< Back Victory Colony, 1950 Bhaswati Ghosh July 12, 2022 Victory Colony, 1950 (Yoda Press, 2020) by Bhaswati Ghosh is a story of resilience about East Pakistani refugees who were forced to leave their homes in East Pakistan because of their Hindu faith. After Amala’s parent are killed in the violence following the partition of India in 1947, she and her brother manage to survive until they reach Calcutta. Within moments of disembarking from their train, Amala loses Kartik, and comes close to being hauled off by groping policemen. She’s saved by several young volunteers who steer Amala away and into a refugee camp. Manas, a student and the volunteer leader, comes from a privileged, wealthy family that doesn’t approve of fraternizing with refugees. But he cares about these poverty-stricken people, especially Amala. When conditions start deteriorating in the refugee camp, a group men and women manage to occupy a vacant plot of land nearby. There they begin to rebuild their lives with backbreaking work, in a society of their own making. Bhaswati Ghosh has written and translated fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from Bengali into English, and is the recipient of the Charles Wallace Trust Fellowship for Translation, for My Days with Ramkinkar Baij . Her writing has appeared in several literary journals including Literary Shanghai, HELD, Cargo Literary, Pithead Chapel, Warscapes, The Maynard as well as Indian Express, Scroll, The Wire, and the Dhaka Tribune. Bhaswati lives in Ontario, Canada and is currently working on a nonfiction book on New Delhi, India. The pandemic-induced lockdown inculcated a strange new interest -- watching a day-in-the-life vlogs of single Asian women -- mostly Japanese and South Korean. The presenters record their everyday lives -- cooking, cleaning, working at home or office; the unhurried ordinariness and simplicity of the videos helps Bhaswati relax and stay grounded even as the world keeps spinning into chaos and uncertainty. She also likes to sing, birdwatch, and explore new cuisines. Victory Colony 1950 is her debut novel. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

< Back The Heart of it All Christian Kiefer September 19, 2023 In The Heart of It All (Melville House, 2023), Christian Kiefer imagines a group of factory workers and their families living in a once vibrant Ohio town during the Trump era. The factory is the only place to work outside of Walmart, the grocery store, or a fast-food chain, and it’s owned by Mr. Marwat, a Pakistani man whose wife helps in the office, while their teenagers embrace American life. The family is upended when Mr. Marwat’s parents move in. The factory foreman, Tom Bailey, and his family’s lives are upended when their sick baby dies. Their daughter Janey’s life is upended when she befriends the only Black young man in the town. Mr. Marwat’s secretary Mary Lou’s life is upended when her mother moves into a nursing home and dies. All of their struggles are exacerbated by small injustices but eased by small kindnesses in this sweet and thoughtful glimpse into the lives of people just trying to get by. CHRISTIAN KIEFER’s novels have appeared on best of the year lists from Kirkus , Publishers Weekly, and Booklist and have received rave reviews in The Washington Post, Oprah.com, the San Francisco Chronicle, Brooklyn Rain, Library Journal, Huffington Post , and elsewhere. He is the author of the novels The Infinite Tides, The Animals, Phantoms, and the novella One Day Soon Time Will Have No Place Left to Hide. Christian is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize for his short fiction and has enjoyed a long second career in music, under the auspices of which he has collaborated with members of Smog, Pedro the Lion, DNA, 7 Seconds, John Zorn’s Naked City, Sun Kil Moon, Boxhead Ensemble, Califone, Cake, Kronos Quartet, Wilco, Low, Fun, Anathallo, and The Band, among many others. He holds a Ph.D. in American literature from the University of California at Davis and has served as contributing editor for Zyzzyva, fiction reader for VQR, and as the West Coast editor for The Paris Review . He teaches at American River College in Sacramento and is the Director of the Ashland University MFA. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

< Back Where My Body Ends and the World Begins Tony Romano August 9, 2018 Where My Body Ends and the World Begins (Allium Press, 2017) imagines what it might have been like for one of the survivors of a tragic fire that took place on December 1, 1958, in a Catholic school on Chicago’s west side. The fire broke out just before the end of the day at Our Lady of the Angels School and went unnoticed for a critical amount of time. Ninety-two children and three nuns were killed. The ‘Angels’ fire is still considered to be one of Chicago’s most horrendous tragedies. In his book, author Tony Romano imagines twenty-year old Anthony Lazzaro, who along with his best friend Maryann, survived the fire. The story opens with Anthony, suffering from an unnamed mental illness. He deliberately breaks his own leg, which had started to feel foreign to his body. Lipschultz, the retired cop who lives next door, thinks Anthony may have set the fire and that his strange behavior is just another sign of his guilt. Since the fire, Anthony’s family has fallen apart – his father disappears, and his mother takes a job far from home. In this beautifully-written, sensitive novel, Tony Romano considers how trauma can be overcome through the love of family and community. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

