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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...

Our host Maggie Smith leads a roundtable discussion with the three finalists for the WFWA Star Award for Women's Fiction/Debut category as they discuss what it means to write "women's fiction", the trajectory of their writing careers, finding camaraderie with their peers, the value of book awards, and what they've learned from readers since their book's publication.   Panelists are:  Julie Carrick...

Julia Daily's debut novel had its seeds in the author's personal search over forty years ago for her birth mother, a time before DNA tests and genealogical records were available online. Her tale of three disparate women, meeting at a maternity home hospital in New Orleans, has resonated with adoptees like herself, with its message of joy, hope, and renewal. We also discuss Julia's podcast, aptly...

Sarah's book started out as a kind of third person typed journal, a reflection on a "what if" situation she encountered in her psychiatric practice. Once it came time to publish, you'll laugh along with us at her fairy tale story of querying Gillian Flynn's agent out of the blue even though she was closed to submissions and being offered representation within a day. We also discuss the pros and co...

This novel has its roots in Karen seeking answers as a mother as to how to raise a good son which eventually resulted in her fulfilling her lifelong dream to live on a Greek island for a year, where she was disciplined enough to write her first draft, despite the lure of the seaside location. We talk about synchronicity—how sometimes a book or a person or a place comes along at precisely the momen...

Hear how C. took events from her own life, including her Italian heritage, her closeness with her grandfather, and her love of cooking, and worked it into her debut novel. We delve into the fallout that occurred with her initial publisher, her decision to indie publish rather than starting back at square one, and how helpful the webinars available through WFWA were in teaching her the fundamentals...

Here how the inspiration from this story came from a " what if " moment while Penny was hiking with friends in the mountainous Tsitsikamma region of South Africa where she lives, how she had to change the ending of her novel because her character insisted on it, and how after years in fact-based journalism she rediscovered her childhood joy in telling made-up stories. Penny Haw worked as a journal...

I love Elizabeth's suggestion to "put your pen on the paper and see what happens." When she did that to an earlier manuscript that she initially conceived of as a romantic comedy, the result was a story of three sisters dealing with the aftermath of their mother's suicide when they were children. We discuss how her husband found her a literary agents, how it took three manuscripts for her agent to...

This week's podcast guest is Julee Balko (The Things We Keep, GenZ Publishing, July 2021). The impetus for Julee's book was her own grief following the death of her mother and her frustration at not finding books which dealt in a realistic and honest way with this crucial life experience. We discuss what it was like publishing with a small press, the difference between an author and a writer, and...

Our latest podcast is with Lyn Liao Butler (The Tiger Mom's Tale, Berkeley, July 2021). Hear how Lyn taught herself to write by tearing apart (literally and figuratively) novels she enjoyed, analyzing their story structure, their characterizations, and their narrative arcs and how she is a stalwart plotter, often going months without writing a word while she's planning her next book in her head. W...

Amanda came to novel writing from a background as an actress where she had previously penned scripts for herself and others both for films and on the stage, but found she had to use very different muscles when it came to crafting a novel-length story loosely based on a real-life situation she and her husband experienced in New York. But during the querying process, her years of going on auditions...

As an essential worker during the pandemic, Kristina learned first hand what it was like to have little control over either the risks or rewards of her job so after she finished her novel (loosely based on the story of a Standard Oil heiress paired with themes and imagery from Taylor Swift's album Folklore), she went a different route. Taking control of the process, she became art director and mod...

Amanda talks about the book that gave her permission to write "outside the lines", what she learned about her own life through exploring the narcissistic antagonist in her novel, and the process of identifying where her book fit on the genre shelf. She also takes us step by step through her process of learning, through podcasts and YouTube videos, how to create her own book on Vellum and launch it...

Our guest this week is the person that generally hosts this podcast Maggie Smith (Truth and Other Lies, Ten16 Press, March 2022) and she's interviewed by book editor and women's fiction author Tiffany Yates Martin, WFWA 2021 Scribe.  Hear Maggie's story of how her book went through various iterations before she found a plot which could highlight the relationship between a daughter, her mother, and...

Mary Camarillo grew up in North Carolina. Her father worked in aerospace and was transferred to Southern California when she was fourteen. After high school, she went to work for the post office. It might be genetic--both her grandfathers were railway mail clerks. She sorted mail, sold stamps, worked in the accounting office, went to night school, and earned a degree in business administration and...