Hear us Roar

When Tavi wrote this debut about four female roadies who take a break to spend time at a Tuscan villa where each examines her life, she based them on women she knew from her time as a lighting specialist touring around the country with rock stars like Norah Jones. It was only after the book was complete that she realized she should run the characters by their real-life counterparts (luckily they w...

Jenn Bouchard (First Course, Touchpoint Press, June 2021) combined her interest in food, her love of New England's coastal towns, and her belief in the power of reinvention to write a debut with both romantic themes, a strong sisterhood component, and a seaside setting. Early in her writing journey, Jenn made a point of going to author talks for inspiration, even driving hours in the rain to meet...

Our guest on the podcast this week is Kathleen Basi (A Song for The Road, Alcove Press, May 2021). We discuss the importance of how you pitch your book in your query letter (by changing her focus and repositioning her novel, Kathleen raised her request rate from zero to 25%), how she had to learn to simplify her plot points rather than pile more on, and what it felt like to have two great agent of...

This week's interview is with Kris Clink (Goodbye, Lark Lovejoy, Spark Press, April 2021). You can tell by listening that this is an author who can't help adding a bit of humor to her narratives despite dealing with serious subjects like the death of a spouse and PTSD. We discuss how she finished her debut and immediately started querying, only to find it needed serious developmental work. After w...

It's almost like this book had been waiting for Margaret to write it – she lived for a few years in France growing up, has always been fascinated by Napoleon's story, and dreamed of someday writing a novel. Finally the stars aligned. Here how she was able to travel to the island of Elba in the middle of the Atlantic and actually stay in the house where Napoleon was exiled for the last four years o...

After a long business career that included running a Montessori school and teaching deaf children, Karen decided to get serious about her writing and four years later, indie published her debut novel harkening back to the state she grew up in – Texas and her love for horses. A sweeping family saga spanning over 70 years, the book's main character was meant to play a secondary role until she began...

If you're curious what it might be like to self-publish your work, this is a segment you'll want to listen to.  Jensen is doing everything right – rapid release of three books in one series in one year (with another one coming in April), soaking up craft lessons from experts, being mentored by a seasoned indie author. She made the conscious decision to avoid the negativity of rejections from agent...

Hear how the idea for Kristy's novel originated from a ten-year old TV show, how the goal to write a novel came to her in a dream, and how her female protagonist refused the ending Kristy had planned for her and insisted on a different path.  We also discuss what it's like to work with a small press based in another country and how she manages to find time to write between a full-time job and stud...

We talk with Kate Allen (Fear of Flying, Ambiguous Ink Press, March 2021) and discuss how she balances her work as a lawyer with her writing career, how writing a novel and wanting to see it published sooner rather than later sent her on a journey that resulted in her starting her own publishing company, and how her best advice for new authors is be braver about social media, that it can be fun an...

A tale of two women whose lives intersect in the 1970's in Alaska, Dorothy's  book not only reflects her own experiences when she lived for years in a remote scientific community near the Arctic Circle but also the power and lasting legacy of female friendships. We also discuss how she found her small press through another writer's recommendation and how sometimes it's necessary to jettison intere...

Leslie and I discuss the difference between an author and a writer, how her experience writing TV sit-coms and personal essays was very different than writing a full-length novel, and how the idea for her realistic story came from the challenges she observed her forty-something friends grappling with as children left home, parents aged, and marriages underwent major transformations. Leslie A. Rasm...

Elissa and I discuss how her book was informed by her lived experience of having MS as well as going through ALICE training at her job, how the Twitter events Pitch Wars and PitMad led to her finding an agent, how she wrote 2 other books before clicking with the third, and how her best marketing move has been interfacing with readers in private FB groups. Elissa is a former journalist who now work...

Libby Hubscher describes her writing process as seeing pivotal scenes, fully formed, in her head, then writing in and around those to fill in the missing pieces. Libby landed an agent through a Twitter connection but hadn't fully realized there was a bigger hurdle ahead – being on submission and ultimately not finding a publisher. Her first six novels, some contemporary romance, some literary fict...

