"One of the things I've done is to reconfigure the fireworks. The fireworks for me now are getting to have this thing off my desk so I get to work on something new. That's the firework," says Yi Shun Lai, an author, writer, and instructor.

Our occasion for this show was an essay she wrote for Writer Magazine about "arrival fallacy," this notion that once we get "there," wherever "there" is, we will have made it.

She's the author of three books, all in different genres, the YA novel A Suffragist's Guide to the Antarctic, the novel Not a Self-Help Book: The Misadventures of Marty Wu, and the micro memoir Pin Ups.

Learn more about Yi Shun at thegooddirt.org and follower her on social media @yishunlai.

In this episode, we talk about:

• How to reconfigure the fireworks
• Arrival fallacy
• Money
• Privilege
• And being kind to yourself.

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Newsletter: Rage Against the Algorithm

Welcome to Pitch Club

Show notes: brendanomeara.com

"I would say my books are about three quarters research and sort of mining my research, and then one quarter writing," says Hampton Sides, author of several New York Times bestselling works of narrative history, including his latest, now in paperback, The Wide Wide Sea. It's published by Doubleday.

So Hampton was great. There was a moment halfway through where my dogs got to barking, then howling, which made me give them a stern talkin’ to. I think I edited that out. I should have. Hope I did. I can tolerate a little barking in the background, but the howling is obnoxious. Hampton got a laugh out of all of it … He’s the author of eight books including In the Kingdom of Ice, Hellhound on his Trail, and Ghost Soldiers.

Here we talk about:

• How he found his lane of book writing
• Of transitioning from a journalist to a popular historian
• Finding the frame
• Writing in coffee shops
• Running to the computer in the middle of the night
• And an April Fool’s Day joke gone horribly wrong

Learn more about Hampton at hamptonsides.com and follow him on the gram @hamptonsidesauthor.

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Newsletter: Rage Against the Algorithm

Welcome to Pitch Club

Show notes: brendanomeara.com

"I talked to my wife, and she was like, 'You're probably tired. You've been writing this book non stop for six months, and you probably just need a break. Like, go get a gelato and chill out.' And I was like, 'I can't,' then I was like, 'All right, fine, I will.' And then I ate a bunch of ice cream and watched the Pam Anderson documentary on Netflix in the middle of the day. And after, I don't know, four or five days, I had an idea, and I was like, ready to get back to work," says Melissa Febos on Episode 472.

Melissa is the author of five books of nonfiction, including her latest, The Dry Season: A Memoir of Pleasure in a Year Without Sex (Knopf).

In this conversation, we talk about:

• Writing in community
• Literary stardom
• Being a weirdo
• Wile E. Coyote
• The jealousy dragon
• The theory of bottoms
• And the liberation of quitting things

Really rich stuff. You can learn more about Melissa at melissafebos.com and follow her on IG @melissafebos.

Order The Front Runner

Newsletter: Rage Against the Algorithm

Show notes: brendanomeara.com