< Back Creatures Crissy Van Meter June 30, 2020 Going back and forth in time, Evangeline (Evie) recalls the challenges of being raised on a lush island off the coast of California. Her mother has left Evie and her father, and her father raises Evie from the age of three. He’s a jack-of-all-trades but survives by selling a specially grown variety of marijuana. And although he provides her with adventure and a deep love of the ocean, Evie’s father doesn’t show up as a consistent adult in her life. The book opens just before her wedding, when a storm is brewing, her fiancé is out at sea, and a dead whale beaches, which causes a pervading smell of decay across the island. Evie’s mostly absent mother suddenly shows up wanting to participate in the joy of her daughter’s wedding. In flashbacks and musings, Evie confronts her abandonment, guilt, anger and ultimately her love for all creatures - including her parents, her husband, her best friend, and her best friend’s child. With sporadic notes from Evie’s research on wales and sea life, this is a novel to savor while either gazing out to sea or imagining it. Crissy Van Meter is a writer based in Los Angeles. Creatures: A Novel (Algonquin Books) is her debut novel. She teaches creative writing at The Writing Institute at Sarah Lawrence College. She is the founder of the literary project Five Quarterly and the managing editor for Nouvella Books. She serves on the board of directors for the literary non-profit Novelly. Crissy loves going to Disneyland and has been an annual passholder since she was 5. She’s been to Tokyo Disneyland, Disneyland Paris, Walt Disney World, and she plans to visit the remaining Disney parks in Hong Kong and Shanghai. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

< Back The Promise of Pierson Orchard Kate Brandes November 19, 2018 How do families decide when financial relief outweighs the risks of drilling for natural gas on their land? In Kate Brandes' novel Promise of Pierson Orchard (Wyatt-MacKenzie Publishing, 2017), a big energy company comes to Minden, Pennsylvania and hires the long-estranged brother of orchard owner Jack Pierson. Thinking that Wade Pierson is one of their own, some struggling neighbors start selling mining rights to Green Energy. Jack fears what the company will do to the land and worries that Wade will try to rekindle his relationship with Jack’s wife LeeAnn, who recently left him. Jack reaches out to the mother who abandoned him and his brother when they were teenagers. She’s now an environmental lawyer with experience in dealing with companies whose spurious promises to landowners are broken, along with ecosystems, relationships, and towns. Kate Brandes is an environmental scientist with 20 years of experience. A geology teacher at Moravian College, she is also a painter and writer who focuses on the environment. Her short stories have been published in The Binnacle, Wilderness House Literary Review , and Grey Sparrow Journal . A member of the Arts Community of Easton (ACE), the Pennwriters, as well as the Women’s Fiction Writers Association, Kate lives near the Delaware River with her husband and two sons. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

< Back The Field Victoria Garza March 21, 2023 Victoria Garza begins her poetic memoir with her ten-year-old self learning that her little sister and cousin have died in a car accident. She painstakingly recalls lovely moments with her sister as they faced their parents’ divorce, their new lives surrounded by family members, their Mexican American culture and celebrations. Over the course of the book, she examines her own survivor’s guilt, her disassociation, and her attempt to rebuild herself. She includes the memories of other family members, each of whom remembers parts of that awful day, and she observes the different ways everyone is affected by grief. Garza also explores death and its customs as described by various poets, authors, and religious traditions. The Field (Jackleg Press, 2022) is a memoir about losing a loved one, family, and memory. For most of Victoria’s professional writing career, she’s written journalism, screenplays, documentaries, and multimedia content. Sometimes, she’s a filmmaker, information designer and content strategist. She holds an M.A in Media Theory, History and Criticism from the University of Arizona and an M.F.A in Film and Media Production from NYU's Graduate Institute of Film & Television. Currently, she's a senior writer for Apple's WW Enterprise group. She and her wife Lisa live in the Bay Area with two soulful children named Augustin and Dakota. When Victoria is not reading or writing, she loves hiking, cooking, and having deep conversations with her toddlers. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

