500 episodes listed below
Honest craft talk for working writers.
Finding the Throughline with Kate Hanley follows writers through the lived details of making work: messy drafts, inner resistance, publishing pressure, and the small rituals that keep them returning. The conversations are practical without losing tenderness.
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Finding the Throughline with Kate Hanley is a measured, intimate interview show about how writers keep working. The focus is craft, but the craft is never separated from life. Recent episodes ask what happens before a project settles, what a bad writing day does to the body, and how a person keeps faith with a book that may take years. Jenna Blum brings a frank account of starting projects, promoting books, teaching, editing, and moving between ideation and the writing zone. Her conversations make room for ambition and fatigue at the same time. Kate Broad talks about confidence, inner criticism, and the relief of remembering that writing is chosen, not assigned. That idea gives the show one of its quieter strengths. It treats creative discipline as a relationship, not a punishment. Cynthia Weiner brings the lens down to the sentence, where clarity, word choice, and revision become a source of pleasure rather than just correction. She also talks about home, routine, travel, and the wish for a tree of her own. Small details matter here. A mug, a walk with the dog, a memoir, a fast-food craving, or a television show can open into a larger question about attention and desire. The interviews are structured, but they breathe. Kate Hanley's follow-ups tend to move from practical logistics into the private weather behind them. Age recurs as a useful pressure. So do money, time, visibility, publishing, and the problem of wanting a creative life without letting it consume every choice. The show suits listeners who like literary conversation with fewer slogans and more actual working conditions. It is especially strong when guests admit that a process is awkward, boring, joyful, or financially complicated. The result feels like sitting near the desk while the hard part is being named. It makes writing sound difficult and worth returning to.
Made for: Best for writers, editors, teachers, book-club readers, and creative people who want candid conversations about process, resistance, revision, and publishing life. It also suits listeners drawn to warm literary interviews with practical emotional detail.
What sets it apart: The show stands apart by pairing ordinary craft questions with the private pressures around them: age, money, confidence, boredom, ambition, and the fear of wasted time. It lets guests answer at length, so the useful parts often arrive in the digressions.
Finding the Throughline: Conversations about the Creative Process invites you into the minds of writers and other creatives as they open up about their process, their doubts, and what kinds of changes they’re thinking about making. The questions are mildly invasive, honestly, and the answers are unvarnished…and so refreshing! Whether your creative work is writing, painting, making music, parenting, or simply living, Finding the Throughline can help you get—and stay—inspired. Invigorated, even. For detailed show notes on each interview, visit katehanley.substack.com. And if you’d like to hear these interviews in one ad-free episode (as opposed to broken up into three shorter episodes with a f…
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Kate Hanley turns author interviews into precise accounts of how creative work survives doubt, financial pressure and the unruly first draft.
Kate Hanley keeps returning to the part of writing that resists a tidy success story: the false starts, money pressures, self-doubt and daily arrangements behind finished books.
A bad writing day becomes mulch here, so your creative panic may finally earn its keep.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A grounded look at how creative timing shapes the life built around writing.
Jenna Blum's conversation with Kate Hanley makes a future creative plan feel lived in rather than abstract. Promotion and exploration define 2026, while 2027 may bring both a new nest and a return to the writing zone.
A plainspoken look at false starts, finite time, and the work of trying again.
Kate Hanley's conversation with Jenna Blum is at its strongest when it lingers on false starts, the feeling of a day gone to waste, and the stubborn discipline it takes to keep working.
A candid look at the work and small magic behind a writer's life.
Kate Hanley's conversation with Jenna Blum stays close to the practical realities of writing: making a reliable living, finding value in writing-adjacent jobs, and turning an imagined idea into a real object for readers.
A calm look at the freedom that comes from not letting writing pay every bill.
Kate Broad circles a familiar pressure point: what happens when writing has to pay the bills. She is clear that she does not want to be entirely financially dependent on her writing, since that kind of pressure can tilt choices toward what is likelier to sell instead of what…
A reflective look at novel-writing, publishing logistics, and the habits that keep a book moving.
Finding the Throughline follows Cynthia Weiner through the private grind of novel-writing: years of work, little immediate feedback, and the recurring question of why it is all worth it.
A grounded look at how family life, changed routines, and curiosity make room for writing.
Finding the ThruLine grounds creative focus in the friction of everyday life, where writing has to share space with parenting, interrupted routines, and the basic need for somewhere else to think.
Jenna Blum turns a wasted writing day into mulch for the book still trying to grow.
Jenna Blum's worry about wasting time gives this episode its useful tension. A first draft can feel like a Pollock spatter, and one false start can make a whole day seem gone.
Publishing lessons from the working writer’s side.
Jenna Blum hates starting projects.
This episode features journalist Beth Macy discussing how to identify your unique storytelling perspective, drawing from her work on rural communities and marginalized groups.
Kate Hanley interviews Nada Samih-Rotondo, a Palestinian-American writer and teacher who recently published her memoir 'All Water Has Perfect Memory'.
Jenna Blum describes incubating two book ideas and planning to write two more psychological thrillers within five years.
Jenna Blum starts with a blunt confession: first drafts can feel like walking into a mess on purpose.
Jenna Blum keeps coming back to joy.
Host Kate Hanley interviews author Kate Broad about her novel Greenwich and discusses lighter topics like what she's been reading, watching, and eating lately.
This episode features part two of an interview with author Kate Broad, focusing on the inner challenges of writing such as dealing with resistance, doubts, and unhelpful beliefs.
Writing feels lighter when it is chosen, not dragged around like a bill you forgot to pay.
Cynthia Weiner starts with the long silence.
This episode features an interview with author Susannah Cahalan discussing how to handle the inner critic and 'publication psychosis' while maintaining passion for writing topics.
This episode features journalist Beth Macy discussing how to identify your unique storytelling perspective, drawing from her experience writing about rural communities and marginalized groups.
This episode features an interview with author Lisa See about her creative process, focusing on making revisions and her research into family history.
This episode features an interview with author Catherine Bush about practical strategies for creating a life that supports writing, including balancing time, space, and financial needs.