The 7am Novelist

Today, I’m talking to Rosie Sulton & Barbara Best, directors of a new initiative called Peer Coaching for Writers.

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

For more info, go here. Or email Rosie and Barbara directly: [email protected] / [email protected]

I don’t charge for subscriptions, but if you’d like, you can support my work with with a small donation here.

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

Rosie Sultan is an award-winning novelist, educator, and founder of Peer Coaching for Writers & Artists. Trained through the Harvard University Peer Coaching Initiative, where she served as Principal, facilitator, coach, and coachee, she brings evidence-based listening practices to creative communities. Unlike traditional workshops focused on critique, peer coaching asks: What’s challenging in your writing life? What’s getting in the way? Through presence and deep listening, writers turn isolation into connection and sustain creative momentum together. Rosie is the author of Helen Keller in Love (Viking/Penguin), praised by The Washington Post. Her essays appear in The New York Times and elsewhere. She helps writers discover that the bravest work comes when we feel supported, not judged.

Barbara Best is Executive Director of Convu—where listening happens—and a trained peer coaching facilitator using Harvard University’s peer coaching methodology. Her participation in a Harvard-based peer coaching program deepened her understanding of how structured peer support cultivates dialogue and leadership development. Barbara is a key collaborator in bringing peer coaching to writers. She leads a vibrant community at Convu centered on deep listening and peer coaching across schools, workplaces, and organizations. Previously Executive Director of the Harvard Kennedy School Center for Public Leadership and Texas Executive Director of the Children’s Defense Fund, Barbara holds an EdLD from Harvard and centers the transformative potential of peer relationships in all her work.

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Today, I’m talking to Elizabeth Searle, author most recently of the story collection: THE DRAMA ROOM: A Collection in Three Acts. We’re going to be talking about how her scriptwriting has helped her fiction and vice versa, for any of you who might be “script curious.”

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.

I don’t charge for subscriptions, but if you’d like, you can support my work with with a small donation here.

To find Searle’s latest book as well as many other books by our authors, visit our Bookshop page.

Elizabeth Searle is the author of six books of fiction. Her new short story collection—THE DRAMA ROOM: A Collection in Three Acts—was released in the fall of 2025. Her previous books include CELEBRITIES IN DISGRACE, produced as a short film, and A FOUR-SIDED BED, a finalist for an ALA award and in development as a feature film. Over 30 of Elizabeth’s short stories have been published in magazines such as Ploughshares, New England Review, Kenyon Review, AGNI and Solstice. Elizabeth is the playwright of Tonya & Nancy: The Rock Opera, and co-writer of the feature film I’LL SHOW YOU MINE (2023; Duplass Brothers Productions). Her film was released in select theaters and is now widely available on home screens. Both her film and her rock opera have drawn national media attention.

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Today, I’m talking to Charlene Wang, whose debut novel, I’LL FOLLOW YOU, was released in October. We’re going to be talking about how she woke up her passive protagonist by paying attention to the tactile and—simply or not simply—giving her character “something to do with her hands.”

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.

I don’t charge for subscriptions, but if you’d like, you can support my work with with a small donation here.

To find Wang’s book as well as many other books by our authors, visit our Bookshop page.

Charlene Wang was born in Beijing and, after immigrating to the US when she was three, has lived in seven different cities from Los Angeles to Pittsburgh to Biloxi. Graduating with a B.A. in English from Dartmouth College and a J.D. from University of Virginia School of Law, she worked as a litigator for six years before quitting to pursue her childhood dream of becoming an author. She now lives in Brooklyn, NY, with her fiancé and their dog Winky.

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Today, I’m so happy to get the chance to talk again with Sheri Joseph. I’ve always been a fan of her work, and her latest, Angels at the Gate, is the kind of dark, academic mystery that also takes its time in digging into the realities of a certain kind of campus life. We’ll be talking about an idea she often teaches about at Georgia State University, and that is how revision is about pushing toward the center of what she calls the life-artifice spectrum.

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

I don’t charge for subscriptions, but if you’d like, you can support my work with with a small donation here.

To find Joseph’s latest book as well as many other books by our authors, visit our Bookshop page.

Looking for a writing community? Join our Facebook page.

Sheri Joseph’s fourth book, ANGELS AT THE GATE, was published by Regal House in September. Of the book, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution wrote: “This deeply immersive coming-of-age serves up a compelling slice of dark academia that interrogates the complex ways gender roles intersect with class to impact privilege.” And Kevin Wilson called the book “mesmerizing… more than a campus novel, more than a mystery, more than a reflection on memory. It’s heartbreaking, joyful, and utterly unforgettable.” Her previous books are the novels WHERE YOU CAN FIND ME and STRAY, and a cycle of stories, BEAR ME SAFELY OVER. She has received a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship and the GrubStreet National Book Prize, as well as numerous residency fellowships including Yaddo and MacDowell. A resident of Atlanta, she teaches in the creative writing program of Georgia State University.