< Back One Two Three Laurie Frankel September 21, 2021 Today I talked to Laurie Frankel about her new novel One, Two, Three (Henry Holt, 2021). The little town of Bourne made national news seventeen years before when its water turned green and people started to get sick. The Mitchell triplets were born that year, after the factory closed, the town began to wither along with its citizens, and their father died. The three girls, each a different version of normal, have watched their mother’s endless fight for justice from the company that destroyed their town. Mirabel, number Three, is the smartest triplet, even though she can’t speak and uses a wheelchair. Monday, number Two, inherited all the library’s books when the library building closed. She eats and wears only yellow and knows exactly where in the house each book is hidden. And Mab, number One, is trying to get into college and out of Bourne. Then one day, a moving truck pulls up and the Mitchell sisters are forced to grapple with a past that was never resolved. Laurie Frankel writes novels (and reads novels, teaches other people to write novels, raises a small person who reads and would like someday to write novels) in Seattle, Washington where she lives on a nearly vertical hill from which she can watch three different bridges while she's staring out her windows between words. She's originally from Maryland and has a degree in reading Shakespeare, which has relatively little to do with writing novels. She has taught writing, literature, and gender studies at both community colleges and universities. Now she is at work — always — on her next novel but also blogs about craft at Medium where she endeavors to help other people finish their novels. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

< Back Harvesting the Sky Karen Hugg September 7, 2021 Botonist Andre Damazy undertakes a perilous exploration into the mountains of Kazakhstan to retrieve a sapling from a rare apple tree in the mountains of Kazakhstan. At great cost, he manages to retrieve a sapling, and brings it to his hidden greenhouse in Paris. The fruit of the tree has mysterious medicinal properties, and Andre’s mission is both scientific and personal, because his mother has suffered a serious stroke. He receives sufficient funding to create the correct conditions to care for the trees, but he’s under pressure, both from his sponsors, and from a mysterious organization that fears the apple is an omen of evil. Second in Karen Hugg’s literary thriller series focused on the world of plants, Harvesting the Sky (Woodhall Press, 2021) is a parable about what we take from nature. Karen Hugg is also the author of The Forgetting Flower and Song of the Tree Hollow . Born into a Polish family and raised in Chicago, she later moved to Seattle and worked as an editor in tech, which gave her the opportunity to live in Paris for a short time. Afterward, she became a certified ornamental horticulturalist and master pruner. Karen earned an MFA from Goddard College and her work has appeared in The Big Thrill , Crime Reads , Thrive Global , and other publications. She lives with her husband and three kids in Seattle, where she’s finishing up her first nonfiction book, Leaf Your Troubles Behind: How to Destress and Grow Happiness Through Plants . When she’s not writing or gardening, Karen is learning guitar by playing her favorite songs from the Scottish band, Travis. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

< Back Sandstorm Joyce Yarrow August 24, 2021 Today I talked to Joyce Yarrow about her new novel Sandstorm (D.X. Varos, 2021). The message essentially parentless Sandi Donovan learns after being dumped first at an inattentive aunt’s and then at a bootcamp for delinquent teenagers, is to never put her destiny in anyone else’s hands. After her mother dies, her father uses her for cons but can’t be bothered to raise her. She’s fifteen but passes for twenty, and the man who takes her in after she escapes the bootcamp teaches her how to create and sell counterfeit goods. She already knows how to reinvent herself and is surprised at how easy it is to lie. She’s a quick study but struggles with wanting to live a legitimate life rather than continuing to be the grifter and con artist she was raised to be. No matter how good her intentions, everything she does triggers a sandstorm in this heartwarming, fast-paced coming of age tale. Joyce Yarrow was raised in the Southeast Bronx, but escaped to Manhattan, where she wrote poetry while riding the bus through the Lower East Side. The Bus Poems were published, and her writing career was launched. She graduated from Antioch University in L.A. with a combined degree in Music and Communications – two lifelong interests. In addition to five published novels, Joyce's short stories and essays have appeared in numerous national publications, and she is a member of both the Authors Guild and Sisters in Crime. When she’s not writing, Joyce loves gardening, and when the pandemic is over, she plans to return to singing with the world music vocal-with-percussion ensemble, Abráce. They sing in 20 languages, and she’s great at memorizing lyrics but terrible in foreign language conversation. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

