#AmWriting

• Pulitzer Winner Jennifer Senior on Knowing Your Voice (Ep 8)

  In this Write Big session of the #amwriting podcast, host Jennie Nash welcomes Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Jennifer Senior for a powerful conversation about finding, knowing, and claiming your voice.Jennifer shares how a medication once stripped away her ability to think in metaphor—the very heart of her writing—and what it was like to get that voice back. She and Jennie talk about how voice strengthens over time, why confidence and ruthless editing matter, and what it feels like when you’re truly writing in flow.It’s an inspiring reminder that your voice is your greatest strength—and worth honoring every time you sit down to write.TRANSCRIPT BELOW!THINGS MENTIONED IN THIS PODCAST:* Jennifer’s Fresh Air interview with Terry Gross: Can’t Sleep? You’re Not Alone* Atlantic feature story: What Bobby McIlvaine Left Behind* Atlantic feature story: The Ones We Sent Away* Atlantic feature story: It’s Your Friends Who Break Your Heart* The New York Times article: Happiness Won’t Save You* Heavyweight the podcastSPONSORSHIP MESSAGEHey, it’s Jennie Nash. And at Author Accelerator, we believe that the skills required to become a great book coach and build a successful book coaching business can be taught to people who come from all kinds of backgrounds and who bring all kinds of experiences to the work. But we also know that there are certain core characteristics that our most successful book coaches share. If you’ve been curious about becoming a book coach, and 2026 might be the year for you, come take our quiz to see how many of those core characteristics you have. You can find it at bookcoaches.com/characteristics-quiz.EPISODE TRANSCRIPTJennie NashHi, I’m Jennie Nash, and you’re listening to the Hashtag AmWriting Podcast. This is a Write Big Session, where I’m bringing you short episodes about the mindset shifts that help you stop playing small and write like it matters. This one might not actually be that short, because today I’m talking to journalist Jennifer Senior about the idea of finding and knowing and claiming your voice—a rather big part of writing big. Jennifer Senior is a staff writer at The Atlantic. She won the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing in 2022 and was a finalist again in 2024. Before that, she spent five years at The New York Times as both a daily book critic and a columnist for the opinion page, and nearly two decades at New York Magazine. She’s also the author of a bestselling parenting book, and frequently appears on NPR and other news shows. Welcome, Jennifer. Thanks for joining us.Jennifer SeniorThank you for having me. Hey, I got to clarify just one thing.Jennie NashOh, no.Jennifer SeniorAll Joy and No Fun is by no means a parenting book. I can’t tell you the first thing about how to raise your kids. It is all about how kids change their parents. It’s all like a sociological look at who we become and why we are—so our lives become so vexed. I like, I would do these book talks, and at the end, everybody would raise their hand and be like, “How do I get my kid into Harvard?” You know, like, the equivalent obviously—they wouldn’t say it that way. I’d be like; I don’t really have any idea, or how to get your kid to eat vegetables, or how to get your kid to, like, stop talking back. But anyway, I just have to clarify that, because every time...Jennie NashPlease, please—Jennifer SeniorSomeone says that, I’m like, “Noooo.” Anyway, it’s a sociology book. Ah, it’s an ethnography, you know. But anyway, it doesn’t matter.Jennie NashAll right, like she said, you guys—not what I said.Jennifer SeniorI’m not correcting you. It came out 11 years ago. There were no iPads then, or social media. I mean, forget it. It’s so dated anyway. But like, I just...Jennie NashThat’s so funny. So the reason that we’re speaking is that I heard you recently on Fresh Air with Terry Gross, where you were talking about an Atlantic feature story that you wrote called “Why Can’t Americans Sleep?” And this was obviously a reported piece, but also a really personal piece and you’re talking about your futile attempts to fall asleep and the latest research into insomnia and medication and therapy that you used to treat it, and we’ll link to that article and interview in the show notes. But the reason that we’re talking, and that in the middle of this conversation, which—which I’m listening to and I’m riveted by—you made this comment, and it was a little bit of a throwaway comment in the conversation, and, you know, then the conversation moved on. But you talked about how you were taking a particular antidepressant you’d been prescribed, and this was the quote you said: “It blew out all the circuitry that was responsible for generating metaphors, which is what I do as a writer. So it made my writing really flat.” And I was just like, hold up. What was that like? What happened? What—everything? So that’s why we’re talking. So… can we go back to the very beginning? If you can remember—Jess Lahey actually told me that when she was teaching fifth and sixth grade, that’s around the time that kids begin to grasp this idea of figurative language and metaphor and such. Do you remember learning how to write like that, like write in metaphor and simile and all such things?Jennifer SeniorOh, that’s funny. Do I remember it? I remember them starting to sort of come unbidden in my—like they would come unbidden in my head starting maybe in my—the minute I entered college, or maybe in my teens. Actually, I had that thing where some people have this—people who become writers have, like, a narrator’s voice in their head where they’re actually looking at things and describing them in the third person. They’re writing them as they witness the world. That went away, that narrator’s voice, which I also find sort of fascinating. But, like, I would say that it sort of emerged concurrently. I guess I was scribbling a little bit of, like, short story stuff, or I tried at least one when I was a senior in high school. So that was the first time maybe that, like, I started realizing that I had a flair for it. I also—once I noticed that, I know in college I would make, you know, when I started writing for the alternative weekly and I was reviewing things, particularly theater, I would make a conscientious effort to come up with good metaphors, and, like, 50% of them worked and 50% of them didn’t, because if you ever labor over a metaphor, there’s a much lower chance of it working. I mean, if you come—if you revisit it and go, oh, that’s not—you know, that you can tell if it’s too precious. But now if I labor over a metaphor, I don’t bother. I stop. You know, it has to come instantaneously or...Jennie NashOr that reminds me of people who write with the thesaurus open, like that’s going to be good, right? That’s not going to work. So I want to stick with this, you know, so that they come into your head, you recognize that, and just this idea of knowing, back in the day, that you could write like that—you… this was a thing you had, like you used the word “flair,” like had a flair for this. Were there other signs or things that led you to the work, like knowing you were good, or knowing when something was on the page that it was right, like, what—what is that?Jennifer SeniorIt’s that feeling of exhilaration, but it’s also that feeling of total bewilderment, like you’ve been struck by something—something just blew through you and you had nothing to do with it. I mean, it’s the cliché: here I am saying the metaphors are my superpower, which my editors were telling me, and I’m about to use a cliché, which is that you feel like you’re a conduit for something and you have absolutely nothing to do with it. So I would have that sense that it had almost come without conscious thought. That was sort of when I knew it was working. It’s also part of being in a flow state. It’s when you’re losing track of time and you’re just in it. And the metaphors are—yeah, they’re effortless. By the way, my brain is not entirely fogged in from long COVID, but I have noticed—and at first I didn’t really notice any decrements in cognition—but recently, I have. So I’m wondering now if I’m having problems with spontaneous metaphor generation. It’s a little bit disconcerting. And I do feel like all SSRIs—and I’m taking one now, just because, not just because long COVID is depressing, but because I have POTS, which is like a—it’s Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome, and that’s a very common sequela from long COVID, and it wipes out your plasma serotonin. So we have to take one anyway, we POTS patients. So I found that nicotine often helped with my long COVID, which is a thing—like a nicotine patch—and that made up for it. It almost felt like I was doping [laughing]. It made my writing so much better. But it’s been...Jennie NashWait, wait, wait, this is so interesting.Jennifer SeniorI know…it’s really weird. I would never have guessed that so much of my writing would be dampened by Big Pharma. I mean—but now with the nicotine patches, I was like, oh, now I get why writers are smoking until into the night, writing. Like, I mean, and I always wished that I did, just because it looked cool, you know? I could have just been one of those people with their Gitanes, or however you pronounce it, but, yeah.Jennie NashWow. So I want to come—I want to circle back to this in a minute, but let’s get to the first time—well, it sounds like the first time that happened where you were prescribed an antidepressant and—and you recognized that you lost the ability to write in metaphor. Can you talk about—well, first of all, can you tell us what the medication was?Jennifer SeniorYeah, it was Paxil, which is actually notorious for that. And at the top—which I only subsequently discovered—those were in the days where there were no such things as Reddit threads or anything like that. It was 1999… I guess, no, eight, but so really early. That was the bespoke antidepressant at the time, thought to be more nuanced. I think it’s now fallen out of favor, because it’s also a b***h to wean off of. But it was kind of awful, just—I would think, and nothing would come. It was the strangest thing. For—there’s all this static electricity usually when you write, right? And there’s a lot of free associating that goes on that, again, feels a little involuntary. You know, you start thinking—it’s like you’ve pulled back the spring in the pinball machine, and suddenly the thing is just bouncing around everywhere, and the ball wasn’t bouncing around. Nothing was lighting up. It was like a dis… it just was strange, to be able to summon nothing.Jennie NashWow. So you—you just used this killer metaphor to describe that.Jennifer SeniorYeah, that was spontaneous.Jennie NashRight? So—so you said first, you said static, static energy, which—which is interesting.Jennifer SeniorYeah, it’s... [buzzing sound]Jennie NashYeah. Yeah. Because it’s noisy. You’re talking about...Jennie SeniorOh, but it’s not disruptive