book about Shakespeare’s, the girls in Shakespeare’s plays and world and teenage girls and their cognition.
Like, the how were people during Shakespeare’s day thinking about girls’ brains? Yeah. So I’d been working on this for 10 years. Um, and then I was getting ready to give my job talk. This was the first time Stephen King and Shakespeare came together for me, and it was getting ready, and this, again, this is an authentic story, like write what you know.
So I was getting ready for the job talk. I remembered that King’s 1974 novel, Carrie, featured a 16-year-old girl whose telekinetic powers are unleashed when she gets her first period in the school shower. I started rereading it, and within a few pages came across an uncanny phrase. When she’s walking home after being dismissed early, Carrie feels her brain flexing in a new way, [00:29:00] as if her powers have been waiting below the surface for her to reach, quote, “mental puberty.”
I couldn’t have wordsmithed this dynamic cognitive change better myself. In the last part of my job talk, I used the phrase to connect the brain work of Juliet Capulet, who’s described as being two weeks away from seeing the change of 14 years, to Carrie’s newly activated adolescent mind. It felt like a moment of pure portable magic between Stephen King, Shakespeare, and me.
Jennie: Ugh, so beautiful.
Caroline: Oh, thank you. Yeah. I mean, that was just so gobsmacking. Like, when that happened, I was like, I ca- I can’t believe it, but yeah.
Jennie: And then, now I may be getting some of the things wrong here, but then you- You realize, is it Carrie that, that you realize he was, you thought he was emulating a play, a Shakespeare play?
Caroline: I think you’re thinking of Shining. I mean, definitely at the end of the Carrie [00:30:00] chapter I return to, I did notice echoes of Macbeth, and I was convinced that that must have been what he was thinking about. And, and what’s funny is, so one of the conversations I got to have with him, I mean, he’s so generous with his time, one of my last conversations with him was about the end of Carrie, and that’s a book that he actually doesn’t like very much.
You know, it was his first published novel, he was 26, and he’s like, “I think that was written by a young man who thought he knew more than he did.” So he’s, it’s not a book that he goes back to. He recognizes it’s important, and it’s important to him, but, ‘cause it started his whole career, his whole trajectory.
Um, but he didn’t particularly, he hasn’t returned to it. Yeah. So that was a fun chance for me to sort of talk to him and say, “Hey, you know what? I think you should maybe go back,” ‘cause it’s it’s, there’s a lot of Shakespeare in there. Anyway, but the Shining chapter, what was fascinating, so there’s this first draft, which I, I write a lot about, called The Shine, that’s in the archives, with a totally different ending.
Um, and when I looked at it, [00:31:00] he’d also divided it into acts and scenes, like Roman numeral acts and little- Mm ... Roman numeral scenes. And I was like, “This, what is this? This is like a Shakespeare play.” Like, that’s what it looked like. And then sure enough, I found out he was imagining, he was thinking of a Shakespeare tragedy when he wrote The Shining.
And that was the first moment where I was like, “What? This is insane.” Like, this- Yeah ... like, ob- obviously that became, for me, the story I wanted to tell about that particular set of manuscripts, was sort of uncovering, like, what’s the Shakespeare play? Like, what’s the tragedy? And I didn’t wanna ask him because I didn’t want- I wanted to go in with my mind clear, like, of any outside influence.
I just wanted to see what my Shakespeare brain, because I’m so embedded in Shakespeare. I also have a Shakespeare podcast I do with my best friend. Like, we’re, I’m always thinking about Shakespeare and how it relates to everyday life. You know, and so I’m like, “Well, how does it relate to The Shining?” Which is, like, an ur-American text.
Like, this, like, say what you want about horror, [00:32:00] like- I’d be shocked if people don’t know what The Shining’s about, even if they haven’t read it even if they haven’t seen the film. Like, you probably know something about The Shining, right? Right. So I was like, if there’s a Shakespeare tragedy at the foundation of this, you know.
And here’s the thing about Stephen King that I came to learn, again, reading all of his notes and finding these edits, and I did find traces of Macbeth in the first draft of The Shine, um, that he ended up taking out. So I was like, “Oh, is it Macbeth? It feels like it could be Macbeth.” There’s so many things it has in common with it, with hallucinations and with baby bashing.
And, you know, all of these horrible things that are in Macbeth are certainly in that book. Um, but I really wanted to go in, like, just on an adventure, like, see what I saw. So I didn’t ask him which chi- tragedy until I was fully done with all my research and I felt like I had it all done. And that’s when he drops that he was thinking of Hamlet.
And once he said that, of course, it became so ... I mean, I [00:33:00] had seen traces, there were references to Ophelia that also didn’t make it into the final published draft. So you wouldn’t know this. This is the beauty of archival work, like you’re gonna see things that other people will never know about unless you tell the story.
That’s why I felt so passionate about this. Like, “I need to tell people-” Yeah ... “that Ophelia was in the first draft, that he was thinking of Ophelia.” ‘Cause of course, you know, again, even if you don’t know The Shining, the woman in the tub, the woman in the bathtub, like a drowned woman in a tub, like ah, Ophelia.
Yeah. Like Ophelia’s another one of those ur, like she’s so, she’s such a part of our cultural air, right? I mean, like no matter what country you’re in. Right. There’s a reason Taylor Swift has a whole, you know, song The Fate of Ophelia. Like people know what that means. Um, so I was like, “Oh my gosh, this is, this is incredible.
This is even deeper than I thought it was gonna be.” Um, but also it made me appreciate how much that book is about intergenerational trauma. Um, and it’s not ... So he doesn’t like the Kubrick film [00:34:00] for reasons that, you know, a couple different reasons. One is that it flattens out the character of Jack Torrance, and Jack Torrance is an abused child himself, and he passes on that abuse to his son, Danny, right?
