In early-seventeenth-century Portugal, Spain, France, and Germany, dangers are plentiful—especially for those of Jewish heritage. Non-Catholics have been expelled from Spain, and the Inquisition has come to Portugal to impose its prohibitions. < Back Isabella's Way Barbara Stark Nemon September 30, 2025 Isabella’s mother recently died, and her father is in Europe making contacts for the family embroidery business. She’s 14 years old, alone in her house, working long hours to finish an embroidery commission for the local priest. It’s 1605, and Isabella has been raised as a Catholic in a small town in Portugal. But Isabella doesn’t know that her parents are “new Christians.” Then a mysterious foreign woman appears with a message that Isabella has been hired to embroider a trousseau in France. Isabella isn’t sure how to proceed, but her childhood friend David de Sousa, now in charge of their “New Christian” community, explains that the Inquisition has begun attacking small communities like theirs, and tells her that they must all leave Portugal as soon as possible, perhaps forever. Barbara Stark-Nemon, author of award-winning novels Even in Darkness and Hard Cider , lives, writes, cycles, swims, does fiber arts and gardens in Ann Arbor and Northport, Michigan. She has degrees in English literature, art history and speech-language pathology from the University of Michigan and worked with deaf and language disabled children. Even in Darkness is historical fiction based on a family story in 20th century Germany. Hard Cider , contemporary fiction, is set in northern Michigan. Find her online at https://www.barbarastarknemon.com/ Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

INSIDE THE MIRROR centers on twin sisters growing up in 1950s Bombay, who aspire to become artists. The family is still recovering from the Partition of India in 1947, especially the twins’ grandmother, who once fought for justice against the British regime. < Back Inside the Mirror Parul Kapur March 5, 2024 INSIDE THE MIRROR (Parul Kapur, University of Nebraska Press 2024) centers on twin sisters growing up in 1950s Bombay, who aspire to become artists. The family is still recovering from the Partition of India in 1947, especially the twins’ grandmother, who once fought for justice against the British regime. One sister is supposed to study medicine, but she is a talented painter, and other studies education, but she is highly trained in a classical Hindu dance form called Bharata Natyam. They live in a Bengali community in which parents choose their daughters’ husbands and society demands conformity. Jaya’s paintings and Kamlesh’s dancing could destroy their chances of finding a good husband, ruin their father’s career, and affect the family’s standing in their community. Jaya moves out of the house, an aberration not only affects her medical schooling, but also disturbs the bond she has with her twin. This is a beautifully written novel about family, art, British colonialism, and coming of age in a time and place in which women could not easily choose their own paths. Parul Kapur was born in Assam, India and immigrated to the United States with her family when she was seven. She received a BA in English Literature from Wesleyan University and an MFA from Columbia University. Returning to India, she worked for a year as a reporter for the city magazine Bombay, covering social issues, and culture and the arts. A journalist, literary critic and fiction writer, Parul was a press officer at the United Nations in New York and a freelance arts writer for The Wall Street Journal Europe, New York Newsday, ARTnews, and Art in America during a decade spent in Germany, France, and England. Her articles and reviews have also appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Esquire, GQ, Slate, Guernica , and Los Angeles Review of Books . Her short stories appear in Ploughshares, Pleiades, Prime Number, Midway Journal, Wascana Review , and the anthology {Ex}tinguished & {Ex}tinct . In 2010, she founded the Books page at ArtsATL, Atlanta’s leading online arts review, covering the literary scene for four years. She was also a co-founder of the global voices program, showcasing a diversity of authors, at the Decatur Book Festival, formerly the nation’s largest indie book festival. She created programs such as visits to collectors’ homes and artist studio visits for members of the High Museum in Atlanta. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

