Finding the Throughline with Kate Hanley

Welcome to part three of my interview with Jenna Blum, author of the new psychological thriller “Murder Your Darlings,” which will keep you up and crack you up while also offering an inside peek at the writing life. Jenna's other books include the New York Times and internationally bestselling “Those Who Save Us,” “The Storm Chasers,” and “The Lost Family.” She's also written the memoir “Woodrow on the Beach” and produced the audio course, The Author at Work.
Today, we're going to get a peek at where Jenna is headed next, as well as what she's been reading, watching, drinking, and fantasizing about eating, including:
- A peek into her publishing process and how she’s figuring out which book she’ll write next
- Props to her parents for actually encouraging her to write for a living
- The things she does for fun–and the vision she has to bring them all together, which should make you very excited if you write, eat pie, enjoy water sports, and/or love dogs
- Some great shows about writing that are streaming now
- The collection of coffee mugs that are key accessories for her writing process
- The coffee maker she’s such a good customer of they sent her a free machine when hers broke
- The musical era she’s stuck in
- Why she never gets up early
- Her greasy death row meal that breaks all her food guidelines
Visit Jenna at JennaBlum.com, Substack (Writer Girl in the World), Facebook (Jenna Blum author), or Instagram (Jenna_Blum).
For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.
Thank you for listening!

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In part two of my interview with Jenna Blum, the New York Times and internationally bestselling author of five books, including “Those Who Save Us” and “The Lost Family,” and “Murder Your Darlings” which is a psychological thriller and a peek inside the writing life.
In today's interview, we're diving into what I call inner stuff, the squishier side of writing, dealing with resistance, doubts, the passage of time, unhelpful beliefs, all that fun stuff. We're going to dive into it.
We covered:
- Working to get back to the joy and self-importance of writing she felt as a kid
- The part of writing she despises (that most writers claim to love)
- The part she’d do with glee even if a lawnmower ran over her foot
- How she talks herself out of feeling like she’s wasted time if she doesn’t end up liking what she wrote
- Trusting your inner encouragements even if your critical mind doesn’t quite believe them
- Why hitting her mid-fifties has prompted her to change genres (from historical fiction to psychological thrillers)
- How she’s had to face the fact that writing is hard on the body–and what she’s doing to take care of herself
- The question she asks herself when she’s figuring out which invitations she’ll say yes to and which she’ll decline
- How she’s racked up a four-year daily meditating streak
- All the things she’s doing to take care of herself as a woman in midlife with a sedentary career
Visit Jenna at JennaBlum.com, Substack (Writer Girl in the World), Facebook (Jenna Blum author), or Instagram (Jenna_Blum).
For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.
Thank you for listening!

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This week my guest is internationally bestselling author Jenna Blum. Jenna's books include “Those Who Save Us,” “The Storm Chasers,” and “The Lost Family.” Her newest book is a psychological thriller called “Murder Your Darlings,” which involves authors, book tours, deadlines, love, and stalkers.
Jenna is the co-founder of A Mighty Blaze, an online author interview company, which if you're listening to this podcast, I know you will love the interviews that they put out. And she has taught at Grub Street Writers in Boston for years. Many of the authors I've interviewed on this show have taken classes with Jenna and/or worked with her at A Mighty Blaze. She's a true supporter of writers, readers, and booksellers alike. As evidence of this fact, for her first novel, “Those Who Save Us,” Jenna visited over 800 book clubs in the Boston area alone.
We covered:
- How she caught the writing bug from her dad, who wrote the news for Walter Cronkite
- Applying to grad school five times before she was accepted
- Why she’s still committed to writing and teaching now that she’s a few decades in
- What gives her hope about the future of writing and reading books
- Accepting your own creative process–especially when it doesn’t look like what you think it should
- The value of talking about your ideas with people you trust, without sharing so much that you lose the drive to get it on the page
- How her creative process is like a volcano
- How writing is like making sausage
- The parts of the writing process that happen only in her head
- Why her first drafts look like instructions for assembling IKEA furniture
- What she does right before she goes to sleep that helps her dive back into the writing the next day
Visit Jenna at JennaBlum.com, Substack (Writer Girl in the World), Facebook (Jenna Blum author), or Instagram (Jenna_Blum).
For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.
Thank you for listening!

