< Back The Wild Birds Emily Strelow February 26, 2020 An orphaned young woman disguises herself as a boy in order to escape the dangers of being alone in 1870’s San Francisco. A group of castoffs destroy the bird population of the Farallon Island by stealing and selling their eggs. A young woman raped in the 1980’s struggles to raise her daughter on her own while her unattached best friend becomes a field researcher for the government, counting and monitoring bird populations across the west. The daughter runs away to seek her own path and learns something about her mother, and a wanderer escapes his privileged life to seek his destiny. Everything in this novel is connected to wild birds, the geography of the west, and friendship. And the characters are all tied together by a rare collection of bird eggs. Emily Strelow was born and raised in Oregon’s Willamette Valley, has lived all over the West, and is back living in Portland. For the last decade she’s combined teaching writing with doing seasonal avian field biology with her husband. While doing field jobs, she’s camped and written in remote areas of the desert, mountains and by the ocean. She is a mother to two boys, a naturalist, a writer, and cultivator of sourdough cultures with which she loves baking. The Wild Birds (Rare Bird Books, 2018), her first novel, was a finalist for the Foreword Indies Award for Best Fiction and for the Lambda Literary Award for Bisexual Fiction. It is now available in all formats, and a second book is in the works. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

< Back After the Barricades Jessica Stilling May 23, 2023 Today I talked to Jessica Stilling about her new novel After the Barricades (DX Varos, 2023). After her mother dies in a tragic accident, Anna cleans out her closet and finds a striking painting that she’d never seen before. She also finds a trove of letters from Stefan Terre, a name she’s never heard. She travels to Paris for work and also to learn more about her mother, Bethany, who studied at the Sorbonne in 1968. That was a year of student protests and labor strikes by students and workers demanding better pay, workplace safety, and a more equitable society. Bethany never told Anna about her affair with Stefan, a Romanian Jew who survived the Holocaust, became a painter, and was working as a waiter when she met him in Paris. Now it’s 2019, and Anna wants Stefan to tell her about how her mother once wanted to change the world. Jessica Stilling earned a BA from the New School and an MFA in Creative Writing from the City University of New York. Before she published After the Barricades, she published The Weary god of Ancient Travelers, Between Before and After, The Beekeeper’s Daughter (Bedazzled Ink Press), Betwixt and Between (IG Publishing), Nod, and the Hugo Award nominated young adult Pan Chronicles Series (D.X. Varos). Her short stories have appeared in The Warwick Review, The Hawaii Pacific Review and Wasifiri, and her nonfiction has appeared in The Writer Magazine, Ms. Magazine, and Tor.com. She has worked as an editor at The Global City Press and The Global City Review and has taught creative writing at both high school and university level. She has published young adult fantasy under the name J.M. Stephen, lives in southern Vermont, with her family, which includes a dog, a cat, and many chickens, whose squawking sounds exactly like a T-Rex if you listen closely enough. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

< Back Into the Suffering City Bill LeFurgy July 28, 2020 In Bill LeFurgy's Into the Suffering City: A Novel of Baltimore (High Kicker Books), Sarah Kennecott is a brilliant young doctor who cares deeply about justice for murder victims after her own family is murdered. She’s not like other people; she doesn’t like noises and smells, she doesn’t understand chit chat, and she cannot interpret inflection or nuance. It’s 1909, and the city of Baltimore is filled with gilded mansions and a seedy corrupt, underworld. Sarah struggles to be accepted as a doctor. After getting fired for looking too closely into the killing of a showgirl, she refuses to back down from the investigation and joins forces with a street-smart private detective who is able to access saloons, brothels, and burlesque theaters where Sarah isn’t allowed. Together, they unravel a few secrets that could cost them their lives. Bill LeFurgy is a professional historian who has studied the seamy underbelly of urban life, including drugs, crime, and prostitution, as well as more workaday matters such as streets, buildings, wires, and wharves. He has put his many years of experience into writing gritty historical fiction about Baltimore, his favorite city. Bill has graduate degrees from the University of Maryland and has worked at the Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore City Archives, National Archives and Records Administration, and the Library of Congress. He has learned much from his children and grandchildren, including grace, patience, emotional connection, and the need to welcome different perspectives from those on the autism spectrum or with other personality traits that are undiagnosed, misdiagnosed, or unexplained. Bill has published many books and articles about U.S. history and history sources, including for the Library of Congress, Maryland Historical Magazine , and the U.S. Department of Energy. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

