AWM Author Talks

This week, in celebration of Valentine’s Day, three of America’s leading romance writers—Xio Axelrod, Swan Huntley, and Claire Legrand—talk about how they write love stories and the love stories that inspired them. Moderated by author Pamala Knight.

This conversation originally took place May 19, 2024 and was recorded live at the American Writers Festival. We hope you enjoy entering the Mind of a Writer.

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Books by these authors:

A Crown of Ivy and Glass by Claire Legrand — A lush, sweeping, steamy, forbidden romance series starter that’s perfect for fans of Bridgerton and A Court of Thorns and Roses.

Girls with Bad Reputations by Xio Axelrod — All her life, Kayla heard the same refrain: Don’t be so loud. Don’t act so wild. Don’t take up so much space. Now she’s the beating heart of an up-and-coming rock band...and the whole world is going to know her name.

I Want You More by Swan Huntley — A ghostwriting gig in the Hamptons becomes far more than a job in this sexy, atmospheric, and deliciously tense story.

About the writers:

XIO AXELROD [she/her] is a USA Today Bestselling author of contemporary fiction and romance. Growing up in the music industry, Xio began her recording career at a young age. Her experiences bring a lyrical quality to her writing and vibrancy to her characters, offering a unique perspective that adds depth and authenticity to the worlds she creates.

SWAN HUNTLEY’S novels include I Want You More, Getting Clean with Stevie Green, The Goddesses, and We Could Be Beautiful. She’s also the writer/illustrator of the darkly humorous The Bad Mood Book and You’re Grounded: An Anti-Self-Help Book to Calm You the F*ck Down. Swan earned an MFA at Columbia University and has received fellowships from MacDowell and Yaddo. She lives in Los Angeles.

PAMALA KNIGHT writes historical paranormal, regency romance and mystery. She’s a member of the Regency Fiction Writers, Hearts through History and the Chicago-North Romance Writers where she’s a past president and programs chair. She’s the current co-chair of the biennial conference, Spring Fling.

CLAIRE LEGRAND used to be a musician until she realized she couldn’t stop thinking about the stories in her head. Now she is the New York Times bestselling author of twelve novels, most notably A Crown of Ivy and Glass and the Empirium Trilogy, as well as The Cavendish Home for Boys and Girls, the Edgar Award-nominated Some Kind of Happiness, and Sawkill Girls, which was nominated for both a Bram Stoker Award and a Lambda Literary Award. She is also one of the four authors behind The Cabinet of Curiosities, a critically acclaimed anthology of short stories for young readers. Her next book, A Song of Ash and Moonlight, came out in September 2024. When not writing, Claire enjoys tending to her many plants, learning about fashi

This week, authors Charisse Burden-Stelly and Andrew W. Kahrl discuss their recent work and writing Black history with journalist Arionne Nettles. This conversation originally took place May 19, 2024 and was recorded live at the American Writers Festival.

Black Scare / Red Scare: Theorizing Capitalist Racism in the United States by Charisse Burden-Stelly is a radical explication of the ways anti-Black racial oppression has infused the US government’s anti-communist repression. And in The Black Tax: 150 Years of Theft, Exploitation, and Dispossession in America, Andrew W. Kahrl reveals a history that is deep, broad, and infuriating, and casts a bold light on the racist practices long hidden in the shadows of America’s tax regimes.

This episode is presented in conjunction with the American Writers Museum's special exhibit Dark Testament: A Century of Black Writers on Justice, which is now traveling throughout the United States. Learn more and see where Dark Testament is now at this link here.

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About the writers:

DR. CHARISSE BURDEN-STELLY is an Associate Professor of African American Studies at Wayne State University and a 2023-2024 Charles Warren Center Visiting Scholar at Harvard University. A scholar of critical Black studies, political theory, political economy, and intellectual history, she is the author of Black Scare/Red Scare: Theorizing Capitalist Racism in the United States, the co-author of W.E.B. Du Bois: A Life in American History, and the co-editor of Organize, Fight, Win: Black Communist Women’s Political Writings and of Reproducing Domination: On the Caribbean Postcolonial State.

