robert lowell

Read by Terry Casburn

Production and Sound Design by Kevin Seaman

Production and Sound Design by Kevin Seaman

Read by Juliet Prew

Production and Sound Design by Kevin Seaman

Production and Sound Design by Kevin Seaman

Read by Terry Casburn

Production and Sound Design by Kevin Seaman

Production and Sound Design by Kevin Seaman

Page One, produced and hosted by author Holly Lynn Payne, celebrates the craft that goes into writing the first sentence, first paragraph and first page of your favorite books. The first page is often the most rewritten page of any book because it has to work so hard to do so much—hook the reader. We interview master storytellers on the struggles and stories behind the first page of their books.

About the guest author:

Lee Kravetz is a science journalist and the author of two acclaimed works of non-fiction: Strange Contagion and SuperSurvivors, both published by HarperWave—which dovetail perfectly with The Last Confession of Slyvia P, his first work of fiction that explores manic depression in the lives of some of the greatest writers of the early 20th century. Kravetz has worked in publicity for some of the biggest publishers in the world and has written for print and television, including The New York Times, New York Magazine, Psychology Today, The Daily Beast, The San Francisco Chronicle, and PBS. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his family and is a member of the Writers Grotto and serves on the panel faculty for LitCamp. You can visit him at www.leekravetz.com and follow him on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/leekravetz and Instagram @leekravetz

About the host:

Holly Lynn Payne is an award-winning novelist and writing coach, and the former CEO and founder of Booxby, a startup built to help authors succeed. Her debut novel, The Virgin's Knot, was a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers book. Her books have been published in eleven countries and translated into nine languages. Her most recent novel, Damascena:The Tale of Roses and Rumi, has been optioned for a film series. She's currently at work on her first YA crossover novel inspired by her nephew with Down syndrome. She lives in Marin County with her daughter and enjoys mountain biking, surfing and hiking with her dog. To learn more about her private writing coaching services, please visit hollylynnpayne.com.

If you have a first page you’d like to submit to the Page One Podcast, please do so here.

As an author and writing coach, I know that the first page of any book has to work so hard to do so much—hook the reader. So I thought to ask your favorite master storytellers how they do their magic to hook YOU. 

After the first few episodes, it occurred to me that maybe someone listening might be curious how their first page sits with an audience, so I’m opening up Page One to any writer who wants to submit the first page of a book they’re currently writing. 

If your page is chosen, you’ll be invited onto the show to read it and get live feedback from one of Page One’s master storytellers. Page One exists to inspire, celebrate and promote the work of both well-known and unknown creative talent.  

You can listen to Page One on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Pandora, Stitcher and all your favorite podcast players. 

Hear past episodes.

Shoutouts: This episode supports National Poetry Month, where you can sign up to receive a poem-a-day curated in April by Naomi Shihab Nye and the 22in'22 a Zibby Books Initiative which encourages all of us to visit 22 bookstores in 2022. How awesome is that? Great idea Zibby Books! As an author, I love independent bookstores and believe they play a huge role in our communities, nurturing our love of literature and enriching our lives with programming and other events that promote literacy, bringing readers and writers together. Living here in the San Francisco Bay Area with more independent bookstores per capita than anywhere else in the country, I will be visiting many of my favorite bookstores in the coming months with my daughter in tow. Wherever this finds you, I hope you do the same. And while you get a great new book or two, please tell them about the Page One Podcast. Thank you for supporting your nearest bookstore and the authors whose work they carry. Happy browsing to all! 

Thank you for listening to the Page One Podcast, where master storytellers discuss the stories and struggles behind the critical first page of their books. If you liked this episode, please share it on social, leave a review on your favorite podcast players and tell your friends! 

I hope you enjoy this labor of love as much as I love hosting, producing, and editing it. Please keep in touch by signing up to receive my newsletter at www.hollylynnpayne.com with the latest episodes each month. Delivered to your inbox with a smile. 

