In Instructions for the Working Day by Joanna Campbell (Fairlight Books, 2022), Neil Fischer has inherited his father's former hometown of Marschwald in East Germany. < Back Instructions for the Working Day Joanna Campbell September 6, 2022 In Instructions for the Working Day by Joanna Campbell (Fairlight Books, 2022), Neil Fischer has inherited his father's former hometown of Marschwald in East Germany. He drives there from England, remembering stories about his father’s brutal behavior, the split from his mother and sister, and the loneliness he experienced throughout his childhood. He picks up a chatty hitchhiker who helps him get through part of the journey. An inability to understand people, especially his father, has always plagued Neil, but now he faces the task of deciphering his demanding father's last wish and restoring the derelict village to its former glory. He plans to renovate and revive Marschwald, but is met with hostility, mistrust and underlying menace by nearly all the old people in the town. His only friend in Marschwald is Silke, who is coming to terms with her traumatic experiences during the Cold War and has recently uncovered a shocking truth, concealed from her for years by her controlling brother. As tensions rise, a series of surreal encounters force Neil to contend with his own troubled past – but right now, all signs point to danger. Joanna Campbell lives in Gloucestershire, England. She studied German at university and as a student spent a year living in West Germany. Joanna has worked as a teacher of both German and English, and now writes full-time. She is very interested in the Cold War − particularly the communist state of East Germany − partly as a result of studying the era for her university course and also from living with West Germans devastated by the division of their country and separated from their loved ones. She loves to write about the themes of separation and isolation as a result of this interest. She is learning to paint and most of her efforts involve abstract cityscapes reminiscent of battle-scarred Berlin. Her debut novel Tying Down the Lion was published in 2015, and her short story collection When Planets Slip Their Tracks (2016) was shortlisted for the Edge Hill Prize. Her novella Sybilla won the 2021 National Flash Fiction Day Novella-in-Flash Award. Her short fiction has been published in many anthologies and literary magazines and has won several awards including the London Short Story Prize. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

Minneapolis environmental attorneys Nick Ward and Lena Grant are no longer partners in law or marriage, but their lives are still strongly intertwined. Nick and his puppet can charm his psychiatrist, his attendant at the psychiatric facility, his supervisors at his mandatory community service, and his former students, but he just keeps breaking Lena’s heart. < Back The Island of Always Stephen Evans January 25, 2019 Minneapolis environmental attorneys Nick Ward and Lena Grant are no longer partners in law or marriage, but their lives are still strongly intertwined. Nick and his puppet can charm his psychiatrist, his attendant at the psychiatric facility, his supervisors at his mandatory community service, and his former students, but he just keeps breaking Lena’s heart. She tries to protect him as Nick pursues ever-wilder animal rescue schemes, until it seems like everything is starting to unravel. Stephen Evans is a playwright and the author of several books, including The Marriage of True Minds , A Transcendental Journey , Painting Sunsets and The Island of Always (Time Being Press, 2019). He attended Georgetown University, and when not reading, writing or acting, works as a technical writer and systems analyst. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

It’s 2015, and the suburbs of St. Louis, Missouri are still simmering after the fatal police shooting sparked a national debate about use-of-force law, militarization of police, and the relationship between the police and African Americans. < Back Bone Broth Lyndsey Ellis February 1, 2022 Lyndsey Ellis’s debut novel, Bone Broth (Hidden Timber Books 2021) tells the story of Justine Holmes, who is mourning her husband’s death and grappling with both societal and family tensions. It’s 2015, and the suburbs of St. Louis, Missouri are still simmering after the fatal police shooting sparked a national debate about use-of-force law, militarization of police, and the relationship between the police and African Americans. Justine’s adult children, an unemployed former activist who is angry at her mother, a realtor still mourning the loss of her only child, and a defeated politician who struggles with his sexual identity, are all mourning their own losses. Tension builds as Justine faces her activist past, her marriage to an abusive husband, and her unquenched longing for family peace, but the only thing that makes her feel alive is stealing small items from other people’s funerals. Lyndsey Ellis is a fiction writer, essayist, and novelist. Her work has appeared in Kweli Journal, Catapult, Fiction Writers Review, Electric Literature, Joyland, Entropy, Shondaland, and several anthologies. Ellis was a recipient of the San Francisco Foundation’s Joseph Henry Jackson Literary Award and the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund for her fiction. She’s currently a prose editor for great weather for MEDIA and The Account: A Journal of Poetry, Prose & Thought. She lives in St. Louis, Missouri, where she enjoys thrift stores, bike riding and horror films when she’s not reading or writing. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