< Back Pale Edward A. Farmer July 31, 2020 It’s 1966, and Bernice’s husband has either died or abandoned her. Her brother Floyd invites her to join him as a servant working for white owners of an old plantation house in Mississippi. Floyd warns Bernice about the housekeeper, Silva, who lives there with her two young sons. The owner and his wife don’t speak much and there seem to be secrets hidden in every corner. The Mister works, fishes, reads the paper, and eats. When the Missus, a sickly, vindictive woman, sets her plan in motion, Bernice tries to mitigate the pain that will reverberate through everyone involved. In his novel Pale (Blackstone, 2020), Farmer tells a slowly bubbling, heartbreaking story that shows a household infected by the scourges of jealousy and vengeance. Edward A. Farmer is a native of Memphis, Tennessee where he journaled and cultivated stories his entire childhood. He is a graduate of Amherst College with a degree in English and Psychology, and recipient of the MacArthur-Leithauser Travel Award for creative writing. He currently lives and writes in sunny Pasadena, California, where he is able to hike whenever he’s not reading or writing. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

< Back Nermina's Chance Dina Greenberg November 30, 2021 Today I talked to Dina Greenberg about her new novel Nermina's Chance (Atmosphere Press, 2021). Nermina is a medical student in Sarajevo. She’s been raised in an educated family of Westernized, secular Muslims, but it’s 1992 and the Serbian Chetniks have started to destroy the city. Her mother and brother are murdered and Nermina is brutally raped. She manages to bribe her way out of Bosnia, flees with an orphaned five-year-old whom she leaves with relatives, and ultimately ends up in Portland, Oregon. She starts to rebuild her life and resolves to bring her own child into the world, but she’s twenty-four and can’t afford a medically induced pregnancy. So, she entices a ‘sperm donor’ who has no idea of her intentions. Through pregnancy and the first sixteen years of her daughter’s life, Nermina completes her degrees and begins counseling traumatized combat veterans. One of them turns out to be the brother of Nermina’s unknowing sperm donor. Nominated for The Pushcart Prize, Best Small Fictions, and The Millions, Dina Greenberg’s poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction have appeared widely in such journals as Bellevue Literary Review, Pembroke Magazine, Split Rock Review, Tahoma Literary Review, Barely South, and Wilderness House Literary Review. Dina earned an MFA in fiction from the University of North Carolina Wilmington, where she served as managing editor for the literary journal Chautauqua. She teaches creative writing at the Cameron Art Museum and provides one-on-one writing coaching for victims of trauma. Her work leading creative writing workshops for combat veterans resulted in Nermina’s Chance . When she’s not writing, teaching, or reading, Dina loves to work transforming a previously litter-strewn median into what she and a group of neighbors hope will be a city oasis. She also loves iPhone photography, building things (think DIY compost tumbler, raised garden beds, etc.), and power walking on Wilmington, NC’s Riverwalk. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

< Back No Entry Gila Green December 8, 2020 No Entry (Stormbird Press, 2020) is Gila Green’s first young adult Eco-Fiction novel. It is the first in an environmental series focused on elephant poaching and the international trade that leads to their illegal slaughter. Seventeen-year-old Yael Amar is in South Africa, signed up for a summer course in South Africa’s Kruger National Park. A rising senior, she plans to join her parents in Johannesburg, where her father will spend his sabbatical year from a Canadian University. Yael’s parents originally emigrated to Canada from South Africa years before and have returned while mourning the tragic death of Yael’s brother. Yael, also in mourning, but busy learning everything from medic training to driving on the left side of the road, uncovers a deadly elephant poaching ring. After witnessing some horrible violence, she just isn’t sure what to do about it. In addition to No Entry , Canadian author Gila Green is the author of three novels: King of the Class (Non-Publishing 2013), Passport Control (S&H Publishing, 2018), and White Zion (Cervena Barva Press, 2019). Her short fiction appears in dozens of literary magazines in the U.S.A., Canada, Australia, Israel, Ireland, and Hong Kong including: The Fiddlehead , Terrain.org , Akashic Books, Sephardic Horizons , Jewish Literary Journal , Fiction Magazine, The Saranac Review, Arc Magazine, Many Mountains Moving, Noir Nation, Quality Women's Fiction, The Dalhousie Review, The Bookends Review, and Boston Literary Review . Green’s work has been short-listed for the Doris Bakwin Literary Award (Carolina Wren Press), WordSmitten's TenTen Fiction Contest, the Walrus Literary Award, and the Eric Hoffer Best New Writing Award. She also wrote the introduction to Doikayt, an anthology of short tabletop roleplaying (November 2020). When She’s not teaching or writing, Green is busy raising five children, cooking, and baking her own bread. She loves music, daily walks through the Judean Hills by her home, hiking, pilates, and really good coffee. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