ANDREW W. KAHRL is professor of history and African American studies at the University of Virginia. He is the author of the books The Land Was Ours and Free the Beaches.

ARIONNE NETTLES is a lecturer at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications. As a culture reporter in print and audio, her stories often look into Chicago history, culture, gun violence, policing and race & class disparities as a contributor to the New York Times Opinion, Chicago Reader, The Trace, Medium’s ZORA and Momentum, Chicago PBS station WTTW and NPR affiliate WBEZ. She is also host of Is That True? A Kids Podcast About Facts and the author of We Are the Culture: Black Chicago’s Influence on Everything.

This week, writer and researcher Gail Crowther discusses her new book Dorothy Parker in Hollywood, an expansive and illuminating study of legendary writer Dorothy Parker's life and legacy in Hollywood. Crowther is interviewed by Allison Sansone, Program Director at the American Writers Museum. This conversation originally took place January 21, 2025 and was recorded live via Zoom.

We hope you enjoy entering the Mind of a Writer.

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More about Dorothy Parker in Hollywood:

The glamorous extravagances and devasting lows of her time in Hollywood are revealed as never before in this fresh new biography of Dorothy Parker—from leaving New York City to work on numerous classic screenplays such as the 1937 A Star Is Born to the devastation of alcoholism, a miscarriage, and her husband's suicide. Parker's involvement with anti-fascist and anti-racist groups, which led to her ultimate blacklisting, and her early work in the civil rights movement that inspired her to leave her entire estate to the NAACP are also explored as never before.

Just as she did with her "deliriously fast-paced and erudite" (Library Journal) dual biography of Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath, Gail Crowther brings Parker back to life on the page in all her wit, grit, and brilliance.

GAIL CROWTHER is a writer, researcher, and academic. She is the author of Three-Martini Afternoons at the Ritz: The Rebellion of Sylvia Plath & Anne Sexton, The Haunted Reader and Sylvia Plath, and the coauthor of Sylvia Plath in Devon: A Year's Turning and These Ghostly Archives: The Unearthing of Sylvia Plath. Gail divides her time between the North of England and London. As a feminist vegan she engages with politics concerning gender, power, and animal rights.

This week, acclaimed authors Samira Ahmed and Jas Hammonds discuss their recent books, the state of young adult literature today, and the importance of young people seeing themselves in the stories they read. Ahmed's latest, This Book Won’t Burn, is a timely and gripping social-suspense novel about book banning, activism, and standing up for what you believe. From Hammonds comes Thirsty, an unflinching novel about addiction that bestselling author Courtney Summers called "sensitively wrought and gorgeously written."

This conversation originally took place May 19, 2024 and was recorded live at the American Writers Festival.

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About the writers:

SAMIRA AHMED is the bestselling author of Love, Hate & Other Filters; Internment; Mad, Bad & Dangerous to Know; Hollow Fires; and the Amira & Hamza middle-grade duology, as well as a Ms. Marvel comic book mini-series. Her poetry, essays, and short stories have appeared in numerous publications and anthologies including the New York Times, Take the Mic, Color Outside the Lines, Vampires Never Get Old, and A Universe of Wishes.

JAS HAMMONDS was raised in many cities and between the pages of many books. They have received support for their writing from Lambda Literary, Baldwin for the Arts, and the Highlights Foundation. They are also a grateful recipient of the MacDowell James Baldwin Fellowship. Their debut novel, We Deserve Monuments, won the 2023 Coretta Scott King John Steptoe Award for New Talent, among many other accolades.

This week, acclaimed poets Diana Khoi Nguyen and Cindy Juyoung Ok read selections of their work, followed by a discussion of their processes, themes, techniques, and more. Presented by the Poetry Foundation. This conversation originally took place May 19, 2024 and was recorded live at the American Writers Festival.

