Hear us Roar

Our guest this week is Carol Dunbar (The Net Beneath Us, Forge, September 2022). A successful actor in Minneapolis, Carol realized she was a storyteller working in the wrong art form so she switched from the world of the stage to the world of the page and moved off the grid with her family to rural Wisconsin. Her debut is the story of a woman who must deal with grief and open herself up to communi...

This week's podcast guest is Angela Cairns (Touch, indie published August 2022). A resident of the UK, Angela's fiction is informed by her work as a physiotherapist and healer. We talk about the rich history of storytelling and its ability to reach people at a deep emotional level and her belief that moving even one reader makes all the hard work behind producing a novel worthwhile. An entrepreneu...

Our podcast this week features Sharon Peterson (The Do-Over, Bookouture, August 2022). Tempted to give up writing when faced with raising four children (two with special needs), a downsized husband hospitalized with COVID, and the loss of her house in a natural disaster, Sharon turned to blogging as free therapy and with a sense of humor, a dose of humility and a tendency to overshare, discovered...

This week our guest is Dianne Braley (The Silence in the Sound, Koehler Books, August 2022). Her experience working on Martha's Vineyard as private nurse to William Styron, Pulitzer-prize winning author of Sophie's Choice, provided the framework for Dianne's debut novel as well as her childhood trauma of growing up with an alcoholic parent. We discuss author platform (she runs a popular blog for n...

Listen here to our interview with Rita H. Rowe (Becoming Ruthless. Indie published, October 2021). Rita's a prolific writer, releasing eight books so far with others around the corner yet she's still learning and growing as an author, particularly when it comes to how to publicize her work. We discuss her organic method of writing (pantser all the way) and how her first novel sprang from an event...

This week we talk with Maggie Ginsberg (Still True, Univ of Wisconsin Press, September 2022). Maggie, a journalist and magazine editor, always thought the novelists she admired were born with "magic author brains", that ideas simply flowed out of their fingers onto the page. It was only after she decided to write a book herself that she discovered the similarities with er non-fiction interviews—th...

This week's podcast features Carolyn Clarke (And Then There's Margaret, Black Rose Writing, July 2022). As the founder and resident guru of HenLit Central, Carolyn had a wealth of knowledge and contacts to draw from when she made the leap to novelist. Her idea to write a coming-of-middle-age story morphed into this light-hearted but ultimately touching tale of the challenges when your life include...

This week's podcast is with D.F. (Donna) Kennedy (The Truth, indie-published, June 2022). We talk about her journey from writing a memoir about her unique and often trauma-filled life (sexual abuse, kidnaping, foster care) to changing her story into a fictional piece and how that decision unleashed her creative juices, ultimately resulting in a 3-part series she wrote for rapid release. We discuss...

Tune in to our podcast episode with Staci Greason ( All The Girls in Town, Touchpoint Press, July 2022). In her early twenties, Staci was a regular cast member on Days of Our Lives , a popular daytime soap, but she had things she wanted to say in her own words rather than other people's so she switched to writing. But that acting background still comes in handy when she's writing dialogue scenes a...

Give a listen to our interview with Lisa Williamson Rosenberg (Embers on the Wind, Little A, August 2022). Lisa's life has been a study in duality. She's a self-described Black Jew, a ballerina turned shrink, and a recovered anorexic and bulimic responsible for feeding her family. Her novel began with the local legend of a ghost from the abolitionist period said to haunt her in-law's familial summ...

In honor of Women's Fiction Day 2023, pull up a chair and listen to this special edition of Hear Us Roar celebrating Women's Fiction Day 2023. Our guests on the episode are Orly Konig, Kerry Lonsdale, and Laura Drake, three of the founding members of the Women's Fiction Writers Association. We discuss how and why the group got started "way back when", the struggles of the early days, and how the o...

Nina has no end of interesting tie-ins to her book that she uses in presentations and social media posts from the history and culture of Venice, to ancient poisons, to the world of art and art patrons, to Talmudic scholars and famous courtesans. Her three-part series straddles the line between women's fiction, historical mystery, and historical romance and her rich background, from studying illust...

