The 7am Novelist

Today we get to hear from Patricia Park whose newest novel, WHAT’S EATING JACKIE OH?, was released in April. Patty and I will be talking about how culture and family influences who we are, what we love, the false expectations others place on us, and how to navigate ever-changing tastes, both that of others and (more importantly) our own.

Watch a recording of our live webinar here. The audio/video version is available for one week. Missed it? Check out the podcast version above or on your favorite podcast platform.

To find Park’s latest novel and many books by our authors, visit our Bookshop page. 

Looking for a writing community? Join our Facebook page. 

Patricia Park is the author of the award-winning adult novel, RE JANE, a Korean American retelling of Brontë’s Jane Eyre; and the YA novels IMPOSTER SYNDROME & OTHER CONFESSIONS OF ALEJANDRA KIM and WHAT’S EATING JACKIE OH? She is a tenured professor of creative writing at American University, a Fulbright scholar, an Edith Wharton Writer-in-Residence, and a Jerome Hill Artist Fellow, among other awards. She has written for The New York Times, New Yorker, Guardian, and others. She was born and raised in Queens and lives in Brooklyn. 

Fun Fact: Patricia is trying her hand at stand-up comedy to research her next novel about an aspiring comic. Follow her “method writing” journey on Instagram. 

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

Today we get to hear from Kasey LeBlanc whose debut novel, FLYBOY, was released in May. Kasey and I will be talking about pacing and working with different kinds of dual narratives, in particular with how he dealt with moving between the day and night worlds his protagonist exists in.

Watch a recording here. The audio/video version is available for one week. Missed it? Check out the podcast version above or on your favorite podcast platform.

To find LeBlanc’s debut and many books by our authors, visit our Bookshop page. 

Looking for a writing community? Join our Facebook page. 

Born and raised in Massachusetts, Kasey LeBlanc is a graduate of Harvard College, and an alum of GrubStreet’s Novel Incubator program, where he was an Alice Hoffman fellow. He was a 2019 finalist for the Boston Public Library’s Writer-in-Residence position and has had works published in WBUR’s Cognoscenti, them, and Writer Unboxed. His first novel FLYBOY was released from HarperCollins in May.

Photo by Karina Carvalho on Unsplash

Today we get to hear from Emma Copley Eisenberg whose debut novel, HOUSEMATES, was released in May 2024. Emma and I will be talking about the ways in which dialogue allows the writer to convey higher truths.

Watch a recording of our live webinar here. The audio/video version is available for one week. Missed it? Check out the podcast version above or on your favorite podcast platform.

To find Eisenberg’s debut and many books by our authors, visit our Bookshop page. 

Looking for a writing community? Join our Facebook page. 

Emma Copley Eisenberg is the author of The Third Rainbow Girl: The Long Life of a Double Murder in Appalachia, a hybrid work that mixes memoir, cultural criticism, and reporting. It was named a New York Times Notable Book and Editor’s Choice of 2020 and was nominated for an Edgar Award, a Lambda Literary Award, and an Anthony Bouchercon Award, among other honors. Eisenberg is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Wesleyan University, and has taught creative writing at Bryn Mawr College, Temple University, and the University of Virginia, where she received her MFA in fiction and was a Henry Hoyns/Poe Faulkner fellow. Raised in New York City, she lives in Philadelphia, where she co-founded Blue Stoop, a community hub for the literary arts. Her debut novel, Housemates, was published by Hogarth on May 28, 2024.

Today, we hear from listeners Carol Folbre, Liesl Swogger, and Christine Murphy for a special bonus episode I’m calling our “Listener Roundup.” This is where we get to hear from some of our listeners about they’ve learned from the past few episodes, what ideas they consider the most important, what questions or confusions they have, and their own advice and/or experience in dealing with the same issues in their writing. 

Watch a recording here. This audio/video version is available for one week. Missed it? Check out the podcast version above or on your favorite podcast platform.

To find books by our authors, visit our Bookshop page. 

Looking for a writing community? Join our Facebook page. 

Dr. Carol Folbre is the author of the nonfiction mixed-media book WISHBONE: AN AMERICAN ODYSSEY IN ASIA by Trinity University Press that launches August 13th, 2024.

Liesl Swogger has the finish line in sight(ish) of a rewrite of her novel, A SINGLE SEASON. Think, Billy Elliot set in Houston, TX.

Christine Murphy is the author of the forthcoming literary thriller, NOTES ON SURVIVING THE FIRE, from Knopf (February 2025). She spends her non-writing time writing and playing with pets. 

