Bookwild

By Kate Hergott, Bookwild Collective

On Tuesdays, Kate Hergott talks with authors about their books and writing processes.

On Fridays, Kate talks with multiple co-host Bookstagrammers and BookTubers about a variety of bookish topics.... more

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FAQs about Bookwild:

How many episodes does Bookwild have?

The podcast currently has 399 episodes available.

Bookwild episodes:

June 23, 2026Improv, Love and Grief: Emma Brodie's Into the Blue
This week, Emma West, Kara Confer and I talk with Emma Brodie about her love story Into the Blue!
Listen to hear about:
How a single character—Noah—kept appearing across multiple abandoned projects until he became the foundation of Into the Blue

A behind-the-scenes look at how Emma's theater classes, improv training, and fascination with performance shaped the book's unique portrayal of acting and creative connection.

The emotional reality of publishing while working in the publishing industry, including the vulnerability of releasing work when you're surrounded by people who understand exactly how the business works.

Emma's approach to writing about chronic illness, grief, fame, and the idea that we can never fully know what's happening inside another person—even someone we deeply love

The incredible journey from writing Into the Blue as a deeply personal "heart song" to becoming a Reese's Book Club pick and a Read with Jenna selection

Check Out Author Social Media Packages
Check out the Bookwild Community on Patreon
Check Out My Stories Are My Religion Substack
Get Bookwild Merch
Follow @imbookwild on Instagram
Other Co-hosts On Instagram:
Gare Billings @gareindeedreads
Steph Lauer @books.in.badgerland
Halley Sutton @halleysutton25
Brian Watson @readingwithbrian
MacKenzie Green @missusa2mba
...more
1h 4min
June 23, 2026When Rom-Coms Become Nightmares: Olivia Worley's Man of My Dreams
This week, Gare and I talk with Olivia Worley about her new horror-thriller Man of My Dreams!
Listen to hear about:
How Olivia's real-life dating experiences—and meeting a man eerily similar to a character she had already written—inspired the premise of Man of My Dreams

A deep dive into blending rom-coms with psychological thrillers, why modern dating is the perfect backdrop for suspense, and how Olivia carefully balances romance with increasingly dark twists

Writing morally complicated women, the thrill of surprising readers, and why some of the most compelling stories happen when romance and danger collide
Check Out Author Social Media Packages
Check out the Bookwild Community on Patreon
Check Out My Stories Are My Religion Substack
Get Bookwild Merch
Follow @imbookwild on Instagram
Other Co-hosts On Instagram:
Gare Billings @gareindeedreads
Steph Lauer @books.in.badgerland
Halley Sutton @halleysutton25
Brian Watson @readingwithbrian
MacKenzie Green @missusa2mba
...more
49min
June 19, 2026The History of Misogyny in Pop Culture: Our Thoughts on Girl on Girl by Sophie Gilbert
This week, Elizabeth Rose Quinn and I discuss revelations we had while reading Girl on Girl: How Pop Culture Turned a Generation of Women Against Each Other by Sophie Gilbert.
Listen to hear about:
How Sophie Gilbert's Girl on Girl traces a throughline from the 1990s to today, revealing how pop culture, celebrity media, and entertainment industries shaped modern misogyny and women's relationships with each other.

A discussion of the "post-privacy era," from Pamela Anderson's stolen sex tape to social media, influencer culture, and the normalization of treating women's lives and bodies as public property.

Why movements that begin as authentic expressions of female empowerment—like Riot Grrrl and "girl power"—often get repackaged, commercialized, and stripped of their original political meaning.

An exploration of reality TV, celebrity culture, diet culture, and the male gaze—and how they continue to influence the way women are expected to look, behave, and present themselves.

Misogyny as a cultural system: why women are often disbelieved, how abuse tactics show up in institutions and media, and what happens when we stop viewing these incidents as isolated events and start seeing the larger pattern.

Check Out Author Social Media Packages
Check out the Bookwild Community on Patreon
Check Out My Stories Are My Religion Substack
Get Bookwild Merch
Follow @imbookwild on Instagram
Other Co-hosts On Instagram:
Gare Billings @gareindeedreads
Steph Lauer @books.in.badgerland
Halley Sutton @halleysutton25
Brian Watson @readingwithbrian
MacKenzie Green @missusa2mba
...more
1h 4min
June 16, 2026Three Hitmen, a Baby, and the Art of Writing Great Action: Rob Hart's Three Hitmen and a Baby
This week, I talk with Rob Hart about his third Assassins Anonymous book Three Hitmen and a Baby!
Listen to hear about:
Why the series resonates beyond action: Hart uses professional killers in recovery to examine guilt, redemption, personal growth, and whether people can truly change.

