NaBloPoMo 2010 ... #5: Podcast Endorsement

Even during these times that I haven't been writing over the last couple of years, a particular podcast has helped me keep my head at least partially in the game. It's the Pen On Fire podcasts from Barbara DeMarco-Barrett, out at UC Irvine.

There are probably numerous podcasts on writing out there — I know I've listened to at least one other series, though it was pretty unhelpful. I'm not sure that podcasting is the medium to learn writing. But what the Pen On Fire podcasts help me understand is not writing so much as the writing life. DeMarco-Barrett and her co-host Marrie Stone interview fiction writers, nonfiction writers, agents, editors, and publishers about the industry, the economics of writing, the importance of "platform," and just the everyday experience of being a writer.

The podcast can be extremely annoying at times: I can't shake the fact that both DeMarco-Barrett's and Stone's voices and on-air demeanor take most of their inspiration from the old SNL skit of the two new-agey female NPR on-air personalities who breathily talk their way to nothingness in the guise of profundity. But more often than not, the writer who is being interviewed — even if it's a writer in a genre that I know nothing about or have little interest in — has some important things to say about the everyday experience of being a writer.

The podcasts are also available on iTunes, if that's the boat you prefer to float.