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About the writers:

A poet and multimedia artist, DIANA KHOI NGUYEN is the author of Ghost Of (2018) which was a finalist for the National Book Award, and Root Fractures (2024). Her video work has recently been exhibited at the Miller Institute for Contemporary Art. Nguyen is a Kundiman fellow and member of the Vietnamese artist collective, She Who Has No Master(s). A recipient of a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and winner of the 92Y Discovery Poetry Contest and 2019 Kate Tufts Discovery Award, she currently teaches in the Randolph College Low-Residency MFA and is an Assistant Professor at the University of Pittsburgh.

CINDY JUYOUNG OK is the author of Ward Toward from the Yale Series of Younger Poets and the translator of the forthcoming English translation of The Hell of That Star by Kim Hyesoon.

This week, acclaimed book critic and editor Donna Seaman discusses her new book River of Books: A Life in Reading, a memoir of reading and working with books by the renowned Booklist editor. Seaman is interviewed by AWM President Carey Cranston. This conversation originally took place December 16, 2024 and was recorded live at the American Writers Museum.

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About River of Books:

With the infectious curiosity of an inveterate bibliophile and the prose of a fine stylist, Donna Seaman charts the course of her early reading years in a book-by-book chronicle of the significance books have held in her life. River of Books recounts Seaman's journey in becoming an editor for Booklist, a reviewer, an author, and a literary citizen, and lays bare how she nourished both body and soul in working with books. Seaman makes palpable the power and self-recognition that she discovered in a life dedicated to reading.

DONNA SEAMAN is the Editor-in-Chief at Booklist, a member of the Content Leadership Team for the American Writers Museum, an adjunct professor for Northwestern University's Graduate Creative Writing Program, School of Professional Studies, and a recipient of the Louis Shores Award for excellence in book reviewing, the James Friend Memorial Award for Literary Criticism, and the Studs Terkel Humanities Service Award. Seaman created the anthology In Our Nature: Stories of Wildness; her author interviews are collected in Writers on the Air: Conversations About Books, and she is the author of Identity Unknown: Rediscovering Seven American Women Artists. She lives in Chicago. Visit: https://www.donnaseaman.com

This week, we take a look back at some of our top episodes of 2024 from both of our podcast series: AWM Author Talks and Nation of Writers.

This is our final episode of 2024. We’ll return next year with even more episodes featuring the writers you love and the stories they tell.

Presented in order of release date, we hope you enjoy entering the Mind of a Writer.

Enjoying our podcasts? Consider donating to support our mission and programs like these.

This week, journalist Larry Tye discusses his recent book The Jazzmen: How Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and Count Basie Transformed America with reporter Gregory Royal Pratt, accompanied by live jazz from the Richard D. Johnson Trio. This conversation originally took place May 19, 2024 and was recorded live at the American Writers Festival.

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More about The Jazzmen:

From the New York Times bestselling author of Satchel and Bobby Kennedy, a sweeping and spellbinding portrait of the longtime kings of jazz—Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and Count Basie—who, born within a few years of one another, overcame racist exclusion and violence to become the most popular entertainers on the planet.

This is the story of three revolutionary American musicians, the maestro jazzmen who orchestrated the chords that throb at the soul of twentieth-century America.

Duke Ellington, the grandson of slaves who was christened Edward Kennedy Ellington, was a man whose story is as layered and nuanced as his name suggests and whose music transcended category. Louis Daniel Armstrong was born in a New Orleans slum so tough it was called The Battlefield and, at age seven, got his first musical instrument, a ten-cent tin horn that drew buyers to his rag-peddling wagon and set him on the road to elevating jazz into a pulsating force for spontaneity and freedom. William James Basie, too, grew up in a world unfamiliar to white fans—the son of a coachman and laundress who dreamed of escaping every time the traveling carnival swept into town, and who finally engineered his getaway with help from Fats Waller.

What is far less known about these groundbreakers is that they were bound not just by their music or even the discrimination that they, like nearly all Black performers of their day, routinely encountered. Each defied and ultimately overcame racial boundaries by opening America's eyes and souls to the magnificence of their music. In the process they wrote the soundtrack for the civil rights movement.

