Craft talk for writers who keep going.
So You Want to be a Writer is an author-interview show framed by short craft reflections from Valerie Koo. Recent episodes move through cosy crime, thrillers, true crime, YA, setting, revision, strange ideas, and the stubborn work of finishing a manuscript.
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So You Want to be a Writer looks at writing through the moments when a book becomes difficult. Valerie Koo introduces episodes with craft problems that feel specific and recognizable: deleting a favourite chapter, over-reading a thriller for technique, fearing bad first pages, or mistaking the search for ideas as the hard part. The show then opens into author conversations grounded in books and the paths that produced them. Recent episodes feature Penny Tangey and the cosy-crime question, What Rhymes with Murder?, Emma Styles and the crime thriller The Shark, Candice Fox and the cold case that inspired Redbelly Crossing, and Derek Pedley discussing The Postcard Bandit. Those conversations sit beside episodes on Two Islands, A Guide to Falling Off the Map, How to Survive 1985, and We’re Not Us Without You. The subject range is wide. The emphasis is steady. Books are treated as made things, assembled through premise, character, genre expectation, research, setting, revision, and endurance. A guest may talk about starting from scratch several times. Another may describe the complications of writing true crime when information is limited. Koo’s openings keep returning to permission and discipline in equal measure. A scene can be joyful and still not belong in the final draft. A strange idea can be worth testing before it is dismissed. A setting can do more than sit behind the action. Reading analytically can ruin the spell and sharpen the craft at the same time. The show is especially useful when it stays with those contradictions. It offers encouragement, but usually by naming the actual pressure points: cuts, false starts, uncertainty, genre fit, and the gap between the book imagined and the pages on hand. Its publishing-world perspective is present, but the heart of the show is the work of writing itself.
Made for: Suits a listener who wants writing advice tied to real books, author choices, and the messy middle of drafting. It is a strong fit for aspiring and working writers who like craft talk with accessible publishing context.
What sets it apart: The show blends brief craft reflections with author conversations, so each episode has both a writing lesson and a book-specific case study. Its recent run keeps returning to genre fiction, true crime, revision, and the emotional discipline behind finishing work.
Everything you’ve always wanted to know about succeeding in the world of writing and publishing. Learn practical writing techniques, go behind-the-scenes and discover how real-life authors got their big break. Uncover the creative processes of writers who have made it. Your host is Valerie Khoo – author, journalist, creative and CEO of the Australian Writers’ Centre.
Five scrapped starts, and Valerie Khoo asks the question your stalled draft wants answered.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A children's author talks through how an adult cosy crime story found its form.
Valerie Koo's conversation with a children's author stepping into adult cosy crime turns on a practical writing question: how does a writer know what shape a story is asking for? The answer offered here is grounded rather than tidy.
A candid craft conversation on how five abandoned openings led toward difficult, unreliable characters.
This episode takes a precise route into the stubborn work of building a novel. The author describes starting the first draft from scratch five times, repeatedly hitting a wall around 15,000 words, and only finding the book's shape once Carmen's unreliable personality came into…
A writer follows a cold case toward the fiction, and attention, she might make from it.
A practical question about how long it takes to write a novel opens into a writer's account of a cold case involving two murdered women and a million-dollar reward.
A candid, practical episode about fear, persistence, and turning a true crime lead into finished work.
Fear of writing badly anchors this episode, which moves from Valerie Koo's story of a friend endlessly revising a novel's opening to the long, uncertain pursuit of Brendan Abbott's story.
A thoughtful literary conversation about isolation, divided histories, and the meanings a novel can carry at once.
Ian Kemish's Two Islands gives this writing podcast a measured conversation about how fiction gathers meaning without settling into a single reading.
Author stories with northbound momentum.
Indie publishing, argued out loud.
Writing courage, craft, and publication momentum.
Valerie Koo discusses the importance of writing scenes that may not make the final draft, using a personal anecdote about helping a friend with her manuscript.
Episode 712 of "So You Want to Be a Writer" opens with Valerie Koo describing an author who deleted chapter four, even though it contained a weeks-long extended metaphor.
So You Want to Be a Writer episode 711 opens with Valerie Koo describing how a thriller lost its spell when she noticed a red herring, then uses Stephen King's reading advice to frame the show around craft.
Valerie Koo opens So You Want to be a Writer episode 710 by arguing that there is no universal deadline for a novel, citing authors who finished first drafts in 11 days, a few months, or seven years.
["Brendan Abbott's postcard bandit myth gets a 2026 reset as Dean Khoury interviews Derek Pedley, now also known as Abe Madison, about the reissued The Postcard Bandit and the drama Run.", "Valerie Koo opens So You Want to Be a Writer episode 709 by arguing that fear of writing badly, not lack of talent, keeps writers stuck on blank pages.", "Nat Newman turns that advice into a concrete system by splitting an 80,000-word novel into 80 separate 1,000-word sessions and using rewards to keep momentum.", "Derek traces Abbott's 1986 Belmont Commonwealth Bank robbery, the nickname's origin in Australasian Post, and the five-year fight to publish a biography partly built from Abbott's own writing."]
So You Want to Be a Writer episode 708 opens with Valerie Koo turning a supermarket aisle observation into a lesson about noticing detail, then shifts to Ian Kemmish's debut novel Two Islands.
Cheryl Bagwell’s memoir A Letter from Provence links her life between Sydney and southern France with memories of her mother.
Alex Johnson's When Books Go Bad gathers stories about literary feuds, publishing mishaps, and authors behaving badly.
Sam Elliott describes Haze as a crime thriller that begins with Australian constable Dahlia Turner finding two friends dead and their son Jude missing during a bushfire evacuation.
Valerie Koo discusses how settings can become characters in stories, using examples like Wuthering Heights and Blade Runner, and promotes a new novel by Zanni L.
Valerie Koo discusses the value of writing scenes that may not make the final draft, using them to deepen character and world understanding.
Valerie Koo introduces the episode with a discussion about embracing weird ideas in writing, then interviews Christine Keighery about her novel exploring cults.
Valerie Koo introduces a segment about author Jo Skinner and her journey from GP to published novelist, then welcomes tutor Nat Newman from Italy.