What can you do to promote social change? Monica speaks with two activist authors whose books answer that question. Julia Turshen and her new cookbook – Feeding the Resistance, offers “lots of proactive, productive information, ways to get involved in (your) community. Filled with recipes and inspiring stories, it showcases the many ways people are Read More
“Comedy is never written, it is rewritten.” Join Monica and Caroline as they talk with Stephen Rosenfield about his new book – Mastering Stand-up. Director of the American Comedy Institute, he shares insights and anecdotes about the work of comedians he has known and admired. “Stand-up is an artform….””The truth comes out very quickly in Read More
“I always thought I wanted to embark on this incredible journey of writing a novel…” Writers Voices interviews Kate Hamer on her new book – The Doll Funeral. The topics ranging from the process of getting published, “The more I talk to everybody that’s published, the route to publication is always very circuitous, and takes Read More
Grant Faulker extols the joys of the creative life with Monica and Caroline. As his new book – Pep Talks for Writers, proclaims “You don’t need permission to be a creator…. Start by telling yourself you’re a writer, then tell the world.” The conversation, overflows with enthusiasm for the ” something more,” that is the Read More
Writers Voices dives into the the writing process of novelist Jennifer Egan and the background for her new book Manhattan Beach. Set in the New York of the early 1930’s, “my hardest book to write” required research. “A sense of what the collective memory of that time was for people of different ages. Her love Read More
Author Lilli Botchis talks with Writers Voices on the latent powers of our bodies, in her new book -Awakening the Holographic Human. “It’s about awakening our own nature to access these powers in all their glory and capacity, so that we can experience ourselves as the full potential of human on planet earth….We are a Read More
Listen along with Writers Voices to the adventures of Linda Stasi in the research for her new novel – Book of Judas. With a background in investigative journalism, she traveled where ever the story took her, to uncover the mysteries that form the plot of her book. “The truth is more important than the scary… Read More
Author and podcaster Sharon Weil talks to Monica and Caroline about her new book ChangeAbility. “I was so aware of how overwhelmed people get in the face of one change but it’s often multiple changes happening at the same time.” Social change, personal change and a look inside the writing process are all a part Read More
“Of all the people at the meeting I was the only female, the only minority and I was the only person being kicked out of the ( gentlemen only) bar” Shaz Kahng talks about shattering the glass ceiling and her new novel – The Closer. “What I’ve tried to do in the book and also Read More
Writers Voices takes on kids and internet with Ana Homayoun and her new book Social Media Wellness. “When parents and educators understand the language… then they can start having the conversation. Sharing insights into the problems of teens and tweens as they try to navigate the ever changing world of social media. ” (We) didn’t Read More
“All my bosses and teachers said I couldn’t write. In 2002 I submitted a poem to a magazine and it got published.” In this edition of Writers Voices, Monica and Caroline talk to poet Salvatore Marici about his work and the life that inspires it. Reading from his latest book – Fermentations, we taste the Read More
Neil Pasricha shares his personal tools for living a happier life in his new book – 2 Minute Mornings. Author of the blog 1000 awesome things and The Book of Awesome he talks about his writing and his life. “It was the pain that actually created the (first) book, that people like….. It all built Read More
Peter Kalmus on his book- Being the Change, “I view society as kind of like a wave, where individuals are the water molecules – we are moved by the culture and we move the culture…I’m so concerned about what we’re doing, as a species, to the biosphere that gives us our life. I feel it’s Read More
“They are real people to me. I guess they are an elaboration of character traits of people that I know.”. Ladee Hubbard tells stories of the lives and muses on the motivations of “The Talented Ribkins”. Part historical fiction, part magical realism, part mystery, she says of her main character , (I) discover some value Read More
It began with a photo album, looking at pictures of the past brought it all back, the thoughts, the feelings, the perspective of that time, “The book just flowed out of me from there.” Rhoda Orme-Johnson speaks with Monica about her new book Inside Maharishi’s Ashram. A memoir about the early days of the TM Read More
“I wrote it and it was the truest truth I could write” Writer’s Voices spends a delightful hour with the author of – Almost Paradise. A novel for young and old. “Something about the words on the page coming out of your deepest places perfect. I don’t know how it works.” The important thing is Read More
