Read and Write with Natasha

He calls himself Virus the Poet, and the name is the point: take something with a negative meaning and flip it into art that spreads in a better way. I sat down with Viral Gore to talk about what it looks like to build a modern poetry career that lives both online and on real stages, with real people, and real stakes.We got into why poetry became his most natural channel for expression, how spoken word connects to music and rap lyrics, and why he keeps most poems short to match today’s attention span. We also talked about the platforms shaping discovery right now, including TikTok poetry, Instagram poets, and BookTok, plus the quiet trend I keep hearing about: Gen Z feeling phone fatigue and drifting back to physical books and bookstores.Then we went behind the scenes on the business of being a working poet: pitching venues, booking speaking engagements, teaching workshops, applying for grants, negotiating performance fees, and expanding beyond book sales with merchandise. Virus also shared his creative workflow for catching ideas fast using iPhone voice notes, the Notes app, and drafts on his computer, along with his belief that relatability is the thread that helps readers feel less alone. We wrapped with what’s next for him, including Volume Two, more poetic visuals, and continued experimenting across audio platforms.Have a comment? Text me!Support the show📚 Writing a book and feeling stuck? Subscribe to Read and Write with Natasha on Substack for practical guidance, honest conversations, and behind-the-scenes insights on finishing your book—from idea to final draft.

Crankiness might be the most honest creative fuel we all share, and Stephen Joseph has built an entire writing life around it.I sat down with Stephen, a first-generation American, practicing attorney, seasoned negotiator, and 53-time marathon finisher, to talk about how irritation can become humor, clarity, and surprisingly practical life lessons for writers and readers.We trace his “cranky” origin story from a travel mishap in Rome to a children’s book idea that snowballs into blogs and multiple titles, including his Cranky Superpowers approach to embracing life's cranky corners. Then we zoomed out to the writing process itself: how he thinks about building “normals” that hold, why running helps him hear his characters, and what it looks like to keep creating even when time is tight.If you’re curious about self-publishing and the business side of children’s books, Stephen gets specific. We talked about hybrid publishing, distribution, ISBNs, warehousing, and why print-on-demand can make illustrated books nearly impossible to price. He also shared how he found high-quality offset printing in China, what it changed financially, and how better unit economics can open real marketing options.You’ll leave with concrete book marketing ideas, a clearer view of author branding, and a reminder that writing is a long game you get better at by doing. Have a comment? Text me!Support the show📚 Writing a book and feeling stuck? Subscribe to Read and Write with Natasha on Substack for practical guidance, honest conversations, and behind-the-scenes insights on finishing your book—from idea to final draft.

What does it take to turn real life into a book readers can’t put down?In this episode, I talk with Dr. Amanda Edgar, award-winning author, ghostwriter, and founder of Page and Podium Press, about the craft and business of memoir and prescriptive nonfiction. Amanda shares how she helped document firsthand stories from the summer of 2020 for a follow-up to her 2018 Black Lives Matter book, and why she measures success not just in sales, but in impact and ongoing conversations.We also get practical. Amanda explains what ghostwriting really involves—from interviews and research to collaborative outlining and preserving a client’s voice. She discusses timelines, her 3,000-words-per-week writing cadence, tools like Scrivener, and why her press avoids AI-generated prose to protect authenticity and trust.For aspiring ghostwriters, Amanda shares business advice: start with a few projects, set up your contracts and LLC, and choose a marketing channel you actually enjoy—her YouTube strategy brings in steady organic leads.Finally, we talk about the emotional side of memoir writing: interviewing people about painful experiences, honoring their stories, and knowing which projects align with your values. Amanda also previews two upcoming books, including a guide to her Memoir Method and her own deeply personal memoir about surviving a hidden abusive relationship.If you’re interested in memoir, ghostwriting, or writing books that make an impact, this episode is for you.Have a comment? Text me!Support the show📚 Writing a book and feeling stuck? Subscribe to Read and Write with Natasha on Substack for practical guidance, honest conversations, and behind-the-scenes insights on finishing your book—from idea to final draft.

