The podcast that takes us beyond the pages of a book and into the mind of the author.
Available wherever you listen to your podcasts.
Jennie Ogilvie always knew there was something different about her. She has a deep connection with spirit and has catapulted to the top as Alberta’s favourite medium. Her debut book, Inside my Head, is a combination of memoir and Chicken Soup for the Soul. Within its pages, readers are taken on a journey to recover from grief, move through death with ease and grace, and carve out a better life for the time they still have.
Visit Jennie’s website.
Watch the pilot episode of her series.
I asked past guests to share the best book they read over the past year. I have a few of my own that I added to the list, so get busy with your Goodreads list.
Links to the podcast episodes for each guest:
Kirsten Miller has written for Middle Grade and Young Adult, but her latest novel, The Change, pushed her out of her comfort zone and into the adult market, specifically, the older, menopausal one.
James Fell is the author of his own rules. He does everything writers are told not to, and it works beautifully every single time. Does he have the Midas touch? Maybe. Can he turn a dying career into syndicated fitness column? For sure. Can he make history interesting? Fuck yes.
Follow James (and buy a MF’ing book) on Substack.
Read about his recent ADHD diagnosis.
Read his most popular post on Facebook.
I had a fantastic and fun interview with Cass and Meredith from The Clopen Effect: A Retail Podcast. They interviewed me by phone to chat about my latest memoir, Spent: My Accidental Career in Retail. We giggled over the ridiculousness that happens in the retail world. We conspired over the tricks we use to get through the day. It was a nice opportunity for me to talk with people who are still in the retail world and who loved my book. It made them feel seen, they said.
Order your copy here.
Listen to The Clopen Effect.
Ask anyone who has ever read a book by Jeff Zentner and they will tell you how the book broke them, or made their lives better, or put them on a different course. It’s not just young adults who connect with his novels. Adults (myself included) really respond to his stories as well. In every book, Jeff says he ensures his characters have someone to love and someone who loves them. That is the core of every human being and it’s why his books are such compelling reads. Learn more about Jeff on his website.
Jenny L Howe’s debut novel is one you’ll fall in love with, literally. Her main character, Allison, mirrors some of the challenges Jenny faced in her own life – professionally, but not necessarily romantically. Allison, who is, as Jenny would say, unapologetically fat, finds herself entangled with an on-again, off-again lover. Let the games begin! In this episode, we talk about her agent and publication journey, the HEA (Happily Ever After), and why we need more diverse characters in romantic comedy novels, and many other topics.
Visit Jenny’s website.
Real Bad Things will leave with some real bad dreams. At least it did for me. To say I LOVED this book is a gross misrepresentation of just how deep I fell. It was my first 5-star read of 2022 and I knew before I was halfway done that I wanted to interview the author, Kelly J Ford. We cover a lot of topics in this episode: the agent journey, GritLit/Southern Gothic/Southern Noir, LGBTQ+ genre, her process (helo, playlists!) and much more.
Find more GritLit on Goodreads.
Read this fantastic piece by Kelly about her author journey (and all the relentless self-doubt involved).
Support the podcast on Patreon.
Both of Clare Pooley’s novels do a fantastic job of capturing what it is to be authentically human. It’s ironic, given that she wrote a blog about her alcoholism anonymously for years. She is a master at multiple character narratives; The Authenticity Project and Iona Iverson’s Rules for Commuting are heartwarming, with characters you hate and love and back again.
In this episode, Clare shares what led her to start the Mommy was a Secret Drinker blog, her journey to publication, managing multiple characters, and how she waled away from a complete 90,000 word manuscript.
Watch her TedX talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/clare_pooley_making_sober_less_shameful
Read about the abandoned novel: https://lithub.com/clare-pooley-on-writerly-perseverance-and-knowing-when-to-give-up/
Learn more about Clare: https://clarepooley.com/
Support the podcast: www.patreon.com/WWYT
The love Beth Duke holds for her home state of Alabama is abundantly clear in her novels. Through It All Comes Back to You and Tapestry, she brings the south to life through her characters, their dialogue and the way they live. She charmed me through her novels and through this conversation.
She shares her experiences with book clubs, agents and the traditional publishing world and is candid about how she found INCREDIBLE success as an independent author.
Find her books on her website.
Mentions in this episode:
Learn more about the Marshall Space Centre.
Canadian sources for book subscription boxes:
https://sweetreadsbox.com/pages/subscription-options
Support this podcast on Patreon.
Kelly DeVos is the author of 5 young adult novels. She has a remarkable gift for tapping into the fears and insecurities of teenagers, but it’s the dark side of her characters that really shines. The young women who are her main characters are determined, saucy and smart- mouthed. It’s hard not to see your younger self in the pages of her novels.
In this episode, we talk about strong YA characters, her journey to publication and the not always nice feedback.
Follow her on Twitter and Instagram.
Learn more about Trixie Belden.
Support the podcast on Patreon
Pat Duckworth was caught off guard by the need to share what she knows about menopause. After time at a retreat, she discovered she did have a book in her, trying to get out. Actually, she had five books waiting to see the light of day. Over the UK, where she lives and works, Pat has become the go-to expert on managing menopause symptoms using mind/body techniques. She is also leading the way for workplace awareness, helping businesses understand how to keep menopausal women working and making accommodations for their changing needs.
Read about the menopause discrimination in the workplace:
https://hbr.org/2020/02/its-time-to-start-talking-about-menopause-at-work
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-we-should-be-talking-about-menopause-at-work/
Support the podcast by becoming a patron.
