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Take your writing from average to awesome, and learn tools of the trade from bestselling authors, master writing teachers, and publishing industry insiders. This podcast will give you tools and techniques to help you get those words on the page and your stories out into the world. Past guests include: Delia Ephron, John Sandford, Steve Berry, Jojo Moyes, Tana French, Guy Kawasaki, and more.
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Author interviews make writing craft legible by connecting imaginative premises to concrete choices in research, structure, characterization, and revision.
DIY MFA Radio treats writing craft as a trail of consequential choices. Gabriela Pereira and Lori Walker lead author interviews from a book's premise into the practical work of shaping it, asking how research, structure, revision, and form alter what reaches the page.
A 70-page outline meets a rebuilt middle, and your revision panic finds company.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A craft-first interview about outlining, revision, and the hard work of making a draft hold together.
This conversation lands in a useful place: a craft talk that stays grounded in process. Amy Christine Parker talks plainly about long outlines, re-outlining, and the kind of revision that can mean tearing the middle apart and building it again.
A measured craft conversation about an experimental collection that blends images, erasure, and careful research.
Tarina Elizabeth talks through an experimental short story collection built from images, erasure, and careful factual research. The episode keeps coming back to the same hard problem: how to stay exact on the page without flattening the feeling that makes the work matter.
A grounded craft talk about family politics, voice, and how conversation becomes fiction.
Jamada Emil links the character's arc to ordinary talk: friends, family dinners, and blunt run-ins with racism. The strongest part is the way it treats craft as a set of choices, from voice to reading widely to the pressure inside a character's home life.
A warm craft talk about family myth, hidden history, and the details that crack a story open.
Fran Hawthorne and Lori Walker turn a family story into a quiet look at what gets passed down, what gets kept back, and how those inheritances shape fiction.
A clear craft talk on fan fiction, worldbuilding, and finishing what gets started.
This conversation is strongest when it moves past general enthusiasm and into the craft itself. It treats fan fiction as practical training for newer writers, especially for learning worldbuilding, imitation, and how to work inside an already formed world.
A spare, eerie conversation about fairy tales, myth, music, and the cost of a gift.
Dr. Heloisa Prieto talks through fairy tales, myth, and the thin line between enchantment and danger. Thomas, the orphaned, wealthy, gifted center of her book, gives the discussion a clear point of focus.
A writing conversation about notes, scenes, and how a chosen name can lower the stakes.
Carolyn Hayes treats writing as something that starts well before a first draft. Notes, scraps on the wall, and quick captures on a phone all matter here, because she rarely begins from nothing and can tell when she is already inside a scene.
A patient craft talk about secrets, structure, and the revisions that keep a mystery working.
The conversation treats mystery as a form built from partial truths, lies, and secrets, with Iris Yamashita showing how those pieces can keep tension moving without losing the thread.
Ira Glass frames weekly theme-driven segments spanning family secrets to Portland's protest conflict.
Shankar Vedantam unpacks the psychology behind relationships, careers, and money through researcher interviews.
David McRaney interviews researchers on cognitive bias, motivated reasoning, and why minds change.
Ryan Holiday pairs daily Stoic lessons with long-form guest conversations at his Texas bookstore.
NHPR's Jason Moon investigates the Bear Brook barrel murders and a New Hampshire wrongful-conviction case.
Russ Roberts interviews authors and economists on ideas from classical liberalism to AI.
In this interview, bestselling author Kendara Blake discusses her journey to becoming a writer, including her MFA experience, and delves into writing the Buffy the Vampire Slayer reboot series for Disney.
Lori Walker interviews Jamada Emil about his YA thriller 'The Black Queen', which explores social justice topics like race and privilege through a murder mystery.
Academy Award-nominated screenwriter Iris Yamashita discusses her transition to novel writing with 'City Under One Roof,' a mystery set in an isolated Alaskan town.
Author Amy Christine Parker discusses her horror novel Flight 171 and shares insights on maximizing opening chapters and characterization.
Carolyn Hayes discusses her memoir 'A Girlhood, Letter to My Transgender Daughter', exploring her decision to use a pen name for privacy, the craft of memoir writing, and the personal journey of raising a trans child.
Gabriela Pereira interviews Brazilian author Heloisa Prieto about her YA novel 'The Musician,' exploring themes of indigenous culture, magical realism, and the craft of writing for an English-speaking audience.
Gabriela Pereira interviews Tarina Elizabeth Bell about her experimental short story collection 'Tell Me What You See,' which explores the pandemic and Capitol invasion through innovative forms.
In this episode of DIY MFA Radio, host Lori Walker interviews author Fran Hawthorne about her transition from journalism to fiction writing, her novel 'I Meant to Tell You', and the craft of writing family sagas with secrets.