Finding the Throughline with Kate Hanley

This week I am talking with Marlon Weems, a former Wall Street trader who started his career in finance in Little Rock, Arkansas, where he founded the first Black-owned asset management firm and the first Black-owned venture capital firm in the state. Since leaving the industry in 2012, Marlon has transitioned to writing. His essay, "How Starting an Investment Firm Almost Landed Me in Federal Pris...

In this final part of my interview with Moms Demand Action founder Shannon Watts, we get a look at what's coming up for her--and how that might not involve being in the public eye at all after 11 years of being 'the tip of the spear' as a common sense gun law advocate. I also ask her what's she's reading, watching, listening to, drinking in her morning cup, and what she'd have for dinner tonight i...

In the second part of my interview with Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action, author of "Fight Like a Mother, and host of the Substack newsletter "Playing with Fire" (where she addresses overlooked topics head on, such as ADHD in women and girls and the benefits of hormone therapy for relief of menopause symptoms), we get into the mindset side of writing. We covered: - Reckoning with the e...

This week I am talking with badass advocate, author, Substacker, and "summoner of women's audacity," Shannon Watts. Shannon is the founder of Moms Demand Action, the grassroots movement for common sense gun reform that grew to include more than 10 million members who have helped pass over 500 gun safety laws across the country. She's also the author of "Fight Like a Mother", and her opinion pieces...

In the final part of my interview with maritime history author Eric Jay Dolin, we get a tantalizing look at his next book, which he's working on now, about a shipwreck in the Pacific that involves a clash of East and West. We also covered: - Why his kids hate going to museums with him - Using a desire to travel as motivation for selling more books - The PBS show Eric considers comfort viewing - Wh...

In the second part of my conversation with Eric Jay Dolin, (author of "Left for Dead," a true story about a captain of a sealing ship who was marooned on the Falkland Islands for 18 months in the early 1800s), we talk about the squishier side of writing, including dealing with your inner critic, getting through the parts of sharing your work that you'd really rather avoid, and managing your own ex...

Calling all lovers of true tales about the sea! This week I'm talking with Eric J. Dolin, bestselling author of numerous books that explore some aspect of American history, generally as it relates to the sea. His latest book is "Left for Dead: Shipwreck, Treachery, and Survival at the Edge of the World." Eric has a really interesting through line that started with him studying to be a marine biolo...

In this final section of my conversation with "Lessons from the Climate Anxiety Counseling Booth," Kate Schapira, we cover: - Finding ways to bring her work to groups that are already gathering for another reason (hint: need to a professional development speaker or workshop leader to talk on working with climate anxiety?) - Using the concept of cross-pollenization as a guiding principle - The writ...

In this second part of my conversation with Kate Schapira, author of "Lessons from the Climate Anxiety Counseling Booth," we cover the squishier parts of writing, including: - The process of deciding just how vulnerable to be in your writing - The emotional difference between writing poetry and writing prescriptive non-fiction - How her inner critic is a salty SOB - How a writing group holds you a...

This week I'm talking with Kate Schapira, author of "Lessons from the Climate Anxiety Counseling Booth," which takes readers through the practical skills and emotional shifts needed to navigate our way to a more livable future. Kate is also the author of six books of poetry, and her prose has appeared in The Rumpus, The Toast, and other places. She lives in Providence, Rhode Island, where she teac...

In part three of my conversation with multiple New York Times bestselling author Jacquelyn Mitchard, author of "A Very Inconvenient Scandal" and "The Deep End of the Ocean," among many other titles, we talk about how having writer friends is so important, even if you "jealous them", the vision of the future that's fueling her to keep writing, and the recent books that made her swoon. - The writers...

In this second part of my interview with the brilliant and hilarious Jacquelyn Mitchard, we talk about the squishier side of creativity–the thoughts, ideas, and attitudes that affect your work, even if you're not fully conscious of it, including: - The specific reader Jacquelyn imagines as she writes - Why she's devoted to social media, and why she thinks of it like having a hamster - How some of...

This week I am thrilled to be talking with Jacquelyn Mitchard, the New York Times bestselling author of 23 novels for adults and teenagers. Her newest novel is "A Very Inconvenient Scandal," and her first novel, "The Deep End of the Ocean" was the first selection of the Oprah Winfrey book club and has sold more than 3 million copies and been translated into 34 languages. We covered: - How losing h...

