Episode 704: Why Write a Book?
Transcript!
PDF transcript. Also available via our Buzzsprout page.
Shownotes
(because citations are political)
This is the first of our three episode miniseries on why and how we wrote Religion Is Not Done With You, since you nerds won’t stop asking us about it!
This first episode is about why we chose to pivot from an audio medium to a visual one—which is to say, a book.
Shocking no one who knows her, Ilyse had 3 reasons:
Books is what we do: we’re academics! We’re trained to write books! This just makes sense.
Audience: podcasting is this incredible way to talk about our work. Books capture a different crew. Which leads her to…
Materiality. We talk fast. Podcasts are hard to pause and restart in fits and starts, but books have natural resting places, like paragraphs and chapters. Readers can control their speed; listeners can too, but not, like, without making us sound like chipmunks or cartoon ogres.
Megan’s reasons were similarly a list of three, because Ilyse, a 3-point-list-lover writes our scripts:
Because Beacon asked/allowed us to. Having a deadline and a demand? Makes the work happen. But also: Beacon itself was a draw. Legendary, indispensable thinkers and activists like James Baldwin, Mary Daly, Kate Bornstein, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, and a billion more, have written for this imprint. To be at the same intellectual home? Incredible.
The Writing Challenge: writing in this tone, sustained over a book’s length, was a new and fun way to make Megan’s brain stretch.
Utility. In a book, we can show our work, write out all the things we leave off the pod, because again, talking through a big issue or a complex theory just uses different pacing.
Megan also insisted on telling you nerds about how our speaking voice in the pod showed up in the book mostly in long, chaotic lists that, for other writers, would’ve had commas. To hell with commas, we said! Sometimes, no commas and long lists is a purposeful strategy to overwhelm the reader! Commas are safety belts! We are Traction Park children! No safety! For nobody!
Religion Is Not Done With You
Our book is available for preorder! And if you know anything about contemporary book publishing, those preorders really, really matter. We love a local indie store, but you can grab a copy to be delivered on November 5 everywhere and anywhere books are sold.
If you want to have us visit your local bookstore or campus, please reach out to us and Caitlin Meyer, one piece of the rockstar publicity team at Beacon Press.