noise. Sorry, that might seem like it’s like unwanted crackling, like on your television. I didn’t really—yeah, maybe that’s the wrong metaphor, actually, maybe the pinball is sort of better, that all you need is to, you know, psych yourself up, sit down, have your caffeine, and then bam, you know? But I didn’t mean static in that way.Jennie NashI understood what you meant. There’s like a buzzy energy.Jennifer SeniorYeah, right. It’s fizz.Jennie NashFizz... that’s so good. So you—you recognized that this was gone.Jennifer SeniorSo gone! Like the TV was off, you know?Jennie NashAnd did you...?Jennifer SeniorOr the machine, you know, was unplugged? I mean, it’s—Jennie NashYeah, and did you? I’m just so curious about the part of your brain that was watching another part of your brain.Jennifer Senior[Laughing] You know what? I think... oh, that’s really interesting. But are you watching, or are you just despairing because there’s nothing—I mean, I’m trying to think if that’s the right...Jennie NashBut there’s a part of your brain that’s like, this part of my brain isn’t working.Jennifer SeniorRight. I’m just thinking how much metacognition is involved in— I mean, if you forget a word, are you really, like, staring at that very hard, or are you just like, s**t, what’s the word? If you’re staring at Jack Nicholson on TV, and you’re like, why can’t I remember that dude’s name?Multiple speakers[Both laughing]Jennifer SeniorWhich happens to me far more regularly now, [unintelligible]… than it used to, you know? I mean, I don’t know. There is a part of you that’s completely alarmed, but, like, I guess you’re right. There did come a point where I—you’re right, where I suddenly realized, oh, there’s just been a total breakdown here. It’s never happening. Like, what is going on? Also, you know what would happen? Every sentence was a grind, like...Jennie NashOkay, so—okay, so...Jennifer Senior[Unintelligible]... Why is this so effortful? When you can’t hold the previous sentence in your head, suddenly there’s been this lapse in voice, right? Because, like, if every sentence is an effort and you’re starting from nothing again, there’s no continuity in how you sound. So, I mean, it was really dreadful. And by the way, if I can just say one thing, sorry now that—Jennie NashNo, I love it!Jennifer SeniorYeah. Sorry. I’m just—now you really got me going. I’m just like, yeah, I know. I’m sort of on a tear and a partial rant, which is Prozac—there came a point where, like, every single SSRI was too activating for me to sleep. But it was, of course, a problem, because being sleepless makes you depressed, so you need something to get at your depression. And SNRIs, like the Effexor’s and the Cymbalta’s, are out of the question, because those are known to be activating. So I kept vainly searching for SSRIs, and Prozac was the only one that didn’t—that wound up not being terribly activating, besides Paxil, but it, too, was somewhat deadening, and I wrote my whole book on it.Jennie NashWow!Jennifer SeniorIt’s not all metaphor.Multiple Speakers[both laughing]Jennifer SeniorIt’s not all me and no—nothing memorable, you know? I mean, it’s—it’s kind of a problem. It was—I can’t really bear to go back and look at it.Jennie NashWow.Jennie NashSo—so the feeling...Jennifer SeniorI’m really giving my book the hard sell, like it’s really a B plus in terms of its pro…—I mean, you know, it wasn’t.Jennie NashSo you—you—you recognize its happening, and what you recognize is a lack of fizzy, buzzy energy and a lack of flow. So I just have to ask now, presumably—well, there’s long COVID now, but when you don’t have—when you’re writing in your full powers, do you—is it always in a state of flow? Like, if you’re not in a state of flow, do you get up and go do something else? Like, what—how does that function in the life of a writer on a deadline?Jennifer SeniorOK. Well, am I always in a state of flow? No! I mean, flow is not—I don’t know anyone who’s good at something who just immediately can be in flow every time.Jennie NashYeah.Jennifer SeniorIt’s still magic when it happens. You know, when I was in flow almost out of the gate every day—the McIlvaine stories—like, I knew when I hit send, this thing is damn good. I knew when I hit send on a piece that was not as well read, but is like my second or third favorite story. I wrote something for The New York Times called “Happiness Wont Save You,” about a pioneer in—he wrote one of the foundational studies in positive psychology about lottery winners and paraplegics, and how lottery winners are pretty much no happier than random controls found in a phone book, and paraplegics are much less unhappy than you might think, compared to controls. It was really poorly designed. It would never withstand the scrutiny of peer review today. But anyway, this guy was, like, a very innovative thinker. His name was Philip Brickman, and in 1982 at 38 years old, he climbed—he got—went—he found his way to the roof of the tallest building in Ann Arbor and jumped, and took his own life. And I was in flow pretty much throughout writing that one too.Jennie NashWow. So the piece you’re referring to, that you referred to previous to that, is What Bobby McIlvaine Left Behind, which was a feature story in The Atlantic. It’s the one you won the—Pul…Pulitzer for? It’s now made into a book. It has, like...Jennifer SeniorAlthough all it is like, you know, the story between...Jennie NashCovers, right?Jennifer SeniorYeah. Yeah. Because—yeah, yeah.Jennie NashBut—Jennifer SeniorWhich is great, because then people can have it, rather than look at it online, which—and it goes on forever—so yeah.Jennie NashSo this is a piece—the subtitle is Grief, Conspiracy Theories, and One Family’s Search for Meaning in the Two Decades Since 9/11—and I actually pulled a couple of metaphors from that piece, because I re-read it knowing I was going to speak to you… and I mean, it was just so beautifully written. It’s—it’s so beautifully structured, everything, everything. But here’s a couple of examples for our listeners. You’re describing Bobby, who was a 26-year-old who died in 9/11, who was your brother’s college roommate.Jennifer SeniorAnd at that young adult—they—you can’t afford New York. They were living together for eight years. It was four in college, and four—Jennie NashWow.Jennifer SeniorIn New York City. They had a two-bedroom... yeah, in a cheaper part... well, to the extent that there are cheaper parts in...Jennie NashYeah.Jennifer SeniorThe way over near York Avenue, east side, yeah.Jennie NashSo you write, “When he smiled, it looked for all the world like he’d swallowed the moon.” And you wrote, “But for all Bobby’s hunger and swagger, what he mainly exuded, even during his college years, was warmth, decency, a corkscrew quirkiness.” So just that kind of language—a corkscrew quirkiness, like he’d swallowed the moon—that, it’s that the piece is full of that. So that’s interesting, that you felt in flow with this other piece you described and this one. So how would you describe—so you describe metaphors as things that just come—it just—it just happens. You’re not forcing it—you can’t force it. Do you think that’s true of whatever this ineffable thing of voice—voices—as well?Jennifer SeniorOh, that’s a good question. My voice got more distinct as I got older—it gets better. I think a lot of people’s—writers’—powers wax. Philip Roth is a great example of that. Colette? I mean, there are people whose powers really get better and better, and I’ve gotten better with more experience. But do you start with the voice? I think you do. I don’t know if you can teach someone a voice.Jennie NashSo when you say you’ve gotten better, what does that mean to you?Jennifer SeniorYeah. Um, I’m trying to think, like, do I write with more swing? Do I—just with more confidence because I’m older? Being a columnist…which is the least creative medium…Jennie NashYeah.Jennifer SeniorSeven hundred and fifty words to fit onto—I had a dedicated space in print. When David Leonhardt left, I took over the Monday spot, during COVID. So it’s really, really—but what it forces you to do is to be very—your writing becomes lean, and it becomes—and structure is everything. So this does not relate to voice, but my—I was always pretty good at structure anyway. I think if you—I think movies and radio, podcasts, are, like, great for structure. Storytelling podcasts are the best thing to—I think I unconsciously emulate them. The McIlvaine story has a three-act structure. There’s also—I think the podcast Heavyweight is sublime in that way.Jennie NashIs that Roxane Gay?Jennifer SeniorNo, no, no, no.Jennie NashOh, it’s, um—Jennifer SeniorIt’s Jonathan Goldstein.Jennie NashYes, got it. I’m going to write that down and link to that in our show notes.Jennifer SeniorIt’s... I’m trying to think of—because, you know, his is, like, narratives, and it’s—it’s got a very unusual premise. But voice, voice, voice—well, I, you know, I worked on making my metaphors better in the beginning. I worked on noticing things, you know, and I worked on—I have the—I’m the least visual person alive. I mean, this is what’s so interesting. Like, I failed to notice once that I had sat for an hour and a half with a woman who was missing an arm. I mean, I came back to the office and was talking—this is Barbara Epstein, who was a storied editor of The New York Review of Books, the story editor, along with Bob Silver. And I was talking to Mike Tomasky, who was our, like, city politic editor at the time. And I said to him, I just had this one—I knew she knew her. And he said, was it awkward? Was—you know, with her having one arm and everything? And I just stared at him and went one arm? I—I am really oblivious to stuff. And yet visual metaphors are no problem with me. Riddle me that, Batman. I don’t know why that is. But I can, like, summon them in my head, and so I worked at it for a while, when my editors were responsive to it. Now they come more easily, so that seems to maybe just be a facility. I started noticing them in other people’s writing. So Michael Ondaatje —in, I think it was In the Skin of a Lion, but maybe it was The English Patient. I’ve read, like, every book of his, like I’ve, you know— Running… was it Running in the Family? Running with the Family? I think it was Running in the—his memoir. And, I mean, doesn’t—everything. Anil’s Ghost—he— you know, that was it The Ballad of Billy the Kid? [The Collected Works of Billy the Kid] Anyway, I can go on and on. He had one metaphor talking about the evening being as serene as ink. And it was then that I realized that metaphors without effort often—and—or is that a simile? That’s a simile.Jennie NashLike—or if it’s “like” or “as,” it’s a simile.Jennifer SeniorYeah. So I’m pretty good with similes, maybe more than metaphors. But... serene as ink. I realized that what made that work is that ink is one syllable. There is something about landing on a word with one syllable that sounds like you did not work particularly hard at it. You just look at it and keep going. And I know that I