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In this final installment of my interview with Kate Broad, whose debut novel “Greenwich” was named a best new book by People Magazine, we get a peek at where Kate is headed next, as well as what she's been reading, watching, drinking and fantasizing about eating lately.
We cover:
- The good and the bad parts of always reading (or watching) like a writer
- Why she’s mapped out the structure of other writers’ books (and which ones)
- The prominent authors whose paths’ have influenced her own choices
- The confusion of being so proud to have written a book and also so terrified of seeing your name on the cover of an actual book that’s out in the world
- The British mystery show that kept her up way too late and the recent books she couldn’t put down
- Why she doesn’t make playlists for her books
- The meal she craves that she will likely never be able to have again
Connect with Kate at katebroad.substack.com and sign up for her Ask an Author newsletter.
For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.
Thank you for listening!

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Welcome back to part two of my interview with Kate Broad, whose debut novel, “Greenwich,” was named a People Magazine best new book, an Amazon editor's pick, and a Publisher’s Weekly buzz book for summer 2025, and would be an excellent choice for your book club to read next.
In today's interview, we're diving into the inner side of writing–dealing with resistance, doubts, the passage of time, and unhelpful beliefs. You know, the stuff we all face but don't usually talk about.
We talked about:
- How shifting from writing alone in her office to being out in the world talking about her book with readers was a huge learning curve, and what helped her ride it
- Using therapy as a place to unpack professional jealousy, fears, and self-doubt
- The video her publisher asked her to make that almost broke her
- The phrase she tells herself when her “brain gremlins” start chiming in
- The years-long process it took to sell her first novel
- On making the choice to write what you want to read–not what you think the reader wants
- How the philosopher whose work she read in her 20s is still influencing her work
Connect with Kate at katebroad.substack.com and sign up for her Ask an Author newsletter.
For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.
Thank you for listening!

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My guest this week is Kate Broad, author of “Greenwich,” a coming of age story set against a backdrop of wealth and privilege that explores how mistakes can have life-altering consequences and asks who is the first to be blamed and who gets to be believed and forgiven.
“Greenwich” was named a People Magazine best new book, an Amazon editor's pick and a Publishers Weekly Buzz Book for summer 2025. It would be a great choice for your book club, both because it's gripping and suspenseful and it explores a lot of gray areas around complicity and responsibility that will make for a juicy conversation.
Kate is a Bronx Council of the Arts award winner for fiction and her writing has appeared in The Rumpus, No Tokens, The Brooklyn Review and elsewhere.
We covered:
- How she tried, but ultimately decided to stop putting energy into building a career that was writing-adjacent
- How telling herself she doesn’t have to pursue writing helps motivate her to keep going
- Cobbling together a liveable income from various writing pursuits
- Using her advances to buy more time away from freelancing
- The life choices she’s made to create more space for writing
- Woo! Really insightful talk about money’s impact on creative integrity
- Understanding yourself well enough to create the conditions that support your creative work
- Taking care of your body and your mind as a creative
- The steps she takes at the end of the day to make it easier for her to start writing the next day
Connect with Kate at katebroad.substack.com and sign up for her Ask an Author newsletter.
For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.
Thank you for listening!

