Written by Brendan O’Meara
Quoteables by Maggie Messitt:
“I really embrace the shitty first draft.”
“I was always into true stories, almost at an obsessive level.”
Maggie Messitt wrote a gem of a book in The Rainy Season: Three Lives in the New South Africa.
We talk about a lot of stuff, certainly about process and the challenge of writing book-length narrative. Maggie is a writer, author, teacher, hiker, dog owner, reporter, super kayaker, all-round liver-of-life.
Also I introduce a new segment called the Bookshelf for the Apocalypse. What’s this? Should the world be ravaged by global pandemic, zombies, meteor strike or nuclear winter, and you were allowed ten books to keep in your survival pack, what would they be?
Hmm….
Below you’ll find a list of books Maggie mentioned that you may want to check out. Thanks for listening and I ask that you please subscribe to the podcast and sign up for the email newsletter.
Thanks so much!
Maggie’s Bookshelf for the Apocalypse
The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadimann
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, An American Childhood, A Writing Life, all by Annie Dillard
Notes from No Man’s Land by Eula Biss
The Faraway Nearby by Rebecca Solnit
Open City by Teju Cole
Portrait with Keys by Ivan Vladislavic
What is Justice? by Robert C. Solomon and Mark C. Murphy