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

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

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

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

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

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

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

< Back The Book of Jeremiah Julie Zuckerman May 27, 2019 Julie Zuckerman ’s moving and engrossing debut novel-in-stories, The Book of Jeremiah (Press 53, 2019), tells the story of awkward but endearing Jeremiah Gerstler—the son of immigrants, brilliant political science professor, husband, and father. Jeremiah has yearned for respect and acceptance his entire life, and no matter his success, he still strives for more. As a boy, he was feisty and irreverent and constantly compared to his sweet and well-behaved older brother, Lenny. At the university, he worries he is a token hire. Occasionally, he’s combative with colleagues, especially as he ages. But there is a sweetness to Gerstler, too, and an abiding loyalty and affection for those he loves. When he can overcome his worst impulses, his moments of humility become among the best measures of his achievements. Spanning eight decades and interwoven with the Jewish experience of the 20th century, Julie Zuckerman charts Jeremiah’s life from boyhood, through service in WWII, to marriage and children, a professorship and finally retirement, with compassion, honesty, and a respect that even Gerstler himself would find touching. Julie’s fiction and non-fiction has appeared in a variety of publications, including The SFWP Quarterly, The MacGuffin, Salt Hill, Sixfold, The Coil, Ellipsis, MoonPark Review and others. A native of Connecticut, she lives in Modiin, Israel, with her husband and four children. The Book of Jeremiah was the runner-up for the 2018 Press 53 Award for Short Fiction. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

< Back Price of Passage by Larry F. Sommers August 30, 2022 Price of Passage: A Tale of Immigration and Liberation (DX Varos, 2022), Larry Sommers opens in 1853 in Norway, where only firstborn sons inherited their father’s land and estate. Other children had to fend for themselves. Anders realizes that the only way he can live a life of honor is to flee to America. He escapes his uncle’s home, hides in a boat builder’s barn, and is nearly killed by Maria, a childhood friend. But they talk, and he tells her about his plans to be a farmer in southern Illinois. Anders nearly ruins his chance of reaching Illinois when he tries to stop someone from apprehending a runaway slave. It’s a crime punishable by jail time and a hefty fine, but luckily, a kind gentleman intervenes and ends up hiring Anders to help on his farm. When Daniel, the runaway slave, turns up a few years later, Daniel and Maria hide him in their barn. This is a novel about immigrants, home, slavery, freedom and living a life of honor. Larry F. Sommers is a Wisconsin writer of historical fiction, seeking fresh meanings in our common past. He won Honorable Mention in The Saturday Evening Post’s 2018 Great American Story Contest for “The Lion’s Den,” a tale of childhood in the 1950s, and has published other, similar stories in the online version of The Saturday Evening Post. He served as editor of The Congregationalist, a national church-related quarterly magazine, from 2009 to 2016 and previously worked 23 years in the Public Affairs Office of the Wisconsin National Guard/Wisconsin Emergency Management as a writer, editor, photographer, writing coach, and public affairs consultant in a fast-paced environment punctuated by crisis communication events. A Vietnam-era veteran of the U.S. Air Force, he is active in church work and is a member of the Sons of Norway and two local writers’ critique groups. He lives in Madison, Wisconsin, with his wife and dog. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

