Past Forward

Natasha Lester worked as a marketing executive for L'Oreal before penning the New York Times and internationally bestselling novel The Paris Orphan. She is also the author of the USA Today bestseller The Paris Seamstress and The Paris Secret. When she's not writing, she loves collecting vintage fashion, traveling, reading, practicing yoga and playing with her three children. Natasha lives in Perth, Western Australia.

In Lester’s hotly anticipated next book, The Riviera House, on-sale August 31, 2021, readers are whisked away to two drastically different worlds that span generations and collide in an unexpected and satisfying way; Lester masterfully alternates between German-occupied Paris during WWII and modern-day French Riviera.

Without These Books is a thank-you-inspired Video/Podcast. Each episode celebrates authors, books, and characters that changed us as writers, readers, and as people. Listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you podcast. Watch on our YouTube channel or at pastforward.org.

Natasha Lester selected Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion for her episode of Without These Books.

Nawaaz Ahmed was born in Tamil Nadu, India. Before turning to writing, he was a computer scientist, researching search algorithms for Yahoo. He holds an MFA from University of Michigan–Ann Arbor and is the winner of several Hopwood Awards. He is the recipient of residencies at MacDowell, Yaddo, Djerassi, and VCCA. He’s also a Kundiman and Lambda Literary Fellow. He currently lives in Brooklyn.

Without These Books is a thank-you-inspired Video/Podcast. Each episode celebrates authors, books, and characters that changed us as writers, readers, and as people. Listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you podcast. Watch on our YouTube channel or at pastforward.org.

Nawaaz Ahmed selected Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino for his episode of Without These Books.

Bradley Sides’ writing appears at Chapter 16, Chicago Review of Books, Electric Literature, Los Angeles Review of Books, The Millions, The Rumpus, Southern Review of Books, and elsewhere. He holds an MA in English from the University of North Alabama and is an MFA candidate at Queens University of Charlotte. He lives in Florence, Alabama, with his wife.

Those Fantastic Lives
City of Light Publishing, 2021

A World Without Books was created to help writers connect with readers during the pandemic. This Micro-Podcast provides authors a platform to share stories about writing, discuss current projects, and consider life without books. Listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you podcast.

Without Books®, a division of Heritage Future, is an author-centric book initiative. Our resources support authors. We also provide access to millions of books.

Marilyn Peterson Haus learned to read and write in a one-room school set in the midst of a sea of corn, and then rode a rickety yellow school bus seven miles to the nearest town (population 700) for middle and high school. Everything was oriented around the railroad that sliced through the tallgrass prairie, heading west. 

Marilyn’s own journey took her in the opposite direction, and after attending Augsburg College (now Augsburg University) in Minneapolis, she and her husband moved east and settled in western Massachusetts, where she raised three children, earned an MBA and launched a successful business career. After retiring from her day job, Marilyn followed her dream to become a writer, began attending a weekly writer’s workshop, and over the course of ten years, wrote and completed Half a Whole – her first book. 

When she isn’t writing, Marilyn can be found shoveling compost around the coneflowers, hostas, and day lilies that overflow her many flower gardens.

Half of a Whole: My Fight for a Separate Life
Post Hill Press, 2021

A World Without Books was created to help writers connect with readers during the pandemic. This Micro-Podcast provides authors a platform to share stories about writing, discuss current projects, and consider life without books. Listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you podcast.

Without Books®, a division of Heritage Future, is an author-centric book initiative. Our resources support authors. We also provide access to millions of books.

Jenn Shapland is a writer and archivist living in New Mexico. Her first book, My Autobiography of Carson McCullers, was a finalist for the 2020 National Book Award and won the Lambda Literary award. She has a PhD in English from the University of Texas at Austin and is currently working on a collection of essays about the entanglement of toxicity, capitalism, and heteropatriarchy called Thin Skin.

Without These Books is a thank-you-inspired Video/Podcast. Each episode celebrates authors, books, and characters that changed us as writers, readers, and as people. Listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you podcast. Watch on our YouTube channel or at pastforward.org.

Jenn Shapland selected Silent Spring by Rachel Carson for her episode of Without These Books.