Um, but you wouldn’t know that from Kubrick’s film. While Hamlet, of course, is about a father’s ghost coming forward. Like, “The past is a ghost,” King writes, which is so f- powerful, right? Um, here’s this ghost saying, “You need to kill for me.”
Jennie: Yeah.
Caroline: Yeah. And that’s what happens to Jack. Yeah, so anyway, that’s a long way to say that was
Each chapter was my favorite in different ways, but that one I loved being able to do the deep Shakespeare dive.
Jennie: And was that ... You know, so I started that question by saying I, I had heard or understood or maybe inferred that, um, you know, King himself had this sort of desire- Okay ... to be taken more seriously.
Was that, that must have been, I don’t know, powerful for both you and him, uh, to [00:35:00] come to that? Not like, “Oh, you’re the only person that’s ever made him feel that way” or-
Caroline: Yeah,
Jennie: no,
Caroline: I agree ... or agree with that, but. Like I, yeah. And, um, I mean, I will say I think part of the reason he was always really ... I mean, first of all, he’s just so generous, and any writer who’s ever worked with him has the same experience.
Like he just gives his time. He just loves writing and writers so much that he will just, he’ll just t- like any email I would send him, he’d write back in like an hour with a response. The part about how he feels about academia, you know, and I never directly asked him that because I didn’t wanna ... You know, if he wanted to bring it up, great.
But I think- Yeah ... my, after going on this journey with him, he clearly loves talking about- literature. He’s the most well-read person I’ve ever met. I’m just gonna say that hands down. Like, the guy reads- Really? ... cons- constantly and if you read his early works, like even when he was 17, he wrote The Long Walk, okay, which just came out as a film, [00:36:00] and in that, he’s citing T.S.
Eliot, he’s cit- he’s citing Poe at 17. Okay? So he’s, he, he, this, he comes by this honestly. He’s not just trying to seem smart. Like, he literally is constantly reading and it’s clear when you read his manuscripts or when you read his published books, he’s making references to all, whether it’s Shirley Jackson or Wallace Stevens or, you know, uh, he’s so capacious in his knowledge of literature.
And, like, just a couple months ago, he sent me an email, I don’t, I can’t remember, we were talking about something about Salem’s Lot, and he was like, “Yeah, when I was writing Salem’s Lot,” which again, this is 1975 when he’s writing Salem’s Lot, so that’s a long time ago. He’s like, “I was really into James Dickey’s poetry.”
Jennie: Whoa.
Caroline: You know, who was an American no, you know, poet laureate. Uh, he’s like, “And I was reading everything I could read of, of his and then I read Deliverance, and then I went back to his poetry, and that really impacted how I wrote the chapters [00:37:00] about the Lot,” which if you’ve read Salem’s Lot, has some very lyrical, poetic chapters about the town, like, “The town knew about darkness.
The town had its secrets and knew how to kept it.” And then he, like, sends me the entire poem that he was thinking about that James Dickey wrote. So I mean, it’s, he’s, and it’s not performative. He’s not, like, he has nothing. He doesn’t need to prove anything to me, you know?
Jennie: Right, to anyone, yeah.
Caroline: He just literally loves, he loves literature.
Like, this guy, he loves poetry. I mean, he actually writes poetry. He wrote poetry as an undergraduate. Uh, it was actually the core start for him of The Stand, was a poem he wrote called The Dark Man one day when he was, like, hungover in the school, like, cafeteria. Like, so it’s like he, he’s been thinking about literature and living with literature and, uh, since he was a teenager, if not earlier.
His mom brought him, uh, Bram Stoker out of the public library when he was nine, so I mean, the guy- Whoa ... ‘cause he asked for it. He asked for Dracula. [00:38:00] I wasn’t reading Dracula when I was nine. Were you? I mean-
Jennie: No,
Caroline: no. I was reading Little House on the Prairie. I mean-
Jennie: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Wow. Wow. So- I mean, this book, again, it’s called Monsters in the Archives: My Year of Fear with Stephen King by Carolyn Bicks.
It’s just incredible, whether you’re a King fan, whether you’re a horror fan, um, but for sure for all writers, which are all our listeners. If you can, if you can bear it.
It’s very specific, um, a very specific- specific exploration of, of how good writing works really. Yeah. Right. And, and how you... You know, there’s always that perennial question of how do you get emotion on the page? How do you make your reader feel something? And you, you show it very specifically, and I wanted so badly [00:39:00] to, to get into the details, and I, and I, I just, I just couldn’t.
Um, maybe someday, but, um, I just, I just can’t recommend it enough for, for, um, this audience and, um, you know, anyone who’s interested in any of these things we’ve talked about.
Caroline: Thank you so much. I really appreciate that. And I will say, like, the Pet Sematary chapter, which is the first one, that was the first day I was in the archives.
One of the things I discovered about him day one was how much attention he pays to word sounds. So I think for any writer interested in sort of doing a deep dive into, like, how one word change, right- Yeah ... can make a difference, you know? Yeah. And I didn’t appreciate that about his writing until I went in there and saw his notes to the copy editor where he’s like, “Nope, the word’s clitter, not clatter.
This is why.” You know? Like,
Jennie: he’s- There’s a, um- Yeah ... yeah, there’s a book I love, it’s probably right behind me, um, called The Artful Edit by Susan Bell, in which she [00:40:00] shows examples of that kind of very careful change in, um, The Gre- The Great Gatsby and The English Patient and various works of, of literature, and your, your whole book is like that.
It’s, it’s just amazing. Um- Thank you ... so is the next book gonna be the Shakespeare one you had thought of before? Or are you gonna- ... go in the, in the personal direction?
