In the season finale, we chat with bestselling novelist, Dawnie Walton, about how her journalism background inspired the unusual structure of her first novel, The Final Revival of Opal and Nev. She digs into how she developed the many voices in the novel by finding the characters' syntax, deciding how they would curse, and listening to hours of The Dick Cavett Show. She talks about the challenges of writing her second book and the benefits of working with a wonderful editor. And she shares the one workshop note that changed everything!

Stay tuned for Season 2 in spring 2026!

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Dawnie Walton is a writer, editor, and author of the award-winning novel The Final Revival of Opal and Nev, named one of the best books of 2021 by The Washington Post, NPR, Esquire, and former U.S. President Barack Obama, among others. Her work explores identity, place, and the influence of pop culture. Formerly an editor at Essence and Entertainment Weekly, she has received fellowships from MacDowell and Tin House, and an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop (where she has since taught a fiction seminar). In partnership with acclaimed writer Deesha Philyaw and Longreads founder Mark Armstrong, she is the co-founder of Ursa Story Company, a podcasting and storytelling venture, and co-hosts and produces its shows. Her short fiction and essays have appeared in Oxford American, Bon Appetit, NPR, and Lithub. Born and raised in Jacksonville, Florida, she lives in Brooklyn with her husband and daughter.

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Buy The Final Revival of Opal and Nev on Bookshop.org or at your local bookshop.

Pre-Order Meryl's debut novel What You Should Worry About at Bookshop.org or Barnes & Nobles (coming out summer 2026)!

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Follow us on Instagram @itsallwritepod. And send us a note at itsallwritepod@gmail.com.

Support the show

In Episode 10 Loretta Lopez joins us. Her middle grade novel, City Girls, chronicles the lives of three middle schoolers facing some pretty big challenges, such as immigration, adultery, and a parent with cancer. Loretta explains how the book is intended for all audiences and was originally conceived for adults. She talks about how her work as a translator and therapist informs her writing and how an obsessive nature fuels her desire to write anywhere she can, even the public bus.

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Loretta Lopez is a Mexican-American author living in Brooklyn, NY. She is also a therapist and board member at The Brave House. Her debut novel, City Girls, published by Seven Stories Press in Spring 2024.

City Girls, was inspired by the lives of the girls she has worked with at The Brave House, a non-profit offering holistic services to immigrant girls. Part of the book's proceeds will go to supporting their mission.

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Buy City Girls on Bookshop.org or at your local bookshop.

Pre-Order Meryl's debut novel What You Should Worry About at Bookshop.org or Barnes & Nobles (coming out summer 2026)!

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Follow us on Instagram @itsallwritepod. And send us a note at itsallwritepod@gmail.com.

Support the show

In Episode 9, we are back from a fall hiatus with our professor Robert Lopez (of Stony Brook University), author of eight books and numerous pieces in literary journals & magazines. Robert shares his unconventional path to becoming a writer (without having read a full book 'till his 20s!), his thoughts on voice & form, how playing music impacts his fiction, and how teaching has allowed him to build a comfortable writing life for himself.

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Robert Lopez is the author of seven novels and one non-fiction book (listed below with links to purchase). His fiction, nonfiction, and poetry has appeared in dozens of publications, including Bomb, The Threepenny Review, Vice Magazine, New England Review, The Sun, and the Norton Anthology of Sudden Fiction – Latino. He teaches at Stony Brook University and has previously taught at Columbia University, The New School, Pratt Institute, and Syracuse University. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Robert's Books

• The Best People (novel, 2025)
• Dispatches from Puerto Nowhere: An American Story of Assimilation and Erasure (nonfiction, 2023)
• A Better Class Of People (novel-in-stories, 2022)
• All Black Full (novel, 2017)
• Good People (novel-in-stories, 2016)
• Asunder (stories, 2010)
• Kamby Bolongo Mean River (novel, 2009)
• Part of the World (novel, 2007)

For more of Robert's work visit his website: www.robertlopez.net

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Essayist Shaan Sachdev contemplates what it means to be a writer & how to be a writer in the context of today's world; discusses the impact of unconscious bias in corporate journalism; and shares his process for writing on everything from gay bathhouse culture to geopolitical conflicts. It's a sexy and cerebral episode that even includes a little discourse on Queen Bey..."Bounce on that sh***, dance..."

After this episode, check out Shaan's Beyonce podcast "Diva Discourse" on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

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Shaan Sachdev is an essayist, cultural critic, journalist, and writer based in New York. He writes about a range of topics including philosophy, America's preoccupations with race thinking, masculinity, biases in media, city life, and his two favorite divas, Beyoncé and Hannah Arendt.

