< Back Escape Route Elan Barnehama June 21, 2022 In Elan Barnehama’s new novel, Escape Route (Running Wild Press 2022), it’s 1968 and 13-year-old Zach is about to become a bar mitzvah. That’s when his sister changes his life by switching his radio from AM to FM. Zach’s family lives in Queens, and he’s comfortable roaming the New York City subways, heading to the public library, the Metropolitan Museum, and all kinds of diners. Zach is in accelerated classes, smart but confused. He worries about his older sister at Columbia, the war in Vietnam, his grandparents, and how his parents escaped Europe during the Holocaust. He meets a cute girl and is beyond relieved to have his first girlfriend, his first kiss. He thinks about music, math, religion, drugs, and more than anything else, baseball. He doesn’t know when to stop asking annoying questions or irritating the people around him with his goofiness. And just in case there’s another Holocaust and they have to leave the country; he joins the AAA auto club and figures out an “Escape Route.” Elan Barnehama grew up in Queens, NYC, has lived in several places on both coasts, and currently lives in Boston. He earned an MFA from UMass, Amherst, and a BA from Binghamton University. He writes literary fiction, flash fiction, and creative non-fiction, which has appeared in Drunk Monkeys, Entropy, Rough Cut Press, Boston Accent, Jewish Fiction, RedFez, HuffPost, the New York Journal of Books, Public Radio, and elsewhere. Barnehama was a Writer-In-Residence at Wildacres NC, and Fairhope Center for the Writing Arts in Fairhope, AL. He’s the fiction editor at Forth Magazine LA, and at different times has taught college writing-currently at American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York, worked with at-risk youth, had a gig as a radio news guy, coached high school baseball, and did a mediocre job as a short-order cook. When he’s not reading or writing, Barnehama likes running and walking urban landscapes, travelling to see friends, seeing new places, coffee shops, diners, libraries, and public spaces. He remains a Mets fan. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

< Back Prospects of a Woman Wendy Voorsanger March 23, 2021 When Elisabeth Parker and her husband leave Massachusetts and arrive in California to join her father, she quickly learns that her father is not who she thought he was. It’s 1849, and she also realizes that her new husband is also not who she thought. She’s forced to confront her preconceived notions of family, love, and opportunity, and finds comfort in corresponding with her childhood friend back home, writer Louisa May Alcott. She also spends time with a mysterious and handsome native Californian. Armed with Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Self-Reliance , she sets out to determine her role in building the West, even as she comes to terms with the sacrifices she must make to achieve independence and happiness. A gripping and illuminating window into life in the Old West, Prospects of a Woman (She Writes Press, 2020) is the story of one woman’s passionate quest to carve out a place for herself in the liberal and bewildering society that emerged during the California gold rush frenzy. Born and raised on the American River in Sacramento, Wendy Voorsanger has long held an intense interest in the historical women of California. Her debut historical novel—Prospects of a Woman—tells the story of one woman’s passionate quest to carve out a place for herself in the liberal and bewildering society that emerged during the California gold rush frenzy, and is included in 2 BuzzFeed Books must read lists. Voorsanger currently manages SheIsCalifornia.net, a blog dedicated to chronicling the accomplishments of California women throughout history. She earned a BA in journalism from Cal Poly SLO and an MFA from the Vermont College of Fine Arts, and has attended Hedgebrook, the Squaw Valley Writers Workshop, and Lit Camp. She is a member of the Castro Writers' Cooperative, the Lit Camp Advisory Board, the Historical Novel Society, and the San Mateo Public Library Literary Society. She lives in northern California with her husband and 2 boys. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

