Book Dreams

After 25 episodes together, Eve and Julie are wondering: What’s it like to collaborate on writing a book? What makes a writing team successful? And when is it better to work alone? In this week’s episode, they get a between-the-lines look at two very different writing teams--Lan Cao and Harlan Margaret Van Cao, the mother-daughter collaborators behind the collective memoir Family in Six Tones; and...

Welcome to Fandom 101. Get your wands ready! In his debut episode, Gianfranco Lentini--Book Dreams producer, news reporter for The Leaky Cauldron, LGBTQ+ journalist, and Hufflepuff--gives Eve and Julie a Potter-centric crash course on why books cast magic well beyond their bindings; who the devoted fans behind the Potter subculture are; and what impact J.K. Rowling’s transphobic beliefs have had o...

Since our episode on what makes a book a bestseller, Julie and Eve have been eager to determine: Can artificial intelligence help authors get to the top of the New York Times bestseller list? Marc Acito--novelist, cultural critic, playwright, Broadway librettist, film/stage director, and Eve’s high school best friend--runs his novel How I Paid for College: A Novel of Sex, Theft, Friendship, and Mu...

School is back in session, and Eve and Julie have their hands raised high for Sara Beasley, an English teacher of 34 years. They discuss why studying fiction is crucial, how teachers can make the pages Dostoevsky fly by, the unexpected secret to transforming a reluctant reader into a bookworm, the lasting impact of contemporary African writers, and upsides (they exist!) of teaching in the midst of...

Christina Baker Kline--#1 New York Times bestselling author of Orphan Train and the newly released The Exiles--joins Eve and Julie to discuss the research strategies, language choices, and overarching philosophies that shape the writing of historical fiction. Find us on Twitter (@bookdreamspod) and Instagram (@bookdreamspodcast), or email us at contact@bookdreamspodcast.com. We encourage you to vi...

What makes a book a bestseller? It’s a question that’s captivated us as readers and as writers. In this episode, Eve and Julie talk to three experts who might have cracked the code: Miranda Beverly-Whittemore, author of the New York Times bestseller Bittersweet; Dan Blank, founder of WeGrowMedia; and Matthew Jockers, co-author of The Bestseller Code and co-founder of Authors A.I. Find us on Twitte...

Step aside, Reese and Oprah! Julie and Eve discuss keys to finding or creating the perfect book club. Also, Eve goes unfiltered on Dr. Suess. Find us on Twitter (@bookdreamspod) and Instagram (@bookdreamspodcast), or email us at contact@bookdreamspodcast.com. We encourage you to visit our website and sign up for our newsletter for information about our episodes, guests, and more. Book Dreams is a...

In our first follow-up episode, Julie and Eve talk about book design with Dr. Kinohi Nishikawa (@kinohin), an associate professor of English and African American Studies at Princeton University and a specialist in 20th century African American literature, book history, and pop culture. They discuss how Black authors and editors have used book design to communicate with readers and exert control ov...

Move over, ice cream truck! Make way for the bookmobile. Eve and Julie get a behind-the-wheel look at the joys and perils of operating a bookmobile. They interview Hannah Spratt and Michelle Fernandez, Senior Librarians with the New York Public Library’s Bronx Bookmobile (@NYPLBookmobile), and Kevin Foster, Bookmobile Captain at Parnassus Books in Nashville (@ParnassusTruck), which is co-owned by...

Julie and Eve discuss their latest book club picks, Edwidge Danticat’s Everything Inside and Tove Jansson’s The Summer Book. Spoiler alert: We love them both and we think you will, too. Plus we have a bonus chat about a sixteenth-century exorcism compendium! Find us on Twitter (@bookdreamspod) and Instagram (@bookdreamspodcast), or email us at contact@bookdreamspodcast.com. We encourage you to vis...

Tricia Elam Walker--novelist, essayist, playwright, picture book author, and assistant professor of creative writing at Howard University--and KJ Dell’Antonia--novelist, essayist, nonfiction book author, cohost of the #amwriting podcast, and former editor of The New York Times’ Motherlode blog--are no strangers to writing across literary genres. In this episode, they join Eve and Julie to discuss...

Julie and Eve have always dreamed of having a bookstore of their own. In this episode, they spoke with independent bookstore owners Donna Paz Kaufman of Story & Song Bookstore Bistro and Janet Webster Jones of Source Booksellers about the power of community and why books are more important now than ever. Find us on Twitter (@bookdreamspod) and Instagram (@bookdreamspodcast), or email us at contact...