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Shaan's Work mentioned in the show:

"Steamography" (Strange Matter)

"Portrait of the Technocrat as a Stanford Man" (New England Review, Pushcart Prize Winner, Best American Essays 2024 Runnerup)

"Hysterical Empathy" (The Point)

"God Save the Top"(The Point)

"The Gaza Generation" (LA Review or Books)

"The Key to Beyoncé’s Lasting Success" (Slate)

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Also mentioned in this episode:
The Writer's Room

Winners Takes All by Anand Giridharadas

Allan Bérubé

Rachel Cusk

Garth Greenwell

Naomi Klein

Maggie Nelson

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Writer/Director Tyrrell Shaffner joins her writing partner (and It's All Write cohost) Meryl Branch-McTiernan to discuss the gulfs they crossed to bring Katie's Mom from script to screen. Spoiler, it took a cemetery full of dead characters & deleted scenes... plus a couple of exes for inspiration.

Katie's Mom stars Dina Meyer as a recent divorcee whose holiday with her adult children derails when she falls for her daughter's charming new boyfriend (Aaron Dominguez). Playgirl calls it “raunchy, MILF-y fun.” Watch the official trailer here.

If you like messy female characters, stream Katie's Mom on Tubi, Roku, and Amazon, and then rate it IMDB. Sites like IMDB skew male, giving (on average) lower ratings to movies starring women. Let's flip the script!

Also mentioned in this episode: The Sandbox Collective

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Tyrrell Shaffner is a director and storyteller whose work threads the needle between drama, comedy, and romance—regularly spotlighting characters on the fringes, told from a distinctly female point of view.

She studied directing at USC Film School, where her comedic thesis film Different screened at over 40 festivals. She later earned her MFA in screenwriting from UCLA, where she was awarded the George Burns and Gracie Allen Fellowship in Comedy.

Tyrrell began her career as a staff director/producer for Oscar-winning producer Rob Fried’s SVOD channel Feeln (bought by Hallmark) and director Jon Chu’s Google-funded channel DS2DIO. She has since crafted hundreds of pieces of content for clients including Lionsgate, M ss ng P eces, and Crypt TV.

Her debut feature, Katie’s Mom, stars Dina Meyer and premiered at Dances With Films, where it won the Audience Award for Best Fusion Feature. The film is now available on digital and on demand.

Tyrrell is currently developing her second feature and a comedy series inspired by her real-life experience substitute teaching.

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Follow the show on Instagram @itsallwritepod.

And, feel free to send us a note to itsallwritepod@gmail.com.

Best-Selling author Jennifer Belle shares the method she's used to write five novels, that time she worked with Madonna, how to write sex scenes, and the path that led to publishing her latest novel, Swanna in Love with Akashic Books.

Jennifer Belle is the best-selling author of five novels, Going Down (which was named best debut novel by Entertainment Weekly and optioned for the screen twenty-seven times), High Maintenance, Little Stalker, and The Seven Year Bitch; and Animal Stackers, a picture book for children (illustrated by David McPhail). Her stories and essays have appeared in the New York Times Magazine, the Wall Street Journal, the Independent (London), Harper’s Bazaar, Ms., BlackBook, the New York Observer, Post Road, and many anthologies. Her most recent work is Swanna in Love. You can follow her on Instagram @jenniferbellewriter.

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Books & Writers referenced in this episode

True Grit by Charles Potis

Who Will Run the Frog Hospital by Lorrie Moore

All Fours by Miranda July

The Fuck Up by Arthur Nersesian

Marilyn Rothstein

Liz Tigelaar

Movies & TV shows mentioned:

Katie's Mom

I Love Lucy

The Carol Burnett Show

Saturday Night Live

Jesse Aylen shares his hot takes on "CONENT," ghostwriter matchmaking, book club etiquette, and the future of AI.

Jesse Aylen is an editorial, communications, and (the dreaded word!) content consultant based in New York. He has worked across the publishing and media industries, including a global trade publishing house, a data-driven startup publisher, and on a consulting basis with ghostwriting companies, content marketing companies, and a non-partisan think tank. Recently, he interviewed debut author Zach Williams about his short story collection, Beautiful Days, for BOMB Magazine.

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Books & authors mentioned on this episode:

Health & Safety by Emily Witt (memoir)

Hold Still by Sally Mann (memoir with photographs)

Fran Leibowitz

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Camille Boxhill talks about writing while Black, dating in the age of AI, and attending a writing residency with near puritanical rules.

Camille Boxhill is a writer of Jamaican descent who tells stories about legacy, identity, and the kind of multigenerational ghosts that don’t always stay in the past. Her work weaves the supernatural with the everyday, drawing on Jamaican folklore. She’s enjoyed support and recognition from Iowa Writers’ Workshop Summer Program, Tin House, Yale Writers' Workshop, Renaissance House, and Hurston/Wright Foundation. Camille holds an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Bristol and is a 2024 South Arts Literary Arts Florida Fellow. Her work appears in What We Are Becoming from Hub City Press, and she’s currently at work on her debut novel.

Follow Camille on Instagram @camilleboxhill.

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Follow the show on Instagram @itasllwritepod.

Email us at itsallwritepod@gmail.com.