The Women Books & More’s Podcast

Here’s the story: The culinary world imagined by Churchill is full of closely guarded recipes and secrets that can create powerful spells. We are taken inside the Brindille School of Culinary Arts and Magic where we are enchanted by magic, mystery…and recipes. About the author: Marisa Churchill (an award-winning pastry chef) was a contestant on Top Chef (Season 2), constructed the city of San Fran...

I don’t normally interview business leaders. There are plenty of podcasts that do. But… I was introduced to Garry Ridge by a mutual friend who said I’d love reading his new book—Any Dumb-Ass Can Do It. I was intrigued, read the book and could hardly wait to talk with Garry. It did not hurt that Garry had served as CEO of the WD-40 Company for 25 and made it a household brand. I mean everyone knows...

The Inn Crowd: Artistic Getaways and The Modern Innkeepers who Crafted Them is a gorgeous coffee table book—written and photographed by the incomparable Jackie Caradonio. Each of the images gives us a privileged peek into more than 20 unique and stylish inns. The accompanying stories describe each of the innkeepers, every one passionate about creating memorable experiences in a beautiful setting—f...

As dusk descends on Christmas Eve, my family gathers to hear a recording of Dylan Thomas reading, A Child’s Christmas in Wales. His baritone transports us—though time and across distance—to his childhood Christmases in Swansea, Wales. It gives me great pleasure to share my story with you. Thank you for listening and supporting my podcast. I wish you an abundance of peace and joy in 2026. You can s...

I am thrilled to talk with Don George. National Geographic calls him “a legendary travel writer and editor.” And he certainly is. He’s also the author of How to Be a Travel Writer and the founder of the annual (in August) Book Passage Travel Writers and Photographers Conference held in Corte Madera, California. It is a great conference for beginning travel writers to meet editors and for veteran t...

It all happens at Gaylord Rockies Resort—now through January 2, 2026. The sugarplum dreams of childhood rolled into one. Andrea Lawley, Public Relations Manager at the Gaylord Rockies Resort—joins us to talk about Christmas at Gaylord Rockies. Always magical. Always fun. ICE! Christmas is an immersive experience…much anticipated every year. The resort’s signature 17,000-square-foot attraction carv...

Stranahan's Whiskey Distillery & Cocktail Bar is having a big party—Stranahan’s Snowflake Village Festival—December 5th and December 6th to celebrate the release of Snowflake 2025. The party is at the distillery in Denver. (200 S. Kalamath Street). Hundreds of Strana-fans from across the country come to Denver for this event. They camp outside at the distillery to secure a bottle of the covete...

The lowly apron is making a comeback. The Guardian (British daily newspaper) notes: Emma Corrin wore a pink apron to a recent premiere, while Richard E Grant looked like a kinky fishmonger in a leather apron on the Miu Miu catwalk. Everyone on The Bear wears aprons. Younger generations have embraced the Cottagecore aesthetic—gardening, bee keeping, pie baking—and that usually involves wearing an a...

Beloved chef Jacques Pepin joins us. He’s 90 and still cooking up a storm. And he has a gorgeous new cookbook THE ART OF JACQUES PEPIN—full of his favorite recipes and his own artwork. He likes to paint chickens…and to cook chickens and eggs. When asked “Which came first…the chicken or the egg?” He doesn’t hesitate. “The egg, of course.” We caught up with him in his kitchen. He was sitting in fron...

Recipes written on tombstones. Who knew this was even a thing? Most headstones list names and dates, in rare cases they include something much more personal: beloved family recipes permanently etched in stone. Rosie Grant traveled the world to research and write a cookbook full of culinary epitaphs from across the globe—spritz cookies from Brooklyn, chicken casserole from Wisconsin, tea biscuits f...

I love trains and travel by train at every opportunity. The Canadian from Toronto to Vancouver, the Eurostar from London to Paris, the mighty Indian Pacific from Adelaide to Perth. So…I was thrilled to hear that Everett Potter had just written a big and comprehensive book about trains, 100 Train Journeys of a Lifetime: The World’s Ultimate Rides. Let me tell you a little about Everett Potter. He w...

Caroline Alexander is the author of internationally best-selling Skies of Thunder, The Endurance, The Bounty, and other works of literary non-fiction. In 2015, she published an acclaimed translation of Homer's Iliad, the first English translation (form the original Greek) of a Homeric poem by a woman. Skies of Thunder: The Deadly World War II Mission Over the Roof of the World is a tale about the...

