Elliot Ackerman is an American author and journalist, currently based in Istanbul. Prior to his writing career, he served five distinguished tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. His books are Green on Blue and Dark at the Crossing, and he’s written for Esquire, GQ and The New Yorker, among others. Dark at the Crossing is currently one of five books nominated for the National Book Award for fiction. He speaks with us today about the one story he struggled to tell.  The music you heard at...

Doug Stanton is a journalist, lecturer, screenwriter, and author of the New York Times bestsellers In Harm’s Way and Horse Soldiers. Horse Soldiers is the basis for a Jerry Bruckheimer-produced movie by the same name, starring Chris Hemsworth and Michael Shannon, to be released by Warner Bros. in 2018. In Harm’s Way, the definitive account of the sinking, rescue, and valor of the USS Indianapolis crew, spent more than six months on the New York Times bestseller list and became required...

Claire Messud is a recipient of Guggenheim and Radcliffe Fellowships and the Strauss Living Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Author of five previous works of fiction including her most recent novel, The Burning Girl. She chats with us about place, story, YA and chick lit, and growing up. 

Justin, Travis and Griffin McElroy from My Brother, My Brother and Me have recruited their dad Clint for a campaign of high adventure. Join the McElroys as they find their fortune and slay an unconscionable number of ... you know, kobolds or whatever in ... The Adventure Zone. We chat with the McElroy clan to celebrate the finale of the first campaign arc in The Adventure Zone.

Sara Novic is the author of Girl At War, a critically acclaimed novel about the Croatian Civil War, told through decades and perspectives. Sara is also the fiction editor of Blunderbuss Magazine, a Professor at Stockton University, and deaf. We jump into all these topics and more in this episode of Writers Who Don't Write.

Jennifer Brody is the author of the award-winning Continuum Trilogy and chats with us about YA, science fiction, world building and the film and book industry. 

Brendan O’Connor is a reporter for the Special Projects unit at Gizmodo. In the past he’s written for The Awl and was a staff writer at Gawker (RIP). He discusses his career, his research habits, the Hulk Hogan fiasco, and Donald Trump.

Dave Weigel is a National Reporter for the Washington Post and author of the book The Show That Never Ends: The Rise and Fall of Prog Rock. He chats with us today about writing about politics in the current political atmosphere, his career trajectory, and one story he always strugged to tell.

A winner of the Nebula, Hugo, and World Fantasy awards, Ken Liu is the author of The Dandelion Dynasty, a silkpunk epic fantasy series and The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories, a collection of short stories. He's currently working on a Star Wars novel, which will become cannon. He joins us on the show this week to discuss all of this and more. 

Aaron Lammer is a proprietor of Longform.org and a host of the popular Longform Podcast. He writes songs with the artist Francis and the Lights, who in 2016 alone worked collaboratively with Bon Iver, Kanye West, The Weeknd, Frank Ocean and Chance the Rapper. Earlier this year, Aaron released a new podcast called Stoner, where he explores the culture behind Marijuana. He chats with us about all of this, plus some very particular moments from his childhood.

Doree Shafrir is a Senior Tech Writer at BuzzFeed News and has worked as an editor or staff writer at Rolling Stone, the New York Observer, Gawker, and Philadelphia Weekly, and has contributed to publications including the New York Times, The New Yorker, Slate, TheAwl, Daily Beast, Marie Claire, and Wired. She is the host of Matt and Doree's Eggcellent Adventure with her husband Matt Mira, and her first novel, Startup, was published by Little, Brown in April. She speaks with us about her...

Beau Lotto is one of the few speakers to have given two TED talks, which have amassed over 5 million views combined. He has also spoken at Google’s Zeitgest Minds, Wired, G8 and made significant programme contributions to BBC's Horizon, National Geographic Channel and PBS in the US. Today, we speak to him about his new book, Deviate, and discuss science writing, perception, and his career.

Nathan Hill’s debut novel The Nix was named the #1 book of the year by Audible and Entertainment Weekly, as well as one of the year’s best books by The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR, Slate, Amazon, and many others. Hill’s short stories have been published in The Iowa Review, Agni, The Gettysburg Review, The Denver Quarterly, and Fiction, which awarded him its annual Fiction Prize. On this episode, he discusses his career trajectory, meeting John Irving, and how to maintain humor in...

