Where Are They Now? Catching up with past podcast guests.

March 1 was the one-year anniversary of the This Creative Life podcast. In some ways, I don’t remember when I wasn’t doing it, and in other ways it seems like I just started. I’ve been lucky to have an amazingly talented and wonderful pool of friends and colleagues to draw on as guests, and they are still out there, living their creative lives and putting out work. If you’re new to the podcast, you can find all these episodes a couple of different ways: the archives here on my site, the iTunes subscription feed, or download the Stitcher app to your smartphone and search for This Creative Life with Sara Zarr there.

Here are some updates:

Tara Altebrando’s (ep 1!) super fun The Best Night of Your (Pathetic) Life comes out in paperback this July. You can also now get her backlist as ebooks, and our collaboration, Roomies, is set to release this December. Tara also has a middle grade novel coming; check out her site to keep up with all her news. Filmmaker Scott Derrickson (ep 13) and his Sinister co-writer, C. Robert Cargill, are working on a sequel to that scary-ass movie! Eek. Scott has several other projects in the works, including the Poltergeist reboot. Eek eek! (Also: Mr. Cargill’s debut novel, Dreams and Shadows, was just released to much acclaim!).

You may have heard a little bit about this movie called Silver Linings Playbook, which was nominated for several Oscars, including Best Picture. Matthew Quick (ep 12), the author of the novel (or as it is sometimes called, the “source material”), has since made a deal for a new novel (The Good Luck of Right Now) and its film rights, and also his latest YA, Boy21, was named a finalist for the L.A. Times Book Prize and to the ALA’s annual Top Ten list of best YA. And he’s been out and about getting the opportunity to speak about mental health issues and hope. Ask the Passengers by A.S. King (ep 10) is also an L.A. Times Book Prize finalist and has been getting all kinds of great recognition, most recently as a nominee for the Lambda Literary Award. Yay!

Stephanie Perkins (ep 2) has beautiful new branded covers for her books, and Isla and the Happily Ever After (the book that was giving her hell as per our podcast discussion) is coming out this fall. Triumph! Mark Pett’s (ep 4) The Boy and the Airplane will be released on April 2, and he’s got a lovely new web site and awesome Kirkus review to go with it. I also must credit him for encouraging me to get the podcast launched in the first place despite my perfectionist stalling. (If you’re in SLC, don’t miss his 4/2 book launch at the King’s English!)

Elemental by gentleman and scholar Antony John (ep 3) came out in November, and he’s working on the 2nd and 3rd installments of this fantasy/dystopic series about an imagined- near-future-post-plague colony. Siobhan “ep 7″ Vivian has some exciting news–the collaborative series she writes with Jenny Han has been optioned for TV development. Congratulations, ladies!! Gene Yang‘s (ep 11) forthcoming graphic novel duo Boxers and Saints frankly sounds spectacular. Look for it in September.

Well, I’m impressed, envious, and inspired! I want to thank these and all my other guests for giving their time and openness and honesty to our conversations. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do. Double bonus enjoyment if you support their work by buying it and talking about it! Here’s to another year of episodes…