made a real effort to make my metaphors do that for a while, and I still do sometimes. Anything more than that can seem labored.Jennie NashOh, but that’s so interesting. So you—you noticed in other people what worked and what you liked, and then tried to fold that into your own work.Jennifer SeniorYeah.Jennie NashSo does that mean you might noodle on—like, you have the structure of the metaphor or simile, but you might noodle on the word—Jennifer SeniorThe final word?Jennie NashThe final word.Jennifer SeniorYeah. Yeah, the actual simile, or whatever—yeah, I guess it’s a simile—yeah, sometimes. Sometimes they—like I said, they come unbidden. I think I have enough experience now—which may make my voice better—to know what’s crap. And I also, by the way, I’ll tell you what makes your voice better: just being very willing to hit Select Alt, Delete. You know, there’s more where that came from. I am a monster of self-editing. I just—I have no problem doing it. I like to do it. I like to be told when things are s**t. I think that improves your voice, because you can see it on the page.Jennie NashYeah.Jennifer SeniorAnd also, I think paying attention to other people’s writing, you know, I did more and more of that, you know, reverse engineering stuff, looking at how they did stuff as I got older, so...Jennie NashSo I was going to ask a question, which now maybe you already answered, but the question was going to be… you said that you’re—you feel like you’re getting better as a writer as you got older. And you—you said that was due to experience. And I was going to ask, is it, or is it due to getting older? You know, is there something about literally living more years that makes you better, or, you know, like, is wisdom something that you just get, or is it something you work for? But I think what I’m hearing is you’re saying you have worked to become the kind of writer who knows, you know, what you just said—you delete stuff, it comes again. But tell me if—you know, you welcome the kind of tough feedback, because you know that makes you better. You know, this sort of real effort to become better, it sounds like that’s a practice you have. Is that—is that right?Jennifer SeniorOh yeah. I mean, well, let’s do two things on that, please. I so easily lose my juju these days that, like, you’ve got to—if you can put a, you know, oh God, I’m going to use a cliché again—if you can put a pin in or bookmark that, the observation about, you know, harsh feedback. I want to come back to that. But yes, one of the things that I was going to keep—when I said that I have the confidence now, I also was going to say that I have the wisdom, but I had too many kind of competing—Jennie NashYeah. Yeah.Jennifer SeniorYou know, were running at once, and I, you know, many trains on many tracks—Jennie NashYeah, yeah.Jennifer Senior…about to leave, so…, Like, I had to sort of hop on one. But, like, the—the confidence and wisdom, yes, and also, like, I’ll tell you something: in the McIlvaine piece, it may have been the first time I did, like, a narrative nonfiction. I told a story. There was a time when I would have hid behind research on that one.Jennie NashOoh, and did you tell a story. It was the—I remember reading that piece when it first came out, and there you’re introducing, you know, this—the situation. And then there’s a moment, and it comes very quickly at the top of the piece, where you explain your relationship to the protagonist of the story. And there’s a—there’s just a moment of like, oh, we’re—we’re really in something different here. There’s really—is that feel of, this is not a reported story, this is a lived story, and that there’s so many layers of power, I mean, to the story itself, but obviously the way that you—you present it, so I know exactly what you’re talking about.Jennifer SeniorYeah, and by the way, I think writing in the first person, which I’ve been doing a lot of lately, is not something I would have done until now. Probably because I am older and I feel like I’ve earned it. I have more to say. I’ve been through more stuff. It’s not, like, with the same kind of narcissism or adolescent—like, I want to get this out, you know. It’s more searching, I think, and because I’ve seen more, and also because I’ve had these pent up stories that I’ve wanted to tell for a long time. And also I just don’t think I would have had the balls, you know.Jennie NashRight.Jennifer SeniorSo some of it is—and I think that that’s part of—you can write better in your own voice. If it’s you writing about you, you’re—there’s no better authority, you know? So your voice comes out.Jennie NashRight.Jennifer SeniorBut I’m trying to think of also—I would have hid behind research and talked about theories of grief. And when I wrote, “It’s the damnedest thing, the dead abandon you, and then you abandon the dead,” I had blurted that out loud when I was talking to, actually, not Bobby’s brother, which is the context in which I wrote it, but to Bobby’s—I said that, it’s, like, right there on the tape—to his former almost fiancée. And I was thinking about that line, that I let it stand. I didn’t actually then rush off and see if there was a body of literature that talked about the guilt that the living feel about letting go of their memories. But I would have done that at one point. I would have turned it into this... because I was too afraid to just let my own observations stand. But you get older and you’re like, you know what? I’m smart enough to just let that be mine. Like, assume...Jennie NashRight.Jennifer SeniorIt’s got to be right. But can we go back, also, before I forget?Jennie NashYeah, we’re going to go back to harsh, but—but I would just want to use your cliché, put a pin in what you said, because you’ve said so many important things— that there’s actual practice of getting better, and then there’s also wisdom of—of just owning, growing into, embracing, which are two different things, both so important. So I just wanted to highlight that you’ve gone through those two things. So yes, let’s go back to—I said harsh, and maybe I miss—can...misrepresenting what you meant.Jennifer SeniorYou may not have said that. I don’t know what you said.Jennie NashNo, I did, I did.Jennifer SeniorYou did, okay, yeah, because I just know that it was processed as a harsh—oh no, totally. Like, I was going to say to you that—so there was a part of my book, my book, eventually, I just gave one chapter to each person in my life whom I thought could, like, assess it best, and one of them, so this friend—I did it on paper. He circled three paragraphs, and he wrote, and I quote, “Is this just a shitty way of saying...?” And then I was like, thank God someone caught it, if it was shitty. Oh my God. And then—and I was totally old enough to handle it, you know, I was like 44, whatever, 43. And then, who was it? Someone else—oh, I think I gave my husband the intro, and he wrote—he circled a paragraph and just wrote, “Ugh.” Okay, Select Alt, Delete, redo. You know, like, what are you going to do with that? That’s so unambiguous. It’s like, you know—and also, I mean, when you’re younger, you argue. When you’re older, you never quarrel with Ugh. Or Is this...Jennie NashRight, you’re just like, okay, yep.Jennifer SeniorYeah. And again, you—you’ve done it enough that, you know, there’s so much more where that came from.Jennie NashYeah.Jennifer SeniorWhy cling to anything that someone just, I don’t know, had this totally allergic reaction to? Like, you know, if my husband broke out in a hive.Jennie NashYeah. So, circling back to the—the storyline of—you took this medication, you lost your ability to write in this way, you changed medications, presumably, you got it back. What did it feel like to get it back? Did you—do you remember that?Jennifer SeniorOh God, yes, it was glorious.Jennie NashReally?!Jennifer SeniorOh, you don’t feel like yourself. I think that—I mean, I think there are many professions that are intertwined with identity. They may be the more professional—I’m sorry, the more creative professions. But not always, you know. And so if your writing voice is gone, and it’s—I mean, so much of writing is an expression of your interior, if not life, then, I don’t know some kind of thought process and something that you’re working out. To have that drained out of you, for someone to just decant all the life out of your—or something to decant all the life out of your writing, it’s—it’s, I wouldn’t say it’s traumatic, that’s totally overstating it, but it’s—it’s a huge bummer. It’s, you know, it’s depressing.Jennie NashWell, the word glorious, that’s so cool. So to feel that you got back your—the you-ness of your voice was—was glorious. I mean, that’s—that’s amazing.Jennifer SeniorWhat—if I can just say, I wrote a feature, right, that then, like, I remember coming off of it, and then I wrote a feature that won the News Women’s Club of New York story for best feature that year. Like, I didn’t realize that those are kind of hard to win, and not like I won... I think I’ve won one since. But, like, that was in, like, 99 or something. I mean, like, you know, I don’t write a whole lot of things that win stuff, until recently, you know. There was, like, a real kind of blackout period where, you know, I mean, but like—which I think, it probably didn’t have to do with the quality of my writing. I mean, there was—but, I mean, you know, I wasn’t writing any of the stuff that floated to the tippy top, and, like, I think that there was some kind of explosion thereof, like, all the, again, stuff that was just desperate to come out. I think there was just this volcanic outpouring.Jennie NashSo you’re saying now you are winning things, which is indeed true. I mean, Pulitzer Prizes among them. Do you think that that has to do with this getting better? The wisdom, the practice, the glorious having of your abilities? Or, I guess what I’m asking is, like, is luck a part of—a part of all that? Is it just, it just happens? Or do you think there’s some reason that it’s happening? You feel that your writing is that powerful now?Jennifer SeniorWell, luck is definitely a part of it, because The Atlantic is the greatest place to showcase your feature writing. It gets so much attention, even though I think fewer people probably read that piece about Bobby McIlvaine than would have read any of my columns on any given day. The kind of attention was just so different. And it makes sense in a funny way, because it was 13,600 words or something. I mean, it was so long, and columns are 750 words. But, like, I think that I just lucked out in terms of the showcase. So that’s definitely a part of it. And The Atlantic has the machinery to, you know, and all these dedicated, wonderful publicity people who will make it possible for people to read it, blah, blah, blah. So there’s that. If you’re older, you know everyone in the business, so you have people amplifying your work, they’re suddenly reading it and saying, hey, everybody read it. It was before Twitter turned to garbage. Media was still a way to amplify it. It’s