Naomi discusses her work as a fiction writer and the centrality of doing thorough and accurate research to tell a sincere story. She explores the incorporation of all five senses in their research to understand voice and setting in a story.

Elsa discusses her work as a playwright and using social and community issues in our writing, which is a reflection of a human desire that can be embraced. She discusses strategies to brainstorm with a community group in building theme and researching for a play, and ultimately finishing a work.

Janine discusses her work as an author of narrative long form non-fiction. As a writer of human rights abuses around the world, she speaks to us about several important techniques: being an empathic listener, carefully choosing characters and using their dialogue to tell the narrative of injustice, the importance of thorough research and interviewing, and the centrality of the verbal storytelling tradition.

Elizabeth discusses her work as a fiction writer and her field research process as a way to immerse into a particular topic. She teaches us how to use field research to find inspiration to create stories and characters by interacting with different milieus, learning the particular jargon, and experiencing from an insider perspective.

Rebecca discusses her work as a writer and former theatre participant. She teaches how the theatre experience can be used to enhance our writing, including the difference between showing and telling, how to enrich our stories with character-focused background description, and maintaining a consistent narrative point of view. Finally, she discusses how to use research to inform story structure.