The ACME Writing Academy Podcast

Rick, Bob, and Mike answer your questions about writing in this funny and occasionally serious final episode of Season Three. Hosted by Rick Krizman Produced by Rick Krizman and Mike Magnuson Featuring Bob Clark Marcello Vazquez will return in future episodes.

Novelist and ACME Academy member Mary Helen Stefaniak calls in to Academy Party Headquarters in Menasha with a report on teaching creative writing in Beijing. Hosted by Rick Krizman Produced by Rick Krizman and Mike Magnuson Featuring Mary Helen Stefaniak With Bob Clark and Mike Magnuson Marcello Vazquez will return in future episodes.

Valerie Laken - novelist, artist, musician - joins the Academy on the north shore of Lake Winnebago for Part Two of this discussion about trangressions in literature, Midwesternisms, and ways to produce serious work and have fun doing it. Hosted by Rick Krizman Produced by Rick Krizman and Mike Magnuson Featuring Valerie Laken With Bob Clark and Mike Magnuson Marcello Vazquez will return in future episodes.

Valerie Laken - novelist, artist, musician - joins the Academy on the north shore of Lake Winnebago to discuss her roots as a writer and a thinker. Hosted by Rick Krizman Produced by Rick Krizman and Mike Magnuson Featuring Valerie Laken With Bob Clark and Mike Magnuson Marcello Vazquez will return in future episodes.

Mary Helen Stefaniak guest hosts this discussion with novelist Kellie Wells about writing methods, writing mindsets, reading aloud, and our inner voices. Hosted by Rick Krizman Produced by Rick Krizman and Mike Magnuson Featuring Mary Helen Stefaniak and Kellie Wells Note: Bob Clark and Marcello Vazquez will return in future episodes.

Novelist Mary Helen Stefaniak joins ACME to discuss making time to write a novel and how to think about the sentences that go in it. Hosted by Rick Krizman Produced by Rick Krizman and Mike Magnuson Featuring Mary Helen Stefaniak Note: Bob Clark and Marcello Vazquez will return in future episodes.

Novelists Claire Davis and Mary Helen Stefaniak join ACME to discuss everything from metaphors to movies to red wine and the great city of Milwaukee. Hosted by Rick Krizman Produced by Rick Krizman and Mike Magnuson Featuring Claire Davis and Mary Helen Stefaniak Note: Bob Clark and Marcello Vazquez will return in future episodes.

The California Adventure begins in a jarring alternate reality where the members of the ACME Academy find themselves in Venice, tasked with defeating the age-old, art-killing nemesis of every writer: What do you do when you got nothin’? ACME Writing Academy Season Two: ACME’s California Adventure Hosted by Rick Krizman. Produced by Rick Krizman and Mike Magnuson Featuring Chef Marcello Vazquez With Bob Clark and Mike Magnuson

The Academy searches through the murk of their histories to find where their stories and storytelling methods come from, and when they can’t figure it out what it all means, they do the only sensible thing. ACME Writing Academy Season Two: ACME’s California Adventure Hosted by Rick Krizman. Produced by Rick Krizman and Mike Magnuson Featuring Chef Marcello Vazquez With Bob Clark and Mike Magnuson

On a lovely Santa Monica evening, with a $100 dollar porterhouse on the grill, the Academy ponders the endless layers of the bullshit involved in writing the stories of our lives, and along the way, they stumble into the dangerous territory of personal and cultural appropriation. And outright theft. ACME Writing Academy Season Two: ACME’s California Adventure Hosted by Rick Krizman. Produced by Rick Krizman and Mike Magnuson Featuring Chef Marcello Vazquez With Bob Clark and Mike Magnuson

Morning arrives in Santa Monica, and a crisp, coffee-fired Academy considers the rules and regulations of point-of-view, French musician’s etiquette, Argentina’s working-class cooking protocols, and the satisfaction that comes with saying, “Know it? Hell, I wrote it!” ACME Writing Academy Season Two: ACME’s California Adventure Hosted by Rick Krizman. Produced by Rick Krizman and Mike Magnuson Featuring Chef Marcello Vazquez With Bob Clark and Mike Magnuson

With the California sun shining and everyone’s mood improving, the Academy sidesteps the broader, abstract concerns of writing and opens up the toolbox of grammar and rhetoric and what writers actually need to know to put words on the page. ACME Writing Academy Season Two: ACME’s California Adventure Hosted by Rick Krizman. Produced by Rick Krizman and Mike Magnuson Featuring Chef Marcello Vazquez With Bob Clark and Mike Magnuson

On Sunday, after Rick wakes up at 4:30 in the morning excited about sentences, the Academy declares this to be Sentence Day and puts on ACME party hats and lays out a magnificent smorgasbord of sentences for an all-day celebration. ACME Writing Academy Season Two: ACME’s California Adventure Hosted by Rick Krizman. Produced by Rick Krizman and Mike Magnuson Featuring Chef Marcello Vazquez With Bob Clark and Mike Magnuson

ACME’s California Adventure draws to a close in an oddly serious discussion of the benefits of planning ahead as opposed to improvising and allowing the words to lead the work wherever it wants to go, even if the words lead to nothing, which begs the question: What do you do when you got nothin’? ACME Writing Academy Season Two: ACME's California Adventure Hosted by Rick Krizman. Produced by Rick Krizman and Mike Magnuson Featuring Chef Marcello Vazquez With Bob Clark and Mike Magnuson

ACME kicks around the writing advice we’ve heard or given over the years, the advice we’ve heeded or ignored or didn’t mean in the first place or that we might have been just too damn lazy to put into effect. ACME is Hosted by Rick Krizman. Produced by Rick Krizman and Mike Magnuson. Featuring Bob Clark, Jim Frank, and Marcello Vazquez. With Mike Magnuson.

A funny, serious, lowbrow/highbrow, and ultimately honest discussion of the value of writing workshops. Does the old, often brutal workshop model still work? Or should there be new way for us to get feedback on our works in progress? ACME is Hosted by Rick Krizman. Produced by Rick Krizman and Mike Magnuson. Featuring Bob Clark, Jim Frank, and Marcello Vazquez. With Mike Magnuson.

Interview. Rick talks with Anita Gill about the first-person plural and the collective mindset and with Michele Bombardier about mastering the craft of poetry. ACME is Hosted by Rick Krizman. Produced by Rick Krizman and Mike Magnuson. Featuring Bob Clark, Jim Frank, and Marcello Vazquez. With Mike Magnuson.

Interview. Mike talks record collecting and writing and the creative personality with John McNally, author of the hilarious new memoir The Boy Who Really, Really, Wanted to Have Sex. ACME is Hosted by Rick Krizman. Produced by Rick Krizman and Mike Magnuson. Featuring Bob Clark, Jim Frank, and Marcello Vazquez. With Mike Magnuson.

ACME gets personal in this discussion of Vietnam, Argentina, Iowa, the Bronx, and the differences between influence, appropriation, and plagiarism. Acme is Hosted by Rick Krizman. Produced by Rick Krizman and Mike Magnuson. Featuring Bob Clark, Jim Frank, and Marcello Vazquez. With Mike Magnuson.

The ACME Writing Academy discusses the nature of rhythm and tempo in prose, in music, and in the heart. Is the music of writing natural and unconsciously created? Or do writers construct it to control their reader’s experience? Special guest appearance by Ludwig van Beethoven. ACME is Hosted by Rick Krizman. Produced by Rick Krizman and Mike Magnuson. Featuring Bob Clark, Jim Frank, and Marcello Vazquez. With Mike Magnuson.