In Knocked Down, award-winning author, Aileen Weintraub, enthralls readers with her hilarious, yet touching, memoir detailing her childhood through to her difficult pregnancy. “So Knocked Down is my story about being a Brooklyn girl who moves to the country, ends up having this whirlwind romance, and ends up on bed rest in a rickety old Read More
Author of two acclaimed memoirs, Annette Libeskind Berkovits, joins us to discuss her debut novel, The Corset Maker. The story follows the life of 12-year old Rifka Berg and tells of her extraordinary journey beginning in pre-World War II Poland, then to Palestine, through the Spanish Civil War, and finally to post-war Paris, all the Read More
In Paul Merrill’s first book, Fast Food Detective: An Offbeat Novel, he writes “a detective-comedy-romance spoof on men and women’s relationships.” The story is about Larry, a hapless assistant manager at a fast food restaurant, who loses his job and then tries unsuccessfully at getting any future jobs in the industry. From there, he decides Read More
Leader of the JOMO movement, podcast host, and author, Christina Crook, speaks with us about her newest book, Good Burdens: How to Live Joyfully in the Digital Age. She explains that the concept “good burdens” comes from an American philosopher of technology named Dr. Albert Borgmann. Borgmann, who is also a professor emeritus at the Read More
International best-selling author, Sabaa Tahir, talks to us about her seventh published book, All My Rage. “So All My Rage is a contemporary novel, as opposed to a fantasy. It is following the story of two characters, three characters, actually. The main two are Noor and Salahudin. They are two young kids growing up in Read More
Author and 5th generation Iowan, Mary Christopher, joins us to discuss her first book, Our Friend Sitting Bull, which tells the real-life account of her great grandparents, Lizzie and George Dell, and their friendship with the famous Lakota Indian chief, Sitting Bull. The story begins with the four-month long journey of 20-year old Lizzie and Read More
In I Must Betray You, New York Times best selling author, Ruta Sepetys, writes a historical fiction thriller set in communist Romania in 1989. Sepetys said, “…it follows the story of a 17-year old high school student, who is blackmailed by the Romanian secret police to become an informer for the Communist regime. They expect Read More
Artist, illustrator, web designer and now author, Emilya Naymark, sits with us to discuss the second novel in her Sylvan series, Behind the Lie. The series centers around Laney Bird, a former NYPD cop turned PI, who had worked a Russian racketeering case gone wrong. From there, a sequence of unfortunate events occur with her Read More
Screenwriter, novelist, and stand-up comic, Erica Ferencik, joins us to discuss her third published novel, Girl in Ice. “The storyline is about an American linguist named Val who is tasked to go to a very remote climate research center off the coast of Greenland where a girl has been found in the ice and she’s Read More
Sissie Klein is Completely Normal is Kris Clink’s standalone sequel to her first novel, Goodbye Lark Lovejoy. Both stories are part of Clink’s Enchanted Rock series and are set in Texas’ beautiful Hill Country. Sissie Klein is Completely Normal is centered around the title character Sissie, who was introduced to readers in the first novel. Read More
In Fixed: How to Perfect the Fine Art of Problem Solving, Amy Herman writes about her methodology for helping individuals find solutions through observing works of art. Herman is the founder and president of The Art of Perception, Inc., an organization that provides professional development courses for leaders from around the world. Her work has Read More
CEO of KS Consulting & Capital, author, and cancer survivor, Kelley Skoloda, talks with us about her memoir, A Way Back to Health: 12 Lessons from a Cancer Survivor. A few years ago, Skoloda received a shocking diagnosis after her first routine colonoscopy, where doctors found a polyp that turned out to be cancerous. She Read More
Writer’s Voices sat down to chat with author, publisher, and owner of Ice Cube Press, Steve Semken. Semken, who started as a publisher in 1991, has published many genres of books including poetry, graphic novels, memoirs, nonfiction, thrillers, and more. “I guess what I really like are interesting, unusual stories.” Throughout his long career, he’s Read More
Jeffrey Morse joins us from Mooresville, North Carolina, where he discusses his memoir, Finding Forward: You Have the Will Within. Morse, who had built successful careers in both the military and commercial aviation, awoke one day to find he had suffered from a brain aneurysm and a dissected artery. When asked why he wanted to Read More
Veteran Broadway, television and film actor and now author, Rick Lenz, joins us to discuss his novel, Hello, Rest of My Life. While not quite autobiographical, the book is loosely based on Rick and his wife, Linda, who have been married 40 years. His novel tells of the romance between film actor, Danny Maytree, and Read More
In his fourth book of poetry, Sneezing Coyotes, Sal Marici explores darker, real-life topics including aging, death and the pandemic. During the interview, Caroline described his work as “a very wide range of interests and abilities in writing poetry.” Sal said, “The poem, Sneezing Coyotes, is the title of one of my poems in my Read More
