Today we are thrilled to share our interview with writer and podcaster Shawn Smucker! Shawn has written and released four books with Revell Publishing House including the thrilling and thought provoking “Light From Distant Stars”. His fifth book entitled "These Nameless Things” is set to release on June 30th, 2020 and has been described as “reminiscent of both Dante's Inferno and Lost”. After listening to Shawn’s description of this book, we can’t wait to read it!

In this episode, Shawn generously shares experience and advice discovered on his writing journey. We talk about how other creative works influence our writing, and he describes the importance of setting clear goals, as well as the personal commitment he made to write 10 books in 10 years. He also shares his experience with self-publishing and traditional publishing, along with things he learned about himself through those experiences. But mostly he focuses on the importance of remembering to love and value the work.

Shawn also co-hosts the sublime podcast The Stories Between Us which features transparent and funny conversations with his wife, writer Maile Silva, focused on the reality of their writing life. They also have some fantastic author interview episodes, such as with Yangsze Choo author of “The Ghost Bride” and “The Night Tiger”. Their conversations are filled with relatable experiences and encouragement for anyone who is working to create something new!

We talked with Shawn for well over an hour and it was difficult to cut this conversation down to the length of our typical episodes. If you want to hear the full discussion, you can find it on our Patreon page. For just $5 a month you can support this podcast and get full author interviews each month.

We hope you enjoy listening to this week’s episode, we walked away from it feeling encouraged and unpacking some of Shawn’s sage advice! Keep reading, writing, and putting your voice out there!

Into the woods,

Fable & The Verbivore

Notes:

The Stories Between Us episode that features Chad Alan Gibbs is titled “Chad Gibbs: Writing Rejection and Independent Publishing Success”.

Books Mentioned:

The Day the Angels Fell by Shawn Smucker

The Edge of Over There by Shawn Smucker

Light from Distant Stars by Shawn Smucker

Once We Were Strangers by Shawn Smucker

These Nameless Things by Shawn Smucker

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (The Chronicles of Narnia) by C. S. Lewis

Chronicles of Narnia Box Set by C. S. Lewis

Gilead: A Novel by Marilynne Robinson

All the Light We Cannot See: A Novel by Anthony Doerr

Two Like Me and You by Chad Alan Gibbs

The Ocean at the End of the Lane: A Novel by Neil Gaiman

The Writing Life by Annie Dillard

Music from: https://filmmusic.io
’Friendly day’ by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)
Licence: CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)