Tag Archives: Advice on Writing

Writers on Radio: Award-Winning Author Interviews

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Casselle interviews poet
Sam Taylor.
Photo by Robin Collier of Cultural Energy

Writers on Radio Hosted by Tania Casselle

Tania Casselle was the host of Writers on Radio for five years, a literary chat show broadcast in New Mexico/ Colorado on NPR-affiliate KRZA, and syndicated to stations including KTAO, KVOT, KUNM and KLDK.  Writers on Radio was sponsored by SOMOS and produced by Cultural Energy.

Casselle interviewed 60+ authors and poets for radio including Pam Houston, Natalie Goldberg, John Nichols, Antonya Nelson, John DuFresne, Tara Ison, Lisa Tucker, Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez, Levi Romero, Robert Westbrook, Miriam Sagan, Dana Levin, Don Waters, Robin Romm, Matt Donovan, Rick Collignon, Mirabai Starr, Judith Arcana, Eliezer Sobel, Judyth Hill, Heather King, Barbara Waters, Mark Scott, Anya Achtenberg, Katie Kingston, Lara Santoro, and many others.

She won the National Federation of Press Women Communications Contest 2010 for Radio Interviews, for her interview with best-selling author Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez broadcast on KRZA & KTAO.

Casselle also won the New Mexico Press Women’s Communications Awards 2009 for Radio Interviews, for her program with bilingual poet Levi Romero on KRZA, KTAO, and KLDK.  In the same year she was awarded 2nd place for her interview with novelist Frances Washburn discussing readers’ expectations of Native writers, and an Honorable Mention for her interview with author John Nichols.

Tania Casselle’s radio interviews are archived on the web by producers Cultural Energy for listeners all over the world.

 

The Write Stuff: Put Pen to Paper to Promote Well-Being (for Fit Style)

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The Write Stuff: Put Pen to Paper to Promote Well-Being

If the longest thing you’ve written lately is a shopping list – it’s time to sharpen your pencil. Studies prove that writing your feelings out on the page has a positive impact on physical health, reduces stress, boosts self-esteem, and hones concentration and memory. Writing can improve immune function, fight depression and anxiety, and even alleviate symptoms of asthma and rheumatoid arthritis.

Article on the benefits of writing and keeping a journal, with suggested writing exercises, for Fit.Style magazine.

Don’t Take No for an Answer: Dealing with Rejection (for Novel & Short Story Writer’s Market 2012)

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For Novel & Short Story Writer’s Market 2012 (Writer’s Digest Books) by Tania Casselle.

If you’re reading this book, you are no doubt all fired up to submit your fiction to the many great literary journals featured here, or to hit ‘send’ on queries for your novel. May the writing gods smile on you to receive an acceptance first time out, but if you’re in the writing game for any amount of time, sooner or later you’ll receive a heart-sinking “Sorry, this isn’t for us.”

As you rip up the letter and kick the nearest object that won’t kick back, THIS is the time to remember the real secret to publishing success: Only one thing differentiates between decent writers who are published, and decent writers who are not published, and that is perseverance. You can’t send one story to one journal and, if it’s rejected, throw your hands in the air and stop submitting. Well, you can of course, but then you’ll join the long line of other decent but unpublished writers who did the same thing. And to persevere on the writer’s path, you need to be able to handle rejection.

2,500 word chapter on how to deal with the dreaded rejection slip includes insights from an editor, a novelist, and a short fiction writer.