“If I have the true version of a scene or a story I stick with that….you cannot make anything up that is more interesting or rings truer than the truth.” Martha Hall Kelly talks about her writing and researching of historical fiction with her latest novel – Lost Roses. “The more I find out about Read More
“Writing this book (set in Germany during WW2) I thought alot about…what you would become numb to just by being there and experiencing things day after day, week after week and how would that look different to you than how it looks to us now, all these years later.” Jillian Cantor talks about her love Read More
“The tough stuff is the stuff you need to write about, ’cause that’s where the conflict is; that’s also where the challenge is, to figure out how to write about it.” Mitchell S. Jackson shares his insights on writing and his own life, talking about his “memoir in essays” – Survival Math. “And then for Read More
“How do you get people to listen to a story tha, I think, we are socialized to ignore?” Sandy Allen talks about her memoir of her uncle’s life – A Kind of Mirraculas Paradise. – A True Story about Schizophrenia. “I really wanted people to be able to hear just what Bob had gone through Read More
“My mother died when I was only thirty, she was fifty-seven. I hoped to give her a chance at another life…” John Thorndike talks about his motivation for writing his new historical novel – One Hundred Fires in Cuba. “Clare (the heroine) was generated by my mother…..The book is really her story and her battle Read More
Historical fiction novelist Pam Jenoff talks with Writers Voices about her fascination with WW2 “I regard my books as love songs to the people who lived through that most difficult era; and even if the story doesn’t come from personal experiences…my love for the period and the things it can illuminate for us, come from Read More
“I created these characters that were really composites of the different women I had read about. The characters came out of the research in different ways.” Jane Healey brings to life the stories of Red Cross Clubmoble girls during WW2 in her novel – The Beantown Girls. “They brought the comforts of home but also Read More
“We were more mastering the art of sharing, than critiquing. It was less about take this apart and it was more, you know, respond to this,…how did it play upon you, what does it make you think of.” Sara Ruhl talking about her correspondence with poet Max Ritvo and her book – Letters from Max, Read More
“When I was in Afghanistan I would really try to get a sense of how it smelled there, and how dusty it was, and what it felt like when the sun was shining on you….There’s stuff you just can’t get if you don’t go,” John Wray talks with Writers Voices about the research and the Read More
“Let us investigate the ways in which we fool ourselves, so that we may cease to do so.” John B Lane quoting from his book – The Beatin’ Path – a lyrical guide to lucid evolution. “Beliefs or belief systems are one of the kind of root sources of much of our difficulty, because they Read More
“The book is really about being drawn instead of driven.” Dr Bryan Robinson shares his insights on stress management and his new book # Chill – Turn off your Job and Turn on Your Life. “Self care and self compassion are some of the best medicine to help us be better people…. Unfortunately many people Read More
“Why didn’t anyone remind me that this was going to be published?” Monica talks with Eva Hagburg Fisher about the making of her book – How To Be Loved – a memoir of a lifesaving friendship. ” When I was writing the book, I really was just in the world of the book. The book Read More
“The first year that I did it I remember kind of thinking ‘What did I get myself into?’ ’cause every night I’d have to come up with a mission for the next morning.” Sarah Linden joins Writers voices to talk about the creation of – North Pole Ninjas – Mission Christmas, along with her co-author Read More
“I think a lot of writers who write crime fiction have turned to it to metabolize fear. Probably a lot of readers turn to crime fiction for the same reason.” Lisa Unger talking about her novel “Under My Skin. “For me the human psyche, the brain..that is the place of intense curiosity and probably most Read More
“Every book we do is about inspiration; people beating the odds and telling their story.” Writers Voices talks with Elizabeth Ann Atkins and Catherine Marie Atkins Greenspan of Two Sisters Writing and Publishing. “Catherine and I are just on a mission to do good in the world.” Who I am is deep down inside me, Read More
Monica and Caroline talk food with Lisa Joy Mitchell and her new cookbook – Sacred and Delicious. …”all living creatures and all human beings have these patterns…dynamic principals that are working in our body. So we are looking to uncover what is the basic imbalance your experiencing and therefore how can we balance it….Most people Read More
Monica talks with tech novel writer Marie Lu on her new novel – Wild Card. “…There’s both good and bad things that come with technology; allot of those questions went into Wild Card. …. In our real world, our tech giants, they tried to make things.. in the beginning, with very good intentions… but the Read More
