Hear us Roar

Sarah's lifelong obsession with Dartmouth as well as her fascination with the challenges that faced her mother's generation of women in the early '70's sparked the idea for this historical novel, which she wrote after spending seven years on a previous one that garnered her an agent but never sold. We discuss how she reached out directly to bookstores once the pandemic hit, the long tail of book promotion, and the difficulty of judging which marketing techniques really affect book sales.

Sarah McCraw Crow grew up in Virginia but has lived most of her adult life in New Hampshire. She's a graduate of Dartmouth College, Stanford University, and Vermont College of Fine Arts. When it comes to fiction writing (and reading), Sarah is obsessed with women's lives and the drama of family life. She also loves the Seventies. She lives on an old farm in New Hampshire, and when she's not reading or writing, she's probably gardening or snowshoeing (depending on the weather). Find Sarah on Instagram: @sarahmccrawcrow.

To learn more about Sarah, click here.

Mary Helen talks about the three things she was advised not to do in a debut novel (unfortunately she'd done all three), messaging her "Christmas list" one day before her pub date with specific, simple things they could do to help her, why she's given up on Pinterest, and why she's writing the rough draft of her next novel as pure dialogue.

Mary Helen Sheriff is a co-founder of Bookish Road Trip. After 14 years in classrooms teaching elementary school, middle school, college, and professionals, Mary has taken a break from the classroom to focus on writing. She has an MFA from Hollins University, an MA from ODU, and a BA from UVA. She lives in Henrico County in Virginia with her two children, two cats, and one husband.

To learn more about Mary Helen, click here.

In this interview, Regina describes how she used her childhood experiences in the Catholic church to inform her protagonist's guilt and shame over a long-buried secret, how she changed her original title during the publication process, and her positive experience going with a hybrid press for her first novel. And be sure to listen to the end to find out what Regina has in common with the Queen of England.

Regina Buttner is a registered nurse-turned-writer and the debut author of ABSOLUTION, a domestic drama about marriage, secrets, and betrayal, set in Seattle during the 1990s dot-com boom. She recently traded the snowy winters of Upstate New York for the fabulous sunshine of Southwest Florida, where she enjoys running, biking, and kayaking among the mangroves.

To learn more about Regina, click here.

Quế Mai shares how she wanted to write a novel set during the Vietnam War from the missing perspective of the Vietnamese themselves, specifically the women, who she felt were often portrayed in literature as having no agency, when actually they were unbelievably strong and resilient. We discuss how she wove ger country's food, culture, proverbs and beliefs into a rich tapestry of a debut that made every best-seller list of 2020 (1400+ Amazon reviews), how her agent believed in her book so strongly she hand-carried her proposal to publishers and gave them a deadline to respond, and how Que Mai is a proponent of headstands to enhance writer's productivity.

Dr Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai (pronounced ŋwiən fα:n kwe mai) is an award-winning writer in both Vietnamese and English. Her eight books of poetry, short fiction and non-fiction in Vietnamese have received some of Vietnam's top literary awards including the 2010 Poetry of the Year Award from the Hanoi Writers Association, the Capital's Literature & Arts Award, and First Prize in the Poetry Competition celebrating 1,000 Years of Hanoi. Her debut novel and first book in English, THE MOUNTAINS SING, is an International Bestseller, a New York Times Editors' Choice Selection, Winner of the 2020 BookBrowse Best Debut Award, a Finalist of the Audie 2021 Best Audiobook of the Year Award, and Winner of the 2020 Lannan Literary Award Fellowship for "a work of exceptional quality" and for "contribution to peace and reconciliation". The novel has been named a best book of 2020 by many media establishments including NPR and the Washington Independent Review of Books. Quế Mai is the translator of seven books published in Vietnam and the United States and has received the Vietnam Writers Association's Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Advancement of Vietnamese Literature Overseas. She currently divides her time between Indonesia and Vietnam. Her journalism regularly appears in major Vietnamese newspapers.

To learn more about Que Mai, click here.

A child raised in both Mormon and Muslim religious traditions, Ehsaneh worked in Iran for several years and her experiences there form the backdrop to her novel about three people whose lives are upended by the 2009 Green Wave protests in that country. We discuss how the 2020 US election echoed many of the themes she explored in her book, how she found her perfect agent, going on sub but not selling her book the first round, and how she centered her marketing efforts on activities she enjoyed, ranging from riding her bike to deliver ARC's by hand to reviewers to setting a goal to talk to 50 book clubs in her first year of publication.

Ehsaneh Sadr is an Iranian-American novelist and activist with a PhD in International Relations. She has worked, in various capacities, on campaigns related to Palestinian human rights, Iranian sanctions, access to credit for rural villagers, and safe spaces for children in crisis. She currently works with the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition to create the cultural and infrastructure changes needed to support a shift away from carbon-based modes of transportation. Ehsaneh currently lives in Northern California with her husband and two children but also considers Washington DC, Salt Lake City, and Tehran to be home. Her debut novel, A Door Between Us, has been named one of the 33neh Essential Works of Fiction by Iranian Writers.

To learn more about Ehsaneh, click here.