Simone Lerrante is a Belgian orphan whose memory is damaged by the trauma of her father being shot by Nazis and her subsequent escape to England. < Back Simone in Pieces Janet Burroway November 4, 2025 Simone Lerrante is a Belgian orphan whose memory is damaged by the trauma of her father being shot by Nazis and her subsequent escape to England. From 1940 to 2000, we see 9-year-old Simone standing through the long voyage and later through various perspectives of those whose lives she touches. From Sussex, she reaches New York and ends up across the states, married, divorced, and alone. She falls in love with literature, experiences new traumas, but cannot remember her early years. Over the years, she recalls snippets of the parents she loved, the life she escaped, and the people who saved her along the way. Janet Burroway’s beautiful novel is a remarkable portrait of a fascinating woman. Janet Burroway is the author of poems, plays, essays, children’s books, a memoir and nine novels, including The Buzzards ; Raw Silk; Opening Nights; Cutting Stone (all Notable Books of NYTBR ); and Simone in Pieces (Nov. 2025). Her Writing Fiction, the most widely used creative writing text in America, is now in a tenth edition; her four-genre text Imaginative Writing is in its fifth. Her plays have been produced and read in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and London. Her stories and poems appear in many literary magazines, including Prairie Schooner, New Letters, Narrative Magazine, and Five Points. She is Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor Emerita at Florida State University and winner of the Florida Humanities Lifetime Achievement Award. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

In John DeSimone's Road to Delano (Rare Bird Books, 2020), it's 1968, and Cesar Chavez is organizing the United Farm Workers to fight for decent working conditions and basic human rights, while growers get increasingly violent in trying to prevent unionization. < Back Road to Delano John DeSimone August 12, 2020 In John DeSimone's Road to Delano (Rare Bird Books, 2020), it's 1968, and Cesar Chavez is organizing the United Farm Workers to fight for decent working conditions and basic human rights, while growers get increasingly violent in trying to prevent unionization. Teenager Jack Duncan learns that his father’s death did not happen the way he’d been told. His best friend Adrian joins his own father in fighting for workers rights with Chavez. Jack and Adrian hope baseball will be their ticket to college scholarships and a way out of Delano, California, but Jack’s widowed mother is about to lose her house to a greedy grower, and because of his father’s activities, school officials threaten Adrian’s hope of graduation. Turns out the growers own the town, including the police department and the school officials. The plight of pesticide-poisoning and other injustices to immigrant workers (which we are sadly still fighting today) pulls the two best friends away from their goal of getting out of Delano and pushes them into a deadly game of survival. John DeSimone is a published writer, novelist, and teacher. He's been an adjunct professor and holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Spalding University. His recent co-authored books include Broken Circle: A Memoir of Escaping Afghanistan (Little A Publishers) with Enjeela Ahmadi, and Courage to Say No with Dr. Raana Mahmood, about her struggles against sexual exploitation as a female physician in Karachi. His novels Leonardo's Chair and No Ordinary Man have received critical recognition, and in 2012, he won a prestigious Norman Mailer Fellowship to complete Road to Delano . He works with aspiring writers with stories of inspiration and determination or with those who have a vital message. When he isn’t reading or writing, John loves traveling and tasting different foods and cultures, but he is currently a caregiver for his wife. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

A perfect meal for a date night in! < Back Dover Sole with Roasted Butternut Squash and Capers February 18, 2020 Prep Time: 60 Minutes Cook Time: Serves: 2-4 servings Tags: Entrees, Gluten Free About the Recipe Ingredients 1 small butternut squash (or buy cut up squash) 1 medium onion 1 medium seeded apple 2 TBSP good olive oil (divided) 1 ½ cup water ½ tsp salt ¼ tsp pepper 1 lb. (approximately) fresh or frozen Dover Sole (or other flat white fillet) ½ lemon and its zest ½ tsp garlic powder 1 tsp dried basil 1 tsp dried dill 1 TBSP capers Preparation Preheat oven to 350-degrees Bake whole butternut squash on a sheet pan (spray olive oil if you use cut up cubes) 45 minutes If you do this step earlier, the squash will cool down and be easier to handle Cut onion and apple in chunks, sauté in 1 TBSP olive oil about 5-7 minutes until onion is soft Set pan aside – no need to clean yet Blend squash, onion, apple, water, salt and pepper in processor until smooth. Set aside Add second TBSP of olive oil and lemon zest to the same pan, turn heat to medium Add fish and shake garlic powder, basil, and dill lightly all over the fillets Turn fish over after about a minute (carefully – these are fragile fillets) Shake garlic, basil and dill over this side and sauté for an additional few minutes Turn off the heat, squeeze the lemon juice and toss the capers over the fish Serve with a green vegetable or bread Previous Next