< Back What You Could Have Won Rachel Genn November 4, 2020 After Henry Sinclair’s supervisor steals his research, he tries to rejuvenate his career by turning his girlfriend into a drug experiment. Astrid is a rising young singer. From her New York City apartment to a rehabilitation facility in Paris and a nudist camp on the Greek island of Antiparos, she struggles between her passion for Henry and her need to make her own decisions. Throughout this non-linear story, Astrid and Henry watch the box set of Sopranos, each affected differently by the ongoing violence and Tony Soprano’s bullying. Ultimately, What You Could Have Won (And Other Stories, 2020) is a novel about resilience and self-discovery in the face of control. Rachel Genn is a senior lecturer at the Manchester Writing School/School of Digital Arts and is currently creating a course on the neuroscience of Reverie. She earned a PhD in Psychopharmacology from the University of Durham, worked some years as a neuroscientist, and completed an MA in Writing at the Sheffield Hallam University, after which she completed her first novel, The Cure<, 2011. In 2016, Genn was a Leverhulme Artist-in-Residence, and she has written for Granta, 3AM, and Hotel Magazine. She lives in Sheffield after spending a good deal of her academic career in North America/Canada with a Royal Society Fellowship to the University of British Columbia, where she studied the neuroanatomy and neurochemistry of motivated behaviors. On her return to the UK she worked on the genetic bases of attentional mechanisms at the Institute of Psychiatry of King’s College in London. Genn follows a Sufi path, and her short documentary PING PONG SUFI premiered in 2020 at the Muslim Film Festival in Sydney, Australia. She has two daughters Esther and Ingrid (to whom this novel is dedicated “that they may know their own power”). She enjoys outdoor swimming, hill walking and snowboarding. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

< Back The Shining Mountains Alix Christie December 5, 2023 Angus McDonald had to escape from Scotland or risk arrest. In 1838, he contracted with the Hudson Bay Company to trade in the Pacific Northwest. There he discovers majestic mountains, raging rivers, and buffalo. He meets and marries Catherine, who is related to Nez Perce royalty, and together they face competing claims of British fur traders and gold seekers, settlers and Native Americans who’ve lives for thousands of years in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains. The real Angus McDonald left essays and articles, and newspaper clippings and official letters that describe his friendships, horses, passion for his wife, his trajectory as a trader and interpreter, and the rise and fall of the people he’s come to love. The Shining Mountains (High Road Books, 2023) is a brilliant, fictional exploration of a family’s clash between colonial expansion and native culture, based on the author’s blended Scottish and Nez Pierce ancestors. Alix Christie, a direct descendant of Angus McDonald’s brother Duncan, grew up in California, Montana and British Columbia. She is a prize-winning journalist and author of novels, reportage, and short stories. Her debut novel, “Gutenberg’s Apprentice,” the story of the making of the Gutenberg Bible, was shortlisted for the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award, and long listed for the International Dublin Literary Prize. Her story “Everychild” won a Pushcart Prize and the 2021 Jeffrey E. Smith Editor’s Prize in fiction from The Missouri Review. As a longtime foreign correspondent based in England, France, and Germany, she has written numerous articles and stories set in other places and times, including “The Dacha,” a finalist for the 2016 Sunday Times (UK) Short Story Award. A letterpress printer and open water swimmer, she currently lives in Berlin, Germany, where she covers culture for The Economist. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

< Back Tell Me One Thing Kerri Schlottman February 7, 2023 Today I talked to Kerri Schlottman about her new novel Tell Me One Thing (Regal House Publishing, 2023). Quinn and a friend are driving from New York City to Pennsylvania when she sees 9-year-old Lulu sitting on a trucker’s lap, smoking a cigarette. At the truck stop for her friend to score drugs, Quinn takes an astounding picture and then leaves, disappointing Lulu, who thinks maybe people will see the picture and help her. Quinn goes on to live the heady life of a successful photographer while Lulu is confronted with various kinds of abuse and dysfunction. Despite the differences in their lives, both women experience moments of great joy, and significant amounts of despair This is a novel about haves and have-nots, those who find love and those who don’t, how the AIDS epidemic fractured New York’s gay community, and the confusing world of art. Kerri Schlottman’s writing has placed second in the Dillydoun International Fiction Prize, been longlisted for the Dzanc Books Prize for Fiction, and was a 2021 University of New Orleans Press Lab Prize semifinalist. For the past 20 years, Kerri has worked to support artists, performers, and writers in creating new projects, most recently at Creative Capital in New York City where she helped fund projects by authors Paul Beatty, Maggie Nelson, Percival Everett, and Jesse Ball. Previously, Kerri has been a factory worker, a massage therapist, and taught art to incarcerated youth. Kerri was born and raised in Southeast Detroit where she earned her graduate degree in English from Wayne State University. She lives in the New York City area with her husband and dog and enjoys running, yoga, and meditation. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next