Since the moment I chatted with Lisa Genova about her new book, More or Less Maddy, I’ve been getting messages from you all, asking me to air the interview we did a few years ago when Lisa wrote Still Alice. Here it is—by popular demand. For those who don’t know Still Alice, here’s the story: Dr. Alice Howland is a renowned linguistics professor at Columbia University. When words begin to escape h...

Here’s what we think we know about arguably the most famous Native American women who ever lived: she was interpreter and guide for Lewis & Clark; she traveled 1000s of miles from North Dakota to the Pacific Ocean and she died tragically young.   But…what if everything we know about Sacagawea is wrong…including how we pronounce her name…   Sandra and Dennis Fox sit down to talk with us. They a...

Today, we sit down with Black Tomato’s Carolyn Addison to talk about travel. Black Tomato is one of the world’s leading luxury travel companies. Carolyn is one of the standout female leaders at Black Tomato and is the driving force behind some of Black Tomato’s most imaginative and compelling travel experiences. She’s been called an “experience architect.” She tells us about solo travel, mother-da...

Margie Goldsmith is one of the most accomplished women I know. She has traveled to more than 150 countries on seven continents and written more than 1,000 award-winning articles about her adventures. You can read them in Forbes, National Geographic, the New York Times and many other publications. She is a film maker, a former marathoner and triathlete. She plays blues harmonica and jams with some...

Casting for Recovery (a national nonprofit) delivers healing for women diagnosed with breast cancer that traditional medicine alone can’t offer — powerful, oncology-informed weekend retreats held on a river, not in a hospital room. CfR celebrates its 30th anniversary and currently hosts 60 free fly-fishing retreats in all 50 states, serving over 800 women each year. Women at any age and any stage...

Darla Worden is the Editor-in-Chief of Mountain Living magazine and Colorado Homes & Lifestyles magazine. She joins us to talk about Cockeyed Happy, her book about Ernest Hemingway’s summers in Wyoming with his second wife, Pauline. This story is not well known. I mean…we can picture Hemingway in Paris. Fishing in Key West. Drinking rum at his favorite bar (The Floridita) in Havana. But…Wyomin...

Maybe you want to write a book. A children’s book. A children’s picture book. Maybe about a wee hedgehog who wants to be a ballerina. Or an alligator who dreams of becoming an astronaut. Maybe about learning to cook in Nona’s kitchen. Or a nonfiction book about the secret language of spiders   I mean…how difficult can it be to write a book for children?   The answer is…not as easy you might think....

This one’s out of the vault and one of my favorite vampire stories. It is the second (in a series of five) President’s Vampire books by Christopher Farnsworth. It is about a vampire that works for the president of the United States. The book was published in 2011 so the president referenced could have been President Obama or it could have been West Wing’s President Bartlet. The story is paranormal...

OK. OK. Thank you for your messages. I get it. Everyone wants more Lisa See. So today...I dove deep into the vault and found this interview—Shanghai Girl—from 2009. It is about the complex relationship between two sisters who live a privileged life in 1930s Shanghai—full of great wealth and glamour and called The Pearl of the Orient. Twenty-one-year-old Pearl Chin and her younger sister May beauti...

New York Times best-selling author Lisa See is Chinese American—although her tawny hair, freckles and pale skin belie her Asian heritage. Starting 30 years ago with family memoir, On Gold Mountain, her books always are drawn from and reflect her cultural roots. She talks with us about some of her favorites: Snow Flower and the Secret Fan (secret writing developed by women best-friends in 19th cent...

This is one of my favorites from the vault. It originally ran on my radio show more than 10 years ago. I just listened to it again and laughed until I got the hiccups. How can talking about death be funny? Listen in and you’ll find out. Here’s the story: From angels to zombies and everything in between, Heidegger and a Hippo Walk Through Those Pearly Gates is a seriously funny take on the philosop...

Here’s the story: Sisters on the Fly was started by two real-life sisters, Maurrie Sussman and Becky Clarke, who loved fly fishing, camping in their vintage trailers, a glass of good wine, campfire cooking, and playing poker for pennies. They invited their friends to join them and soon there were 20.  Pretty soon there were 100. “When we started, we wanted to bring women together as best friends a...

Explore what comes next for the Women Books & More Podcasts