For the love of books and writers,

Holly Lynn Payne
@hollylynnpayne
www.hollylynnpayne.com

Read by Sylvia Loveridge 

Production and Sound Design by Kevin Seaman

Production and Sound Design by Kevin Seaman

Production and Sound Design by Kevin Seaman

Production and Sound Design by Kevin Seaman

Production and Sound Design by Kevin Seaman

Production and Sound Design by Kevin Seaman

Production and Sound Design by Kevin Seaman

Production and Sound Design by Kevin Seaman

Production and Sound Design by Kevin Seaman

In the Corridor

By Saskia Hamilton

I passed through, I should have paused,

there were a hundred doors. One opened.

In there, someone whose name

is not yet known to me lived out

his middle years in simple terms, two chairs,

one place laid for early breakfast, one plate

with dry toast and butter softening. There

his mind raced through writings

he had memorized long ago while he tried

to get hold of himself. Once

in his youth he had studied with love

in the corners of old paintings

matrices of fields and towns,

passages intricate and particular, wheat,

columns, figures and ground,

classically proportioned

in lines that were meant

to meet, eventually,

at vanishing point. They continued,

nevertheless; they troubled the eye.

He collected sets of books printed

in the nineteenth century, unyielding

pages, memoirs of the poets,

engravings of rurified private subjects

in times of public sector unhappiness,

frescoes of human oddity in gatefold printing.

Why does it continue

to chasten me, he says to no one.

It does. It is a painful mistaking,

this setting something down,

saying aloud, “it is nothing yet”

when he’d meant, not anything—

but then nothing peered

through the keyhole, nothing

took possession. Snow on the roofs,

snow in traces on the ground,

passersby with wet trouser-cuffs

looking to the pavement as the hill rises,

light gathering in the river

and gradually spreading.

Production and Sound Design by Kevin Seaman

Production and Sound Design By Kevin Seaman

The Man-Moth” (written 1935, published 1936)

_Man-Moth: Newspaper misprint for “mammoth.”

Here, above, cracks in the buildings are filled with battered moonlight.

The whole shadow of Man is only as big as his hat.

It lies at his feet like a circle for a doll to stand on,

and he makes an inverted pin, the point magnetized to the moon.

He does not see the moon; he observes only her vast properties,

feeling the queer light on his hands, neither warm nor cold,

of a temperature impossible to record in thermometers.

But when the Man-Moth

pays his rare, although occasional, visits to the surface,

the moon looks rather different to him. He emerges

from an opening under the edge of one of the sidewalks

and nervously begins to scale the faces of the buildings.

He thinks the moon is a small hole at the top of the sky,

proving the sky quite useless for protection.

He trembles, but must investigate as high as he can climb.

Up the façades,

his shadow dragging like a photographer’s cloth behind him

he climbs fearfully, thinking that this time he will manage

to push his small head through that round clean opening

and be forced through, as from a tube, in black scrolls on the light.

(Man, standing below him, has no such illusions.)

But what the Man-Moth fears most he must do, although

he fails, of course, and falls back scared but quite unhurt.

Then he returns

to the pale subways of cement he calls his home. He flits,

he flutters, and cannot get aboard the silent trains

fast enough to suit him. The doors close swiftly.

The Man-Moth always seats himself facing the wrong way

and the train starts at once at its full, terrible speed,

without a shift in gears or a gradation of any sort.

He cannot tell the rate at which he travels backwards.

Each night he must

be carried through artificial tunnels and dream recurrent dreams.

Just as the ties recur beneath his train, these underlie

his rushing brain. He does not dare look out the window,

for the third rail, the unbroken draught of poison,

runs there beside him. He regards it as a disease

he has inherited the susceptibility to. He has to keep

his hands in his pockets, as others must wear mufflers.

If you catch him,

hold up a flashlight to his eye. It’s all dark pupil,

an entire night itself, whose haired horizon tightens

as he stares back, and closes up the eye. Then from the lids

one tear, his only possession, like the bee’s sting, slips.

Slyly he palms it, and if you’re not paying attention

he’ll swallow it. However, if you watch, he’ll hand it over,

cool as from underground springs and pure enough to drink.

Production and Sound Design by Kevin Seaman

Production and Sound Design by Kevin Seaman

Production and Sound Design by Kevin Seaman

Helen Vendler discusses the poet Robert Lowell.