Photo by Jonathan Beckman on Unsplash

Want to join the podcast? Come together with other listeners in a deep dive into this summer’s episodes, discussing ideas, asking questions, and sharing your experiences about issues brought up in our interviews. Perfect for writers at every level. Only a few spots available. Email [email protected] for more info.

Today we get to hear from Maria Hummel whose most recent novel, GOLDENSEAL, was released in January. Maria and I will be talking about the advantages and pitfalls of rewriting an existing fictional story and revising existing fictional models.

Watch a recording of our live webinar here. The audio/video version is available for one week. Missed it? Check out the podcast version above or on your favorite podcast platform.

To find Hummel’s most recent novel and many books by our authors, visit our Bookshop page. 

Looking for a writing community? Join our Facebook page. 

Maria Hummel is a novelist and poet. Her books include Goldenseal, Lesson in Red, a follow-up to Still Lives, a Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick, a Book of the Month Club pick, and a BBC Culture Best Book of 2018; Motherland, a San Francisco Chronicle Book of the Year; and House and Fire, winner of the APR/Honickman Poetry Prize. She is also the winner of a Stegner Fellowship, a Bread Loaf Fellowship, and the Pushcart Prize. Hummel worked for many years as an arts editor and journalist, and as a writer/editor for The Museum of Contemporary Art, experience that informed Still Lives and Lesson in Red. She also taught creative writing at Stanford University and Colorado College, and is now a full professor at the University of Vermont. She lives in Vermont with her husband and sons.

Want to join the podcast? Come together with other listeners in a deep dive into this summer’s episodes, discussing ideas, asking questions, and sharing your experiences about issues brought up in our interviews. Perfect for writers at every level. Only a few spots available. Email [email protected] for more info.

Today, we hear from Desmond Hall whose newest novel, BETTER MUST COME, was released on June 4. I’ll be interviewing Des with a whole lot of other questions about this book live at GrubStreet in the Boston Seaport on June 13, so I hope to see people there where you can buy your own copy and get it signed. Today, however, we’ll be talking about how to manage dramatic irony—which is basically about when to reveal what info and where in terms of what a character versus a reader knows—while writing multiple points of view.

Watch a recording here. This audio/video version is available for one week. Missed it? Check out the podcast version above or on your favorite podcast platform.

To find Hall’s latest and many other books by our authors, visit our Bookshop page. 

Looking for a writing community? Join our Facebook page. 

Desmond Hall was born in Jamaica, West Indies, and moved to Jamaica, Queens. He has worked as a high school biology and English teacher in East New York, Brooklyn; counseled teenage ex-cons after their release from Rikers Island; and served as Spike Lee’s creative director at Spike DDB. Desmond has served on the board of the Partnership for Drug-Free Kids and the Advertising Council and judged the One Show, the American Advertising Awards, and the NYC Downtown Short Film Festival. He’s also been named one of Variety magazine’s Top 50 Creatives to Watch. In addition to his latest, Better Must Come, Desmond is also the author of the gritty YA novel Your Corner Dark which confronts the harsh realities of gang life in Jamaica and how far a teen is willing to go for family. He lives outside of Boston with his wife and two daughters.

Want to join the podcast? Come together with other listeners in a deep dive into this summer’s episodes, discussing ideas, asking questions, and sharing your experiences about issues brought up in our interviews. Perfect for writers at every level. Only a few spots available. Email [email protected] for more info.

Today, we hear from Dawn Tripp, whose latest novel, JACKIE, was released in June. We’re talking to Dawn about voice and the emotional level of a story (which is to say, we’re talking about interiority).

Watch a recording here. This audio/video version is available for one week. Missed it? Check out the podcast version above or on your favorite podcast platform.

To find Tripp’s latest and many other books by our authors, visit our Bookshop page. 

Looking for a writing community? Join our Facebook page. 

Dawn Tripp is the author of the novel Georgia, which was a national bestseller, a finalist for the New England Book Award, and a winner of the Mary Lynn Kotz Award for Art in Literature. She is the author of three previous novels: Game of Secrets, Moon Tide, and The Season of Open Water, which won the Massachusetts Book Award for Fiction. Her poems and essays have appeared in the Virginia Quarterly Review, Harvard Review, AGNI, Conjunctions, and NPR, among others. She serves on the board of the Boston Book Festival and on the board of Gnome Surf: A non-profit Surf Therapy Organization focused on creating a culture shift towards kindness, love, and acceptance for athletes of all abilities. She graduated from Harvard and lives in Massachusetts with her sons.