< Back Song of the Siren C.P. Lesley March 25, 2019 Since being sold into slavery as a child and working her way up to becoming concubine and mistress for several different men, Lady Juliana's survival has depended on her allure. Then her place in the world is shattered by a debilitating illness and she is spurned by the entire Polish royal court. Enter Felix Ossolinski—scholar, diplomat, Renaissance man. A riding accident in his teens forced him to redirect his energies from war to the life of the mind, and alone among the men of the sixteenth-century Polish court, he sees in Juliana a kindred spirit, a woman who has never appreciated her own value and whose inner beauty outweighs any marring of her face. Then the Polish queen offers Juliana a way out of her difficulties: travel to Moscow with Felix and spy for the royal family in return for a promise of financial independence. Facing poverty and degradation, Juliana cannot refuse, although the mission threatens not only her freedom but her life. Felix swears he will protect her. But no one can protect Juliana from the demons of her past. Join me for a discussion with C.P. Lesley about her new novel Song of the Siren (Five Directions Press, 2019). Carolyn Pouncy (who holds a PhD in Russian history from Stanford University) writes under the pen name C.P. Lesley (who doesn’t exist and has no degrees). Carolyn (aka C.P.) is the author of The Not Exactly Scarlet Pimpernel, The Golden Lynx, The Winged Horse, The Swan Princess , The Vermilion Bird , and The Shattered Drum . Song of the Siren is the first in her newest series, Songs of Steppe & Forest, based on 16th-century Russian history. When not thinking up new ways to torture her characters, she edits other people’s manuscripts, reads voraciously, maintains her website, and practices classical ballet. That love of ballet finds expression in her Tarkei Chronicles. A historian by profession, she also hosts New Books in Historical Fiction for the New Books Network . Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

< Back The Great Reclamation Rachel Heng April 25, 2023 In the 1940s, Singapore was controlled by the British occupied by the Japanese and comprised of rubber plantations and decrepit fishing villages. A timid little boy is the only one who can help his father, a fisherman, find a string of mysterious islands surrounded by teeming ocean life that will change the fortune of his family and neighbors. While his older brother fishes with their father, Ah Boon gets to go to school, where he meets his first friend, the beautiful Siok Mei. As they grow up, Siok Mei becomes entranced with improving the country through communism while Ah Boon focuses on his own livelihood. The British finally leave, the communists are banished, and the new rulers continue to rule Singapore with punishing vigor of previous colonizers. Ah Boon works with the new rulers to modernize the country, replace swamps with buildings and roads, and improve living conditions, but not everyone accepts the changes. The Great Reclamation (Riverhead Books, 2023) is a both a personal tale and a sweeping story of political and historical upheaval in 20th century Singapore. Rachel Heng is the author of the novel Suicide Club , translated into ten languages. Her short fiction has appeared in The New Yorker , Glimmer Train , McSweeney’s , and elsewhere. She received her MFA from the Michener Center for Writers and has received grants and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and the National Arts Council of Singapore, among others. Heng, who was born and raised in Singapore, is currently an assistant professor of English at Wesleyan University. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

< Back The Good Time Girls Get Famous KT Blakemore November 7, 2023 K.T. Blakemore’s Wild-Willed Women of the West Series (The Good Time Girls and The Good Time Girls Get Famous) opens when Ruby Calhoun’s former dancehall partner Pip Quinn, shows up at Ruby’s cigar shop in Kansas to tell her that Cullen Wilder, her former lover, wants them both dead. Ruby and Pip plan to warn Verna, a third woman at risk, and embark on an exhausting trip filled with blunders, con-men, cheating, and the breaking of several laws. Now there’s a bounty on their heads and Cullen’s henchmen are looking for them. As they struggle past challenges, Ruby recalls her former life in the Arizona Territory. In the second book, Ruby and Pip are still running from the law, but they can’t pass up the money they’ll earn by starring in a moving picture about how they survived their encounter with a notorious outlaw. After they get the money, their plan is to head for Mexico, but that’s as much as they know. K.T. Blakemore grew up in the west and never left. Her novels The Good Time Girls and The Good Time Girls Get Famous are the first two adventures in the Wild-Willed Women of the West Series, featuring women who take no prisoners and succeed through sheer grit, determination, humor, and a parcel of luck. Her award-winning historical thrillers and young adult historical fiction, written under the pen name Kim Taylor Blakemore , have been awarded a Silver Falchion Award, Tucson Festival of Book Literary Award, and a Willa Award for Best YA Fiction. The Good Time Girls was honored as a New Mexico-Arizona Book Award Finalist. She is a member of Historical Novel Society, Women's Fiction Writers Association, and Women Writing the West. In addition to writing, she is a developmental editor and founder of Novelitics Writers Collective . She teaches editing and creative writing workshops to writing groups around the United States, Canada and the UK. She has hung her hat in California, Colorado, and currently the Pacific Northwest. The rain does not deter her research whether it be train timetables from 1905 or the best way to catch a loose horse. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

