On May 1, 1982, eighteen-year-old Martin Oliphant watches a horse drown off the shore of Lake Michigan—the first of four equine corpses marking the trail that will lead Martin out of the small-minded small town of Pierre, Michigan, onto the open ranges of Elko, Nevada, and into the open arms, or at least open mics, of the cowboy poets who gather there to perform. < Back Four Dead Horses KT Sparks April 13, 2021 Today I talked to KT Sparks about her debut novel Four Dead Horses (Regal House, 2021) On May 1, 1982, eighteen-year-old Martin Oliphant watches a horse drown off the shore of Lake Michigan—the first of four equine corpses marking the trail that will lead Martin out of the small-minded small town of Pierre, Michigan, onto the open ranges of Elko, Nevada, and into the open arms, or at least open mics, of the cowboy poets who gather there to perform. Along the way, he nurtures a dying mother, who insists the only thing wrong with her is tennis elbow; corrals a demented father, who believes he’s Father Christmas; assists the dissolute local newspaper editor; and serves stints as horse rustler and pet mortician. For thirty years, Martin searches for an escape route to the West, to poetry, and to his first love, the cowgirl Ginger, but never manages to get much farther than the city limits of his Midwestern hometown—that is, until a world- famous cow horse dies while touring through Pierre, and Martin is tapped to transport its remains to the funeral at the 32nd Annual Elko Cowboy Poetry Confluence. KT Sparks is a writer and farmer whose work has appeared in The Kenyon Review, Pank , and elsewhere. She received an AB in Politics, Economics, Rhetoric, and Law from University of Chicago, an MA in Politics, Philosophy, and Economics from Oxford University, Brasenose College, and an MFA in Creative Writing from Queens University in Charlotte, an educational grounding that matches her lifelong interest in everything and mastery of nothing. She spent twenty-five years in Washington DC, most of it in the US Senate, as a policy analyst and speechwriter and continues to be involved in progressive politics. When she's not reading fiction (all types) or trying to banish weeds from the vegetable garden, she practices Zen Buddhism, binges British detective series, and cooks stuff grown on the farm (or by her more talented neighbors). Her greatest passion is her large distended family, which includes children, stepchildren, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, siblings, parents, in-laws, exes, and seemingly unending concentric circles of spouses, partners, fiancés, more exes, and more spouses—shining bright and swirling outward, like the rings of Jupiter, but less dusty. KT lives in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia with her husband, dog, a fluctuating population of barn cats, and no horses, dead or alive, waiting for the kids to come visit, or at least call for God’s sake. Four Dead Horses is her first novel. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

Cynthia Sylvester's The Half-White Album (University of New Mexico Press 2023) is a collection of stories, flash fiction, and poems revolving around the journey of a travelling band, The Covers. < Back The Half-White Album Cynthia Sylvester January 30, 2024 Cynthia Sylvester's The Half-White Album (University of New Mexico Press 2023) is a collection of stories, flash fiction, and poems revolving around the journey of a travelling band, The Covers. The stories are songs on the album, beginning with “Live at the House of Towers,” about a woman’s memories of her mother and home. The story of Shima (and her husband Claude) begins with all of her six daughters being taken by missionaries. The 10-year-old youngest, whom she calls The Last One, and the missionaries call Ruth, keeps running away. Shima is afraid because the missionaries will teach them to forget the songs and stories of their people. In Live at the House at the Edge of the World, Ruth is grown and eating dinner with Albert. We meet Margarita, who was born with cerebral palsy and is confined to a wheelchair and a parade of other characters who struggle to love, live, and survive in a harsh world. These are stories of hope and despair, family and banishment, based out west in what was once the wide-ranging country of native American tribes. Cynthia Sylvester is born into the Kiyaa’áanii Clan for the Bilagáana Clan and is an enrolled member of the Diné. She is a native of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Her work has appeared in numerous literary magazines. She received the Native Writer Award at the Taos Writer’s Conference. She graduated from the University of New Mexico and received her MFA in creative writing from the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. Cynthia hosts Albuquerque DimeStories—3-minute stories written and read by the author. Hosting DimeStories is a way to give back and foster a writing community. A community of writers is at the core of what she attributes to her success, endurance, and joy in writing. Writing is a solitary endeavor. “So much of what we writers write never sees the light of day.” A DimeStorie, fiction or non-fiction, is a way to have an achievable goal each month (about 500 words) and provides a venue to read the work to a receptive audience. Having a community of writers is important because Cynthia, like many writers, works a “9 to 5.” Her profession for over thirty years has been physical therapy. She comes from a line of “medicine women.” Her mother and aunts were nurses, and she and her sister have health professions. Cynthia’s career in medicine is often reflected in her work as a writer. When not working as a writer or a PT, Cynthia loves to box, take walks with her wife and their dog, Zeus, hang out with friends and family and talk about writing, TV shows, movies, books, sports, what happened last week or last year, whatever if there is a story involved, Cynthia is in her happy place. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