Want to join the podcast? Come together with other listeners in a deep dive into this summer’s episodes, discussing ideas, asking questions, and sharing your experiences about issues brought up in our interviews. Perfect for writers at every level. Only a few spots available. Email [email protected] for more info.

Today we get to hear from Adam White whose novel, THE MIDCOAST, was one of the big books of 2022. Adam and I will be talking about his decision to revise his third-person narrator in earlier drafts to the 1st-person omniscient and the possibilities and struggles such a revision involved. 

Watch a recording here. The audio/video version is available for one week. Missed it? Check out the podcast version above or on your favorite podcast platform.

To find White’s debut and many books by our authors, visit our Bookshop page. 

Looking for a writing community? Join our Facebook page. 

Adam White grew up in Damariscotta, Maine and now lives with his wife and son in Boston, where he teaches writing and coaches lacrosse. He holds an MFA from Columbia University. The Midcoast is his first novel. It was a national bestseller as well as a finalist for the New England Society Book Award and a CrimeReads Best Book of the Year.

Want to join the podcast? Come together with other listeners in a deep dive into this summer’s episodes, discussing ideas, asking questions, and sharing your experiences about issues brought up in our interviews. Perfect for writers at every level. Only a few spots available. Email [email protected] for more info.

Today, we hear from Sara Shukla, whose debut novel, PINK WHALES, will be released tomorrow, June 4. She’ll be in conversation with Jane Roper at the Boston Edition of Porter Square Books. We’re talking to Sara about using humor as a coping mechanism while launching her book after a family loss.

Watch a recording here. This audio/video version is available for one week. Missed it? Check out the podcast version above or on your favorite podcast platform.

To find Shukla’s debut and many other books by our authors, visit our Bookshop page. 

Looking for a writing community? Join our Facebook page. 

Sara Shukla is an editor for WBUR’s Cognoscenti. You can find her writing at WBUR as well as the Los Angeles Review of Books, McSweeneys, and elsewhere. An alum of GrubStreet’s Novel Incubator and the University of Virginia, she lives in Massachusetts with her family. Pink Whales is her debut novel.

Photo credit: Melissa Sepulveda

To support the GALIOT PRESS kickstarter campaign, click here or go to https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/galiotpress/galiot-press

Today, we’re talking to authors Anjali Mitter Duva and Henriette Lazaridis about a new publishing house they’re launching, Galiot Press, why they’re doing it, and how they hope to serve authors by changing the industry from the ground up. 

And a special treat for listeners this summer: you too can be a part of the podcast. If you’re interested in joining the show and discussing some of our summer episodes, join our Facebook page for more information or simply email me at [email protected] with your reasons for wanting to do so.

Watch a recording here. This audio/video version is available for one week. Missed it? Check out the podcast version above or on your favorite podcast platform.

Anjali Mitter Duva is an Indian American writer, editor, and publisher raised in France. She is the author of the bestselling historical novel FAINT PROMISE OF RAIN which was shortlisted for a William Saroyan International Prize for Writing. She is a co-founder and publisher of Galiot Press, a new independent publisher ushering in a sea change for the written word. She is an instructor at Grub Street Writers and a former Fiction Co-Editor at Solstice: A Magazine of Diverse Voices. She was a Finalist for a Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Fellowship. Anjali co-founded and runs the Arlington Author Salon, a quarterly literary series with a twist; ran a ten-year book club for teens; and was a co-founder and executive director of Chhandika, a non-profit organization that teaches and presents India's classical storytelling kathak dance. Educated at Brown University and MIT, she lives in the Boston area.

Henriette Lazaridis' novel TERRA NOVA was published by Pegasus Books in December, 2022 and was called "ingenious" and "provocative" by the New York Times. She is the author of the best-selling novel THE CLOVER HOUSE. Her short work has appeared in publications including Elle, Forge, Narrative Magazine, The New York Times, New England Review, The Millions, and has earned her a Massachusetts Cultural Council Artists Grant. Henriette grew up in the Boston area as the only child of Greek expats, speaking Greek as her first language. Devoted to storytelling since her childhood bedtime stories from the Odyssey, Henriette earned degrees in English literature from Middlebury College, Oxford University, where she was a Rhodes Scholar, and the University of Pennsylvania. Having taught English at Harvard, she now runs the Krouna Writing Workshop in northern Greece. She writes the Substack newsletter The Entropy Hotel, about athletic and creative challenges at henriettelazaridis.substack.com. Her newest novel LAST DAYS IN PLAKA, was released in April and was a Good Morning America Buzz Pick.