Welcome to Season 10 of Writing Break! This season is all about voice, which is the thing literary agents, publishers, and readers fall in love with. In this premiere, we're setting up our makeshift Overthinking Conference Room to nail down the vocabulary that will guide us through the entire season.

1. Why a whole season about voice?
2. Trying to sound like Hemingway is a waste of your time.
3. AI detectors: why they're flagging human writers as robots
4. The actual difference between style, tone, voice, and mood?
5. What agents mean when they say "the voice isn't working."
6. This season's preview: dialogue as voice, character as voice, voice in nonfiction and memoir, when to break the rules, and how to edit for voice.
7. ElevenLabs' Michael Caine narration of *The Odyssey
8. J.K. Rowling / Robert Galbraith pseudonym

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• 'The Odyssey': Alternative Audio Versions With Ian McKellen and More
• Home : America's Editor - Let's work together.
• More Writing Tips

Music licensed from Storyblocks.

Season 10 is on hold because the rules for literary agents just changed, and not necessarily in the author's favor. This episode tells you exactly what questions to ask before you sign (or pay for) anything.

The New Literary Agent Ethics Rules

1. What the Association of American Literary Agents changed and why.
2. Which paid services literary agents may now offer.
3. Why editorial work for represented clients must still remain free.
4. The safeguards built into the revised ethics code.
5. Potential conflicts of interest writers should understand.
6. Practical questions to ask before paying for editorial, marketing, or publicity services.
7. Why due diligence matters more than ever when querying agents.

Publishing News

1. Bloomsbury reveals how much it expects to receive from the Anthropic settlement.
2. ISBNdb sources physical books for AI companies, raising new questions about copyright, preservation, and transparency.
3. Hachette launches its Reading Is Golden public service campaign to encourage daily family reading.

• AI firms are buying old books for slop-free training data
• AI firms are buying old books for slop-free training data
• Raising Readers | Reading Is Golden
• Judge Gives Final Approval of $1.5 Billion Anthropic Settlement
• Major AALA Ethics Update Allows Agents to Offer Paid Editorial, Publicity Services
• Hachette’s Raising Readers Initiative Releases PSA
• AI Companies Are Buying Tons of Old Books Because They're Free of AI Slop
• Home : America's Editor - Let's work together.
• More Writing Tips

Host: Rosemi Mederos, America's Editor

Production: Allon Media

Website: writingbreak.com |

Contact: podcast@writingbreak.com

Music licensed from Storyblocks.

We're closing the book on genre, two seasons, dozens of subgenres, and a lot of overthinking later. This week we revisit some highlights: novel architecture and the dreaded middle-of-the-book slump, why cross-genre mashups can backfire if you get too ambitious, the tension between writing what you love and writing what sells, adaptation lessons from film and video games, and how genres evolve to match whatever readers are actually afraid of right now.

Did I miss a genre you wanted covered? Let me know.

Next up: Season 10 is all about voice, including what it actually is and how to find yours. F

• Home : America's Editor - Let's work together.
• More Writing Tips

Music licensed from Storyblocks.