Caroline: You know, it’s such a good question. I think right now I’m just taking a break, you know, because I’m the kind... Like, I immerse myself in a project, and this has been so all-consuming.
Um, and I’m back to doing my Everyday Shakespeare podcast, which I love and I missed. Um, so I’m doing that. And I, I really don’t like to think too far ahead about what I’m going to write. I like to have it come organically.
Jennie: Yeah.
Caroline: Um, so I could go back into the archives. I could write another one of these kinds of books, but I don’t know if that’s the [00:41:00] right thing for me right now.
Jennie: Yeah.
Caroline: Um, I want to make sure whatever I write next- You know, I loved writing this book so much. It’s my favorite... I mean, it’s, it was such a powerful experience for me, um, because I could bring my personal experiences into it and my scholarly self into it. I don’t... You know, it’s gonna be hard to recreate that.
Yeah. I think it can be done, but I don’t wanna force it. Yeah. So I’m gonna wait and see what the next, what the next one
Jennie: is. Don’t you, don’t you love the interviewer who’s like, “Hey, congratulations. You wrote a book. What, what’s your next
Caroline: one?” What are you working on now? What are you doing now? I know. And I get that.
I’m like-
Jennie: So mean ...
Caroline: I’m just, I’m just reading books I wanna read. I’m doing my laundry. I’m getting to know my dog again. You know?
Jennie: Oh, wow. Well, thank
Caroline: you. But, you know, it’s a fair question. Yeah.
Jennie: Yeah, yeah. Thank you for coming and chatting about this, and for writing such a cool book. And- Thank you ... um, I’m looking forward to seeing what you do next.
Caroline: Thank you, Jennie. It was a [00:42:00] pleasure.
Jennie: Well, for our listeners, until next time, stop playing small and write like it matters.
The #amwriting podcast is produced by Andrew Perilla. Our intro music, aptly titled Unemployed Monday, was written and played by Max Cohen. Andrew and Max were paid for their time and their creative output because everyone deserves to be paid for their work


This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amwriting.substack.com/subscribe

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amwriting.substack.com/subscribe

Join the Blueprint Summer Challenge
Starting a book? Stuck in a draft? Planning a revision?
The Blueprint Summer Challenge is designed to help you make meaningful progress on your manuscript this summer.
Over six weeks, beginning July 10, you’ll use the Blueprint—a proven framework for developing stronger books with greater clarity, purpose, and reader impact—to move your project forward, wherever you are in the process.
Whether you’re writing nonfiction, memoir, fiction, or another genre entirely, the goal is simple: spend six focused weeks making your book stronger.
Start with the Blueprint Course
We’re offering an all-new Blueprint course in Teachable, which includes:
* The full text of The Blueprint
* Fourteen video lessons covering every step of the framework
* Real coaching examples that show writers applying the Blueprint to their own projects
* Practical guidance you can use immediately
The course is designed to help you develop a stronger foundation for your book—whether you’re beginning from a blank page, working through a draft, or planning a revision.
Course enrollment: $19
👉 Enroll in the Fiction Blueprint Challenge
👉 Enroll in the Memoir Blueprint Challenge
👉 Enroll in the Nonfiction Blueprint Challenge
Join the Live Coaching Sessions
Paid podcast subscribers will also receive access to six weeks of live coaching sessions featuring me and a variety of Author Accelerator coaches.
Each session will focus on a specific Blueprint step and the challenges writers commonly encounter while developing, drafting, or revising their books. You’ll have opportunities to ask questions, learn from expert coaches, and watch hot-seat coaching sessions where writers will receive direct feedback on their work.
Some sessions will be led by me, while others will feature experienced Author Accelerator coaches with expertise across genres and stages of the writing process. We’ll hold these sessions at different times to accommodate different schedules, but we know for sure that Jennie will be doing coaching each Monday at 3:00 PST. The first one will be July 13. Other sessions will be slotted in soon.
Whether you’re starting a new project, trying to get unstuck, or preparing for revision, these live sessions will help you apply the Blueprint to your own book and make meaningful progress throughout the summer.
Become a paid subscriber for $12/month
Win a Blueprint Revision
Everyone who enrolls in the Blueprint Course will be entered to win a personal Blueprint coaching session with me and be featured on the podcast.
We’ll award one winner for every 100 course enrollments, so the more writers who join the Challenge, the more opportunities there are to win this Grand Prize
Ready for More Support?
As you progress, you’ll also have the opportunity to connect with a trained Blueprint coach for personalized guidance, feedback, and accountability. We are rolling out a new coach matching system that will give you an easy and intuitive way to find the coaches who are a great fit for your and your project.
There is no charge for this service and no obligation to work with the coaches we match you with – but what a great chance to connect with people who could help you write your best book!
Whether you need help clarifying your vision, solving a structural problem, or creating a plan for finishing your manuscript, a coach can help you take the next step.
Join us on July 10 and spend six weeks making your book stronger.


This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amwriting.substack.com/subscribe

Jennie Nash interviews author Meghan P. Browne about her journey from picture-book nonfiction to selling her first middle-grade novel, after participating in the 2022 Blueprint Challenge. Browne began the project in 2019, drafted it during her MFA at Vermont College of Fine Arts, then used the Blueprint framework to “reverse engineer” the manuscript and discover it lacked plot; the inside outline helped her connect scene events to emotional meaning.
After tragedy and other commitments, she returned to revise intensively, resubmitted to her agent, and the novel later sold. Browne also describes submitting pages to the podcast’s First Page Lab and learning to absorb both critical and positive feedback.
Visit Meghan on her website: https://meghanpbrowne.com
Thanks for reading #AmWriting! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

Join the Blueprint Summer Challenge
Starting a book? Stuck in a draft? Planning a revision?
The Blueprint Summer Challenge is designed to help you make meaningful progress on your manuscript this summer.