< Back The Lindbergh Nanny Mariah Fredericks November 15, 2022 Today I talked to Mariah Fredericks about her new novel The Lindbergh Nanny (Minotaur Books, 2022). The kidnapping of Charles Lindbergh, Jr in 1932 shocked the country and made international headlines. The famous Charles Lindbergh Sr became an American hero after successfully flying solo across the Atlantic. He was married to the wealthy and beautiful Anne Morrow Lindbergh, also a pilot. Their son Charles Lindbergh, Jr was suddenly kidnapped from his family home in New Jersey, and the case made international headlines. The parents were out on the night of the kidnapping, but the nanny was home. After the baby disappeared from his bed, that nanny, Betty Gow, became a prime suspect, and her life was never the same. She was known thereafter as the Lindbergh Nanny. Mariah Fredericks is the author of the Jane Prescott mystery series, set in 1910s New York and nominated twice for the Mary Higgins Clark award. She was born and raised in New York City, graduated from Vassar College with a degree in history and was the head copywriter for Book-of-the-Month Club for many years. Mariah lives with her husband and teenager in Queens and has a beloved French bulldog named Dita. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

< Back Jillian in the Borderlands Beth Alvarado September 28, 2021 Today I talked to Beth Alvarado about her new novel Jillian in the Borderlands (Black Lawrence Press, 2020) We first meet Jillian Guzmán when she is nine. She’s mute, has a big imagination, and communicates through her drawings. She and her mother, Angie O’Malley live in the borderlands of Arizona and Mexico. Jillian can see ghosts – in the first story a dead child-bride saves her from the clutches of a predatory neighbor. These dark stories introduce faith healers, talking animals, and spirits of the dead. As she grows up, Jillian’s drawings begin to both reflect and create the realities she sees around her, culminating at the Casa de los Olviados, a refuge for the sick and elderly run by a traditional faith healer, Juana of God. Beth Alvarado is an American author of both fiction and nonfiction. Her essay collection Anxious Attachments won the 2020 Oregon Book Award for Creative Nonfiction and was long listed for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spievogel Award for the Art of the Essay. She is also the author of Anthropologies: A Family Memoir and Not a Matter of Love and other stories, which won the Many Voices Project Award. Her stories and essays have been published in many fine journals including The Sun, Guernica: An International Magazine of Politics and Art, The Southern Review, and Ploughshares. Three of her essays have been chosen as Notable by Best American Essays. She is a recipient of a 2020 Oregon Career Artist’s Fellowship, and lives in Bend, Oregon, where she is core faculty at OSU-Cascades Low Residency MFA Program. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

< Back River Aria Joan Schweighardt March 29, 2022 Today I talked to Joan Schweighardt about her novel River Aria (Five Directions Press, 2020). It’s 1928 and Estela Euquério Hopper, of Manaus, Brazil, is the star vocal pupil of a world-renowned musician who’d come to revive a magnificent opera house. It had been erected during the heady years when rubber seemed likely to change Brazil’s fortunes. Those days ended, and most of the population is poor and struggling. Estela has grown up among the “river brats,” but she was fortunate to have a magnificent voice, a stellar musical education, and an American father. She’s got a job offer from the Metropolitan Opera House, but it’s only to work in the sewing room. And her cousin JoJo, another river brat and a talented artist, is going to accompany her across the ocean. But secrets threaten to destroy her plans, the heady days of Prohibition are about to come to an end, and the stock market is about to crash. Joan Schweighardt studied English Lit and Philosophy at Suny New Paltz, NY and is the award-winning author of The Accidental Art Thief, The Last Wife of Attila the Hun, Virtual Silence, and other novels. Before We Died, Gifts for the Dead and River Aria make up her river series, whose stories unfold against an early 20th century backdrop that includes the South American rubber boom, the Great War (as experienced in Hoboken, NJ) and the beginnings of the Great Depression. The stories deal with themes of grief, loss, love, immigration, assimilation and more. Joan also wrote a book for children, No Time for Zebras (Waldorf Publishing 2019), about a mother and son, with drawings by artist Adryelle Villamizar. Schweighardt worked for many years as a freelance writer, a ghostwriter, a literary agent, and the publisher of a small company with a list of award-winning books. When she’s not reading or writing her own books, she enjoys collaborating with other writers, and also loves to hike, bike, travel, and paint with oils. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

