An Exciting Book I Just Ordered

If you've listened to the show for long, you probably know that I'm a sucker for any book with advice on how to be a writer. So it didn't take much convincing, after seeing several people post their copies, to order Take It from Me: An Agent's Guide to Building a Nonfiction Writing Career from Scratch, by Alia Hanna Habib.

I'm impatiently awaiting my copy, but Alia reps some marvelous historians, so I'm eager to read her advice. I'll report back. I have another book from a literary agent, Kate McKean's Write Through It: An Insider's Guide to Publishing and the Creative Life, also on my TBR stack. Do you want a review essay about both of them in a future issue?

Episode 86: Fahad Bishara Tells the Story of a World in Motion

In case you missed it, my newest interview with historian Fahad Bishara is a treasure. I wasn't familiar with Fahad's work until a listener recommended him for the show. Intrigued, I checked out his books and then reached out, and I'm so glad I did! This might be one of my very favorite interviews on Drafting the Past. Fahad is so thoughtful about how he has worked to bring history to life, the challenges of writing narrative history about a part of the world many of his readers are less familiar with, and how even practical tools—like knowing how to use section breaks—are an important part of the writer's kit.

It's hard to pick a favorite line, but here's a strong contender: "I thoroughly embraced the fact that, look, we are fundamentally storytellers. That’s what we do. That is what the historian’s job is, to tell stories, and to tell stories that are instructive in different ways, that are meant to tell you something about the world that you live in, tell you about the worlds that we lived in, to tell you something about what it means to be human." Listen here, especially if you could use a writing pick-me-up. You won't regret it.

And Coming Tomorrow...

I have another killer interview coming, with one of my dream guests, Heather Ann Thompson. If you know Heather's work, you know why I'm excited about this one. If you don't—well, you'll be excited after hearing it, too.