The Writing University's Eleventh Hour podcast features recordings of illuminative craft talks from the renown writers, novelists, poets, essayists who present at the Eleventh Hour Lecture Series during the University of Iowa's Iowa Summer Writing Festival.

Each week we release a tailored craft talk from the series, focusing on a wide range of topics such as Transforming Life into Writing, Humor Writing, The Music of Language and so many more.

Episode 118: The Music of Language, the Language of Music

In this episode, The Music of Language, the Language of Music, author Sands Hall shares tricks for bringing the music of language into your work.

Poets and songwriters utilize aspects of language that are essential for prose writers to know. Take the slow, repeated vowels and consonants Joyce uses in “The Dead”: “…his soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe…” or the hasty sibilance alive in Shakespeare’s Hamlet: “Oh wicked speed, to post with such dexterity to incestuous sheets!” Sound and rhythm help create sense and emotion, and by paying close and purposeful attention to the words we use—the beginnings of them, the interior sounds of them, the rhythm of them—we can evoke and ignite those senses and those emotions. In this Eleventh Hour you’ll hear (and practice) how techniques used in the sung and the spoken can help us create magic on the page.

If your browser doesn't support HTML5 audio, here is a link to the audio instead.

Listen to the episode here

View all the podcast episodes here

Subscribe: iTunes | Google Play | Spotify