If you were struggling through a bitter divorce from an alcoholic spouse, and unable to communicate with your son, and finally enjoy a night out where you drink just one more beer, and a couple of people on a bike ride straight at you while you’re driving into the entrance, when they should have been taking the exit, and it’s impossible to see through the fog….is it really your fault if you hit them and they die? Tandem (Andy Mozina) is about a Kalamazoo economics professor who bargains with himself about how much good he can do if he stays out of prison, to make up for the deaths of two innocent kids. < Back Tandem Andy Mozina November 21, 2023 An economics professor at a Michigan college is struggling through a bad divorce, having a tough time with his only son, and then, through hardly any fault of his own, he must avoid getting caught by the police. He only had one extra beer and it was late and foggy outside, plus the two college kids were biking out of the entrance to the deserted beach, instead of the exit, without a headlight, so was it really his fault when he hit and killed them? Also, couldn’t he do more for the world and right his wrongs, if he was still teaching and making contributions, than if he was stuck in jail forever? Mike will do anything to avoid being caught in this moving novel about the lengths a person will go to avoid facing uncomfortable truths. Born and raised in Milwaukee, Andy Mozina majored in economics at Northwestern, then dropped out of Harvard Law School to study literature and write. He’s published fiction in Tin House , Ecotone , McSweeney’s, The Southern Review , and elsewhere. His first story collection, The Women Were Leaving the Men , won the Great Lakes Colleges Association New Writers Award. Quality Snacks , his second collection, was a finalist for the Flannery O’Connor Prize. His first novel, Contrary Motion , was published by Spiegel & Grau/Penguin Random House. His fiction has received special citations in Best American Short Stories , Pushcart Prize , and New Stories from the Midwest . He’s a professor of English at Kalamazoo College. His passion is grading papers, and his hobbies include listening to legal podcasts and rooting for Wisconsin professional sports teams. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

The Beauty and the Hell of It and Other Stories (Guernica, 2025) conjures up images of women who struggle through difficult transitions, unpleasant encounters, or ghastly boyfriends and husbands. < Back The Beauty and The Hell of It and Other Stories Lynda Williams September 2, 2025 The Beauty and the Hell of It and Other Stories (Guernica, 2025) conjures up images of women who struggle through difficult transitions, unpleasant encounters, or ghastly boyfriends and husbands. One woman is a lesbian who sees the man who raped her a decade before, another suffers from bipolar disease, and a third is harassed by her professor. Some of them are grieving and others want vindication but few of them are living the lives they’d imagined. And then there’s Liam, who is devastated by his young son’s death, and who’d always loved the daughter of one of his father’s wives. These are beautifully written, sensitive stories about a range of human reactions to the harsh realities of life and death. Lynda Williams is a freelance copyeditor and short fiction writer based in Calgary, Alberta. Her stories have appeared in Grain, The Humber Literary Review, and The New Quarterly, among others. Her literary influences include Raymond Carver, Pam Houston, and Lorrie Moore. Born and raised on a dairy farm in the Eastern Townships of Quebec, Lynda arrived in Calgary after a 40-hour trip on a Greyhound bus, after which she took the best shower of her life. She has called Alberta home ever since. When she’s not writing, Lynda can be found experimenting with gluten-free baking and bingeing New Girl on one of many streaming services. She has been married to her partner in crime for 12 years, and they share their home (and food) with the world’s most adorable mini–Australian Shepherd, Cooper. She is a recipient of the Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Emerging Artist Award. For more information about Lynda and her work, visit her website here . Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

Theo Sterling is eleven when his grandfather kidnaps him, just for the afternoon. He learns that his father had shed his Jewish identity, married a very Catholic woman from Mexico, and stopped talking to either of his parents. < Back The Palace at the End of the Sea Simon Tolkien June 24, 2025 Theo Sterling is eleven when his grandfather kidnaps him, just for the afternoon. He learns that his father had shed his Jewish identity, married a very Catholic woman from Mexico, and stopped talking to either of his parents. At fourteen, Theo’s father makes him drop out of school to work in his clothing factory. Theo is disgusted at his father’s treatment of the workers and upset when he realizes that one of the men at his mother’s church has been inching into her affections. The 1929 crash leads to his father’s death, after which Theo and his mother barely survive until she marries her wealthy suitor. Now in England, Theo is enrolled in an upper-crust English boarding school. A friend inspires him to fight against Fascism and Theo nearly gets kicked out of school. After graduation, he spends the summer in Spain, where he’s again inspired, this time by a beautiful girl, to fight against the system. But it’s the 1930s and Fascism is simmering in Spain and Germany. Theo will have to make a serious decision about his future. Simon Tolkien is the author of No Man’s Land, Orders from Berlin, The King of Diamonds, The Inheritance, and Final Witness . He studied modern history at Trinity College, Oxford, and went on to become a London barrister specializing in criminal defense. Simon is the grandson of J.R.R. Tolkien and is a director of the Tolkien Estate. In 2022 he was named as series consultant to the Amazon TV series The Rings of Power . He has lived with his wife, vintage fashion author Tracy Tolkien, and their two children, Nicholas and Anna, in Santa Barbara for the past sixteen years. He loves the city with its wonderful Spanish architecture and unique position between the mountains and the sea. He is passionate about his garden which has taken almost as long to build, an enthusiasm he shares with his beloved pug, Sadie. He plays tennis twice a week and golf when he can and loves good TV drama - Silo was his favorite show last year. He is a devoted follower of Aston Villa Football Club, and tries to remain curious about the world, even when the news is upsetting. For more information, visit www.simontolkien.com Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