< Back The Past is Never Tiffany Quay Tyson November 16, 2018 It’s a hot August day in 1976, the sun beats down in the Mississippi Delta, and three siblings go swimming in the old, forbidden rock quarry. Everyone knows that something evil and unspeakable once happened there. The youngest child disappears, the quarry is drained, and news of the missing child spreads. As the days and months pass, it becomes clear that Pansy has vanished into thin air. Then older sister Bert graduates from high school. Sure that her little sister is still alive somewhere, she convinces her brother to help find Pansy. Tiffany Quay Tyson’ s debut novel, Three Rivers , was a finalist for both the Colorado Book Award for Literary Fiction and the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Award for Fiction. Her second novel, The Past is Never (Skyhorse Publishing, 2018) is a 2018 Okra Pick. Tiffany was born and raised in Jackson, Mississippi and is a graduate of Delta State University. After college she worked for a brief stint as a newspaper reporter in the Mississippi Delta, where she received the Frank Allen Award for Journalism. She is the recipient of two Heartland Emmy Awards including one for writing for a children’s public television program. She is a faculty member at Lighthouse Writers Workshop and the Lighthouse Young Writers Program in Colorado. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

< Back The Flavia de Luce Mystery Series Alan Bradley October 11, 2019 Alan Bradley ’s first mystery, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie , came out in 2009, and received the Crime Writers’ Association Debut Dagger Award, the Agatha Award, the Barry Award, the Dilys Award, the Arthur Ellis Award, the Macavity Award and the Spotted Owl Award. This book introduced the intrepid 11-year-old protagonist, Flavia de Luce, who lives in an enormous manor house in England, with her widowed father and two sisters. It’s 1950, and England is still rebuilding itself after WWII. Another book has followed each year. Golden Tresses of the Dead , the 10th novel in the series, was released in early 2019, and continues the escapades of now orphaned Flavia, who is being cared for, along with her annoying little cousin Undine, by a staff of servants. Flavia collaborates with the estate gardener, Dogger, who was her father's previous army companion and has a surprising repertoire of talents. Together, they solve whatever crimes pop up in the seemingly peaceful little English town of Bishop’s Lacey. In addition to the Flavia de Luce Mystery Series, Canadian-born author Alan Bradley is the author of many short stories, children's stories, newspaper columns, and the memoir, The Shoebox Bible. He co-authored Ms. Holmes of Baker Street with the late William A.S. Sarjeant. Alan Bradley and his wife live on the Isle of Mann in the middle of the Irish Sea. He began writing the series after retiring from the University of Saskatchewan, where, among other things, he taught television broadcast engineering and designed engineering studios. When not writing, he can be found reading, and often, both take place in his bed. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

< Back Stoking Hope C. K. McDonough December 23, 2021 Stoking Hope (D.X. Varos, 2021), C.K. McDonough’s debut novel, opens in an early 1900’s southwest Pennsylvania coal town. Nineteen-year-old Martha gets pregnant, her father banishes her, and she’s sent to a home for unwed mothers in neighboring West Virginia. She gives birth, and when her daughter Frances is taken from her six years later, Martha agrees to marry her widowed boss with hopes of getting her daughter back. The loveless marriage allows Frances to stay in school and pursue her dream of becoming a chemist, until long-held secrets cut that dream short. Stoking Hope is a family saga that travels through five decades of challenges and heartache with moments of unexpected generosity and joy. The novel culminates with the creation of Kevlar, a life-saving fabric. A Uniontown, Pennsylvania native, C. K. McDonough has a journalism degree from West Virginia University’s Perley Isaac Reed School of Journalism, and twenty years’ experience in the communications industry. She says writing video scripts and advertising copy is fine but writing a novel is bliss! A self-proclaimed history nerd, Caren has turned her love of research and the written word into Stoking Hope, her first novel . When not writing, Caren is reading, devouring books of every genre. She also loves to ski, hike, and garden but her favorite pastime is hanging with her pets. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

