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“Playing on all 88 keys: The prose playbook of Phillip Lopate” by Keysha Whitaker ran in the July 2018 issue of The Writer.

What writing advice can one mine from a two-hour interview with prolific essayist, author, and professor Philip Lopate?

If you read the July 2018 issue of The Writer, you learned about Lopate’s overall approach and philosophy in “Playing on all 88 keys: The prose playbook of Phillip Lopate” who was my former grad school writing teacher.

In part two, we go further into that philosophy, and you’ll hear tips that didn’t make the article.

I love this episode because it starts with the question, “Out of the books that you’ve written, is there a book that you feel you’ve learned the most about yourself from as a writer?”

Access it below or subscribe on iTunes or on Stitcher.

ABOUT PHILLIP LOPATE
Phillip Lopate was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1943, and received a BA from Columbia in 1964, and a doctorate from the Union Graduate School in 1979. He has written four personal essay collections, two novels and a pair of novellas; a memoir of his teaching experiences; a collection of his movie criticism; an urbanist meditation; a critical study, a biographical monograph, and To Show and to Tell: The Craft of Literary Nonfiction (Free Pesss, 2013).

Author Phillip Lopate with his cat Tacey. Photo by Barbara Mensch.

In addition, there is a Phillip Lopate reader, Getting Personal: Selected Writings (Basic Books, 2003). His latest book is the memoir, A Mother’s Tale, from OSU Press, 2017.

Please support Behind the Prose by purchasing Lopate’s book using this link. If you do, Amazon will throw us a few much-needed cents.