Authors & Audiences

Lizzy Dent is a bestselling women's fiction author.  Her first novel for women – The Summer Job -  came out in 2021 and her second , The Set Up, came out this year, in 2022. Before her move into adult fiction , Lizzy wrote a three Young Adult novels, under her real name, Rebecca Denton, all set in and around the music scene, called This Beats Perfect, A Secret Beat and The Punk Factor.  Lizzy is a New Zealander, but she spent many years working in London, and these days lives in Austria with her family. Before she was an author, she worked in television, creating content for various companies like MTV, the BBC, Cartoon Network and Channel 4.

In this episode Lizzy talks to host, Caroline Leech, about the highs and lows of her publication journey and about how she sets goals to help her achieve what she wants to achieve.

To find out more about Lizzy, visit her website, or follow her on Instagram.

To buy her latest book, The Set Up, or any of her other books, please consider buying it from from Bookshop.org - as an affiliate, Authors & Audiences will receive a small fee from any purchase using this link, which will go towards the costs of keeping the podcast running. Many thanks.

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Last weekend, I invited eight amazing authors who had all debuted in 2022 to join me in presenting a free webinar to a gathering of 2023 Debuts. As you may have heard in Part 1 of the webinar, I had helped the 22s with a webinar this time last year, and so we reconvened to share what had gone well in their debut year, and which of the strategies and tips they’d learned from me a year before were still things they’d recommend.

Part 1 was posted as episode #14 , and now here is Part 2. In this episode the following authors shared their debut year experiences and their top tips for a great book launch:

04.40  Sarena Straus

14.00  Laurel Goodluck

22.22  Brynn Barineau

In this half, we'll hear from Serena Straus, Laurel Goodluck and Brynn Barineau, and I explain my plans for Authors & Audiences over the next few months, and announce registration  for my Book Launch Briefing course. We finish off with a Q&A session  in response to questions from the 2023s.

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This weekend, I invited eight amazing authors who had all debuted in 2022 to join me in presenting a free webinar to a gathering of 2023 Debuts. As you’ll hear, I had helped the 22s with a webinar this time last year, and so we reconvened to share what had gone well in their debut year, and which of the strategies and tips they’d learned from me a year before were still things they’d recommend.

This is Part 1 - and Part 2 will be posted on Friday. In this episode the following authors shared their debut year experiences and their top tips for a great book launch:

11:45 - Becky Dean - Love & Other Great Expectations

20:30 - Betty Yee - Gold Mountain

29:40 - Sathya Achia - In My Hands

38:53 - Lisa Stringfellow - A Comb of Wishes

52:40 - Anita Jari Kharbanda - Lioness of Punjab

In part 2, we'll hear from Serena Straus, Laurel Goodluck and Brynn Barineau, and I will explain my plans for Authors & Audiences over the next few months, and announce registration  for my Book Launch Briefing course, as well as a Q&A session  the response to questions from the 2023s.

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Cathy Berner qualified as a school librarian up in the frozen north, but very quickly found her way to Texas, where she's been a bookseller at Blue Willow Bookshop in Houston for the last 18 years. She's Children/Teen Coordinator and the Event Coordinator, and is the curator of three book festivals in Texas: the Bookworm Festival for picture book readers, TweensRead for middle grade readers, and Teen Book Con for YA readers.

In this episode, Cathy talks with Caroline about book launches from a bookseller's perspective, about what to do to help a bookseller (and as importantly, what NOT to do!) and she also shares the science behind her highly efficient signing lines.

You can follow Cathy on Instagram and on Twitter, and to check out Blue Willow, you can visit and buy lots of books on the website at Blue WillowBookshop.com, and you can follow the store on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and of course, if you want some really good fun, follow the store on Tiktok. Even better, if you're ever in Houston, why not drop by to see this beautiful little store for yourself?

Cathy recommended two great books:
Dirtbag, Massachusetts by Isaac Fitzgerald
Odder by Katherine Applegate

She also suggested we follow two of her favorites booksellers on social media:
The Raven Book Store in Lawrence, Kansas
Nicole Brinkley, bookseller at  Oblong Books, and podcaster at the Misshelved Podcast

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Laurel Goodluck is a debut author who writes picture books with modern Native American themes that reflect Native children’s cultural experiences and everyday life, showing Native children that they have a perspective that is unique and powerful.

To find out more about Laurel, visit her website, or follow her on Instagram.

To buy Laurel's debut picture book, FOREVER COUSINS, please consider buying it from her favorite indie bookstore, Red Planet Books & Comics in Albuquerque. Or, please buy it from any independent bookstore near you.

