How does a Pulitzer Prize winning author find inspiration? Sue Halpern shares tips and discusses writing both nonfiction and fiction. 

Sue is the author of seven previous books of fiction and nonfiction, most recently the novel Summer Hours at the Robbers Library. Her writing has appeared in The New Yorker, the New York Times Magazine, the New York Review of Books, Rolling Stone, and Condé Nast Traveler, and she has appeared on NPR’s All Things Considered and The Today Show. A beloved college professor, and a former New Yorker staff writer, she lives in Vermont with her husband, the writer and environmental activist Bill McKibben, and is a scholar-in-residence at Middlebury College. 

Learn more at suehalpern.com

Special thanks to NetGalley for providing advanced review copies to The Writing Table. 

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Jackie Lau decided she wanted to be a writer when she was in grade two, sometime between penning “The Heart That Got Lost” and “The Land of Shapes.” She later studied engineering and worked as a geophysicist before turning to writing romance novels. She is now the author of over twenty books.

Jackie lives in Toronto with her husband, and despite living in Canada her whole life, she hates winter. When she’s not writing, she enjoys gelato, gourmet donuts, cooking, hiking, and reading on the balcony when it’s raining. Today, she’ll tell us about turning those science lessons into romantic stories like her latest, TIME LOOPS & MEET CUTES.

Learn more at Jackielaubooks.com

Special thanks to NetGalley for a preview copy. 

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Jillian Forsberg is a business owner and historical fiction author. She writes about animals from the past in her two books, The Rhino Keeper and forthcoming The Porcelain Menagerie. She lives and works in Wichita, Kansas. 

Special thanks to Net Galley for an advance copy. 

Learn more at jillianforsberg.com. 

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As Amy Poeppel publishes her fifth novel, she reflects on lessons learned and discusses the challenges she faced while writing a novel simultaneously set in Berlin and Dallas. 

Amy Poeppel grew up in Dallas, Texas. She graduated from Wellesley College and worked as an actress in the Boston area, appearing in a corporate industrial for Polaroid, a commercial for Brooks Pharmacy, and a truly terrible episode of America’s Most Wanted, along with other TV spots and several plays. While in Boston, she also got her M.A. in Teaching from Simmons College. She is married to David Poeppel, a neuroscientist at NYU and a Max Planck director in Frankfurt. For the past thirty years, they have lived in many cities, including San Francisco, Berlin, and New York, and had three sons along the way. Amy taught high school English in the Washington, DC suburbs, and after moving to New York, she worked as an assistant director of admissions at an independent school where she had the fulfilling experience of meeting and getting to know hundreds of applicant families. She attended sessions at the Actors Studio and wrote the theatrical version of Small Admissions, which was performed there as a staged reading in 2011. Amy’s writing has also appeared in The New York Times, The Rumpus, LitHub, Working Mother, Points In Case, and The Belladonna. 

Learn more at AmyPoeppel.com

Special thanks to Net Galley for preview copies. 

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Laura Lippman discusses how poetry feeds her spirit and looks back on her longstanding run with indelible character, Tess Monaghan, who has appeared in a dozen novels. While sharing her writing experiences, she invites listeners to take a seat on her (theoretical) analyst's couch to uncover snags interfering with meaningful storytelling. 

Laura was a reporter for twenty years, including 12 years at The (Baltimore) Sun. She began writing novels while working fulltime and published seven books about “accidental PI” Tess Monaghan before leaving daily journalism in 2025. Her work has been awarded the Edgar ®, the Anthony, the Agatha, the Shamus, the Nero Wolfe, Gumshoe and Barry awards. She also has been nominated for other prizes in the crime fiction field, including the Hammett and the Macavity. She was the first-ever recipient of the Mayor’s Prize for Literary Excellence and the first genre writer recognized as Author of the Year by the Maryland Library Association. She grew up in Baltimore and attended city schools through ninth grade. After graduating from Wilde Lake High School in Columbia, Md., and attended Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. Her other newspaper jobs included the Waco Tribune-Herald and the San Antonio Light. She returned to Baltimore in 1989 and has lived there since. She is the daughter of Theo Lippman Jr., a Sun editorial writer who retired in 1995 but continues to freelance for several newspapers, and Madeline Mabry Lippman, a former Baltimore City school librarian. Her sister, Susan, is a local bookseller. Her newest novel is MURDER TAKES A VACATION. 

Learn more at Lauralippman.com

Special thanks to Net Galley for an advance review copy. 

