479 episodes listed below
Patient craft talk for working writers.
Story Works Round Table treats writing as a craft that can be examined patiently, example by example. Recent episodes move through memoir, journaling, scene structure, voice, audiobook performance, regional fiction, and speculative plotting.
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Story Works Round Table is built around the close study of writing craft. It moves slowly, and that is part of its value. Rather than turning fiction, memoir, or publishing into quick tips, the show tends to define a problem, look at a working example, and keep circling until the practical choice becomes visible. Recent episodes show that pattern clearly. A memoir conversation with Kerry Kriseman considers how personal truth changes when another person’s story is inseparable from the narrator’s own. A journaling episode with Marcy Sproull treats the notebook as a place to gain distance, shift perspective, and approach hard-to-tell material with more compassion. Ask Alida installments bring a workshop texture to questions about scenes, sequels, series, and emotional resonance. Those episodes are especially useful for writers stuck between instinct and revision, because they translate broad advice into page-level moves. A discussion with Trish MacEnulty focuses on voice in fiction, both for narration and for characters. Wendy Wessel’s audiobook episode widens the craft lens to performance, including dialogue, character voices, emotional effect, and the challenge of doing justice to a novel aloud. Arlon Jay Staggs brings the show into regional fiction, Southern settings, dialect, rom-com expectations, nostalgia, and a playful story element involving love biscuits. Mark J. Wilson’s episode on speculative fiction looks at rule-making, character clarity, and keeping readers oriented in a time-travel plot. Across these conversations, the show favors clarity over cleverness. It likes terms, but it does not leave them floating. It likes philosophy, but it keeps returning to the manuscript. The pacing is measured, with room for housekeeping, workshops, newsletters, and the occasional personal anecdote. That can make the front matter feel leisurely. Once the craft conversation settles in, though, the show becomes a steady companion for writers who want to think more carefully about structure, voice, emotion, place, and revision.
Made for: Best for fiction writers, memoirists, and serious readers who enjoy calm, example-rich discussions of how stories work. It especially suits writers in revision or anyone trying to turn instinct into clearer craft decisions.
What sets it apart: The show’s strength is its patient translation of big craft ideas into specific writing choices. It treats memoir, scene mechanics, voice, place, performance, and speculative structure as problems a writer can actually work through.
Each week, co-hosts, Alida Winternheimer, author and writing coach at Word Essential, and Kathryn Arnold, emerging writer, have conversations about the craft of writing fiction. They bring diverse experiences and talents to the table from both the traditional and indie worlds.Our goal is for each episode to be a fun, lively discussion of some aspect of story craft that enlightens, as well as entertains.Sometimes we have special guests. All episodes are available in video as well. Visit www.StoryWorksPodcast.com for videos, show notes, and more.
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Story Works Round Table makes the choices behind historical fiction and memoir clear, practical, and open to scrutiny.
Story Works Round Table follows stories back to the choices that make them credible. Alida Winternheimer and Kathryn Arnold use conversations with writers and practical Q&A sessions to examine structure, character, research, and revision, keeping attention on decisions a writer…
The biscuit might be magic; the useful question is how much your reader needs explained.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A thoughtful take on memoir, restraint, and keeping the author's story at the center.
The conversation treats memoir as a question of judgment as much as disclosure. Keri Kreisman works through the strain of writing a life connected to a spouse's public career, and the thread keeps circling back to mission statement, accountability, and sensitivity.
Journaling is framed as a craft tool for creating distance, perspective, and clarity on hard material.
The segment treats journaling as a practical craft tool for gaining distance from difficult material. Its strongest thread is the steady focus on perspective: putting the work on the page can help a writer step back, make it more concrete, and look at it from more than one…
A live craft conversation that turns scene, sequel, and series questions into usable page-level advice.
Storyworks Roundtable uses this double episode to spend time inside Ask Alita, Alita's monthly live Q&A at booksandpencils.substack.com, and the discussion stays grounded in page-level craft.
A warm craft Q&A turns emotional resonance into choices about behavior, pacing, and what stays unsaid.
Emotional resonance becomes a practical craft question in this PlayNext episode. Alita focuses on what happens when a character wants to break a dish and holds back, following anger through pursed lips, picked skin, and a stress tell planted early enough to pay off without…
Southern setting, dialect, and a biscuit-sized touch of the absurd.
Storyworks Roundtable takes up Arlen Jay Steggs and Lita Pearl's Love Biscuits with a clear eye on craft, especially Southern Fiction, regional voice, and the way place settles onto the page.
Graph paper, time cues, and practical anchors keep the time-travel puzzle legible.
Mark J. Wilson's conversation keeps its focus on a practical craft question: how to preserve plot and character movement when time gets slippery.
A clear, practical episode on keeping subplots alive without letting them crowd the main ending.
Subplots get treated here as working pieces of a novel, not ornamental side routes. The episode looks at how an established relationship, whether family, partners, or a romantic thread, can deepen empathy while still feeding the investigation.
A retreat, a few wrong turns, and a clear case for letting place carry research onto the page.
A writing retreat turns into a focused look at how place can shape the work of research. The episode follows a writer who steps away from daily obligations, writes alongside a friend, and finds that being in a meaningful location can unlock material that screen-based research…
Great books, taken chapter by chapter, with delight
Book talk with room to wander.
Catherine and Tim Auld discuss his journey as a writer-director and his approach to making meaningful action films.
Jane Rubin discusses her historical fiction series focusing on women's history in America, from immigrant experiences to World War I.
Co-hosts Alida Winternheimer and Kathryn Arnold discuss the benefits of writing retreats and research trips, using Kathryn's recent visit to Astoria, Oregon, as a case study.
This episode features part two of a conversation with Kavita Das about her book 'Craft and Conscience'.
Paulette Stout discusses how to write to your theme in this craft-focused interview.
Author JP Prince explains how writing Chinatown-era screenplay assignments, including transcribing campus conversations verbatim in a notebook, shaped the dialogue in his cyberpunk novel The Mess.
Catherine and host discuss memoir writing with Kerry Kriseman, focusing on her book Accidental First Lady and how to keep the focus on personal story when intertwined with another's.
The host shares personal updates and introduces a conversation about journaling for writers with guest Marcy Sproull.
A live Q&A session on crafting scenes and writing sequels and series for writers.
A conversation with author and instructor Trish MacEnulty about developing a distinctive and meaningful writing voice in fiction.
A conversation with voice artist Wendy Wessel about the craft of performing audiobooks, focusing on storytelling and character voices rather than technical recording tips.
Story Works Round Table: Conversations About Craft uses Ask Alita to focus on emotional resonance, backstory, and writerly goals with Catherine asking the questions.
Arlen J.
On this StoryWorks Roundtable episode, hosts Catherine and her co-host talk with debut novelist Mark Wilson, a PhD biochemist working in gene therapy for Rett syndrome, about his time-travel detective novel Full of Beans.
In this StoryWorks Roundtable 'Ask Alida' episode, co-hosts Alida and Katherine discuss craft coach and editor Judy K.
Sarah Branson discusses her speculative fiction novel featuring flying pirates and a female hero, drawing on her experience as a midwife and science teacher to build a future world.
Grishma Shah discusses blending immigrant stories with historical events in fiction on the Storyworks Roundtable.