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Welcome to the final installment of my interview with Cynthia Weiner, author of “A Gorgeous Excitement,” a coming of age novel set in 1980s New York City that was named a best book of 2025 by The New Yorker, Kirkus Reviews, and Oprah Daily and is freshly out in paperback.
Cynthia is also the assistant director of the writer's studio in New York City and her short fiction has been published in “Open City,” “Ploughshares,” and “The Sun,” has earned a Pushcart Prize and been anthologized in Coolest American Stories 2024.
In this fun episode, we covered:
- The 90s soundtrack that’s helping Cynthia get into her next project
- The three writers whose examples inspire Cynthia on her own path
- Her burning desire to have a house with a yard and, most importantly, a tree
- The Max show she’s bingeing, her elaborate daily diet soda ritual, the best day of the week, and the fast food meal she’s craving
Connect with Cynthia on Instagram at @cynthiaweiner
There are new Finding the Throughline episodes roughly every other week–hit “subscribe” so you know when the next ones drop!
For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit ⁠katehanley.substack.com⁠.
Thank you for listening!

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Welcome to part two of my interview (a replay) with Cynthia Weiner, author of “A Gorgeous Excitement,” which, since these episodes first aired, has just come out in paperback and was named a best book of the year for 2025 by The New Yorker, Kirkus Reviews, and Oprah Daily.
In today's episode, we unpack:
- Learning how to tolerate the discomfort of sharing your work
- And how to ignore the voice that tells you nobody cares what you have to say
- How she came to imagine that inner critical voice as a “shit bird”
- Why she could work on one sentence for years
- Why she’d rather stay home than travel some place new
- How getting older has made her a better writer (and a worse sleeper)
- How she’s re-wired the idea that it’s bad to draw attention to yourself
Connect with Cynthia on Instagram at @cynthiaweiner
There are new Finding the Throughline episodes roughly every other week–hit “subscribe” so you know when the next ones drop!
For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit ⁠katehanley.substack.com⁠.
Thank you for listening!

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This week I'm replaying my interview with Cynthia Weiner, whose amazing coming of age novel set in 1980s New York City, “A Gorgeous Excitement,” is just out in paperback.
“A Gorgeous Excitement” is inspired by Cynthia's own 80s upbringing on the Upper East Side of New York, as well as the infamous Preppy Killer, a former prep school student who killed a girl in Central Park in the summer of 1986 and who frequented a bar called Dorian's, where Cynthia spent many nights drinking with friends.
Cynthia's work has won the Pushcart Prize and been anthologized in the Coolest American Stories. Cynthia is also the assistant director of The Writer's Studio in New York City where, fun fact, I took classes with her in the early 2000s.
We covered:
- The award she won in second grade that hooked her on the writing life
- How she stumbled into teaching writing
- Writing as a “weird compulsion”
- The plus sides of working on a novel for nearly 10 years
- The daily rituals that help her write
- The time management technique that helps her get unstuck
- Why catching up with a friend helps her write
- How living a boring life leaves more space for the work
Connect with Cynthia on Instagram at @cynthiaweiner
There are new Finding the Throughline episodes roughly every other week–hit “subscribe” so you know when the next ones drop!
For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit ⁠katehanley.substack.com⁠.
Thank you for listening!

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Welcome back to the final portion of my interview with Lauren Kessler an award-winning author of 15 books including her brand new and most personal by far, Everything Changes Everything, which covers how she moved forward after losing her husband and her daughter within eight months of each other by walking 500 miles across Spain on a solo pilgrimage along the famed Camino de Santiago.
In addition to being a writer, Lauren is a backyard farmer, a backcountry hiker, a tent-camper, and a quadruple Aries–if you know, you know.
Today we get a peek at where Lauren is headed next, as well as what she’s been reading, watching, drinking, and fantasizing about eating.
We covered:
- Looking for pockets of inspiration amid a sea of upsetting headlines
- A suffragist whose story inspires Lauren in her own life
- How her current throughline is creating work that helps people move through loss
- Starting to ponder the possibility of pursuing a partnership now that she’s five years past losing her beloved husband–or really, how she’s avoiding said pondering but still, the possibility lingers
- Thoughts on maintaining the stamina for maintaining a writing career as long as possible
- The novella by Norman McLean she reads three times a year, and why
- Why, when she drinks alcohol, she drinks tequila (such a sweet story)
Connect with Lauren at laurenkessler.com or laurenjkess.substack.com.
For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.
Thank you for listening!

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