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Ted is joined by Katherine J. Igoe, a writer and editor who’s been freelancing since 2011. At the moment, she is also a contributing syndications editor at Marie Claire. She has written for The New York Times, The Cut, Cosmopolitan, InStyle, Parents, and The Boston Globe, among others.
Katherine’s InstagramThe Artist’s Way
Katherine and Ted have known each other for a number of years and have bonded over their shared love of the written word—along with the challenges said love presents. One of these is how to make a living from writing, which, as her bylines indicate, she’s done by contributing pieces to some of the country’s most recognizable media outlets.
But as successful as she’s been in this nonfiction space, Katherine has wanted to write fiction since she was a kid. She and Ted have often talked about how to go from one type of writing to the other, and in this episode, she takes us inside the strategies she’s using to overcome the nagging self-censor of impostor syndrome and pursue her book aspirations. That journey has started with a book coach, something called The Artist’s Way, and short-story writing, where she has found an interest in speculative fiction that she didn’t know she had.
Episode LinksWorking Drafts episodes and info for requesting transcripts as well as more details about Ted and his books are available on his website, thetedfox.com.
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A short post-election break from our regularly scheduled programming.
Postcards to Voters: postcardstovoters.org
Website Mentioned in This Episode:Working Drafts episodes and info for requesting transcripts as well as more details about Ted and his books are available on his website, thetedfox.com.
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Fehlende Folgen?
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Ted is joined by Kirthana Ramisetti, author of the novels Advika and the Hollywood Wives and Dava Shastri’s Last Day, a Good Morning America Book Club selection optioned by Max. Her books have been praised by TIME, Cosmopolitan, The Washington Post, Buzzfeed, The Associated Press, and others. Beyond her novels, Kirthana’s writing has appeared in publications including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, Elle, and Salon.
Kirthana’s website: kirthanaramisetti.com
She just finished the copyediting stage for her next novel, a case of mistaken identity titled The Other Lata. It comes out in April of next year, and it was a great time to talk with her about what her process looked like for this book in particular. In addition to humoring a question from Ted about Oxford commas and punctuation in general, she discusses the challenge of avoiding dangling plot lines that leave the reader hanging as well as the music-fueled writing sessions that allowed her to complete a first draft in one month.
They then move onto what will be Kirthana’s fourth book, one she is just in the early stages of writing right now and for which she is pushing herself to go in a direction she hasn’t tried in her first three. She compares drafting to going on a hike, with her synopsis acting as the path to help her plot her way—even as she and Ted agree that synopsis writing is not among their favorite tasks—and highlights the importance of the little ways writers can make the process fun for themselves.
Finally, as has become tradition these several last months, Kirthana hits Ted with a rom-com recommendation to wrap things up.
Find Kirthana Online:Working Drafts episodes and info for requesting transcripts as well as more details about Ted and his books are available on his website, thetedfox.com.
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Ted is joined by Laura Hankin, an author, screenwriter, and performer. Her books include The Daydreams, one of the “Best Beach Reads of 2023” (Harper’s Bazaar, Cosmopolitan, and more); Happy & You Know It, a Book of the Month and Library Reads selection; and A Special Place for Women, as seen on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
Laura’s website: laurahankin.com
Laura and Ted’s conversation begins with her most recent book (and second Book of the Month pick) One-Star Romance, which The Washington Post calls “real, refreshing and romantic.” It’s about a struggling writer who has to walk down the aisle at her best friend’s wedding with a man who gave her book one star on Goodreads and the ways the two keep being brought into each other’s lives over the subsequent decade.
This prompts Laura and Ted to have a very real conversation about the highs and lows of reading Goodreads reviews of their own books and why Laura has put in place some self-imposed boundaries that, by his own admission, Ted could stand to learn from. He also picks her brain about the way she managed flashbacks in One-Star Romance and the real-life backstory that inspired the novel.
Then it’s onto Laura’s work in progress, a book she just recently finished outlining that she plans will be a romantic comedy that will explore the theme of female friendship, as well. She and Ted talk about “clicking” with a new manuscript, the line between editing and overediting as you go, and learning to love editorial notes.
