Practical craft talk for working writers.
Kobo Writing Life Podcast brings authors into practical conversations about how books get written, sold, and adapted. Recent episodes move from thriller drafting and romance collaboration to horror tension, dictation, fantasy worldbuilding, and screen rights.
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Kobo Writing Life Podcast is an author interview show built around the real mechanics of a writing life. It is warm, direct, and more interested in process than polish. The conversations usually start with how a guest became a writer, then follow the trail into craft habits, publishing choices, creative risk, and career stamina. That structure gives the show a useful range. One episode can linger on Angela Marsons handwriting a first draft in pencil and notepads and trusting a discovery process where the murderer may change deep into the book. Another can follow Christina Lauren from fan fiction and San Diego Comic-Con into collaborative romance, hero archetypes, and the comic tension of dating-show story worlds. The practical details matter here. Guests talk about how they draft, how they research, how they recover from early failed attempts, and how they decide which parts of an industry change are worth listening to. The show is especially good when a guest turns a personal path into usable writing insight. Nana Malone’s route through an early manuscript and indie publishing becomes a lesson in momentum. Sarah Elizabeth Sawyer’s dictation work becomes a clear look at outlining, discovery writing, and the fear of rambling into a voice note. Genre craft gets equal attention. Karma Brown discusses horror, dread, utopian and dystopian settings, and the role of a haunted painting in Mother is Watching. A.B. Daniels-Annachi brings fantasy back to folktales, myths, colonialism, classism, and diverse dark fiction. Amy McCulloch connects adventure thrillers to mountaineering, ultra running, and the physical experiences behind Runner 13. Maggie Marr widens the frame toward adaptation, film, television, and the business of turning a book story into a screen project. The pacing is brisk but not rushed. Short prompts let long answers breathe. It suits writers who want encouragement, but it is strongest for writers who also want specifics: what changed, what failed, what helped, and what the next draft demanded.
Made for: Best suited to authors, self-publishers, genre writers, and book people who like candid process stories with concrete publishing takeaways. It also works for readers curious about how thrillers, romance, horror, fantasy, and adaptations are built.
What sets it apart: The show pairs Kobo Writing Life’s publishing-world perspective with relaxed author conversations that stay close to the work itself. Guests describe drafting systems, collaboration habits, research choices, dictation, adaptation, and career turns in usable detail.
The Kobo Writing Life Podcast features exciting interviews with bestselling authors, tips on the craft and business of writing, and advice for a successful self-publishing career. Millions of readers are waiting to discover your book - publish today at www.kobo.com/writinglife.
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Author interviews make drafting choices, collaboration, adaptation and publishing strategy legible through specific accounts of creative work.
Kobo Writing Life Podcast follows authors past the origin story and into the choices that shape a working career. Tara Kremen, Rachel Wharton and Laura Granger ask practical follow-ups about drafting, collaboration and publishing strategy, giving guests room to explain how their…
Pencil drafts meet dictated novels, and your writing routine starts looking negotiable.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A grounded look at a crime writer keeping a long-running series alive through uncertainty and revision.
Angela Mersens comes across less as a crime author with every twist locked in from the start than as a writer willing to follow the work where it leads. Discussing D.I.
A warm, candid PlayNext episode on fan fiction, Comic-Con, and the creative partnership behind Christina Lauren's romance career.
Christina Lauren's collaborative romance career anchors this PlayNext episode, with the duo tracing their start in fan fiction, their first meeting at San Diego Comic-Con, and the slight correction that moves the partnership's origin from 2010 back to 2009.
A grounded, practical look at how a novel can move toward film and television.
Turning a novel into film or television can seem like a jump between worlds, but Maggie Marr frames it as a working path shaped by law, storytelling, and the realities of getting projects made.
A practical discussion of dictation, rambling voice notes, and the workable middle ground between plotting and discovery writing.
Kobo Writing Life's conversation with Sarah Elizabeth Sawyer turns dictation into a broader question of process: how much structure a writer needs before speaking a scene into being.
A lockdown running habit opens into a thriller shaped by endurance, pressure, and desert heat.
Writing Adventure Thrillers with Amy McCulloch traces a neat movement from lockdown confinement to a far wider horizon. Stranded in her London flat during COVID, McCulloch turned runs around the block into the beginning of a bigger challenge, and that experience helped lead her…
A grounded discussion of romance worldbuilding, paced reveals, and reader curiosity across connected series.
The Kobo Writing Life Podcast frames Michelle M. Pillow's romance worldbuilding as part of the day-to-day work of a long publishing career. Pillow talks through how she develops connected series, saves details until readers are ready for them, and pays attention to reader…
Craft talk with a writer's inner weather.
An interview with Renee Harleston, founder of Writing Diversely, discussing how sensitivity readers help authors create diverse and inclusive characters and stories.
Book one cannot hold the whole universe, and Michelle M.
Amy McCulloch writes from the edge, sometimes literally.
An interview with thriller author Samantha M.
A throwback interview with author Robert Harris discussing his book Conclave, writing routines, and research, re-released during Oscar season as the film adaptation receives Best Picture nomination.
Angela starts with persistence.
Christina Lauren arrive as two voices, and Tara Kremen treats the backlist chat like a friendly origin story: fan fiction roots, San Diego Comic-Con, and a writing partnership that became a romance career.
Karma Brown discusses her transition from journalism to writing horror novels, focusing on building dread and tension in her book Mother is Watching.
Indie author Nana Malone shares her writing journey, from starting after reading Bridget Jones's Diary to choosing indie publishing and dictation.
A.B.
Screen dreams get practical fast.
Dictation gets a grounded, myth-busting run-through here.
Amy McCulloch discusses her adventure-inspired thrillers and writing process on the Kobo Writing Life podcast.
Victoria Strauss discusses the origins of Writer Beware and how authors can avoid scams in the publishing industry.