Finding the Throughline with Kate Hanley Kate Hanley

In this second part of my interview with the brilliant and hilarious Jacquelyn Mitchard, we talk about the squishier side of creativity–the thoughts, ideas, and attitudes that affect your work, even if you're not fully conscious of it, including:
- The specific reader Jacquelyn imagines as she writes
- Why she's devoted to social media, and why she thinks of it like having a hamster
- How some of her books have 'missed the mark' (but she's not going to tell you which ones)
- The pep talk that gets her through those moments of feeling like a pretender
- The small rewards Jacquelyn uses to congratulate herself for getting another few good sentences down on paper
- The John Prine lyric that sums up her views on aging
- What she learned from growing up on the West side of Chicago (and the viewpoint of her father's that she outright rejects)

For full show notes, with links to everything Jacquelyn and I discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com. And if you'd like to receive these episodes ad-free, become a paid subscriber at katehanley.substack.com.
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This week I am thrilled to be talking with Jacquelyn Mitchard, the New York Times bestselling author of 23 novels for adults and teenagers. Her newest novel is "A Very Inconvenient Scandal," and her first novel, "The Deep End of the Ocean" was the first selection of the Oprah Winfrey book club and has sold more than 3 million copies and been translated into 34 languages.
We covered:
- How losing her husband in her late thirties put her on a quest to publish a novel "to prove that I could have a second act"
- How, when Oprah called, she deleted the messages because she felt it must have been a friend pranking her
- How she would most definitely NOT write even if she didn't get paid
- How the hardest part of the work is coming up with the idea
- How Jacquelyn's dreams help her write her books
- How she writes her book one sentence at a time, from start to finish, like building a skyscraper
- The realities of being chronically sleep deprived
- The difference between copying and stealing
- Living on the Cape, yet hating the beach
- Why she only ever has one cup of coffee
For full show notes, with links to everything Jacquelyn and I discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com. And if you'd like to receive these episodes ad-free, become a paid subscriber at katehanley.substack.com.
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In the final installment of my interview with generous and prolific writing goddess Sari Botton (she publishes Oldster Magazine, Memoir Land, and Adventures in Journalism on Substack, authored And You May Find Yourself: Confessions of a Late-Blooming Gen X Weirdo, Goodbye to All That, and Never Can Say Goodbye, and was the essays editor at Longreads), we talk about what's coming up next for her, as well as her favorite shows, books, songs, time, and food.
- What projects she’s dreaming about creating next
- The two things she knows she needs to shift (including a great tip for folks with Sephardic Jewish heritage!)
- Plus, Sari’s favorite show, the last book she devoured, her go-to karaoke song, and her ideal dinner (hint: it’s shellfish heavy)
If you want to hear these interviews in one, ad-free episode, become a paid subscriber at katehanley.substack.com. Full show notes available there, too.
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In part two of my interview with Sari Botton, founder of Oldster Magazine and author of And You May Find Yourself: Confessions of a Gen X Weirdo, we dive deep into the inner stuff, including:
- Her favorite part of sharing her work with the world
- How she navigates the ethics of including other people in her personal writing
- How her inner critic loves to tell her she doesn’t haven’t permission to write about what she wants to write about—and how she gets past it
- How getting older, and developing arthritis, is making her re-think some things, including her beloved wooden clog collection
- Her personal role models
- That thing that just won’t remove itself from Sari’s bucket list, even though she’s trying to move past it
If you want to hear these interviews in one, ad-free episode, become a paid subscriber at katehanley.substack.com. Full show notes available there, too.
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Sari Botton is the author of And You May Find Yourself: Confessions of a Late-Blooming, Gen-X Weirdo and Goodbye to All That: Writers on Loving and Leaving New York. She's also the creator of Oldster, a Substack newsletter devoted to exploring the joys of getting older. (Her Oldster questionnaire was a direct inspiration for my starting this podcast.)
Sari was my first ever guest on Finding the Throughline--I'm replaying her episodes this week.
- The continuing ed class she took as a 20-something that lead to her personal writing career
- The thing her uncle told her when she was 10 that sparked a lifelong fascination with growing older
- Why she loves Substack—as both a writer and a reader
- The thing about trusting your instincts that Shalom Auslander first told her in 2010 that it took her 10+ years to believe
- The incredible power of writing annoying, non-work stuff down on your to-do list (even if you’re already done it)
- What she does to cheer herself up and clear her head
- Her morning routine (including what exactly goes in her mug)
If you want to hear these interviews in one, ad-free episode, become a paid subscriber at katehanley.substack.com. Full show notes available there, too.
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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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