Over six weeks, beginning July 10, you’ll use the Blueprint—a proven framework for developing stronger books with greater clarity, purpose, and reader impact—to move your project forward, wherever you are in the process.
Whether you’re writing nonfiction, memoir, fiction, or another genre entirely, the goal is simple: spend six focused weeks making your book stronger.
Start with the Blueprint Course
We’re offering an all-new Blueprint course in Teachable, which includes:
* The full text of The Blueprint
* Fourteen video lessons covering every step of the framework
* Real coaching examples that show writers applying the Blueprint to their own projects
* Practical guidance you can use immediately
The course is designed to help you develop a stronger foundation for your book—whether you’re beginning from a blank page, working through a draft, or planning a revision.
Course enrollment: $19
👉 Enroll in the Fiction Blueprint Challenge
👉 Enroll in the Memoir Blueprint Challenge
👉 Enroll in the Nonfiction Blueprint Challenge
Join the Live Coaching Sessions
Paid podcast subscribers will also receive access to six weeks of live coaching sessions featuring me and a variety of Author Accelerator coaches.
Each session will focus on a specific Blueprint step and the challenges writers commonly encounter while developing, drafting, or revising their books. You’ll have opportunities to ask questions, learn from expert coaches, and watch hot-seat coaching sessions where writers will receive direct feedback on their work.
Some sessions will be led by me, while others will feature experienced Author Accelerator coaches with expertise across genres and stages of the writing process. We’ll hold these sessions at different times to accommodate different schedules, but we know for sure that Jennie will be doing coaching each Monday at 3:00 PST. The first one will be July 13. Other sessions will be slotted in soon.
Whether you’re starting a new project, trying to get unstuck, or preparing for revision, these live sessions will help you apply the Blueprint to your own book and make meaningful progress throughout the summer.
Become a paid subscriber for $12/month
Win a Blueprint Revision
Everyone who enrolls in the Blueprint Course will be entered to win a personal Blueprint coaching session with me and be featured on the podcast.
We’ll award one winner for every 100 course enrollments, so the more writers who join the Challenge, the more opportunities there are to win this Grand Prize
Ready for More Support?
As you progress, you’ll also have the opportunity to connect with a trained Blueprint coach for personalized guidance, feedback, and accountability. We are rolling out a new coach matching system that will give you an easy and intuitive way to find the coaches who are a great fit for your and your project.
There is no charge for this service and no obligation to work with the coaches we match you with – but what a great chance to connect with people who could help you write your best book!
Whether you need help clarifying your vision, solving a structural problem, or creating a plan for finishing your manuscript, a coach can help you take the next step.
Join us on July 10 and spend six weeks making your book stronger.
Learn All About the Summer Challenge
On July 6th at 9:00 am PT, Jennie will be hosting a live AMA to talk about the Blueprint and the summer challenge, and answer all your questions. We’ll send out an email reminder about this event.
Transcript
Jennie: [00:00:00] Hey, it’s Jennie and the Blueprint Summer Challenge begins July 10th. I’d love for you to join us. If you’re starting a book, stuck in a draft, or preparing for a revision, this challenge was designed for you. Over six weeks, you’ll have the opportunity to learn the blueprint framework through our new blueprint course.
Over six weeks, you’ll have the opportunity to learn the blueprint framework in our new blueprint course. You can also participate in live coaching sessions with me and Author Accelerator coaches and see the blueprint applied to real books and real writing challenges. The course is just $19 and includes the full blueprint book, 14 video lessons, and coaching examples.
And remember, everyone who enrolls in the course for the blueprint challenge is automatically entered to win a blueprint revision with me and a live coaching session on the podcast. We’ll select one winner for every hundred enrollments. If you’ve been looking for a reason to recommit to your book this summer, this is your invitation.
Visit the link in the [00:01:00] show notes and join the Blueprint Summer Challenge today.
Hi, I’m Jennie Nash, and you’re listening to the #AMWriting Podcast, the place where we help writers of all kinds play big in your writing life, love the process, and stick
with it long enough to finish what matters most.
I’m so excited today to be talking to Meghan Brown, who has an incredible story connected to some of the things we’ve been doing here at the podcast, including the upcoming Blueprint Challenge.
So I’m gonna talk to Meghan about her journey to getting her first novel published and on its way to being on the shelf and in readers’ hands. So welcome, Meghan.
Meghan: Hi. Thanks for having me.
Jennie: This is such a fun story. I just, I just love it. So we heard about you and your book- Because we chose you to do one of [00:02:00] our First Page Lab readings where we look at the first pages of a novel and give feedback, and we’ll get to that in a minute.
But through, through that, we learned that you did our original Blueprint Challenge in the summer of 2022. So can you talk about where you were in your writing life, and why you decided to do that, and what the experience was like for you?
Meghan: Sure. I was so excited when y’all ran that challenge in 2022. I actually first started working on this project in 2019, which feels like a bazillion years ago because it was pre-pandemic, of course.
And I took a little class at a local place, it was virtual, but called The Writing Barn here in Austin that does a lot of great classes. It was a middle grade class. I had just gotten representation for some picture books I had been working on, and my agent and other people in the industry were telling me that my voice was very middle grade.
So I took this class, I wrote 20 pages. [00:03:00] I got nominated for a big award at our local SCBWI, um, conference that spring, and I actually used my very first advance money from my picture books to start at Vermont College of Fine Arts for my MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults, where I was hoping to learn how to write middle grade.
And through the two years that it took in that program, including being in that program during the pandemic, and working with Linda Urban and Anh Nha, who are both very, very incredible, um, authors in their own right, I was able to finish a first draft by the summer of 2021. And I basically, because of a lot of things, just didn’t really touch that work until I heard that you were running this challenge, and I was so excited to kind of dive back in and realize that I needed to kind of reverse engineer the whole project.
