What I've learned from my baby book review podcast and how it's made me a better writer
mine your bias, don't bury it.
I’ve just finished up edits for the 9th and 10th episodes of Parley Lit’s book review podcast, Totally Biased Reviews, a side project I started when Rebecca Tourino Collinsworth and I began our little multimedia lit mag in September, 2023.
The idea with Totally Biased Reviews came after Parley Productions put up one of our plays in Seattle. Before one of the shows, members read a review that had been written about the previous night’s performance. The review was formulaic, as expected. It introduced the name of the play, the director, and actors, summarized the plot, listed a few strengths, and landed on aspects the reviewer would have liked to change.
The details inside the review were hilariously incorrect. Actors names were misspelled, and some actors who were not attached to the production were listed. Logos from other companies were pasted arbitrarily in the review. The plot summary made it seem like the reviewer didn’t finish watching the play, and while we always want to be open to feedback for any major work, the suggestions for change were more than a bit confusing. The review ended suddenly with a broken link to Parley’s website.
We joked that we should produce reviews that are “totally biased” where we acknowledge that creators are the experts of their own work (especially if that work has gone through major professional edits - as in a published book or major development - as in a produced play). In our reviews, makers would be responsible for marketing their own material in a transparent and heartfelt way.
It sounds obvious and kind of simple. Isn’t that what all podcasts kind of seek to do, anyway, kind of?
Maybe so. But, our idea was to really emphasize the positivity, craft, and any uncensored conversation that might arise, to implicitly and explicitly acknowledge the way that we bias work that is endorsed by the belief that it is ever possible for human beings to be totally unbiased.
It’s not.
I love a well-written review and appreciate the time it takes to craft one. I’ve published a handful myself. There’s room for the way reviewers attempt to be somewhat subjective, halfway journalistic, attempting to stand outside and slightly above whatever they are reviewing, keeping themselves out of it.
For these reviews, though, we can’t avoid our own presence, and we aren’t trying to pretend we can detach from our own subjectivity. If your book reminds me of a science project from 4th grade, I’m probably going to tell you about it.
The point, to me, is to go deep, and we invite folks to say what they really think about their own work and tell us the truth about how hard it was to create something full length and layered and lasting.
Books, plays, films, and other major works take an incredible amount of (typically unpaid or very low paid) effort to create. Often, after making, we know what has fallen short.
We also know what worked in the way we wanted it to.
A totally non-comprehensive caveat: There’s an argument to be had about gatekeepers, fancy book reviews and how books are selected for them, the marketing machine that backs mainstream publication. Smarter people that me are asking those tough questions about who we can really trust when it comes to criticism, critique, and book reviews because so much of what we define as great new literature is based on financial and interpersonal mechanisms that are unknowable to the vast majority of readers.
That said, critique is cool. I’m an editor, and I believe a solid, respectful collaboration between editor and writer can make work that already shines go electric. I don’t always believe that a book review is an example of structured, supportive, and/or helpful critique.
Our focus has been on books from authors at independent presses, particularly those published soon, upcoming, during the pandemic, or at any time. Like Lauren Bogart said when she recently participated in Totally Biased Reviews discussing her beautiful book Don’t You Know I Love You, which debuted via Dzanc in March of 2020: “Books have legs.”
Sometimes, to give your own work legs, you have to sit in the uncomfortable space of telling everyone why it’s fucking awesome and worth their time.
I believe it’s okay to admit that you like your own work. That tingly feeling you get when you write a badass sentence, or when you know you nailed a scene in every single way a scene can be nailed - that’s worth sharing.
We’ve published eight reviews so far on Parley Lit, and we’re slated to almost triple that by the end of the year. I’m not a radio personality or voice actor or podcaster by trade, so I’m learning as I go. In the spirit of acknowledging my bias (and my bullshit, flaws, mistakes, opportunities for growth), this is what I’ve done and how it went.
step all the way in
I’m a 90s kid, so the if you build it they will come philosophy is both totally real and a profoundly silly joke. Also - how else do we start unless we just start. If you listen to TB reviews, you’ll hear the episodes when my super cheap mic failed. You’ll see how I stumbled through final cut pro and garage band, learning to edit this work. I don’t know what I don’t know - until I learn. I love watching other makers creating something substantive and sharing the process from beginning to end. At first, I was worried this was the wrong approach, wondering if I should take classes or wait until I had more expertise in the specificities of podcasting.
