The Write Focus

6:40 / Fall into Poetry with Poets / Janet Innes

Welcome Back to Fall into Poetry with a Poet, from The Write Focus. Our poet for this episode is crime fiction writer Janet Innis.

While we suffer through storms and glitches, we do still manage to have a great conversation about poetry, fiction, and writing in general.

Poet before she began writing crime, Janet Innes has always told stories, writing narrative poetry as well as flash fiction, short stories, longer poems, and novels. Whether poetry or prose, her focus is the exploration of personality, with the motivators and drive toward boundary-breaking action.

Janet Innes is a crime fiction writer whose work can be found in Mystery Tribune, Guilty Flash,

Lucent Dreaming, Savage Cheese, and the anthology Futures That Never Were. Based in Rhode Island, she's a member of the Short Mystery Fiction Society and Sisters in Crime.

When she’s not writing, she’s logging the insect life in her native plant garden.

Find her at janetinnes.net or on Bluesky @janetinnes.bsky.social

TIMINGS

00:40 Welcome and Introduction

1:30 Interview with Janet Innis

33:57 Last Words and Closing

Total Run Time = 35:15

LINKS

Audio https://eden5695.podbean.com/e/640-fall-into-poetry-janet-innes/?token=c19456ab76850afbe51578ced821677b

Video https://youtu.be/NwM9rZuyXUw

Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools.

Our current focus is Fall into Poetry, 12 episodes of writers sharing how poetry improves their fiction. These 12 episodes will broadcast this autumn, September to December. Here is a link to the playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXi3M_aM-d7K1x02UAlihWKKom_5keJrg Select the most recent episode through the URL after the TIMINGS.

Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr

· You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Available is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook and templates from the Discovering Characters series.

· Available Now: worksheet templates and a video trailer script for Discovering Your Author Brand.

For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com .

Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com.

If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

Listen on your favorite podcast site: from Apple to YouTube, Spotify and Podbean (my favs), Google Play, Amazon Music and Audible, Samsung and Player FM, Deezer and Podcaster, the rivals iHeart and Tune-in, and too many to list.

Here are the easiest. Make us a favorite, and follow along easy-peasy, once a week, while you fix a quick dinner, drive a short commute, or take a brisk walk.

My favorite podcast is Podbean. https://eden5695.podbean.com/

YouTube direct link to the Current Playlist https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXi3M_aM-d7IZWMlW9kLwMNEkuLMySGnq

Apple https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-write-focus/id1546738740%20

Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/4fMwknmfJhkJxQvaaLQ3Gm?si=ffeb71ed17c3409d

Amazon/Audible https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/062ecc60-d61c-432a-ad99-8234c1044ef1

ListenNotes https://lnns.co/y_Jg5rpaMNo

Google https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkLnBvZGJlYW4uY29tL2VkZW41Njk1L2ZlZWQueG1s

Tune-In https://tunein.com/podcasts/p1608565/

IHeart Radio https://iheart.com/podcast/90647163

Content copyright is 2020 to 2025, Writers Ink Books.

6:39 / Fall into Poetry with Poets / Michael Cody

Fall into Poetry with Poets

Welcome to the official start of autumn. We’re two episodes into our Fall into Poetry series—this is the third—with a focus this season on poets who also write fiction.

Our primary question is How Writing Poetry Made our Guest a Better Fiction Writer, but I guarantee we will delve into a lot of other corners of writing as well.

Today’s guest is Michael Cody, a songwriter-poet who has not added fiction to his repertoire, with short stories and novels. He finds poetry does more than enrich his words, deepening the work in a wealth of ways.

Here’s the Interview.

Bio: Michael Amos Cody is author of the novel Gabriel’s Songbook (Pisgah Press, 2017) and the story collection A Twilight Reel (Pisgah Press, 2021), winner of the Short Story category in the Feathered Quill Book Awards 2022.

His literary suspense novel Streets of Nashville appeared in April 2025 from Madville Publishing.