Gluten-Free Recipes to Die For Dips and Sauces, Vegan, Vegetarian, Gluten Free Spinach & Green Pea Dip/Sauce Gorgeous color, bright flavor, and filled with nutrients! Read Recipe Entrees, Vegetarian, Gluten Free, Soup Chilled Minty Cucumber-Melon Soup The perfect and refreshing snack for a hot day! Read Recipe Gluten Free, Vegan, Baking Chocolate Hamantaschen These are hamantaschen for grown-ups. Not too sweet; just right. Read Recipe Muffins and Breads, Gluten Free, Baking, Breakfast Gluten-Free Pancakes We were desperate for pancakes so I tweaked another recipe I was working on to make these. Read Recipe Gluten Free, Cookies and Brownies Pistachio Tahini Chocolate Chip Cookies It's hard to resist snagging these from the cookie sheet while they cool! Read Recipe Dips and Sauces, Vegan, Gluten Free, Vegetarian Easy Hummus I make this version of hummus when I’m out of tahini. Read Recipe Dips and Sauces, Gluten Free, Vegetarian, Vegan Green Bean and Walnut Spread Alene was proud of the recipe that she invented. Read Recipe Gluten Free, Vegetarian, Baking, Cookies and Brownies, Vegan Ginger-Molasses Cookies G.F. V. "Would you like a pot of chamomile tea?" Read Recipe Dips and Sauces, Vegetarian, Gluten Free, Vegan Guacamole Salad In last week's grocery order I forgot tortilla chips and ate this with a spoon! Read Recipe 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 Entrees, Gluten Free Dover Sole with Roasted Butternut Squash and Capers A perfect meal for a date night in! Read Recipe Muffins and Breads, Gluten Free, Vegetarian, Baking, Vegan Gluten-Free/Nut Free/Vegan Banana Bread The recipes uses 2 bananas and a whole small seed apple. Read Recipe Gluten Free, Vegetarian, Dips and Sauces, Vegan Edamame – Avocado Dip Alene pulled out her old blender and made an edamame/avocado dip followed by a kale and parsley... 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 Soup, Vegetarian, Gluten Free, Entrees, Vegan Alene’s White Gazpacho She blended a white gazpacho and served it with homemade rolls for lunch, then let the kids lie in her bed watching... Read Recipe Entrees, Gluten Free Pecan-Pistachio Chicken Breasts This is a versatile recipe – no pecans in the house? Use only pistachios. Read Recipe Gluten Free, Vegan, Cookies and Brownies Peanut or Almond-Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies Who doesn't love freshly baked chocolate chip cookies? Read Recipe Muffins and Breads, Gluten Free Fudgy Chocolate Butternut Squash Muffins No dairy, low-sugar, healthful, delicious! Read Recipe All Recipes Baking Breakfast Cakes, Pies, & Icing Cookies & Brownies Dips & Sauces Entrees Gluten-Free Muffins & Breads Soup Vegan Vegetarian Load More

< Back This is How it Always Is Laurie Frankel December 10, 2018 In her new novel This is How it Always Is (Flatiron Books, 2017), Laurie Frankel tells the story of the Walsh-Adams family and how they grapple with the youngest child, the fifth son, who announces at age three that he wants to be a girl. While his four older brothers revel in typical boy behavior, Claude, who decides her name is now Poppy, wears dresses and purses to school. Local homophobia pushes the Walsh-Adams family to leave their big old farmhouse in Madison, WI. for a smaller home in Seattle. There, they decide to keep Poppy’s trans status a family secret. When Poppy is outed, her mother takes leave from her job and travels across the world to help her daughter figure out who she wants to be. Laurie Frankel is the New York Times bestselling, award-winning author of three novels. Her writing has also appeared in the New York Times , the Guardian , Publisher's Weekly , People magazine, Lit Hub , the Sydney Morning Herald , and other publications. She is the recipient of the Washington State Book Award and the Endeavor Award. Her novels have been translated into more than twenty-five languages and been optioned for film and TV. A former college professor, she now writes full-time. She was recently named one of the 50 Most Influential Women in Seattle where she lives with her family and makes good soup. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

< Back Hour of the Assassin Matthew Quirk April 24, 2020 After a decade spent protecting public officials, Nick Averose has the unique ability to think like an assassin. Now he works as a red-teamer, who tests security systems to find vulnerabilities. His latest assignment, to assess the security of a former CIA director’s home, goes horribly wrong, and Nick gets entangled in a vicious crime that rocks Washington D.C. He knows he’s been framed, and now they’re out to kill him. But who are they, and what do they want? Today I spoke with Matthew Quirk about his new book Hour of the Assassin (William Morrow, 2020). Quirk is the New York Times bestselling author of The 500, The Directive, Cold Barrel Zero , and Dead Man Switch . He studied history and literature at Harvard College and spent five years at The Atlantic reporting on crime, private military contractors, terrorism prosecutions, and international gangs. His first novel was nominated for an Edgar Award, and he lives in San Diego, California. When he is not writing, he spends his time hiking, skiing, and surfing. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

