Shows / Hear us Roar
Hear us Roar
If you're an aspiring author and want insights into what's involved in launching a book into the world, this is the podcast for you. Maggie Smith, author and blogger, interviews debut novelists from the Women's Fiction Writers Association discussing not only the inspiration behind their book, but also their insights into the writing process, the best advice they ever got, and the joys and sometimes pitfalls they encountered on their path to publication.
Episodes
Hear us Roar164: Erin Flanagan- Author of Deer Season
Our interview this week is with Erin Flanagan (Deer Season, University of Nebraska Press, September 2021). With four previous novels in the drawer, Erin dug…
Hear us Roar163: Shirley Novack- Author of The Story of ...
Our podcast guest this week is Shirley Novack (The Story of … , Fulton Books, March 2022). Here how this project started as a homage to her Polish immigrant…
Hear us Roar162: Kathy Strobos- Author of Partner Pursuit
Listen to our podcast guest Kathy Strobos (Partner Pursuit, Indie published, October 2021) as we discuss how she quit her job as a corporate attorney to have…
Hear us Roar161: Harriet Cannon- Author of Exiled South
Our podcast guest this week is Harriet Cannon (Exiled South, Koehler Books, January 2022). Hear how Harriet, who has dyslexia, works around this in her…
Hear us Roar160: Tammy Harrow- Author of All the Salt in the Sea
Our interview this week is with guest Tammy Harrow (All the Salt in the Sea, Red Adept Publishing, January 2022). We discuss the long gestation period this…
Hear us Roar159: Kerry Chaput- Author of Daughter of the King
In this podcast, Kerry Chaput and I discuss how researching her genealogy inspired her trilogy of historical fiction, how she's a big believer in writers being…
Hear us Roar158: Cheryl Corriveau - Author of The Demanding River
This week's podcast is with Cheryl Corriveau (The Demanding River, Fulton Books, July 2021). We discuss how Cheryl tapped into her own experiences running a…
Hear us Roar157: Tonya Mitchell- Author of A Feigned Madness
Our podcast guest this week is Tonya Mitchell (A Feigned Madness, Cynren Pres, October, 2020) who was inspired to write a novel based around an historical…
Hear us Roar156: Kimberly Sullivan- Author of Three Coins
This week's podcast is with Kimberly Sullivan (Three Coins, indie-published, October 2021). She zooms in with us from Rome where she's lived for over 25 years…
Hear us Roar155: Dawn (D.W.) Hogan - Author of Unbroken Bonds
Our podcast author this week is Dawn (D.W.) Hogan (Unbroken Bonds, Woodhall Press, October 2021). Her book tells the story of four teenage girls facing…
Hear us Roar154: Georgina Key- Author of Shiny Bits In Between
Our guest this week is Georgina Key (Shiny Bits In Between, Balance of Seven, June 2020). Georgina's novel explores the grief of a mother losing a child and…
Hear us Roar153: Kelley McNeil- Author of A Day Like This
Our guest this week is Kelley McNeil (A Day Like This, Lake Union, November 2021). We discuss how her book was one of several released during the pandemic…
Hear us Roar152: Joani Elliott- Author of The Audacity of Sara Grayson
This week's guest is Joani Elliott (The Audacity of Sara Grayson, Post Hill Press, May 2021). Knowing she'd never achieve her dream of being a writer unless…
Hear us Roar151: Maan Gabriel- Author of After Perfect
Our guest on this podcast is Maan Gabriel (After Perfect, She Writes Press, October 2021). What if your protagonist is the hardest character to write because…
Hear us Roar150: Luisa Livorno Ramondo- Author of Beyond The Cobblestones
Luisa's debut began as a recording of her mother's life growing up in a small village in southern Italy and her journey to break free from the poverty and…
Hear us Roar149: JoAnn Catania- Author of A Scarcity of Virgins
Resurrecting a 30-year old manuscript loosely framed around the novel Madame Bovary by Flaubert, JoAnn set about shaping into a workable novel with help from…
Hear us Roar148: Judy Stanigar - Author of Marika's Best Laid Plan
Listen to our interview with Judy Stanigar (Marika's Best Laid Plan, All Things That Matter Press, October 2021). The idea for this debut novel came from…
