Armed with too many degrees and a love of social analysis, writers Kelly Hill and Sarah Landenwich dissect the quirks of modern language and culture. High Dive tackles questions like "How long before txtspk takes over email?" "Why do people read poetry in that weird voice?" "How can Victorian novels improve your love life?" Because someone has to analyze the group chat like it's a primary source.
High Dive Ep. 5: Flesh it or flush it? Commonly Confused Words
Kelly and Sarah take on commonly confused words. From busybodies to beaver dams, listeners send in their pet peeves and confessions. Hot takes include: Latin's dead, sometimes it's fun to mispronounce words, and it's too late to cure Kelly's emetophobia.
0:00 Cold open: people who skip breakfast
0:42 Welcome to High Dive: commonly confused words
1:01 Writing pressure and words you only know from reading
3:56 Cuss words and the beaver dam
6:11 Spelling traps: vacuum and gnocchi
6:46 Window seals, accents, and saying Louisville
9:53 Listener voice memos: flesh it out vs flush it out
12:03 Former vs latter
14:17 Busybody
15:55 Apricot, bona fide, frappe, and culinary
20:12 The apricot rebuttal
21:01 Lawyer vs loyer
22:37 Business speak: learnings and asks
24:39 Nauseous vs nauseated
29:59 Mischievous
32:30 Listener write ins: mole, unprecedented, defiantly
33:45 Verisimilitude and Goethe
35:41 Farewells
25 Sept 2026
High Dive Ep. 4: There's a Sad Poem for That
If two roads diverged in a yellow wood, which path would Brené Brown want you to take? Kelly and Sarah talk rejection and test the theory that talking about failure makes it sting a little less.
0:00 Cold open1:17 Rejection, allegedly character building2:30 The close pass4:45 A failure to be thankful for7:46 The book an agent could not sell10:22 Getting back on the horse that kicked you12:16 Rising Strong14:39 The man with the quotation marks problem16:39 The physical memory of rejection22:29 Reading the rejections out loud29:53 The novel rejections32:13 The story collection rejections38:02 Airing them out
25 Sept 2026
High Dive Ep. 3: Members Only
Kelly and Sarah talk about what Hollywood gets wrong about writers (it's a lot), why it's so, er, hard to write a sex scene, and why you should never name a character after an ex.0:00 Questions writers get asked0:49 What Hollywood gets wrong about writers5:25 What revision actually is8:33 How much of this is based on your life10:49 How do you come up with names15:29 Where do your ideas come from18:35 Research, and whether AI helps20:20 Superstitions and the writing mug24:38 When is it going to be a movie28:36 Four pages on a legal pad30:49 The opposite process, moving commas35:26 Writing a sex scene39:22 Questions shouted up the stairs44:51 Googling your way to a flagged file
25 Sept 2026
High Dive Ep. 1: Welcome to High Dive
Writers Kelly Hill and Sarah Landenwich discuss failed projects, squeaky shoes, unhelpful feedback, and diving boards.
0:00 Everyone and Their Mother Has a Podcast0:41 Writers as Personalities2:27 Going Off the High Dive5:20 Too Scared to Read Horror Novels6:33 The Ubiquity of Exclamation Marks7:51 Resting Smile Face9:17 Kelly's First Novels11:04 Novels Versus Short Stories15:36 Student Reviews and Squeaky Shoes18:59 Throw out the Best and the Worst
25 Sept 2026
High Dive Ep. 2: Exclamaquest
Did you know that using periods in text messages is as dead as the telegram? Yeah, we didn't either. We asked Gen Z to tell us why.0:00 Punctuation–It’s an Urgent Matter1:25 Punctuation Is “Aggressive”?2:46 Asking Gen Z for voice memos6:52 The Rise of the Exclamation Point8:59 Flagging Emails as “High Priority”11:06 The Double-Exclamation Emoji17:19 Has AI Killed the Em Dash?19:27 A Brief History of the Interrobang24:16 All-caps, Italics, and Bold, Oh My!25:48 Gen Z Schools Us in Punctuation28:26 The Oxford Comma Debate31:13 Reading the Chicago Manual on a Plane34:02 Robert Frost and the Colon
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