Last but not least, Laura shares some rom-com recommendations and her thoughts on the applicability of screenwriting to the process of writing a novel.
Find Laura Online:Working Drafts episodes and info for requesting transcripts as well as more details about Ted and his books are available on his website, thetedfox.com.
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Ted is joined by Alyssa Neece, his real-life coworker who shares his passion for making funny stuff outside of the office. For Alyssa, though, it’s not about writing books but coming up with and performing comedy for audiences.
Second City Grad Revue Showcase: Customer Service SketchPodcast: The Weekly Quarterly Report
Alyssa’s comedy journey started in college but didn’t really take off until some years later when they received a simple piece of advice: Focus less on what they should do and more on how they wanted to feel—and Alyssa realized they wanted to laugh more.
That led them to start taking classes at The Second City in Chicago, where they progressed from a series of improv offerings open to anyone to auditioning for and being accepted into the 13-month conservatory program, which they finished earlier this year.
Alyssa and Ted talk about the full-length Grad Revue Showcase sketch comedy show Alyssa and their classmates produced as the culmination of the program, the similarities and differences between improv and sketch as well as how that compares to Ted’s experience crafting jokes for books, the dynamics of working as a team versus writing on your own, and how Alyssa is now applying their Second City experience on a comedy podcast. Then, in honor of Ted’s newly released romantic comedy, Date Week, Alyssa shares some thoughts on their favorite rom-coms.
More From Alyssa:Working Drafts episodes and info for requesting transcripts as well as more details about Ted and his books are available on his website, thetedfox.com.
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Ted is joined this month by Lauren Aliza Green, author of the just-released novel The World After Alice, a “most anticipated” book by Vogue, Town & Country, and LitHub, among others. Her chapbook, A Great Dark House, won the Poetry Society of America’s Chapbook Fellowship, and she was named to Forbes’ 2024 30 Under 30 list.
Lauren’s website: laurenagreen.com
After a quick overview of The World After Alice—which Ann Napolitano called “A lovely debut novel that glimmers with fine writing and notes of human insight”—Lauren and Ted discuss the swirl of emotions surrounding publication day, something that’s top of mind for both of them at the moment.
They then move into a conversation about Lauren’s second novel and work in progress, a modern-day interpretation of Shakespeare’s King Lear. Set in New York City, it follows three grown siblings as their father announces he’s leaving his multimillion-dollar art collection to his youngest child, cutting the older two out of the will.
Lauren and Ted talk about how closely (or not) her book follows the valleys and peaks of King Lear, writing in first- versus close third-person, what she describes as her “complete disorganization of process” and its parallels to working a jigsaw puzzle, giving the muse ample chances to visit you, and the emotion of having to set aside a project you’ve devoted years to. Then, in honor of Ted’s newly released romantic comedy, Date Week, they wrap up by trading thoughts on some of their own favorite rom-coms.
Find Lauren Online:Working Drafts episodes and info for requesting transcripts as well as more details about Ted and his books are available on his website, thetedfox.com.
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To mark the release of his new rom-com, Date Week, which is out June 25, Ted is joined this month not by another writer but his longtime literary agent, Jessica Sinsheimer, the person responsible for helping him develop and then selling both this novel and his first, Schooled.
An agent at Context Literary Agency, Jessica has been campaigning for her favorite queries since 2004 and is known for co-creating #MSWL and ManuscriptWishList.com—and, like Ted, for drinking way too much coffee.
The concept for Date Week started with Jessica, and she talks about why she suggested this story to Ted in the first place, sharing the mix of highbrow inspiration and decidedly less highbrow reality TV-watching that led to the idea. They then move beyond his work specifically to discuss what she sees as an emerging trend of power arcs in fiction more generally as well as what she looks for in a potential client’s writing when assessing whether she is the one to help that person take their work in progress to the next level.
Through the course of their conversation, Jessica and Ted also open up about the challenges, from both the author and the agent sides, of navigating a highly subjective industry built on a strange mix of creative endeavor, business realities, and the unrelenting push to be productive.Working Drafts episodes and info for requesting transcripts as well as more details about Ted and his books are available on his website, thetedfox.com.
