Finding the Throughline with Kate Hanley Kate Hanley

In this final part of my interview with Sonya Huber, professor at Fairfield University and author of Voice First: A Writer’s Manifesto, we peek at what’s coming around the bend for her and I get her answers to my fast five questions.
We talked about:
Her beautiful vision of the future include a possible memoir of living with anxiety and… goat writing retreats!
Sonya’s four aunts who were nuns and role models for living a joyous, industrious life
The classic short stories Sonya reads and re-reads for inspiration
The insanely awesome sounding “coffee smoothie” she makes each morning
For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.
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[Sonya Huber, inner stuff]: How your personal writing can deepen your relationships + how not to hate writing
In this episode I'm talking with Sonya Huber, author of eight books including Voice First: A Writer’s Manifesto and professor in the low-residency MFA at Fairfield University about the mindset piece of writing–the thoughts, ideas, and attitudes that affect your work, even if you're not fully conscious of it, including:
Ways to handle the anxiety that comes when in the months before your book is published
How to deal with the fear that you’re personal writing will hurt someone in your life, or get it ‘wrong’
How writing about your own life can deepen relationships with people close to you
“Sometimes books really matter to people in ways you don't even imagine they will”
How getting long Covid inspired Sonya to write three books in three years
For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.
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This week I am interviewing Sonia Huber, a prolific and award winning writer in many genres, but primarily in creative nonfiction. Her book of essays on chronic pain, Pain Woman Takes Your Keys and Other Essays from a Nervous System was named a best book of 2018 by The New Statesman. Her other books include Love and Industry (2023), Voice First: A Writer's Manifesto (2022) and Supremely Tiny Acts (2021). Her essays have been included in the Best American Essays series numerous times. And she is a professor in the department of English at Fairfield university and in the Fairfield low residency MFA program. Despite all these places where Sonya's work has appeared, I found her on Substack, where she publishes a newsletter called Nuts and Bolts with Sonya.
We covered:
Why and how Sonya works on multiple books at one time (“maybe because I’m super distractible”)
Not being afraid to follow a tangent
Having zero expectations for your writing output, and just having fun exploring the things you’re curious about or mulling over
How much “tiny steps add up to bigger works”
How farm-sitting goats pays as much or better than writing
The book about writing that was written in 1938 that played a huge role in Sonya’s approach to writing
Sitting down for one hour in the mornings even if you’re bored or uninspired to “unsnarl one tiny knot I’ve made for myself”
Strategies for keeping your various ideas accessible, if not exactly organized
Using writing as a tool for dealing with chronic pain

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.
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In this final part of my interview with Joanne McNeill, author of Wrong Way (a novel set in the near future at a company that manages driverless cars) and Lurking (a non-fiction look at the history of the internet from a user’s perspective), we peek at what’s coming around the bend for her and I get her answers to my fast five questions.
We talked about:
The novel The Lodgers by Holly Pester, about the housing crisis, and how it hurts a little bit every time she has to put it down because it’s so good
Joanne’s sci-fi inspirations, including Philip K. Dick, J.G. Ballard, Ursula Le Guin, and Octavia Butler, and what specifically about their work fuels her writing
How avant garde sci fi novels used to sell hundreds of thousands of copies–and how this hunger for challenging work is still present, even if you’re not a fancy city elite
A tiny sneak peek at the new book she’s working on. OK, not really, but she does share how she’s trying to write this one differently and push back on the ideas she’s created about how she writes best
Joanne’s answers to the fast 5 questions–a book she was stunned by, where she gets her coffee beans, the Kate Bush song she finds so meaningful that she only listens to it a couple of times a year so it doesn’t lose its power, her favorite season, and the perfect wrap sandwich she would ask for if someone offered to make or buy absolutely anything she wanted.
Joanne’s website: https://www.joannemcneil.com/
For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.
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In this episode I'm talking with Joanne McNeil, author of Wrong Way (a novel set in the near future at a company that manages driverless cars) and Lurking (a non-fiction look at the history of the internet from a user’s perspective), about the inner workings of creativity–the thoughts, ideas, and beliefs that either help you do your work, or get in the way.
Warning, there’s a tiny bit of cursing and a mention of sexual harassment in the workplace–not a specific story, but just the topic in general, so take care while listening.
We talked about:
The thrill of writing an op ed and indulging that desire to be right…
…. compared to writing something more personal (fiction or nonfiction) and being more reflective and offering more of yourself
Reckoning with the fact that since her novel, Wrong Way, happens at work and the main character is female, she’d need to include scenes of sexual harassment in order for it be authentic–and really not wanting to go there (“I kind of wrote them in a flurry”)
Resisting the urge to overcompensate for the fact that she doesn’t have the ‘right’ writer’s resume
Why she still considers herself to be an emerging writer
How having writers who come from outside the traditional writing pipeline is so important for the future of writing…
…and how those writers will naturally take longer to develop (so please don’t tell yourself it’s ‘too late’ or ‘taking too long’!)
A mini rant about the use of AI to create art, and being the cheesy romantic who says “humanity is important”
Joanne’s website: https://www.joannemcneil.com/
For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.
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This week I am talking with journalist, essayist, and novelist, Joanne McNeil. Joanne's first novel Wrong Way came out in 2023. It's a sci-fi novel set in the near future that takes a look at the intersection of the gig economy and big tech and is both satirical and touching–it also made a lot of lists of the best books of 2023 and The New Yorker called it “a literary sneak attack on the very idea of 'the future.'” Joanne's first book, Lurking, is a nonfiction look at the history of the internet from a user's perspective. Joanne is also an important tech critic and has been writing professionally for 20 years.
We covered:
How posting on message boards in the early days of the Internet led Joanne, a kid from a working-class Massachusetts town, to pursue writing
Getting strategic about your career, especially when you don’t come from the traditional path of Ivy League undergraduate degree and top tier MFA
The often slow but vital work of building a diverse community
How residencies are like gift cards–and how to create your own residency if need be
Joanne’s list of must-have supplies for a writing residency: bulletin board, push pins, Post-It notes, and a detailed list of what to get at Trader Joe’s
Acknowledging the fact that one hour to yourself can serve as a residency when you need it to

Joanne’s website: https://www.joannemcneil.com/

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.
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