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Podcast: The Writer Files: Writing, Productivity, Creativity, and Neuroscience
Episode:

How National Book Award Winner & Bestselling Author James McBride Writes
Category: Arts
Duration: 00:31:41
Publish Date: 2023-08-18 07:00:00
Description:

New York Times bestselling author and National Book Award winner, James McBride, spoke to me about eschewing literary fame, his friendship with Spike Lee, and his latest novel THE HEAVEN & EARTH GROCERY STORE.

James McBride is a musician, screenwriter, and award-winning author of New York Times bestselling Oprah’s Book Club selection Deacon King Kong, the National Book Award–winner The Good Lord Bird (now a Showtime limited series starring Ethan Hawke), and the American classic The Color of Water.

His debut novel, Miracle at St. Anna, was turned into a 2008 film by Oscar-winning writer and director Spike Lee, with a script written by McBride. 

The author’s latest novel, The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, was an Instant New York Times Bestseller and Named a Must Read for the Summer by The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, Time, Town & Country, and others.

Described as “... a novel about small-town secrets and the people who keep them,” it begins in 1972 when workers in Pottstown, PA, find a skeleton at the bottom of a well. The New York Times Book Review called the book, “A murder mystery locked inside a Great American Novel.”

James McBride received a National Humanities Medal from President Obama, “... for humanizing the complexities of discussing race in America.” He is a distinguished writer in residence at New York University.

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In this file James McBride and I discussed: 

  • Why he finds no joy in being well-known
  • How The Color of Water changed his career
  • The lessons he learned from Michael Jackson
  • The hyperbole of the literary world and standing on the shoulders of giants
  • How we’re all more alike than we are different
  • Why writers must seek out their mentors
  • And a lot more!

Show Notes:

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