Rob's writing philosophy, and why he believes even pantsers need to know where their story is headed emotionally.

Why humor is essential in thrillers, arguing that comedy acts as a pressure-release valve that helps readers connect more deeply with characters and makes even high-stakes action scenes more memorable.

Check Out Author Social Media Packages
Check out the Bookwild Community on Patreon
Check Out My Stories Are My Religion Substack
Get Bookwild Merch
Follow @imbookwild on Instagram
Other Co-hosts On Instagram:
Gare Billings @gareindeedreads
Steph Lauer @books.in.badgerland
Halley Sutton @halleysutton25
Brian Watson @readingwithbrian
MacKenzie Green @missusa2mba
...more
49min
June 12, 2026Comfort Reads and Watches with Gare and Steph
This week, Gare catches Steph and I up on his trip to the Montreal Mystery Festival, and we all share what we gravitate toward in books, movies and TV shows when we need a comfort story!
Books We Talked About
Verity

Hot Girl Murder Club

We Used to Live Here

Sublimation

The Midnight Knock

Jar of Hearts

The Truth About Melody Browne

The Spin
TV Shows We Talked About
Orphan Black

Severance

The Vampire Diaries

New Girl

The Office

Parks and Recreation

Schitt's Creek
Movies We Talked About
Basic Instinct

Oddity

Cape Fear

Black Christmas

Verity

Scream

I Know What You Did Last Summer

10 Things I Hate About You

Check Out Author Social Media Packages
Check out the Bookwild Community on Patreon
Check Out My Stories Are My Religion Substack
Get Bookwild Merch
Follow @imbookwild on Instagram
Other Co-hosts On Instagram:
Gare Billings @gareindeedreads
Steph Lauer @books.in.badgerland
Halley Sutton @halleysutton25
Brian Watson @readingwithbrian
MacKenzie Green @missusa2mba
...more
1h 18min
June 09, 2026Cosmic Horror and a Crime Procedural: CJ Leede's Headlights
This week, I talk with CJ Leede about her new horror novel Headlights!
Listen to hear about:
How CJ originally planned to become a medieval historian, but after a professor helped her discover storytelling was what she wanted to pursue.

How Headlights began with the idea of people waking up on the side of a highway wearing the skin of strangers, and evolved into a story about grief, mortality, family legacy, and the search for meaning.

Why Leede treats setting as a character, using Colorado's beauty, danger, wildlife, and landscapes as metaphors for the novel's larger themes about life, death, and the unknown.

How the novel contains investigative thriller and horror elements, but is really a book about confronting sadness, loss, and the things we cannot outrun within ourselves.

Why horror can uniquely encompass mysteries, romance, literary fiction, supernatural stories, social commentary, and psychological explorations, making it one of the broadest and most creative genres available.
Check Out Author Social Media Packages
Check out the Bookwild Community on Patreon
Check Out My Stories Are My Religion Substack
Get Bookwild Merch
Follow @imbookwild on Instagram
Other Co-hosts On Instagram:
Gare Billings @gareindeedreads
Steph Lauer @books.in.badgerland
Halley Sutton @halleysutton25
Brian Watson @readingwithbrian
MacKenzie Green @missusa2mba
...more
55min
June 05, 2026Emma West's Reading Journey, TBR Habit, and Approach to Inventory Manager at Wild Geese Bookshop
This week, Emma West joins and shares her reading journey, her favorite genres, and how she ended up the Inventory Manager at Wild Geese Books.
Listen to hear about:
Emma's reading journey beginning as a substitute for formal education, and how she approached books as a way to keep learning and expanding her worldview.

How both of us gravitate toward layered, "mind-bending" stories that require active engagement rather than straightforward "popcorn thrillers."

How romance works best for uswhen it's about more than romance—family dynamics, grief, friendship, identity, or creative life make the emotional stakes richer.

How books can explore identity, trauma, religion, immigration, and society through speculative or horror elements, with special praise for Sublimation and Yesteryear.