much harder now, so passing things along through social media has become a real problem. But at that moment, it was not—Jennie NashYeah.Jennifer SeniorSo that was totally luck. Also, I wonder if it was because I was suddenly writing something from in the first person, and my voice was just better that way. And I wouldn’t have had, like, the courage, you know?Jennie NashYeah.Jennifer SeniorAnd also, you’re a book critic, which is what I was at The Times. And you certainly are not writing from the first person. And as a columnist, you’re not either.Jennie NashYeah.Jennifer SeniorSo, you know, those are very kind of constricted forms, and they’re also not—there are certainly critics who win Pulitzers. I don’t think I was good enough at it. I was good, but it was not good enough. I could name off the top of my head, like, so many critics who were—who are—who haven’t even won anything yet. Like Dwight Garner really deserves one. Why has he not won a Pulitzer? He’s, I think, the best writer—him and Sophie Gilbert, who keeps coming close. I don’t get it, like, what the hell?Jennie NashDo you—as a—as a reader of other people’s work, I know you—you mentioned Michael Ondaatje that you’d studied—study him. But do you just recognize when somebody else is on their game? Like, do you recognize the voice or the gloriousness of somebody else’s work? Can you just be like, yeah, that...?Jennifer SeniorWell, Philip Roth, sentence for sentence. Martin Amis, even more so—I cannot get over the originality of each of his sentences and the wide vocabulary from which he recruits his words, and, like, maybe some of that is just being English. I think they just get better, kind of more comprehensive. They read more comprehensively. And I always tell people, if they want to improve their voice, they should read the Victorians, like that [unintelligible]. His also facility with metaphor, I don’t think, is without equal. The thing is, I can’t stand his fiction. I just find it repellent. But his criticism is bangers and his memoirs are great, so I love them.Jennie NashYeah.Jennifer SeniorSo I really—I read him very attentively, trying to think of, like, other people whose kind of...Jennie NashI guess I was—I was getting at more... like, genius recognizes genius, that con... that concept, like, when you know you can do this and write in this way from time to time anyway, you can pull it off.Jennifer SeniorYeah, genius as in—I wouldn’t—we can’t go there.Jennie NashWell, that’s the—that’s the cliché, right? But, like...Jennifer SeniorOh no, I know, I know. Game—game, game recognizes game.Jennie NashGame recognizes game is a better way of saying it. Like, do you see—that’s actually what the phrase is. I don’t know where I came up with genius, but...Jennifer SeniorNo, it’s fine. You can stick anything in that template, you know—evil recognizes evil, I mean, you know, it’s like a...Jennie NashYeah. Do you see it? Do you see it? Like, you can see it in other people?Jennifer SeniorSure. Oh yeah, I see it.Jennie NashYeah.Jennifer SeniorI mean, you’re just talking about among my contemporaries, or just as it...Jennie NashJust like anything, like when you pick up a book or you read an article or even listen to a storytelling pack podcast, that sense of being in the hands of somebody who’s on it.Jennifer SeniorYeah, I think that Jonathan Goldstein—I mean, I think that the—the Heavyweight Podcast, for sure, is something—and more than that, it’s—it’s storytelling structure, it’s just that—I think that anybody who’s a master at structure would just look at that show and be like, yeah, that show nails it each and every time.Jennie NashI’ve not listened, but I feel like I should end our time together. I would talk to you forever about this, but I always like to leave our listeners with something specific to reflect or practice or do. And is there anything related to metaphor or practicing, finding your voice, owning your voice, that you would suggest for—for folks? You’ve already suggested a lot.Jennifer SeniorRead the Victorians.Jennie NashAwesome. Any particular one that you would say start with?Jennifer SeniorYeah, you know what? I find Dickens rough sledding. I like his, you know, dear friend Wilkie Collins. I think No Name is one of the greatest books ever. I would read No Name.Jennie NashAmazing. And I will add, go read Jennifer’s work. We’ll link to a bunch of it in the show notes. Study her and—and watch what she does and learn what she does—that there it is, a master at work, and that’s what I would suggest. So thank you for joining us and having this amazing discussion.Jennifer SeniorThis has been super fun.Jennie NashAnd for our listeners, until next time, stop playing small and write like it matters.NarratorThe Hashtag AmWriting Podcast is produced by Andrew Perrella. 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

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• Playing Big Means Treating Your Writing Like a Business (Ep 7)

  In this Write Big session, Jenny Nash shares a story from her business mastermind about what it looks like to “play big.” From asking for help to boldly joining the conversation, Jenny shows how these small but brave moves apply directly to the writing life—and why writers need to see themselves as entrepreneurs. A quick dose of inspiration to stop playing small and write like it matters!SPONSORSHIP MESSAGEAre you staring down a holiday shopping list with a haunted look in your eyes? My great big guide to holiday under-the-radar book-giving perfection can help. Maybe you think not everyone in your life wants a book, but honestly, they are just wrong. I’ve got a book on my list for the therapy-speak-loving teen who’s glued to TikTok, a book for your mom whose book club just forced her to read Emily Henry and just wants a protagonist with a little seasoning. One for your dad, who thinks TV hasn’t been the same since The X-Files. And a few for your book-loving bestie, who’s read everything already, and all you have to do to get the list to drop right into your phone for your shopping pleasure is join my newsletter, Hashtag AmReading, at kjda.substack.com—link in the show notes and pretty much anywhere where you can find me, which is easy.EPISODE TRANSCRIPTJennie NashHi, I’m Jennie Nash, and you’re listening to the Hashtag AmWriting Podcast. This is a Write Big Session where I’m bringing you short episodes about the mindset shifts that help you stop playing small and write like it matters. Today I want to share with you a specific example of what writing big could look like for you. Something happened to me in my business mastermind that was so cool. This is a mastermind that meets every week, and its business people who are running businesses just like mine. You submit questions about challenges you’re facing in your business, or decisions you have, or mindset shifts you need to make, and we get coached. And there’s also a lot of activity in the chat. Oftentimes, people are chiming in with things that they’ve tried or opinions or cheering people on or lifting people up. It’s a very engaged and active chat.This is actually my second year in the mastermind, and I happen to be one of the people that a lot of other people look up to. This morning, in the middle of a conversation, somebody admitted that they had been studying my funnel and stalking my offers to see how I was doing what I was doing and to try to emulate it. She then said something along the lines of how she was obsessed with what I was doing and wanted to know how I made it happen. So this, to me, is a moment of playing big, because she’s new to the mastermind, and she’s looking up to me, and yet she was willing to make that comment and engage with me in that way, and she didn’t ask for anything specifically. She just commented that she admired what I was doing and was studying what I was doing. And so it gave me the perfect opportunity to say, would you like to get together offline — meaning, in a separate call from the mastermind some other day — and I’ll show you inside my funnel, and I’ll show you what I’m doing. I’m happy to help show you the architecture of the whole thing. And she, of course, was thrilled and accepted. And in my mind, even as she was doing it, I thought, this is exactly the way that you ask for help.She didn’t come after me and say, will you teach me all your tricks? She didn’t even assume that I would answer any question in particular at all. She just made a comment and engaged with me in a very kind and thoughtful way and allowed me to make that offer. So I thought that was really cool. But then a second thing happened that amplified that moment, and I thought that was really cool too, which is that a third person saw this chat going on between us and jumped into our thread there and said, I would really like to join that call if it’s okay with the two of you. And again, this was such a bold move. So many of us would think, oh, I don’t want to horn in on their thing, or oh, maybe that’s piling on too much, or oh, I shouldn’t take up that much space, or be that forward, or whatever we might tell ourselves. And this person just very kindly— think she actually used the phrase; can I crash your party?—so she did it with a sense of humor and self-awareness.And again, it allowed me and this other woman to say, of course, that would be amazing, no problem, let’s do it. And so the three of us made a plan to get together and do this work separately. Now it’s not just totally altruistic on my part. I love business models, and I love learning from other business people, so getting to see what they’re doing and inside their structures and thought processes is really useful for me as well. So you may be sitting here thinking, what on earth does this have to do with writing? And it has everything to do with writing, because every single one of us who are writing things are also entrepreneurs. And this term gets thrown around a lot — the author entrepreneur — or, you know, you’re starting a business, or whatever the words that people use are, but I don’t think writers take it seriously enough.This idea that writing a book is launching a business—you are making a product, and you want people to buy that product. And I think more writers need to think of it like that, because nobody would launch a business with a product and not expect to invest in it and not expect to spend a lot of time, effort, energy, and money to bring that product to market. So often, writers think all we have to do is write the book, and our work here is done. We think that marketing is not our job, sales is not our job, thinking about the business is not our job, but it absolutely is our job. You absolutely have to learn how to think like an entrepreneur.And so the lesson here for writers is, make sure that you’re part of communities where people are doing the work that you want to be doing around your book. That could be people who are doing things on TikTok or YouTube or Instagram or have really cool newsletters on Substack that you follow, but you want to get into communities