Lorna is a social worker who helps countless depressed and disturbed patients pull their lives together, but she can’t begin to communicate with her miserable 19-year-old son, who will barely communicate and speaks in passive voice. She needs to drive up to Vermont to see to her aging mother, now suffering from a possible broken ankle, and dreads being with her because the mother disappeared without a word when Lorna was a child, and only came back in her life after her son was born. Then there’s her ex-husband out on the west coast – Lorna’s job is communicating, but she hasn’t found a way to do so in her own life. < Back The Blue Window Suzanne Berne October 17, 2023 Today I talked to Suzanne Berne about her novel The Blue Window (Marysue Rucci Books, 2023). Lorna is a clinical social worker, trained to talk to people, but she can’t get through to the two people most important to her; her miserable teenage son and her distant, unhappy mother. She grew up with a deaf father who never explained to her or her brother why their mother suddenly disappeared. Her brother died of AIDS in the 1980s and her father is also gone, but her mother had coming for Thanksgiving Day since Lorna’s son Adam was born. Now, a neighbor calls to say that her mother, Marika, has hurt her ankle and needs help. Lorna prepares to drive up, and hopes Adam will join her for the drive. Adam hopes to torture and negate himself, so he agrees to the journey. Lorna doesn’t expect that her distant son and mother will bond, or that she will be left out of their relationship. Suzanne Berne is the author of four previous novels: The Dogs of Littlefield , The Ghost at the Table , A Perfect Arrangement , and A Crime in the Neighborhood , which won Great Britain’s Orange Prize, now The Women’s Prize. She has also published a book of nonfiction, Missing Lucile , about her paternal grandmother. Berne has written frequently for The New York Times and The Washington Post , and published essays and articles in numerous magazines. For many years she taught creative writing, first at Harvard University, and then at Boston College and at the Ranier Writing Workshop in Tacoma, WA. She lives outside of Boston with her husband. They have two daughters. When she is not writing--or thinking about the writing she is not doing--she is often walking her dog or thinking about walking him. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

Judith Flanders: Sam Clair Mysteries < Back Judith Flanders Author of The Sam Clair Mysteries September 12, 2019 “Oh, just kill me now.” I didn’t shriek that out loud, just clenched my teeth more tightly. It was eight thirty and already the day couldn’t get much worse. I’m always at my desk by eight, not because I’m so wonderful, although I am, but because it’s the only time of day when no one asks me anything, when I can get on with some work, instead of solving other people’s problems.” From Murder of Magpies, page 1 Samantha Clair is an overworked London book editor whose gossipy fashion industry friend has written a racy manuscript. After the friend goes missing, it becomes clear that somebody wants to stop the manuscript from being published. Sam, with the help of her Goth assistant, her wealthy, well-connected mother, and her cute boyfriend, Scotland Yard detective Jake Field, is on the case. In another book in the series, Sam and Jake attend a neighbor’s theater production expecting lots of drama and death. They’re not at all shocked when the second act opens with a body hanging from the rafters, until they realize that it is an actual person, who has been murdered. And that person is the play’s director, who, it turns out, was not at all well-liked. The Sam Clair mysteries are filled with snappy dialogue, Sam is not shy about sharing her thoughts, her mother is a hoot, and it was entertaining to be swept along into the apparently exciting life of an editor. I imagine the author sitting at her desk all those years, thinking about ways to kill people off, maybe even authors whose work she was currently editing. Previous Next

