Shooting the Shit About High Brow vs. Low Brow and Editors Who Hate Their Jobs
The Shit No One Tells You About Writing
Bianca Marais, Carly Watters and CeCe Lyra
4.8 • 842 Ratings
🗓️ 16 March 2026
⏱️ 46 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this week’s Shooting the Shit, Carly and CeCe bounce from industry gossip to big philosophical questions about publishing. They announce an exciting live podcast recording at the 'When Words Collide 2026’ conference in Calgary and share what’s buzzing around the London Book Fair—from politics and AI to the state of nonfiction. The conversation gets deeper when they unpack a viral Reddit post from a disillusioned editor questioning the publishing industry and what it really values. That leads to a bigger debate: high-brow vs. commercial fiction, literary prestige vs. sales, and whether success in publishing should be measured by awards or by the number of readers a book reaches. It’s an episode you don’t want to miss!
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 | Welcome to another episode of Shooting the Shit with literary agents Carly Waters and Cece Learro, |
| 0:08.2 | where we dissect publishing gossip, discuss book industry trends, and the overall state of the book business. |
| 0:14.1 | If you've ever wanted to grab a coffee with two literary agents, grab your mug and pull up a chair. |
| 0:25.9 | Thank you. agents, grab your mug and pull up a chair. All right. |
| 0:26.5 | So we were very cruel and mean last week because we teased that we were going to be somewhere. |
| 0:31.9 | And yet we did not tell you where we were going to be. |
| 0:35.3 | And so CC and I talk to Bianca. |
| 0:37.1 | And we said, Bianca, is it okay if we share the news about where the event is? If you are not on the show with us and she said yes, because we record our books with hook segments so far in advance, that shooting the shit is our more, our weekly episodes. As you guys know, we only record these about five days in advance of you guys listening to them. So do we do a drum roll? |
| 0:54.3 | I'll do little drum roll, C.C. Should we do drum roll? Drum roll. Can you hear that? Drum roll, yeah. Okay. So the three of us have actually never done a in-person conference. So we did Bianca's book launch event, which was so fun. And I loved meeting you guys. I can't believe we filled a 400-person room |
| 1:13.5 | to do that event. I'm just so thrilled that Piyaka had an incredible launch. All this to say. So we are |
| 1:18.6 | doing a conference where there's going to be a live podcast recording. Cici and I will be there |
| 1:23.6 | doing talks and pitches. Vyanka is going to be there in her author capacity. All right. So we are |
| 1:28.4 | going to Calgary when words collide. 26. It is August 14th to 16th, downtown Calgary at the Hyatt |
| 1:38.1 | Regency. You guys can get your tickets now. Go to their website. It's through the Alexandra |
| 1:42.9 | Writers Center. But just Google when words collide. And we're going to be website. It's through the Alexandra Writers Center, but just Google when |
| 1:45.1 | words collide and we're going to be there. So we can't wait to see you guys in person and come |
| 1:50.1 | to our live taping. It will be our official, our first official live taping because we didn't |
| 1:54.4 | actually record Bianca's event for the show. Yeah, I'm excited. Yeah. So anyway, get your tickets now because we can't wait. |
| 2:03.3 | It'll be my first time in Calgary. I've never been to Calgary, so I'm really excited. My best friend is from Calgary. So, yeah. Nice. Well, we're going to have to get recommendations for her. I have been to a writers' conference in Edmonton, |
| 2:16.2 | but I haven't been to a writer's conference in Calgary. |
| 2:18.6 | So we're very excited to see our West Coast, |
| 2:20.7 | West Coast friends. We've also been to Surrey in British Columbia. Yes. So yes, we've also done that. No, not together. Oh yeah. But like we've both been there. But then I don't think Alberta, I don't think we've ever done Alberta. |
... |
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