Zach Berg

zberg@press-citizen.com

What do you do after your first novel is called "incandescent" by The New York Times, and you are described in the same review as having "an inborn ability to cast a spell"?

If you're Garth Greenwell, the Iowa City resident and University of Iowa Writers' Workshop graduate whose first novel "What Belongs to You" has been praised by the The Guardian, The New Yorker and numerous other publications, you help launch a new podcast about the process of writing, and the failure that can hide within.

Greenwell is the first guest on "The Fail Safe" podcast, a new interview-based project created by Rachel Yoder, who is an editor for "Draft: The Journal of Process," and Andrea Wilson, the director of the Iowa Writers' House. The first episode of the podcast is set to be released on iTunes in the last days of May.

Both residents of Iowa City, and both friends with Greenwell, Yoder and Wilson knew that having Greenwell discuss how failure shaped his writing career, in the midst of much critical acclaim, could help other writers see, Wilson said, "how fear and failure, for many of us in the creative process, can hold us back, but is actually an essential part of the process."

The first episode features an interview between Yoder and Greenwell that was recorded on April 28 in Clinton Street Social Club. Wilson said they hope future episodes of the podcast will feature the likes of other members of the Iowa Writers' House, authors visiting Prairie Lights for book readings and writers from Iowa City, across the country, and beyond.

The idea for the podcast came about after Wilson started the Iowa Writers' House, an organization that offers up writing workshops and programs for writers whether they're Writers' Workshop graduates or unpublished writers, in spring 2014.

Wilson and Yoder had been discussing ways to collaborate, and the podcast was birthed because they both felt there was a lack of what Yoder called "an honest conversation about the psychological labor of being an artist."

Yoder, a graduate of UI's Nonfiction Writing Program, said she has been raising her 2-year-old son and hasn't found the time needed to write recently. Greenwell, who has been on a book tour for "What Belongs to You" across the country and globe for months, said he hasn't been able to pick up the pen on a new novel since the tour began.

Despite glowing reviews for Greenwell's debut novel in The Washington Post, Vanity Fair and others, Greenwell said he was all too familiar with the sense of failure when it came to writing, saying he wrote the novel "in a period that looked very much like failure, and felt very much like failure."

After he left a Ph.D. program at Harvard University, Greenwell took a job teaching high school in Bulgaria. There, living and writing where "no one knew I was a writer," he said, he was able to write the manuscript of the book he sold to a publisher within his second semester at the Writers' Workshop.

"I think failure is the best position to write from. I think there is a way that success can flatten out that sense of experience and failure kind of enriches it,” Greenwell said. "I was excited to talk about failure because I think failure is built into the artistic process."

Even in the midst of writing, Yoder said a large portion of what most writers write will never be read by the public. The journal she edits shows earlier versions of stories and works compared to the edited, rewritten and restructured final versions.

"I want people to have and hear these conversations and not be alone," Yoder said. "That's what the podcast is for, to let writers know they aren't alone in their struggle."

The podcast comes at a time in Iowa City's literary world where "the community is coming together and working with each other to create opportunities with each other," Wilson said.

Just over two years old, the Iowa Writers' House, sponsored by the Johnson County Foundation, has already partnered with the likes of Iowa City UNESCO City of Literature, Prairie Lights, FilmScene and Pullman Bar and Diner for events.

"We hope [the podcast] strengthens the community here while also looking beyond," Yoder said. "This podcast, since it will have a national reach, is another case where Iowa City will be on the national stage with a reach far beyond the local scene."

Now, Wilson and Yoder are looking for more writers, local or not, to interview for future episodes. As for Greenwell, he's hoping to fail all over again.

"To write again, I just need to learn how do I create, again, a place of safety and privacy to allow myself to fail again and again and again," Greenwell said. "I hope the podcast just makes writers a little more comfortable with failure."

Reach Zach Berg at 319-887-5412, zberg@press-citizen.com, or follow him on Twitter at @ZacharyBerg.

For more information about The Fail Safe podcast, or to subscribe, visit www.iowawritershouse.org/fail-safe/.