TOTALLY BIASED REVIEWS

Our host, Asha Dore, talks with Krys Malcolm Belc about their 2026 book, What I Made for Dinner

Find it here: https://books.catapult.co/books/what-i-made-for-dinner/

About the book:

From the author of The Natural Mother of the Child, an exquisite memoir about an amateur home cook's hard and fast descent into an obsession with food celebrities, including Dessert Person Claire Saffitz, Smitten Kitchen's Deb Perelman, Pioneer Woman Ree Drummond, and Ina Garten, the Barefoot Contessa When the pandemic sends Krys Malcolm Belc and his young children home to live their lives on laptops, he turns to internet chefs for comfort and inspiration. It begins with Stella Parks and her 46 YouTube videos in which she teaches viewers how to make classic, nostalgic American treats like Cheez-Its, Klondike Bars, and Texas sheet cake. But the recipes aren't enough—Belc needs to watch her showcase each ingredient, explain its importance, and weigh each item on a scale. His fixation on recipe videos, and the women who produce them, start to feel like the only thing that makes sense. Most of life has been put on pause, but food is the one thing that continues to change day to day, season to season. Belc captures the joy and pleasure of cooking for a large family, as well as the mundane reality and occasional frustrations that come with simply getting food on the table. In the midst of it all, he feels a spark of inspiration to carry a second baby, a decision that forces him to confront how he has used both the internet and cooking to cope and distract. Following a trans man whose life is largely structured by keeping the family household running, What I Made for Dinner asks the question we all might ask ourselves while elbow-deep in a roasting chicken: Is having the opportunity to cook meals for your family every day a blessing or a curse?

Find Krys here: https://www.krysmalcolmbelc.com/

Totally Biased Reviews is a Parley Lit production in collaboration with Parley Productions.

Hosted and Edited by Asha Dore and Rebecca Tourino Collinsworth. Music by Nuclear Peasant.

Find more at www.TotallyBiasedReviews.com

Our host, Asha Dore, talks with Kim Griffin about her award-winning web series, Dick Bunny

Find it here: https://www.dickbunny.com/

About the series: Max Griffin was a high-powered lawyer with a great marriage, total freedom, and friends who understood her. That was before. Now, Max has a baby, and her extreme isolation, anxiety, and desperate attempts to keep up with LA mom culture are taking her to a pretty dark place. When a mysterious British children's book appears on her doorstep, Max begins to hallucinate Dick Bunny–a sarcastic man-rabbit who is precisely the ally Max needs as she navigates her new life. DICK BUNNY explores anxiety and loneliness and an unraveling psyche through the lens of modern motherhood. About Kim: I was born in Oklahoma, escaped at 17 to go to college in Boston, and have since lived in San Diego, Brooklyn, and Pittsburgh with stops along the way to study and perform in London, Chicago, D.C., Louisville and the Berkshires. In 2017, we decided to relocate to California for better access to services and supports for our family. You may have seen or heard something about Dick Bunny, which is a delightful comedy series that I co-Executive Produced, and in which I star. Dick Bunny has screened at the Austin Film Festival, HollyShorts, Dances With Films, and SeriesFest - where we received the awards for Best Director and Best Individual Performance in a Digital Series. I also produce and host a podcast called Off the Fucking Rails with Kim Griffin that deals with mental health, and highlights sharing resources and collective rage. (Find it wherever you get your pods!) I'm available for teaching and coaching classes, or workshops for actors, influencers, creatives, and other humans looking to enhance their communication, connection and performance skills. Hire me if you want results, and know that I will meet you every step of the way with compassion, personalized strategies, and exercises designed to catapult you into your next chapter.

