Hear us Roar

This week's podcast is with Sita Romero (Words We Cannot Say, Red Adept Publishing, April 2022). Sita's background as a former doula informs her first novel, which she describes as a complex story of motherhood, infertility, and women's traditional roles. She purposely set out to explore narratives that are often quieted and found agents loved her book but struggled with how to sell it. It wasn't...

This week's interview is with Judy Lannon (Nine Days, Atmosphere Press, March 2022).A novice at writing, Judy was inspired to write her novel after advising a young woman about not only the emotions involved but the practical steps needed to deal with the passing of an aging parent. She describes herself as an undisciplined writer, not keeping to a regular schedule or setting word count goals but...

This week's interview is with Lisa Roe (Welcome to the Neighborhood, Sourcebooks, April 2022). Describing herself as too anxious to be a pantser, Lisa describes how, for her, embracing a story structure frees her creativity, her rule of thumb for when to put a novel in the drawer and start over, and how her publisher used focus groups to not only choose her book's title but also its final cover de...

Our interview this week is with Erin Flanagan (Deer Season, University of Nebraska Press, September 2021). With four previous novels in the drawer, Erin dug into her childhood memory of her father moving their family from Chicago to a small midwestern town of 1200 residents, and crafted Deer Season, a haunting story of the ripple effect of an act of violence on a close-knit community. We discuss h...

Our podcast guest this week is Shirley Novack (The Story of … , Fulton Books, March 2022). Here how this project started as a homage to her Polish immigrant father but evolved into a sweeping saga of the hardships and triumphs of Eastern European families building a new life in America. An interior design career is an unlikely background for a novel writer but Shirley pursued her dream and can now...

Listen to our podcast guest Kathy Strobos (Partner Pursuit, Indie published, October 2021) as we discuss how she quit her job as a corporate attorney to have better work-life balance which was not coincidentally the theme of her first novel. She loves the control that comes with publishing your own work, even while she admits it's a lot of work and you'll love her hands-on marketing approach which...

Our podcast guest this week is Harriet Cannon (Exiled South, Koehler Books, January 2022). Hear how Harriet, who has dyslexia, works around this in her writing, including using foam story boards and memorizing passages to read at presentations. Her background as a family therapist and work with addictions helps her dig deep into character's motivations and she also writes a detailed study of the l...

Our interview this week is with guest Tammy Harrow (All the Salt in the Sea, Red Adept Publishing, January 2022). We discuss the long gestation period this novel went through before Tammy started the querying process, her best marketing advice to beginning writers, why she has become a die-hard outliner, and the unique bucket list she just completed after working on it for two decades. Tammy Harro...

In this podcast, Kerry Chaput and I discuss how researching her genealogy inspired her trilogy of historical fiction, how she's a big believer in writers being clear about their branding and positioning in the marketplace, and why she's crazy about TikTok.   Kerry Chaput is an award-winning historical fiction author. She believes in the power of stories that highlight young women, first love, and...

This week's podcast is with Cheryl Corriveau (The Demanding River, Fulton Books, July 2021). We discuss how Cheryl tapped into her own experiences running a boat dealership in Florida when she outlined the plot of her debut including dealing with hurricanes, drug dealers and blatant misogyny, her persistence in searching for a way to publish her novel, and why she's known in her neighborhood as Mr...

Our podcast guest this week is Tonya Mitchell (A Feigned Madness, Cynren Pres, October, 2020) who was inspired to write a novel based around an historical figure from the 1880's, Nellie Bly, who went undercover for ten days at the infamous Blackwell Insane Asylum in NYC to expose the abusive conditions there. Hear about her research process, her decision to work with a boutique press, and her newe...

This week's podcast is with Kimberly Sullivan (Three Coins, indie-published, October 2021). She zooms in with us from Rome where she's lived for over 25 years and where her novel is set. Our discussion ranges from the 1954 classic film that provided her inspiration, what the publishing world looks like in Italy, her participation in the WFWA Historical Fiction group, and what made her decide to go...