Laurel also mentioned:
Esther Averill's early reader, The Fire Cat 
Darcy Littlebadger's A SNAKE FELL TO EARTH
Her son Forrest's movie, HOW TO BLOW UP A PIPELINE
Octavia Butler's book PARABLE OF THE SOWER

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Laurel Goodluck writes picture books with modern Native American themes that reflect Native children’s cultural experiences and everyday life, showing Native children that they have a perspective that is unique and powerful. Laurel comes from an intertribal background of Mandan and Hidatsa from the prairies of North Dakota, and Tsimshian from a rainforest in Alaska and now lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico. In October, Laurel’s first picture book, Forever Cousins, which was illustrated by Jonathan Nelson, was published by Charlesbridge. Her second picture book, Rock Your Mocs, which is illustrated by Madelyn Goodnight, will be published by the Heartdrum imprint of HarperCollins  in Fall 2023, and her third, Too Much, which will be illustrated by Bridget George, is slated for Spring 2024 from Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, as well as her contribution to Chelsea Clinton's She Persisted series.

To find out more about Laurel, visit her website, or follow her on Instagram.

To buy Laurel's debut picture book, FOREVER COUSINS, please consider buying it from her favorite indie bookstore, Red Planet Books & Comics in Albuquerque. Or, please buy it from any independent bookstore near you.

Laurel also mentioned her mentor, Traci Sorell and her illustrator, Jonathan Nelson.

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In this episode, Tae Keller faces the A&A Q&A, with host, Caroline Leech.

Tae Keller's first book – THE SCIENCE OF BREAKABLE THINGS - was published in 2018, and she then won the 100th Newbery Medal in 2021 for her second book, WHEN YOU TRAP A TIGER. This year, Tae has had three books out - JENNIFER CHAN IS NOT ALONE came out in April, and in May came Tae’s contribution to Chelsea Clinton’s chapter book series, SHE PERSISTED. Tae wrote the true story of Patsy Mink who in 1964 became the first woman of color and the first Asian American woman elected to Congress. And this week - on November 8th, 2022, her latest book, MIHI EVER AFTER, is out from Macmillan.

To find out more about Tae, visit her website, or follow her on Instagram.

To buy Tae's latest book, MIHI EVER AFTER, or any of her other books, please consider buying it from Tae's favorite indie bookstore, Third Place Books in Seattle, or from Brazos Bookstore which partners with Inprint Houston for the Cool Brains! reading series which brought Tae to Houston.  Or, please buy it from any independent bookstore near you.

Tae's recommendations:
A Rover's Story by Jasmine Warga
God's Country, directed by Julian Higgins
Misshelved - a books newsletter from Nicole Brinkley
The Loneliest Time - the new album from Carly Rae Jepsen

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Tae Keller's first book – THE SCIENCE OF BREAKABLE THINGS - was published in 2018, and she then won the 100th Newbery Medal in 2021 for her second book, WHEN YOU TRAP A TIGER. This year, Tae has had three books out - JENNIFER CHAN IS NOT ALONE came out in April, and in May came Tae’s contribution to Chelsea Clinton’s chapter book series, SHE PERSISTED. Tae wrote the true story of Patsy Mink who in 1964 became the first woman of color and the first Asian American woman elected to Congress. And this week - on November 8th, 2022, her latest book, MIHI EVER AFTER, is out from Macmillan.

To find out more about Tae, visit her website, or follow her on Instagram.

In this episode Tae talks to host, Caroline Leech, about MIHI EVER AFTER, about what winning the Newbery has meant to her life and career, about creating the stories behind her stories for presentation in schools, and about setting boundaries to protect herself on social media.

To buy her latest book, MIHI EVER AFTER, or any of her other books, please consider buying it from Tae's favorite indie bookstore, Third Place Books in Seattle, or from Brazos Bookstore which partners with Inprint Houston for the Cool Brains! reading series which brought Tae to Houston.  Or, please buy it from any independent bookstore near you.

Thank you to Tae, and to Samantha at Macmillan Children's Group, and to all at Inprint Houston for all your help and hospitality.

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In today's episode, Caroline digs deeper into what we might do to answer the question, "What could I do if I weren't afraid?" following the three basic questions she asked in episode 1, and her conversation last week with author, Chris Cander.

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Chris Cander is the USA Today bestselling author of THE WEIGHT OF A PIANO, which was named an Indie Next Great Read in both hardcover and paperback and which the New York Times called, “immense, intense and imaginative,” WHISPER HOLLOW, also named an Indie Next Great Read, and 11 STORIES, named by Kirkus as one of the best books of 2013 and winner of the Independent Publisher Book Awards for fiction. She also wrote the children’s picture book THE WORD BURGLAR, and the Audible Originals “Eddies” and “Grieving Conversations.” Her new novel, A GRACIOUS NEIGHBOR, arrives fall 2022. Cander’s fiction has been published in twelve languages. She lives in her native Houston with her husband and two children.

In this Bonus episode featuring the A&A Q&A, Chris talks about reading Little Golden books with her mother, being an extroverted introvert, and her love of the British Baking Show/British Bake-Off because "everyone is happy when they're baking".

To find out more about Chris and her books, visit her website, or follow her on  Instagram.

To buy her latest book, A GRACIOUS NEIGHBOR, or any of her other books, please consider buying it from from Chris's beloved Brazos Bookstore, or any other indie bookstore near you, to pick up in person or to get delivery by mail.

Chris mentions how much she loves the new essay collection, Maria, Maria: & Other Stories by Marytza K. Rubio.

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