Find Kim here: https://thekimgriffin.com/

Totally Biased Reviews is a Parley Lit production in collaboration with Parley Productions. Hosted and Edited by Asha Dore and Rebecca Tourino Collinsworth. Music by Nuclear Peasant. Find more at www.TotallyBiasedReviews.com

Find Asha at www.AshaDore.net

Our host, Asha Dore, talks with Zackary A. Graham about his 2026 book, Crayfish, Crawfish, Crawdad Find it here: https://uncpress.org/9781469685731/crayfish-crawfish-crawdad/

About the book: DWhatever you call them—crayfish, crawfish, or crawdads—these small crustaceans are a vital piece of the larger ecosystem, and though they're found nationwide, the American Southeast and Appalachia are among the most biodiverse places for these animals. Biologist and crayfish expert Zackary Graham takes readers on an informative journey, following crayfish from the coalfields of Central Appalachia to the spring-fed water of Northern California, and in roadside ditches everywhere in between. He discusses crayfish habitats—the muddier the better—anatomy, and coloration, which runs the gamut from dull grays to vivid blues, reds, and even bright white. Most important, Graham shows how necessary crayfish are to our ecosystem and rallies a call for protection as nearly 200 of the 400 unique species of crayfish in the United States are threatened by development, pollution, and other human-made factors. A love letter to a common crustacean, this book shows nature lovers that crayfish are diverse, important, and in need of our help.

About the Author

ZACKARY A GRAHAM is assistant professor of biology at West Liberty University.

Totally Biased Reviews is a Parley Lit production in collaboration with Parley Productions. Hosted and Edited by Asha Dore and Rebecca Tourino Collinsworth. Music by Nuclear Peasant. Find more at www.TotallyBiasedReviews.com

Find Asha at www.AshaDore.net

Our host, Asha Dore, talks with Emily Rapp Black about her 2026 book, Find it here: https://www.counterpointpress.com/books/i-would-die-if-i-were-you/

About the book: Drawing upon her previous work and over two decades of teaching, New York Times bestselling memoirist Emily Rapp Black explores how art can move us through moments of grief and loss while celebrating the spirit-lifting potential of all creative acts To be disabled is to be exiled; to have a terminal illness is to be isolated in one's time-limitedness; to grieve is to be annihilated; and to live is inevitable: all of these, together and at once, form the core of the truth of being human. As most artists know, approaching their "hard" stories in a way that feels joyful, redemptive, and meaningful can be difficult to near impossible. With I Would Die If I Were You, celebrated author Emily Rapp Black has designed a guide that will help creative people working in any medium make meaning out of loss. For her entire life, she has been answering awkward questions in elevators: "What's wrong with you?" "What happened to your body?" And, in the case of her son's terminal illness and death, she's been told more times than she can count: "I would die if I were you." Rejecting such cruel and casual conclusions, Rapp Black posits that part of the human project is to experience grief and loss, and nobody gets out alive, and no writer—or person—survives anything alone. We need empathy, and for that we need community, and we need all the stories told within them to reach our fullest potential. I Would Die If I Were You is a bold and bracing blueprint—part memoir, part craft book—for how art making can lead us to our fullest truths.

About the Author EMILY RAPP BLACK is the author of the New York Times bestseller book Poster Child, The Still Point of the Turning World, Sanctuary, and Frida Kahlo and My Left Leg. A former Fulbright scholar, Guggenheim Fellow, and graduate of Harvard Divinity School, she is Professor of Creative Writing at University of California-Riverside, where she also teaches in the School of Medicine.

Find Emily here: https://www.emilyrappblackauthor.com/

Totally Biased Reviews is a Parley Lit production in collaboration with Parley Productions.

Hosted and Edited by Asha Dore and Rebecca Tourino Collinsworth. Music by Nuclear Peasant. Find more at www.TotallyBiasedReviews.com

www.AshaDore.net

Our host, Asha Dore, talks with Hannah Selinger about her 2026 book, Find it here: .https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/hannah-selinger/valley-of-the-moms/9780316596558/?lens=little-brown