He lives in Jonesborough, TN, with his wife Leesa and teaches in the Department of Literature and Language at East Tennessee State University.

TIMINGS

00:40 Welcome and Introduction
01:35 Interview with Michael Cody
30:15 Last Words and Closing

Total Run Time = 31:36

LINKS
michaelamoscody@gmail.com

https://michaelamoscody.com/

https://michaelamoscody.com/michael-amos-cody/macblog/

https://www.amazon.com/stores/Michael-Cody/author/B001KHHWW6

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/17352683.Michael_Amos_Cody

https://soundcloud.com/michael-cody-9

VIDEO https://youtu.be/cP3Hf-bT1ts

AUDIO https://eden5695.podbean.com/e/639-fall-into-poetry-michael-cody/?token=813e3a39895a3aaf9613d927112477c7

Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools.

Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr

· You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Available is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook and templates from the Discovering Characters series.

· Available Now: worksheet templates and a video trailer script for Discovering Your Author Brand.

For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com .

Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com.

If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

Here are the easiest. Make us a favorite, and follow along easy-peasy, once a week, while you fix a quick dinner, drive a short commute, or take a brisk walk.

My favorite podcast is Podbean. https://eden5695.podbean.com/

YouTube direct link to the Current Playlist https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXi3M_aM-d7IZWMlW9kLwMNEkuLMySGnq

Apple https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-write-focus/id1546738740%20

Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/4fMwknmfJhkJxQvaaLQ3Gm?si=ffeb71ed17c3409d

Amazon/Audible https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/062ecc60-d61c-432a-ad99-8234c1044ef1

ListenNotes https://lnns.co/y_Jg5rpaMNo

Google https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkLnBvZGJlYW4uY29tL2VkZW41Njk1L2ZlZWQueG1s

Tune-In https://tunein.com/podcasts/p1608565/

IHeart Radio https://iheart.com/podcast/90647163

Content copyright is 2020 to 2025, Writers Ink Books.

6:38 / Fall into Poetry with Poets / Pam Ebel

Welcome to our second episode for Fall into Poetry with a Poet.

Our poet this time is Pam Ebel, and this makes her third appearance on the podcast. Pam is a pure writer, which in my opinion means she writes many different styles and she shares her knowledge freely with us, with other writers at local seminars, and with other writers at national conferences. This year she’s one of the keynote speakers at the Killer Nashville awards banquet.

In our wide-ranging conversation, Pam talks specifically about poetry as performance and immediate audience interconnection which guides writers as they place words on the page. While some poems are not suitable for performance, other poems lend themselves naturally to that combination art form, poetry performance. Pam covers many topics in our scant time. Here’s the interview.

Bio: Ebel has been published in Shotgun Honey, YELLOW MAMA EZINE, Kings River Life Magazine, The BOULD AWARDS 2020 and 2021 Anthology, Tomorrow and Tomorrow 2021 Anthology, and other venues. Her poetry has appeared in the Delta Poetry Review. A native of California, she now concentrates on tales from her original home state and tales from the highways of the South. She also knows, like the Ancient Greeks and the Irish, that as a Southern writer you can’t outrun your blood.

She has turned to writing full time as of 2020, obviously either perfect or bizarre timing, and this will be her fifth career. She lives in Metairie, Louisiana, with her husband and two cats.

TIMINGS

00:40 Welcome and Introduction

2:00 Interview with Pam Ebel

Topics: Killer Nashville, Bouchercon in NOLA, sharing with writers, poetry as performance, audience reaction, influence of “Howl” by A. Ginsberg, Aristotle, poems not suitable for performance, One Rule when performing, how poems live on after the presentation, poems inserted into fiction

34:00 Last Words and Closing

Total Run Time = 35:29

LINKS

Pamela Ebel https://pamebel.com/

Audio https://eden5695.podbean.com/e/638-fall-into-poetry-pam-ebel/?token=b129c7f12261fb3814c51e4fe8ba361c

Video https://youtu.be/MZzL6aAsFDo

Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools.

Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr

· You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Available is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook and templates from the Discovering Characters series.