Based on more than 250 interviews, this exhaustively researched book brings alive the history of Black America in the early-to-mid 1900s through the singular lens of the country's most gifted, engaging, and enduring African-American musicians.

About the writers:

LARRY TYE is a former reporter at the Boston Globe, off now writing books and running a Boston-based fellowship program for health journalists. The Jazzmen is his ninth book, with others including Home Lands, the upbeat tale of a thriving Jewish diaspora; Superman, the biography of America’s longest-lasting (Jewish) hero; and Bobby Kennedy, which looks at RFK’s transformation from Joe McCarthy’s protege to a liberal icon. Tye graduated from Brown University and was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard. Tye is co-spearheading a drive to revive local journalism on Cape Cod, where he spends 90 percent of his time.

GREGORY ROYAL PRATT covered every day of Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s term and was deeply sourced in City Hall, as well as in the other offices of

This week, Mike Thomas, co-author of the Johnny Carson biography Carson the Magnificent, sits down with Rick Kogan of the Chicago Tribune to discuss the highly anticipated biography—twenty years in the making—of the entertainer who redefined late-night television and reshaped American culture. Thomas—who finished the project Bill Zehme started after Bill's passing—shares insights into the reporting process, picking up where Zehme left off, and the influence of Carson on today's comedy.

This conversation originally took place November 19, 2024 and was recorded live at the American Writers Museum.

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More about Carson the Magnificent:

In 2002, Bill Zehme landed one of the most coveted assignments for a magazine writer: an interview with Johnny Carson—the only one he’d granted since retiring from hosting The Tonight Show a decade earlier. Zehme was tapped for the Esquire feature story thanks to his years of legendary celebrity profiles, and the resulting piece portrayed Carson as more human being than showbiz legend. Shortly after Carson’s death in 2005 and urged on by many of those closest to Carson, Zehme signed a contract to do an expansive biography. He toiled on the book for nearly a decade—interviewing dozens of Carson’s colleagues and friends and filling up a storage locker with his voluminous research—before a cancer diagnosis and ongoing treatments halted his progress. When he died in 2023 his obituaries mentioned the Carson book, with New York Times comedy critic Jason Zinoman calling it "one of the great unfinished biographies."

Yet the hundreds of pages Zehme managed to complete are astounding both for the caliber of their writing and how they illuminate one of the most inscrutable figures in entertainment history: A man who brought so much joy and laughter to so many millions but was himself exceedingly shy and private. Zehme traces Carson’s rise from a magic-obsessed Nebraska boy to a Navy ensign in World War II to a burgeoning radio and TV personality to, eventually, host of The Tonight Show—which he transformed, along with the entirety of American popular culture, over the next three decades. Without Carson, there would be no late-night television as we know it. On a much more intimate level, Zehme also captures the turmoil and anguish that accompanied the success: four marriages, troubles with alcohol, and the devastating loss of a child.

In one passage, Zehme notes that when asked by an interviewer in the mid-80s for the secret to his success, Carson replied simply, "Be yourself and tell the truth." Completed with help from journalist and Zehme’s former research assistant Mike Thomas, Carson the Magnificent offers just that: an honest assessment of who Johnny Carson really was.

MIKE THOMAS is the author of two critically acclaimed books, The Second City Unscripted: Revolution and Revelation at the World-Famous Comedy Theater and You Might Remember Me: The Life and Times of Phil Hartman. He spent more than fourteen years as an arts and entertainment features writer at the Chicago Sun-Times and is a regular contributor to Chicago&

This is our 200th episode! To celebrate the occasion, we’ve gone back in the vault for highlights from the ten most listened-to episodes of the past one hundred. So, that is episodes 101 through 199. 

Enjoy these top ten clips, and listen to the full episodes wherever you get your podcasts. We have included the episode numbers so you can more easily find them.

Listen to the full episodes below:

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