When you first meet Marci Warhaft, you immediately recognize a woman who is confident in who she is. She is fun and outgoing. She dances on TikTok. She is never afraid to take a chance. That’s the Marci I’ve known for a decade. But when I picked up The Good Stripper, I was stunned with what I found in those pages: a series of traumatic events, the struggle with an eating disorder, a sex life she really didn’t want, and a lifestyle not commonly associated with motherhood.
The Good Stripper is so candid, I felt uncomfortable learning these things about my friend. It proved that you never know what is happening behind closed doors or in someone’s head. In this episode we talk about Marci’s life, her experience writing the book, and how she manages the feedback and fallout common when writing memoir.
Young Adult author Christina Kilbourne has tackled some tough topics in her novels: suicide, homelessness, and mental health, to name a few. The Limitless Sky, a dystopian YA novel set 700 years in the future was a complete departure from what she is accustomed to writing. In this episode, we discuss her process, her challenges and and why she decided to switch gears to dystopian fiction.
Learn more about Christina on her website.
Watch the video mentioned in the podcast.
Support the podcast through Patreon.
H.N. Khan was going to be a lawyer, until he realized there were other choices he could make. His journey took a very different turn, exposing and connecting HN Khan to the startup and tech world. As his career as a tech writer emerged and evolved, Humayun enrolled in Humber’s writing program. That program led him to new connections in the writing world, laying the groundwork for Wrong Side of the Court.
Learn more about H.N. Khan by visiting his website.
Is this was an episode of Who Would Win: Dinosaurs or Cephalopods, the squids would come out on top. While dinosaurs fossils get all the glory, it’s the cephalopod fossils who have been doing all the work of telling the story of survival. After already surviving five (5!!!) mass extinctions, the cephalopods are likely the ocean creatures that will survive the next one. They are truly the Monarchs of the Sea, rising to the top from the deepest, darkest places of the sea.
In this episode, I talk to author Danna Staff whose book examines the fossil records of cephalpods – squid, octopus and cuttlefish. We talk about their evolution, their survival skills, the challenges of studying creatures of the sea, and how they have managed to stick around this blue marble for so long.
Watch the EVNautilus YouTube videos.
The latest cephalopod (maybe) discovery.
Jennifer Sommersby started writing rom-coms (romantic comedies) under the pseudonym of Eliza Gordon as she was in the waiting game of edits/revisions/publication for a young adult novel. She has penned 8 books under that name, the latest a three-part series – Planet Lara. Welcome to Planet Lara is an enviromance – environmental romance – with excellent characters (I hated Lara for most of the book) and incidents that keep you turning pages.
In this episode, we talk about Jennifer’s author journey, writing unlikeable characters and writing under a pseudonym.
Check out all the quirk that is Eliza Gordon.
Read about Sleight and Scheme (the Undoing, in Canada) on this website.
Learn more about your host, Dana Goldstein.
Support the podcast on Patreon.
Mary Boone is the author of more than 60 non-fiction books for young readers. She has written about everything from boy bands, the Biebs and in her latest book, bugs.
Bugs for Breakfast is an informative, engaging book, not just for middle grade readers, but for adults as well. It will open your eyes (and you mind) to a culinary experience that is becoming less quirky trend and more global necessity.
During this interview, Mary talks about her experience as a non-fiction author, her journey to writing Bugs for Breakfast, and how to get over our squeamishness when it comes to ingesting insects.
Learn more about Mary on her website.
Support this podcast on Patreon.
When first-time author and full-time business owner Laura Ballerini sat down to write some stories, she didn’t anticipate the transformation that would take place inside her soul. From a very young age, Laura was introduced to art through her mother’s skill with crafting, fixing, and cooking. Now, as a graphic designer, Laura realizes just how endemic art is to all our lives. In this episode, we discuss the impact of art, how she found time to fit writing into an already busy creative life and the power of story.
Visit Laura’s website.
Kalena Miller’s debut novel will take you back to everything that was horrible and awesome about high school. There’s junk food, fighting, texting, and prom night. You know what’s missing? Sex. The night that was carefully planned goes horribly wrong. You’ll laugh out loud, but also feel deeply connected to the characters in The Night When No One Had Sex.
Follow Kalena on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook.
As the author of 3 bestselling dystopian novels with strong female characters, Christina Dalcher is often painted as a feminist. There are so many more layers to this linguist-now-author. While her first novel, Vox, brought the issue of silencing women to the table, her latest, Femlandia, examines life in broken-down world, where women are building colonies and not everything is as idyllic as it appears.
SHOW NOTES:
Watch MRI and ultrasound footage of a tongue in motion:
Learn more about Christina on her website.
Sorry For Your Loss is a poignant, touching and sometimes funny story about Evie, a girl whose family runs a Jewish funeral home. In this episode, Joanne and I talk about how kids can learn about hard topics through reading, what some of the challenges are when writing for middle grade and why the feedback from young readers means so much to her.
Visit Joanne’s website.
Follow her on Twitter or Facebook.
Bev Katz Rosenbaum never intended to write a pandemic book. She had written the story about high schooler Kelsey Kendler long before lockdowns, but she was struggling with how to frame the story. When COVID-19 forced us all to remain in our homes, Bev knew this was the perfect environment for Kelsey’s story to emerge and grow. It’s a story of survival, failure and how one girl makes it through the wreck of a year.
In this episode, Bev shares how she was able to find her YA (Young Adult) voice, the challenges she faced when booking author events, and how she has grown as a writer.
Visit Bev’s Website: https://www.bevkatzrosenbaum.com/
Read Emilia Bassano’s published book of poetry, Salve Deus Red Judaeorum: http://www.luminarium.org/renascence-editions/lanyer1.html