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Ted is joined by Johnny Compton, a Stoker Award-nominated, San Antonio-based author of horror stories whose debut novel, The Spite House, was released in 2023. In its review of the book, Esquire noted that “You can trace the tradition of the American ‘Bad Place’ from Edgar Allan Poe through Shirley Jackson, Richard Matheson, and Stephen King, all the way to Johnny Compton and The Spite House.”
Website: johnnycompton.com
Johnny’s work in progress (at least for the purposes of the discussion here) is a book you’ll be able to read later this year. Titled Devils Kill Devils, it’s about a woman who believes she has a guardian angel who has saved her life multiple times—only to see that same entity show up on her wedding night and murder her husband. This begs the question: What has this supposed angel been saving her for?
Johnny and Ted start out talking about pacing, which in Johnny’s case, changes depending on the type of horror he’s writing. He then unpacks the connection he’s always seen between writing horror and writing comedy and the challenge that arises in both from readers knowing what type of story they’re in while the characters don’t. Johnny also discusses not wanting to kill a particular character even though he knew he had to and his relationship to horror movies.
And because he is technically done writing Devils Kill Devils and is already onto his third novel, Johnny and Ted talk about that one, too, including the 3-D chess writers play with themselves when trying to title the book they’re working on, knowing full well that it may have to change down the road.
Find Johnny Online:Working Drafts episodes and info for requesting transcripts as well as more details about Ted and his books are available on his website, thetedfox.com.
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In this solo pod, Ted talks about the challenges—both external and internal—that come with navigating the months in between when you submit your final manuscript and when the book actually comes out. For him (and many others), that task is complicated by the anxious and depressive intrusions that come with just living life in general.
He goes on to discuss how one of his most effective strategies for managing these feelings is to get started on a new project, the ability to get words down on the page offering a degree of control in an otherwise largely uncontrollable process. It’s only fitting, then, that he shares the very beginning stages of his own new work in progress, a novel where he plans to play with dual timelines (sort of).Working Drafts episodes and info for requesting transcripts as well as more details about Ted and his books are available on his website, thetedfox.com.
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Ted is joined by Lauren Wilkinson, whose debut novel, American Spy, was a Washington Post bestseller, an NAACP Image Award nominee, an Anthony Award nominee, and an Edgar Award nominee. President Obama also included it on his 2019 Recommended Reading List, a fact that continues to fill Ted with no small amount of envy.
Website: lauren-wilkinson.com
Lauren’s work in progress is a classic whodunit murder mystery set in the present and featuring a Black woman who is a social media influencer as the detective. With this novel, Lauren aims to both follow the beats characteristic of the genre and subvert some of those expectations in the third act.
Or at least that’s the plan at the moment. She just started writing this book in the last few months and is therefore still seeing how it takes shape. In addition to talking about her vision for the story, Lauren and Ted discussed the importance (and the challenge) of getting a novel’s first 50 pages right, those expected beats of murder mysteries, how her recent work as a TV writer is influencing her approach, and using your writing to shed light on issues beyond your pages.
Find Lauren OnlineWorking Drafts episodes and info for requesting transcripts as well as more details about Ted and his books are available on his website, thetedfox.com.
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Ted is joined by Bianca Marais, author of the bestselling The Witches of Moonshyne Manor, the beloved Hum If You Don't Know the Words and If You Want to Make God Laugh, and the Audible Original The Prynne Viper.
Website: biancamarais.comPodcast: The Shit No One Tells You About Writing
Alternatively, we could’ve just told you that Ann Patchett (yes, that Ann Patchett) has declared “Bianca Marais is a genius.”
When she’s not authoring, Bianca co-hosts the popular podcast The Shit No One Tells You About Writing, which is aimed at helping emerging writers become published.
Her work in progress is a novel titled A Most Peculiar Tale, Indeed. A closed-room mystery chock-full of puzzles for readers to solve, it has been pitched as “Glass Onion meets the magical family equivalent of Succession” and will be published by Mira in early 2025.