· Available Now: worksheet templates and a video trailer script for Discovering Your Author Brand.

For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com .

Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com.

If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

Here are the easiest. Make us a favorite, and follow along easy-peasy, once a week, while you fix a quick dinner, drive a short commute, or take a brisk walk.

My favorite podcast is Podbean. https://eden5695.podbean.com/

YouTube direct link to the Current Playlist https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXi3M_aM-d7IZWMlW9kLwMNEkuLMySGnq

Apple https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-write-focus/id1546738740%20

Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/4fMwknmfJhkJxQvaaLQ3Gm?si=ffeb71ed17c3409d

Amazon/Audible https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/062ecc60-d61c-432a-ad99-8234c1044ef1

ListenNotes https://lnns.co/y_Jg5rpaMNo

Google https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkLnBvZGJlYW4uY29tL2VkZW41Njk1L2ZlZWQueG1s

Tune-In https://tunein.com/podcasts/p1608565/

IHeart Radio https://iheart.com/podcast/90647163

Content copyright is 2020 to 2025, Writers Ink Books.

6:37 / Fall into Poetry with Poets / Joan Leotta

Welcome to our autumn series Fall into Poetry.

Here where I live, it’s not quite Fall, but I’m desperate for it, and this series is one way I can feed that devouring desperation.

This season, we have poets who also write fiction, and that informs the direction of our episodes. While we writers may weave multiple strands into these episodes, the tapestry created depicts creative writing at its best ~ formed of many, many threads in a variety of writing styles, black-and-white nonfiction, the red-hot colors of the mystery genre, the blues and purples of speculative fiction, the glorious greens that run through all of our writing.

Our very first interview is with Joan Leotta, whose first publication occurred at 14 with a poem. Life offered many opportunities for writing, and she’s woven the diverse threads into a glorious tapestry melding desire and passion with duty and obligation.

Let’s begin our interview with Joan Leotta.

Bio: Joan Leotta plays with words on page and stage. She’s a multiple nominee for Pushcart and Best of the Net. Her poetry, essays, and stories have appeared in many journals in the US and abroad. She performs folktale programs on stage, radio, television, and zoom, often highlighting heritage, food, family, and strong women, and offers the one-woman show, “Meet Louisa May Alcott, Civil War Nurse, and Writer”.

TIMINGS

00:40 Welcome and Introduction

02:20 Interview

Topics: Poetry helping Fiction, Value of Each Word / Conciseness / Form, Haiku / Tanka / Haibun poetic forms, her novels and children’s books & rights reversion, backburner items, performance of writing, ideas & more ideas, her poetry background and her various types of writing

31:19 Closing

Total Run Time: = 32:21

Links

Joan's Facebook https://www.facebook.com/joanleotta

Two Mini-Chapbooks are available free to download from Origami Press:

https://www.origamipoems.com/poets/257-joan-leotta

Morning by Morning and Dancing Under the Moon

Feathers on Stone" poetry chapbook available from me and at

https://mainstreetragbookstore.com/product/feathers-on-stone-joan-leotta/

Languid Lusciousness with Lemon from Finishing Line Press

https://www.amazon.com/Languid-Lusciousness-Lemon-Joan-Leotta/dp/1635341450/

TWF Website https://thewritefocus.blogspot.com/

Audio https://eden5695.podbean.com/e/632-fall-into-poetry-with-poets-joan-leotta/?token=8884b85bac984fa388bd653a5dd3fa66

Video https://youtu.be/yGZIdckunCs

6:36 / Summer Writing Challenge / Week 15 & Interview with Reiner Prochaska

September 10 / Last Episode of the SUMMER WRITING CHALLENGE / Week 15 & Interview with Reiner Prochaska

We have reached the last episode associated with the Summer Writing Challenge.

Our Quick Tip covers the 3 Sets of 7 that we writers need for every story start—because you’re moving on to the next writing, right?

Reiner Prochaska offers a fascinating view of writing challenges in discussing his two novels and scripts for stage.

