Writers Talk on Michigan Avenue Media · Marsha Casper Cook

Author Interview Kathryn Lane Part 1 - Host Marsha Casper Cook

January 27, 2026·32 min·3 clips

An undercover investigator in Barcelona gave Kathryn Lane two hours of anonymous notes that changed her book.

The tone starts loose and personal. Marcia opens with marketing, saying she has been testing companies herself because people keep asking where they should go. So far, she is not impressed. The concern is plain enough: authors want help, but they do not know who to trust. Katharine gets pulled into that gently. Marcia jokes that Katharine is lucky to have a husband who understands marketing, and the complaint turns into easy writer-to-writer sympathy. From there, the conversation wanders into process. Both women talk about catching ideas before they slip away, especially the fragile ones that show up at the worst possible time. A notepad becomes necessary equipment. Katharine says she keeps paper and a pen close because the thought will be gone by morning. Marcia knows that panic. She remembers old stories written longhand, some lost after moves, with copies she can no longer find. The memory is still there, though. She thinks those buried drafts might come back if she started writing them again, because the story is still somewhere in her head. Katharine adds another habit. Sometimes she dictates a quick snippet into her iPhone, then listens later and moves the useful line to the computer. Marcia follows that into newer tools. She mentions Copilot on her computer, not as a formal tech segment, just as another thing writers are noticing while they work. Then the live-show mess takes over. An echo, a doubled connection, and Marcia briefly losing track of Katharine turn the ending into a scramble. They try to pull the interview back together. Marcia apologizes and tries to restart with a question about how Katharine chooses characters, while Katharine keeps reassuring her that she is still there.

As heard by us

A practical writer-to-writer conversation about memory, process, and the mess of marketing.

Marcia Kasper-Cook and Katharine Lane settle into a writer-to-writer exchange that treats craft and daily life as part of the same practice. They move through quick notes, waking with a thought in the night, losing old drafts after moves, dictating into an iPhone, and hearing…

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Why you'd press play

If you want a warm, rambling writers' chat about memory, notes, and a very messy marketing reality, press play.

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