At the dawn of the new millennium, Els Gordon finds herself adrift – she’s in mourning for her fiancé and her father, she’s lost the inheritance of her Scottish Highlands estate, her mother left when she was two-years-old but it her only living relative... < Back The Moon Always Rising Alice C. Early May 29, 2020 At the dawn of the new millennium, Els Gordon finds herself adrift – she’s in mourning for her fiancé and her father, she’s lost the inheritance of her Scottish Highlands estate, her mother left when she was two-years-old but it her only living relative, she’s about to be unemployed, and she’s just bought an old plantation house on the island of Nevis in the Caribbean. It’s a little haunted by the previous owner, who needs help making amends, and in exchange, helps Els fall in love with a man who has, like Els, survived heartache and loss. Listen in as I speak with Alice C. Early about her book The Moon Always Rising (She Writes Press, 2020). Early ’s career spans academia, commercial real estate, international executive recruiting, and career-transition coaching, and has included many ‘first woman to…’ roles. Her college English/creative writing major and professional roles requiring listening and shaping stories eventually pointed her back to her first love—writing fiction. In her cherished Martha’s Vineyard community, Alice sings in a local group and fosters sustainability and women’s rights and voices. An avid gardener and cook, she nurtures friends and neighbors with local bounty and her experiments in gluten-free baking. Alice and her husband have visited Nevis annually since 1996 and otherwise share a hand-built life in view of the sea. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

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

Janene, Cora, and Amadahy live on the banks of the river in a small North Carolina town, but they live centuries apart. Janene, a modern-day high school teacher, loses her career and identity in the face of a devastating disease. < Back Timeless Sisters Shelly Hoover April 8, 2020 Janene, Cora, and Amadahy live on the banks of the river in a small North Carolina town, but they live centuries apart. Janene, a modern-day high school teacher, loses her career and identity in the face of a devastating disease. Cora, an enslaved child during the Civil War, flees the Yarbrough plantation after her family is murdered and finds refuge at the home of a big-hearted woman. Amadahy, a Cherokee of the Wolf Clan in 1663, loses her child and husband, leaving her with a surviving child and a psychotic mother. A sacred, maternal talisman connects the three women as they search for lasting peace. It’s an emotional journey for these three women, who meet at the river. U.S. Navy veteran Shelly Hoover is the author of Timeless Sisters: Peace at the River . She earned an Ed.D. in Education from Cal State, Sacramento and retired as a public-school administrator in 2013 after being diagnosed with ALS, a terminal motor neuron disease. But physical limitations have not stopped Shelly from educating and advocating. ALS has paralyzed her body, so she types with her eyes using a Microsoft surface tablet whose camera is able to follow her eyes. Despite her physical challenges, Shelly lives in gratitude and encourages other to do the same, regardless of circumstance. She is a mother of two, a grandmother of four, and lives with her husband, Steve, in the mountains of Northern California. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

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. < Back What Storm, What Thunder Myriam J. A. Chancy January 18, 2022 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. Award-winning author Myriam J. A. Chancy masterfully charts the inner lives of the characters affected by the disaster--Richard, an expat and wealthy water-bottling executive with a secret daughter; the daughter, Anne, an architect who drafts affordable housing structures for a global NGO; a small-time drug trafficker, Leopold, who pines for a beautiful call girl; Sonia and her business partner, Dieudonné, who are followed by a man they believe is the vodou spirit of death; Didier, an emigrant musician who drives a taxi in Boston; Sara, a mother haunted by the ghosts of her children in an IDP camp; her husband, Olivier, an accountant forced to abandon the wife he loves; their son, Jonas, who haunts them both; and Ma Lou, the old woman selling produce in the market who remembers them all. Artfully weaving together these lives, witness is given to the desolation wreaked by nature and by man. Brilliantly crafted, fiercely imagined, and deeply haunting, What Storm, What Thunder: A Novel (Tin House Books, 2021) is a singular, stunning record, a reckoning of the heartbreaking trauma of disaster, and--at the same time--an unforgettable testimony to the tenacity of the human spirit. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