Our podcast author this week is Dawn (D.W.) Hogan (Unbroken Bonds, Woodhall Press, October 2021). Her book tells the story of four teenage girls facing ostracism and hardship when unwanted pregnancies force them to a home where their rights are stripped and their babies snatched away, a dark period in US history during the '50's and '60's. Dawn was determined to honor the stories of these young wo...

Our guest this week is Georgina Key (Shiny Bits In Between, Balance of Seven, June 2020).  Georgina's novel explores the grief of a mother losing a child and finding solace in both the natural coastal beauty of the Bolivar Peninsula near Galveston as well as human connections with others also mourning a loss. Though she debuted during the worst months of the pandemic, Georgina was supported by fri...

Our guest this week is Kelley McNeil (A Day Like This, Lake Union, November 2021). We discuss how her book was one of several released during the pandemic which examines how our lives might be different if we'd chosen a different path, with some readers calling it a self-help book in fiction form. Kelley also takes us behind the scenes of what it's like to publish through the women's fiction impri...

This week's guest is Joani Elliott (The Audacity of Sara Grayson, Post Hill Press, May 2021). Knowing she'd never achieve her dream of being a writer unless she made a serious commitment, Joani quit her academic teaching career to work full-time on her first novel. You won't want to miss the backstory of how the book's high-concept idea came to her (and where). And even though it took three years...

Our guest on this podcast is Maan Gabriel (After Perfect, She Writes Press, October 2021). What if your protagonist is the hardest character to write because she's like your shadow self, working through events that might have happened to you if your life had taken a different path? That's what Maan experienced when she began journaling the thoughts that became this novel. Hear her take on how her...

Luisa's debut began as a recording of her mother's life growing up in a small village in southern Italy and her journey to break free from the poverty and bleakness of her environment, but quickly grew into a historical novel tracing the journey of a gutsy, independent young woman yearning for a better life. Luisa also discusses publishing through a crowd-sourcing method of finance whereby pre-ord...

Resurrecting a 30-year old manuscript loosely framed around the novel Madame Bovary by Flaubert, JoAnn set about shaping into a workable novel with help from various sources including webinars from WFWA. Working in details from her own Sicilian heritage, JoAnn fashioned a story of a woman's reawakening in middle age to all of life's wonder and possibilities. She took the hybrid press way to publis...

Listen to our interview with Judy Stanigar (Marika's Best Laid Plan, All Things That Matter Press, October 2021). The idea for this debut novel came from Judy's experience working in a treatment center for heroin addicts early in her career paired with her clinical training in how people deal with grief. She also shares insights from her stint as a junior editor at Little Brown as we discuss chasi...

This week our guest is Pamela Stockwell (A Boundless Place, Ten16 Press, October 2021). We discuss how the idea for her debut novel sprang from the unusual neighborhood Pamela grew up in and how the 2020 pandemic affected her decisions about how and when to publish.  She also shares how signing up for WFWA's morning write-ins changed her life when she decided to volunteer to donate one of her kidn...

In this podcast, we discuss how Kalyn suffered a miscarriage a few years ago and sought solace in fiction only to find very few books dealing with this life-changing event. This led to her writing her debut as a way to not only explore her own experience but also reach out to others in the same situation.  She re-wrote her manuscript four times, changing not only tense but point of view, but once...

Paulette took 18 years to finish this novel which deals with a secret rarely discussed in women's fiction—the pleasure we seek and deserve in the sexual arena. Hear how Paulette's personal experiences prepared her to tackle this controversial subject matter and how once she did, she put herself through a crash course on self-publishing to make her book a reality.  We also dive deep into a discussi...

Enjoy our interview with Cherie Genua (Greetings from Tucson, indie-published, September 2021). Cherie, a self-described "woman in tech", adds novelist to her resume with the release of this fictionalized account of her grandmother's story, who lost her parents at a young age and then was separated from 2 of her 3 sisters for years afterwards.  The hand-written letters Cherie discovered in a box a...

In this episode, we talk with Rebecca Campbell about writing her debut off and on for over a decade before finally finishing it and deciding to take control of the entire project, including interior formatting, cover design, and publishing it through KDP. Hailing from a small town in Australia meant primarily marketing her book online and we discuss the importance of virtual on-line communities to...