So I had a first draft, and I just [00:04:00] was looking to fix it.
Jennie: Amazing. So the... I just want you to be able to tell our listeners about your picture books because they’re- they’re so beautiful, and we’ll link to your website in the show notes so people can find you. It’s Meghan P. Browe, and it’s Browe with an E on the end.
Um, but just, just so we sort of know the vibe of what your work had been, uh, beforehand. Sure. Yeah.
Meghan: Um, well, thank you. They are very beautiful, and I did not illustrate any of them. Um, so the, the first one is called Indelible Ann. It’s the larger than life story of Governor Ann Richards. It’s a nonfiction picture book for young readers all about the life of late, great Ann Richards.
Um, and that one is illustrated by Carlyn Witt, who is an awesome Texan that lives in LA now And then the second is called Dorothy the Brave. It’s the story of a female aviator from World War II who I got to meet and interview for the first time when I was in eighth [00:05:00] grade.
Jennie: What?
Meghan: A wild story. And, um, then I ended up writing the book that she got to read just months before she passed at the age of 99.
Jennie: What?
Meghan: Um, and I know. That one was a, a true book of my heart. Um, that one is illustrated by Brooke Smart, who is based in Utah. And the third book that came out last year was, is called The Bees of Notre Dame, and it’s illustrated by E.B. Goodale, and it’s the true s- survival story of the honeybees that were housed on the rooftop of the cathedral when it burned.
Jennie: Wow, that’s so timely, ‘cause the cathedral just opened.
Meghan: Yes, yes.
Jennie: Wow.
Meghan: And I actually got to go back over the summer with my family. We did a huge bucket list trip and went to see the Olympic Games, and so it was really cool to be back there over the summer.
Jennie: How did you... Now I’m just curious about this story.
Sure. How did
Meghan: you hear
Jennie: about the bees?
Meghan: I was at home with a bunch of sick kids right before [00:06:00] Easter, the week leading up to Easter. My kids were really tiny at the time. And, um, I am a beekeeper, and so all of my friends were sending me the link to the article about these honeybees. Everyone was wanting to know if they survived the fire.
And I sent the link to my agent, Alyssa Eisner Henkin, and sh- I said, “Is this the bee book?” She had been kind of pushing me, like, “Bees are so in the zeitgeist. What is your bee book?” And I said, “Is this the bee book?” And she said, “How fast can you get it to me?” And I told her I had only ever been to Paris, Texas, so I needed to jump on a plane.
And my husband actually flies for Southwest, and so I was able to use his pass privilege to hitchhike there on, like, taxes. It was a miracle. And on the way over, Jennie, on the way over I was, like, googling the email addresses for the people that were interviewed in the USA Today article, and emailing them and telling them, “I’m on my way.
Can I please have an interview?” And they were telling me no, like, three times in a row, and finally they relented, and they were so [00:07:00] wonderful. And I got to go beekeeping on the rooftops of Paris. I still can’t believe that that happened.
Jennie: This is a crazy story.
Meghan: It is wild.
Jennie: Wow, that is so cool.
Meghan: It was really cool.
Okay.
Jennie: So this is the, this is the vibe of what you were working on when, when you started to write the novel- Yes ... that you’re, you’re talking about. So-
Meghan: Yes ...
Jennie: I’m curious about your instinct to come do the Blueprint Challenge with a finished manuscript, because for me that’s actually- One of the most powerful times to use the tool of the blueprint is- Mm-hmm
to sort of see, well, what do I have? What’s working? You know, to your, you used the word fix. What, what needs to be fixed? What was your instinct for doing something like that with this finished manuscript?
Meghan: Well, I just knew that it wasn’t working, and even after having spent all this time and money on the MFA, I still didn’t know how to fix it.
And I [00:08:00] I just was really lost. I knew that there was a good story. I knew that, that this middle grade voice was very much my natural voice. I think that’s the reason why I have fallen into picture book nonfiction, is because that voice kind of trends older anyway. Um, so I knew that what I had written was good, but it just wasn’t working, and I couldn’t figure out how to make it work.
And so I thought, “Well, I, I have to try this. W- why not?”
Jennie: Wow, okay. So the... Some people think that 10 weeks to do the blueprint is kind of a long time, where you’re very methodically doing each... There are actually 14 steps in the blueprint. Mm-hmm. We combine them into, to making it, um, a 10-week podcast challenge that is coming up again starting in January.
Um, was the 10 week, did that feel like a good pace for you to work through this, or did it feel... I imagine you still have pretty little kids, if they [00:09:00] were really, really little in, in the pandemic.
Meghan: Yeah. Yeah. So it was interesting because I think that the first time through I needed all of that time to just really marinate.
Like, I would, I usually listen to y’all’s podcast when I run, and I would go out with my dog, and I would run, and I would listen to it, and then I would be percolating on it, and throughout the week. I’d even listen to it multiple times before I actually sat down to do the work. Um, but I think the first time through that that was a great pace because I really wanted to learn what the steps were, what was the reasoning behind it, and how could I really do it well.
And so the first time through, um, actually I think I only got a few weeks in and had this terrible tragedy in my family, and my father-in-law passed away suddenly. And so I had to kick it down the road, and I didn’t actually, um, finish in time to put my name in the hat for the drawing or whatever. Yeah. And I picked it up and ended up [00:10:00] finishing in, like, late October.
But I was really grateful for the inability to, um, to just binge the whole system, because I think it really helped me pace myself and learn each step, and the reasoning behind each step.
Jennie: Right. Right. That’s interesting. Um, I’m gonna make a note that maybe we should make that available, um, to people who sign up for it, ‘cause I think we could.
