Finding the Throughline with Kate Hanley

Welcome back to the final installment of my interview with Nancy Johnson, author of “People of Means,” which was one of People magazine's most anticipated books of 2025, and “The Kindest Lie”, which was a book of the month club and Target book club selection.
In today’s episode, I felt like we were getting a tour through Nancy’s vision board–as well as the things she’s doing to help make those visions a reality.
- Why she’s started planning a trip to Martha’s Vineyard next summer
- The first annual Black Book Bash in Jacksonville, Florida, happening in October (mark your calendars)
- Considering a pivot from fiction to nonfiction, and how she’s preparing for that shift
- The writing goal that’s still on her vision board
- The HBO show she recently stayed up too late watching because it was so good
- Her go-to café order
- The two songs that get her energized
- The meal her Aunt Mary used to make that she can still taste today
Connect with Nancy on Instagram @nancyjauthor or Facebook at Nancy Johnson Author.
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 part two of my interview with Nancy Johnson, author of “People of Means,” a story of class, culture, mothers and daughters, and the fight for racial equality in the not so distant American past. Nancy's first book, The Kindest Lie, was a Book of the Month Club selection and a Target book club pick.
This episode gets into some real emotional terrain, including:
- Her love-hate relationship with the actual writing process
- Her very least favorite part of the publishing process, and how she deals with that discomfort
- The responsibility she feels as a Black author to represent Black people in a “honest, caring way”, and how that responsibility can turbo charge her inner critic
- The advice author Britt Bennett gave her about how to avoid writing stereotypes
- Why she stopped reading her Goodreads and Amazon reviews–and why she makes it a point to ask the readers she speaks to in person what didn’t work for them
- The ninja trick she developed to help her not take negative customer reviews too much to heart
- How her past struggles have shaped her faith that her journey is unfolding in the exact right way at the exact right time
- Why right now is the best time to be telling your stories
Connect with Nancy on Instagram @nancyjauthor or Facebook at Nancy Johnson Author.
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 Nancy Johnson, whose newest novel, “People of Means,” is a propulsive story of race, class, and resistance in 1960s Nashville and 1992 Chicago. It was also one of People Magazine's most anticipated books of 2025. Nancy's debut novel, “The Kindest Lie,” was a Target book club pick and a New York Times editor's choice.
A native of Chicago's South Side, Nancy has worked for more than a decade as an award-winning television journalist at CBS and ABC affiliates nationwide. Nancy lives in downtown Chicago where she's a director of brand journalism and storytelling for a large healthcare nonprofit.
We covered:
- Why she always makes it clear how her characters make their money
- How she manages a full-time “real” job and a full-time writing career
- The writing advice acclaimed mystery writer Dennis Lehane gave her that she chose not to follow
- The tools she uses to get geared up to do her creative writing
- How it took her six years to write her first book, two years to find an agent, and only two weeks to get a publishing deal
- The things that kept her up at night and that inspired the subject matter of her novels
- How her friendships keep her going
Connect with Nancy on Instagram @nancyjauthor or Facebook at Nancy Johnson Author.
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

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

In the second part of my conversation with Lisa See, author of Lady Tan's Circle of Women, The Island of Sea Women, and more, we talked about the interior side of writing–things like dealing with your inner critic and dealing with the parts of writing and of life you would really rather not do, including:
- The fascinating tidbit of information her research taught her about Los Angeles
- How the Chinese public discourse about the smallpox epidemic that occurred 500 years ago is eerily similar to the controversy over Covid vaccines
- The predictable emotional rollercoaster she rides each time during the revision process
- Why writers should start celebrating good sentences the way Olympians celebrate an important point
- The ninja trick of agreeing with your inner critic
- A potential peril of becoming an internationally bestselling author
- How the inevitable losses we experience with age can deepen your writing
- The things she says no to now that she’s the age that she is
- Some of the beliefs and attitudes passed down through the Chinese side of her family she really had to work to cast off (and how her mother, who is not Chinese, helped)
- Why reading fiction is her go-to personal development tool
This week’s episodes are a replay. Hope you enjoy the last couple weeks of official summer and come back September 1 when I have a new guest–another author who specializes in historical fiction and telling women’s stories that have been hidden or overlooked.
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).

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

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).

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

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