Sarah Cartell, who grew up in a White Supremacist family controlled by a violent grandfather who preaches hate and violence, learns from books and a kind librarian that there’s another way to see the world. < Back White: A Novel Aviva Rubin Sarah Cartell, who grew up in a White Supremacist family controlled by a violent grandfather who preaches hate and violence, learns from books and a kind librarian that there’s another way to see the world. In White: A Novel (RE: Books 2024), Aviva Rubin’s protagonist starts researching her family’s history of intolerance and learns about a grandmother and aunt who ran away. She manages to get into college in Montreal, but rather than focusing on her studies, decides to infiltrate a Neo-Nazi gang and stop the hate crimes before they happen. The duplicity and other factors chip away at Sarah’s sanity until she ends up in a psychiatric ward wondering if she’ll ever escape the hate. Aviva Rubin is a Toronto-based writer of memoir, essays and social commentary. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, The Globe and Mail, Chatelaine, Toronto Life and Zoomer as well as numerous anthologies. She wrote a memoir, Lost and Found in Lymphomaland , that tracks her harrowing and funny trip (she doesn’t like the word journey) through a cancer diagnosis and treatment. WHITE is her debut novel. In her so-called spare time, Aviva bakes cookies, runs, argues and commiserates about the world with her super-senior parents, and passes somewhat informed judgement. She is the mom of two young adult sons who have math and science skills that seem to have bypassed her. For more information about Aviva, visit her website here . Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

These are hamantaschen for grown-ups. Not too sweet; just right. < Back Chocolate Hamantaschen February 26, 2021 Prep Time: 1 Hour Cook Time: 15 Minutes Serves: 20 Servings Tags: Gluten Free, Vegan, Baking About the Recipe Ingredients 1 ¼ cup quick or old-fashioned oats 1 ¼ cup almond flour (or gluten-free flour) 1 TBSP corn or potato starch 1 tsp baking soda ¼ tsp salt ¼ cup unsweetened applesauce (I use half a seeded apple) ¼ cup coconut or monkfruit or brown sugar ½ cup plant milk 1 tsp zest (from one medium orange) 2 TBSP coconut oil 1 tsp vanilla extract 1 tsp apple cider vinegar Chocolate Filling ¼ cup monkfruit, cane, or brown sugar (1/3 to 1/2 cup if you like sweeter chocolate!) ¼ cup coconut or canola oil ¼ cup plant milk ½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder 1 tsp pure vanilla extract ¼ tsp sea salt ½ cup semi-sweet chocolate chips Preparation In a blender or processor pulse oats, flour, starch, baking soda, and salt into flour. Move to a large bowl. In the same blender or processor, pulse apple, sugar, plant milk, zest, oil, vanilla, and vinegar until blended. Pour wet mixture into dry mixture and stir until it comes together as a dough. Then, refrigerate the dough while you make the filling. Preheat oven to 375℉. Line 2 cookie sheets with parchment paper. In the same blender, pulse together sugar, oil, plant milk, cocoa powder, vanilla, and salt for about 40-60 seconds until it turns shiny. Transfer from blender to a small bowl and gently stir in the chocolate chips. Remove dough from refrigerator and divide in half. Roll to about ⅛ inch thick, adding flour if needed to make it less sticky. Cut circles with a drinking glass. Fill with 1 teaspoon of chocolate filling. Create a triangle by folding the left side over the filling into the center, then the right side over the filling, then then fold the bottom side over the filling. Pinch the corners to hold the shape. Place cookies on the prepared cookie sheets and brush with oil (if you want shinier cookies, otherwise this step is optional). Bake at 375℉ about 14-15 minutes until golden brown. Previous Next