Want your book and brand to break past your own audience? I sat down with SEO strategist and author Brandon Leibowitz to map the fastest path: guest podcasting. Brandon lays out how stepping onto trusted shows earns the backlinks and third‑party mentions that search engines crave, while also unlocking new readers who arrive pre‑warmed by the host's credibility.We dig into why backlinks still power rankings, how to turn each interview into an evergreen content engine, and where AI changes the game. Brandon explains the growing split between what Google values and what LLMs like ChatGPT and Gemini surface, and why consistent third‑party coverage now influences both.You'll hear practical tactics for authors: creating audience‑specific pages on your site, avoiding duplicate content traps, using Google Keyword Planner to validate titles, and funneling readers with smart bonuses and QR codes to build your email list.Brandon also shares the scrappy methods he used to land 300 shows: simple Google operators to find podcasts with real SEO value, plus directories like Podmatch and Listen Notes. We get candid about self‑publishing his new book, The Power of Guest Podcasting, from editing and formatting hurdles to a last‑minute KDP launch that still hit #1 in Amazon's podcasting category.If you've wondered whether to start your own show or double down on guesting, this conversation makes the case for building trust first and growing your ecosystem on its back.Subscribe for more conversations that help writers and creators grow with clear, modern marketing. If you found value, leave a quick review and share this episode with an author who needs fresh eyes on their SEO.Have a comment? Text me!Support the show📚 Writing a book and feeling stuck? Subscribe to Read and Write with Natasha on Substack for practical guidance, honest conversations, and behind-the-scenes insights on finishing your book—from idea to final draft.

Richard McColl is a British writer, publisher, and podcaster who built something entirely his own in Colombia, and the lessons he's learned apply wherever you're trying to get your work into the world.In this conversation, we dig into Fuller Vigil, his boutique indie press publishing English-language books about Colombia with tight prose, lived experience, and beautiful design. You can watch the Video Interview here. Richard breaks down the actual business of independent publishing, printing locally, stocking the shops where readers actually buy, using KDP strategically for reach, and measuring success by community and events rather than vanity metrics. Distribution is expanding to the UK, with the US next. It's a masterclass in building small and building smart.Colombia Calling, his weekly podcast, is part of the same ecosystem — pairing a rigorous ten-minute news brief with in-depth interviews, sustained by a Patreon community that gets early access, explainers, and book discounts. Richard talks about what it really takes to build an audience that trusts you, and why that trust is the foundation on which everything else runs.We also get into the writing itself,  how place shapes story, how to go beyond the obvious narrative everyone expects, and what it means to publish books that represent a country on its own terms rather than through someone else's lens.He closes with advice every writer needs to hear: don't quit the day job too soon, collect contacts like currency, evolve your plan, grow thick skin, and make peace with the fact that you won't switch off. Have a comment? Text me!Support the show📚 Writing a book and feeling stuck? Subscribe to Read and Write with Natasha on Substack for practical guidance, honest conversations, and behind-the-scenes insights on finishing your book—from idea to final draft.

A single moment on a New York subway platform can flip a life. That’s where author and coach Deborah Mallow decided to stop living by default and design days that actually felt good. We invited her to share how that choice turned into a practical, design-forward guide: Six Steps to Fewer Days That Suck.We walk through each step with real-world examples. Start with the decision to change, then strip away the habits that feed worry and fear. Feed your mindset with bravery, not doubt. Take action with balance so your progress is sustainable, and choose an attitude that reflects the self you want to project. Finally, make the commitment to stay the course when results wobble. Deborah grounds every step in accessible brain science, how cortisol shapes mornings, why negativity bias traps our focus, and how small rituals like a self-hug, a smile, and a one-line affirmation can trigger endorphins and set a positive pattern for the day.As a designer, Deborah built her book for how we actually consume content: fast, visual, and memorable. Double-page spreads deliver quotes, questions, mantras, and start-now activities you can use in minutes. She also pulls back the curtain on her self-publishing strategy, from combining Amazon with IngramSpark to sourcing a cover from Big Five talent and planning bulk sales that bring positivity into workplaces. It’s a masterclass in aligning creative vision with smart distribution, all while protecting your voice.If you’re ready to enjoy more and worry less, you’ll leave with a morning micro-ritual, a clearer sense of purpose, and a repeatable way to reduce the days that drain you. Have a comment? Text me!Support the show📚 Writing a book and feeling stuck? Subscribe to Read and Write with Natasha on Substack for practical guidance, honest conversations, and behind-the-scenes insights on finishing your book—from idea to final draft.

A late-night encounter with a fantasy novel lit the fuse, and Richie Billing walked away from law to chase the kind of storytelling that steals your sleep. We sit down with Richie to unpack the leap, the grind, and the systems that make a modern writing life possible without the smoke and mirrors. If you’ve wondered how authors really pay the bills, this candid, generous conversation gives you the roadmap and the reality check.We get specific about the money. Richie breaks down why per-book royalties rarely add up, how crowded discount markets distort expectations, and why volume alone can’t be the goal. Instead, he shows how to find your readers by leaning into comparisons, build a list with SEO that quietly compounds, and use honest, relationship-first emails to turn casual subscribers into committed fans. He also opens up about Patreon: simple tiers, low friction pricing, and benefits designed for how people actually read—downloadable ebooks, immersive web readers, and bonus audio—so support becomes recurring, not a one-off.The creative experiments are wild and smart. Richie explains how he self-published a novella with an original soundtrack—QR codes in print and tappable links in ebooks—where each character’s theme mirrors their emotional arc. He also shares “local-first” marketing tactics, from community events to QR stickers that cut through online noise. We dig into his podcast playbook, the real limits of monetizing audio without scale, and the crucial shift from making content for writers to serving readers who will buy your fiction. Along the way, we talk about writing routines around full-time work, class barriers in publishing, and why a weekly web novel can blend drafting, feedback, and momentum.Don't miss this fascinating episode, filled with golden nuggets.Have a comment? Text me!Support the show📚 Writing a book and feeling stuck? Subscribe to Read and Write with Natasha on Substack for practical guidance, honest conversations, and behind-the-scenes insights on finishing your book—from idea to final draft.