In candid, witty, and often funny, razor-sharp dialogue, Feldman confronts the fall-out from excessive drinking, mental illness, childhood trauma, drugs, adultery, and nearly every other way a person can be wounded. < Back Start Without Me Joshua Max Feldman December 3, 2018 In Joshua Max Feldman 's thoughtful, bittersweet novel Start Without Me (William Morrow, 2017), two strangers meet at an airport restaurant, and through the course of one Thanksgiving Day, help each other grapple with love, disappointment, and family. In candid, witty, and often funny, razor-sharp dialogue, Feldman confronts the fall-out from excessive drinking, mental illness, childhood trauma, drugs, adultery, and nearly every other way a person can be wounded. His deeply-flawed characters are recognizable and honest as they strive to understand their mistakes while continuing to make them. Adam is a former musical prodigy who comes home for Thanksgiving for the first time since getting sober. Even though his family has seen him hit rock-bottom, he still feels like he’ll never be able to get anything right with them. Flight-attendant Marissa is in a marriage strained by tensions over race, class, and her husband’s lack of ambition. Now she finds out that she’s pregnant following a one-night-stand with her high school sweetheart. If Thanksgiving is the classic, all-American holiday, Start Without Me should be the classic, all-American tale about the struggle we face to become our best selves. Joshua Max Feldman is the author of two novels, The Book of Jonah (translated into nine languages) and Start Without Me . Joshua has written for The New York Times Book Review , among other publications, and is a former fellow of New York's Laboratory for Jewish Culture. He currently resides in Brooklyn with his wife and daughter. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

Sarah Vogel was born in Auschwitz and liberated at age three, but she has no memories of being there and nobody to tell her the story of her birth or her mother. < Back Becoming Sarah Diane Botnick Sarah Vogel was born in Auschwitz and liberated at age three, but she has no memories of being there and nobody to tell her the story of her birth or her mother. Becoming Sarah (Diane Botnick, She Writes Press 2025) grapples with identity, memory, belonging, and reinventing oneself. Sarah’s trajectory is filled with both happiness and extreme loss, and she finds love, friendship, and home, but the lies she invented as a survivor follow her through her daughters and granddaughters, each of them survivors of something. Diane was born and raised in Akron, Ohio, but always knew she'd wind up in New York City. Her first night in Greenwich Village she went to a double feature of Godard’s “Weekend” and Wiseman’s “Titicut Follies,” and her romance with the city began. For the next 30 years, Diane worked around, starting out in Italy assisting people like Jerome Robbins and Ellen Stewart with their contributions to the Spoleto Festival, then back in the City for the Dia Art Foundation, Isamu Noguchi, Great Performances at WNET, and finally, Workman Publishing. Along the way, she returned to school in pursuit of a master’s in creative writing at City College. Fulfilling all requirements but unable to pass the French exam (with a dictionary!), she was never awarded her diploma. However, the privilege of being mentored by Donald Barthelme and being appointed student editor of the literary magazine FICTION gave her far more than a diploma ever could. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