Deanna Raybourne: Veronica Speedwell Mysteries and Lady Gray Mysteries < Back Deanna Raybourne Author of The Veronica Speedwell Mysteries and Lady Gray Mysteries July 7, 2021 Deanna Raybourne (Veronica Speedwell Mysteries and Lady Gray Mysteries) combines romance and mystery in the Victorian era, with charming details about food, dress, and manners of the time. Although there must have been free-thinking young women in the 1900’s, it was probably rare but I set aside any concern about the appropriation of modern thinking and just enjoyed Veronica’s adventures as a butterfly collector and amateur sleuth (along with her handsome sidekick, the aristocratic Stoker, who helps solve mysteries when he isn’t stuffing and mounting animal specimens). I read three of these in a row during a vacation and enjoyed every minute, no matter how improbable the situations. Silent in the Grave (2006) Silent in the Sanctuary (2007) Silent on the Moor (2009) Dark Road to Darjeeling (2010) The Dark Enquiry (2011) Previous Next

Mako Yoshikawa's Secrets of the Sun: A Memoir (Mad Creek Books 2024) contains a host of essays about her difficult, brilliant father. Shoichi Yoshikawa grew up in a wealthy family in 1930s Japan, but his mother died when he was five, and he died alone on the eve of Mako’s wedding. < Back Secrets of the Sun Mako Yoshikawa February 20, 2024 Mako Yoshikawa's Secrets of the Sun: A Memoir (Mad Creek Books 2024) contains a host of essays about her difficult, brilliant father. Shoichi Yoshikawa grew up in a wealthy family in 1930s Japan, but his mother died when he was five, and he died alone on the eve of Mako’s wedding. He had been a genius, renowned for his research in nuclear fusion and respected at Princeton, until he fell apart. She remembered him being alternatingly kind or violent when bipolar disease gripped him. Her mother packed up and left the house with Mako and her sisters, later remarrying a wonderful man and brilliant chess player who Mako considered the father she always wanted. Mako wants to understand him; why he cross-dressed, why he was so passionate about fusion, why he alienated his daughters so that he hadn’t even been invited to Mako’s wedding. Mako Yoshikawa is the author of the novels One Hundred and One Ways and Once Removed . Her novels have been translated into six languages; awards include a Massachusetts Cultural Council Grant and a Radcliffe Fellowship. As a literary critic, she has published articles that explore the relationship between incest and race in 20th-century American fiction. After her father’s death in 2010, Mako began writing about him and their relationship: essays which have appeared in the Missouri Review , Southern Indiana Review , Harvard Review , Story , Lit Hub , Longreads , and Best American Essays . These essays became the basis for her new memoir, Secrets of the Sun . Yoshikawa grew up in Princeton, New Jersey but spent two years of her childhood in Tokyo, Japan. She received a B.A. in English literature from Columbia University, a Masters in Shakespeare and Renaissance Drama at Lincoln College, Oxford, and a Ph. D. in English literature from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Mako is a professor of creative writing and the director of the MFA program at Emerson College. In addition to her MFA classes, Mako teaches Comedic Lit to undergraduates in Emerson’s Comedic Arts program. She also teaches as often as she can in the Emerson Prison Initiative, a degree-granting program that is based in MCI-Norfolk, a medium-security prison for men. She lives with her husband and two unruly cats in Boston and Baltimore. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