< Back Gravity Hill Susanne Davis September 28, 2022 Gravity Hill (Madville Publishing 2022) is the story of a small town in Connecticut grappling with the tragic death of three teenage boys. What first appears to be a drunk driving tragedy leads back to a mysterious accident (based on the real Revere Textile Mill Superfund site in Sterling) that has plagued the town for years. The sister of one of the boys nearly spins out of control before embarking on a journey to clear her brother’s name. She questions the presence of someone from the Environmental Protection Agency, finds a hidden toxic waste site, and begins the process of healing everyone who was affected. Susanne Davis is the daughter of a sixth-generation dairy farmer and grew up in Sterling, where her brother still operates the family dairy farm just a couple of miles from Gravity Hill. She has an MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop and a short story collection, The Appointed Hour. Individual stories have been published in American Short Fiction, Notre Dame Review, Clackamas Literary Review, and other literary journals. Her work has won awards and recognition, including 2nd place in Madville's Blue Moon Literary Competition. Davis also teaches writing at the college level. When she's not writing or reading, she loves spending time with her family, sailing, photographing the very photogenic family cats, Zoey and Bear, and baking chocolate chip cookies for anyone who will eat them! Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

< Back All Sorrows Can Be Borne Loren Stephens May 11, 2021 In All Sorrows Can Be Borne (Rare Bird Books, 2021), Loren Stephens tells the story, inspired by true events, of a Japanese woman who survives the bombing of Hiroshima, joins her half-sister in Osaka and gives up her dream of becoming a theater star. Later, she marries the man of her dreams and gives birth to a beautiful son. After her husband is diagnosed with tuberculosis, he convinces Noriko to send the toddler to his sister and her Japanese American husband, who live in Montana. Eighteen years later, Noriko’s son enlists in the U.S. Navy and gets sent to Japan. This is a novel about Japanese society and postwar cultural norms, the human cost of war, and a mother’s love. Loren Stephens is a widely published essayist and fiction and nonfiction storyteller. Her work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times , the Chicago Tribune , MacGuffin , The Jewish Women’s Literary Annual , Forge , Crack the Spine , Amuse Bouche , The Writer’s Launch , the Summerset Review , the Montreal Literary Review , and Tablet Travel Magazine to name a few. She is a two-time nominee of the Pushcart Prize and the book Paris Nights: My Year at the Moulin Rouge , by Cliff Simon with Loren Stephens was named one of the best titles from an independent press by Kirkus . She is president and founder of the ghostwriting companies, Write Wisdom and Bright Star Memoirs. Prior to establishing her company Loren was a documentary filmmaker. Among her credits are Legacy of the Hollywood Blacklist , produced for PBS and nominated for an Emmy Award; Sojourner Truth: Ain't I a Woman? produced for Coronet Films and recipient of a Golden Apple from the National Education Association; and Los Pastores: The Shepherd’s Play produced for the Latino Consortium of PBS and recipient of a Cine Gold Eagle and nominated for an Imagen Award. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

< Back So Are You to My Thoughts Connie Kronlokken July 6, 2020 So Are You to My Thoughts (Lightly Held Books, 2020 is the seventh novel in a series about the Mikkelson siblings and loosely based loosely on the author’s family. Kronlokken’s earlier novels in the series began with stories from the 1950’s and this latest installment brings us into the new century. As the book opens, sometime in the nineties, widowed Marty (Margaret) is happily living with a wonderful divorced winemaker and his four children in the hills above Santa Cruz. Line (Caroline) and her husband have returned home to Santa Cruz after several years abroad. And Paul, still in Minnesota, is grappling with his wife’s cancer. As the decade unfolds, children grow up and move on, problems are confronted, spirituality is explored, and the loving bonds of this large family continue to pull them all together. Connie Kronlokken grew up in a large Norwegian/Dutch family and spent her childhood in small towns across Minnesota, North Dakota, and Iowa. She went to a Lutheran College and completed her master’s in library science at the University of Michigan. In 1969 she and her husband moved to San Francisco, where she worked as an office manager in large architectural firms and a database manager at a wine brokerage. She studied filmmaking in Denmark, and writes two blogs. Kronlokhen published two novels and a book of essays before embarking on the So Are You to My Thoughts series. Now living in Los Angeles, she enjoys cooking and gardening, and has studied yang style tai chi for over thirty years. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next