Laura Hurwitz | Spreaker

Today on The Easy Chair: It’s another candid episode of Shoulda Swiped Left with Hannah and Jake. It’s always a complete surprise to me what makes it onto the podcast, and this episode is no exception. Join us for a spirited and essentially unedited episode (we all had a busy week with only last-minute recording time) so enjoy the largely uncut content. And huge congratulations to Rana Othman, who won a dozen of Jake’s Mom’s Chocolate Chip Cookies by correctly identifying the ad-lib moment...

Steph Spaulding and I are back with another episode of the podcast for writers, Mightier Than the Sword! We discuss the disciplined practice of writing. Is it a labor of love, or more like pure labor? Writing on retreat is one thing, but integrating a writing practice into life on a regular basis presents a set of unique challenges. Steph and I talk about how to start, how to keep the writing flow going, when to push, when to be patient. Join us for this entertaining (and hopefully...

This week: It’s a new episode of “Mightier Than the Sword” and Steph Spaulding and I process both the details and the aftermath of our DIY edit swap. Personally, it was a huge challenge to bring my newborn manuscript into the world and hold it out (even to a close and supremely competent pal) for a careful, honest inspection. Constructive criticism was what I sought, but dreaded. Steph is less of a head case and just wanted to make sure her about-to-be self-published collection of short...

This week on The Easy Chair: “Matricidal Maniac” by none other than Mightier Than the Sword co-host and gifted, ever-popular writer Stephanie Spaulding. In this tale, which we want you to note is 100% fictional, honest, Christine’s excruciatingly embarrassing mother travels to Manhattan to spend time with her daughter, and Christine’s annoyance explodes into an array of colorful death fantasies. Not that Christine wants to kill her mother- she knows where to draw the line- but maybe she...

This week, it’s Mightier Than the Sword. Co-host Steph Spaulding and I show by example the leap of faith and specific intentions of editing in general, and peer editing in particular. We have swapped manuscripts for editing purposes, with different editorial goals for our work, and we walk you through the process of editing. Aspiring writers and editors, pay attention! Speaking of editing, in editing this podcast, I realize how insecure I sound. I think many of you out there will empathize...

This week, It's The Easy Chair episode 100!!! To mark this momentous podcasting milestone: Shoulda Swiped Left with Hannah and Jake. Of course there’s dating talk but also career talk, house talk, and a smattering of observations and opinions. My greatest joy as host and podcast editor is once a month, I get to appreciate the special dynamic between my two oldest kids. They might not always agree but they never fail to support each other. It’s a wide-ranging, relaxed, and largely unedited...

On The Easy Chair this week: Mightier Than the Sword is back, and Steph and I talk D.I.Y. writing retreats. Summer is the perfect season for writers both professional and aspiring to snag some time to work on their writing projects, and taking off to a remote, ideally idyllic location solo or with fellow writers is the best idea ever. Planning retreats takes some forethought and planning. Steph and I speak from our own fabulous writer’s retreat experience. We’re here to share strategies...

This week on The Easy Chair: “P.R. Story” by Deborah Zervas. Yes, P.R. may be the acronym for Public Relations, but in this case the initials are for the island of Deborah’s grandparents’ birth, Puerto Rico. Steph Spaulding and I first heard Deborah read this at a coffee house in New Haven and were absolutely blown away. Deborah has woven a profoundly poignant narrative tracing what it means to return to the place you have always known by heart. She tells this memoir piece in two...

This week: Mightier Than the Sword is back! Stephanie Spaulding and I discuss our post-teaching summer plans, which for me includes following my agent’s directive and revising two manuscripts. I admit I am daunted, but itching to get started. Stephanie is eager to begin the process of self-publishing her collection of short stories. It’s the perfect moment to discuss a topic of great importance to many aspiring writers, namely, how to best get written work out into the world. Does the...

This week's episode: “Sook’s Karaoke Palace” an as-told-to-me synthesis of real-life, real-person anecdotes. I’m excited to finally emerge from my post-Trump creativity slump, plus, I really love how the narrative came together. It begins when Dan and his college buddies move off campus to an apartment belonging to Sook, a woman of Korean ancestry, indeterminate age, and endless surprises. Sook can shrug off the blood stains on the rug and doesn’t hesitate to break into Dan’s apartment to...

This week marks the return of "Mightier Than the Sword," the advice podcast for writers. Co-host Stephanie Spaulding and I field a great question from Eric, an astrophysicist/aspiring writer Stephanie met recently. Something is holding Eric back from taking the writing plunge: he finds the challenges of character development and believable dialog intimidating. Stephanie and I reveal our personal go-to strategies for creating believable characters who use authentic dialog, some orthodox,...

This week, I pass the microphone to Stephanie Spaulding, who guest hosts “Safe in the Black Sand,” by author Danny Stone. (Actually, I wind up taking the mic back because Danny’s story and the conversation it sparked were impossible to resist). In Danny’s lyrical and haunting novella, protagonist Jax’s transgender sister Angelica is the victim of a brutal hate crime. To save Angelica, Jax must descend into the chaotic miasma of his father’s hallucinatory brain, to a place where profound,...

This week’s episode: Blog Jam. I picked some of my favorite posts from my nearly eight-year-old blog, Lolliblog, ranging from funny to reflective. My blog isn’t thematic or even consistent, just the daily musings of a woman who lives to write and is trying her best to put into words the three Es- experience, emotion, and existence. How did I feel about my daughter Eliza's penchant for dressing like her brother? Is it true that the best piece of prose I ever read was written by some high...