“She ( the main character) was traveling along the same lines that our country had, when it came to some of the gay rights movement, in a way.” Tammy Lynne Stoner talks about her novel, Sugarland ” It was a difficult time to be a woman for sure and she really was there to represent Read More
“I think human beings have to deal with a lot of weird things regardless of race/class/gender; and a lot of things that are like terrifying. So as an artist I just want to explore these things.” Kiese Laymon talks to Writers Voices about his new memoir – Heavy, an American memoir. ” My mom just Read More
“I think people who are more liberal and progressive need to stop drinking the purple kool aid that the media is serving up….I’m writing an expose about how great (the Veterans Health Administration ) is.” Journalist Suzanne Gordon speaks about veterans, health care and her new book – Wounds of War. “The VHA is way Read More
Ellen Keith speaks with Writers Voices about her new historical novel – The Dutch Wife. Set in Amsterdam and Germany during WW2 and in Argentina in the 1970’s. “I was really amazed that after the horrors of WW2 and the cases of mass genocide, that there were still so many other atrocities that took place Read More
Kathryn Berla talks about her new novel – the Kitty Committee, a haunting novel of obsession, regret and the search for absolution. “I usually write about redemption or I like to write about redemption. There is usually an aspect of that in all of my books. So I feel like Grace, ( the main character) Read More
“It’s a dangerous story about a dangerous place..” Roger Johns talks about his newest mystery novel – River of Secrets. “Baton Rouge has a lot of elements to it that seemed…at some instinctive level more accommodating to stories of the kind I wanted to tell…. When you write a mystery it has to work like Read More
“I often did try to kind of look up at the clouds and imagine that I was moving them myself. .. (a ) little glimmer of this idea of a character, a long, long time ago”. Cai Emmons talks to Writers’ Voices about her new book – Weather Woman. ” I wanted her power to Read More
Christina Dalcher on her new novel – Vox. “It’s a dystopian novel about what happens when a particular faction gains power and decides to silence a large portion of the population…. I did write Vox with a particular faction being in charge and a particular faction being oppressed, but it could have gone the other Read More
Marie Unanue talks with Monica and Caroline about her new children’s book – The Adventures of Phatty & Payaso, Central Park. “Characterlab.org (has) researched children.. they have come up with the character skills that are missing in today’s children…Empathy is such a hard skill to teach, because you have to ask the child to be Read More
“Being uncomfortable in your body is not relegated to people who weigh a certain amount…I think it’s a universal experience, unfortunately.” Writers Voices talks with Kristan Higgins about body image and her new novel – Good Luck With That. “I really wanted to dig into how insidious these messages are and how they can eat Read More
Writers Voices talks to Vanessa Hua about her novel – River of Stars. ” A pregnant Thelma and Louise tale.” about chinese immigrants. “I think that’s sort of the fun and challenge of fiction. You start with a blank page that feels as big as the world…but then as you go along…you sort of see Read More
“I suspect that most if not all the people we have thought of as evil…I suspect that there has been some extreme malfunction going on in their brains, that is what I believe.” Writers Voices talks with Sue Klebold on her book – A Mother’s Reckoning – Living in the Aftermath of Tragedy, Sue is Read More
“This book was the story I had to write before I could write other things.” Writers Voices talks with Allie Rowbottom about her family memoir – Jell-O Girls. “She ( my mother) was especially vulnerable to the really damaging messaging of living in a patriarchy as a woman, especially at that point in history….Jello was Read More
Amy Blumenfeld talks to Writers Voices about her new book – The Cast. “It’s about authenticity about listening to your gut and not giving up on your gut, knowing who you are, but also respecting the person that you love the most….I was really interested in exploring what happens when there’s love and respect and Read More
Monica and Caroline talk with Ann Hood about the writing life and her new novel for young readers – She loves you Yeah, Yeah, Yeah. ” It was fun to remember my young self like that and how earnest I was about all these things….One of the things that was fun was recreating, for the Read More
“I have to feel strongly, it is a kind of catharsis for me” Writers Voices speaks with Bryan Peterson on his book – I Give My Eyes. “I try and be very, very disciplined with the actual words chosen and be very careful with adjectives. Adjectives tend to muck things up. they don’t leave enough Read More