Two sisters fleeing the horror of the Soviet Revolution and aftermath of WW1 are disappointed when American policy prevents them from joining their older sister in New York. < Back Hotel Cuba Aaron Hamburger May 16, 2023 Today I talked to Aaron Hamburger about his new novel Hotel Cuba (Harper Perennial, 2023). Two sisters fleeing the horror of the Soviet Revolution and aftermath of WW1 are disappointed when American policy prevents them from joining their older sister in New York. Older, practical sister Pearl knows they must leave the old world to survive and buys tickets to Cuba. Frieda, the younger sister, immediately starts complaining and longs to join her boyfriend from home who is now in Detroit. Havana is filled with rich Americans escaping Prohibition and poor Cubans selling fun, pleasure, and booze, but Pearl and Frieda are sheltered, penniless Jewish girls. After Frieda manages to get off the island, Pearl, who raised her baby sister starting at age nine, does whatever she has to do to escape “Hotel Cuba.” Aaron Hamburger is the author of a story collection titled THE VIEW FROM STALIN’S HEAD which was awarded the Rome Prize by the American Academy of Arts and Letters and nominated for a Violet Quill Award. He has also written three novels: FAITH FOR BEGINNERS, nominated for a Lambda Literary Award, NIRVANA IS HERE, winner of a Bronze Medal from the 2019 Foreword Reviews Indies Book Awards, and HOTEL CUBA, published by Harper Perennial in 2023. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, The Village Voice, Tin House, Michigan Quarterly Review, Subtropics, Crazyhorse, Boulevard, Poets & Writers, Tablet, O, the Oprah Magazine, Out, The Massachusetts Review, The Bennington Review, Nerve, Time Out, Details, and The Forward. He has also won fellowships from Yaddo, Djerassi, the Civitella Ranieri Foundation, the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, and the Edward F. Albee Foundation as well as first prize in the Dornstein Contest for Young Jewish Writers, and his short fiction and creative non-fiction have received special mentions in the Pushcart Prizes. Hamburger has taught creative writing at Columbia University, George Washington University, New York University, Brooklyn College, and the Stonecoast MFA Program. In addition to writing and reading, he is an avid tennis player and baker. He actually has a babka recipe published in a new children's book by Leslea Newman. Also, every year he throws a holiday cookie blowout and bakes thousands of cookies for family and friends. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

After an injury to her hand derails her promising concert career, Camille retreats to her mother’s house and teaches piano to mostly desultory students. The years pass, and she finds Graciela, the talented daughter of her mother’s Mexican housekeeper, and Camille focuses on preparing her to live the life she herself was unable to live. < Back Lost in Oaxaca Jessica Winters Mireles July 15, 2020 After an injury to her hand derails her promising concert career, Camille retreats to her mother’s house and teaches piano to mostly desultory students. The years pass, and she finds Graciela, the talented daughter of her mother’s Mexican housekeeper, and Camille focuses on preparing her to live the life she herself was unable to live. Graciela has just won a prestigious piano competition and the chance to jump start her career, but two weeks before she’s supposed to perform with the LA Philharmonic, she disappears. Camille is determined to find her and bring her back before she squanders the opportunity of a lifetime, but a bus accident on route to Graciela’s family village outside of Oaxaca leaves her alone, unable to speak the indigenous language, and without a passport, money, or clothes. Camille, who grew up privileged, finally starts to learn just what it really means to be hungry. Born and raised in Santa Barbara, California, Jessica Winters Mireles holds a degree in piano performance from USC. After graduating, she began her career as a piano teacher and performer. Four children and a studio of over forty piano students later, Jessica’s life changed drastically when her youngest daughter was diagnosed with leukemia at the age of two; she soon decided that life was too short to give up on her dreams of becoming a writer, and after five years of carving out some time each day from her busy schedule, she finished Lost in Oaxaca (She Writes Press, 2020). Jessica’s work has been published in GreenPrints and Mothering magazines. She also knows quite a bit about Oaxaca, as her husband is an indigenous Zapotec man from the highlands of Oaxaca and is a great source of inspiration. She lives with her husband and family in Santa Barbara and has transformed her front yard into an English Garden.d Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