< Back A Joy to Be Hidden Ariela Freedman June 6, 2019 It’s the late 1990’s and Alice Stein is a grad student in New York City. Her father died the previous year, leaving her mother with 8-year-old twins to raise. Alice is in charge of looking in on her dying grandmother, and then is first, after the thieving caregiver, to sort through her grandmother’s apartment after her death. There, Alice discovers a purse with a hidden compartment. As she struggles to study, write, teach, take care of the little girl from downstairs, and figure out her grandmother’s secrets, Alice uncovers layers of secrets about herself, her family, and everyone around her. Ariela Freedman was born in Brooklyn and has lived in Jerusalem, New York, Calgary, London, and Montreal. Her reviews and poems have appeared in Vallum, carte blanche, The Cincinnati Review and other publications, and she was selected to participate in the Quebec Writers' Federation's 2014 Mentorship Program. She has a PhD from New York University and has published articles on Mary Borden, James Joyce, First World war literature, and postcolonial theory. Freedman’s book Death, Men, and Modernism appeared in 2003. Her first novel, Arabic for Beginners (LLP, 2017), was shortlisted for the QWF Concordia University First Book Prize and is the Winner of the 2018 J. I. Segal Prize for Fiction. A Joy to be Hidden (Linda Leith Publishing, 2019) is her second novel. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

< Back Starling Days Rowan Hisayo Buchanan April 21, 2020 Mina completed a doctorate in Classics but can’t find a tenure track position. She earns money by teaching adjunct classes and tutoring in Latin. Mina’s husband, Oscar, who works for his distant father importing Japanese beer, hopes that leaving New York City for a few months will help with Mina’s depression. While they’re in London, she plans to work on a paper studying mythological women, only a few of whom survived. Mina wonders if she is one of the ones who is going to win the battle. Today I talked to Rowan Hisayo Buchanan , author of Starling Days (The Overlook Press, 2020). She received her BA from Columbia University and her MFA from University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her first novel, Harmless Like You , was a New York Times Editors’ Choice and NPR Great Read. She is the editor of the GO HOME! Anthology, and her work has appeared in Granta, Guernica, the Guardian, and the Paris Review. When not writing or teaching, she spends her time painting, snacking on nut-butter or dried seaweed, and walking her dog. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

< Back Tea by the Sea Donna Hemans June 30, 2020 A new father walks out of the hospital with his day-old baby while the mother recuperates from giving birth. He tells a series of lies and moves houses or countries whenever the truth gets too close. The young, broken-hearted mother devotes herself to searching for her missing daughter. Alternating between Jamaica and Brooklyn, NY, she is disappointed again and again, until seventeen years go by and she happens to see the photo of the man who took her baby. Now he is a priest. In beautiful, wrenching prose, Hemans' Tea by the Sea (Red Hen Press) tells an unforgettably moving story of family love, identity, and betrayal. Jamaican-born Donna Hemans is the author of the novels River Woman , winner of the 2003–4 Towson University Prize for Literature, and Tea by the Sea , for which she won the Lignum Vitae Una Marson Award for Adult Literature. Her short fiction and essays have appeared in the The Caribbean Writer, Crab Orchard Review, Witness, Electric Literature, Ms. Magazine , among others. She received her undergraduate degree from Fordham University and an MFA from American University. She lives in Greenbelt, Maryland. When she’s not writing, she plays tennis and runs the DC Writers Room, a co-working studio for writers. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

< Back Saving Ruby King Catherine Adel West September 8, 2020 Two south side Chicago families are bound together by a violence-infused past. Ruby’s mother, Alice King, has been murdered. Her father, Lebanon King, is an abusive man who endured a terrible childhood. Her best friend, Layla, has always tried to protect Ruby from Lebanon even though her own father and Ruby’s father have been close friends since childhood. And their mothers were friends before them. In this moving debut novel, Saving Ruby King (Park Row Books), Catherine Adel West gives each character a voice, but the voice that binds all of their lives together is that of the Calvary Hope Christian Church, objective witness to the complex ties between Ruby’s grandmother and her two friends, between Ruby’s father and Layla’s father, and between Ruby and Layla. In precise, lyrical writing, West delves into each of their secrets while exploring intergenerational trauma, racial injustice in Chicago, and the power of friendship. Catherine Adel West was born and raised in Chicago, IL where she currently resides. She graduated with both her Bachelors and Masters of Science in Journalism from the University of Illinois - Urbana. Her work is published in Black Fox Literary Magazine, Five2One, Better than Starbucks, Doors Ajar, 805 Lit + Art, The Helix Magazine, Lunch Ticket and Gay Magazine . In between writing and traveling, Catherine works as an editor and is currently obsessed with watching old episodes of Law and Order: Criminal Intent, especially the ones with Vincent D’Onofrio. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next