Marilyn Peterson Haus learned to read and write in a one-room school set in the midst of a sea of corn, and then rode a rickety yellow school bus seven miles to the nearest town (population 700) for middle and high school. Everything was oriented around the railroad that sliced through the tallgrass prairie, heading west. 

Marilyn’s own journey took her in the opposite direction, and after attending Augsburg College (now Augsburg University) in Minneapolis, she and her husband moved east and settled in western Massachusetts, where she raised three children, earned an MBA and launched a successful business career. After retiring from her day job, Marilyn followed her dream to become a writer, began attending a weekly writer’s workshop, and over the course of ten years, wrote and completed Half a Whole – her first book. 

When she isn’t writing, Marilyn can be found shoveling compost around the coneflowers, hostas, and day lilies that overflow her many flower gardens.

Without These Books is a thank-you-inspired Video/Podcast. Each episode celebrates authors, books, and characters that changed us as writers, readers, and as people. Listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you podcast. Watch on our YouTube channel or at pastforward.org.

Marilyn Peterson Haus selected I Know This Much Is True by Wally Lamb for her episode of Without These Books.

Philip J. Kowalski has taught courses in critical thinking and American literature at Wake Forest University and the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. He lives on the North Shore of Massachusetts.

Canine in the Promised Land
Atmosphere Press, 2021

A World Without Books was created to help writers connect with readers during the pandemic. This Micro-Podcast provides authors a platform to share stories about writing, discuss current projects, and consider life without books. Listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you podcast.

Without Books®, a division of Heritage Future, is an author-centric book initiative. Our resources support authors. We also provide access to millions of books.

Mary Dixie Carter’s debut novel The Photographer will be published in May 2021 by Minotaur Books - St. Martin’s Publishing Group in the US and by Hodder & Stoughton in the UK.

Mary Dixie’s writing has appeared in TIME,  The Economist, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Chicago Tribune, The Philadelphia Inquirer,  The New York Sun, The New York Observer and other print and online publications.  She worked at The Observer for five years, where she served as the publishing director.  In addition to writing, she also has a background as a professional actor. 

Mary Dixie graduated from Harvard College with an honors degree in English Literature and holds an MFA in Creative Writing from The New School.  She is the daughter of Dixie Carter and step-daughter of Hal Holbrook. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two young children. The Photographer is her first novel.

Without These Books is a thank-you-inspired Video/Podcast. Each episode celebrates authors, books, and characters that changed us as writers, readers, and as people. Listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you podcast. Watch on our YouTube channel or at pastforward.org.

Mary Dixie Carter selected The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton for her episode of Without These Books.

Elizabeth Gauffreau writes fiction and poetry with a strong connection to family and place. She holds a B.A. in English from Old Dominion University and an M.A. in English/Fiction Writing from the University of New Hampshire. She is currently the Assistant Dean of Curriculum & Assessment for Champlain College Online, where she is an Associate Professor. Her fiction and poetry have been published in literary magazines and several themed anthologies. Her debut novel, Telling Sonny, was published by Adelaide Books in 2018. Liz lives in Nottingham, New Hampshire with her husband.

Telling Sonny
Adelaide Books, 2018

A World Without Books was created to help writers connect with readers during the pandemic. This Micro-Podcast provides authors a platform to share stories about writing, discuss current projects, and consider life without books. Listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you podcast.

Without Books®, a division of Heritage Future, is an author-centric book initiative. Our resources support authors. We also provide access to millions of books.

Keith Madsen is a retired minister who is using his retirement to pursue a lifelong interest in writing fiction. Keith has published short stories in Mobius: The Journal of Social Change, Talking River, Short Story America and Adelaide. He is a member of the Pacific Northwest Writers’ Association. Keith lives in East Wenatchee, Washington with his wife Cathy, where he enjoys teaching chess to grade school children.

The Sons and Daughters of Toussaint
Adelaide Books, 2018

A World Without Books was created to help writers connect with readers during the pandemic. This Micro-Podcast provides authors a platform to share stories about writing, discuss current projects, and consider life without books. Listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you podcast.

Without Books®, a division of Heritage Future, is an author-centric book initiative. Our resources support authors. We also provide access to millions of books.