Two sisters are struggling to save their land when a gas well explodes on a neighboring ranch in western Colorado, setting off a disturbing chain of events. This is a moving debut novel about family, land, and the preservation of both in rural America. < Back Kickdown Rebecca Clarren August 30, 2019 Two sisters are struggling to save their land when a gas well explodes on a neighboring ranch in western Colorado, setting off a disturbing chain of events. Their father has died, the older sister has become unraveled and the younger sister is mauled by an angry cow. Her ex-boyfriend is buying up oil and gas rights and downplays a spate of cancer-related deaths near his wells. The company offers the sisters bottled water when the river starts bubbling. There’s also an Iraqi war veteran who helps the sisters while he’s on probation from his job as a police officer, putting his own marriage at risk. This is a moving debut novel about family, land, and the preservation of both in rural America. Award-winning journalist Rebecca Clarren has been writing about the rural West for twenty years. Her journalism, for which she has won the Hillman Prize, an Alicia Patterson Foundation Fellowship, and nine grants from the Fund for Investigative Journalism, has appeared in such publications as MotherJones , High Country News , The Nation , and Salon.com. Her debut novel, Kickdown (Arcade, 2018) was shortlisted for the PEN/Bellwether Prize. She lives in Portland, Ore. with her husband and two young sons. When she’s not writing, Rebecca can be found hiking, running with friends, or telling people what books to read. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

In the Shadow of Dora by Patrick Hicks explores the space program’s path from the Dora Mittelbau concentration camp in 1940’s Nazi Germany, to the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969. < Back In the Shadow of Dora Patrick Hicks February 8, 2022 In the Shadow of Dora by Patrick Hicks (Stephen F. Austin University Press 2020) explores the space program’s path from the Dora Mittelbau concentration camp in 1940’s Nazi Germany, to the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969. Eli Hessel has lost his entire family and is pulled out of the Auschwitz death camp to march with thousands of other emaciated prisoners to the Dora-Mittelbau concentration camp in central Germany, where they’ll be forced to help build the Third Reich’s V-2 rocket program. Eli glimpses Werher von Braun and other scientists, who helped developed the V-2 rocket and were later recruited in Operation Paperclip to work in the United States on our nascent rocket program. Hicks describes Hessel’s struggle to survive the deprivations and torture by sociopathic ‘kapos’ in control of daily humiliations, cruelty, and murder at Dora. Approximately 20,000, mostly Jews, were murdered there, and very few survived. Eli survives, immigrates to New York, studies astrophysics, and gets recruited by the Kennedy Space Center. One day, he sees the infamous Wernher von Braun, now a respected United States citizen – his expertise, along with those of other Nazis, enabled the building of our space program. This is a story about resilience in the face of evil and the human capacity to recuperate, rebuild, and re-start. Patrick Hicks is the author of over ten books, including The Collector of Names , Adoptable, and This London —he also wrote the critically and popularly acclaimed novel, The Commandant of Lubizec , which was published by Steerforth/Random House. He earned a doctorate in Irish Literature from the University of Sussex and is currently writer in residence at Augustana University in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, where he teaches creative writing, Irish literature, and Holocaust Studies. His work has appeared in such journals and magazines as Ploughshares, The Missouri Review, The Georgia Review , Prairie Schooner, North American Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, Salon, Chronicle of Higher Education, Commonweal, Huffington Post, Guernica, The Utne Reader, and many others. When he’s not writing Hicks is busy raising his son, who was adopted from South Korea. He is passionate about international travel and lived in Europe for seven years. He has plans to visit Spain, England, Ireland, and Germany, followed by trips to Israel and England. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

