"Here's Where the Voice is Working"

Jim McManus is an extraordinary writer who teaches alongside me at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. For years I noticed his students getting better and getting published, but I didn’t know what went on in his classroom.

So I asked.

Hope you’ll give the conversation a listen and find out how mathematical a process revision can be.

In this conversation, you can hear the joy that Jim takes in his craft—his deep respect for writers and editors—and (SPECIAL BONUS) you can hear me worrying about how not to get paralyzed by perfectionism. A quick Who’s Who in case you’re not fixated on the lit biz.

FSG: the publishing company Farrar, Straus & Giroux

Jonathan Galassi: President of FSG

Lorin Stein: former editor at FSG

Roxane Gay: writer who now has her own publishing imprint

Imprint: a brand or trade name under which a publisher releases a specific line of books. Just to take a random, disinterested example, Roxane Gay Books is an imprint of the publisher Grove Atlantic. RGB publishes 3 books a year.

I highly recommend Jim’s nonfiction book Positively Fifth Street: Murderers, Cheetahs, and Binion's World Series of Poker. Once upon a time Jim was hired by Harper’s Magazine to cover the World Series of Poker in Vegas. He ended up covering a gruesome murder trial and risking his entire advance in a long-shot attempt to play in the tournament himself. As David Sedaris said, “In writing about poker Jim McManus has managed to write about everything, and it’s glorious.”

Thanks for listening!