About the show
Welcome! If you want to hear writing tips from the big names, the medium names, and everyone else, look no further.
As a blogger, vlogger, and actively querying fantasy author, I am addicted to attending all the writing panels a person could possibly attend at a convention. We're talking about attending upwards of 25 hours of panels in 3 days.
Fortunately for you? I love sharing my copious notes.
But, I also get real. I share my writerly musings: my struggles, my failures, and... hopefully, my writing successes.
Thanks for listening.
- Morgan Hazelwood
Writing Tips and Writerly Musings on social media
Episodes
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YA Futures
August 15th, 2022 | Season 5 | 8 mins 55 secs
beta-reading, books, critique, worldcon77, writers, writing, writing tips, ya
YA is big and has been since the late 90s. But the future today doesn’t look like it did even 10 or 20 years ago. What do YA fantasy and science fiction readers want today?
At the titular panel at WorldCon2019, I had the opportunity to listen to the top professionals in the field discuss what they see coming. On the panel were Charlie Jane Anders, James Smythe, Eric Picholle, Fonda Lee, and Kristina Perez.
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Booktube: The World of Online Book Discussions
August 8th, 2022 | Season 5 | 11 mins 56 secs
beta-reading, books, booktubers, critique, writers, writing, writing tips
The booktuber world is right next door to the authortuber world — full of people talking about their to-read lists, the books they’re actually reading, and their own community. As opposed to us authortubers, talking about writing tips, writing progress, and apparently streaming virtual write-ins. Both are full of people passionate about books and wanting to talk about it on youtube.
In the titular panel at WorldCon, Stevie “Sablecaught” Finegan, Claire Rousseau (Books and Quills), Thomas Wagner (SFF180), Linnea Sternefält (RobotMaria133), and Brianne Reeves (BreeReadsBooks) shared with us their experiences being booktubers.
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Done to Death: The Art of Killing Characters
August 1st, 2022 | Season 5 | 11 mins 5 secs
beta-reading, books, critique, writers, writing, writing tips
When you’re reading a story and a character dies, you can tell if it’s just the writer trying to manipulate your emotions or if it’s good storytelling.
In the titular panel at Worldcon77, Patrick Rothfuss, Veronica Roth, Su J Sokel, Amy Ogden, and Daryl Gregory did their best to make sure we know that every death should count.
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The Future of Podcasting
July 25th, 2022 | Season 5 | 7 mins 29 secs
beta-reading, books, critique, writers, writing, writing tips
Podcasting has had its ups and downs since it first started. The market is big, but there’s a lot of small fish out there and it’s hard to get noticed.
At the titular panel at Balticon53, Mark Redfield, Mike Luoma, Philippa Ballantine, Christiana Ellis, and Fred. G. Yost discussed where podcasting has been and what they hope and fear we’ll see in the future.
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How to Tell Science From Pseudoscience
July 18th, 2022 | Season 5 | 8 mins 18 secs
beta-reading, books, critique, writers, writing, writing tips
Throughout time, there has always been a struggle between science and pseudoscience. Even as we’ve learned more, done better, some have always insisted on ignoring those advances.
On the titular panel at Worldcon 2019, Dublin, Eugene Doherty, Sam Scheiner, Cristina Macia, and moderated by Stephen Nelson, discussed the daily fight against pseudoscience beliefs.
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Sex, Sexuality, and World Building
July 11th, 2022 | Season 5 | 10 mins 35 secs
beta-reading, books, critique, writers, writing, writing tips
My last post was on asexual representation. Literally. Today, I bring you the flip side. I mostly write younger stuff or fade-to-black scenes to avoid any explicitness of this issue, but a lot of you out there are writing it as the forefront of your novel.
At the titular panel, moderated by Jennifer Povey: D’Amanda Martini, Nobilis Reed, Mark L. Van Name, and Lisa Hawkridge managed to keep on topic WHILE keeping it all about books and writing. I was VERY impressed.
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Making the Asexual Textual
July 4th, 2022 | Season 5 | 12 mins 24 secs
books, sexuality, writers, writing, writing tips
Some people are sexually attracted to the opposite gender, some are attracted to the same gender, while others are attracted to more than one gender, and yet others are only sexually attracted under specific circumstances?
But, not all people are sexually attracted to someone. Those people? Identify as asexual.
Especially in Western culture, so many of our stories — be they folktales of yore, current tv shows, books, or movies — center around the main character’s relationship. Even if it’s not the main plot point.
For asexual people, they’ve had to read-between-the-lines to look for characters that represent them.
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Improving Your Readings
June 27th, 2022 | Season 5 | 5 mins 26 secs
books, public speaking, reading, writers, writing
From authors who are asked to read their own work at signings, to audiobook narrators, to podcasters, there are a lot of us out there who want — or need — to get better at readings.
At the titular panel, at Balticon 53, Tee Morris, Jean L Cooper, and Mike Luona shared their best tips.
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Intro To Hopepunk
June 20th, 2022 | Season 5 | 6 mins 58 secs
books, writers, writing, writing tips
In a grimdark world, filled with truth, lies, and politics many of us have been longing for a literary escape that can give us some hope. For this generation, Hopepunk is our solution.
At WorldCon 77 Dublin, Jo Walton, Lettie Prell, and the creator of the term, herself, Alexandra Rowland, on a panel moderated by the marvelous Sam Hawke discussed the true meaning of Hopepunk.
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Season 5: Trailer
June 13th, 2022 | Season 5 | 41 secs
beta-reading, books, critique, writers, writing, writing tips
Welcome back for season 5 of "Writing Tips and Writerly Musings". I've got a lot in store for you with tips from the pros. Kicking off with 'Intro to Hopepunk', and even a few of my own tricks for managing my time with Trello.