In this episode, W G Williams takes us inside the moment he stopped chasing agents, embraced a hybrid publisher, and brought 20 Years of Internet Humor and Other Interesting Things to life without losing the warmth that kept readers coming back for decades.We explore the nuts and bolts: sourcing stories from readers, editing for clarity and broad appeal, and verifying originality rather than recycling copyrighted material from the web. Bill walks through why he organizes nearly 200 entries alphabetically to keep tone and topics varied, how he credits contributors for transparency, and why short, self-contained stories make the book perfect for five-minute reading sprints. He shares candid lessons on marketing as an author-operator—leveraging word of mouth, live events, simple social posts, and the power of online retail to attract new readers and even new publishing offers after the fact.You’ll also hear how Bill balances a full-time career with a daily creative routine, stays a week ahead on content, and plans themed volumes dedicated to kids, aging, marriage, and more. If you’ve wondered whether hybrid publishing can be both rigorous and empowering, or how micro-stories can cut through a loud news cycle with a little levity and a lot of heart, this conversation offers a practical blueprint and a gentle nudge to keep going.Have a comment? Text me!Support the show📚 Writing a book and feeling stuck? Subscribe to Read and Write with Natasha on Substack for practical guidance, honest conversations, and behind-the-scenes insights on finishing your book—from idea to final draft.

A skeptic sits down to dinner with Jesus at a quiet Italian restaurant, and a half-million readers later, David Gregory finds himself at the center of Christian fiction’s unlikely boom. I invited David to unpack how a self-published novella became a national bestseller, why some faith-forward stories cross into the mainstream, and what it really takes to write novels that don’t preach yet still carry a clear message.We get practical fast: what qualifies a book as Christian fiction, how to keep theology organic to the plot, and why readers bristle when characters pause for sermons. David shares behind-the-scenes moments from Dinner with a Perfect Stranger, the ripple effects of The Shack and the Left Behind series, and the ongoing shelving debate that keeps many faith-based novels in the religion aisle instead of general fiction. We also talk audience realities—why women 35+ dominate the category, how teens still respond when the story sings, and the surprising power of simple word of mouth over trend-chasing tactics.Then we zoom out to the business. David explains the platform-first logic of today’s publishers, why he returned to self-publishing after major-house launches, and what has and hasn’t moved the needle for discoverability. He teases new projects, including a fable-like work for all ages and screen adaptations of The Last Christian and One of Us, a contemporary retelling of the gospels through the life of Manuel, a Mexican American mechanic. If you care about faith, fiction, or the craft of making both feel real, this conversation will change how you think about story.Have a comment? Text me!Support the show📚 Writing a book and feeling stuck? Subscribe to Read and Write with Natasha on Substack for practical guidance, honest conversations, and behind-the-scenes insights on finishing your book—from idea to final draft.

Christopher Lee Maher is the author of Free for Life, a book born not from theory but from a personal reckoning. After years as a Navy SEAL, Christopher looked physically elite yet struggled with insomnia, chronic pain, and nervous system overload. His book documents the system he built to understand why strong bodies break down—and how to restore them.In this episode, Christopher unpacks the core ideas behind Free for Life and the method he calls True Body Intelligence, which addresses stress and distortion across the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual body. He explains how prolonged exposure to cold and high stress shortened muscle chains, disrupted sleep, and trapped tension in the nervous system—and how most fitness routines unknowingly make this worse.We talk through the practical framework at the heart of the book: using all three muscle contractions—concentric, eccentric, and isometric—to lengthen tissue, stabilize joints, and release stored stress. Christopher shares why most workouts overtrain one contraction, how slowing the lowering phase can change everything, and why daily “resets” matter more than intensity.We also zoom out to the author journey. Christopher reflects on self-publishing Free for Life, choosing a slow, values-driven marketing strategy, and prioritizing purpose over visibility. This conversation is for writers and authors interested in embodied knowledge, meaningful nonfiction, and what it looks like to build a book—and a body—around long-term integrity rather than quick wins.Have a comment? Text me!Support the show📚 Writing a book and feeling stuck? Subscribe to Read and Write with Natasha on Substack for practical guidance, honest conversations, and behind-the-scenes insights on finishing your book—from idea to final draft.