Have you ever judged a book by its cover? Don’t feel bad; you’re supposed to. But how are design choices made, and who holds the power to make them? In Book Dream’s first double-guest episode, Eve and Julie discuss and challenge conventions of book design with Ellen Lupton, graphic designer, writer, and educator, and Reif Larsen, author of “The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet.” Find us on Twitter (@...

On this special episode of Book Dreams, our very own Eve Yohalem talks us through the making of her latest book, The Truth According to Blue, now in bookstores. In the middle of a plague, no less! Find us on Twitter (@bookdreamspod) and Instagram (@bookdreamspodcast), or email us at contact@bookdreamspodcast.com. We encourage you to visit our website and sign up for our newsletter for information...

Ever wondered about rare books and who collects them? Nicho Lowry, third generation bookseller and President of Swann Auction Galleries, takes us behind the glass cases and tells us stories from this unusual world. Find us on Twitter (@bookdreamspod) and Instagram (@bookdreamspodcast), or email us at contact@bookdreamspodcast.com. We encourage you to visit our website and sign up for our newslette...

Julie and Eve find funny books that are great anytime, but especially now. Find us on Twitter (@bookdreamspod) and Instagram (@bookdreamspodcast), or email us at contact@bookdreamspodcast.com. We encourage you to visit our website and sign up for our newsletter for information about our episodes, guests, and more. Book Dreams is a part of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate network, a company that...

Julie and Eve talk to children’s book expert Leonard Marcus about what it’s like to edit iconic authors. Among other questions, they ask, How do you tell E. B. White he’s got a problem with Charlotte? Find us on Twitter (@bookdreamspod) and Instagram (@bookdreamspodcast), or email us at contact@bookdreamspodcast.com. We encourage you to visit our website and sign up for our newsletter for informat...

Following the release of Greta Gerwig’s 2019 film adaptation, scholar Anne Boyd Rioux joins Eve and Julie to talk about why the Little Women we grew up with is not, in fact, Alcott’s original text--and why Little Women still matters. Find us on Twitter (@bookdreamspod) and Instagram (@bookdreamspodcast), or email us at contact@bookdreamspodcast.com. We encourage you to visit our website and sign u...

Eve and Julie try some of the literary medicine prescribed to them in their first bibliotherapy session. Find us on Twitter (@bookdreamspod) and Instagram (@bookdreamspodcast), or email us at contact@bookdreamspodcast.com. We encourage you to visit our website and sign up for our newsletter for information about our episodes, guests, and more. Book Dreams is a part of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglom...

Ella Berthoud, UK-based bibliotherapist and artist, conducts an on-air bibliotherapy session with Julie to prescribe a dose of literary medicine during these trying times. Find us on Twitter (@bookdreamspod) and Instagram (@bookdreamspodcast), or email us at contact@bookdreamspodcast.com. We encourage you to visit our website and sign up for our newsletter for information about our episodes, guest...

Eve and Julie ask Jim Mustich, author of 1000 Books to Read Before You Die, how to decide what to read next. Find us on Twitter (@bookdreamspod) and Instagram (@bookdreamspodcast), or email us at contact@bookdreamspodcast.com. We encourage you to visit our website and sign up for our newsletter for information about our episodes, guests, and more. Book Dreams is a part of Lit Hub Radio and the Pod...

SPECIAL QUARANTINE EPISODE: Eve addresses a love letter to New York City, and Julie vows to stop reading creepy crime fiction (for now at least). Find us on Twitter (@bookdreamspod) and Instagram (@bookdreamspodcast), or email us at contact@bookdreamspodcast.com. We encourage you to visit our website and sign up for our newsletter for information about our episodes, guests, and more. Book Dreams i...

SPECIAL QUARANTINE EPISODE: Eve and Julie consider nineteenth century parenting techniques. And also beheadings. And donuts. (Not all at the same time, of course.) Find us on Twitter (@bookdreamspod) and Instagram (@bookdreamspodcast), or email us at contact@bookdreamspodcast.com. We encourage you to visit our website and sign up for our newsletter for information about our episodes, guests, and m...

SPECIAL QUARANTINE EPISODE: Julie trades murder mysteries and mayhem for love triangles and cannibalism, and Eve escapes to nineteenth century Colorado. Find us on Twitter (@bookdreamspod) and Instagram (@bookdreamspodcast), or email us at contact@bookdreamspodcast.com. We encourage you to visit our website and sign up for our newsletter for information about our episodes, guests, and more. Book D...

SPECIAL QUARANTINE EPISODE: Book Dreams gets a different launch than expected. Eve and Julie practice social distancing while highlighting some of their must reads right now. Find us on Twitter (@bookdreamspod) and Instagram (@bookdreamspodcast), or email us at contact@bookdreamspodcast.com. We encourage you to visit our website and sign up for our newsletter for information about our episodes, gu...