This episode begins by marking Memorial Day with one of the great war poems from the Vietnam era – Letters from Pleiku -- and a preview of our conversation with an author who has spent many years digging into the life of the soldier who wrote the poem.
Then comes our featured conversation, between novelists Elin Hilderbrand, from her home on Nantucket, and Jami Attenberg, from her home in New Orleans, which is packed with entertaining and inspiring takeaways.
Jami Attenberg, in her seven published books, including her latest — All This Could Be Yours — tries to do something new and original each time she sets out to write.
She wonders aloud what it would be like to have a signature look and feel to your work, one where “everyone knows who you are, and we could look at your book covers, and if your name wasn’t on them, we could still know.”
In other words, Jami Attenberg wonders what it would be like to be Elin Hilderbrand. Their exchange provides a window on the upsides and downsides of being an author with a recognizable signature versus one without.
That’s just one reason to listen to Elin Hilderbrand, year-round Nantucket resident and NY Times #1 Bestselling Author, in conversation with Jami Attenberg.
What? You need a second reason?
OK. How about Jami’s “story of origin,” which begins one summer writing a thousand words a day, all summer long.
Tens of thousands of words later, she found herself at a party in New York filled with agents and editors. None of them would talk to her. But one person did --a junior assistant. No spoilers here. Let’s just say there is justice in the publishing world – sometimes.
More reasons to watch?
How about the story of how Elin battled a divorce and breast cancer in the same year, while still writing another new novel.
What more could you want in order to watch these two writers, who are always writing, or thinking about writing -- “always pushing around words in my head,” as Jami puts it, hoping “that my brain will solve some problems, of whatever I’m working on, in my sleep.”
Did I mention that Sid the Dog has a cameo at the end?
