First Draft Episode Re-release: Libba Bray (Eps (#18 and 19)

Libba Bray, author of New York Times best-selling series A Great and Terrible Beauty, Printz award-winner Going Bovine, and genuinely terrifying historical paranormal The Diviners, among others, joins me to talk about having her rock collection stolen as a kid, that one time Wes Anderson helped stage a play she wrote, and how growing up in Texas set her head at a certain tilt. The episode originally released on Nov 3, 2014, and Nov 6, 2014.

Links and Topics Mentioned In This Episode

• Seven Samurai, directed by Akira Kurosawa
• Citizen Kane
• Christopher ‘Kit’ Marlowe
• Aaron Sorkin worked at the concessions at the theater for years and only heard dialogue for years and that influenced him
• Harold Pinter is a writer who knows when to take a pause in dialogue
• The Thin Man, Bringing Up Baby, The Marx brothers influenced her sense of comedy
• Neil Simon plays (Odd Couple, Barefoot in the Park: A Comedy in Three Acts, and The Odd Couple: A Comedy in Three Acts)
• Singin’ In The Rain
• Peter Marks, theater critic of the New York Times and the Washington Post
• New York International Film Festival
• Mawkish
• Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger (and Tiger Beat has a song called “Holden Caufield is Not an Asshole”), A Separate Peace by John Knowles, and The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath were the only examples of “YA” that Libba had growing up
• Laurie Halse Anderson, David Levithan, Rachel Cohn, Francesca Lia Block (listen to her First Draft interview here), and Angela Johnson were some of the writers that Libba discovered when she dove into YA fiction
• Aaron Zimmerman, who runs the non-profit New York Writers Coalition
• Ann Brashares (author of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants), Melissa Sinnet, and Cecily von Ziegesar (author of Gossip Girl) were Libba’s editors at Alloy Book Publishing
• Sweet Sixteen
• Holly Black, Newberry Honoree and New York Times bestselling author the Spiderwick Chronicles, The Curse Workers, Magesterium, and her most recent series, Folk of Air (listen to her First Draft interview here)
• “Miles and Miles of No Man’s Land,” Libba Bray’s post about depression
• Stephanie Perkins‘ blog post about depression (hear Stephanie and me on a panel together in this First Draft episode)
• Helter Skelter by Vincent Bugliosi, Curt Gentry
• Carrie by Stephen King

I want to hear from you!

Have a question about writing or creativity for Sarah Enni or her guests to answer? To leave a voicemail, call (818) 533-1998.

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Every Tuesday, I speak to storytellers like Veronica Roth, author of Divergent; Linda Holmes, author and host of NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast; Jonny Sun, internet superstar, illustrator of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Gmorning, Gnight! and author and illustrator of Everyone’s an Aliebn When Ur a Aliebn Too;  Michael Dante  DiMartino, co-creator of Avatar: The Last Airbender; John August, screenwriter of Big Fish, Charlie’s Angels, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory; or Rhett Miller, musician and frontman for The Old 97s. Together, we take deep dives on their careers and creative works.

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