The Pot Thief who Studied..... < Back J. MIchael Orenduff Author, The Pot Thief Mystery Series January 29, 2026 I met J. Michael Orenduff via email after a mutual author-friend gave me his name as a potential publisher. After some conversation, he was kind enough to offer to republish my series (another story), even though he’d retired and was hoping to sell the company. He was encouraging, informative, and I learned a bit about his life and career as a professor; he earned a PhD from Tulane, taught philosophy and mathematics, and served as a college administrator. I started reading one Pot Thief mystery after another, quickly breezing through over half the series: The Pot Thief who Studied : Pythagoras (2009), Ptolemy (2010), Einstein (2010), Escoffier (2010) D.H. Lawrence (2012), and Calvin (2025) . (Shame on me for not reviewing each one – I know how important it is to authors! Too late to remember, although my least favorite was Einstein.) I learned that Hubie Schuze, the protagonist, is as witty as Mike himself, that he adds an occasional sly nod to other legendary authors, and that if I ever need to escape illness or trouble, these can be my go-to mysteries. Although the meat-and-chili-pepper-focused food he describes doesn’t entice me, I loved diving into Hubie’s circle of close friends, his daily ritual of 5 pm margaritas with chips and salsa, and his passion for pottery. In the Pot Thief Mystery Series, villains are always revealed, and justice is served. More importantly, you get to spend time with Hubie Schuze and his quirky friends in Albuquerque and its environs. J. Michael Orenduff has won several awards, including a Lefty for best humor mystery and an Epic for best mystery/suspense. He’s also sold a ton of books; all infused with his love of New Mexico (even though he and his wife retired out east). In the Pot Thief series, the city of Albuquerque gets adoration, attention, and love, mostly from Hubie, who is filled with gratitude to live in such an exceptionally perfect place. Also, in chatting with the author, I learned that all the settings in his books are real except for 1) Hubie’s pottery shop and 2) the restaurant where Hubie and his friend Susannah meet for margaritas every afternoon at 5 pm. Previous Next

A fictional diary set in interwar Germany and Spain allows us to peek into the life of Klara Philipsborn, the only Communist in her merchant-class, German-Jewish family. < Back Home So Far Away Judith Berlowitz July 26, 2022 After author Judith Berlowitz found both Gestapo and Soviet records about a relative named Klara Philpsborn, she began thinking about writing Home So Far Away (She Writes Press 2022). Set in diary form, the novel opens in 1925 with a visit from Berlin to an uncle living in Sevilla, Spain. "Onkle" Julius has not told his wife and children that he is Jewish, so his visiting family can only celebrate a quiet, hidden Passover, but Klara is intrigued by the language, food, and culture of Spain. A few years later, she takes a job as a chemist in Madrid. 1n 1936, when the Spanish Civil War breaks out, Klara, now Clara, enlists and ends up putting both relationships and her life at risk. Although she must hide her Jewish and communist identity in Spain, Clara is passionate about fighting for human rights and equality. The tale ends in 1938, just as the Nazi movement is picking up steam in Clara’s homeland. Los Angeles-born genealogist Judith Berlowitz fluttered through various career phases before settling on historical fiction as her life’s work. Tools acquired during all these phases are visible in her debut novel, Home So Far Away (She Writes Press, 2022). Her years as a musician (classical guitar, oboe, singer, arranger), language teacher (Spanish), cultural studies teacher, tour guide, peace activist, and genealogist converge in a fictional diary about a relative from Germany in the Spanish Civil War. Judith lives in San Francisco with her husband and sings in the San Francisco Bach Choir while serving as a volunteer curator with the genealogical website, Geni.com. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

