A Pep Talk for Writers, with Maggie Smith

Otherppl with Brad Listi

Brad Listi

Books, Society & Culture, Arts

4.8 • 556 Ratings

🗓️ 1 May 2025

⏱️ 75 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

A new Craftwork conversation with Maggie Smith, bestselling author of Dear Writer: Pep Talks & Practical Advice for the Creative Life, available from Washington Square Press. Smith's other books includeYou Could Make This Place Beautiful, Good Bones, Goldenrod, Keep Moving, and My Thoughts Have Wings. A 2011 recipient of a Creative Writing Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, Smith has also received a Pushcart Prize, and numerous grants and awards from the Academy of American Poets, the Sustainable Arts Foundation, the Ohio Arts Council, the Greater Columbus Arts Council, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She has been widely published, appearing in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, The Nation, The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Best American Poetry, and more. You can follow her on social media @MaggieSmithPoet. *** ⁠Otherppl with Brad Listi⁠ is a weekly literary podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today's leading writers. Available where podcasts are available: ⁠Apple Podcasts⁠, ⁠Spotify⁠, ⁠YouTube⁠, etc. Subscribe to ⁠Brad Listi’s email newsletter⁠. ⁠Support the show on Patreon⁠ ⁠Merch⁠ ⁠Instagram⁠ ⁠TikTok⁠ ⁠Bluesky⁠ Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com The podcast is a ⁠proud affiliate partner of Bookshop⁠, working to support local, independent bookstores. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	All right, everybody, welcome to the Other People podcast.
0:09.0	I am Brad Listy, and I'm in Los Angeles.
0:11.8	It is good to be with you.
0:13.5	And I appreciate you listening.
0:15.1	Hope you're doing well out there.
0:17.0	Don't forget to hit the subscribe button wherever you listen.
0:20.1	And you can follow me on social media if you want to.
0:23.9	I'm on Blue Sky and Instagram.
0:27.3	So Mira is off today.
0:29.3	There is not a new episode of Brad and Mira for the culture, but I do want to share an episode with you and I have a great one.
0:38.7	Maggie Smith is here for the first time.
0:42.1	She is celebrating the publication of a new craft book entitled Dear Writer, Pep Talks,
0:48.7	and practical advice for the creative life.
0:52.3	It's available from Washington Square Press, and I had a great
0:56.0	conversation with Maggie Smith about the contents of her book, and in particular about some of the
1:02.7	more difficult aspects of being a writer. So, for example, how to deal with your inner critic,
1:10.3	how to handle rejection, how to get unstuck when you're stuck.
1:15.6	So we go into the darkness, but Maggie shines a light, and I think you're going to find this conversation inspiring.
1:24.6	And it is also filled, you know, just like Maggie's book, with a lot of great
1:29.2	practical wisdom. So I could not be happier to have Maggie Smith here on the other people
1:35.3	show. Our conversation is coming up momentarily. Today's episode is brought to you by
1:42.4	Mulholland Books, publisher of the novel Buzzkill
	...

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