Today I talked to Chikodili Emelumadu about Dazzling (Harry N. Abrams, 2023). < Back Dazzling Chikodili Emelumadu November 26, 2024 Treasure and Ozoemena are young Nigerian girls forced to deal with spirits after losing their fathers. Treasure is forced to beg in the marketplace as her mother lies bedridden and depressed, and a wicked spirit finds her there and tries to make her his wife. He promises to bring her father back to life if she helps him by finding other girls for his friends. Ozoemena’s father has disappeared, leaving the family with questions and responsibilities. She learns from her grandmother that she is descended from a wild, ancient beast, the Leopard from an Igbo legend, which gives her terrible dreams and sometimes takes over her body. Touching on Igbo mythology and African folklore, Emelumadu’s dual-voiced stories focus on family, traditions, growing up, and the forces that conspire to prevent people from overcoming their grief. Chikodili Emelumadu was born in Worksop, Nottinghamshire and raised in Awka, Nigeria. Her work has been shortlisted for the Shirley Jackson Awards (2015), the Caine Prize for African Literature (2017 & 2020) and has won a Nommo award (2020 & 2024). In 2019, she emerged winner of the inaugural Curtis Brown First Novel prize for her debut novel, Dazzling. Her short fiction is available in many magazines and anthologies such as Isolation: The Horror Anthology (2022), Screams from the Dark (2022), Experimental Writing: A Writer’s Guide and Anthology (2024) and as part of the Royal Literary Fund’s Writer’s Mosaic. She can be found raving about books and art on Twitter @chemelumadu, or Instagram @chikodiliemelumadu. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

In lyrical, moving prose, with characters that reach across the years, Billy O’Callaghan describes births, deaths, war, and the life of his family. < Back Life Sentences Billy O'Callaghan March 22, 2022 Life Sentences (Godine, 2022) tells three interconnected stories about a family in his home country of Ireland. In lyrical, moving prose, with characters that reach across the years, Billy O’Callaghan describes births, deaths, war, and the life of his family. The book begins in the 1920’s with Jeremiah, who survived as a soldier in the Great War. He’s drunk and jailed on the night before his sister’s funeral to prevent him from killing his sister’s husband. “Life had its struggles,” he says as he muses about his family and experiences, “but we bore them in the way that our kind always do.” The second part goes back to the 1880’s, and Jer’s mother, Nancy, recounts being the only member of her family to survive the Great Potato Famine. Starving, she left her tiny island home to find work on the mainland and was wooed by Michael Egan, the man who fathered her two children and haunted her for years. The third section is in the voice of Nellie, Jer’s youngest daughter, who is nearing the end of her life. This is a beautifully written novel about family, home, poverty, loss, and the struggle to live in a difficult world. Billy O’Callaghan, from Cork, Ireland, is the author of four short story collections (In Exile , In Too Deep , The Things We Lose, The Things We Leave Behind , and The Boatman ) and the novels The Dead House and My Coney Island Baby . His work has been translated into a dozen languages and earned him numerous honours, including four Bursary Awards for Literature from the Arts Council of Ireland and, in 2013, a Bord Gais Energy Irish Book Award for the Short Story of the Year, as well as shortlistings for the COSTA Award and the Royal Society of Literature's Encore Award. His short stories have appeared in such literary journals and magazines around the world as: Agni, the Chattahoochee Review, the Kenyon Review, London Magazine, Los Angeles Review, Narrative Magazine, Ploughshares, the Saturday Evening Post and Winter Papers. A new novel, The Paper Man , will be published in the UK and Ireland by Jonathan Cape in 2023. When Billy isn’t reading or writing, he’s a big fan of Liverpool Football Club (called soccer in the U.S.). Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

