In this episode of Radio FreeWrite, The Cru explores how writing fiction can reveal something real. From writing through family conflict to channeling rage, grief, and even imagined fears, this conversation dives into how fiction can incorporate lived experience.

We also tackle where the line sits between therapy and craft. When does a story become art? When should it stay personal? And, how much truth do you actually need to keep?

There's a difference between journaling and storytelling. We'll help you turn personal experiences into something that resonates with readers.

And, of course, we share some of our own real fiction to show how the process works in practice.

From Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable: Oxymoron. A rhetorical figure in which effect is produced by the juxtaposition of contradictory terms, such as "Make haste slowly," "Faith unfaithfully kept him falsely true." The word is Greek for 'pointedly foolish.'

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Episodes of Radio FreeWrite are protected by a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-ND 4.0) license. All Stories remain the property of their respective authors.

This week, the Cru dives into a strange and powerful prompt pulled from Norse mythology: Ginnungagap, the vast, primordial void of fog (that's fog, not frogs, WebEater!) that exists between worlds.

From that idea, the conversation spirals into something every writer knows too well: the "creative" void. What do you do when nothing is flowing? When every sentence feels forced? When the story just won’t come together?

We dig into:

• Writing through creative blocks and burnout
• The difference between natural flow and “forcing it”
• Channeling frustration and anger writing into something useful
• Using constraints and prompts to unlock unexpected breakthroughs

As always, we take the prompt and turn it into original flash fiction, written fast, read aloud, and shared in its raw, unpolished form. Tune in around the 13 minute mark for those.

Like this weeks episode and wish you could read as well as listen? Subscribe to our Substack for a summary of our opening discussion, a story from the episode, and a writing prompt!

Be sure to follow us on Instagram (if that's your sort of thing). Please do send us an email with your story if you write along, which we hope you will do.

Episodes of Radio FreeWrite are protected by a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-ND 4.0) license. All Stories remain the property of their respective authors.

In this episode of Radio FreeWrite, The Cru explores the absurd, satirical style of Gilbert and Sullivan and explores how far you can push an idea once you follow it to its most ridiculous logical conclusion.

But it goes deeper than just playful storytelling. We dive into the power of creative partnerships, from legendary collaborations to our own experiences trying (and sometimes failing) to find the right artistic partner. What makes a collaboration work? Can another writer strengthen your voice without overpowering it? And is great creative chemistry something you build… or just get lucky enough to find?

Of course, we dish out some Gilbertian stories of our own. Tune in around the 11:45 mark for those.

Like this weeks episode and wish you could read as well as listen? Subscribe to our Substack for a summary of our opening discussion, a story from the episode, and a writing prompt!

Be sure to follow us on Instagram (if that's your sort of thing). Please do send us an email with your story if you write along, which we hope you will do.

Episodes of Radio FreeWrite are protected by a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-ND 4.0) license. All Stories remain the property of their respective authors.

This week on Radio FreeWrite, The Cru takes a step back from writing to talk about... reading.

What should writers be reading? Does it matter if it’s fiction, nonfiction, or even audiobooks? And do audiobooks actually count as reading?

We dig into all of it, including:

• Why writers need to read widely across genres
• Considerations of audiobooks and oral storytelling in modern writing
• How classic works like Frankenstein, Beowulf, and The Iliad still influence storytelling today
• How and when to use cultural shorthand in fiction
• That it's ok to quit a book

Along the way, we share what we’ve been reading lately, and how those influences've show up in our own writing.

We do still bring you stories! Tune in around the 17:25 mark.

Like this weeks episode and wish you could read as well as listen? Subscribe to our Substack for a summary of our opening discussion, a story from the episode, and a writing prompt!

Be sure to follow us on Instagram (if that's your sort of thing). Please do send us an email with your story if you write along, which we hope you will do.

Episodes of Radio FreeWrite are protected by a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-ND 4.0) license. All Stories remain the property of their respective authors.

In our 151st episode, The Cru dives into the unsettling world of Shirley Jackson, author of the infamous short story The Lottery.

We explore what makes Jackson’s writing so enduringly disturbing, from her use of the uncanny and the “horror of the mundane” to her razor-sharp final lines. Along the way, we discuss why The Lottery remains a staple of high school reading lists even as many readers find her lesser-known stories far more powerful.

We also touch on Jackson’s life, her dual career writing both domestic magazine pieces and psychological horror, and the lasting influence she’s had on modern writers.

Stories begin at the 21:30 mark.

Like this weeks episode and wish you could read as well as listen? Subscribe to our Substack for a summary of our opening discussion, a story from the episode, and a writing prompt!

Be sure to follow us on Instagram (if that's your sort of thing). Please do send us an email with your story if you write along, which we hope you will do.

Episodes of Radio FreeWrite are protected by a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-ND 4.0) license. All Stories remain the property of their respective authors.

We gathered on a cold, snowy, generally Clevelandwintery evening in January to celebrate our 150th episode at Forest City Brewery! Joined by a few friends and a lot of Spud's extended family, we recorded an intimate live episode. Enjoy!

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This week on Radio FreeWrite, we do something a little different. Instead of writing to a new prompt, we bring in a finished draft and talk through what happens after the writing part is over. We listen to a complete short story together, then start dissecting it to figure out where it’s strongest and weakest points are. Then, we chat about how it might grow.

From there, the conversation wanders into line edits versus big-picture fixes, giving feedback without rewriting someone else’s voice, and how stories stretch and break when they grow from flash into something longer. This is how writers talk with each other behind the scenes, when we're sitting on overturned tractor tires deep in the Maine woods with a tin mug of shine in our hands. IYKYK

Anyway, whether you’re trying to revise your own work or figure out how to give better notes on someone else’s, we've got something for you here.

Like this weeks episode and wish you could read as well as listen? Subscribe to our Substack for a summary of our opening discussion, a story from the episode, and a writing prompt!

Be sure to follow us on Instagram (if that's your sort of thing). Please do send us an email with your story if you write along, which we hope you will do.

Episodes of Radio FreeWrite are protected by a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-ND 4.0) license. All Stories remain the property of their respective authors.

The Cru dives deep into one deceptively small word with outsized consequences: had.

Before writing from the prompt fanfaron—a swaggering bully or cowardly boaster—we get into a lively craft discussion about the pluperfect tense (the “past of the past”). Why does it so often feels forced? How, as a writer, do you know it's actually doing meaningful work on the page? Murph makes the case against overusing had, PC breaks down how context can replace grammar, and Father Spud champions the musicality of the pluperfect in Southern oral storytelling.

Stories this week begin around the 16:30 mark.

Like this weeks episode and wish you could read as well as listen? Subscribe to our Substack for a summary of our opening discussion, a story from the episode, and a writing prompt!

Be sure to follow us on Instagram (if that's your sort of thing). Please do send us an email with your story if you write along, which we hope you will do.

Episodes of Radio FreeWrite are protected by a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-ND 4.0) license. All Stories remain the property of their respective authors.