Writers With Wrinkles

Writer’s Block Isn’t One Thing: How to Get Unstuck Fast

Forcing yourself to "just write every day" can make writer's block worse. Author Sylvia Liu shares the sideways fixes that actually get you unstuck. Writer's b

How a Thriller Writer Wrote a Cozy Mystery in Four Weeks

What do you do when the story you can't stop thinking about doesn't fit the genre you're known for? Thriller author Dina Marie (Dina Santorelli) took a gho

Podcast to Book to Press: Our Big Napa Announcement

We're back in Napa, where the Writers With Wrinkles podcast was born five years ago, with a new book and a new self-publishing press for writers. Every self-publish

Want to Write a Graphic Novel? A First Second Editor Explains

Your graphic novel isn't a novel. It's a screenplay, and editors can tell from page one whether you know the difference. First Second Books editor Ivan Taurisan

150+ Episodes of Publishing Advice, Now in One Book

We just turned 150+ episodes of hard-won publishing wisdom into one book — and it's finally here. Write, Revise, Publish: Essential Lessons from the Writers With Wri

Why Middle Grade Books Got Too Long For Kids To Read

Harry Potter didn't just create a fantasy phenomenon — according to one Big Five editor, it quietly helped break middle grade publishing. Every book that tried to ch

An Acquiring Editor Reveals What She's Buying Right Now

Most rejected picture book and middle grade manuscripts aren't turned down because they're bad — they're turned down because an editor has already seen fiv

AI Stole Our Books. Now We're the Suspects

AI companies are shredding rare books to train their models—and now authors are the ones being told to prove they didn't use AI to write their own. Beth and Lisa unp

The 4 First-Page Mistakes That Get You Rejected Fast, with editor Joel Brigham

Your opening pages have about 30 seconds to keep a literary agent reading — and most manuscripts lose that fight before the first paragraph ends. Developmental editor Jo

10 Years of Rejection, 40 Books Later (Corrected Audio!)

Note: If you downloaded this episode before 8/3 and experienced audio issues, please delete the download and hit re-download to grab the clean audio file! Wendelin Van D

Tired of Waiting 2 Years to Publish? Go Hybrid

You could finish four books this year and only ever get to publish one of them. That's the traditional publishing timeline in a nutshell — and it's why more au

Why Bestselling Author Jason June Shares Every Book Advance He's Ever Gotten

New York Times bestselling author Jason June (Out of the Blue, Jay's Gay Agenda) returns to Writers With Wrinkles for a wide-ranging conversation covering his growin

Back in the Query Trenches: Author Lisa Frenkel Riddiough on Losing an Agent and Starting Over

Episode Summary In this episode of Writers With Wrinkles, hosts Beth McMullen and Lisa Schmid welcome back returning guest Lisa Frenkel Riddiough to discuss her brand-ne

How to Publish Nonfiction: Agent Alia Hanna Habib's Guide (summer encore series!)

Beth and Lisa welcome literary agent and debut author Alia Hanna Habib, whose book Take It From Me is a practical behind-the-scenes guide to getting a nonfiction book pub

Literary Agent Ann Rose: What Your First Chapter Needs

Literary agent Ann Rose (Marsal Lyon Literary Agency) returns to Writers With Wrinkles for a candid, funny, and reassuring conversation with Beth and Lisa about the curre

How to Revise Your Novel: Developmental Editor Joel Brigham's Checklist (encore episode!)

In this re-released conversation, developmental editor Joel Brigham returns to talk all things revision: how to approach your first editing pass, the most common pitfalls

Stop Making Videos Nobody Watches — Here's a Way to Actually Sell Books

Hosts Beth McMullen and Lisa Schmid cut through the noise of book marketing advice to spotlight what genuinely moves books: word of mouth. Nearly half of readers (47–48%)

Back by Popular Demand: Words on the Page with editor Joel Brigham

Joel Brigham runs Brigham Editorial (developmental edits, manuscript critiques, query help), teaches high school English in Illinois, and is an editor for RevPit — a comm

Stop Querying Wrong: Agent Nikki Carrero Breaks It Down

Beth and Lisa talk with literary agent Nikki Carrero, from The Rights Factory, to break down the querying process from the agent’s side — what gets you noticed, what gets

How to Write Better Stakes & Tension in Your Novel (and some Taylor Swift!)

We tackle a publishing debate, draw writing wisdom from Taylor Swift, and dig into one of the most common craft problems in fiction — weak stakes and missing tension. Plu