Barbara Louise Mertz: AKA Elizabeth Peters < Back Barbara Louise Mertz AKA Elizabeth Peters October 24, 2019 Barbara Louise Mertz (1927 – 2013), was an Illinois-born author with a University of Chicago PhD (1952) in Egyptology who wrote under the pseudonyms Elizabeth Peters and Barbara Michaels. She was named Grand Master at the inaugural Anthony Awards in 1986 and Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America at the Edgar Awards in 1998. She lived in Maryland until her death. In addition to the Amelia Peabody (Egyptian archaeology) mysteries, she wrote four in the Jacqueline Kirby series about an American librarian who became a bestselling author, and seven mysteries about Vicky Bliss, an art historian. I always read at least three of an author’s works before choosing it for my weekly Must-Read Juicy Mystery post and have just finished the final (#20) of the Amelia Peabody series. Peabody is a trained archaeologist who praises her husband, the dashing archaeologist Radcliffe Emerson, but is just as capable of spending a day at an archaeological dig while also managing the household servants and raising children. The Emersons are often in danger, targeted by assassins or upended by the exploits of their employees, other family members, or their children. Merz was inspired by, among other things, intriguing artifacts, dig sites and interesting historical events to write the Peabody mysteries. These are books to drown in: Peabody and Emerson return to Egypt after hearing about the discovery of a royal tomb in Luxor, they search the vast desert for a lost English aristocrat and his wife, or a stranger entices them with a ring from the tomb of an Egyptian queen. Merz’s final book, The Painted Queen, was based on a famous bust of Nefertiti that was discovered and taken out of Egypt sometime after 1912. There is still some confusion and disagreement about how the bust was removed and how Egypt was robbed of one of its historical treasures. The book was completed after her death (using Mertz’s outline and meticulous research notes) by her friend and fellow mystery writer Joan Hess (author of the Claire Malloy and Maggody Mystery series). The two women had met at a mystery convention thirty years before. Previous Next

An optimistic young Mexican woman gets pregnant while trying to cross the border into the states. An Indian-American woman struggles with infertility. When undocumented Solimar is detained by the state, Kavya and her husband foster and then fall in love with her little boy. < Back Lucky Boy Shanthi Sekaran January 14, 2019 An optimistic young Mexican woman gets pregnant while trying to cross the border into the states. An Indian-American woman struggles with infertility. When undocumented Solimar is detained by the state, Kavya and her husband foster and then fall in love with her little boy. They’re good people, the law is on their side, and it’s hard not to root for them, but we’re forced to ask ourselves - what defines parenthood? Is it the biological connection or is it the daily grind of feeding, changing diapers, and tending to all their needs? In addition to a mother’s love, Lucky Boy (G. P. Putnam's Sons, 2017) deals with immigration, undocumented workers, the struggle between haves and the have-nots, infertility, survival, and love. Shanthi Sekaran is a writer and educator from Berkeley, California. Lucky Boy was named an IndieNext Great Read and an NPR Best Book of 2017. It won the Housatonic Book Award and was a finalist for Stanford University's Saroyan International Prize for Writing. Her essays and stories have also appeared in The New York Times , Salon.com, and the LA Review of Books . Sekaran is a member of the San Francisco Writers' Grotto, an AWP mentor, and she teaches writing at Mills College. She was born in Sacramento, is the daughter of immigrants from India, and has two older brothers, a husband, two young sons, and a cat. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

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, a big energy company comes to Minden, Pennsylvania and hires the long-estranged brother of orchard owner Jack Pierson. < 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

Lea Roback was a feminist and labor activist who was raised in a large Jewish family in Quebec, Canada. < Back Lea Ariela Freedman May 10, 2022 Lea Roback was a feminist and labor activist who was raised in a large Jewish family in Quebec, Canada. In the novel Lea (Linda Leith Publishing, 2022), Ariela Freedman describes a strong, vibrant woman whose life spanned the 20th century. Lea Roback spoke four languages, and wherever she was in the world, she fought for workers’ rights, votes for women, access to contraception and abortion, pay equity, social housing and free education. She was often in the center of world history—in Berlin during the rise of Nazism and Moscow during Stalin’s reign of terror. She was intelligent, passionate about equality, and ultimately worked in factories as a union organizer. The real Lea is remembered by the work of the Lea Roback Foundation, which offers scholarships to women, the Lea Roback Research Centre, which focuses on inequality and public health; and the Maison Parent-Roback, which links community organizations that advance women's rights and social justice causes. Ariela Freedman was born in Brooklyn and has lived in Jerusalem, New York, Calgary, London, and Montreal. She has a Ph.D. from New York University and teaches literature at Concordia's Liberal Arts College in Montreal, where she lives with her family. Her debut novel, Arabic for Beginners (LLP, 2017), was shortlisted for the QWF Concordia University First Book Prize and won the 2018 J. I. Segal Prize for Fiction. Her second novel, A Joy to be Hidden (LLP, 2019), was shortlisted for the Segal Prize in 2020, and was a finalist for the The Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction. When she isn’t reading, writing or teaching, Freedman loves riding her bike, hiking in the countryside, and wandering through the city. For the last two years, she has deeply missed travelling. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

