How Karen Joy Fowler Became a Master at Writing in Different Genres

Photo by Nathan Quintanilla

This week, acclaimed author Karen Joy Fowler joins the podcast to share the process and secrets behind her success

Ever since getting a late start into the writing world in her 30s, Karen has defied expectations by achieving awards for novels spanning science fiction, short stories, and historical fiction genres.

One of my all-time favorites is We’re All Completely Beside Ourselves.

Her latest book, Booth, tells the somewhat true story of the famous family of best Lincoln's assassin John Wilkes Booth.

On the pod, Karen discusses how critiquing other writers helped launch her career by developing her style. She also talks about the experience of writing in different genres, and how emotional resilience is an underrated skill for authors attempting to make it.

Some of my favorite moments from our interview:

• [12:49 - 13:03] One of the things that happen to me is — as soon as I feel I’ve mastered something, now I know how to do it, I’m not interested in doing it anymore. The part of writing that’s fun for me is trying to figure out something I don’t know how to do.

• [30:41 - 30:57] I do not outline extensively. I am one of those writers that if I knew too much about where the book was going to go, I would be less interested in getting there.

• [34:21 - 34:44] Your method is your method. And you will talk to lots of other writers and you will hear methods that make so much more sense than your method, which seems very slow and stupid and something nobody else should do. But the way that you find your way into a story and the way that you proceed in it — that’s your way and there’s nothing to be done about it.