Writers Drinking Coffee

Kristie De Garis is a writer, photographer, and artist. Her premier novel, Drystone: A Life Rebuilt, is a beautiful gut-punch of a memoir that offers an unflinching view of a childhood being different and alien, dysfunctional family ties, and alcohol abuse that acts as undiagnosed neurodivergent coping skills. Everyone has a story to tell, and Kristie is here to talk about how she got it wrong but...

We always say that all storytelling is important, because every story written has someone else needs to hear it. Jeannie’s old high school friend Dari DeSousa runs an HR consulting business, and she got together with other HR leads to tell stories from their own lived experiences. They turned these anecdotes into a book with warnings and advice for leaders in industry. The book, HR After Dark, loo...

From an idea pitched to the film industry for a TV series, Lynn Harrod has created a thrilling novel based on a genius Filipino gangster making his way into the power structures of the greater Los Angeles sprawl. The Duke of Temple Street is a great thriller, outlining a neurodivergent man navigating the web of family and heritage against making money and surviving in a very real scenario of multi...

Come meet the author of the Black Swan Trilogy as we talk about book 2, Black Swan Shock. Helen was a Senior Medical Intelligence Analyst before the covid pandemic, specializing in planning and preparing for biological incidents. She brings that vivid, very real knowledge of how Black Swan events start and spread and “should” be contained — so the reactions of her fictional personas are true to li...

Leokadia joins us to talk about the series of children’s books she wrote featuring Trumpet, the grey wolf. Her writing grew out of volunteering at a Wolf Conservation Center aiming to introduce kids to wolves in a new way. These children’s books explore Trumpet’s life from being the baby miracle pup through to having pups of her own, and the whole journey is beautifully illustrated by Maddy Moore....

Jendia Gammon is involved in multiple facets within the industry, from writing that gets nominated for all the best awards to running as a writer to editing anthologies and running her own publishing house. Jendia is CEO of Roaring Spring Productions, LLC, as well as Editor-in-Chief of its publishing imprint, Stars and Sabers. Today we chat about her collection of fairy tales that scatter across t...

Our own Chaz Brenchley has a prolific year with 4 (5?) new books published. We gathered to talk about his first in a new series, “Of The Emperor’s Kindness”. It is written within a new genre I had to go delve into learning more about, a Fantasy of Manners with only a touch of violence here and there. It is a delightful sapphic romp into a world of his own devising, of warring nations, diplomacy, a...

Never say it’s too late in your life to start writing! Steve Shlam joins us to talk about his first published novel, “The Harvesting of Haystacks Kane”. It was nominated for two prizes, and is a fascinating dive into the world of 1950’s-60’s wrestling. Haystacks, a nice Jewish boy, goes on the road with his manager into the world of scripted wrestling and discovers it’s far more dangerous than he...

Everyone who wants to write has a work in progress. At least one. Jeannie sits down with Andrew Walsh, a prized hockey network friend-writing crossover, to talk about making progress on writing his first novel. We hope the discussion triggers something in any listener to say, “I could try that” or “yeah, thanks for kicking my ass to get me in motion again.” Because everyone has a story - whether t...

M.N. Lee shares her first novel, Proof of Origin, which we think belongs on bookshelves right next to Atwood’s The Handmaid's Tale for near future speculative literature. It follows three main perspectives from a Vietnamese politician, the caucasian wife of a conservative politician, and a mixed-race couple that faces deportation and a new life back in Vietnam together. The prose is compelling, he...

Dr. Bernstein is a cultural historian at Harvard, teaching US Racial Formation since the early 19th century. Her latest book, Freeman's Challenge: The Murder That Shook America’s Original Prison for Profit, delves into the history of America’s first prisons in New York built along capitalist ideals, and how one young man violently rebelled against the unfair and abusive treatment therein. One man’...

Dheepa started out as a poet, but found herself drawn into novel writing to express bigger ideas, such as the social interconnection necessary for human prosperity and the corresponding good treatment of the earth as part of our social ecosystem. Come listen as she talks about 108: An Ecothriller, which is full of vedic writing and eastern beliefs and how her characters need to overcome their fami...

