How I Wrote This

An introduction to Season 3 of the podcast, this time featuring authors based in Brooklyn, New York, USAFollow on Instagram @HowIWroteThisthePodcastPromotional support from the Quebec Writers’ Federation

Adelle Waldman is the author of two novels: Help Wanted, published in 2024, and The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. which was named one of the year’s best books in 2013 by The New Yorker, The Economist, The New Republic, NPR, Slate, Bookforum, The Guardian and others. In this illuminating conversation that took place shortly after the US election, Adelle talks about the job she took at a big box store before writing a book about the exploitation of low wage workers; the US legislative proposal she recently drafted for a policy thinktank; and her love of expansive, psychological nineteenth century novels, especially those written by Jane Austin.Born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1977, Adelle attended Brown University in Rhode Island, worked as a reporter in Connecticut and Ohio, and wrote her breakout novel after moving to Brooklyn with her husband. Her essays and book reviews have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The New York Times Book Review, The Wall Street Journal and The Atlantic. She joined Pamela in the Brooklyn Podcasting Studio.How I Wrote This is created and hosted by Pamela Hensley and presented by KnockAbout Media. Original music track “Attention to Details” by Tyler K. Rauman. You can listen and subscribe on Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, and iHeartRadio and follow us on Instagram @howiwrotethisthepodcast

Joseph O’Neill has written a family history and five novels including This is the Life, The Breezes, Netherland (which was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and won the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Kerry Group Irish Fiction Award), The Dog (longlisted for the Man Booker Prize) and most recently, Godwin. He also writes political reviews and essays as well as short stories, several of which have been published in The New Yorker and included as part of his 2018 collection, Good Trouble.Born in Ireland, Joe moved around as a child, living in Mozambique, Turkey and Iran until his parents settled in the Netherlands. In 1998, he moved to the US after earning his law degree at Cambridge and working as a barrister in the UK. Since 2011, he has been a distinguished visiting professor of Written Arts at Bard College. In this conversation, Joe talks about his love of language and sport, his interest in the American bourgeoisie, and how the damaged masculine specimen depicted in his latest novel, Godwin, became such an important political figure. He joined Pamela in the Brooklyn studio shortly after the US election.How I Wrote This is created and hosted by Pamela Hensley and presented by KnockAbout Media. Original music track “Attention to Details” by Tyler K. Rauman. You can listen and subscribe on Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, and iHeartRadio. Find out more at our website: www.howiwrotethisthepodcast.com

Hilary Leichter is the author of two novels and a lecturer at Columbia University. In this bonus content, listen to her reading from her latest, Terrace Stories. For an in-depth conversation with Hilary, see Episode 3.Follow on Instagram @HowIWroteThisthePodcast

Hilary Leichter’s debut novel Temporary, tells the story of a woman’s adventures in the gig economy,  something with which she has years of experience. Now a lecturer at Columbia University, she talks about the precariousness of temp work, the desire for permanence, and how time is an engine that drives fiction. In Terrace Story, her most recent novel, she returns to time in a story of three generations, expanding spaces, a fable, extinction, and the way we so often fear the wrong thing.  Hilary grew up in New Jersey and settled in New York, where she initially hoped to be an actress. Not until grad school did she realize she preferred creation to interpretation, and began publishing short stories in outlets like  n+1, The New York Times and The New Yorker. In 2020, her novel Temporary was longlisted for the PEN/Hemingway Award and was a finalist for The Center for Fiction First Novel Prize and the NYPL Young Lions Fiction Prize. Terrace Story, her most recent novel, was named a best book of 2023 by Time Magazine, The New Yorker, and the LA Times. Just doors away from the apartment where she lived while writing Terrace Story, Hilary joined Pamela in the Brooklyn Podcasting Studio for this conversation.Novels on Hilary’s time travel syllabus include:The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel SparksKindred by Octavia ButlerThey Will Drown in Their Mother’s Tears by Johannes AnyuruThe Throwback Special by Chris BachelderHow I Wrote This is created and hosted by Pamela Hensley and presented by KnockAbout Media. Original music track “Attention to Details” by Tyler K. Rauman. You can listen and subscribe on Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, and iHeartRadio. Find out more at our website: www.howiwrotethisthepodcast.com

Daniel Allen Cox is the author of five books. In this bonus content, listen to him reading from his memoir, I Felt the End Before It Came For an in-depth conversation with Daniel, see Episode 2.Follow on Instagram @HowIWroteThisthePodcast

Since 2008, Daniel Allen Cox has published four novels and a memoir-in-essays. He was a finalist for the 2023 Grand Prix du livre de Montréal for his memoir, I Felt It Before the End Came: Memoirs of a Queer ex-Jehovah’s Witness, a nominee for a National Magazine Award for his essay “You Can’t Blame Movers for Everything Broken”, and a contributor to both the Best American Essays and Best Canadian Essays anthologies.   Raised as a Jehovah’s Witness, Daniel describes the religion as a cult for its use of coercive control and shunning, and for denying him the right to live as a queer man. His observations are adeptly woven into Shuck (2008), shortlisted for the Lambda Literary Award and the ReLit Award; Krakow Melt (2010), shortlisted for the Lambda and ReLit awards as well as the American Library Association Over the Rainbow List; Basement of Wolves (2012) and Mouthquake (2015). From Montreal to Brooklyn to Krakow and back, Daniel finds his way among artistic and activist communities. In I Felt It Before The End Came, he steps away from fiction to tell his personal story. Listen now to hear this episode featuring Daniel Allen Cox. Follow us on Instagram @howiwrotethisthepodcast. Find out more at our website: www.howiwrotethisthepodcast.comHow I Wrote This is created and hosted by Pamela Hensley and presented by KnockAbout Media. You can listen and subscribe on Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, and iHeartRadio. Original music track “Attention to Details” by Tyler K. Rauman.

Jennifer Egan is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of seven books. In this bonus content, listen to her reading from her latest novel, The Candy House. For an in-depth conversation with Jennifer, see Episode 1.Follow on Instagram @HowIWroteThisthePodcast