59 min listen
Sarah Manguso, author of “Very Cold People”
FromWriters on Writing: A Weekly Podcast for Writers, Readers, & Book Lovers
Sarah Manguso, author of “Very Cold People”
FromWriters on Writing: A Weekly Podcast for Writers, Readers, & Book Lovers
ratings:
Length:
59 minutes
Released:
Dec 5, 2022
Format:
Podcast episode
Description
Sarah Manguso is an essayist, memoirist, and now a novelist. She’s written eight books, including 300 Arguments and Ongoingness (links to interviews regarding those books can be found in our archives). Very Cold People is her debut novel. It’s an Amazon Editors’ Pick, a National Indie Bestseller, A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice and was named a best book of the year by numerous publications.
Manguso joins Marrie Stone to talk about her decision to write a novel. She discusses setting a book in her childhood town and creating a sense of place and atmosphere. She talks about writing violence as background instead of foreground, as well as writing about shame, class, mothering, and writing about large concepts in intimate and specific ways.
Manguso comes to the podcast from the Miami Book Fair. For more information, visit their website here.
For more information on Writers on Writing and additional writing tips, visit our Patreon page. To listen to past interviews, visit our website.
(Recorded in October 2022)
Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett Co-Host: Marrie Stone Music and sound design: Travis Barrett
Manguso joins Marrie Stone to talk about her decision to write a novel. She discusses setting a book in her childhood town and creating a sense of place and atmosphere. She talks about writing violence as background instead of foreground, as well as writing about shame, class, mothering, and writing about large concepts in intimate and specific ways.
Manguso comes to the podcast from the Miami Book Fair. For more information, visit their website here.
For more information on Writers on Writing and additional writing tips, visit our Patreon page. To listen to past interviews, visit our website.
(Recorded in October 2022)
Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett Co-Host: Marrie Stone Music and sound design: Travis Barrett
Released:
Dec 5, 2022
Format:
Podcast episode
Titles in the series (100)
V.V. Ganeshananthan, author of “Brotherless Night”: Writers use language with intention. So when V.V. (Sugi) Ganeshananthan’s Brotherless Night uses the word “terrorist” six times on the first page of a novel about the Sri Lankan civil war, and incorporates the second person, the reader understands they’re as much active participant as passive observer in the book. Sugi joins Marrie Stone to talk about the novel’s origin and why she initially didn’t have the “chops” to write it. She talks about her own relationship with Sri Lanka and the research that went into rendering this period of history to life. Writers may find interest in Sugi’s decision to write in the first (and second) person; the power of writing in the subjunctive; how to describe a foreign time and place (with its particular dishes and unfamiliar names) without being overly explanatory; how Sugi deals with difficult writing challenges the same way she deals with going to the dentist; finding trusted readers; and more. Su by Writers on Writing: A Weekly Podcast for Writers, Readers, & Book Lovers