..” slow down and examine life and such concepts as place and reading and literature and family and custom and tradition.” Writers Voices talks with essayist Allen Mendenhall on his book – Of Bees and Boys. “….essays are an attempt to organize the fragmentation and disarray of ordinary experience in our own past.” “The essayist Read More
“I do try to create a whole world; the sights, the sounds, the feel of everything.” Writer’s Voices talks with Michelle Gable about the writing of her new novel – The Book of Summer. “I want it to feel real and I want people to have questions.” On the process of writing .. “I’m always Read More
“I feel my call is to be love.” Kimberly Braun speaks with Monica on her new book – Love Calls – Insights of a former Carmelite nun. “I really went in wanting to experience the divine in everything….I was experiencing an inner love affair…. At our very center, at our soul center is spirit, is Read More
Daniel Connolly, The Book of Isaias. “Once you read this book you really come away with a much deeper understanding of how we got here on illegal immigration…what’s at stake for the future of the country and where we’re going.” “What I was trying to do in writing this book is give people a story Read More
I am much more interested in the truth, in words being used to advance the truth, or advance goodness, and so I do prefer to write.” Sonia Taitz talks with Writers Voices, about writing and her latest novel, Great with Child. “Writing is a little bit like dreaming. When you have a dream a lot Read More
Benjamin Ludwig discusses the importance of voice and his novel – Ginny Moon. ” Voice is really all I care about in a novel. If I can get voice for a character, if I can identify the voice and live in the voice and reproduce the voice, that this character possesses, that this character is Read More
Author of Alex and Eliza – a love story – Melissa de la Cruz talks about writing for young adults “It’s all kind of about youthful optimism and idealism. I think that’s why the young adult market has grown so much now…..Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen year olds, they are really about, you know, the novelty of Read More
“How did we go Barack Obama to Donald Trump?” Mugambi Jouet attempts to “make sense of the polarization of American Society” in his new book – Exceptional America. A historical perspective on the forces behind the bitter divisions reshaping our society. A former public defender Mugambi speaks on the changes in our attitudes on crime Read More
Mark Lukach talks with Monica and Caroline about the writing of his new memoir – My Lovely Wife in the Psych Ward. Composed by sifting through the pages and pages of emails he sent to their parents during her episodes. “The writing about this actually became a way for us to appreciate the differences of Read More
MWD – Military Working Dog – a graphic novel – a collaborative effort by Brian David Johnson and Jan Egleson. Writers Voices talks with Brian about the theme of the novel – PTSD and dogs in the military; ” There were sometimes when we were writing this, when I was like – well it seems Read More
“That was really fun for me that year that I was unemployed…I loved that I could wander around Dublin with a notebook and see the city through these fresh eyes, quite childlike eyes…see it as a more magical place.” Caitriona Lally on the creation of her novel – Eggshells. “I wanted to try and examine Read More
Deepak Singh brings Writers Voices into his immigrant experience with his new book – How May I Help You? “I have a lot of compassion for people who work retail, also a different perspective on how people live on such small amounts of money and are still able to put on a smile on a Read More
Jonathan Lethem joins Writers Voices for a conversation on writing and his new book of essays – More Alive and Less Lonely. On what got him started writing, ” I was participating in a conversation that enthralled me, as a reader, and I wanted to talk back to it….On the whole (writing) is an art Read More
” Many of them are quite sad stories, some of them are a bit mad and some of them are downright bizarre,” Nick Middleton on his book – An Atlas of Countries That Don’t Exist – “There are all these shadowy countries that never got a look im, that you’re not suppose to (know about)… Read More
“There are plenty of adventurers these days doing …l things and calling it exploration, but all of the men and women in this book, I think of as true explorers.” Huw Lewis-Jones on his book – Explorers Sketchbooks -the Art of Discovery and Adventure. “Opening Explorers Sketchbooks allow us to jump…right into the heart of Read More
“When I’m writing younger characters I almost always have the central conflict with their siblings.” Kayla Cagen talks about her young adult novel – Piper Perish. “They (siblings) are the other story tellers in our lives…I’ve always found that very fascinating…we are the storyteller of their (lives) and we may have a very different story Read More
“Refugees are folks like us, caught up in wars not of their doing.” Writers Voices talks to Kenneth E. Miller about his book – War Torn – Stories of courage, love and resilience. “The experiences that refugees have when they finally get to wherever they’re heading, actually have as big an impact on their mental Read More