I’ll talk to KJ about that. Um, so okay. So it, y- you’d started and then you set it aside and you came back to it, and what did you, what did the blueprint process show you about the story, or, um, what insights did you have at that point?
Meghan: Well, my agent had seen ear- like, the, the very first finished draft that I had done during my MFA program, and she was like, “This is great.
I love it, but there’s nothing happening here.” And so, like, great setting and great characters, but [00:11:00] what is the plot? And so, um It really helped me figure out that there wasn’t a plot, and people had said that, but I was like, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m not really sure how to, to invent a new thread.”
And it really, the inside outline really helped me make those connections. In fact, I’m going to just tell you that I have this Post-it Note that lives on my laptop that says, “Each scene, plot what happens, point the emotional meaning for the main character.” And I just like because of that, and then again, plot and point, plot and point, and this has helped me because since then I have done the blueprint challenge again twice.
Once over this past summer I did it for a nonfiction project, and then I actually recently worked through it again for a new novel that I’m hopefully gonna have ready for my editor when I finish edits on this new thing that I just sold. And, um, it’s been [00:12:00] really just such a good tool for me. I think as someone who grew up with an athletic background, I was so used to having a coach and like I’m really good at following directions.
I like cooking because a recipe is easy to follow. I just need someone to tell me what to do and then I can do it. So it’s been so good for me to have that roadmap.
Jennie: Wow, that just makes me smile so hard, um, to hear that that’s on a Post-it Note on your computer. That’s so cool. Yes. It’s, um, we’re talking about the inside outline, which is the culmination of the fiction blueprint.
There are different outlines that culminate the nonfiction and memoir blueprints, but the idea is to have a very small outline that captures the emotional arc of the character or in the other genres of the, of the reader’s transformation and marries it to the plot. Because so often, well, the feedback you got is exactly what often writers encounter is [00:13:00] nothing happens or nothing matters that happens.
Exactly. Seems there’s a, there might be a lot of drama or action, but it doesn’t actually impact the protagonist and their movements and decisions. So that’s very cool. That makes me so happy. Okay, so you find out that, um, that nothing’s happening in your story, so then what did you do?
Meghan: Well, I was able to...
So I did the inside outli- finished the blueprint, including the inside outline, which really was the key for me to understanding that I needed things to happen so that other things could happen. I, I had the idea for what was going to be the, the final scene, like that was maybe one of the first things that had come to me with this idea for the book.
But I didn’t know how to get there or how to get there that mattered, like you’re saying, and so that was really illuminating. And once I finished the blueprint, I then, again- Unfortunately or not, set it aside for what [00:14:00] turned out to be like a whole nother year. Wow. And I launched the ... And part of it was because it was really hard for me to emotionally, like launch these picture books out into the world, and market them, and then also be writing this completely different thing, and be a mom, and all the other things that are going on.
So, um, I came back to it about a year ago, a little more than a year ago. And, um, I actually had like a week of school visits lined up. Um, my Ann Richards book had made it onto this big state list called the Blue Bonnet List, which in Texas is like the big list, and it’s a big list, um, nationally. I grew up reading the Blue Bonnet List.
It was a dream come true. I was, as soon as this happened, I was like, “I could die happy tonight.” Aw. Um, so my Ann Richards book was on the Blue Bonnet List. I was doing lots of school visits, and I had booked a week of visits in the Houston area. But for some reason, a couple [00:15:00] schools backed out, don’t know why.
Um, and anyway, I had these two or three days that my, my traveling husband had already like blocked off for vacation so that he could help at home with the kids. And I just booked myself a fancy hotel in downtown Houston, made myself stay there and finish revising according to the blueprint that I had created.
And at the end of that process, I was able to send my agent a new revision, and then she and I worked on it for the first half of this year, and it finally went out, um, at the end of the summer.
Jennie: Wow. So then that brings us to the, the, the place where the podcast hosts got an email from you saying that we had done your pages on, in the First Page Lab, and that you had, you had sold this novel.
And [00:16:00] we It was so funny because we don’t know who the writers are. People are, you know, we don’t know, it’s anonymous, or we don’t look at the names, or we don’t know who they are. We’re just looking at these pages. And so we, we did those pages, and I don’t remember what we said, but do you want to tell us, uh, first of all the name of the novel?
Meghan: I would love to. So the, um, this was, I think I renamed it, uh, I don’t even remember. It’s been a long time. It’s called Welcome to Heaven, tentatively, and actually, I was talking to my editor, and it’s not officially announced, and I said, “Is it okay for me to do this podcast?” She was like, “Why don’t you an- officially announce the novel on the podcast?”
Amazing. So here it is, the official announcement that Welcome to Heaven is gonna be published by Firewell and Friends, and, um, it’s due out in spring of ‘26. But the funny thing was that, um, in, so in the timeline of things, [00:17:00] I had sent you these pages on a whim because I was feeling really insecure about things.
I had just heard back from my agent about things she felt like still needed to be fixed before it went out on submission, and I was like, “I just feel like I should put this in a drawer. I haven’t sold anything in four years. I keep creating stuff and nothing is taking, and maybe I just need to put this away.”
And, um, it was at the very beginning of the summer, and y’all had put out the call. Um, I was not in a good space mentally, and so for, like, a kick in the pants, I threw the, the first pages on, and it was actually at an experimental prologue that I had just come up with as, like, something new. I posted them or submitted them to y’all and thought, “Well, maybe this is just the kick in the pants that I need.”
And then I heard back after it had already gone out on submission that it was going, and I had finished a bunch of other revisions, that it was going to be [00:18:00] reviewed on the podcast publicly. And I was terrified. Terrified. Truly terrified. I think KJ actually said, “We’re going to read your stuff,” and I responded that I was terrified And unfortunately also, I was unable to, I think I was, like, up late folding laundry, doing something really mundane and boring, and I was up way too late, and I got a notification on my phone that it had gone live, and I should have just waited till the next morning.