where people are taking action and making moves, so that you can study what they’re doing, follow what they’re doing, maybe engage with them if there’s a particular situation in which that engagement is welcome, and then you need to put yourself out there and ask for help and ask for coaching and ask for guidance.The thing about the business mastermind that I’m in is that it’s very expensive. People have committed a lot of money to it, and I think when people commit money, the energy follows. So people in this group are very engaged. They show up for the calls all the time. It is not a random group of strangers. And so there’s a sense inside the container that we’re all trying to do the same thing—we’re all trying to reach the same levels of success, we are all kind of in it together—and that’s a huge part of the reason why I was able to make this offer to these other people, because they’re not just random strangers coming at me from social media. I get those kinds of requests all day long. People who want to pick my brain—they literally say that—people who want answers to questions that really they shouldn’t ask, who make audacious asks about things. This is different because we’re all in a container together.So if you’re thinking, I want that kind of mentorship, I want that kind of camaraderie, I want that kind of engagement so that when my book comes out, I will have a plan and a strategy and support in place to get it out into readers’ hands. And it may be that you have to find a community to invest in, or it may be that you have to invest your time in a way that you haven’t yet been investing—but playing big means putting yourself in the right spaces where you can ask these kinds of questions, make these kinds of connections with people, and ask for help. There were so many playing big moves in what went on this morning, and I just loved seeing it, and I loved being part of it, and I wanted to share that all with you in hopes that it might be inspiring. Until next time, stop playing small and write like it matters.NarratorThe Hashtag AmWriting Podcast is produced by Andrew Perrella. 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

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• Thanksgiving Gratitude

  Hi all! In honor of Thanksgiving, we decided to share what we’re doing to get MORE of what we’re grateful for in our writing lives—as in, try not just to give a nod to gratitude but actually increase the things we do to feel it. Enjoy! Are you staring down a holiday shopping list with a haunted look in your eyes? My great big guide to holiday under-the-radar book-giving perfection can help. Maybe you think not everyone in your life wants a book, but honestly, they are just wrong. I’ve got a book on my list for the therapy-speak-loving teen who’s glued to TikTok, a book for your mom whose book club just forced her to read Emily Henry and just wants a protagonist with a little seasoning. One for your dad, who thinks TV hasn’t been the same since The X-Files. And a few for your book-loving bestie, who’s read everything already, and all you have to do to get the list to drop right into your phone for your shopping pleasure is join my newsletter, Hashtag AmReading, at kjda.substack.com—link in the show notes and pretty much anywhere where you can find me, which is easy.EPISODE TRANSCRIPTMultiple SpeakersIs it recording? Now it’s recording, yay. Go ahead. This is the part where I stare blankly at the microphone. I don’t remember what I’m supposed to be doing. All right, let’s start over. Awkward pause. I’m going to rustle some papers. Okay, now—one, two, three.KJ Dell’AntoniaHey kids, it’s KJ, and this is the Hashtag AmWriting Podcast, the place where we help you play big in your writing life, love the process, and finish what matters.Jess LaheyI’m Jess Lahey. I am the author of The Gift of Failure and The Addiction Inoculation, and you can find my work at The New York Times and The Washington Post and The Atlantic.Sarina BowenAnd I’m Sarina Bowen. My newest novel is called Thrown for a Loop, and you can find it at bookstores everywhere.Jennie NashAnd I’m Jennie Nash. I’m the founder and CEO of Author Accelerator, a company on a mission to lead the emerging book coaching industry. And I’m the author of the Blueprint books that help you get your book out of your head and onto your page. And today, the four of us have gathered to talk about gratitude. It’s the week of Thanksgiving, and we’ve been thinking about the things that we’re grateful for in our writing life, and how we want to celebrate that and amplify that. So we thought we’d share that all with you today. KJ, do you want to start by talking about what you’re grateful for?KJ Dell’AntoniaYeah, I actually managed to give this some thoughts. Since we did, we did talk about it. And I should say we kind of got the idea from Laura Vanderkam’s newsletter, which is really great, and you should subscribe. She was just talking about how, you know, it’s one thing to be grateful for things like, “Whoo, I’m grateful that I live in such a beautiful place,” but it’s another thing to say, “And because I’m grateful that I live in such a beautiful place, this week I will make a point of going for a walk, you know, tonight with my dog, in a place that I love,” or something along that. Her point was: come up with something and then actually do something to amplify that for yourself. So you’re not just sitting around, you know, writing a gratitude journal. You’re actually trying to do something about it. So having announced that I am totally prepared for this—I’m not really, but I kind of am. Okay. So one of the things that I am grateful for this year, a little weirdly, is AI, and it is not for the reasons anyone might think. I’m primarily grateful—I’m grateful that the spurt of AI in everything that I read, from Goodreads book reviews to things in my inbox to, I’m sorry, actual articles in actual newspapers… it’s become so recognizable. The stuff that is written, the pattern, the three examples, the particular words that are invariably used. Oh, somebody threw one out the other night—oh, in the real estate world, if it says something is “nestled between two things,” that’s AI. Anyway, that made me realize that the last thing I want is something else to do any of this for me. I just don’t. I just, you know, sometimes you sit around going, “Oh, somebody just write this book for me—” you know what? No. No. Because I don’t want my book to be nestled between a rock and a hard place or whatever. So, so no. So what I’m doing to sort of bring that home for myself is I’m actually trying to be more present, in particular within the AmWriting—the AmWriting universe. So I’ve been doing something that I’m calling Hashtag AmWriting ‘Almost’ Every Day. It’s really nowhere close to every day. Don’t worry about getting your inbox full. But I am—you know, that’s actually me. If I have time and something to say, or something to whine, or some write-alongs to share, or an idea, then I’m going to put that out there for y’all. And hopefully you’re going to comment back, and you probably won’t bother to use AI to do that, because that would be really silly. So that’s a thing I’m doing, and a thing that I’m grateful that I’ve suddenly come to the realization of.Jess LaheyWhat’s funny, KJ, is that I can absolutely tell when you’re really enjoying writing, because it—it just comes through, as it does with most people. But it’s been… your newsletters have been really fun, and you’re really in it. And I love reading them. I absolutely love reading them.Jennie NashIt gets a little sassy.KJ Dell’AntoniaThanks!Jess LaheyShe does. She does get a little sassy.Jennie NashI love it.Jess LaheyYep, the Shirley Jackson comes out in her, and it’s really fun. I like that a lot.Jennie NashJess, do you want to go next?Jess LaheyYeah. Sure. So newsletters have come to mean a lot to me. I have a lot of drafts sitting there, some of which I don’t think—I may never publish. But I’m really, really grateful that writing has, for my entire life, been the way that I process what I’m thinking about. I do it a lot by talking, but when I’m alone in the woods, like I am right now in Vermont, writing is how I figure things out, and I’m so grateful for that, because, you know, as I wrote about in my newsletter, I’m dealing with breast cancer, and I’m about to have surgery, and some of that stuff is really, really scary. And how I think about it, and how I manage it, is through writing about it. And I’m just—I’ve never been so grateful to have, even if it never goes out into the world, a place to write about that stuff. And, and, yeah, I’m so grateful for the words. Absolutely.Jennie NashThat’s so beautiful, that in the scariest, most difficult time, it’s the most natural thing that you turn to.Jess LaheyYeah, I think there are some people who pour themselves out in watercolors, or some people—whatever. The words, man, they’re the best.Jennie NashVery cool. Sarina, what about you?Sarina BowenYeah, well, as always, my gratitude runs toward the granular and the practical. I guess I can’t ever get away from that. So I am grateful to deadlines. Last month, I had a really difficult deadline. I had to scramble and set everything else aside and keep myself from panicking. And I did it. I actually—I turned it in, and then I immediately went on a book tour for a different book. So that was a difficult experience and a difficult month, and I’m not used to quite so much deadline pressure. But the wonderful thing is, is that I have these deadlines because of the work that I have placed with publishers, and I wouldn’t want to change a single thing about that. So even if I need to get a little better about my timing, I recognize that—even in the darkest day—that it’s a gift to have this problem. And then I’m also grateful for coffee shops, because that has been a place for me to work this year. And I never did this before. I was one of those people who had to be at home, in a room all by myself, in the quiet, writing. And suddenly that became really difficult for me. The quiet was too much quiet. There was too much doom scroll, there was too much self-reflection. And it really started the day after the election, actually. Like, I sort of ordered KJ to meet me out at a coffee shop because I needed to be where other people were. And it was really grounding—like, there we were, and the barista is a familiar face, and everything was fine inside that shop, you know, which was, in itself, a little bubble of privilege. But, but just being out in the world, seeing the rest of the world keep chugging, has really focused me. And I’ve spent a lot of time in a lot of different coffee shop and library settings in the intervening couple of months—and, well, almost a year now—and it’s felt fantastic. So I am excited that there are places where I’m allowed to go pay way too much for a cup of coffee and then sit there for two hours, and I will continue to do it.Jess LaheyCan I add a layer to the Sarina—to the Sarina stuff? Because I got to go to, as