< Back How Fires End Marco Rafalà May 12, 2020 In a sad but loving tribute to his Sicilian-Italian heritage, Marco Rafala ’s debut novel How Fires End (Little A, 2019) centers on the haunting legacy of WWII on the people of a small Sicilian village. It’s the summer of 1943 and an unexploded mortar shell kills 9-year-old Salvatore’s twin brothers. His faith is destroyed, and his family unravels, fueling fear that the Vassallo name is cursed. Salvatore and his sister, Nella, accept the help of a fascist Italian soldier, Vincenzo, who accompanies them to a new life in America. But the three of them make the choice to keep their secrets hidden, and years later in America, Salvatore’s son, David, is swept up in the chaotic aftermath of their hidden pasts. This is a story about loyalty, family, and forgiveness. Marco Rafalà is a first-generation Sicilian American, novelist, musician, and writer for award-winning tabletop role-playing games (e.g. The One Ring). He earned his MFA in fiction from The New School and is a co-curator of the Guerrilla Lit Reading Series in New York City. His fiction and non-fiction have appeared in the Bellevue Literary Review and LitHub. Born in Middletown, Connecticut, he now lives in Brooklyn, New York. And when not working, reading or writing, Rafalà loves walking in the cemetery with his partner. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

< Back Lost in Oaxaca Jessica Winters Mireles July 15, 2020 After an injury to her hand derails her promising concert career, Camille retreats to her mother’s house and teaches piano to mostly desultory students. The years pass, and she finds Graciela, the talented daughter of her mother’s Mexican housekeeper, and Camille focuses on preparing her to live the life she herself was unable to live. Graciela has just won a prestigious piano competition and the chance to jump start her career, but two weeks before she’s supposed to perform with the LA Philharmonic, she disappears. Camille is determined to find her and bring her back before she squanders the opportunity of a lifetime, but a bus accident on route to Graciela’s family village outside of Oaxaca leaves her alone, unable to speak the indigenous language, and without a passport, money, or clothes. Camille, who grew up privileged, finally starts to learn just what it really means to be hungry. Born and raised in Santa Barbara, California, Jessica Winters Mireles holds a degree in piano performance from USC. After graduating, she began her career as a piano teacher and performer. Four children and a studio of over forty piano students later, Jessica’s life changed drastically when her youngest daughter was diagnosed with leukemia at the age of two; she soon decided that life was too short to give up on her dreams of becoming a writer, and after five years of carving out some time each day from her busy schedule, she finished Lost in Oaxaca (She Writes Press, 2020). Jessica’s work has been published in GreenPrints and Mothering magazines. She also knows quite a bit about Oaxaca, as her husband is an indigenous Zapotec man from the highlands of Oaxaca and is a great source of inspiration. She lives with her husband and family in Santa Barbara and has transformed her front yard into an English Garden.d Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

< Back American Scholar Patrick E. Horrigan September 12, 2023 Patrick Horrigan’s novel, American Scholar (Lethe Press 2023) centers on James (Jimmy) Fitzgerald, who teaches American Literature at a prestigious university, is in a happy (open) marriage that allows him to enjoy a much younger boyfriend, and has just published a novel about literary critic, Harvard Professor of History and Literature, F.O. Matthiesen, who was forced to hide his love for artist Russell Cheney during a time before homosexual love and marriage were accepted. The sister of Jimmy’s first serious boyfriend shows up at a book signing for Jimmy’s new novel and hands him a letter that sends him spinning back to memories of the first man he ever loved. James describes his sexual awakening and recalls haunting moments with Gregory, whose self-destructive personality was part of Jimmy’s impetus for writing American Scholar. Horrigan’s novel, which weaves in the study of Queer Theory, Jimmy’s sexual awakening, and fears of the AIDS virus then sweeping across the globe. Horrigan whips back and forth from that difficult time to 2016, when his now middle-aged protagonist is now a professor and published author, but political polarization following the presidential election has inspired new fears throughout the gay community. Born and raised in Reading, Pennsylvania, Patrick E. Horrigan received his BA from The Catholic University of America and his PhD from Columbia University. He is the author of the novel Pennsylvania Station (Lethe Press; Indie Book Award finalist for best LGBTQ2 fiction) and the novel Portraits at an Exhibition (Lethe Press; winner of the Dana Award for fiction as well as the Mary Lynn Kotz Art-in-Literature Award, sponsored by the Library of Virginia and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts). His other works include the memoir Widescreen Dreams: Growing up Gay at the Movies (University of Wisconsin Press), the play Messages for Gary: A Drama in Voicemail , and (with Eduardo Leanez) the solo show “You Are Confused”! He has written artists’ catalogue essays for Thion’s LIMI-TATE: DRAWINGS OF LIFE AND DREAMS (cueB Gallery, London) and Ernesto Pujol’s LOSS OF FAITH (Galeria Ramis Barquet, New York). His essay “The Inner Life of Ordinary People” appears in Anthony Enns’ and Christopher R. Smit’s “Screening Disability: Essays on Cinema and Disability” (University Press of America). Horrigan and Eduardo Leanez are the hosts of “Actors with Accents”, a recurring variety show in Manhattan. Winner of Long Island University’s David Newton Award for Excellence in Teaching, he taught literature for twenty-five years at LIU Brooklyn. He has played the piano throughout his life and currently works as a tour guide at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, where he lives. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

< 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

< 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

< 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