Hear us Roar

Our interview this week is with Erin Flanagan (Deer Season, University of Nebraska Press, September 2021). With four previous novels in the drawer, Erin dug into her childhood memory of her father moving their family from Chicago to a small midwestern town of 1200 residents, and crafted Deer Season, a haunting story of the ripple effect of an act of violence on a close-knit community. We discuss how she came to be a reviewer at Publishers Weekly, how she keeps track of the hours she spends in drafting vs. revision (18% vs 82%) and how she now finds the novel form comforting like a long-term relationship you can count on always being there every morning.

Erin Flanagan's latest novel Blackout (Thomas & Mercer) was an Amazon First Reads selection for June 2022. She is the author of Deer Season (University of Nebraska Press), winner of the 2022 Edgar for Best First Novel by an American Author and a Finalist for the Macavity Award for Best First Mystery. Erin is an English professor at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio and a regular book reviewer for Publishers Weekly.

To learn more about Erin, click here.

Our podcast guest this week is Shirley Novack (The Story of … , Fulton Books, March 2022). Here how this project started as a homage to her Polish immigrant father but evolved into a sweeping saga of the hardships and triumphs of Eastern European families building a new life in America. An interior design career is an unlikely background for a novel writer but Shirley pursued her dream and can now be found most mornings either writing her next historical fiction or working out plot points on her daily walks.

Shirley B. Novack is a first-generation daughter of Polish and Russian immigrants. She originally graduated from Fisher College in Boston with a degree in laboratory science, but after marrying and bringing up three children, she went back to school and graduated from Newbury College with a degree in interior design. She has had a successful interior design practice since 1985, but her passion for writing was never far from the surface. Shirley resides in Framingham, Massachusetts, with her husband, Barry and their precious Havanese, Stevie Nicks.

Listen to our podcast guest Kathy Strobos (Partner Pursuit, Indie published, October 2021) as we discuss how she quit her job as a corporate attorney to have better work-life balance which was not coincidentally the theme of her first novel. She loves the control that comes with publishing your own work, even while she admits it's a lot of work and you'll love her hands-on marketing approach which includes emailing everyone she ever met from ex-classmates to corporate clients to the check-out person at Trader Joe's.

Kathy Strobos is a writer living in New York City with her husband and two children, amid a growing collection of books, toys and dollhouses. She grew up in New York City and graduated from Stuyvesant High School, Harvard-Radcliffe University magna cum laude, and Columbia Law School. She spent two semesters abroad at the Universiteit van Amsterdam. She previously worked as a lawyer. She left law to pursue her dream of writing fiction full-time and getting in shape. She is the author of Partner Pursuit, Is This for Real?, A Scavenger Hunt for Hearts, and Caper Crush. She is still working on getting in shape.

To learn more about Kathy, click here.

Our podcast guest this week is Harriet Cannon (Exiled South, Koehler Books, January 2022). Hear how Harriet, who has dyslexia, works around this in her writing, including using foam story boards and memorizing passages to read at presentations. Her background as a family therapist and work with addictions helps her dig deep into character's motivations and she also writes a detailed study of the location of her books, stating that "place" is just as important sometimes as a character for a novelist.

Harriet Cannon is a writer with Southern roots and wanderlust who has lived in seven US States and Internationally. Harriet's first career, for thirty years, was as a psychotherapist with an intercultural specialty. In addition to private practice, she served as a consultant to the Boeing company, International Schools, and worked for the US State Department in Chile. Harriet is co-author of Mixed Blessings: A Guide to Multicultural and Multiethnic Relationships. After a decade participating in writing groups and classes, writing essays and short stories as a side hobby, Harriet now writes fiction full time. Exiled South is her debut novel. Harriet and her husband live in on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington State and have two grown children and four grandchildren nearby.

To learn more about Harriet, click here.

Our interview this week is with guest Tammy Harrow (All the Salt in the Sea, Red Adept Publishing, January 2022). We discuss the long gestation period this novel went through before Tammy started the querying process, her best marketing advice to beginning writers, why she has become a die-hard outliner, and the unique bucket list she just completed after working on it for two decades.

