February 2025 – Page 2 – Andrew Careaga

Friday Five: Q&A with ‘Write It Scared’ podcaster Stacy Frazer

“… fear and uncertainty don’t need to stop us from doing what we dream.”

Stacy Frazer’s Write It Scared is quickly becoming one of my favorite podcasts. And no, the title doesn’t refer to writing in the horror genre. The podcast is about a different type of scared, the type every author confronts: the fear of not being up to the challenge of writing.

“Write It Scared” podcaster Stacy Frazer

With each episode, Stacy helps listeners confront that fear as she covers one (or two) main topics related to writing. She sometimes interviews other writers; sometime she discusses the issues on her own. The episodes are relatively short — usually between 20 or 30 minutes — which means I can listen while running errands, cleaning house, or working out.

Stacy describes herself as “a formerly repressed creative soul turned fiction writer, Author Accelerator certified book coach, and (podcast) host” who strives “to help beginning and struggling commercial fiction writers overcome self-doubt, find joy, and gain clarity and confidence in their process and craft so they finish books they are proud of!”

When not writing, reading, or working with writers, she enjoys crafting with her daughter, hanging out with goats, or walking a trail with her “goofy love-pups.” Read on to learn more about why she created the podcast, her thoughts on writing, and more.

Tom Robbins and the flexibility to endure

When I got the news yesterday that novelist Tom Robbins died last weekend (at age 92; how could he have been that old?), my memory swooped like the long-extinct Kauaʻi ʻōʻō back, back, back to 1981 or ’82 or so, when I first encountered Robbins’ writings in the form of his novel Still Life With Woodpecker.

A journalism student at the time and steeped in the dreary, staid, humorless learnings of newswriting, I read Still Life as a guilty pleasure. (I’m grateful to my girlfriend at the time who lent me her copy of this book, the perfect antidote to my gloomy, humorless J-school student outlook.) The way Robbins played with the language — even when he was over the top with it, which was often — enthralled me, and for a long time, throughout my college years and beyond, I tried on his writing style to see how it would fit.

New fiction, ‘Serenity Security Solutions,’ published in MoonLit Getaway

Ever worry about getting locked out of your house?

It’s a fear I’ve had for ages. What better way to overcome a fear like that than to write about it?

That is, unless what you end up writing is along the lines of the one I wrote recently, “Serenity Security Solutions.” It was published today (Monday, February 10, 2025) in the literary journal MoonLit Getaway.

My thanks to editor Brandon Nadeau for selecting this story for his wonderful litmag. Please check out all the other amazing fiction, poetry, and artwork Brandon and his team have to offer.

As always, you can access this and other works of fiction and nonfiction here.

Friday Five: Q&A with Witcraft founder and editor Doug Jacquier

‘… there’s a market out there of people who want some daily relief from the gloom and doom …’

Eidtor’s note: Witcraft founder Doug Jacquier announced February 19 , 2025,that this literary site would cease publication effective March 31, 2025. Read more.

Tired of wading through the negativity flooding your social media and news feeds? Why not shut down X and Facebook for a while and visit Witcraft, an online journal that offers a daily dose of comic relief, which is much-needed these days.

Practicing patience

My freshman year of college, I became friends with an older student. (He was old enough to buy beer, which made him a very good friend indeed.) He lived in a nondescript apartment downtown, above one of the local businesses, and the only thing I remember about the place was a poster that depicted two cartoon vultures perched on a dead tree limb in a desert. One vulture is saying to the other, “Patience my ass. I’m gonna kill something.”