Explore insightful African American author interviews with G. P. Gottlieb. Dive into engaging African American author interviews now! NBN Podcast Episodes Hosted by G. P. Gottlieb African American Fiction December 3, 2024 Mirror Me Lisa Williamson Rosenberg Today I talked to Lisa Williamson Rosenberg about Mirror Me (Little a, 2024) Listen to Episode Buy Book November 26, 2024 Dazzling Chikodili Emelumadu Today I talked to Chikodili Emelumadu about Dazzling (Harry N. Abrams, 2023). Listen to Episode Buy Book October 8, 2024 Blood on the Brain Esinam Bediako Today I talked to Esinam Bediako about here novel Blood on the Brain (Red Hen Press, 2024). Listen to Episode Buy Book October 24, 2023 Indigo Field Marjorie Hudson A sweeping picture of family trauma, Native American and Black history, and the earth’s vengeance on human pettiness. A retired colonel’s wife dies, leaving him alone in a snooty North Carolina senior community. Reba, an elderly Black woman who speaks to the ghosts of her family, takes in the white child whose father killed her beloved niece. The colonel mistakenly causes damage to Reba’s old car and unleashes a torrent of spirits, while his son guards the bones that have been unearthed in what was once “Indian Field.” This is a stunning debut about race relations, land use, history, and memory. Listen to Episode Buy Book April 18, 2023 Jollof Rice and Other Revolutions Omolola Ijeoma Ogunyemi Omolola Ijeoma Ogunyemi’s novel Jollof Rice and Other Revolutions: A Novel in Interlocking Stories (Amistad 2022), is a moving and unforgettable collection of stories that span a lifetime. Listen to Episode Buy Book September 22, 2020 What You Don't See Tracy Clark Cass Raines left the Chicago Police force after a morally bankrupt cop nearly got her killed. Now she runs her own Private Detective agency. Listen to Episode Buy Book September 8, 2020 Saving Ruby King Catherine Adel West 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. Listen to Episode Buy Book July 31, 2020 Pale Edward A. Farmer 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. Listen to Episode Buy Book July 27, 2020 The Gone Dead Chanelle Benz A decrepit house in Greendale, Mississippi once belonged to Billie James’s father, a renowned black poet who died unexpectedly when she was four years old. Her mother dies of cancer. Then years later, her paternal grandmother dies and leaves Billie the old Mississippi Delta house. Listen to Episode Buy Book June 30, 2020 Tea by the Sea Donna Hemans 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. Listen to Episode Buy Book June 8, 2020 Everywhere You Don’t Belong Gabriel Bump In Everywhere You Don’t Belong (Algonquin Books, 2020), Gabriel Bump has created an unforgettable debut novel that will sometimes make you laugh, and sometimes pull at your gut. Listen to Episode Buy Book August 31, 2021 What Passes as Love Trisha R. Thomas In 1850, at age six, Dahlia Holt is taken from the only home she knows and moved into the big house to serve her two older sisters. They share a father, who owns the house and its slaves. On her sixteenth birthday, Dahlia gets to dress up in one of the sister’s discarded dresses for a trip to the city. There, she gets separated from her family, and meets a young Englishman who thinks she’s white. Listen to Episode Buy Book October 27, 2022 Cora's Kitchen Kimberly Garrett Brown Cora, who works at Harlem’s 135th Street library, reads a powerful poem by the young Langston Hughes, who begins to offer advice about her own writing. She’s awakened to thoughts about society and the role of women, prejudice, and the plight of Black women. Listen to Episode Buy Book December 7, 2021 Gone Missing in Harlem Karla FC Holloway The Mosbys leave their life in Sedalia within hours after six-year-old Percy loudly notes that his father’s boss has made a mistake in calculating what is owed. Percy’s parents know what would happen if they stayed. Listen to Episode Buy Book January 18, 2022 What Storm, What Thunder Myriam J. A. Chancy At the end of a long, sweltering day, as markets and businesses begin to close for the evening, an earthquake of 7.0 magnitude shakes the capital of Haiti, Port-au-Prince. Listen to Episode Buy Book Load More

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. < 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

It’s 1905, and there’s a bounty on the heads of Ruby Calhoun and Pip Quinn for trumped-up crimes they didn’t commit in Kansas. When a wannabe movie producer convinces them to star in a moving picture about their exploits, everyone’s lives are put in danger, but Ruby and Pip refuse to back down in this charming, light-hearted series about 1900s life in the west, the early movie industry, and the bonds of friendship. < 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

Discover mouthwatering cakes and pie recipes by G. P. Gottlieb. Explore delicious cakes and pie recipes that are simply to die for! Cake, Pie, & Icing Recipes to Die For Breakfast, Vegan, Gluten Free, Vegetarian, Cakes & Pies & Icing Almond Berry Breakfast Cake (gluten-free/vegan) Now Alene began measuring ingredients for Ruthie’s strawberry breakfast cake. Read Recipe Vegan, Vegetarian, Baking, Cakes & Pies & Icing Chocolate Peanut Butter Frozen Pie A refreshing dessert in the summer and a pleasingly light dessert to nibble on after a heavy winter meal. Read Recipe Vegetarian, Baking, Breakfast, Muffins and Breads, Cakes & Pies & Icing Chocolate Zucchini-Pear Cake GF Healthy enough for breakfast! Read Recipe Baking, Gluten Free, Cakes & Pies & Icing Apple Banana Chocolate Cake (gluten free) The recipe is going to be in my second book, SMOTHERED: A Whipped and Sipped Mystery Read Recipe Muffins and Breads, Baking, Vegan, Gluten Free, Cakes & Pies & Icing Best Chocolate Cake/Muffins GF. V. Didn’t I tell you I was going to be at my Aunt Ivy’s for a barbeque dinner at which I ate purely protein ... Read Recipe Vegan, Gluten Free, Baking, Dips and Sauces, Cakes & Pies & Icing Dairy-free Chocolate Frosting After a night in the refrigerator, it will be thick like a ganache. Read Recipe Vegetarian, Cakes & Pies & Icing Cocoa-Bear Cake (AKA Dragon’s Milk Cake) Neal bought her a beer and invited her to a Cubs game. That had been her first stout, and she thought it was so... Read Recipe Muffins and Breads, Baking, Vegetarian, Breakfast, Cakes & Pies & Icing Chocolate Zucchini – Apple Cake Yes, we eat this for breakfast! Read Recipe Baking, Cakes & Pies & Icing Apple Crisp The one I made nearly every Friday while my kids were growing up! Read Recipe All Recipes Baking Breakfast Cakes, Pies, & Icing Cookies & Brownies Dips & Sauces Entrees Gluten-Free Muffins & Breads Soup Vegan Vegetarian Load More