Hear us Roar147: Pamela Stockwell- Author of A Boundless Place
This week our guest is Pamela Stockwell (A Boundless Place, Ten16 Press, October 2021). We discuss how the idea for her debut novel sprang from the unusual…
Hear us Roar146: Kalyn Fogarty- Author of What We Carry
In this podcast, we discuss how Kalyn suffered a miscarriage a few years ago and sought solace in fiction only to find very few books dealing with this…
Hear us Roar145: Paulette Stout- Author of Love, Only Better
Paulette took 18 years to finish this novel which deals with a secret rarely discussed in women's fiction—the pleasure we seek and deserve in the sexual arena…
Hear us Roar144: Cherie Genua- Author of Greetings from Tucson
Enjoy our interview with Cherie Genua (Greetings from Tucson, indie-published, September 2021). Cherie, a self-described "woman in tech", adds novelist to her…
Hear us Roar143: Rebecca Campbell - Author of Sandalwood
In this episode, we talk with Rebecca Campbell about writing her debut off and on for over a decade before finally finishing it and deciding to take control of…
Hear us RoarSpecial Episode: Womens Fiction Day June 2022
Our host Maggie Smith leads a roundtable discussion with the three finalists for the WFWA Star Award for Women's Fiction/Debut category as they discuss what it…
Hear us Roar142: Julia Brewer Daily- Author of No Names To Be Given
Julia Daily's debut novel had its seeds in the author's personal search over forty years ago for her birth mother, a time before DNA tests and genealogical…
Hear us Roar141: Sarah Adlakha- Author of She Wouldn't Change A Thing
Sarah's book started out as a kind of third person typed journal, a reflection on a "what if" situation she encountered in her psychiatric practice. Once it…
Hear us Roar140: Karen Martin- Author of Dancing the Labyrinth
This novel has its roots in Karen seeking answers as a mother as to how to raise a good son which eventually resulted in her fulfilling her lifelong dream to…
Hear us Roar139: C. DAngelo - Author of The Difference
Hear how C. took events from her own life, including her Italian heritage, her closeness with her grandfather, and her love of cooking, and worked it into her…
Hear us Roar138: Penny Haw - Author of The Wilderness Between Us
Here how the inspiration from this story came from a "what if" moment while Penny was hiking with friends in the mountainous Tsitsikamma region of South Africa…
Hear us Roar137: Elizabeth de Veer- Author of The Ocean in Winter
I love Elizabeth's suggestion to "put your pen on the paper and see what happens." When she did that to an earlier manuscript that she initially conceived of…
Hear us Roar136: Julee Balko- Author of The Things We Keep
This week's podcast guest is Julee Balko (The Things We Keep, GenZ Publishing, July 2021). The impetus for Julee's book was her own grief following the death…
Hear us Roar135: Lyn Liao Butler Podcast - Author of The Tiger Mom's Tale
Our latest podcast is with Lyn Liao Butler (The Tiger Mom's Tale, Berkeley, July 2021). Hear how Lyn taught herself to write by tearing apart (literally and…
Hear us Roar134: Amanda Johnson- Author of East of Manhattan
Amanda came to novel writing from a background as an actress where she had previously penned scripts for herself and others both for films and on the stage…
Hear us Roar133: Kristina Parro - Author of Lucky, A Novel
As an essential worker during the pandemic, Kristina learned first hand what it was like to have little control over either the risks or rewards of her job so…
Hear us Roar132: Amanda Schiller- Author of Wicked Games and Wasted Years, Part I
Amanda talks about the book that gave her permission to write "outside the lines", what she learned about her own life through exploring the narcissistic…
Hear us Roar131: Maggie Smith- Author of Truth and Other Lies
Our guest this week is the person that generally hosts this podcast Maggie Smith (Truth and Other Lies, Ten16 Press, March 2022) and she's interviewed by book…
Hear us Roar130: Mary Camarillo- Author of The Lockhart Women: A Novel
Mary Camarillo grew up in North Carolina. Her father worked in aerospace and was transferred to Southern California when she was fourteen. After high school…
Hear us Roar129: Tavi Black- Author of Where Are We Tomorrow?