Our shared obsession with Ashley Winstead, and how both of us now consider Hot Girl Murder Club our favorite book of hers!
Check Out Author Social Media Packages
Check out the Bookwild Community on Patreon
Check Out My Stories Are My Religion Substack
Get Bookwild Merch
Follow @imbookwild on Instagram
Other Co-hosts On Instagram:
Gare Billings @gareindeedreads
Steph Lauer @books.in.badgerland
Halley Sutton @halleysutton25
Brian Watson @readingwithbrian
MacKenzie Green @missusa2mba
...more
1h 22min
June 02, 2026Identity, Immigration and Intent: Isabel J. Kim's Sublimation
In this episode, I talk with Isabel J. Kim about her debut speculative fiction, Sublimation!
Listen to hear about:
How Isabel J. Kim's inspiration for Sublimation came from her own experience growing up between Korea and the United States and wondering how different her life might have been if she had stayed in Korea permanently.

Why "instancing" (where you split into two people when you cross a border) worked so well as a speculative framework to explore identity, immigration, belonging, and the ways environment shapes who we become over time.

The process of expanding her short story into a novel, which required adding new perspectives and characters to show that different people would experience the phenomenon of instancing in radically different ways.

How she chose to approach borders as both physical and social constructs, examining how governments, corporations, immigration systems, and personal choices all influence identity and belonging.

Why speculative fiction often isn't really about the future—it uses imagined worlds to examine present-day social, political, and cultural tensions through a different lens.
Check Out Author Social Media Packages
Check out the Bookwild Community on Patreon
Check Out My Stories Are My Religion Substack
Get Bookwild Merch
Follow @imbookwild on Instagram
Other Co-hosts On Instagram:
Gare Billings @gareindeedreads
Steph Lauer @books.in.badgerland
Halley Sutton @halleysutton25
Brian Watson @readingwithbrian
MacKenzie Green @missusa2mba
...more
48min
May 29, 2026MacKenzie Green is the Global Head of Social for Audible!
MacKenzie Green is back, and she's now the Global Head of Social for Audible!
Listen to hear about:
How MacKenzie grew up dyslexic, relied heavily on audiobooks to keep up in school, and never imagined she would one day become Head of Global Social at Audible.

Why people should read what they actually enjoy, DNF books that aren't working, and use whatever format—audio, ebook, or print—helps them engage with stories.

How asking people what they were reading helped her build relationships, conduct informational interviews, and create meaningful follow-up conversations throughout her career, which all culminated in her new job at Audible.

How reading is a way to understand other perspectives, strengthen listening skills, and connect with people through shared stories, and how audiobooks are a return to the oldest form of storytelling: oral tradition.
Check Out Author Social Media Packages
Check out the Bookwild Community on Patreon
Check Out My Stories Are My Religion Substack
Get Bookwild Merch
Follow @imbookwild on Instagram
Other Co-hosts On Instagram:
Gare Billings @gareindeedreads
Steph Lauer @books.in.badgerland
Halley Sutton @halleysutton25
Brian Watson @readingwithbrian
MacKenzie Green @missusa2mba
...more
56min
May 26, 2026From Indoctrination to Curiosity: Promise Backlund's Gospel of Lies
In this episode, I talk with Promise Backlund about her book Gospel of Lies! She shares her experience growing up in evangelical Christianity, examining how fear, purity culture, certainty, and religious identity shaped her childhood and adult life. We dive into deconstruction, religious trauma, politics, sexuality, pleasure, and the complicated process of rebuilding meaning, identity, and awe outside of rigid belief systems.
Listen to hear about:
How faith was woven into every part of both our childhoods—from sunsets to sickness—creating a worldview where God explained everything and fear explained the rest.

How fear of hell, thought policing, and religious perfectionism can overlap with anxiety and OCD, especially when introduced during childhood.

Deconstructing during the late 2010s and how political shifts exposed tensions between teachings of love and exclusion inside evangelical spaces.

An examination of Biblical stories like Adam and Eve, questioning themes of obedience, curiosity, punishment, and whether religious narratives discourage questioning and self-trust.

How purity culture, worship environments, and restricted access to secular art shaped identity—and how reclaiming pleasure, curiosity, art, and personal agency became part of healing.
Check Out Author Social Media Packages
Check out the Bookwild Community on Patreon
Check Out My Stories Are My Religion Substack
Get Bookwild Merch
Follow @imbookwild on Instagram
Other Co-hosts On Instagram:
Gare Billings @gareindeedreads
Steph Lauer @books.in.badgerland
Halley Sutton @halleysutton25
Brian Watson @readingwithbrian
MacKenzie Green @missusa2mba
...more
1h 23min

FAQs about Bookwild:

How many episodes does Bookwild have?

The podcast currently has 399 episodes available.

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