GrottoPod
Conversations with working writers on the craft of writing, the writer’s life, and the broader writing community, recorded at the Writers Grotto in San Francisco, California.
- Update frequency
- every 10 days
- Average duration
- 52 minutes
- Episodes
- 154
- Years Active
- 2017 - 2025
Episode 34: Laurie Ann Doyle On Crafting Unputdownable Stories
This week, Laurie Ann Doyle -- author of the new short-story collection World Gone Missing, founder of the Babylon Salon literary performance series and GrottoPod co-producer -- sits down for a warm,…
00:58:57 |
Tue 26 Sep 2017
Episode 33: Mary Roach On Where Best-Sellers Come From
This week, the GrottoPod travels to the downtown Oakland office of Grotto alum Mary Roach, the New York Times best-selling author of six titles, including Stiff: the Curious Lives of Human Cadavers, …
01:05:06 |
Tue 19 Sep 2017
Episode 32: “Dr. Frank” Portman, From Punk to Publishing
What do you do when a music industry meltdown kills your band’s record sales? If you’re “Dr. Frank” Portman of East Bay pop-punk pioneers The Mr. T Experience, you get to work becoming a successful Y…
01:09:10 |
Tue 12 Sep 2017
Episode 31: Janelle Brown On Writing A Best-Seller
What are the unique challenges of being a best-selling author? Find out this week as Janelle Brown -- whose latest book, Watch Me Disappear, debuted at #13 on the New York Times bestseller list -- jo…
01:00:48 |
Tue 05 Sep 2017
Episode 30: Christian Winn On Finding Your Writing Path
When Christian Winn moved from Seattle to Boise, he didn’t realize that he was also jump-starting his writing career. Twenty years later, he’s Idaho’s writer-in-residence and a central piece of Boise…
01:02:24 |
Tue 29 Aug 2017
Episode 29: Roberto Lovato On Chasing the Truth
Journalist and writer Roberto Lovato has spent his life running toward -- rather than away from -- conflict. Through it all, he has never stopped seeking the truth and has never wavered from his beli…
00:55:13 |
Tue 22 Aug 2017
Episode 28: Ex-NYT Poetry Editor Matthew Zapruder On His New Book
Critically-acclaimed poet, Grotto member and former New York Times poetry editor Matthew Zapruder releases his newest book, Why Poetry?, today. To celebrate, we're revisiting his April interview with…
00:46:28 |
Tue 15 Aug 2017
Episode 27: Laura Fraser On Turning Travel Into Books
Laura Fraser is, among other things, a best-selling memoirist; an instinctive muckraking journalist; a celebrated travel writer; the founder of Shebooks, a publishing imprint dedicated to women autho…
00:57:59 |
Tue 08 Aug 2017
Episode 26: Larry and BQ On The Sticky Business of Writing
Why do you write? Or, rather, how do you write? This week, hosts Bridget Quinn and Larry Rosen address these issues, landing on questions of motivation, ambition and outcome as they share their respe…
01:01:22 |
Tue 01 Aug 2017
Episode 25: Katherine Ozment On The Search for Meaning
Can you create community and ritual without religion, raise moral and ethical children without the guiding hand of the church, find grace without God? This week, we address big questions like these w…
00:58:08 |
Tue 25 Jul 2017
Episode 24: Bridget Watson Payne On The Writer-Editor Bond
Bridget Watson Payne is the embodiment of the GrottoPod motto “read, write and just keep working.” In addition to her responsibilities as Chronicle Books' art books editor, she is an illustrator and …
01:02:47 |
Tue 18 Jul 2017
Episode 23: Oscar Villalon, Behind the Scenes at Zyzzyva
Oscar Villalon didn’t set out to become a literary gatekeeper, but that’s part of his job description as the managing editor of Zyzzyva, arguably the most prominent literary journal in the Bay Area. …
00:59:50 |
Tue 11 Jul 2017
Episode 22: Lee Kravetz On Contagious Ideas
Can you “catch” a behavior like you’d catch a cold? Lee Kravetz, co-author of Supersurvivors, thinks so. This week, he joins the GrottoPod to explain how. Kravetz (also a producer of our podcast) lay…
01:01:24 |
Tue 27 Jun 2017
Episode 21: Michael Frank On Capturing Family in Memoir
Michael Frank, author of the acclaimed new memoir The Mighty Franks, grew up in an unusual, “intertwined” family. He was swept up into the world of his childless aunt and uncle, a pair of prominent H…
00:57:59 |
Tue 20 Jun 2017
Episode 20: Writers’ Retreats
To retreat or not to retreat? That is the question on this week's special, guest-free episode of the GrottoPod. Join BQ and Larry as they engage in a spirited conversation about what makes writing re…
00:52:38 |
Tue 13 Jun 2017
Episode 19: Faith Adiele On Telling Your Unique Story
How does a “typical Nigerian-Norse American girl” get from rural Washington State to Harvard, Thailand and then San Francisco? Faith Adiele, the product of Sunnyside, Washington’s “only mixed-race, M…
01:03:11 |
Tue 06 Jun 2017
Episode 18: Yukari Kane On Teaching Journalism at San Quentin
You may not find working with inmates at San Quentin uplifting, but prominent tech journalist Yukari Kane does. This week Kane, a one-time Wall Street Journal reporter who wrote the definitive book o…
01:01:58 |
Tue 30 May 2017
Episode 17: Todd Oppenheimer On Founding Your Own Magazine
Todd Oppenheimer was an actor, a mime and a successful journalist who published in all the major magazines and won a National Magazine Award for Public Interest Reporting. But it wasn’t until he star…
00:55:50 |
Tue 23 May 2017
Episode 16: Joe Loya, From Solitary to Storyteller
Some writers take unorthodox paths to success; for Joe Loya, author of The Man Who Outgrew His Prison Cell, that path includes a childhood full of spiritual, sometimes violent and tragic, twists and …
01:10:43 |
Tue 16 May 2017
Episode 15: Edan Lepucki On Outrageous (Literary) Fortune
What if the hand of God (in the form of Stephen Colbert) reached down and helped make your first published novel a New York Times best-seller? It happened to Edan Lepucki, whose post-apocalyptic nove…
00:59:08 |
Tue 09 May 2017
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