Hear us Roar

It's almost like this book had been waiting for Margaret to write it – she lived for a few years in France growing up, has always been fascinated by Napoleon's story, and dreamed of someday writing a novel. Finally the stars aligned. Here how she was able to travel to the island of Elba in the middle of the Atlantic and actually stay in the house where Napoleon was exiled for the last four years of his life. And more importantly, hear the lost story of Albine de Montholon – a resident of the island and his last love.

Margaret Rodenberg's award-winning debut novel Finding Napoleon (She Writes Press, April 2021) includes an adaptation of Napoleon Bonaparte's real attempt to write a romantic novel. Her passion for French history began when she lived in France as a young teen with her US Navy family. An avid traveler who has visited over sixty countries, she journeyed more than 30,000 miles to conduct Napoleonic research, including to St. Helena Island in the remote South Atlantic where Finding Napoleon takes place. She's a former businesswoman and a director of the Napoleonic Historical Society, a non-profit that promotes knowledge of the Napoleonic era. She's as happy in a kayak as she is in a museum. She's @margaretrodenberg on Instagram and MargaretRodenberg.author on Facebook.

To learn more about Margaret, click here.

After a long business career that included running a Montessori school and teaching deaf children, Karen decided to get serious about her writing and four years later, indie published her debut novel harkening back to the state she grew up in – Texas and her love for horses. A sweeping family saga spanning over 70 years, the book's main character was meant to play a secondary role until she began taking over the narrative and insisted on being heard.

Blanton Brenner grew up in North Texas in a large extended family that raised horses and holy hell and, in between, sang together in four part harmony. While attending university, she met a drummer from Chicago, married him and moved to Chicago where they raised their children.

For over ten years, Brenner wrote and read stories from her life on WBEZ, the NPR station in Chicago. She was awarded the Peter Lisagor Prize from the Society of Professional Journalists for her radio story, "Driving with Frank Sinatra." K. Blanton Brenner published her debut novel, Appaloosa Sky, in 2019. It is the story of a family of tenacious Texas women who break horses and hearts. Appaloosa Sky lives in a genre somewhere between Nancy Drew and Sex and the City. The author's second novel, The Trinity Rivers Trilogy will be published soon. It is tells the story of the Quinn family: the enormously talented, wildly dramatic, funny and sometimes dangerous Quinns.

To learn more about Karen, click here.

If you're curious what it might be like to self-publish your work, this is a segment you'll want to listen to. Jensen is doing everything right – rapid release of three books in one series in one year (with another one coming in April), soaking up craft lessons from experts, being mentored by a seasoned indie author. She made the conscious decision to avoid the negativity of rejections from agents and publishers out of fear she'd lose the joy she's found in writing and it seems to be paying off. Her enthusiasm and optimism will inspire you.

Born and raised in a small town in Michigan, Jennifer married her high school sweetheart. She got a job, which she originally left college for, and over the course of a few years, she had two beautiful sons.

In December 2019, Jennifer found herself staring down the big 3-0. Having accomplished so much and at the same time, so little, she looked at the life she had made and knew something was missing.

When picking up a pen and putting it to paper, after an almost ten-year hiatus, she quickly fell back in love with the world of writing.

She made a pact with herself to do better with self-care and putting as much effort into her own happiness that she had put into the happiness of others. Doing so gave her space and energy to create and soon share, the characters that had only existed in her mind.

As our world continues to fight the stigma around mental health issues, Jennifer's book series, Versions of Me, gives a glimpse into the mind of Harper Jones. In book one, The Vice, Harper—a twenty-eight year old woman—is struggling to cope with her past. As the life she has been living starts to crumble around her, she finds herself fighting not only external battles, but internal ones as well. The battles that she faces drive her motivation behind everything she does. They drive her need to drink, her need to be loved—her need to be the woman she once was.

To learn more about Jennifer, click here.

Hear how the idea for Kristy's novel originated from a ten-year old TV show, how the goal to write a novel came to her in a dream, and how her female protagonist refused the ending Kristy had planned for her and insisted on a different path. We also discuss what it's like to work with a small press based in another country and how she manages to find time to write between a full-time job and studying for her doctorate.

Kristy was born in Southwestern Colorado. She moved to Illinois after graduating from Alfred University in Alfred, New York with her Bachelor's Degree in Psychology. Shortly after moving to Illinois, she began her career in the not-for-profit arena and has spent the majority of her career in human resources. In 2016 she graduated from the University of Illinois with her Master's Degree in Public Administration and is currently working to obtain her Doctorate of Education in Organization and Leadership. When she is not writing, working, or furthering her education, Kristy is traveling the globe with her husband, having set a goal of going to one new place each year.

To learn more about Kristy, click here.

We talk with Kate Allen (Fear of Flying, Ambiguous Ink Press, March 2021) and discuss how she balances her work as a lawyer with her writing career, how writing a novel and wanting to see it published sooner rather than later sent her on a journey that resulted in her starting her own publishing company, and how her best advice for new authors is be braver about social media, that it can be fun and collaborative and essential for promoting your work.