But I listened to it, and I couldn’t fall asleep that night at all because, to be frank, it wasn’t a great review.
Jennie: I’m just laughing because it’s so brutal, actually, what we do. It’s really just awful. Like, we’re just talking about how things land with us. But I remember it was titled Welcome to Heaven at the time, ‘cause I remember then the first lines are that it’s taking place in a place called Heaven, Texas.
[00:19:00] Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. And, and I remember loving that, that, um, sort of little twist that the title you think is something different than what it is, um, really, or, or maybe actually not. But, um, I, I remember that part and loving that, and what did we say?
Meghan: Well, so I, I mean, what you said was totally true, and part of it is that this, like, experimental prologue needs, like, formatting to really be understood, and there’s no formatting in the form that you send in your first pages.
Um, and I was really interested. I actually only got edoto- my editorial letter and my notes back from my editor last Friday. Oh, wow. And I was dying to see if she had excised the prologue, and I, she hasn’t. I’m only, I have only gotten a little bit into it, so she hasn’t yet, but there might be some implications later that’s like, “Maybe we should nix the prologue.”
I’m not sure. Yeah. I’m not there yet. Um, but basically what you said was, and it took me a long time to hear the truth of [00:20:00] what was actually being said. Maybe other writers can, uh, and maybe you can relate to this, that sometimes when you get critical feedback, it’s hard to hear any of the positive feedback, too.
Jennie: Yeah.
Meghan: So the first time, when I listened to it at midnight, I was terrified. I wanted to crawl into a hole and never come out, and I thought, “Wow, what a mistake. I can’t believe this is on the desk of editors. I’m never gonna get a contract ever in my life.”
Jennie: Oh, no. “
Meghan: What a huge mistake.” But then I went back and made myself listen to it again when the sun had come up, and I, I thought, “Well, there’s actually some really great compliments in here about how I do have good writing chops,” and writing a story is hard, and it takes more than just being able to, to write beautifully.
Like, you have to be able to tell the story correctly, and that’s always been something that I feel like I’ve struggled with. So I am so grateful for the critical feedback, and I think that it’s such a lesson and a good reminder to me And hopefully other people that when we receive critical feedback, to really listen to the parts that are positive too, because [00:21:00] that’s just as important as the, as the critical pieces.
Which are also really wonderful. I had an advisor, Jane Kurtz, when I was at PCFA, who was helping me with my Notre Dame book, and she had given me some, um, some brutal feedback, and I was really kind of discouraged. And she actually said, “I think I need to get on the phone with you because I can tell that this is hard for you, and let’s talk about it.”
And she told me on that phone call that... She said, “You know, what I want you to think about this as is these are, these are opportunities to make it the best that it can be because once it’s published, you can’t change it anymore, and I want you to be so happy with what it is.” And so I try and remind myself of Jane being my little guardian angel on my shoulder just telling me all the time, like, “It’s okay.
We’re just making it better.”
Jennie: Oh, I love that. So Welcome to Heaven, coming out in spring 2026. Do you want to talk about what the story’s about, or do you want to save that for, um-
Meghan: I’ll just, just very [00:22:00] shortly, um, because I don’t know how much is going to change. We’re just start- I’m just starting revisions.
Um, but right now we have Maisie, who is a just graduated from sixth grade student. She’s recently lost her father. Her mother’s, um, kind of functional alcoholsm- alcoholism has become not so functional in the wake of her father’s death, and Mom has to head out to rehab. And on the way, Maisie gets dropped off in West Texas for a summer with her aunt.
She meets a guy named Walt out there. He’s a couple years older. They run around town solving a small town corruption case, and in the midst of that, find out some big family secrets.
Jennie: Ooh, sounds so good. So, um, so this will be your first novel, and it’s, uh, middle grade, and-
Meghan: Yes ...
Jennie: it sounds like it will sit nicely next to your pic- picture book work in terms of your, your body of work.
Meghan: I hope so, yeah. It’s fun to be able to move [00:23:00] into something new and something exciting, and I just feel like I’m learning all the time, and that makes me happy.
Jennie: And it sounds like you have another... Did you get a two-book deal, or are you writing this second book on for option, an option?
Meghan: Yes. I d- I didn’t get a two-book deal, which is okay with me.
It feels like maybe a little less pressure. Um- And I also know that I need to prove myself here. So yes, I’ve, I’ve got this other book that I just finished blueprinting, and I hope to be able to have an pretty easy time doing just submitting my outline and some sample chapters, and maybe could sell that.
We’ll see.
Jennie: I love that you are using the blueprint so steadfastly. How is it doing it- It’s
Meghan: such a great tool.
Jennie: So tell me all about how, what you love.
Meghan: Well, I will, because I am so amazed that you have come up with this. It really is a fabulous tool, especially for people like me that just need a little hand-holding.[00:24:00]
Um, it hasn’t become, like, super intuitive to me yet. I think, you know, I hope that that will come eventually. I was listening to, I don’t remember who it was, I’m sorry, a guest recently talk to you about how they can just hear your voice as they’re blueprinting and even writing now because, um, it comes so naturally, and I’m hoping that that is not far away for me.
But I used it last summer to work through a middle-grade nonfiction project that I don’t know when I will get to, but I’m glad that I have something there in case I decide to really go for it. Um, I don’t want to talk too much about it except to say that it’s about a big-time, um, sports hero, and I think that we’re, the middle-grade genre is missing a lot, a lot of, like, sports books, and kids love sports so much, and so I really would love to do that.
