In Episode 11 Loretta Lopez joins us. Her middle grade novel, City Girls, chronicles the lives of three middle schoolers facing some pretty big challenges, such as immigration, adultery, and a parent with cancer. Loretta explains how the book is intended for all audiences and was originally conceived for adults. She talks about how her work as a translator and therapist informs her writing and how an obsessive nature fuels her desire to write anywhere she can, even the public bus.

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Loretta Lopez is a Mexican-American author living in Brooklyn, NY. She is also a therapist and board member at The Brave House. Her debut novel, City Girls, published by Seven Stories Press in Spring 2024.

City Girls, was inspired by the lives of the girls she has worked with at The Brave House, a non-profit offering holistic services to immigrant girls. Part of the book's proceeds will go to supporting their mission.

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Buy City Girls on Bookshop.org or at your local bookshop.

Pre-Order Meryl's debut novel What You Should Worry About at Bookshop.org or Barnes & Nobles (coming out summer 2026)!

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Follow us on Instagram @itsallwritepod. And send us a note at itsallwritepod@gmail.com.

Support the show

In Episode 9, we are back from a fall hiatus with our professor Robert Lopez (of Stony Brook University), author of eight books and numerous pieces in literary journals & magazines. Robert shares his unconventional path to becoming a writer (without having read a full book 'till his 20s!), his thoughts on voice & form, how playing music impacts his fiction, and how teaching has allowed him to build a comfortable writing life for himself.

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Robert Lopez is the author of seven novels and one non-fiction book (listed below with links to purchase). His fiction, nonfiction, and poetry has appeared in dozens of publications, including Bomb, The Threepenny Review, Vice Magazine, New England Review, The Sun, and the Norton Anthology of Sudden Fiction – Latino. He teaches at Stony Brook University and has previously taught at Columbia University, The New School, Pratt Institute, and Syracuse University. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Robert's Books

• The Best People (novel, 2025)
• Dispatches from Puerto Nowhere: An American Story of Assimilation and Erasure (nonfiction, 2023)
• A Better Class Of People (novel-in-stories, 2022)
• All Black Full (novel, 2017)
• Good People (novel-in-stories, 2016)
• Asunder (stories, 2010)
• Kamby Bolongo Mean River (novel, 2009)
• Part of the World (novel, 2007)

For more of Robert's work visit his website: www.robertlopez.net

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Follow the show on Instagram @itsallwritepod

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Essayist Shaan Sachdev contemplates what it means to be a writer & how to be a writer in the context of today's world; discusses the impact of unconscious bias in corporate journalism; and shares his process for writing on everything from gay bathhouse culture to geopolitical conflicts. It's a sexy and cerebral episode that even includes a little discourse on Queen Bey..."Bounce on that sh***, dance..."

After this episode, check out Shaan's Beyonce podcast "Diva Discourse" on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

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Shaan Sachdev is an essayist, cultural critic, journalist, and writer based in New York. He writes about a range of topics including philosophy, America's preoccupations with race thinking, masculinity, biases in media, city life, and his two favorite divas, Beyoncé and Hannah Arendt.

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Shaan's Work mentioned in the show:

"Steamography" (Strange Matter)

"Portrait of the Technocrat as a Stanford Man" (New England Review, Pushcart Prize Winner, Best American Essays 2024 Runnerup)

"Hysterical Empathy" (The Point)

"God Save the Top"(The Point)

"The Gaza Generation" (LA Review or Books)

"The Key to Beyoncé’s Lasting Success" (Slate)

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Also mentioned in this episode:
The Writer's Room

Winners Takes All by Anand Giridharadas

Allan Bérubé

Rachel Cusk

Garth Greenwell

Naomi Klein

Maggie Nelson

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Follow the show in Instagram @itsallwritepod.

Email us at itsallwritepod@gmail.com