Get to Know Our Friend David Baldacci

A Deeper Dive With Our Most Recent Guest

A Conversation with David Baldacci

A writing tip, book recommendation, and other great insights from David that were not covered in our on-air interview, which you can WATCH or LISTEN to now!

For any aspiring writers out there, would you please share a short bit of writing advice?
Don’t necessarily write about what you know about. Write about something you’d like to know a lot about. That lifts the writing from an act of drudgery to one of passion and fascination. And those twin engines will lift your prose, characters and plots.

What is the last book you raved about and what did you love about it?    
The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin. I read Baldwin in college and I re-read him as I was writing A Calamity of Souls. The book is short, direct and contains some of the most elegant writing I’ve ever read, but that can be said about all of Baldwin’s oeuvre. But it is as immensely practical and commonsensical in its approach as it is lofty in ambition. Every young man, particularly those of color, should have an uncle like Baldwin to write them such a letter about life — the good, the bad and the truly horrible.

What can you tell us about your work-in-progress?