Ep 79: Writer Laurel Snyder
Author of Orphan Island, My Jasper June, Charlie & Mouse and more.
Happy SuperPod Sunday!
Though you will actually catch me watching football later today, first things first. To wit: my conversation with Laurel Snyder, author of numerous books for young readers. Laurel has also published work in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, the Utne Reader, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Revealer, Salon, The Iowa Review, American Letters and Commentary, and elsewhere. She is an occasional commentator for NPR’s All Things Considered, and she teaches in the MFAC program at Hamline University.
In this episode, we talk about Laurel’s route from life as an Iowa Writers’ Workshop to her present career writing and teaching children’s literature. (It may look circuitous on its face, but it’s a journey that makes a lot of sense when you hear her tell it.)
We talk about staying fluent in the language of childhood, the “ghost of brokenness” when writing from a sad place, how she works with the all-or-nothing cycles of her writing process, being an extrovert in an introvert’s world, and the difficulties of writing about faith and religion.
Around minutes 53-58, this turns into a Real Housewives podcast. We’re not sorry!
Find the episode wherever you get podcasts, or click the cute pink headphones below.
Selected Show Notes
Ezra Klein’s Jeff Tweedy interview
Jason Isbell & Amanda Shires (tiny desk concert video at the end of this email!)
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