I make this dish a lot because I usually have the ingredients in the house. I often use cooked, leftover boneless breasts... < Back Easy Skillet Chicken with Mushrooms, Scallions and Red Peppers January 1, 2020 Prep Time: 10 Minutes Cook Time: 10 Minutes Serves: 4 Servings Tags: Entrees About the Recipe I make this dish a lot because I usually have the ingredients in the house. I often use cooked, leftover boneless breasts (which I freeze in anticipation of making this easy, quick dinner), in which case, microwave the chicken, cut into pieces, and sauté along with the vegetables. Fresh cut-up chicken pieces require about five minutes of sautéing before adding the vegetables. Once everything is simmering in the pan, the flavors will blend together. Taste before serving. From Smothered: A Whipped and Sipped Mystery Finally, the day sped by and Alene left, leaving Jocelyn in charge of closing. At home, Zuleyka reported that there’d been a lot of quarreling after the kids got dropped off, which happened nearly every time Neal kept them for two nights in a row, but they’d all gotten to their tennis lessons on time. For dinner, Alene made the Easy Skillet Chicken with Mushrooms, Scallions and Red Peppers that they loved to eat with pappardelle pasta, and a chopped salad. For a special treat, and to prove that she could be as fun as Neal, they ate sitting around the coffee table, watching an old movie about children sentenced to a juvenile detention facility who are forced to work for hours in the hot sun. It was filled with silly coincidences and had a happy ending, so everyone enjoyed it, including Cal. Ingredients 1 lb (3 or 4) boneless chicken breasts or thighs, cubed 2 TBSP good olive oil 1 cup mushrooms (I use white or baby bella) cut into pieces 2 or 3 scallions, chopped (or more if you love scallions) 1 small or medium red pepper, cut into pieces ½ jar or one 8 oz can of tomato sauce 1 tsp dried oregano 1 tsp dried tarragon 1 tsp dried basil (or a handful of fresh basil, if you have it) ½ tsp garlic powder 1 tsp salt ½ tsp pepper Preparation On medium heat, stir the chicken in olive oil until it’s cooked through and white, for about 5 or so minutes Stir in the cut-up mushrooms, scallions, red peppers and let simmer for another few minutes Turn the heat to low and add in the tomato sauce and all the herbs If you only have flavored tomato sauce on hand, hold off on the salt and pepper until the very end when you can taste it for flavor Let the sauce simmer for about ten minutes while you set the table, prepare a salad, cut up bread, or boil some kind of pasta. Previous Next

Emma lives in New Jersey, works as a civil engineer, has a reliable boyfriend, and had a wonderful best friend from college who she always secretly loved even. < Back The Almond in the Apricot Sara Goudarzi March 8, 2022 Today I talked to Sara Goudarzi about her novel The Almond in the Apricot (Deep Vellum Publishing, 2022). Emma lives in New Jersey, works as a civil engineer, has a reliable boyfriend, and had a wonderful best friend from college who she always secretly loved even. Not long after her best friend is killed crossing the street in Manhattan, Emma begins having nightmares. In these not-at-all-normal dreams, she is a young girl name Lilly whose life is continuously upended by bombs that force her and her family into a bunker. Unlike normal dreams, Emma’s are continuous and chronological, and she truly inhabits the little girl’s life, including playing with her friends, skipping home from school, or working on her math homework. Lily also finds a wonderful best friend, and when his life is at risk, Emma wants to go back to her dreams to rescue him, but how? Sara Goudarzi is a Brooklyn writer and holds an M.A. in journalism from New York University and an M.S. in engineering from Rutgers University. Her non-fiction, poetry and translations have appeared in Scientific American , The New York Times, National Geographic News, The Christian Science Monitor, The Globe and Mail, Scholastic’s Science World magazine, The Adirondack Review and Drunken Boat, among others. Sara is the author of Amazing Animals, Leila's Day at the Pool (2022) and several other titles from Scholastic Inc. and has taught writing at NYU and mediabistro. She is a 2017 Writers in Paradise Les Standiford fellow and a Tin House alumna. When she’s not writing, she loves swimming, going to the beach, gardening, traveling, and of course reading! Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next