Featuring an interview with memoir and short story author An Ngo Lang.

This April, add some short story collections to your list, sign up to a free writing sprint, and discover what I’ve dived into. For the full interview with An Ngo Lang, tune in to The Spark wherever you listen to podcasts.

📚 Recommendations for ravenous readers

Three short story collections to add to your “To Be Read” list.

You Have a Friend in 10A by Maggie Shipstead

A Feather on the Breath of God by Sigrid Nunez

Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri

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✏️ Resources for wonderful writers

The London Writers’ Salon is holding a free 24-hour writing sprint from 7pm BST (11am PT, 2pm ET) on Friday 25 April to 7pm BST on Saturday 26 April. Join for as few or as many 1-hour sessions as you’d like, starting at the top of each hour. See you there?

I heard Sanam Mahloudji, whose debut novel is The Persians, say on The Write and Wrong Podcast that writers should aim for 100 rejections per year. I love that reframing, in the “every no is one step closer to a yes” mindset. Or: “You’ve got to be in it to win it”!

Last autumn, Jessica Payne wrote “A How-To Guide: from Pantser to Plantser” on The Payneful Truth About Being a Writer. I’m finding it to be a very helpful reference.

👣 Updates on my moseying

In past episodes, I had mentioned my plans to write a nonfiction sustainability handbook for small businesses. This is now on the back burner because…

…I’ve started working on my novel! The inspiration is from a short story I wrote about a year and a half ago during a short story course at City Lit. I used Jessica Payne’s guide and hopped back and forth between Story Genius by Lisa Cron and Save the Cat! Writes a Novel by Jessica Brody. I now have a logline, the synopsis, and a chapter outline. My aim is to have 25 chapters of about 3,500 words each and breaking it down into little chunks like this seems to make it “easy” (??) to write. (I think I’m going to end up eating these words.) I’m more than 1,500 words in!

I recently caught up with a friend from high school who, like me, spent a lot of time in Bologna. She did a creative writing MA at the University of East Anglia and I wanted to ask her about it. One thing led to the next and we’ve now formed a writing group together with a friend of hers and a fellow writer from the City Lit short story course. We’re all working on book-length manuscripts: fiction and memoir.

Short story collection submissions to small presses — tracked on Chill Subs 📊⏱️ 14 pending🚫 3 rejected🟰 17 total

Story submissions — tracked on Chill Subs 📊🏆 6 accepted🙅‍♀️ 7 withdrawn (accepted elsewhere)🚫 58 rejected🟰 71 total

🎙️ Author interview with An Ngo Lang

An Ngo Lang was born in Saigon, Vietnam, and fled with her family in 1975, resettling in Kansas and now living in Australia. She is a writer, actor, and model. Her writing appears in Tomorrow There Will Be Sun, Leatherneck, The VVA Veteran, Kill Your Darlings, diaCritics, and more. To find out more about An, please visit her website anngolang.com. She is also on Instagram and Facebook.

Tune into the The Spark podcast for the full interview!

📙 Where to find my writing

"Things My Dad Told Me" in Tomorrow There Will Be Sun, the Hope Prize anthology published by Simon & Schuster Australia.Buy in US | Buy in UK

“Gold Mountain Diggers” in Issue 10 of Livina Press.Buy in US | Buy in UK

“His Bones” in Transformations, the Oxford Flash Fiction Prize anthology.Buy in US | Buy in UK

Find out more about me and my writing, including press coverage, on my website: madelynpostman.com.

Most book links go to my Bookshop.org page, where sales are win-win-win, benefiting the authors, local bookstores, and my own writing—unlike using A-you-know-who!

You can listen to The Spark on your favorite podcast platform. On Substack, you can listen to the podcast and subscribe to the newsletter. Please take a moment to leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify—it would mean the world to me. And if you know other writers and readers, please share it!

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit madelynpostman.substack.com

09 Short Stories and a Sprint