This week my guest is Lisa See, the New York Times bestselling author of so many beloved books, including Lady Tan's Circle of Women, The Island of Sea Women, Snow Flower and the Secret Ban, Shanghai Girls, and Dreams of Joy. Lisa's books often center the experience of women across time and cultures, particularly stories that have been lost, forgotten, or deliberately covered up.
This week’s episodes are a replay–I’ll be back with a new guest on Labor Day (September 1). Enjoy these last couple weeks of official “summer”!
We covered:
- The atrocious 1970s TV miniseries that was so poorly written, it inspired her to try writing fiction (under the pen name Monica Highland)
- How she started researching the Chinese side of her family thinking that she’d include a short letter about it in that year’s holiday card, and how that grew into “On Gold Mountain,” her first book written under her own name, as well as a national bestseller and New York Times notable book
- What’s been easy and what’s been hard about her work as a novelist
- How telling stories that have been previously hidden or overlooked inspires her to keep working–and why sharing those stories matters
- A peek into her (fascinating) research process
- The morning routine that fuels her work
- Why she doesn’t worry about keeping her tea hot
Connect with Lisa on Instagram @lisasee_writer.
For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.
Thank you for listening!
And thanks to this week’s sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save 30% off an amazing indoor air filter *and* receive a free three-year warranty (an $84 value).

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My guest this week is Catherine Bush, whose critically-acclaimed fiction (her book “Blaze Island” was named a “Globe and Mail” best book of the year and “The Rules of Engagement” was a “New York Times” notable book) often addresses the climate question. For example, in her most recent collection, “Skin”, a man falls in love with the wind.

In this final part of our interview, we covered:
- How and why she’s devoted to giving the natural world the same level of attention and care as her characters.
- The books that incorporate nature and climate into their primary narratives that have been inspiring her lately
- How she’s trying to address climate through the lens of a love for the natural world instead of despair
- Writing about “weird, unusual intimacies” in her stories that make people laugh instead of cringe
- The book she’s hoping to spend the next five years writing
- Why it’s good for writers to have things in their life that regularly take them away from their work
- Trying to figure out where she wants to live in retirement
- The Sri Lankan tea she’s addicted to, even though she can’t easily get it

Connect with Catherine at catherinebush.com.

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Thank you for listening!

And thanks to this week’s sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save 30% off an amazing indoor air filter *and* receive a free three-year warranty (an $84 value).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In part two of my conversation with Catherine Bush, author of five novels and the story collection “Skin,” we did a deep dive into the inner work required to nurture a multi-decade writing career, including:

- Making peace with your personal process–even when it’s slow, messy, and meandering
- The story in her new collection that her editor wanted to nix–and how she made it work
- Embracing Annie Dillard’s advice to “write into impossibility”
- Being really honest about what projects you want to commit to
- How ideas of ambition and success change as you get older
- What she learns from her college students

Connect with Catherine at catherinebush.com.

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Thank you for listening!

And thanks to this week’s sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save 30% off an amazing indoor air filter *and* receive a free three-year warranty (an $84 value).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week my guest is Catherine Bush, author of five novels, including the widely acclaimed “Blaze Island,” “Accusation,” and “The Rules of Engagement.” Catherine's brand new book is “Skin,” her first collection of stories.

Catherine is a professor of creative writing at the University of Guelph and was a 2024 Landhouse Fellow at the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society. She lives in Toronto and in an old brick schoolhouse in Eastern Ontario.

We covered:
- Supporting yourself as a freelance writer and editor
- Embracing academia without sacrificing your own work
- Creating work that makes us feel more connected to each other and the world around us
- Outside-the-box ways to earn money that protect your creativity and your time
- Making space for your soul work
- How she gets herself through those inevitable moments where you’re ready to give up on your work
- Why she writes in her nightgown
- Why she starts new projects in longhand–even though she often can’t read her handwriting
- Her favorite pen

Connect with Catherine at catherinebush.com.

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Thank you for listening!

And thanks to this week’s sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save 30% off an amazing indoor air filter *and* receive a free three-year warranty (an $84 value).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this third and final installment of my conversation with author and Pushcart-nominated essayist and writing teacher (and new mom!) Sheree L. Greer, she said “we’re veering into therapy territory now, Kate,” when I asked her if there was anything she was in the process of shifting, which I took as a very good sign that we were getting into some very juicy thoughts!

- Being the first person in your family to be pursuing a passion as a career
- The genres she’s exploring next
- The writers who inspire her and why
- The work of not getting too attached to specific outcomes and creating a “more positive relationship with the unknown”
- Why she hopes her newborn daughter will have a favorite planet
- The non-caffeinated morning beverage that’s fueling her these days

Connect with Sheree on Instagram @shereelgreer.

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Thank you for listening!

And thanks to this week’s sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save 30% off an amazing indoor air filter *and* receive a free three-year warranty (an $84 value).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In part two of my interview with Puschart-nominated essayist, novelist, and writing instructor Sheree L. Greer, we get into the nitty gritty of the thought processes, ideas, and attitudes that shape her work and her identity.