Charlie Holmberg speaks to us about her fantasy book, Star Mother, her 15th published novel. “The idea behind Star Mother is it has its own god folklore and stars are godlings and they are the batteries of the universe but they can only be born from the sun god and a mortal mother and the Read More
“For anyone who has been intrigued by this time period and these people from the Hamilton musical or from other books about that time period, biographies of Hamilton or Adams, this is a different take; a look from a feminine perspective and really a lot of fun.” Love, Theodosia, Goldstein’s historical fiction debut, tells of Read More
The Silence of Scheherazade, written by Turkish novelist Defne Suman, was first published in 2015 in Turkey and Greece. It made its English language debut in August of 2021. Set in the ancient city of Smyrna, the story is about four families whose lives intertwine during the decline of the Ottoman Empire, as told by Read More
“Beheld is very timely for this time of year because we’re coming right up on Thanksgiving… which in our, sort of, culture is a celebration of a myth of the Pilgrims in Plymouth, Massachusetts, and that is the subject matter of this historical novel, Beheld.” The story centers around the death of Dorothy Bradford, first Read More
In the Bohemians, Jasmin Darznik writes about Dorathea Lange, the great American documentary photographer known for her Depression-era work and her iconic photograph, Migrant Mother. Her story begins with the arrival of Lange in San Francisco in 1918, where her passion for photography was just growing. “She came to San Francisco as a young woman Read More
The poetry in Ananda Lima’s “Mother/Land” delves into the intersection of motherhood and immigration, combining English and Portuguese for a deeply moving and lyrically beautiful experience. The Brazilian-born author plays with both the meaning and sounds of words in both languages, as well as with various poetic forms. The result is poetry that can be Read More
Galia Gichon joins Writers Voices for a lively discussion of her novel – The Accidental Suffragist “What has come up in so many of these conversations, like I did a podcast in Georgia, I did a podcast in Texas just really around the book … and they say “How’s this book relevant today?” – because Read More
Historical novelist Liza Nash Taylor talks about her latest work – All in Good Faith – and how she manages writing from two perspectives. ” It’s funny for me My writing process is – I’ll sit down and some days I feel like I can write dialog , I can write a scene in dialog. Read More
Laura Galloway and her memoir – Dalvi – Six years in the Arctic tundra. … “I made a trip to the Arctic and I absolutely loved it…. it was such a profound juxtaposition from the life that I was living in New York,…. ..During my travels to the Arctic … I met a reindeer herder Read More
Dolores Johnson tells us about suffering and joys of her bi-racial family in – Say, I’m Dead, a family memoir of race, secrets and love. “Say I’m dead is a multi generational story of my family; who endured fear, secrets and separation and finally transformation; because they were not bound by the forbidding race mixing Read More
Winner of the Iowa Short Story Fiction Award Blake Sanz’s short story collection -The Boundaries of Their Dwelling takes us into the place where all of us are immigrants. He talks with us about his work. “The title comes from a line in the Bible, from Act’s I believe, and the full line is “and Read More
“Rob said to me, ‘Don’t think of what’s best for you, think of what’s best for your readers; because your readers want to learn more about what autism is, what kind of an impact you have on others, and more importantly the educators and the parents of kids who have autism…this is going to impact Read More
Daniel Handler aka. Lemony Snicket -talks about his love of writing and his new book for adults – Poison for Breakfast. “When I was young and first interested in books. I felt so deeply connected to books and the world of literature that I knew I wanted to participate in some way. It felt like Read More
I survived the attacks of September 11, 2001 – the graphic novel version of the latest in Lauren Tarshis popular I Survived – series for children. She talks about how it began. “I started writing the series more than ten years ago. And I would say it was shaped by a couple of different forces. Read More
Poet Maggie Smith shares her insights into life and suffering and :joy talking about her new book – Goldenrod, “You are not betraying your grief by feeling joy, You are not being graded and you do not receive extra credit for being miserable 100% of the time. Find pockets of relief, even happiness, where and Read More
A dancer and a writer Renee K Nicholson reflects on the experience of writing her memoir – Fierce and Delicate – Essays on dance and illness. “Anytime you’re writing a memoir, you’re excavating your past and there are things in our past that are always painful. But there was also something wonderfully cathartic about it. Read More
Kristin Contino talk about the craft of writing and her second novel – A House Full of Windsor. “The book is about Debbie and her daughter Sara. We follow Debbie from the 1980’s through the present day; her history of loving the royal family and being a royal family collector to the point where she Read More