< Back Bad Lies Shelby Yastrow and Tony Jacklin November 1, 2018 Questions about freedom of the press, defamation, libel and slander have been in the news quite a bit lately. Bad Lies (Mascot Books, 2017) tells the story of Eddie Bennison, who is over 50 when he makes it into the professional golf circuit. In two years, he wins millions of dollars in endorsements and prize money. Then a leading golf magazine publishes articles that suggest he unfairly tampered with his clubs and used performance-enhancing drugs. Bennison loses all his endorsements and his ability to play the game. His lawyer, Charlie Mayfield, files a libel and slander lawsuit against the magazine and its powerful corporate owner. Then a woman accuses Bennison of sexually assaulting and beating her. While the lawyers on both sides build their arguments and tensions rise, we’re kept guessing right up to the moment when the jury foreman announces the verdict. Lawyer and author Shelby Yastrow , formerly General Counsel and Executive Vice President for McDonald’s Corporation, wrote two previous novels based on civil lawsuits that he litigated, and one non-fiction book about franchising the world’s largest hair-salon franchise. World-famous British professional golfer Tony Jacklin , who won many tournaments and helped popularize golf around the world, was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2002. He is also the author of several autobiographical books about golf. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

< Back Paradise Undone: A Novel of Jonestown Annie Dawid November 14, 2023 Paradise Undone: A Novel of Jonestown by Annie Dawid, (Inkspot Publishing 2023), opens long after 917 people died by drinking cyanide or by lethal injection on November 18, 1978. It’s 2008, and one of the survivors, who made it out earlier that day, is speaking to a reporter on the 30th anniversary of the “Jonestown Massacre.” When Jim Jones and his wife Marceline found Peoples Temple in the 1950s, they wanted to give hope to the poor and disenfranchised of all colors. They wanted to live honest lives earning their bread from the earth. They dreamt of their followers coming together as equals, loving each other as sisters and brothers, and building a commune in the British Guyana jungle. As the years passed, Jim Jones became more autocratic, he bedded his followers and sired children, and although Marceline hated what their marriage had become, she still loved him. Even unto death. Annie Dawid writes and teaches online in very rural Colorado, where she also makes rugs and assemblages as well as plays tennis and Scrabble. For the last 7 years, she’s taught in the master’s creative writing program for University College, University of Denver. She received her Ph.D. in 1989 from the University of Denver’s English Dept. in Creative Writing. For 15 years, she was professor of English and Creative Writing director at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, OR. Her last book, Put Off My Sackcloth: Essays, came out from The Humble Essayist Press in 2021. Her first book, York Ferry: A Novel , Cane Hill Press, 1993, second printing, was positively reviewed in The New York Times Book Review and the Los Angeles Times . It won the 2016 International Rubery Award in Fiction. Her second book was Lily in the Desert: Stories , Carnegie-Mellon University Press, 2001, followed by And Darkness Was Under His Feet: Stories of a Family , Litchfield Review Press, 2009, winner of their inaugural short story collection prize. In 2017, Finishing Line Press published her chapbook, Anatomie of the World: Poems . Along the way, her 10-minute drama, Gun Play, won the New Rocky Mountain Voices Contest and was performed in Westcliffe, Colorado. But most of the last 19 years have been devoted to researching, writing, revising, and searching for a publisher for her Jonestown novel, rewarded, at last, by Inkspot Publishing of the UK and published on the 45th anniversary of the Jonestown massacre. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

< Back Cora's Kitchen Kimberly Garrett Brown October 27, 2022 Cora’s Kitchen by Kimberly Garrett Brown (Inanna Publications 2022) is a striking novel told in letters, journal entries, and a series of stories written by an educated young Black mother, wife, and librarian. 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. Cora is ambitious, but loyal, and stepping in to help a family member leads to a series of events that could destroy her life. She’s ultimately surprised to find herself longing to be back in her tiny apartment cooking for her own family, raising her kids, and working in the library stacks. The experience gives her the fortitude to plunge ahead as a writer. KIMBERLY GARRETT BROWN is Publisher and Executive Editor of Minerva Rising Press. Her work has appeared in Black Lives Have Always Mattered: A Collection of Essays, Poems and Personal Narratives, The Feminine Collective, Compass Literary Magazine, Today’s Chicago Woman, Chicago Tribune, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. Her first novel, Cora’s Kitchen, was published by Inanna Publications in September 2022. It was a finalist in the 2018 William Faulkner – William Wisdom Creative Writing Competition and the 2016 Louise Meriwether First Book Prize. She earned her MFA in creative writing at Goddard College. When she’s not writing, Brown loves taking pictures, painting, and drawing. She has three adult children and currently lives in Boca Raton, Florida, with her husband and pampered Shih Tzu. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