In the final installment of my interview with generous and prolific writing goddess Sari Botton (she publishes Oldster Magazine, Memoir Land, and Adventures in Journalism on Substack, authored And You May Find Yourself: Confessions of a Late-Blooming Gen X Weirdo, Goodbye to All That, and Never Can Say Goodbye, and was the essays editor at Longreads), we talk about what's coming up next for her, a...

In part two of my interview with Sari Botton, founder of Oldster Magazine and author of And You May Find Yourself: Confessions of a Gen X Weirdo, we dive deep into the inner stuff, including: - Her favorite part of sharing her work with the world - How she navigates the ethics of including other people in her personal writing - How her inner critic loves to tell her she doesn’t haven’t permission...

Sari Botton is the author of And You May Find Yourself: Confessions of a Late-Blooming, Gen-X Weirdo and Goodbye to All That: Writers on Loving and Leaving New York. She's also the creator of Oldster, a Substack newsletter devoted to exploring the joys of getting older. (Her Oldster questionnaire was a direct inspiration for my starting this podcast.) Sari was my first ever guest on Finding the Th...

In this final part of my interview with Sonya Huber, professor at Fairfield University and author of Voice First: A Writer’s Manifesto, we peek at what’s coming around the bend for her and I get her answers to my fast five questions. We talked about: Her beautiful vision of the future include a possible memoir of living with anxiety and… goat writing retreats! Sonya’s four aunts who were nuns and...

[Sonya Huber, inner stuff]: How your personal writing can deepen your relationships + how not to hate writing In this episode I'm talking with Sonya Huber, author of eight books including Voice First: A Writer’s Manifesto and professor in the low-residency MFA at Fairfield University about the mindset piece of writing–the thoughts, ideas, and attitudes that affect your work, even if you're not ful...

This week I am interviewing Sonia Huber, a prolific and award winning writer in many genres, but primarily in creative nonfiction. Her book of essays on chronic pain, Pain Woman Takes Your Keys and Other Essays from a Nervous System was named a best book of 2018 by The New Statesman. Her other books include Love and Industry (2023), Voice First: A Writer's Manifesto (2022) and Supremely Tiny Acts...

In this final part of my interview with Joanne McNeill, author of Wrong Way (a novel set in the near future at a company that manages driverless cars) and Lurking (a non-fiction look at the history of the internet from a user’s perspective), we peek at what’s coming around the bend for her and I get her answers to my fast five questions. We talked about: The novel The Lodgers by Holly Pester, abou...

In this episode I'm talking with Joanne McNeil, author of Wrong Way (a novel set in the near future at a company that manages driverless cars) and Lurking (a non-fiction look at the history of the internet from a user’s perspective), about the inner workings of creativity–the thoughts, ideas, and beliefs that either help you do your work, or get in the way. Warning, there’s a tiny bit of cursing a...

This week I am talking with journalist, essayist, and novelist, Joanne McNeil. Joanne's first novel Wrong Way came out in 2023. It's a sci-fi novel set in the near future that takes a look at the intersection of the gig economy and big tech and is both satirical and touching–it also made a lot of lists of the best books of 2023 and The New Yorker called it “a literary sneak attack on the very idea...

In this final part of my interview with Hayley Krischer, journalist and author of the soon-to-be-released “Where Are You, Echo Blue?” we peek at what’s coming around the bend for her and I get her answers to my fast five questions. We talked about: The incredible allure of hot tubs How re-watching “The Actor’s Studio with James Lipton” was a key part of her research process for “Where Are You, Ech...

In this episode I'm talking with Hayley Krischer, author of the upcoming “Where Are You, Echo Blue?”, which is poised to be the beach read of the summer, about the squishier side of creativity– including: The steps Hayley takes–and the tools she uses–to immerse herself in the world of her novels and inside her characters’ psyches What she does when she’s feeling stuck How good it feels when you co...

This week I am talking with journalist and novelist Haley Krischer. Haley's journalism has won awards and appeared in the New York Times, the New York Times Magazine, the Atlantic, and Elle, among other places. She has profiled celebrities like Tatum O'Neill and Celine Dion and Gabrielle Union, and she's reported on trends through a feminist lens. Haley's first two novels were for young adults: “S...