some of the other people talking today did, got to go to one of Sarina’s events. And, you know, we love Sarina, and we just rave about Sarina, and I think she’s a genius, and I think her writing is wonderful. But I was in a room of people who knew her work. Like, at one point, someone asked about whether or not she was going to be writing more in, like, The Company Series, which is one of the series she started to write. And there are a couple books—in that one. And then when she’s like, “Oh, I don’t—I think the time for that is over,” and people were like, “Awww,” and they were sad, and they knew characters really well. There was a die-hard fan of one of her books—I think it was Stay. And I just—I’m so grateful to be able to go to those events and see that other people love Sarina as much and respect Sarina’s work as much as I do. And my whole family was there. So my kid, who’s been hearing about, you know, my friend who wrote—writes “kiss me” books, he was like, “Man, people are into her books.” And I’m like, “Yeah, I told you. I’ve been trying to tell you.” And it was great. It was really fun to see people that into it.Sarina BowenWell, the thing is that romance readers really are special. I’m not saying there aren’t—there aren’t fandoms in other genres as well. But it’s something about a romance novel involves characters that aren’t afraid to say how they feel, and that is how romance readers are about the books. They are not afraid to say what they feel, and they are there for all the feelings in the first place. And it is really a great spot to be. So for every writer who ever looked down at the romance section of the bookstore, I got news for you. It’s really nice over there.Jess LaheyIt’s great. The people were so great.Jennie NashAnd we have gratitude for the romance—the romance readers too.Jess LaheyYeah.Jennie NashI love all of your—your gratitude’s. Mine is—I guess I would say that I am grateful for having the identity of a writer as a thing that I take with me wherever I go. And what I mean by that is I have been traveling to see family, and there were airplane troubles, lots of different airplane troubles, actually, on this particular trip, and lots of delays, overnight delays, sitting in airports for long periods of time, all of that, and I am never sad about those things. I’m almost never at a total loss. Like, you tell me that I have to spend six hours at the San Francisco airport, and I’m fine, because I can fill the time—not just, not just fill it like, “Oh, I can get through this,” but I can actually have really productive, useful, awesome time for six hours in the San Francisco airport. And if I have to spend a night at a terrible airport hotel, and, you know, just all the things—and I was so grateful when I thought about it in that way, that here’s a thing that I can take with me wherever I go, that all I need is something to write on. Could be my phone. It could be a piece of airport hotel notepad and paper. It could even be a torn-out page of a magazine that I bought at the airport. And I—I can be somebody. I can be somebody doing something that I find interesting and good and useful. And I just am so grateful for that. What an amazing thing to be. And obviously holiday travel is a special kind of thing, but just the thought that—that that comes with me, no matter where I go or what I do or what happens in my life—I have that, and I’m very grateful for that. So I don’t know, KJ, in terms of how am I going to bring that forward or exercise it or do it? I guess—I guess I’ve got to hope for smoother travels.KJ Dell’AntoniaYou should just get stuck in more airports, but you don’t want to get stuck in more airports? I feel like that should be your goal now.Jennie NashI guess if you take it to a very granular, practical level, like Sarina does—always have a notebook with you, man. That’s what I got to say, and a working writing implement. It saves the day.Jess LaheyAnd then you text the word “sticker” to the rest of us, and we know, “Oh, man, those travel stickers—those are worth double stickers.” We always say that travel stickers are double stickers.Jennie NashIt’s so true. It’s so true. Well, we just wanted to pop in here today to share this gratitude episode with you all and to give you some things to think about, about your writing life and your writing practice. And we hope that everyone is having a day filled with gratitude. KJ, do you want to say other things?KJ Dell’AntoniaI wanted to say that I think we’re all grateful for the way this community is slowly but steadily growing. I’ve been doing Write-Alongs with a bunch of people lately. We’ve been seeing people in the actual Substack chat, which, if you…Jess LaheyThe chat is fun.KJ Dell’AntoniaUse Substack chat, that’s great. And you know—you know what it is, and if you don’t, that’s fine. You can totally hit the same results by talking to us in the comments, which is the same as comments on anything. I just—I just really like sort of seeing the same people and faces pop up over and over again, and feeling the same kind of “less alone” about this that I used to feel back in the early days of blogging. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I have pretty much, you know—I’ll put a thing on Instagram, and then I’m out of there because, again, it’s—there’s, there’s so much slop now. I’m not really doing a lot of other things. But I am here, and there are other people here, and I think that’s so fun.Jennie NashIt’s really fun. And we will continue to be here with—with lots of offerings, from Nerd Corner episodes to Write Big episodes to KJ Writing Along episodes, and we’re in the chat to help and answer questions, and we have other things up our sleeves too. So keep tuning in.KJ Dell’AntoniaYeah. All right.Jess LaheyAll right, everyone until next time around, keep your butt in the chair and your head in the game.NarratorThe Hashtag AmWriting Podcast is produced by Andrew Perrella. 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

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• How to Write What You Love and What Readers Want (Ep 6)

  Jenny Nash builds on her conversation with Mary Laura Philpott to highlight a crucial truth: writing for yourself and writing for readers are two very different things—and they need to happen at the same time. Start from passion, but bring market intention in early, because it shapes everything from structure to genre to how your book will sell. Define your goals up front, so you’re not left frustrated later.Transcript Below!SPONSORSHIP MESSAGEHey, it’s Jennie Nash, and I wanted to remind you that while you’re shopping all the sales this week, think about investing in your writing. Author Accelerator book coaches are offering a Black Friday special for writers who are ready to move forward on their books. It’s called the Mini Blueprint Strategy Session, and you get a focused one-on-one experience that helps you see what’s working in your manuscript and what to do next. Eighty-six of our certified book coaches are offering this special for a limited time. You can go to authoraccelerator.com/black-friday to check it out.EPISODE TRANSCRIPTHi, I’m Jennie Nash and you’re listening to the Hashtag AmWriting Podcast. This is a Write Big Session—a short episode about the mindset shifts that help you stop playing small and write like it matters.Today I wanted to do a second episode about some of the things that Mary Laura Philpott shared in our last episode. I thought that conversation was just rich with incredible meaning, and something she said has really stuck with me—that I want to amplify here today.And it’s this idea about the difference between what you want to write for your own self—and writing for readers in the marketplace. Mary Laura articulated so well that these are two really separate parts of the process. You have to write what you want to write from your heart. You have to bring your heart and your soul to your work—because first of all, writing a book is a really long undertaking. You’re going to spend a lot of time with this story or this content and material, and you want to make sure that you’re doing it from love.You want to make sure that you’re doing it from some deep creative well within yourself—and tapping into that place that is rich and full and makes you feel alive. That’s the only book that’s worth writing, and many people do that kind of writing and do that kind of work—and don’t ever want to cross over to that other place where now they’re doing the work of making that ready and accessible for a reader.And Mary Laura talked about how that second shift in the book-writing process is so weighty for her—and it is for everyone. The difference between writing something for your own self and writing something that bubbles up and springs up from inside you, and writing something with the intention that it’s going to be bought and sold by strangers—and read by people that you don’t know—that’s what strangers are, I guess—the difference between those two things is really huge. And I think too many writers make the mistake of doing the first part and thinking that’s enough--that they don’t have to think about, well, what does my reader want? Where does this book fit on the shelf in a bookstore? How is this going to be bought and sold?What is this book’s relationship to the marketplace? They don’t make that leap into that second way of thinking—and then they get frustrated when the marketplace rejects their work. It’s the work of their heart. It’s the work of their soul. They brought their whole being to the page—but they didn’t do that second part.But here’s the key about that second part—It doesn’t usually come after. It’s not chronological. You don’t write the thing and then think about the marketplace. Sometimes that happens—but it’s actually really rare.You have to do those two parts of the work at the same time—they have to overlap. You start a project out of the love and the passion and the yearning and the desire, but the intention that it’s going to be for the marketplace needs to come pretty soon thereafter, because it’s going to impact your structure.It’s going to impact your genre. If you’re writing fiction, it’s going to impact the length of what you write. It’s going to impact all kinds of decisions that you make about that book, and if you leave those decisions until after you’ve written a draft, you’re likely going to be very disappointed.So what this is really about is understanding your intention for the work as soon as you can. So again, you might start with the love and the desire and the yearning and the passion, but once you start thinking… I would like for this to be read, I would like for this to be in the marketplace. My intention and ambition is for it to be read. Then you need to stop and start asking yourself some of these core questions about: how is it going to be read, how is it going to be in the marketplace? My Blueprint books were designed for this exact thing. They offer a 14-step method of inquiry that helps you think about these core questions at the beginning of a project before you write too far.This isn’t an advertisement for my Blueprint books. I think they’re great, but there’s a lot of other ways to get this work done as well. There’s some other methods—there’s other systems and processes. You might have a framework for doing it as well, but it’s something that we really need to think about—is these two different pieces of the process. So my reflection for today is to go back and listen to that episode with Mary Laura Philpott and listen for the words that she says around this, because they’re so good—and I think she just pinned it down so well—and I just want you to spend some time reflecting on these two phases of the process and these two parts of making a book that readers are going to love.Until next time, stop playing small and write like it matters.The Hashtag AmWriting Podcast is produced by Andrew Perrella. 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

