Carter Wilson's Making It Up
Making It Up is an unscripted conversation series about the messy reality of being a writer.
Each episode is a deep, unplanned conversation with writers at every stage of the journey. New York Times bestselling authors. Award winners. Debut novelists just getting started. No prepared questions. No talking points. Just two people following the conversation wherever it leads.
We talk about where stories really come from. Childhood influences. Fear. Luck. Loss. Discipline. Doubt. The highs, the lows, and the long stretches in between that rarely get talked about.
At the end of every episode, we put the philosophy into practice. We choose a random sentence from a random book and use it to create an impromptu short story. No prep. No outline. Just making something out of nothing.
Because that is the job.
And that is the point.
Visit Carter at www.carterwilson.com.
Carter Wilson's Making It Up
Making It Up with Ellen Birkett Morris, author of Beware the Tall Grass
“Writing it was like chipping away at a mountain with a pair of nail scissors.” —Ellen Birkett Morris
Ellen Birkett Morris is the author of Beware the Tall Grass, winner of the Donald L. Jordan Award for Literary Excellence. She is also the author of Lost Girls: Short Stories, winner of the Pencraft Award and finalist for the Clara Johnson, IAN and Best Book awards. Her fiction has appeared in Shenandoah, Antioch Review, Saturday Evening Post, among other journals. She is a winner of the Bevel Summers Prize for short fiction, and a recipient of an Al Smith Fellowship from the Kentucky Arts Council.
Among other things, Ellen and Carter discuss the transition from writing poetry to novels, supporting other writers within the writing community, and maximizing dramatic potential in individual scenes. At the end of their conversation, they make up a descriptive story using a line from Ayn Rand’s We the Living.