Just a couple of weeks removed from sending her manuscript to her editor, Bianca talked with Ted about plotting versus pantsing (i.e., flying by the seat of yours), how she approaches editing her own work before her editor sees it, letting your books tell you what they want to be, managing multiple points of view and backstories, and entertaining your readers while still making them think. She also shared a most outstanding wrinkle to the puzzle-solving in A Most Peculiar Tale, Indeed, that serves the dual purpose of keeping down the publisher’s printing costs.
Find Bianca Online:Working Drafts episodes and info for requesting transcripts as well as more details about Ted and his books are available on his website, thetedfox.com.
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Ted flies solo this month and uses it as an opportunity to presume you might be interested in him telling you how he approaches the entire book-writing process. Which on the one hand is a little vain because it's not like it’s Colson Whitehead or Emily Henry or Stephen King or whomever sitting down and telling you these things. But then again, if you're listening to this show hosted by some random author in the first place, maybe his advice is more relevant to you than one of those household names.
That’s the backdrop for his presentation of his four P’s: passion, persistence, patience, and perseverance. You can be the judge of whether they’re actually four different ideas (his wife remains a little skeptical). He then wraps up by sharing the three-word takeaway that encapsulates the four.
We’d tell you what it is here, by then why would you listen?Working Drafts episodes and info for requesting transcripts as well as more details about Ted and his books are available on his website, thetedfox.com.
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Ted is joined by Patrick Carey, a 2023 graduate of the Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in Creative Writing program at Colorado State University.
Patrick’s work in progress is the thesis he wrote as part of that program. Tentatively titled Keepers, it’s a novel set roughly 25 years in the future when the United States is mired in a second Great Depression. This has prompted the government to basically invent jobs for people to do, including reinstalling lighthouse keepers across the Great Lakes.
The book follows three such keepers working on an island in northern Lake Michigan who are instructed daily via fax machine to build parts of something without knowing what it's going to become. Not knowing why they’re really there, they start experiencing things suggesting there might be a supernatural presence or an unacknowledged human history on the island.
Patrick and Ted talked about the process of choosing a thesis/novel topic, the different considerations that would lead you to write in past versus present tense as well as first versus third person, writing workshops, crafting a story about lighthouse keepers when you yourself are not one, and how there’s no one way to write a book.Working Drafts episodes and info for requesting transcripts as well as more details about Ted and his books are available on his website, thetedfox.com.
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Ted is joined by Sheila Yasmin Marikar, the author of the novel The Goddess Effect, which Kevin Kwan (Crazy Rich Asians, Sex and Vanity) called “a fall-on-the-floor funny, fresh, and modern take on one woman’s journey to hell and back.” Sheila’s writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Economist, Fortune, Bloomberg Businessweek, and Vogue, among many other publications.
Website: sheilayasminmarikar.comPodcast: Your Friend on the Ground (available wherever you get your podcasts)
Her work in progress is one you’ll be able to read in the not-too-distant future. It’s a novel called Friends in Napa, which is scheduled to be published in 2024.
She and Ted talked about why they try to avoid reading online comments (and not just the bad ones) about their books, the difference between writing a first and second novel, how they each approach trying to write things that are supposed to be funny, the experience of narrating your own audiobook, and her recently launched podcast.
Find Sheila Online:Working Drafts episodes and info for requesting transcripts as well as more details about Ted and his books are available on his website, thetedfox.com.
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Ted flies solo this month and shares a little about his own work in progress, the forthcoming rom-com Date Week, which will be published next summer by Lake Union.
Currently in the midst of the developmental editing process, he talks about what this stage in a book’s life is, the highs and lows of going through it, and the tremendous impact good editors have on the finished product that ends up in the hands of readers. He also covers the importance of self-care—like allowing yourself to record a solo pod when you’re doing a developmental edit and don’t have the mental bandwidth to schedule an interview.Working Drafts episodes and info for requesting transcripts as well as more details about Ted and his books are available on his website, thetedfox.com.
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Ted is joined by Patrick Parr, the author of two nonfiction books: The Seminarian: Martin Luther King Jr. Comes of Age and One Week in America: The 1968 Notre Dame Literary Festival and a Changing Nation. Patrick’s work has appeared in newspapers and magazines around the world, and he currently writes a history column for Japan Today about historical figures visiting Japan for the first time.