· Reiner Prochaska is a playwright, a novelist, an actor, a director, a filmmaker, and a university lecturer. His plays have been produced at Maryland Ensemble Theatre and published nationally and internationally.

· His new novel, Bergthora’s Saga: A Heathen Revenge in a Christian Iceland—a historical fantasy set in Iceland in the late tenth and early eleventh century, as well as in mid-fourteenth century Greenland—was published by Europe Books in London in November 2024.

· His previous novel, Captives, which tells the story of German soldiers interned at the historical POW camp in Frederick, Maryland, between 1944 and 1946, was published by The Permanent Press in 2019.

· He is the Producer and a Co-Director of the Catoctin Furnace Living History Festival, to which he contributes in creative and administrative capacities. A graduate of Towson University, Reiner teaches writing at his alma mater. He lives in Frederick, Maryland.

For our Check-In, I’m talking the next series.

We’re wrapping up everything, so let’s begin.

TIMINGS

00:40 Welcome & Quick Tip # 15

09:22 Interview with Reiner Prochaska

43:33 Next with The Write Focus (2 series)

44:08 Closing

Total Run Time = 45:08

LINKS

Audio https://eden5695.podbean.com/e/636-summer-writing-challenge-week-15-interview-with-reiner-prochaska/?token=f7706f297476998beb178958ad47adf5

Video https://youtu.be/X--guHE-gww

Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools. Our podcast is for newbies who want to become writing pros and veterans who are returning to writing after years away.

Our current focus is Summer Writing Challenge, 13 episodes every Wednesday in June, July, and August, to achieve 65,000 words or 5K a week. We’ll have a quick tip on writing, interviews from writers on challenges, and check-ins. Here’s a link to the YouTube playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXi3M_aM-d7KE2gUjunhC7MgkXmsLiQap

Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr

· You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Available is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook and templates from the Discovering Characters series.

· Available Now: worksheet templates and a video trailer script for Discovering Your Author Brand.

For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com .

Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com.

If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

Here are the easiest. Make us a favorite, and follow along easy-peasy, once a week, while you fix a quick dinner, drive a short commute, or take a brisk walk.

My favorite podcast is Podbean. https://eden5695.podbean.com/

YouTube direct link to the Current Playlist https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXi3M_aM-d7IZWMlW9kLwMNEkuLMySGnq

Apple https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-write-focus/id1546738740%20

Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/4fMwknmfJhkJxQvaaLQ3Gm?si=ffeb71ed17c3409d

Amazon/Audible https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/062ecc60-d61c-432a-ad99-8234c1044ef1

ListenNotes https://lnns.co/y_Jg5rpaMNo

Google https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkLnBvZGJlYW4uY29tL2VkZW41Njk1L2ZlZWQueG1s

Tune-In https://tunein.com/podcasts/p1608565/

IHeart Radio https://iheart.com/podcast/90647163

6:35 / Summer Writing Challenge / Week 14 & Interview with Ryan Hines

September 3 / Week 14 and Interview with Ryan Hines

A sidestep into screenwriting led Ryan Hines back to writing short stories, novels, and flash fiction. He talks challenges and the Writer as a Thief of Life. That’s the best Quick Tip any writer can offer.

Ryan Michael Hines is a novelist, podcaster, and screenwriter based in Los Angeles, CA, who loves the Southland sun but misses the beauty and mystery of the Appalachian Mountains every day.
A graduate of UCLA’s prestigious MFA Screenwriting Program, Ryan has written several award-winning scripts. His TV pilot EASTSIDE OUTLAWS was developed under a First Look Agreement with Sony Crackle. His feature adaptation of EASTSIDE OUTLAWS won Best Crime Feature Screenplay at the 5th LA Crime and Horror Film Festival.
Ryan is the author of MOONSHINELAND: A Tale of Haunted Appalachia and the writer / director of the MOONSHINELAND podcast. Connect to the podcast at this link: https://moonshineland.podbean.com/

Our Summer Writing Challenge has concluded, and in the last Check-In I offer stats and more. We open with a Quick Tip before Ryan talks writing challenges.

