Here’s the craft-packed episode you’ve been waiting for – the exciting and extended episode featuring the award-winning international-selling humble and personable Neil Smith. Neil is the author of Bang Crunch, a wildly successful book of short stories. A few weeks ago, he stopped by the virtual Behind the Prose studio to discuss his new novel Boo, a captivating and imaginative Young Adult whodunnit.

In this interview, which promises to show you how he wrote a novel when he didn’t know how, you’ll learn how stumbling upon voices can help your writing, what makes young adult narrators come more alive, and how one can become a more serious writer. Though I tried to do the interview without spoilers, we just couldn’t really talk craft without some of them. If you’ve read Boo and want to learn about writing YA, you should pull up a chair and your annotated copy because this show is for you.

The episode also features Joel Miller, founder of the great new humor website The Reject Pile.  Joel first visited us in April when he was gearing up for the big launch. Now, he’s back to tell us how it’s going. I also talk about SCHOOLED, a new play written by my friend Lisa Lewis.

SHOW LINKS
SCHOOLED THE PLAY, by LISA LEWIS
THE REJECT PILE
SCRIVENER, 20% OFF with code PROSE at checkout through 8/30

Listen below, subscribe on iTunes, or read the transcript.

ABOUT NEIL SMITH
NEIL SMITH is a French translator and the author of the critically acclaimed national bestseller Bang Crunch. He has been nominated for the Hugh McLennan Prize for Fiction, the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize–Best First Book (Canada), as well as the Journey Prize 3 times. He has also won the First Book Prize from the Quebec Writers’ Federation. He lives in Montreal.