Colin Barrett is an Irish short story writer and the author of the critically acclaimed Young Skins. He’s won the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award, The Guardian First Book Award, and the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature. His work has been published in The New Yorker, Granta, and The Stinging Fly. In 2015, he was named a National Book Foundation “5 Under 35.” He chats with us about his career, writing short stories, and the unconscious.

Alyssa Cowit teaches at an elementary school in New York City. In May 2015, she started the Instagram account Live from Snack Time with Greg Dunbar, a digital marketing manager with Walt Disney Studios. Together they have grown Live from Snack Time to a huge success with kudos from the media-elite. This week we chat about how. 

Corinne Fisher is a stand-up comedian, writer and actor. She co-hosts the wildly popular Guys We F**cked: The Anti Slut-Shaming Podcast with Kyrstyna Hutchinson, which now boasts a million+ listeners worldwide. Their book, F****D, will be published in October. 

Lillian Cunningham is the editor of the Washington Post's On Leadership section and host of the popular Presidential podcast. She sat down with us to chat about writing, producing and hosting a poiltical podcast during the 2016 election, what comes next, and the presidency of Chester Arthur, America's most forgotten president.

Louise O'Neill is the Irish young adult author of Asking For It and Only Ever Yours. The Guardian called her the "best YA fiction writer alive today" and the New York Times called Asking For It "riveting and essential." She has won all the awards, and Asking For It was a top-ten bestselling book in Ireland in 2016. This week on the show she chats with us about Irish writers, writing for an American audience, maintaining focus while writing about serious issues for younger readers, and her...

Mike Brown is a standup comic and writer based in Harlem, New York. He was named one of Rooftop Comedy’s Comics to Watch, Caroline’s Best of New Talent, has performed at Comedy Central’s New York Comedy Festival, The San Francisco Sketchfest, The Lucille Ball Comedy Festival, and has appeared on Adult Swim, MTV, TruTV, and Funny or Die. Along with stand-up, Mike Brown produces COMEDY OUTLIERS (a podcast and comedy showcase) and writes the comedy web series Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop (featured on...

Alana is a writer covering identity, culture, virtue and vice for basically every outlet there is, save The New Yorker which she gets into in this interview. This week on the show she discusses what it’s like to write with an audience in mind, One Direction, and her experience in AA. Alana has a new book out called All The Lives I Want, a collection of essays reimagining the lives and legacies of famous women. You can pick it up wherever books are sold. This episode brought to you by My...

Writers Who Don't Write is brought to you this week by My Lit Box. Each month you’ll receive a newly released novel by a writer of color as well as some book related goodies. A book lover’s dream, delivered straight to your mailbox. Listeners of the show will receive 10% off by using code WWDW.

Margaret Eby is a journalist and critic who writes about books, movies, music, television, and various cultural ephemera. She currently works as culture editor at ExtraCrispy, a new Time Inc. food site. Previously, she was the features and essays editor at HelloGiggles, associate editor at Brooklyn Magazine and The L Magazine, and an online books editor and entertainment reporter for The New York Daily News. In this episode she discusses breakfast, her understanding of the concept of home,...

Phil Klay is a graduate of Dartmouth College and a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps. He served in Iraq’s Anbar Province from January 2007 to February 2008 as a Public Affairs Officer. After being discharged he went to Hunter College and received an MFA. His story “Redeployment” was originally published in Granta and is included in Fire and Forget: Short Stories from the Long War. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, Granta, Tin House,...

Blair Braverman is a nonfiction writer and dogsledder whose work has appeared in This American Life, The Atavist, Buzzfeed, Orion, The Best Women's Travel Writing and elsewhere. She is training for the Iditarod, a 1100-mile dogsled race across Alaska. Her first book, Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube, was released from Ecco/HarperCollins in July. This week on Writers Who Don't Write Blair speaks to us about writing while traveling the world as a dogsledder and the isolating factors of both,...

Mychal Denzel Smith is a Knobler Fellow at The Nation Institute and a contributing writer for The Nation magazine. He has also written for The New York Times, The Atlantic, Salon, Feministing.com, The Guardian, The Root, theGrio, ThinkProgress, and The Huffington Post, and he has been a featured commentator on NPR, BBC radio, CNN, MSNBC, Al Jazeera America, HuffPost Live, and a number of other radio and television programs. He is the author of Invisible Man, Got the Whole World Watching. In...