About the book: Stepford Wives meets Big Little Lies in this twisty thriller that uncovers the untruths, petty grievances, and local school politics underneath a seemingly quaint small town.Hamilton, Massachusetts is one of those suburban towns that appears untouched by the outside world where stay-at-home moms wear 2ct diamond studs to the playground, where a million-dollar property is "affordable," and where the Parent Teacher Organization is a hotbed of controversy. Sure, some people struggle to make ends meet, but residents would say discussing such ugly matters is impolite. Hamilton has been like this forever, and everyone likes it that way. Or: almost everyone.It's not that Anna Plummer doesn't like Hamilton, but she never thought she'd be married with two young kids, comfortable, complacent…and growing more bored by the minute. So, when she realizes her second grader won't be able to attend the "Ziti with Your Sweetie" school dance because she didn't pay for a "Premium" membership, she snaps. She sends an email to the terrifying president of the PTO—and all hell breaks loose.One year later, Anna is found dead in the frozen Ipswich River. Left to pick up the pieces, her husband, Denny, is shaken to his core. He's no expert, but he's seen enough Dateline to know that the police think he's the main suspect. If they aren't going to get justice for Anna, he will. Told through the alternating perspectives of Anna and Denny exactly one year apart, and with a shocking concluding twist, Valley of the Moms is a gripping look at the underpinnings of grief, the social structures of wealth, and the secrets people keep—even among friends and loved ones.

Find Hannah here: https://www.hannahselinger.net/

Totally Biased Reviews is a Parley Lit production in collaboration with Parley Productions.

Hosted and Edited by Asha Dore and Rebecca Tourino Collinsworth. Music by Nuclear Peasant. Find more at www.TotallyBiasedReviews.com

More about our host: www.AshaDore.net

Courtney Kocak reviews her debut memoir Girl Gone Wild with Totally Biased Reviews host Asha Dore. A candid conversation on 1990s girlhood, reproductive rights, and writing personal truth. Find Girl Gone Wild here: https://www.amazon.com/Girl-Gone-Wild-Courtney-Kocak/dp/1949487547

GIRL GONE WILD is a collection of exploits and delusions about chasing your dreams with reckless abandon and what happens when their pursuit becomes a new kind of trap. In this memoir-in-essays, Kocak takes readers along on her heady metamorphosis from girl to woman and from dreamer to professional artist, as she is transformed in this unwitting feminist coming-of-age. It's a wild, cringeworthy, and often heartbreaking tale, but with Kocak's wry wit and clear-eyed accounting, it's nothing short of captivating.

More about Courtney: https://www.courtneykocak.com/about

Courtney Kocak is a writer, podcaster, and comedian who splits time between Austin and Los Angeles. She originally hails from a rural farming community in Minnesota, home to more cows than people.

As a writer, Kocak wrote for Amazon's Emmy-winning animated series Danger & Eggs, voiced by Aidy Bryant, and Netflix's Know It All. Her bylines include The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, Cosmopolitan, Slate, HuffPost, The Sun, Catapult, BUST, Bustle, Business Insider, InsideHook, and more. She's a regular contributor to Descript's Creator HQ blog. Courtney reports on gender, sexuality, psychedelics, reproductive rights, sex work, and sustainability. Her debut memoir with Trio House Press was published April 2026.

Totally Biased Reviews is a Parley Lit production in collaboration with Parley Productions. Hosted and Edited by Asha Dore and Rebecca Tourino Collinsworth.

www.AshaDore.net

www.parleyproductions.com

Music by Nuclear Peasant.

Find more at www.TotallyBiasedReviews.com

Jacqueline LeKachman and Andrea Javor discuss Body of Work: The Journo Series with Parley Lit — where journalism meets literary nonfiction. Welcome to our first episode where we focus on a body of work in journalism, featuring Andrea Javor and Jacqueline LeKachman talking about their incredible and prolific careers.

Andrea Javor is a freelance writer based in Chicago whose work has been featured in Vogue, The Washington Post, The Guardian, The LA Times, Town & Country, USA Today, McSweeney's, and more. As a multi-decades marketing professional and amateur poker player, Andrea is an expert at telling stories using data, personal anecdotes, research, and even cards. Her memoir, Ace of Hearts: What Poker Taught Me About Love, is currently agented and seeking a publisher.

Connect with her at https://www.andreajavor.com/

or on Instagram: @AndreaEJavor.

About Andrea's work-in-progress, Ace of Hearts: In this voice-driven memoir I use the strategic language of poker to explore how women navigate risk, identity, and emotional labor in life and love. It's a multidisciplinary inquiry written to teach women how to wager our worth in a system stacked against us.