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• Trusting Your Gut with Mary Laura Phillpot (Ep 5)

  In this #amwriting podcast Write Big session, Jennie Nash talks with author Mary Laura Philpott about the surprising choice she made after her acclaimed book Bomb Shelter—to stop writing on purpose. Mary Laura shares how, after pouring everything into that project, her gut told her she didn’t need to rush into another, despite the pressure of “what’s next?” from the industry and readers. This conversation reframes writing big not as chasing ambition, but as honoring your gut and giving your whole heart to whatever season you’re in—even if that means not writing at all.TRANSCRIPT BELOW!THINGS MENTIONED IN THIS PODCAST:* Mary Laura Philpott’s website* Bomb Shelter* The New York Times ReviewSPONSORSHIP MESSAGEHey, it’s Jenny Nash, and if you’ve been writing a new book through the month of November and wondering if it’s any good, this might be the perfect time to work with an Author Accelerator certified book coach to get a professional gut check. Eighty-six of our certified coaches are offering a Black Friday special. For just $299, you get a mini blueprint strategy session, which includes a one-on-one call, some feedback on your pages, and the kind of insight and inspiration you need to write forward with confidence. Visit https://www.authoraccelerator.com/black-friday to find the book coach who’s a perfect fit for you.EPISODE TRANSCRIPTJennie NashHi, I’m Jennie Nash, and you’re listening to the Hashtag AmWriting Podcast. This is a Write Big Session, where I’m bringing you short episodes about the mindset shifts that help you stop playing small and write like it matters. Today, I’m talking to Mary Laura Philpott about the idea of trusting your gut. This is a critical component to writing big, and I asked Mary Laura to come speak to us because a very interesting thing happened to her after the publication of her second book, Bomb Shelter: Love, Time, and Other Explosives. This book is so good. It’s a book about being a parent and a daughter and a spouse and a person in the world. And what happened was that she stopped writing—on purpose. Her gut told her, “I’m done now.” And it struck me that if we could understand what makes a successful writer choose not to write; maybe we could understand better what makes us each choose to write big. So welcome, Mary Laura.Mary Laura PhilpottHello, friend. Thanks for having me.Jennie NashAh, I’m so excited to have this conversation. I’ve been wanting to have it for a very long time.Mary Laura PhilpottOh, good.Jennie NashSo thanks for joining us. This is maybe your second, third, fourth time on the Hashtag AmWriting Podcast—you’re a fan favorite. So welcome back. To set this conversation up, I’m going to read a little snippet from The New York Times review of Bomb Shelter, which was written by Judith Warner, and in which she called your book a “master work.” I’m going to read the end of her review, because it really sets up this question that we’re going to be talking about.So she writes: “I want to say something negative about this book. To be this positive is, I fear, to sound like a nitwit. So to nitpick—there’s some unevenness to the quality of the sentences in the final chapter—but there’s no fun in pointing that out. Philpott already knows. I’m telling this story now in present tense. She writes, ‘I’m still in it, not yet able to shape it from the future’s perspective. The story is still being written, and that’s all right. The only problem is having to wait to read what comes next.’”So—you wrote this book, which was your second book…Mary Laura PhilpottSecond book of this type—yes, kind of second, second memoir.Jennie NashSecond book of this type. And you get this beyond rave review in The New York Times by this luminary reviewer, in which she says, “I can’t wait to see what you write next.” And here we sit some years later, in which the answer is—there is nothing next. So can you talk about that? Can you talk about how you—first of all, what that feels like?Mary Laura PhilpottYeah, it’s—I mean, you know this feeling of before a book is even on shelves, people are already asking, “So what’s next? Like, what are you working on?” You know? And then you go on tour, and every question everywhere is, “So what are you working on now?” There’s this relentless, kind of—this churning wheel of productivity behind it all. And so I’m used to that, and I was used to that feeling of, okay, the book is out, people are talking about it, but I need to be working on something next, because that’s always been how it is. But I was tired. That was a really—I love that review so much, and I love the way this book was received—but it was a really emotional book to write, and it was a really emotional book to tour with and go out and talk about for several weeks on end. And so when I came back home, I was like, you know, I get to decide how this little hamster wheel of productivity goes—and I have decided I need a break, and I’m going to focus on, you know—I had, like, one or two years left with my kids at home before they left the nest. I was like, I’m just going to be at home. I’m going to focus inward. I’m just going to be kind of living life on my own terms. And I did that for about a year—and then another year—and now it’s been... let’s see... here we are in 2025... It’s been three years since that book came out. I have not written another book, and I have never been so calm about not being in the middle of writing another book. It just feels like I don’t have something I urgently need to say.Jennie NashYeah.Mary Laura PhilpottAnd I also feel—there’s something rebellious in the beginning about saying, “I’m not going to do it.” But once the rebellion kind of burns off and you realize, actually, I don’t owe anyone anything—like, I’m not under contract for another book. I had the sort of miraculous timing of my editor for Bomb Shelter and for I Miss You When I Blink retiring right after Bomb Shelter came out, so I don’t even have an editor breathing down my neck going, “Come on, what’s your next thing?” So I’ve been experimenting with saying I’m retired. When people ask me, like, “What are you working on?” I say, “I might be retired. I don’t know if I am. It might be temporary. It might be—this might be like Ross and Rachel: are we on a break, or are we broken up? I don’t know.” But I am so calm and happy with the decision not to be getting up every day and sitting at my desk. It’s like a cord has been cut in me—and I don’t feel any guilt about it.Jennie NashSo you said you feel that you don’t have anything to say. When you started these books and your other books and projects, did you feel that?Mary Laura PhilpottAlways! Yes. Like, I—for myself and for other people—like, I need to get this on paper. There’s that therapeutic part of writing: I need to get this on paper and organize it so that I can understand what it is I think. That’s not enough of a reason to go through the misery of publishing a book, but it’s something. And then there’s the other part—where you, or for me, where once I figure out what it is that I’m thinking as I’m putting it on paper, I realize there are other people who may feel this way, and translating it into words is a gift. And it’s something that I want to be able to do for readers, and I want to enter into that two-way conversation with my words and my readers. And it’s not that I don’t have anything interesting to talk about right now—it’s just that I don’t have anything keeping me up at night, begging to be translated and, therefore, you know, urging me to the page. I’ve started and stopped little—not books, but like other little projects here and there—where I’m like, oh, maybe I want to play around with this idea. And then I put them down, and I just feel... it’s honestly the first time in my life I have felt no guilt about not working on the thing that everyone thinks I should be working on. And it’s so weird because other people seem to have really strong feelings about it.Jennie NashI was going to say, what are people’s reactions when you say, “I might be retired”?Mary Laura PhilpottThe other day—okay, so I’m going to tell you about this event I went to the other day. It was a book event for a woman who we all know, who’s pretty well known, and this is her—I don’t know—fourth or fifth or sixth book and it’s very much anticipated by its readers. And she’s exactly my age—she’s 51—and when I went to this event, I ran into a lot of other book people who I know, and of course, the first question everyone asks: “What are you working on?” So I decided to test out my line, and I would say, “I think I might be retired.” The vehemence with which people go, “No, you’re not! Like, shut up!”