Sadly, I’m an Aries, which means I’m a pain in the ass impulsive work addict. Urgency is my battery. And, at this point, I’m glad I did it this way. Love it or hate it, it’s the whole truth (and the truths under that truth), and I for one want to see other people showing up in this way with the art they create.
hang onto those bootstraps
It super sucks that these things are often labors of love (not financial gain). It’s not always easy to keep the faith, especially after working a couple jobs, shoveling a meat stick and a wad of spinach into my mouth as I walk upstairs to start editing, pausing to put my kids back to bed after middle of the night wake ups, and actually falling asleep in the middle of a task.
It would be extra cool to get paid for this amount of labor, mostly so I could spend more time doing it, learning it, and promoting the work of more creators. But the literary world is not a meritocracy, and the ferocity of our work does not = our rewards.
I have to remind myself all the time that success is inside of the process and the community connections it creates, not defined by any institution, list, or already financially successful literary person. Writers are tapping into the most deeply human experience: sharing not only the moments of our lives but deepening those moments with stories that surge through our bodies and help us create meaning and understand each other. That’s the boon. That’s the heart.
pivot and pivot and pivot
I guarantee this podcast will be radically different next June. I’ve already changed so many things - the way I ask questions, the graphics I attach to it, the editing, the sound. It’s kind of like receiving edits for your story or essay. When you realize something isn’t quite working the way you hoped, you take a deep breath, eliminate your darling, and push the story until it bleeds.
ask way WAY better questions in workshop
With a podcast, there’s no editor assigned to your work. It’s all about mining the explicit feedback and reading the room. I’m learning to ask my friends, literary colleagues, and listeners better questions when I’m receiving critique for the podcast.
It’s unpopular, but I’m a big fan of honest answers to the question: where did I lose you?
The developmental editors for my CNF wip wrote in the most loving way at the part of my MS that I knew wasn’t working but I couldn’t see why: This part is where things start to circle the drain.
However - a lot of people are uncomfortable with the kind of honesty that feels impolite or unkind - or they don’t know exactly how to frame what isn’t working for them.
Better questions come after analysis of your own work, as in: Why do you care about [character, plot line, experience]? What are the stakes? What is the resolution? How did this character change?
For the podcast it has been things like: What made you want to read that book? What questions did you want to ask?
mine your bias
If you’re a decent person these days, it seems right to try to eliminate your bias rather than explore it. After waffling between both for a lot of years, I’m in a space now of just noticing my bias with the kind of curiosity you might embody if you saw a real unicorn on your Sunday hike at Seward Park. Probably, this would create some degree of potential awe. Likely, there would be at least a touch of concern around this event, ie: Is that unicorn really standing there chewing a mouth full of poison oak? Did someone glue that horn to its forehead? Have I lost my fucking mind? If I have not lost my fucking mind, are unicorns nice or mean? What exactly does it plan to do with that pretty, sparkly horn?
I think our biases are like unicorns - or they can be. Potentially cool, even beautiful, possibly weird in a bad way or really, really dangerous. Unlike unicorns, our biases are natural and common. We aren’t totally in control of them. They show up, and we can choose to believe our own bias or just notice it, collect data on it, and use that data to make decisions about our own art, our literary citizenship, and the way we choose to connect with each other.
mine - and mine
I’ll end with this - a LOT of what I’ve learned about this new project has come from troubling the idea of bias and setting the intention to talk to people about their own work in a space where bias is not avoided, but acknowledged in a real way. Noticing and owning my biases has brought me to the page differently, too. Like everyone else, I fully believe in the thrill and vibrancy of laying out the first draft of a story or essay or even a whole book.
After that, the answer to why am I telling this story has cracked open a bit.
There’s craft. There’s inspiration. There’s neat plot events and charismatic characters.
And there’s community. There’s the devastating, gorgeous, intolerably repetitive world.
Art is probably the only space where autonomy cannot ever be completely removed. I think we must make it a point to know as much as we can about our own thinking, our drives, our bias, our limits, our comfort and our tolerance. If we are lucky enough to have the space in our lives to make art, I think we must know the landscape of our own autonomy so we can best decide what to do with it.
xo
a