Two guys named Nick Chance, both with clairvoyant dogs named Royo, both inventors living in Pasadena, California – in 1913 and 1993. There’s some magical realism, lots of fascinating historical detail about Pasadena and southern California, and lots of eating. < Back Arroyo Chip Jacobs May 22, 2020 Two guys named Nick Chance, both with clairvoyant dogs named Royo, both inventors living in Pasadena, California – in 1913 and 1993. The original Nick, who starts out working on an ostrich farm, is drawn to the Colorado Street Bridge and manages to meet some of the great personalities of the period: Teddy Roosevelt, Upton Sinclair and Adolphus Busch all meet Nick. He parlays an idea for lighting into a job on the bridge and survives the lethal collapse of one of its arches during construction. Eighty years later, on the anniversary of the bridge’s inauguration, the second Nick Chance is pulled into rectifying the mistakes of the past. Pasadena, which had a millionaire’s row even back then, is nothing like the original, romanticized version of the town. There’s some magical realism, lots of fascinating historical detail about Pasadena and southern California, and lots of eating. Today I talked to Chip Jacobs about his new book Arroyo (Rare Birds Books, 2019) Jacobs is a Los Angeles Times bestselling author and journalist. Chip Jacobs is a Los Angeles Times bestselling author and journalist. His books include the biography Strange As It Seems: the Impossible Life of Gordon Zahler ; the environmental social histories The People's Republic of Chemicals , and the international bestselling Smogtown: the Lung-Burning History of Pollution in Los Angeles (both with William J. Kelly); the dark-humor true crime caper The Ascension of Jerry ; and the story collection, The Vicodin Thieves . Jacobs has also contributed pieces to anthologies, most recently for the bestselling Los Angeles in the 1970s: Weird Scenes Inside the Goldmine . His reporting, which has garnered seven Los Angeles Press Club awards, has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, L.A. Daily News, CNN, The New York Times, Bloomberg, and L.A Weekly, among others. He is currently at work on a follow-up novel and a non-fiction project. Jacobs trusts dogs, plays electric guitar, and is an avid reader, runner, and prankster. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

In The Last Interview, a famous but stressed Israeli writer finds that the only way he can write is by answering a set of interview questions sent from a website. As he answers the questions, the author slowly lets go of his calculated answers and begins to honestly confront his life, his lies, and his mistakes. < Back The Last Interview Eshkol Nevo October 13, 2020 Eshkol Novo's The Last Interview was published in Hebrew in 2018 and was at the top of Israel’s bestseller list for 30 weeks. It is currently on the short list for the Lattes Grinzano Prize in Italy and is longlisted for the prestigious Femina Prize in France. In The Last Interview , a famous but stressed Israeli writer finds that the only way he can write is by answering a set of interview questions sent from a website. As he answers the questions, the author slowly lets go of his calculated answers and begins to honestly confront his life, his lies, and his mistakes. He digs deeply into his past and recalls serious missteps and faulty decisions. Now, his marriage is falling apart, his eldest child wants nothing to do with him, and his best friend is dying. The only time he thinks clearly is while he sits at his computer answering the interview questions that force him to confront himself, no matter where he is in the world. Born in Jerusalem in 1951, Eshkol Nevo studied advertising at the Tirza Granot School and psychology at Tel Aviv University. He owns the largest creative writing school in Israel and is considered the mentor of many upcoming young Israeli writers. His books have been translated into 12 languages, have won several literary prizes, and have sold over a million copies all over the world. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next