Some of Andrea's work we talked about in this episode!

• https://www.vogue.com/article/what-getting-divorced-in-my-20s-taught-me-about-love
• https://www.townandcountrymag.com/leisure/a68927383/high-stakes-poker-luxury-guide/

Jacqueline LeKachman is a New York-based writer and editor who writes about family, sex, and other things that keep her up at night. Her essays appear in The Washington Post, The Guardian, HuffPost, Women's Health, Business Insider, Newsweek, Salon, Slate, and more. Formerly a NYC public high school English teacher, she's now a freelance copyeditor for Penguin Random House and for individual writers. She has an MFA in creative nonfiction from The New School and a masters in journalism from the CUNY Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism. Connect with her via her website: https://www.jacquelinelekachman.com

About Jacqueline's work-in-progress: My nonfiction book explores how living with my mom's compulsive hoarding and losing my virginity to sexual compliance led me to become celibate for over two years in my twenties. During that time, I educated myself on the nuances of consent and investigated the long-hidden family secrets that made me desperate for control. In giving up sex, I found what I had lacked for most of my life: understanding and agency.

Some of Jacqueline's work we talked about in this episode!

• https://www.womenshealthmag.com/sex-and-love/a63539594/sexual-compliance-personal-essay/
• https://www.huffpost.com/entry/mom-daughter-strained-relationship-photo_n_669959a0e4b0e9707971f108

Totally Biased Reviews is a Parley Lit production in collaboration with Parley Productions. Hosted and Edited by Asha Dore and Rebecca Tourino Collinsworth.

www.AshaDore.net

www.parleyproductions.com

Music by Nuclear Peasant. Find more at www.TotallyBiasedReviews.com

Stephanie Weaver reviews her book Bitter, Sweet with Totally Biased Reviews host Asha Dore — a literary conversation about the stories behind the writing. In this episode, our host, Asha Dore, chats with author Stephanie Weaver about her estrangement memoir, Bitter, Sweet.

Find the book here: https://stephanieweaver.com/bitter-sweet

More about Bitter, Sweet: In Bitter, Sweet, Stephanie Weaver blends her personal journey of healing from childhood sexual abuse, family estrangement, and narcissistic dynamics with research and actionable strategies. At 30, memories of her abuse surfaced, forcing her to confront betrayal, gaslighting, and emotional wounds. Weaver turned her pain into empowerment and now offers readers tools to reclaim their identity, set boundaries, and heal. A lifeline for survivors of trauma and estrangement, Bitter, Sweet is poignant, unflinching, and hopeful, reminding readers that healing is not just possible—it's transformative. For anyone seeking resilience, this book is a powerful guide forward.

About Stephanie Weaver: I'm a writer, TED talk coach, and speaker.

My drive is to find the meaning behind things and then explain it clearly. If it's an experience, I'll try to improve it as well. The old-world tailors and engineers in my family tree played a hand in my path, whether or not I realized it. Measuring. Styling. Recreating. I was destined to redefine myself and my career from health educator to exhibition developer to experience consultant and wellness advocate. I don't choose the stories I write. They choose me, born out of deeply personal experiences. I believe we all have stories to tell. Know yourself and you'll understand yours.https://stephanieweaver.com/about/

Totally Biased Reviews is a Parley Lit production in collaboration with Parley Productions.

Hosted and Edited by Asha Dore and Rebecca Tourino Collinsworth.

www.AshaDore.net

www.parleyproductions.com

Music by Nuclear Peasant. Find more at www.TotallyBiasedReviews.com

Jenny Bartoy joins Asha Dore to review her edited anthology No Contact — a candid discussion on estrangement, family, and the writing life

Tune in for a lively conversation about estrangement, trends, and how to parent kids differently when you have separated from a family member.

Find the book here: https://books.catapult.co/books/no-contact/

About No Contact:

Estrangement presents an essential existential question: who are we without our family? What kind of person cuts the proverbial umbilical cord and why? And who do we become, once untethered from our kin? Families fall apart and individuals cut ties for myriad reasons—abuse, politics, mental illness, and addiction, among others—and reunification often is not in the cards. Estrangement can be a positive change, as Emi Nietfeld explains in her essay about finding relief and logic after cutting off her mother.