Tammy Harrow is an international solo traveler, writer, and photographer. She's spent much of her life in the publishing industry, the first half in newspapers and more recently working for various Florida magazines. Every couple of months, she escapes to a new city or country in search of adventure. Along the way, she often finds interesting stories to share with the world. Tammy's work has appeared in Woman's Day, Budget Travel, Social, and Old City Life magazines, Bacopa Literary Review, and on CNN, MSNBC, and National Geographic. She has a bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Maryland. Tammy lives in historic downtown Saint Augustine, Florida, with her husband, freeloading cat, and disobedient dog. Her three children have flown the nest but still visit frequently.

To learn more about Tammy, click here.

In this podcast, Kerry Chaput and I discuss how researching her genealogy inspired her trilogy of historical fiction, how she's a big believer in writers being clear about their branding and positioning in the marketplace, and why she's crazy about TikTok.

Kerry Chaput is an award-winning historical fiction author. She believes in the power of stories that highlight young women, first love, and found families. Her debut Daughter of the King has remained in the top one-hundred bestsellers for Historical French Fiction since its 2021 release, with the sequel set for publication in March 2023. A lifelong history nerd, Kerry spends her free time researching women's contributions to history, which she highlights on her successful TikTok page. Born and raised in California, she now lives in the beautiful Pacific Northwest, where she can be found on hiking trails and in coffee shops.

To learn more about Kerry, click here.

This week's podcast is with Cheryl Corriveau (The Demanding River, Fulton Books, July 2021). We discuss how Cheryl tapped into her own experiences running a boat dealership in Florida when she outlined the plot of her debut including dealing with hurricanes, drug dealers and blatant misogyny, her persistence in searching for a way to publish her novel, and why she's known in her neighborhood as Mrs. Fierce.

Cheryl Corriveau is a native Floridian. Being an only child, her parents instilled in her that the word can't didn't exist. She has always been an entrepreneur. After her day of teaching high school students, she coached the girls' basketball B, and tennis teams. She also taught evening real estate licensing classes. She spent her summer months at CBS Network as their pilot television program coordinator. After twenty years, she retired from the classroom and became education director of a large real estate franchise corporation. Cheryl has owned and operated several businesses—a real estate corporation, an aerial photography business, a commercial interior design business. Her love for boats led her to become the sole proprietor of a boat dealership on the St. Johns River. Her real-life experiences in the boating business inspired her to write the fiction novel The Demanding River.

Our podcast guest this week is Tonya Mitchell (A Feigned Madness, Cynren Pres, October, 2020) who was inspired to write a novel based around an historical figure from the 1880's, Nellie Bly, who went undercover for ten days at the infamous Blackwell Insane Asylum in NYC to expose the abusive conditions there. Hear about her research process, her decision to work with a boutique press, and her newest literary obsession (listen to find out)

Tonya Mitchell's short fiction has appeared in various journals and anthologies, including The Copperfield Review and Glimmer and Other Stories and Poems, for which she won the Cinnamon Press award in fiction. Her debut novel, A Feigned Madness, won the Reader Views Reviewers Choice Award and the Kops-Fetherling International Book Award. She lives in Cincinnati, OH with her husband, three boys, and an overweight golden doodle.

To learn more about Tonya, click here.

This week's podcast is with Kimberly Sullivan (Three Coins, indie-published, October 2021). She zooms in with us from Rome where she's lived for over 25 years and where her novel is set. Our discussion ranges from the 1954 classic film that provided her inspiration, what the publishing world looks like in Italy, her participation in the WFWA Historical Fiction group, and what made her decide to go the indie route when it came to her debut.

Kimberly Sullivan writes the women's fiction stories she loves to read, both contemporary and historic tales of women and the rich lives they lead along their journeys of self-discovery. A lifetime admirer and longtime resident of Italy, she's often guilty of sneaking the bel paese into her stories.

To learn more about Kimberly, click here.

Our podcast author this week is Dawn (D.W.) Hogan (Unbroken Bonds, Woodhall Press, October 2021). Her book tells the story of four teenage girls facing ostracism and hardship when unwanted pregnancies force them to a home where their rights are stripped and their babies snatched away, a dark period in US history during the '50's and '60's. Dawn was determined to honor the stories of these young women and their children, querying for over a decade to find a publisher for the piece. Her valuable advice to beginning writers? Never give up.

Dawn Hogan majored in English at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. She's the mother of four grown children and grandmother to two. She is a full-time author and lives in Huntsville, Alabama with her husband. Unbroken Bonds is her debut novel.

To learn more about Dawn, click here.