In last week's grocery order I forgot tortilla chips and ate this with a spoon! < Back Guacamole Salad May 3, 2020 Prep Time: 15 minutes Cook Time: 0 Minutes Serves: 2 cups Tags: Dips and Sauces, Vegetarian, Gluten Free, Vegan About the Recipe In last week's grocery order I forgot tortilla chips and ate this with a spoon! It's that good! Ingredients 1 ripe avocado 2 TBSP salsa (my favorite is Trader Joe’s Chunky Salsa) 1 scallion, chopped (grow them on the windowsill so you also have a few available) 1/2 chopped shallot or sweet onion 1 cup cherry tomatoes, quartered or halved 1 cup sliced red and yellow sweet mini peppers 1/4 cup (about a handful) chopped parsley or cilantro Juice of 1 lime or about 1 TBSP Nelly & Joe Key Lime juice (it’s always in the fridge) 1/4 tsp each salt and pepper (add more if desired) Sprinkle of red pepper flakes or 1 tsp of Sriracha (also always in the fridge) Preparation In a medium bowl, lightly mash up avocado and salsa – leave chunks – don’t make it super smooth Add all the chopped vegetables, lime juice and salt, pepper Mix it into a chunky guacamole – it’s not the usual kind, but avocados are hard to find – and it’s still delicious! Serve as a side to the main protein or with a bowl of tortilla chips Previous Next

Mim’s journey to find her old friend forces her to confront her choices, herself, and her understanding of America’s ability to change the world. < Back Blue Hours Daphne Kalotay September 17, 2019 It’s 1991, and recent college graduate Mim wants to be a writer, but for now she is folding clothes at Benetton. She notices the trash-filled streets and befriends exotic Kyra, who joins Mim’s disparate group of roommates, all squeezed together in a crumbling NYC apartment. Their relationship gets closer, and Mim meets Roy, the man Kyra plans to marry. Then, the anguish of another of the roommates, a veteran of the Gulf war, becomes unbearable, and Mim returns home to Boston. She loses track of Kyra for twenty years. Now it’s 2012, Mim is married, a successful writer and raising an adopted child when she learns that Kyra has disappeared in Afghanistan. Mim’s journey to find her old friend forces her to confront her choices, herself, and her understanding of America’s ability to change the world. Join me today as I talk to Daphne Kalotay about her new novel Blue Hours (Triquarterly, 2019). Kalotay is the author of the critically acclaimed collection Calamity and Other Stories , which was shortlisted for the 2005 Story Prize; the award-winning novel Russian Winter --a national and international bestseller--and the novel Sight Reading , winner of the 2014 New England Society Book Award in Fiction. She received her M.A. from Boston University's Creative Writing Program, where her stories won the Florence Engel Randall Fiction Prize and a Transatlantic Review Award from the Henfield Foundation, before earning her Ph.D. in Modern and Contemporary Literature. Daphne has received fellowships from the Christopher Isherwood Foundation, Yaddo, and MacDowell. She has taught literature and creative writing at Princeton University, University of Massachusetts, Middlebury College, Boston University, Skidmore College, Harvard University and Grub Street. She lives in Somerville, Massachusetts, and in her spare time, tries to keep rabbits out of her vegetable garden. She also likes to take long urban walks, from one neighborhood into another. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

When her father dies after a drawn-out illness, the unnamed protagonist of Ghost Forest wonders how one grieves if a family never talks about feelings. The father is one of Hong Kong’s ‘astronaut’ fathers, who stays there to work after the rest of the family leave before the 1997 handover, when Britain returns the sovereignty of Hong Kong to China. < Back Ghost Forest Pik-Shuen Fung July 6, 2021 When her father dies after a drawn-out illness, the unnamed protagonist of Ghost Forest (One World, 2021) wonders how one grieves if a family never talks about feelings. The father is one of Hong Kong’s ‘astronaut’ fathers, who stays there to work after the rest of the family leave before the 1997 handover, when Britain returns the sovereignty of Hong Kong to China. The protagonist turns to her mother and grandmother with questions about customs, religious traditions, and misunderstandings that occurred over the course of her life. Their answers, together with snippets of her own memories, help her understand her own actions. She also begins to understand her parents and why they made the decision to live a world apart for most of the year. And she realizes that even though they didn’t talk about love, it was always there. Pik-Shuen Fung is a Canadian writer and artist living in New York City. She has received fellowships and residencies from the Asian American Writers’ Workshop, Kundiman, the Millay Colony, and Storyknife. She has an MFA in Fine Art from the School of Visual Arts and a BA from Brown University. Ghost Forest is her first book. In her free time, she loves to cook, talk about food, and eat the delicious dishes cooked by her husband, who is a chef. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next