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Today, I’m excited to have acclaimed writer Peter Orner with us, author most recently of The Gossip Columnist’s Daughter. We’ll be talking about how he struggled with the structure and timeline of the book. It took him fourteen years. He explains that he was trying to say something slowly. We discuss exactly what that means and how to do it in a time when very little seems slow and it’s difficult to have the patience we need to let a story grow on the page.

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.

I don’t charge for subscriptions, but if you’d like, you can support my work with with a small donation here.

To find Orner’s latest book as well as many other books by our authors, visit our Bookshop page.

Looking for a writing community? Join our Facebook page.

Born in Chicago, Peter Orner is the author of seven acclaimed books including Maggie Brown & Others, Love and Shame and Love, Esther Stories, finalist for the Pen/ Hemingway Award, and Am I Alone Here?, finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. His work has appeared in the New Yorker, the Paris Review, Best American Stories, and been awarded four Pushcart Prizes. A former Guggenheim fellow and recipient of the Rome Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Orner is chair of the English and Creative Writing Department at Dartmouth College. His latest, The Gossip Columnist’s Daughter, was recommended by the New York Times and was listed as one of the best books of the year by the New Yorker, The Chicago Tribune, and many more/ He lives with his family in Vermont, where he’s also a volunteer firefighter.

Today, I’m talking to Kristin Vukovic and Jo Piazza, who are co-instructors of the Adriatic Writers Conference that takes place on the island of Lošinj in Croatia’s Kvarner Bay. Jo finished her most recent novel during the conference, titled THE PARISIAN HEIST which will be released on Bastille Day, and Kristin, who founded the conference, got her inspiration there for her debut, THE CHEESEMAKER’S DAUGHTER. We’ll be talking about the importance of setting in fiction and how to navigate a country’s complex history if your reader might not share it.

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.

Join us for Kristin’s reading at Belmont Books, January 15.

And for more info about the Adriatic Writer’s Conference, click here.

I don’t charge for subscriptions, but if you’d like, you can support my work with with a small donation here.

To find Vukovic’s and Piazza’s latest books as well as many other books by our authors, visit our Bookshop page.

Kristin Vuković’s award-winning debut novel, THE CHEESEMAKER’S DAUGHTER, was published in August 2024. She is the founder of Adriatic Writers Conference—the first literary conference of its kind in Croatia—and has written travel and lifestyle articles for the New York Times, BBC Travel, Travel + Leisure, Virtuoso, Robb Report, AFAR, Fodor’s, and Public Books, among others. She received the 2024 Rising Star Award in Arts and Culture from the Association of Croatian American Professionals, and two Golden Pen awards for her writing about Croatia from the Croatian National Tourist Board, most recently in May 2024. She was also named a “40 Under 40” honoree by the National Federation of Croatian Americans Cultural Foundation. She holds a BA and MFA from Columbia University and lives in New York City with her husband and daughter.

Jo Piazza is a bestselling author, journalist, and podcast host whose work explores ambition, identity, and modern womanhood. She is the creator and host of the acclaimed podcast Under the Influence, which examines influencer culture, media, and how the internet shapes our ideas about success, beauty, and belonging. Jo is the author of multiple bestselling books, including Everyone Is Lying to You, The Sicilian Inheritance, Charlotte Walsh Likes to Win, and How to Be Married, blending sharp cultural insight with propulsive storytelling. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, New York Magazine, Elle, and more.

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Today our roundtable focuses on Climate Fiction: What is it? Why do authors write it? What role does it have in today’s literature, in our environment, in the way writers and others see the world? We’ll discuss these questions and a whole lot more with our authors: Ash Davidson, author of Damnation Spring; Wren James, creator of The Climate-Conscious Writers Handbook and founder of the Climate Fiction Writers League; Emma Pattee, a climate journalist, author of Tilt, and the person who coined the term “Climate Shadow”; Tim Weed, author of The Afterlife Project, a finalist for Prism Prize in Climate Literature; and Kate Woodworth, author of Little Great Island and creator of the grassroots climate change initiative, Be the Butterfly.

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

Important Links:

Climate Fiction Writers League Substack and Handbook landing page.

Database of Climate Fiction writers.

Wren James’ Green Rising.

Kate Woodworth’s Be the Butterfly initiative.

To find our roundtable authors’ latest book as well as many other books by our guests, visit our Bookshop page.

I don’t charge for subscriptions, but if you’d like, you can support my work with with a small donation here.

Looking for a writing community? Join our Facebook page.