Katherine Dean Mazerov talks about the inspiration behind her new novel -Summer Club. “I’m a life long career journalist. I worked as both a writer and an editor and I had never considered writing a book…especially fiction because I come from the nonfiction world. Quite a few years ago I decided to stay at home Read More
Alka Joshi returns to Writers Voices with the second installment of her historical fiction trilogy – The Secret Keeper of Jaipur. She talked with us about her novels and her writing process. ” I am not a good person for routines. I’ve never been good with routines. So for me the best thing to do Read More
The Agitators – Dorothy Wickedness’ new history of three friends who fought for abolition and women’s rights. “It’s so heart-breaking to think of all the women’s live that have been completely lost, and this of course is true for almost every African American, certainly, who are descendants of enslaved people. The histories are gone, mostly, Read More
Kathy Gereau talks about gathering the stories that went into her memoir – Serious Little Catholics “One of the things people ask me about is; How can you remember all that stuff that happened? When ever (my family ) would get together we would tell stories. Remember when this happened? So it’s kind of something Read More
Ellen Michaelson’s award winning novella – The Care of Strangers. ” It’s about how we take care of each other in challenging times. And it’s also about how we get beyond our family expectations to be who we want to be or to do what we want to do in life. It covers a lot Read More
Write a poem, Save your life, A Guide for Teens, Teachers and Writers of All Ages “Well it’s my story, and It’s what motivated me and put me on the mission to teach others and show others this incredible path of writing for healing and empowerment and self expression.” ” I think the really challenging Read More
“The book title: It’s called The Field House ; A Writer’s Life Lost and Found on an Island in Maine. The Field House is the name of Rachel Field’s summer house. That is what it has been called for fifty years by Sutton Islanders. She called it – The Playhouse – because she used money Read More
Tracy Clark author of – Runner – the fourth in the Chicago Mystery series, talks about the research she did to give her novel authenticity “Once I knew that Cass ( the main character) had this sort of background in police work I took two police detectives, female, to breakfast. I said. Well, exactly how Read More
Anita Diamant and Melissa Berton the creators, respectively, of a book and an Oscar winning film dealing with menstrual injustice” – Period, end of sentence. Anita’s collection of essays was inspired by the film and her research. “The real question here is about dignity, One should be able to take care of ones necessary bodily Read More
Lori McMullen grew up in Florida. Her novel – Among the Beautiful Beasts – tells the story of the early life of Everglades advocate Marjory Stoneman Douglas. “Anybody who grew up in south Florida and went through the public school system … knows the name of Marjory Stoneman Douglas.” She is kind of a fixture Read More
“When we as white people adopted black children we learned that there was a whole lot that we did not know and we thought in writing this book that we could bring a perspective that might be helpful for white people in general.” Fern L. Johnson and Marlene G Fine share their insights in their Read More
When the Tempest Passes…and the Wicked is No More -is set in the l890’s; it’s author Linda Kephart-Nash tells her grandmothers story from the early the deaths of her siblings to the disappearance of the fiancé she loved so much and the humiliation of being left at the altar, “The wedding was set and the Read More
Romance writer RaeAnn Thayne talks about her novel – The Path to Sunshine Cove – and her motivations for writing. ” I like stories that make people feel good and that they can be happy at the end of the day, when they were reading them. That was sort of a better fit for my Read More
Gary Kelley talks about why he created his graphic novel – Moon of the Snow Blind, ” “My uncle ..taught me to draw, Gene Kelley, had a lot of books in his house, which was not far from where I was, growing up in Algona. Some of those books kind of got me attracted to Read More
Cozy mystery writer Mia P Manansala talks about her debut novel Arsenic and Adobo. and her motivations for writing it. “I still haven’t been able to find books that represent me and my experience and my family life the way I see it. I have yet to see Filipino Americans in most main stream media Read More
Musician and writer Doug Hoekstra has a new CD out – The Day Deserved . He talks with Writers Voices about his new short story collection – Ten Seconds In-Between – “I’d always written prose here an there… That’s something I’d always done in an on going way. And when I was focused on my Read More
Pam Jenoff is with us again talking about her latest novel – The Woman with the Blue Star – Historical fiction set in Poland during WW2 “I like to tell all the stories and I like the gray areas in people. When I grew up, history was very black and white, in broad brush strokes. Read More