Debra and I discuss how her book, featuring two sisters from Mexico who cross the border illegally to find their father, avoided the controversy that enveloped American Dirt through her attention to authenticity, her background with immigrant groups, and her use of well-vetted sensitivity experts. Another highlight of Debra's writing journey with Luz was winning Story Circle's  Sarton Book Award f...

Our latest interview is with Sarah Penner (The Lost Apothecary, Park Row/Harper Collins, March 2021). Starting with the high-concept hook of an apothecary who provides women in 18th century London the means to take revenge on predatory men, Sarah received offers of representative from half the agents she queried and sold her book in one day.  A true-life success story, she landed a spot on the NY...

Jill's dual time-line debut is loosely based on her grandmother's story of life during the depression and finding her way into a creative career, much the way Jill has since leaving her high-tech career. And if there ever was a testimonial for what the Women's Fiction Writer's Association can offer a novice writer, Jill's story qualifies – she's a member of a critique group, she's participating in...

Hear how an unexpected encounter in a grocery store line became the impetus for Christina Consolino's novel and how she did a major rewrite late in the process to give both her POV characters more agency. We also delve into her decision to publish with a small press, how her best marketing tool has been word of mouth advertising from groups like WFWA, and about our mutual love for the November phe...

We discuss KD's debut, a fictionalized version of a small-town murder in the late 1920's that wound up garnering world-wide attention.and took place only two counties over from KD's home base in southwestern Wisconsin. KD credits the advice she got from a former student as well as support from local bookstores and mentoring from women authors in our association with giving her the support she need...

Jeannee delves into her love for the rich heritage of Afghanistan, which forms the backdrop of her debut and how, even at an early age, teachers singled her stories out for praise, so she's always considered herself a writer despite years as a professor as well as a photographer. You'll learn how she re-wrote her book several times based on feedback from both agents and other writers and why she o...

Beatryce and I discuss about how she purposely wanted to write a book about boomers finding a soulmate rather than millennials, how she found the perfect hybrid press to teach her about launching a debut, How she lets her characters take her on a roller-coaster ride if they want, and her unique technique for capturing those novel ideas that come to all of us at 4 in the morning.   Beatryce Ruby ha...

Gina spoke to us from Australia only hours after a major earthquake shook her town, but she's used to living in danger zones. In fact, her real-life experience of living in Baghdad at the time of Hussein's toppling and discovering a good friend was an informant for the Iraqi government was the springboard for Gina's debut which subsequently became a Target Book of the Month pick. Moving from her p...

Even though her fiction often has speculative and magical elements (she's a life-long fan of monsters and snakes) Tiffany considers her primary goal as an author to dive deep into the "why" people behave the way they do, rather than contriving intricate plots. When it came to publishing, she took a gamble and went with a small publisher just starting out that she heard about through a member annou...

Elizabeth and I discuss her experience with PitchWars (thumbs up), losing her first agent (thumbs down) and how she had to segment her marketing approach to appeal to divergent audiences (historical fiction, steampunk, sci-fi, fantasy, romance, and yes, women's fiction) since her debut didn't fit neatly into one genre. Even though she signed with a small publisher, her novel would up topping the c...

Shail  Rajan woke up on December 9 th , after a difficult few months for her family, and decided to publish the novel she'd had in the drawer for years. And not just sometime in the future after she'd gotten an agent and found a publisher, but that very day . She followed the KDP instructions step-by-step, worked with her teenage daughter to fashion a cover, and before the sun went down, she hit p...

This week's guest is L. Bordetsky-Williams (Forget Russia, Tailwinds Press, December 2020) whose historical fiction debut is framed around many of her family's experiences from 1900-1980 during the Russian Revolution, the pogroms in Ukraine, and her relatives' eventual immigration to America, and later return to their mother country once the depression hit in 1931. She's a big believer that we're...