Our guest this week is Chris Posti (Falling Apart, Falling for You, Elk Lake Publishing, April 2022). During the pandemic lockdown, Chris followed the sage wisdom of "write the book you'd like to read" and penned a coming-of-age story for women over fifty. Hear how a serendipitous shared birthday resulted in a publishing contract with a well-known Christian small press and how having a husband who...

Our guest this week is E.J. Tanda (Queen of Secrets, indie published, June 2022). The book Twilight had a profound effect on E.J. when she was suffering a low period in her life and she vowed to try her hand at moving people in the same way. Very much a pantser, her characters present themselves as fully formed and dictate the story to her. Her debut, inspired by a family story, features the uniqu...

Listen here to our interview with Karla Huebner (In Search of the Magic Theater, Regal House, June 2022). We discuss this novel's quick appearance (3 months to write) but long gestation period (8 years to publish), what it's like to work with a small press, her self-imposed production goals, and how her own life's journey often informs that of her characters. And stay tuned to the end to learn abo...

Our guest this week is Jen Craven (Best Years of Your Life, Indie published, August 2022). Listen in as we discuss why she decided on an academic setting for her debut, the pluses of indie publishing, the importance of professionalism when it comes to book covers, how she used comparable authors to formulate her own marketing plan, and how she's found her niche writing about characters where one d...

This week's podcast features Robin Maass (The Walled Garden, Spark Press, May 2022). We discuss MFA programs and how they often neglect to teach story structure, and how, as a result, she had to move from "discovering the book" or pantsing to realizing you need stepping stones along the way. We explore how every book has some kind of mystery at its core and how important it is to spend time figuri...

Our guest this week is Jody Herpin (Relative Consequences, Indie Published, March 2022). Jody always starts any new writing project by getting to know her characters, which includes not only a lengthy questionnaire, but a "face to face" interview, and a visual portfolio, including facial features, how they dress, and how they move. Listen to hear the journey of her debut, her best advice to newer...

This week's podcast features Carol Orange (A Discerning Eye, Cavan Bridge Press, October 2020). Carol's background in both art (art books in London, art dealer in Boston) and publishing (editorial assistant at a Big Five house) provided plenty of ideas for her art heist novel centering around the looting of 13 masterpieces from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum over 30 years ago. We discuss how...

 This week's podcast features Suzanne Mattaboni (Once in a Lifetime, Touchpoint Press, March 2023). There's much more to 1980's America than disco balls and Andy Warhol and in Mattaboni's debut novel we get to explore the avant-garde art scene, New Wave culture, and what it was like for a young woman trying to figure out what she wants in life amid the turmoil and energy of a burgeoning new era, s...

Our guest this week is Linda MacKillop (The Forgotten Life of Eva Gordon, Kregel Publications May 2022). Linda took a rough draft she'd worked on for years into her new MFA program and emerged with a polished manuscript, including a central character often likened to Olive Ketteridge. We discuss what it's like when your protagonist is both difficult and suffering from memory loss, (which of course...

Our podcast guest this week is Grace Marcus (Visible Signs, Touchpoint Press, May 2022). Grace, a debut author at 75 years old, shares lessons she learned along the line, including not signing with the first agent who makes an offer to trusting your gut when it comes to major rewrites. We discuss her marketing initiatives which include talks at senior centers and short writing workshops in exchang...

This week's podcast guest is RLynn Johnson (Cry of the Heart, MilSpeak Books, May 2022). Taking inspiration from her years spent in the JAG Corps of the DOD, Robin fashioned a story of long-term female friendship and her first-hand experiences of being a female officer in the Army into her debut novel and then through a networking contact, found a publisher who specializes in stories told by milit...

This week's guest is Janis Robinson Daly (The Unlocked Path, Black Rose Writing, August 2022). March is Women's History Month and how better to celebrate this popular sub-genre of women's fiction than with Janis, an active member of the WFWA Facebook sub-group and a debut writer whose great-great grandfather inspired her fictionalized story of the first women's medical college at the turn of the c...

This week's podcast is with Erin Litteken (The Memory Keeper of Kyiv, Boldwood Books, May 2022). We discuss the serendipitous timeliness of her book, which examines the tactic of Holodomor (or    forced starvation) which Russia utilized during their invasion of Ukraine in the 1930's, her experiences with a newer small press based in England, her best advice to beginning writers, and her love of th...