We talked about:
- Pushing your creative boundaries to try new genres and forms
- How she gets through the discomfort of sharing personal work, and the payoff that comes on the other side
- Committing to telling the full story, even when you’re not the ‘hero’
- The really cool and skillful way Sheree collaborates with her inner critic
- Getting to that “raw space of feeling” so you can tell your story from the heart, and not the head (at least at first)
- Taking care of your body in a sedentary profession
- Knowing when to follow standard writing advice, and when to let it go
- Releasing the idea that any one thing will happen and then you will have “made it”
- How she’s radically changed her idea of success as she’s gotten older

Connect with Sheree on Instagram @shereelgreer.

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Thank you for listening!

And thanks to this week’s sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save 30% off an amazing indoor air filter *and* receive a free three-year warranty (an $84 value).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My guest this week is writer, author, teacher, and arts administrator, Sheree L. Greer. Sheree is the author of two novels, “Let the Lover Be” and “A Return to Arms,” and an award-nominated essayist, with two of her essays having been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

Sheree is also the founder of Kitchen Table Literary Arts—a Tampa Bay writing community dedicated to nurturing the literary art of Black women and women of color–and the independent press Ain't No Extra Credit, which publishes unique books dedicated to personal and professional development. Sheree teaches for several literary arts centers, including The Porch in Nashville and Story Studio Chicago where she was voted instructor of the year in 2023.
Sheree has also written two guides to writing including “Stop Writing Whack Essays,” which might be one of the best titles for books on writing that I've ever heard.

We covered:
- The book that inspired her to move writing from the “hobby” category to the “career” category
- Acknowledging moments of delight when they happen, and using them as fuel to keep going
- The magic that happens when you get together with other artists
- Getting intentional about creating a “writer’s world”--a mental space where you feel affirmed as an artist
- Why she has a telescope that she named Octavia

Connect with Sheree on Instagram @shereelgreer.

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Thank you for listening!

And thanks to this week’s sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save 30% off an amazing indoor air filter *and* receive a free three-year warranty (an $84 value).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome back to the final installment of my interview with Jinwoo Park, debut author of Oxford Soju Club, which is coming out in September of this year.

In today’s episode, Jinwoo shared some really great insights about how embracing your creativity filters out into all parts of your life, especially relationships. I left this conversation feeling like I was walking on clouds–very hopeful and inspired. Enjoy!

We covered:
- Taking inspiration from politics, in South Korea and around the world
- Working as a translator for Korean sci-fi and thrillers
- How owning your creative identity helps you be more authentic in your relationships
- How being a Dad inspires him to pursue happiness
- Becoming a more collaborative partner
- The TV series that cured his disillusionment with streaming series
- Some frank talk about milk, oat milk, and flatulence
- The song that never fails to turn his mood around
- The Korean stew he could eat every day

Connect with Jinwoo on TikTok or Instagram @jinwoopark0721 or at jin-woopark.com.

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Thank you for listening!

And thanks to this week’s sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save 30% off an amazing indoor air filter *and* receive a free three-year warranty (an $84 value).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this second part of my interview with Jinwoo Park, author of the soon to be released “Oxford Soju Club,” an award-winning thriller, we talk about the interior side of building a life as a writer.

We discussed:
- How sharing social media content helps him be a better writer
- Staying open to feedback
- Appreciating the one- and two-star reviews
- The hard-won realization that publishing a book isn’t an ending, but a beginning
- The practical and emotional ways to embrace identifying as a writer
- Building a community of writers
- Valuing his time as a writer (SUCH a great bit of wisdom here)
- Why there is no right time to pursue the thing that’s calling to you
- How he keeps consistent writing momentum as a person with ADHD

Connect with Jinwoo on TikTok or Instagram @jinwoopark0721 or at jin-woopark.com.

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Thank you for listening!

And thanks to this week’s sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save 30% off an amazing indoor air filter *and* receive a free three-year warranty (an $84 value).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My guest this week is Jinwoo Park, author of the soon-to-be-released “Oxford Soju Club,” which is coming out in September of this year—a riveting story about Korean spies, C.I.A. agents, false identities, love, and betrayal. It also earned Park the Jim Wong-Chu Emerging Writers Award from the Asian Canadian Writers' Workshop.

We covered:

- Using writing as a form of therapy to “figure myself out”
- How he decided to go for it and pursue writing more seriously
- A great plug for submitting your work for an award–you just might win
- Sticking with a manuscript for years
- How TikTok helped him get a publishing deal
- The difference between creativity and productive creativity
- The beauty and importance of a deadline
- Making the transition between the day job and creative work
- His trick for getting focused as a person with ADHD

Connect with Jinwoo on TikTok or Instagram @jinwoopark0721 or at jin-woopark.com.

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Thank you for listening!

And thanks to this week’s sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save 30% off an amazing indoor air filter *and* receive a free three-year warranty (an $84 value).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices