January Bonus Episode
The Shit No One Tells You About Writing
Bianca Marais, Carly Watters and CeCe Lyra
4.8 • 842 Ratings
🗓️ 26 January 2026
⏱️ 60 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In part one of this month’s bonus episode, Bianca sits down with longtime collaborators and best friends Liz Fenton & Lisa Steinke to talk about ‘The Naysayers’, a sharp, funny, and insightful satire about negative self-talk, toxic positivity, and the stories we tell ourselves. They open up about the realities of a long publishing career—success, setbacks, agent changes, and constant pivots—and share how a deeply personal moment sparked the idea for the novel. The conversation dives into worldbuilding, genre-blending, creative disagreements, editorial feedback, and why writing books you love matters more than chasing trends.
Emilie Sommer, from East City Bookshop is back with her must-listen comps segment!
Note: CeCe Lyra is a literary agent at Wendy Sherman Associates. If you’d like to query CeCe, please refer to the submission guidelines at www.wsherman.com. Carly Watters is a literary agent at P.S. Literary Agency, but her work on this podcast is not affiliated with the agency, and the views expressed by Carly on this podcast are solely that of her as a podcast co-host and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, policies, or position of P.S. Literary Agency.
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Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hi there. We've got a lot. We're really excited to tell you about, but I'm going to make this real |
| 0:04.9 | quick so you can get to the episode. The deep dive is coming up at the end of January. The lineup of |
| 0:10.9 | speakers is incredible and the range of topics is mind-blowing. You do not want to miss out on the last |
| 0:17.3 | deep dive ever. Then the beta reader matchup is open once again |
| 0:21.3 | with the matchups going out early in February. |
| 0:23.9 | Sign up to kick your creative year off with a bang. |
| 0:27.2 | Lastly, there's an amazing writer's workbook available |
| 0:30.0 | which will make the perfect gift for you |
| 0:32.3 | or the writer in your life. |
| 0:34.4 | Head to our website, The Shit About Writing, to find out more. |
| 0:44.6 | Hi there and welcome to our show. The Shit No One Tells You About Writing. I'm best-selling |
| 0:51.1 | author Bianca Murray and I'm joined by Cece Leera of Wendy Sherman Associates and Carly Waters of PS Literary. |
| 1:00.3 | Hi everyone, today's guests have been best friends for over 35 years and survived high school and college together. |
| 1:07.7 | They've co-authored nine novels including The Good Widow, which is an Amazon |
| 1:12.5 | charts bestseller, and Forever Hold Your Peace, which is optioned for film. They both reside with |
| 1:18.4 | their families and several rescue dogs in San Diego, California. It's my pleasure to welcome |
| 1:24.0 | Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinker. Liz and Lisa, welcome back to the show. |
| 1:29.4 | Hi, Bianca. |
| 1:30.1 | Hi. |
| 1:30.7 | Thank you for having us. |
| 1:32.6 | Thank you so much for joining me. |
| 1:34.7 | We record these quite far out, so it's kind of late in December, and most people have |
... |
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