“To me this was a true Shakespearean tragedy… the falling of the family patriarch.” Randy Susan Meyers, on her new book – The Widow of Wall Street – ” Everybody wants to think they are above being fooled…. Here is this women who, in my book, gets totally bamboozled and they want to think it Read More
Monica and Caroline chat with Camille DiMaio, author of – The Way of Beauty about her writing process and some of the themes she touches on in her novels. “That’s what I love about historical fiction. The issues that people were dealing with a hundred years ago are not really different. We are dealing with Read More
” I think there is so much darkness and garbage in the world….I write for my girlfriends and all women I hope, I just think when I close a book at the end of the night and click my lamp off I want to go to sleep feeling good.” Andrea Thome talks with Writers Voices Read More
“People like ideas that have one foot in the familiar and one foot in the novel.” Allen Gannett on his new book, – The Creative Curve. ” Ideas that are familiar enough to feel safe but novel enough to be interesting, novel enough to be intriguing.”…”I think the reality is creators are creating for people Read More
“Writing a novel and having it rejected…it’s like being an athlete and getting injured. I think you have to ask yourself what do I need to do to overcome.” Writers Voices talks writing and mystery writing with Elena Hartwell on her new novel – Three Strikes You’re Dead. “I think the two primary things that Read More
Writers voices talks writing with Sue Halpern author of Summer Hours at the Robbers Library. “They (the characters) definitely develop and I think what happens is that you sort of start, you wind them up a little bit and then they take on a life of their own and they may start talking to you. Read More
Our culture of misogyny is the topic as Writers Voices speaks with Brendan Kiely about his new novel for young adults – Tradition. “I think that men too often construct their masculinity in ways that are anti-woman and that’s part of the problem. They haven’t even taken the time to imagine the individual. If you’re Read More
“Randall, my lead character, is the kind of guy that I think a lot more of us should be. He instinctively questions authority. He doesn’t take things at face value…..People like that cause our civilization to evolve.” Writer’s Voices chats with Mile Nemeth, author of the crime fiction novel – The Undiscovered Country. “The theme Read More
In the past thought was that ” if you just had the perfect dog training technique…if you just did everything right, then you could make (your dog) how you want them to be.” Kim Brophey talks to Writers Voices about her new book. Meet Your Dog. “Let’s look at what the dog was designed for… Read More
“Such an ironic story. Here you have someone who is so closely associated with the ( Civil Rights) movement; but as it turns out there’s also a hidden life, that he is essentially the FBI’s eyes and ears.” Marc Perrusquia on his new book – A Spy in Canaan – How the FBI used a Read More
“On the otherside she was just so amused by everything. everthing,was so freaking funny” Elizabeth Moore talks to Writers Voices about her novel The Dreaming Road, A vivid personal accounting of her connection with her daughter after her death by suicide. ” There are alot of people who will really doubt me if I try Read More
“I don’t think anyone could imagine what would happen.” Veera Hiranandani talks to Writers Voices about her new book – The Night Diary – A young adult novel about the partitioning of India. ” My grandparents, basically one night said “We have to get out of here.” Packed bags, got on a train and made Read More
“I have long felt that it is more important to have well written, deep multifaceted female characters than it is to have strong roles. I think the strength is … often a by product of the depth.” Matt Killeen on writing -Orphan, Monster, Spy. ” She ( the main character) kind of talks to me Read More
“We are born, somehow with some basic wiring, to understand story.” Tim Wendel on his book – Cancer Crossings. A brother, his doctors and the quest for a cure to childhood leukemia. “If you can put it in a story it makes it much more palpable, it makes it entertaining,…. If I put it out Read More
Go deep into the process of character development with Chinese born author Yang Huang and her new book – My Old Faithful. “A story is not done until (the) characters have taken over and (can) be authoritatively felt on the page… So you may have birthed them. but in subsequent drafts they need to be Read More
Enter the world of the acting coach as Writers Voices talks with Warner Loughlin about her book – An acting revolution, The Warner Loughlin Technique. “We repeat that, that we’ve known since childhood, but we also try to repair as well. …if we start with a bare human emotion and what caused that character to Read More
Writers Voices talks with publicist Emily Miles Terry about the business of promoting books. “(With) the rise of technology in general, we are just competing for people’s time. When you’re in the business of content, there is so much for people to be doing….it becomes harder and harder to sell a book…It’s interesting to see Read More