Figuring Out the Book You Want to Write w. JOANNA SCUTTS

Author photo by Sarah Klock.

Episode 20

Joanna Scutts is the inaugural Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow in Women’s History at the New-York Historical Society, and a contributor to the New Republic, the Guardian and other publications. She holds a Ph.D. in English and Comparative Literature from Columbia University and lives in New York.

Recorded at Q.E.D., in Astoria, Queens.

Discussed In This Episode

Writing the book you want to read. The history of self-help literature. Divorce panic, marriage pressure, and what we get wrong about the 1950s. Writing "cocktail party nuggets." Cheating on your dissertation. Figuring out what kind of book you want to write. Support your public library! Adapting independence to marriage. Keeping track (and losing track) of your research. "Hotbed" exhibition at the New-York Historical Society. Writing while researching. Ta-Nehisi Coates, Scrivener master. Taking what you're doing seriously. Knowing when to let go.

Recommended Reading

The Extra Woman: How Marjorie Hillis Led a Generation of Women to Live Alone and Like It, Joanna Scutts

 

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