Website: patrickparr.com
Patrick’s work in progress is a novel about a 19th-century Native American man who becomes one of the first Americans to enter Japan when that country still prohibited almost all forms of foreign contact. And while fiction is a departure from much of Patrick’s published work, he shared with Ted that this is a novel that’s been with him for a long time, so much so that he’s started writing it 11 different times.
They talked about why Patrick can’t let go of this story specifically or the idea of writing novels generally despite all his success in nonfiction and the frustration that fiction has brought him. His candor and sense of humor in discussing these challenges made for a conversation that was equal parts hilarious, sobering, and affirming to any of us who spend time putting pen to paper (or the digital equivalent).
Find Patrick Online:Working Drafts episodes and info for requesting transcripts as well as more details about Ted and his books are available on his website, thetedfox.com.
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Ted is joined by Kat Higgs-Coulthard, the author of the middle-grade book Hanging With My Peeps as well as the YA novel Junkyard Dogs. The latter was published earlier this year and follows 17-year-old Josh as he takes to the streets to try to keep himself and his nine-year-old brother out of social services after their dad goes missing.
Website: writewithkat.com
Kat’s work in progress is a YA ghost story with elements of horror that once again focuses on siblings, this time with an older sister trying to protect her younger brother.
She and Ted talked about what sets YA apart from fiction aimed at adults, what we get wrong about teen readers, what it means if someone refers to your story as a “developmental draft,” how families can be scarier than ghosts, and how she lets her characters talk to her (even while plotting out themes using yarn and clothespins). In the course of their conversation, Kat also displayed her talent for relaying great writing metaphors, and she and Ted both shared their experiences with feeling overwhelmed by the need to revise.
Find Kat Online:Working Drafts episodes and info for requesting transcripts as well as more details about Ted and his books are available on his website, thetedfox.com.
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Ted is joined by Amy Carol Reeves, the author of Ripper, a YA paranormal Gothic novel about the Jack the Ripper murders in Victorian London, as well as its sequels, Renegade and Resurrection.
Instagram: @AmyCarolReevesTwitter: @AmyCarolReevesWebsite: amycarolreeves.com
Amy’s work in progress is about a modern widow who tries to grapple with grief through appealing to detailed and rigid Victorian grieving practices. Her main character goes on a journey to England and Brontë country, and while grief is certainly an element of the story, Amy emphasizes that it’s also fun, including some hilarious nights out in London and the discovery of new love.
She and Ted talked about the challenge of knowing how much historical detail to include in a novel like this, how to translate the Victorian practice of letter-writing into our modern tech-heavy culture, one of the signs that you’re writing good dialogue, and nerding out over word counts.
Find Amy Online:Working Drafts episodes and info for requesting transcripts as well as more details about Ted and his books are available on his website, thetedfox.com.
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A separate description for a trailer episode feels a little silly, so here’s the transcript instead.
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Hi, my name is Ted Fox, and I’m the author of the novel Schooled, the forthcoming novel Date Week, and the joke book You Know Who’s Awesome? (Not You.)
That was literally the title of the book, not an insult directed at you personally.
Anyway, when I’m not writing, one of my favorite things to do is talk about writing. And who better to do that with than other writers who are in the midst of … well, writing.
On this show, I’ll be chatting with authors about their work—not so much the books they’ve published (although those will definitely come up) but more what they’re writing right now, aka their works in progress, their working drafts, their open Word documents making them want to throw their computers out a window.
Wait, is that just me?
We’ll cover the good, the bad, and the daunting word counts in conversations about the craft of writing that I’m hoping will be fun and helpful, both for them and me and all of you, provided you also have strong opinions about things like unreliable narrators and Oxford commas.
If not, then you can probably skip this and watch some TV. There’s SO MUCH GOOD TV.
Working Drafts. New episodes published each month on the 15th. Available on my website, thetedfox.com, and most places you get your podcasts.
I’d say “wherever you get your podcasts,” but that’s probably not true.Working Drafts episodes and info for requesting transcripts as well as more details about Ted and his books are available on his website, thetedfox.com.