< Back Reinhardt's Garden Mark Haber April 1, 2020 Ten men have already died while searching the jungles of Uruguay for a reclusive writer, Emiliano Gomez Carrasquilla, who Jacov Reinhardt believes knows the key to understanding melancholy. Carried in circles through the jungle on a stretcher, the narrator recalls how Reinhardt fueled himself with copious amounts of cocaine, built himself an outrageous castle with fake walls and trap doors, and cared nothing for the safety of those those around him, including Ulrich the dog killer, Sonja the one-legged former prostitute, and the unnamed narrator himself. The only thing that really mattered to Reinhardt, according to his amanuensis, was his search for the essence of melancholy. Mark Haber is the author of Reinhardt's Garden (Coffee House Press, 2019). He was born in Washington DC and grew up in Florida. His first collection of stories, Deathbed Conversions , was translated into Spanish in a bilingual edition as Melville’s Beard. His debut novel, Reinhardt’s Garden was longlisted for the 2020 PEN/Hemingway Award for a Debut Novel and was listed as one of the Texas Observer ’s Best Texas Books of the Decade. He lives in Houston, Texas, loves reading and Vietnamese soup, and is operations manager and a bookseller at Brazos Bookstore in Houston. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

< Back The Red Shirt Corey Sobel October 5, 2020 At first, Miles Furling plays football to fit in. By eighth grade he realizes that he is both gay and a football player. After an unsuccessful attempt at honesty, he hides who he is and puts all his energy into being a successful high school linebacker. Now it’s the early 2000’s, and Miles earns a full football scholarship to King College, which is known as having the worst Division One football program and one of the best academic programs In the country. When he arrives for the recruiting visit, Miles is shocked to hear one of the country’s top recruits, the brilliant Reshawn McCoy, taking what looks like an illegal bribe. Nobody knows why he chose King, but Reshawn, who is assigned as Miles’s roommate, refuses to talk about it. Turns out he’s also struggling to be something he’s not and focuses on his research about the school’s slave-owning founders. The decisions they make will change both their lives. Corey Sobel is a graduate of Duke University, where he was a scholarship football player and received the Anne Flexner Award for Fiction and the Reynolds Price Award for Scriptwriting. He has reported on human rights abuses in Burma, served as an HIV/AIDS researcher in Kenya, and consulted for the United Nations and other humanitarian organizations. The Red Shirt (UP of Kentucky, 2020), his debut novel, was longlisted for the 2020 Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize. He has written for numerous publications, including HuffPost, Esquire.com, and Chapel Hill News . He lives in Brooklyn, New York with his wife, his cat, and his dog, and works at writing research reports for humanitarian organizations. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

< Back At the End of the World, Turn Left Zhanna Slor June 7, 2022 Today I talked to Zhanna Slor about her novel At the End of the World, Turn Left (Agora Books, 2021). 19-year-old Anna’s parents won’t pay her college tuition if she studies art, the one thing she loves most. She’s been drifting from one class to another, one boyfriend to another, and can’t stand being stuck in Milwaukee. When she receives an online message from a woman in Ukraine claiming to be a long-lost sister, Anna responds despite all the warnings that she’s being scammed. She also meets a handsome ‘train-hopper’ who lures her into his risk-filled life. Anna’s sister Masha, a linguist who has been happily living in Israel, receives a one-way ticket from her father when it becomes apparent that Anna has disappeared without leaving a message. Masha hacks into Anna’s computer and starts following the trail – had she flown to Ukraine? Hopped a train with her blue-haired druggie boyfriend? And why was she wanted for questioning by the police? This is a novel about linguistics, identity, and the meaning of home, especially for the children of immigrants. Zhanna Slor was born in the former Soviet Union and moved to the Midwest in the early 1990s. She completed her undergraduate degree at University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, and her master’s degree at DePaul University. She has been published in many literary magazines, including Ninth Letter, Another Chicago Magazine, and Michigan Quarterly Review, as well as contributing to the popular news publication The Forward. Her debut novel, At the End of the World, Turn Left, was called "elegant and authentic" by NPR and named by Booklist as one of the "Top Ten Crime Debuts" of 2021. Her second novel, Breakfall, a mystery/thriller set in Chicago, is due out in Spring 2023. When she’s not writing, Zhanna spends most of her free time chasing her three-year-old daughter or doing Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next