Ash Davidson is the author of the nationally bestselling novel Damnation Spring, which was named a best book of the year by the Los Angeles Times, Newsweek and Amazon and was a New York Times Editor’s Choice and a Washington Post notable book. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, her work has been supported by the Arizona Commission on the Arts, MacDowell, and the National Endowment for the Arts. She lives in Flagstaff, Arizona.

Wren James is the award-winning British author of many young adult novels, including a speculative novel about climate change, Green Rising. They are the founder of the Climate Fiction Writers League, the creator of The Climate-Conscious Writers Handbook and the editor of Future Hopes Hopeful stories in a time of climate change. They are on the Society of Authors’ Sustainability Steering Committee and work as a consultant on climate storytelling with a focus on optimism and hope for museums, production companies, and major brands and publishers. Their books have sold more than 200,000 copies in eight languages.

Emma Pattee is a climate journalist and a fiction writer. She has written about the climate crisis for The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, and more. In 2021, she coined the term “Climate Shadow” to describe an individual’s potential impact on climate change. Her debut novel, Tilt, is a national bestseller, a New York Times Book Review’s Editors’ choice, and was named a best book of the year by TIME, NPR, Vogue and Scientific American. Emma lives in Oregon with her two children.

Tim Weed is the author of four books of fiction. His most recent novel, The Afterlife Project, was a Library Journal Best Books of 2025 pick and a New Scientist Best New Science Fiction Book of the Month choice. His essays and articles have appeared in numerous journals including Writers Digest and The Writer’s Chronicle. A member of the core faculty of the Newport MFA in Creative Writing, Tim is a former featured expert for National Geographic Expeditions.

Kate Woodworth is the award-winning author of Little Great Island, a novel about a small Maine island community needing to find a new way forward after the lobster fishery collapses due to climate change. She is also the creative force behind the grassroots climate change initiative, Be the Butterfly, that invites everyone to perform one small act or behavioral change to help mitigate climate change. Kate’s first novel, Racing into the Dark, about a family reeling from the impact of a sister’s mental illness, will be re-issued in April, 2026. After 30 years living in Salt Lake City, Kate returned to the Boston area in 2005.

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A short and special episode for those of you interested in our unique in-person novel revision program, now in its fifteenth year.

For more info: https://grubstreet.org/write/novel-incubator

To attend our student showcase on January 12, register here: https://grubstreet.org/event/novel-incubator-alumni-celebration-showcase

And for our next info session, visit: https://grubstreet.org/event/novel-incubator-info-w2026

Today, we’re talking to Josh Barkan, an author of three books of fiction, who has turned at last to memoir writing. We discuss his experience in writing about a particular moment in his life before his subject gave him his ending. Ten years later, he revised the book again in the aftermath. How did the writing change him and his subject? How did those years benefit his book and his understanding of what happened?

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

I don’t charge for subscriptions, but if you’d like, you can support my work with with a small donation here.

To find Barkan’s books as well as many other books by our authors, visit our Bookshop page.

Looking for a writing community? Join our Facebook page.

JOSH BARKAN won the Lightship International Short Story Prize and was runner-up for the Grace Paley Prize for Short Fiction, the Paterson Fiction Prize, the Juniper Prize for Fiction, and the Eric Hoffer Award for memoir. He is the recipient of a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and his writing has appeared in Esquire. He has taught creative writing at Harvard, NYU, the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa, Hollins University and MIT. His books include the novel Blind Speed and short story collections Before Hiroshima and Mexico (Hogarth/Penguin Random House)—named one of the five best story collections of 2017 by Library Journal. His latest book is the memoir Wonder Travels. He lives in Boston.

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Today, we’ve got one of my favorites, Milo, who has just published his debut novel to critical acclaim. It’s called THE LILAC PEOPLE. He’s going to be talking to us about writing challenging fiction in an age when we’re suffering a flattening and simplifying of our culture.

I don’t charge for subscriptions, but if you’d like, you can support my work with with a small donation here.

To find Todd’s latest book as well as many other books by our authors, visit our Bookshop page.

Looking for a writing community? Join our Facebook page.

Milo Todd (he/him) is a writer, speaker, and instructor. He’s a Lambda Literary Fellow, a Massachusetts Cultural Council grantee, and co-editor in chief for the award-winning LGBTQ+ literary journal, Foglifter Journal. He also runs The Queer Writer newsletter. His debut novel, THE LILAC PEOPLE, is a national bestseller, a Goodreads Choice Award finalist, a New England Book Award Finalist, an Indie Next Pick, an Amazon Editor’s Pick, an Apple Best of the Month Pick, and has received starred and/or glowing reviews from such places as Publishers Weekly, Foreword Reviews, Kirkus Reviews, Library Journal, the Boston Globe, the LA Times, the Washington Post, WBUR, Electric Lit, and more. About THE LILAC PEOPLE, Shelf Awareness said Milo “has made an enormous contribution to historical fiction” and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette called Milo “an important new voice in American fiction.”

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