When I go into schools and I mention that I’m working on this project, the kids are like, [00:25:00] “Oh my gosh, I want that book.” So I think that I will write it at some point, I just don’t know that I’m ready yet. Um, and then the
Jennie: book- Can I stop you? I’m actually really curious about-
Meghan: Yes ...
Jennie: the assuredness with which you say that.
What, how do you gauge your readiness?
Meghan: Hmm. Well, I think because you know what? I- there was one point, I don’t know if it’s like in the written materials that go along with the brup- blueprint or if it’s in the, um, podcast, but you talk about if you’re not super excited about it at the end, maybe something isn’t quite there.
And so I think that’s what’s making me feel hesitant is I feel like nervous and not excited.
Jennie: Yeah. Interesting. So
Meghan: I think that maybe that’s what’s making me feel not quite ready.
Jennie: Interesting. Okay. Sorry, I interrupted you. You were talking about- No ... um, so you had this nonfiction and now you’re thinking about the second, uh, fiction.
Meghan: Mm-hmm. Yeah. [00:26:00] And I, this is something that this idea came to me, um, when I was up at my kid’s school working at their, like, student store where the currency is given to them based on behavior, and I just had this idea. I talked to this one kid who was so hysterical, and I told him when he left, I said, “I think you just gave me the next idea for my next book.”
And he said, “Well, you’ll have to write my name in the acknowledgments.” I said, “Don’t worry, Robert, you can have that.”
Jennie: Aw. That’s so fun. That’s so fun. Well, so for folks who are thinking about doing our January blueprint challenge, it starts on January 6th, and it’s open to anybody who’s a paid subscriber of the podcast.
And you get these 10 podcasts, special podcasts where we walk through each step of the blueprint, and there’s a workbook to capture your answers, and you also get a copy of my blueprint book. Um, and people can do it in fiction, [00:27:00] nonfiction, or memoir. And we have a team of coaches, this is new since you did it, Meghan, um, a team of certified Author Accelerator certified coaches who host Ask Me Anything events and write-alongs, and they’re there to guide and answer questions.
And they’re ... We have specialists in all the genres, so it’s really exciting. Um, can you talk about why you would recommend this for somebody who’s got a finished, finished manuscript? ‘Cause it works for so- somebody who’s starting something new, but I’d love to hear your thoughts on why you think it would be valuable.
Meghan: Well, I think it’s certainly valuable for both, for people who haven’t yet started and for people that, that have already finished a draft, because I’ve done it from both sides, and I am grateful for it in both instances. Um, in fact, people ask me a lot, I’m sure that anybody who’s published gets the question of, “How do I do what you’re doing?”
And I always tell them to join SCBWI if they’re interested in children, and then [00:28:00] take a class. And this would be a class that I would advise taking. I would consider it, consider it a class. In fact, I have the m- each blueprint saved under the classes folder in my documents- Oh, amazing ... because I consider it a class.
And so I think that this tool for me, if it’s something that I have not yet written, I’m hoping I haven’t yet done the novel that I’m working on. But I feel like it’s gonna help my process be so much smoother. For somebody that has already finished a draft, I think that this tool helps you with something that can feel super unwieldy to actually see it from a, a bird’s-eye view.
One of the hardest things for me going from writing picture book to a longer form has been that in picture book, I can really see the whole story pretty easily. It’s not that hard to wrap my head around. But the puzzle of the novel is so [00:29:00] intricate, and it’s so complex, and this tool has helped me really see it, um, in my mind more easily
Jennie: Wow, that’s, that’s a great encapsulation of it.
Thank you for that. We would love to have anybody who’s eager to do this tool to join us and, um, you’ll be part of a community going through it together, which will be fun. Um, and Meghan, you’re now gonna be somebody that the, the podcast follows and cheers on ‘cause I feel like you’ve had all these touch points with us, um, in doing the blueprint challenge and then the first pages.
You were very brave to send those in and, uh, tolerate our, uh, judgment and opinions. So- I
Meghan: needed, I needed it. I needed it, for sure.
Jennie: I mean, you know, we’re just, we’re just people with, with our opinions, but I guess we do have a lot of experience and the ability to point to evidence in those pages. So we, we have quite a backlog of, uh, first pages that have been submitted.[00:30:00]
Um, so we can’t do them all, but we will put out a call in the future to continue to do those because they’re, they’re, they’re fun for us, and I think they’re useful for our listeners. So thank-
Meghan: And
Jennie: I,
Meghan: I, I think if your, if your listeners still would like that experience, I think that there’s something to be said about just getting out and showing your work to people in your writing community or forming that writing community and getting your work in front of other eyes and how important that is.
So if you’re having trouble getting through that backlog, just making sure that you get your work in front of other people is super important.
Jennie: Yeah. Well, thank you, and thank you for sharing your whole story and, um, sharing your, your books. These, these books really, this bee book looks just incredibly charming.
I’m gonna, I’m gonna go snag that for somebody for the holidays for sure. That’s such a, what a fantastic idea, and, um, congratulations on the novel. And- Thank you ... um, I know 2026 seems like a long way away, but it’s really not. [00:31:00] It’s, you know, you’ve got your almost a year to do your launch activities, right?
So we know-
Meghan: Yes.
Jennie: It’ll be
Meghan: here very soon ...
Jennie: we know what you’ll be doing and, uh, good luck with the new book as well. Um- Thank
Meghan: you, Jennie.
Jennie: Oh, it’s just really delightful to meet you and to hear your story. Thank you for sharing it. And to our listeners, until next week, keep your butt in the chair and your head in the game.
Outro: The hashtag amwriting podcast is produced by Andrew Perilla. Our intro music, aptly titled Unemployed Monday was written and played by Max Cohen. Andrew and Max were paid for their time and their creative output because everyone deserves to be paid for their [00:32:00] work.


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