We discuss Valerie's transition from a corporate writer to writing fiction after her retirement. She's a fan of book clubs and built her author platform partly through becoming a regular book reviewer for the national marketing firm Book Trib. In addition to her fans in the US, she's made recent inroads into the library market in such far-off places as Singapore and Australia.

Valerie grew up in CT, graduating with two degrees from Sacred Heart University. After her divorce, she spread her wings and relocated to Boston where she earned a graduate certificate in health care administration from Simmons University (formerly Simmons College). Her thirty-year career in the financial services industry as a marketer and writer also took her to Seattle where she lived for a decade. After she retired, Valerie returned to her home state where she became a continuing contributor and book reviewer for BookTrib.com. She's a member of Westport Writers' Workshop, Independent Book Publishers Association, and Women's Fiction Writers Association. She enjoys practicing tai chi and being an expert sports spectator.

What's Not True, the sequel to her debut, will be published in August 2021.

To learn more about Valerie, click here.

Mining her personal knowledge of the Balkans from a long-ago adventure, Michele's debut braids historical events with a young woman's personal journey to find her roots, a journey which rang to the author personally because of her own explorations into her own Jewish cultural heritage. Praised for its lyrical beauty, her manuscript nevertheless was deemed "hard to market" before finding a home with Black Rose Writing.

Now a resident of the Tar Heel state, Michele Levy lived a nomadic life growing up, living in Wisconsin, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Virginia. Her college degree in history and her love of language and literature steered her to UNC for graduate studies, where the field of Comparative Literature provided the perfect avenue to explore all her interests. Once she moved to New Orleans with her husband, she become an assistant professor, teaching and publishing on Russian and European authors while raising three children, and eventually chairing her department. Her life-long passion for the distinctive richness and vitality of the Balkan culture, a painful amalgam of both East and West, led her to study and eventually publish on the literature and history of that region and ultimately, provided the rich background for her debut novel.

To learn more about Michele, and connect with her, click here.

Anita, an Ottawa resident, describes the difference between Canadian writers and those in the US, how she channeled her own grief experience into her main character, how she believes writing is rewriting, and how embracing bookstagrammers was her single best marketing decision.

Kushwaha's road to publication included a fulfilling career in academia, where she studied human geography at Carleton University and earned an M.A. and a Ph.D as a Tri-council funded scholar, collaborating with Indigenous communities in the eastern Canadian Arctic and Ottawa on socio-cultural and environmental issues. A graduate of the Humber School for Writers creative writing program, her work has appeared in Ms. Magazine, The Globe and Mail, Quill and Quire, The Literary Review of Canada, The 49th Shelf, Open Book, Word on the Street, The Ottawa Review of Books, Ottawa Life Magazine, Apt613, Girly Book Club, BookTrib, SavvyMom, CBC All in a Day, and Canadian Living among others. Her first novel, Side by Side, won an Independent Publisher Book Awards' Silver Medal for Multicultural Fiction in 2019. She is also the author of a novella, The Escape Artist. Her novel, Secret Lives of Mothers & Daughters, was released in January 2020 by HarperCollins Canada and selected as a March Book of the Month by Word on the Street, highlighted as a "Books with Buzz" by Canadian Living, selected as an "Editors' Pick" by The 49th Shelf, and included in the "Crazy for CanLit" reading list curated by the Giller Prize Foundation. Themes in her work include exploring the social and cultural pressures faced by South Asian girls and women, immigrant experiences, diaspora, intergenerational conflict, identity, belonging, place, and mental health explored through a cultural lens. She is a member of the Canadian Authors Association, the Women's Fiction Writers Association, and is the recipient of an Ontario Arts Council Literary Creations Grant.

To learn more about Anita, click here.

). Barbara describes how her age influenced her decision to go with a small press, how her year-long engagement with reader Facebook groups proved invaluable to her book launch, and the story behind how she landed a spot on the USA Today best-seller list four months after her book release. And as a final tidbit, how a random remark she made on Twitter led to a top-drawer blurb.

For many years, Barbara worked in the health care industry before opting for an early retirement, which lasted all of three months. She then accepted a finance position, for which she had absolutely no background, and four years later, she decided to write a book. But not about finance.

Travel is her passion, along with reading, writing, hiking, and exploring antique shops. Her greatest love is Miss Molly, her rescue beagle. There are stories to be told about beagles, and Barbara hopes to incorporate some of them into her books. She lives in Pennsylvania, close to family and friends.

To learn more about Barbara, click here.

J.L. is new to writing but she's determined to build a career, so if you're a younger writer, or have a teenager interested in what it takes, she'll inspire you to start right now learning your craft and putting your story down on paper. Plus when was the last time you heard a writer say they actually liked the querying process?

Jenna Hanger writing as J.L. Cole resides on an ranch in Alberta, CA with her husband and two young daughters. Her debut novel, Silver Heights, was published by Black Rose Writing, and was awarded the 2020 Maxy Romance Runner-Up award. She also has been published in Dreamers Creative Writing magazine, works as the Senior Writer for a non-profit organization and in her spare time reviews books on social media.

To learn more about J.L., please click here.