There is a lot of stuff floating around the internet about Autism, from ridiculous assertions about causality to silly things about what someone with Autism can do in their life. This is the first in an ongoing series where your WDC team grabs professional therapists and psychiatrists to talk about what different diagnoses mean, what they look like in terms of symptom clusters, and then armchair a...

Lisa returns with her sequel to the first novel (Slanted and Disenchanted) with a character-driven story called Welcome to Hollywood. It’s a novel of two 20-somethings in 2004 Hollywood, battling with high rents, unsatisfying jobs, and a deep attraction to one another - problem is, they haven’t figured out how to communicate who they are, what they want, and who they are each individually becoming...

Nick Mamatas has newly released an anthology called 120 Murders. A nod to an old MTV show in title, the stories collectively bleed thematically deep into the alternative rock scene of the 1990s, with touches of noir here, fantasy there, and universal transgressive fiction with characters that tell the truth about life as they perceive it. … Continue... Episode 215 – 120 Murders with Ni...

Jim C. Hines is a Hugo-award winning author of a series of princess fairy tales reimagined. Jim has taken the whole fairy tale Princess trope to a new and darkly glorious confection, combining multiple versions into a new saga where the women band together to solve their problems. Come listen as we delve into folklore retelling and cunning new ideas. Damn the Narrativium, full speed ahead! …...

K.M. Herkes writes across multiple genres, from Science Fiction and Fantasy to straight up good contemporary literature. She started as a novelist first, oddly enough, then moved to short stories. We read and squeed over her new book "Relics from a Traveling Show", and dug gleefully through the wide variety of stories in this, her first collection. … Continue... Episode 213 – Interview...

L. Douglas Garrett takes us back to his “Remember the Trade” series of professional operatives, and we sit down with him and his editor Nicky Robinson to chat about their compilation of Remember the Dead. Join us to learn along with “Dave” as he becomes the operative we know and love through a new novella and two prequel short stories. … Continue... Episode 212 – The Operative Returns...

I hope you all remember Richard Sparks, author of New Rock, New Role. We’re here to squee with enthusiasm at the next in the series that just dropped in November, called New Rock, New Realm. We pick up right where the first book ended, so join us! … Continue... Episode 211 – Rocking Out with Richard Sparks

Come meet Karen Nelson, one of the masterminds behind Writing by Writers workshops and author of The Sunken Town. It’s a story about a girl who suddenly inherits property from her birth mother, the narrative dancing gracefully between concepts of adoption, identity, and the consequences of the choices we make. Enjoy! … Continue... Episode 210 – Interview with Karen Nelson

We welcome back Martin Treanor to ask that most interesting of questions: what do fairies want? In his new book, Curiosity and the Cat, a girl who finds herself without much adult influence commits a crime that makes her feel guilty, but happy. But what has she unleashed? What is that cat, really? … Continue... Episode 209 – Martin Treanor’s Cat

Garrett Hutson writes upmarket mysteries and historical spy fiction, with a cast of characters that reflect the diversity and variety of their respective eras. We caught up with him to get his definition and ideas about what upmarket means, talk about his approach to historical fiction like in his Gray Paree, and hear more exciting things about the pre-launch of his piratical LGBT buccaneer advent...

We have chatted with many memoirists, but this vision of the past is new and startlingly original. Alma Alexander’s newest book takes us through her life in stages via the description of the written word that impacted her so profoundly over the years. From childhood to adult, she describes the books she was reading with a glorious review, taking the reader either back to their own experience readi...

The Queen of Swords Press is “an independent small press specializing in swashbuckling tales of derring-do, bold new adventures in time and space, mysterious stories of the occult and arcane and fantastical tales of people and lands far and near.” Which really sums up why we love all the books they’ve put out, without even mentioning their wide variety of protagonists that increase representation...

We are delighted to introduce you all to Anne Montgomery: Sportscaster, referee, journalist, teacher, and author of six published novels. Your Forgotten Sons, inspired by a true story, touched us deeply as Anne taught us about a vital but unsung group of heroes in every war. In this book, set in WWII, we follow Bud Richardville through his younger years into the Army where he becomes a Sergeant in...