TIMINGS

00:40 Welcome and Quick Tip # 14
6:33 Interview with Ryan Hines
36:36 Final Check-In
38:30 Closing

Total Run Time = 39:28

LINKS

Ryan’s Site https://ryanmhines.com/

His podcast https://moonshineland.podbean.com/

Audio https://eden5695.podbean.com/e/635-summer-writing-challenge-week-14-interview-with-ryan-hines/?token=075a43aea15d86d2945393b230d6f9d0

Video https://youtu.be/GNB0ftixblw

Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr

· You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Available is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook and templates from the Discovering Characters series.

· Available Now: worksheet templates and a video trailer script for Discovering Your Author Brand.

For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com .

Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com.

If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

Here are the easiest. Make us a favorite, and follow along easy-peasy, once a week, while you fix a quick dinner, drive a short commute, or take a brisk walk.

My favorite podcast is Podbean. https://eden5695.podbean.com/

YouTube direct link to the Current Playlist https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXi3M_aM-d7IZWMlW9kLwMNEkuLMySGnq

Apple https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-write-focus/id1546738740%20

Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/4fMwknmfJhkJxQvaaLQ3Gm?si=ffeb71ed17c3409d

Amazon/Audible https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/062ecc60-d61c-432a-ad99-8234c1044ef1

ListenNotes https://lnns.co/y_Jg5rpaMNo

Google https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkLnBvZGJlYW4uY29tL2VkZW41Njk1L2ZlZWQueG1s

Tune-In https://tunein.com/podcasts/p1608565/

IHeart Radio https://iheart.com/podcast/90647163

6:34 / Summer Writing Challenge / Week 13 & Interview with Todd Goodlett

August 27 / Week 13 & Interview with Todd Goodlett

Santa Barbara screenwriter Todd Goodlett talks scripts, drafting and revising, conflict, and more in this week’s episode of our Summer Writing Challenge.

Todd Goodlett is a screenwriter and a playwright. He is the recipient of the 2019 Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship in Screenwriting. Todd is also the winner of the 2019 Final Draft Big Break TV Grand Prize. His plays have been developed and produced across the country including the Tony Award-winning Utah Shakespeare Festival. He lives in Santa Barbara, California.

Our last Quick Tip, # 13, is entitled the Writing Wonderland, and it feels like a Wonderland when I considered the statistics for our 13^th Check-In. Our final Check-In will be the next episode.

On to our last August episode, with two more to come in September.

TIMINGS

00:40 Welcome & Quick Tip #13

04:25 Interview with Todd Goodlett

35:00 Check-In # 13

36:53 Closing

Total Run Time = 37:53

LINKS

Audio https://eden5695.podbean.com/e/634-summer-writing-challenge-week-13-interview-with-todd-goodlett/?token=5bbee9c7c734431d219ef71d0d7c2d3e

Video https://youtu.be/mS1mhx-bsng

Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr

· You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Available is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook and templates from the Discovering Characters series.

· Available Now: worksheet templates and a video trailer script for Discovering Your Author Brand.

For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com .

Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com.

If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

Here are the easiest. Make us a favorite, and follow along easy-peasy, once a week, while you fix a quick dinner, drive a short commute, or take a brisk walk.

My favorite podcast is Podbean. https://eden5695.podbean.com/

YouTube direct link to the Current Playlist https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXi3M_aM-d7IZWMlW9kLwMNEkuLMySGnq

Apple https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-write-focus/id1546738740%20

Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/4fMwknmfJhkJxQvaaLQ3Gm?si=ffeb71ed17c3409d

Amazon/Audible https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/062ecc60-d61c-432a-ad99-8234c1044ef1

ListenNotes https://lnns.co/y_Jg5rpaMNo

Google https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkLnBvZGJlYW4uY29tL2VkZW41Njk1L2ZlZWQueG1s

Tune-In https://tunein.com/podcasts/p1608565/

IHeart Radio https://iheart.com/podcast/90647163