Meet
Our Hosts

Caleb James K.

Caleb James K. is the former Editor-in-Chief of the literary journal, Drunken Pen Writing, and the host of the DPW Podcast. He’s also a fiction writer, poet, and aspiring novelist.

Spencer Church

A former aspiring comic book artist, Spencer is the cohost of the DPW Podcast as well as a short story writer and avid reader.

We kick things off with a rant about people who boycott art they were never going to purchase in the first place—especially the jerks who try to cancel books even though they don’t read.

After that, we settle into a fun discussion about writing good dialogue. This begins with David Foster Wallace’s opinion on Stephen King’s method for writing dialogue and why Wallace thought King wrote below his capabilities for the sake of quantity over quality. 

This leads us to the meat of the matter in how we write dialogue in our work. We give a bunch of great tips and examples from great writers and how they go about crafting realistic dialogue. 

BOTM #26: IT – Drunken Pen Writing Podcast

In today's cold open, we talk about our current writing progress. After that, we discuss Stephen King's bestselling novel IT. Rather than talk about the story, which almost everyone knows already, we discuss the icky bits that nobody wants to hear about. You know the scene! Also, all the racism and gross nonsense, but we don't dwell on that stuff too much. We break down some of the writing tricks Stephen King used to scare readers, and we end the episode by giving a quick top five of our favorite King novels. You can follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @dpwpodcast You can check out Caleb's work at http://www.calebjamesk.com. 

1. BOTM #26: IT 56:40
2. A Murakami Minute: 1Q84 Book Three 32:33
3. #230: Literary Masterpieces That Actually Suck 40:19
4. A Murakami Minute: 1Q84 Book Two 30:38
5. #229: How To Fix Bad Writing And A Secret Book Club 01:07:59