—I got told “Shut up” so many times. Like, what? Why? Why do people have this strong reaction? But then—and then, you know, I’m such a people pleaser that if enough people say, “Shut up. No, you’re not,” I start to question myself. I’m like, maybe I should try? I don’t know. I don’t want to disappoint everybody. But then we sat down for the discussion part of this event, and someone in the audience asked this fellow writer, “Where do you want to be in ten years? Look ahead ten years and tell us what you see.” And she said, “In ten years, I will be in my early sixties, and I think by then I’d like to hang it up and live life just for me.” And I felt so viscerally and instantly—oh, no, I do not want to wait ten years. I wanted to yell out, “You don’t have to wait till then!” But, you know, to each her own—and she may have ten years more of wanting to be out and about and hustling and doing this.Jennie NashYeah, yeah. So it sounds like you wouldn’t characterize what you’re feeling as burnout. It’s not—it’s not like, “Oh, I burned out, and I’ll get back to it someday.” It feels really as if you arrived at a different place.Mary Laura PhilpottIt feels like—yes, it feels more like closure than like burnout. And that has changed. That feeling has changed over the last two to three years. In the beginning, it did feel like burnout—like, when I came home from that book tour, I was wrung out. I mean, I was thrilled, it was—it was amazing—but I was tired. And I thought—I remember you and I talking about this and saying, “You know what? I’ve just—I left it all on the field. I’m exhausted, and I need to take a year-long nap.” And then, over time, it became more of an “Okay, I’m not burned out. I actually feel fine. I’m just taking a break.” And I’ve talked to—you and I have a good friend in common, Laura Vanderkam, who writes a lot about productivity, and she and I had a conversation once where I was like, “I think what this is, is a break. Just—I’m going to take a pause, and I’ll decide when I’m done pausing. When I’m done pausing.” And that may be what it is. I do tend to live life kind of cyclically, so I might cycle back into “Now I want to do this,” or “Now I’ve written that.” But right now it feels like this really peaceful closure. And even if I do write something again—which, come on, I mean, I probably will at some point—the part that feels closed is the hustle part. The part that—a lot of us don’t actually really enjoy that much—which is not the writing of the book or the, you know, nice conversations with the readers, but the part where it’s like, okay, you’ve got to put together this tour schedule, and you’ve got to answer all these questions for these promotional essays, and—and now you’ve got to—you know, this promotional machine that—“Go get your photo taken again.” I’m so sick of my face...Multiple Speakers[Both laughing]Jennie NashRight?! It’s the performing aspect of being a writer.Mary Laura PhilpottYeah.Jennie NashDid—does any of this have to do with the fact that Bomb Shelter...? I know we talked about it at one point—that you felt, while you were writing it, that this—that it was good. Like, you knew that your vision was matching the execution. And then the world reflected back to you that yes, it is good—you did do that, and at a really high level. Particularly that one. There were a lot of reviews like that, but that sort of was the shining—you know, shining star. Was there a—do you think that the fact that you wrote the book—you know, we’re always trying to write the book that we envision, and we don’t always get there—and it feels like you got there. Does that have to do with this feeling, do you think?Mary Laura PhilpottMaybe—because there—I mean, you’re right, there is almost always a gap between—before we write the thing—this wonderful, amorphous idea in our head where it’s like, “This is just a shining galaxy of thoughts,” and then you get it on paper, and its like, “Oops, I killed it. I flattened it.” And there’s always this gap between the two. And with Bomb Shelter, I really did—it has the smallest possible gap of anything I’ve ever written. And so maybe, you know, maybe that is part of it—that I feel like, what else am I waiting for? Like, what else could I want to do? If you get down to the pure reason of why we do this and what draws you to the page—and also the part of my personality that is, for better or for worse, kind of Type A and achievement-driven—this is... maybe I got to that point where I was like, well, I got the A-plus-plus-plus. What else could I try to get? I don’t think that’s entirely it, because it’s not the whole reason that I write. I don’t think it’s like, “I got the A-plus-plus-plus, now there’s nothing left to say.” When there’s something to say, I’ll say it. But I do—I think you’re right that that’s part of it.Jennie NashAnd the idea of writing for other people—that there’s the writing, and then there’s the connecting with other people, knowing that you’re doing it for other people, then being out there in the world with those people— Is there a world in which you would write something that doesn’t go into the world? Or is that not... I feel like that’s something I would not be able to do at this point in my— But I’m so wired and attuned to writing for consumption.Mary Laura PhilpottYeah.Jennie NashI mean, I write for myself. Of course I write the things I want to write—you know, all those things are true—and, yes, for other people.Mary Laura PhilpottYes. Well—and I tend to be similar to you in that regard. And there’s so much—you know, we talked a couple minutes ago about the difference between the therapeutic reasons why you start writing and then the actual hard, somewhat miserable work of getting it from the therapeutic version to something that is publishable. And that takes such discipline and real care for the art of it—of turning this thing that was helpful for your own brain into a piece of art that is worth someone investing in and putting out there in the world. I think—I do—I mean, in a way, I kind of write all the time, and you are similar to me in this. Like, we email, we—you know, we’re very communicative people, so the writing part of my brain is doing something all the time. And I have started a few little weird projects here and there where I’m like, “Oh, I’ve had an idea for this,” and I’ll, you know, write a few pages and then just kind of set it aside—without feeling like I’ve got to go attack it with that discipline that turns it into something.Jennie NashYeah.Mary Laura PhilpottAnd maybe that’s the part of my brain that’s just tired—that’s like, I’m still tired. And when I am untired, I will go back and pull those things out and play with them some more. I don’t know.Jennie NashYeah, yeah. Well, I love your characterization of that, because I have been talking about this—this newish idea—or I have newish words around this idea of calling it “Write Big”. And people often, I think rightly so, mistake that for big ambition, big goals, big wins, big success, big money—you know, all those things. And it’s not that at all, actually. It’s the doing the thing with your whole heart.Mary Laura PhilpottYes!Jennie NashNo matter what the thing is.Mary Laura PhilpottAnd not holding back.Jennie NashAnd what you’re saying is that the cost of that for you—you’re not going to do something. It’s not that. And the cost of that for you is too high.Mary Laura PhilpottAt the moment it is. At the moment, when I think about—when I look around at the life I’m in—and this is professionally and personally—there’s this interesting confluence, which is, I’m in my... I’ve just finished my first year of empty nesting. So this has been the first year of my life since I, you know, first had a baby, where my days do not in any way revolve around a school schedule, a nap schedule, a feeding schedule, etc. And then I did maybe the dumbest thing ever—and I adopted a puppy, who does have feeding and nap and all this other stuff. And so all my displaced maternal energy has now been funneled into this puppy, whom I absolutely love—but he is a wild and crazy ‘Looney Tune’. And when I look at the way my days look right now—which is the get up, make my coffee, walk the puppy, feed the puppy, you know, teach the puppy how to sit—and I think, do I feel like trading that right now for getting a dog sitter and going into my office and writing for multiple hours? I don’t. I don’t want to trade that right now. I may change—I fully reserve the right to change my mind and be like those, you know, sports players who are like, “I’m retired,” and then the next season, they’re like, “I’m out of retirement.” Maybe I’ll come out of retirement. But right now, what I want to do is feed my puppy, teach my puppy, be available on a moment’s notice. If a kid says, “Hey, I was the understudy for this play, but I got called up to be in a performance this weekend,” I want to be able to jump on a plane and go and not have other commitments. I’m enjoying that. And I do fully recognize—I should give this disclaimer—that this is a very privileged situation I am in. My income from books is not what paid our mortgage. I’m married. I have a spouse with a job that has health insurance, you know, so I’m able to make decisions. And I do feel the financial consequences of these decisions. Like, it’s not a small deal for me to be like, “I’m not going to write another book,” because that would have been important income—but it’s not the only income in our house. So I’m not—if I had still young children coming up, lots of tuitions to pay, mouths to feed—this might not be so easy for me to just be like, “I want to play with my puppy.”Jennie NashRight, right. Well—the idea we started with, of writing big, is trusting your gut. Not writing is trusting your gut. All of this starts and ends with: what do we think, what do we feel, what do we want to say?Mary Laura PhilpottYeah.Jennie NashThose are such hard things to know, and it feels like you’re just really tuned into that right now. And you talked at the very beginning—you said that it feels peaceful. Can you just maybe, to end our conversation, describe that feeling? Because that, I think, is what we all are looking for with our work—whether we’re doing it or not doing it—is peace around it.Mary Laura PhilpottYeah. I think a big part of the peace—and I wish I had found this earlier, when I did still have things to say and I was writing—because I think it could have removed a lot of distraction for me in writing big, the way you say—is tuning out other people’s voices. And if you are the type of person, as I am, who—like, when the Olympics are on TV and I see the person doing the high jump, I’m like, “I bet I could do that if I went and—” like, which obviously I cannot. But I have that part of my brain that’s like, “Should I try to do everything I’m capable of doing? Like, I can’t. I can’t leave anything undone. I should. I should go try to be the best at everything I could ever be the best at.” Because, you know, other people expect me to work hard and produce things. And to be able to tune out that inner voice and other people’s voices—those voices that equate productivity with worth—and, you know, “If people aren’t talking about the new thing you’ve done, then how do you even prove you’re worth the air you breathe?” Disconnecting from those voices is what led to the peace. And I think I was beginning to disconnect from that while I was writing Bomb Shelter. I think that’s why that book worked, in some ways—because I really—I mean, remember, I wrote it during the pandemic. I wrote it when I was stuck at home. I had less contact with the outside world than ever before. We did not know what book publishing was going to look like. We did not know if there would ever be another book tour. So I really did write that book in a bubble of having as little outside input as possible. So I think that’s the—maybe, if there’s any key to peace—it’s tuning out voices that you just don’t need.Jennie NashI love that. I love that so much. And I think we will end our conversation there, because it’s so profound and it’s so good.Mary Laura PhilpottThank you for having me.Jennie NashWell, for our listeners—until next time, stop playing small and write like it matters.NarratorThe Hashtag AmWriting Podcast is produced by Andrew Perrella. 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

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