Retired Professor Emeritus of Engineering John Ong spoke with Writers’ Voices almost ten years ago about his paper, “How to Look Across the Room.” In this paper, John tries to answer a question that occurred to him about 25 years prior, “how is it that I see?” He explored the subject thoroughly so that he Read More
“Often I ask myself, and I hope my readers ask themselves, ‘What would I have done in those circumstances.” Pam Jenoff talks with Writers Voices, about her book – The Orphan’s Tale,, a novel of historical fiction set in WW2 France and Germany. “I was shocked by the brutality in France. The incremental persecution of Read More
In this March 2017 interview, guest host Paul Gandy, board member of the Keeping History Alive Foundation in Fairfield, joins Monica to speak with Rachelle Chase about “Lost Buxton,” part of Arcadia Publishing’s “Images of America” series of pictorial histories. At a time when the Jim Crow laws were in full force, there was a Read More
Ellen Hopkins on writing for young adults “I write about those things because…those kids want to see themselves in books..they want to know people care enough to write about those things.” About her verse novel -The You I’ve Never Known. “I wanna create stories and characters that resonate with all kinds of readers, including kids Read More
“This is the story I wanted to tell, the story of a resurgent culture that has gone through so much tragedy and suppression and overcome so many obstacles – almost died.” Constance Hale brings her passion and her stories to Writers Voices, talking about her book – The Natives are Restless – A San Francisco Read More
Alana Waksman is a young independent filmmaker, graduate of USC film school, who moved to Montana to truly experience the environment in which she planned to set her first feature-length film, “Cheyenne is Burning.” In this interview, we follow Alana along the path from high school and college theater, to short story writing, to screen Read More
If it sometimes feel like the internet has changed how we humans do everything… well that’s not much of a stretch. It certainly has changed how (and what) we read, and write, and publish. The rising popularity of “flash fiction” or the “short-short” (that is, stories under 1000 words) may be one effect. As author Read More
“It’s a landscape that has imprinted itself on me.” Marc Nieson shares his vision of Iowa and the world talking about his memoir- Schoolhouse: Lessons on love and landscape. “How much do you take something for granted because you see it everyday, or not see what is there, because you’re speeding by at seventy miles Read More
“I thought I was writing about one thing and actually I ended up writing about something else.” Lisa Knopp shares her insights on food and disordered eating, talking about her new book – Bread. “I think in this time and place most women have disordered eating….It’s more typical than not, to have a negative view Read More
“Finding a letter that’s not been read by many people, and putting it on the website or putting it in the book; that’s like a natural high.” Shaun Usher shares his curated collection in – Letters of Note Volume 2. “You get to see people at their most guarded and people in their natural state. Read More
“Religion is always involved in what is going on, it isn’t separate.” Newsweek’s religion editor emeritus, Ken Woodward speaks about his favorite topic as it relates our culture and his life in his book – Getting Religion. “I used autobiography to illustrate, in a most vivid fashion, what it was like growing up in the Read More
“I say to you as a non-native reader, I say, come along with me…I’m gonna hand you off to some people and take you to a place where you’ve never been.” Kent Nerburn speaks with Writers Voices on the 25th anniversary of his book – Neither Wolf nor Dog, “The richness and the depth of Read More
Captain Jerry Yellin’s son wanted to marry a Japanese woman, her father eventually allowed it saying, “Any man that can fly a P51 against the Japanese and live, must be a brave man and I want the blood of that man to flow through our grandchildren…. When I came home from that wedding, I started Read More
” What happens if your brain is imbalanced – you get judged. Really it’s just an imbalance like any other.” Jim Brooks MD talks about his book – Reflections on Maharishi Ayurveda and mental health. “”I think most people know that there’s a deeper part of me, who I really am. No one really addresses Read More
“Everybody has some kind of trauma. Everybody has some kind of wounding. That’s part of planet Earth.” Nancy Swisher talks about her memoir – The life that woke me up was my own – What can you do when you can’t speak your truth. “I didn’t want to write from a stance of blame. We Read More
“It’s a universal story. It has some amazing beautiful lessons for us today.” Linda Egenes talks about her latest book – The Ramayana – A new re-telling of Valmiki’s Ancient Epic – Complete and Comprehensive. “It is really embedded in the culture ( of India and southeast Asia). It’s very much a living guide….It’s been Read More
Husband and wife team Rich and Sandra Neil Wallace share an interest in sports and extensive resumes in writing for kids and young adults. Rich, formerly senior editor at the ever-popular “Highlights for Children” magazine, has written more than 25 novels, many with sports themes. Sandra, the daughter of a refugee and a concentration camp Read More