Kate Allen is a serial multi-tasker and author of contemporary fiction. After obtaining her B.A. in English Literature she took a detour to law school and "daylights" as a lawyer. Her debut novel, Fear of Flying, is an intercontinental tale about love, friendship, and loss. In addition to writing, Kate is also co-founder of Ambiguous Ink Press and founder of www.thisbookislit.com, an online book magazine.

To learn more about Kate, click here.

A tale of two women whose lives intersect in the 1970's in Alaska, Dorothy's book not only reflects her own experiences when she lived for years in a remote scientific community near the Arctic Circle but also the power and lasting legacy of female friendships. We also discuss how she found her small press through another writer's recommendation and how sometimes it's necessary to jettison interesting back story in order to propel your story forward. .

Writer, editor, teacher, wife and mother, Dorothy Staley left the Arctic years ago, but it never left her. As the Naval Arctic Research Laboratory's first science writer she interviewed nearly 800 scientists. After 5 years, when family responsibilities and job opportunities took her on a trajectory from the far north to the Deep South, she never stopped writing about the Arctic in her diaries, poems, short stories, and now her debut novel.

To learn more about Dorothy, go to https://bearwomanrising.com/

Leslie and I discuss the difference between an author and a writer, how her experience writing TV sit-coms and personal essays was very different than writing a full-length novel, and how the idea for her realistic story came from the challenges she observed her forty-something friends grappling with as children left home, parents aged, and marriages underwent major transformations.

Leslie A. Rasmussen was born and raised in Los Angeles and graduated from UCLA. She went on to write television comedies and is a member of The Writers' Guild of America. Leslie wrote for Gerald McRaney, Burt Reynolds, Roseanne Barr, Norm McDonald, Drew Carey, as well as The Wild Thornberrys and Sweet Valley High. After leaving the business to raise her boys, she attained a master's in nutrition and ran her own business for ten years. Recently, she's written over twenty essays for Huffington Post, MariaShriver, and SheKnows, and has been on several panels discussing women being empowerment to start a new chapter in midlife. Leslie loves dogs and is a member of The Alliance of therapy dogs and has volunteered at her local Animal Shelter. She lives in Los Angeles and is married and has two sons.

To learn more about Leslie, click here.

Elissa and Idiscuss how her book was informed by her lived experience of having MS as well as going through ALICE training at her job, how the Twitter events Pitch Wars and PitMad led to her finding an agent, how she wrote 2 other books before clicking with the third, and how her best marketing move has been interfacing with readers in private FB groups.

Elissa is a former journalist who now works in higher education communications and marketing. Though she grew up among the lakes and trees of Northern Minnesota, Elissa now lives on the South Dakota prairie with her husband and children. Her blog posts about living with multiple sclerosis have appeared on the National MS Society online Momentum Magazine Blog. The Speed of Light is her debut novel. Her second novel, Iris in the Dark, is coming in June 2022 from Lake Union Publishing.

To learn more about Elissa, click here.

Libby Hubscher describes her writing process as seeing pivotal scenes, fully formed, in her head, then writing in and around those to fill in the missing pieces. Libby landed an agent through a Twitter connection but hadn't fully realized there was a bigger hurdle ahead – being on submission and ultimately not finding a publisher. Her first six novels, some contemporary romance, some literary fiction, failed to sell and it wasn't until she opened herself up and wrote "the story I needed to write" that the magic happened. The book of her heart sold in two months.

Libby is a scientist as well as an author. She studied biology at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine and holds a doctor of philosophy in molecular toxicology from North Carolina State University. Her work has appeared online and in textbooks, scientific journals, and literary journals. Her short story "The Unwelcome Guest" was long-listed for the Wigleaf Top 50 in 2018. She lives in North Carolina with her husband, two young children, and a menagerie of pets.

To learn more about Libby, click here.

Debra and I discuss how her book, featuring two sisters from Mexico who cross the border illegally to find their father, avoided the controversy that enveloped American Dirt through her attention to authenticity, her background with immigrant groups, and her use of well-vetted sensitivity experts. Another highlight of Debra's writing journey with Luz was winning Story Circle's Sarton Book Award for Contemporary Fiction, since its namesake May Sarton wrote Journal of a Solitude, a touchstone of Debra's since its publication in 1973. Luz was also named the 2020 Next Generation Indie Book Award for Multicultural Fiction.

Originally from Binghamton, New York, Debra has lived in Southern California most of her adult life. She taught literature and writing at James Monroe High School, a Los Angeles public school, and English as a Second Language (ESL) to adults from all over the world. Her work as an immigrant and refugee rights advocate led her to write Luz. A lover of all creatures great and small, when she isn't with her two horses, she is relaxing with her husband and little dog, watching all the birds and critters that visit her backyard feeders. She is currently at work on her second novel to be published Spring 2023.

To learn more about Debra, click here.