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With the publication of Tularosa in 1996, Michael McGarrity turned to writing full time. Many of his novels have been national best sellers. He holds a BA with distinction in psychology and a master’s degree in clinical social work. As an undergraduate, he held a Ford Foundation Scholarship at the University of New Mexico. He is an honor graduate of the New Mexico Law Enforcement Academy. His career in criminal justice spanned over twenty-five years and included creating treatment programs for drug offenders, supervising outreach services for at-risk juveniles, and re-establishing mental health services for the Department of Corrections after the infamous 1980 riot at the New Mexico Penitentiary. As a Santa Fe County deputy sheriff, he worked as a patrol officer, training and planning supervisor, community relations officer, and was the lead investigator of the sex crimes unit, which he established. Additionally, he taught courses at the New Mexico Law Enforcement Academy, served as a caseworker and investigator for the Public Defender’s District Office, and conducted investigations for a state government agency. In 1980 he was named New Mexico Social Worker of the Year and in 1987 was recognized by the American Legion as Police Officer of the Year. In 2004 he received the New Mexico Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts — Literature. He is also the 2015 recipient of the Frank Waters Exemplary Literary Achievement Award and the 2015 Santa Fe Mayor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts – Literature. He has been instrumental in establishing the Hillerman-McGarrity Creative Writing Scholarship at the University of New Mexico, the Richard Bradford Memorial Creative Writing Scholarship at the Santa Fe Community College, and the N. Scott Momaday Creative Writing Scholarship at the Institute of American Indian Arts. He lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico with his wife Emily Beth (Mimi). His latest novel is Night in the City. 

Learn more at Michaelmcgarrity.com 

Special thanks to Net Galley for advance review copies. 

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Aimee Phan was born and raised in Orange County, California. She received her BA in English from UCLA and her MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. She is the author of two books for adults, We Should Never Meet: Stories and the novel The Reeducation of Cherry Truong. She has received fellowships and residencies from the NEA, MacDowell Colony, the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center, Djerassi and Hedgebrook. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Time, USA Today and CNN.com among other publications.  Aimee teaches as an associate professor in writing and literature at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco and resides in Berkeley, California with her family. 

Learn more at aimeephan.com

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Lindy Ryan discusses writing horror as a novelist and anthologist. She is an award-winning author, anthologist, and short-film director whose books and anthologies have received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, Booklist and Library Journal. Several of her projects have been adapted for screen. Ryan is the current author-in-residence at Rue Morgue. Declared a “champion for women’s voices in horror” by Shelf Awareness, Ryan was named a Publishers Weekly Star Watch Honoree in 2020, and in 2022, was named one of horror's most masterful anthology curators. Born and raised in Southeast Texas, Ryan currently resides on the East Coast. She is a professor at Rutgers University.Her latest novel is Another Fine Mess. 

Learn more at LindyRyanWrites.com 

Thanks to NetGalley for an advance copy. 

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Kaira Rouda talks about writing thrillers and how she came to host the Killer Author Club with her author friends. 

Kaira is an award–winning, USA Today and Amazon Charts bestselling author of contemporary fiction that explores what goes on beneath the surface of seemingly perfect lives. Her novels of domestic suspense include The Widow, Somebody’s Home, The Next Wife, The Favorite Daughter, Best Day Ever, All the Difference and more. Beneath the Surface has been optioned for a feature film. To date, Kaira’s work has been translated into more than a dozen languages. Three of her novels have been named Amazon Editor’s Picks for Best Mystery, Thriller & Suspense. The Next Wife was named a Suspense Magazine’s Best Book of 2021 Award, and a 2022 Silver Falchion for Best Suspense Novel and a 2022 Silver Falchion first runner-up for Best Book of the Year. She lives in Southern California with her family and is working on her next novel. 

Learn more at Kairarouda.com 

Special thanks to Net Galley for an advance review copy.  

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Bestselling author, Susan Wiggs, discusses her writing practices and shares the backstory surrounding her latest flex into historical fiction, a passion project titled, Wayward Girls. 

Susan Wiggs’s life is all about family, friends…and fiction. She lives at the water’s edge on an island in Puget Sound, and in good weather, she commutes to her writers’ group in a 21-foot motorboat. She’s been featured in the national media, including NPR, PRI, and USA Today, has given programs for the US Embassies in Buenos Aires and Montevideo, and is a popular speaker locally, nationally, internationally, and on the high seas. From the very start, her writings have illuminated the everyday dramas of ordinary people facing extraordinary circumstances. Her books celebrate the power of love, the timeless bonds of family and the fascinating nuances of human nature. Today, she is an international best-selling, award-winning author, with millions of copies of her books in print in numerous countries and languages. According to Publishers Weekly, Wiggs writes with “refreshingly honest emotion,” and the Salem Statesman Journal adds that she is “one of our best observers of stories of the heart [who] knows how to capture emotion on virtually every page of every book.” Booklist characterizes her books as “real and true and unforgettable.” Susan is a former teacher, a Harvard graduate, an avid hiker, an amateur photographer, a good skier and terrible golfer, yet her favorite form of exercise is curling up with a good book. She lives on an island in Puget Sound, where she divides her time between sleeping and waking. Her latest novel is Wayward Girls. 

Learn more at SusanWiggs.com 

Special thanks to Net Galley for an advance reader copy. 

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