When Tavi wrote this debut about four female roadies who take a break to spend time at a Tuscan villa where each examines her life, she based them on women she…
Hear us Roar128: Jenn Bouchard- Author of First Course
Jenn Bouchard (First Course, Touchpoint Press, June 2021) combined her interest in food, her love of New England's coastal towns, and her belief in the power…
Hear us Roar127: Kathleen Basi- Author of A Song For The Road
Our guest on the podcast this week is Kathleen Basi (A Song for The Road, Alcove Press, May 2021). We discuss the importance of how you pitch your book in your…
Hear us Roar126: Kris Clink - Author of Goodbye, Lark Lovejoy
This week's interview is with Kris Clink (Goodbye, Lark Lovejoy, Spark Press, April 2021). You can tell by listening that this is an author who can't help…
Hear us Roar125: Margaret Rodenberg - Author of Finding Napoleon: A Novel
It's almost like this book had been waiting for Margaret to write it – she lived for a few years in France growing up, has always been fascinated by Napoleon's…
Hear us Roar124: Karen Brenner- Author of Appaloosa Sky
After a long business career that included running a Montessori school and teaching deaf children, Karen decided to get serious about her writing and four…
Hear us Roar123: Jennifer Jensen- Author of The Vice
If you're curious what it might be like to self-publish your work, this is a segment you'll want to listen to. Jensen is doing everything right – rapid release…
Hear us Roar122: Kristy Lee- Author of The Worst Thing I Could Do
Hear how the idea for Kristy's novel originated from a ten-year old TV show, how the goal to write a novel came to her in a dream, and how her female…
Hear us Roar121: Kate Allen- Author of Fear of Flying
We talk with Kate Allen (Fear of Flying, Ambiguous Ink Press, March 2021) and discuss how she balances her work as a lawyer with her writing career, how…
Hear us Roar120: Dorothy Staley- Author of Bear Woman Rising
A tale of two women whose lives intersect in the 1970's in Alaska, Dorothy's book not only reflects her own experiences when she lived for years in a remote…
Hear us Roar119: Leslie Rasmussen - Author of After Happily Ever After
Leslie and I discuss the difference between an author and a writer, how her experience writing TV sit-coms and personal essays was very different than writing…
Hear us Roar118: Elissa Dickey - Author of The Speed of Light
Elissa and Idiscuss how her book was informed by her lived experience of having MS as well as going through ALICE training at her job, how the Twitter events…
Hear us Roar117: Libby Hubscher- Author of Meet Me In Paradise
Libby Hubscher describes her writing process as seeing pivotal scenes, fully formed, in her head, then writing in and around those to fill in the missing…
Hear us Roar116: Debra Thomas - Author of Luz
Debra and I discuss how her book, featuring two sisters from Mexico who cross the border illegally to find their father, avoided the controversy that enveloped…
Hear us Roar115: Sarah Penner - Author of The Lost Apothecary
Our latest interview is with Sarah Penner (The Lost Apothecary, Park Row/Harper Collins, March 2021). Starting with the high-concept hook of an apothecary who…
Hear us Roar114: Jill Caugherty: Author of Waltz in Swing Time
Jill's dual time-line debut is loosely based on her grandmother's story of life during the depression and finding her way into a creative career, much the way…
Hear us Roar113: Christina Consolino- Author of Rewrite the Stars
Hear how an unexpected encounter in a grocery store line became the impetus for Christina Consolino's novel and how she did a major rewrite late in the process…
Hear us Roar112: KD Allbaugh" Author of Face Down in Rising Sun
We discuss KD's debut, a fictionalized version of a small-town murder in the late 1920's that wound up garnering world-wide attention.and took place only two…
Hear us Roar111: Jeannee Sacken: Author of Behind The Lens
Jeannee delves into her love for the rich heritage of Afghanistan, which forms the backdrop of her debut and how, even at an early age, teachers singled her…
Hear us Roar110: Beatryce Ruby- Author of No Sweeter Touch
Beatryce and I discuss about how she purposely wanted to write a book about boomers finding a soulmate rather than millennials, how she found the perfect…
Hear us Roar109: Gina Wilkinson- Author of When the Apricots Bloom
Gina spoke to us from Australia only hours after a major earthquake shook her town, but she's used to living in danger zones. In fact, her real-life experience…
Hear us Roar108: Tiffany Meuret- Author of A Flood of Posies
Even though her fiction often has speculative and magical elements (she's a life-long fan of monsters and snakes) Tiffany considers her primary goal as an…
Hear us Roar107: Elizabeth Chatsworth- Author of The Brass Queen
Elizabeth and I discuss her experience with PitchWars (thumbs up), losing her first agent (thumbs down) and how she had to segment her marketing approach to…
Hear us Roar106: Shail Rajan- Author of The Summer Breeze
Shail Rajan woke up on December 9th, after a difficult few months for her family, and decided to publish the novel she'd had in the drawer for years. And not…