It can be a journey: noam keim rebuilds their sense of self by learning Arabic in their ancestral homeland of Morocco, while Nicole Graev Lipson searches for answers in literature and motherhood after her brother ghosts her. Other writers explore how estrangement complicates life's big shifts—Domenica Ruta traces the repercussions of severing ties while battling cancer; Hannah Bae reels from the prospect of cultural alienation when she cuts off her Korean parents; and after twenty years of separation, Soni Brown reluctantly becomes her mother's caretaker as dementia erases her memory.

Through thirty-two intimate, first-person accounts, No Contact counters the prevalent trope of reconciliation as a happy ending, focusing instead on the complex grief, healing, and authenticity found in the rupture from family.

Featuring work by Hannah Bae, Eben E. B. Bein, Soni Brown, Lorne Daniel, Lindsey Danis, Michelle Dowd, Nick Flynn, Stephanie Foo, Gabriela Denise Frank, Susan Ito, Danielle Jernigan, noam keim, Erika Krouse, Monique Laban, Cassandra Lewis, Kate Lewis, Nicole Graev Lipson, Tiffany Aldrich MacBain, Jamal Mahjoub, Onita Morgan-Edwards, Emi Nietfeld, Geneva Phillips, Deesha Philyaw, Anna Qu, Domenica Ruta, Oslyn Serratos, Alyson Shelton, Cheryl Strayed, Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, Raksha Vasudevan, Jane Wong, and Kristen Millares Young.

About the Author: https://jennybartoy.com/

JENNY BARTOY is a French American editor and critic. Her writing appears in several anthologies and in such publications as The Boston Globe, The Seattle Times, Under the Gum Tree, Room, Chicago Review of Books, CrimeReads, and The Rumpus, among others. She holds a master's degree from Columbia University and lives in Tacoma, Washington.

Totally Biased Reviews is a Parley Lit production in collaboration with Parley Productions.

Hosted and Edited by Asha Dore and Rebecca Tourino Collinsworth.

www.AshaDore.net

www.parleyproductions.com

Music by Nuclear Peasant. Find more at www.TotallyBiasedReviews.com

In this episode, Asha Dore chats with Mary. Alice Stewart, a writer, electrician (!!), and book agent at ENLIVEN ENDEAVORS.

More about Enliven here: ENLIVEN is a future-thinking agency which provides a dynamic, interdisciplinary home to writers and creators of all stripes. Our goal is to expand the definition of what a literary agency does to support its clients. We strive to be a true creative partner, helping writers to grow and develop across all mediums. We are proud to say that many of our clients are multi-hyphenates– writers, actors, dancers, musicians, visual artists, poets, translators, and performers. We believe that by truly understanding and tapping into their unique gifts and aspirations, we can break boundaries and help them thrive. https://www.enlivenendeavors.com/

About Mary Alice: Mary Alice Stewart is a writer, editor, and a literary agent at Enliven. She holds an MFA and a BA from Bennington College and is currently a student at Central Maine Community College in their Electromechanical Technology program where she also teaches writing to students heading into the trades. Mary Alice has lectured/consulted for Tin House, The Shipman Agency's Work Room, North Carolina Writers' Network, Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance, Caricon: A Celebration of Caribbean Literature, Chelsea Hodson's Morning Writers' Club, and more. She has attended The John Ashbery Home School and the Disquiet workshop in Lisbon, Portugal, and received a residency with Virginia Center for Creative Arts. As a private editor, her clients have gone on to publish with premier publishing houses. Her writing has appeared in Forever Mag, Rose Books' inaugural anthology Primal Scream, Joyland, No Tokens, and elsewhere. An essay of hers has been translated into Italian for Edizioni Black Coffee's website. Mary Alice is from, and lives in, Maine. Totally Biased Reviews is a Parley Lit production in collaboration with Parley Productions. Hosted and Edited by Asha Dore and Rebecca Tourino Collinsworth.

www.AshaDore.net

www.parleyproductions.com

Music by Nuclear Peasant. Find more at www.TotallyBiasedReviews.com