Upstart Crow

Lois Romano – Mary Todd Lincoln: An Inconvenient Widow

This is the first of four interviews in the Upstart Crow–Fairfax County Public Library Interview Series, presented as part of the celebration of America’s 250th anniversary. Details about the remaining three interviews appear below.

“Tell people you’re reading a book about Mary Todd Lincoln, and they might well say something like, ‘Oh, wasn’t she crazy?’”

When Abraham Lincoln met Mary Todd at a soiree, she was a young, intelligent, well-educated, and stylish woman from an affluent family. He was a country lawyer of humble origins. Both had big-time aspirations, and both were whip-smart. Together, they helped engineer his election to the highest office in the land.

Lincoln became one of the most pivotal presidents in American history, taking office at a time when the presidency and the role of the first lady were under intense public scrutiny. Neither Abraham nor Mary was quite prepared for the unprecedented pressures that came with those positions.

But crazy? Far from it. Mary had lost three sons and was sitting beside her husband when an assassin entered the room and fired a single shot into the back of his head. Lincoln died hours later. During those hours, Mary was unable to be alone with her husband because so many others wanted to be in the room. Men—all of them men.

In the months that followed, Mary struggled to access money to support herself, despite her husband having left a substantial estate. The man responsible for managing that estate refused to release the funds to her. Her son Robert eventually brought her before a court, where testimony about her ability to care for herself and manage her finances led a jury to determine that she should be placed in a treatment facility. A few months later, Mary managed to secure her release.

Lois Romano is a veteran national journalist who has worked as a reporter, editor, and columnist for The Washington Post and Politico. A keen observer of the relationship between politics and human nature, Romano brought her insights and extensive research to An Inconvenient Widow, telling Mary Lincoln’s story from beginning to end in a way that has rarely been explored before.

In this episode of Upstart Crow, Romano joins host William Miller to discuss the research behind the book, the truth about Mary Todd Lincoln, and how she began a project that consumed more than five years.

The conversation concludes with a live-stream audience Q&A, in which Romano answers questions about Mary Lincoln’s life, legacy, and treatment by history.

• Lois Romano’s research and the writing of An Inconvenient Widow
• Mary Todd Lincoln’s childhood, family background, and relationship with Abraham Lincoln
• Mary’s political ambitions and influence on Lincoln’s career
• How nineteenth-century media coverage shaped Mary Lincoln’s public reputation
• The myths and historical assumptions surrounding Mary’s mental health
• Mary’s charitable work and support for formerly enslaved people
• The financial struggles and public scrutiny she faced after Lincoln’s assassination
• Her relationship with her son Robert and her confinement in a mental institution
• How Mary Lincoln’s story challenges traditional views of first ladies and women in American political history

Mary Todd Lincoln’s reputation was shaped by bias as much as by history.

Romano explains how inaccurate reporting, political hostility, and repeated stories helped establish a negative image of Mary that persisted for generations. Her research revisits the historical record to distinguish documented facts from long-standing assumptions.

Mary Lincoln was a politically astute partner, not simply a burden to her husband.

Mary was ambitious, intelligent, and deeply interested in politics. Romano argues that she and Abraham Lincoln shared a meaningful partnership and that Mary played a more consequential role in his rise than many accounts have acknowledged.

The media scrutiny Mary faced was extraordinary for a first lady of her era.

Unlike many women who had occupied the role before her, Mary was extensively covered in newspapers. Digitized historical reporting allowed Romano to compare contemporary accusations with the evidence and uncover how sensational coverage affected Mary’s legacy.

Mary’s private struggles were compounded by the expectations placed on women.

In a time when women could not vote and were expected to remain within the domestic sphere, Mary navigated political life, family responsibilities, public criticism, and financial uncertainty with limited control over her own circumstances.

Mary’s efforts to survive were often portrayed as personal failings.

After Lincoln’s death, Mary struggled to access her husband’s estate and fought for a pension. Her attempt to sell clothing to support herself became a public scandal, illustrating how harshly she was judged even when trying to secure her financial independence.

Revisiting the evidence can change how we understand historical figures.

Romano’s work demonstrates the value of returning to original documents, letters, and contemporary newspapers rather than accepting a familiar historical narrative at face value.

“I think if she had been born one hundred years later, Mary Lincoln would have been everybody’s adored feminist.”

“I think they truly had a very good partnership.”

“She was very independent. I mean, she was very independent about her life, about her travel, about her money.”

Shubha Sunder — Tuesday, October 27, at 6:30 p.m.

Author Shubha Sunder joins Upstart Crow to discuss Optional Practical Training and the immigrant experiences that inspired her novel. The episode will be available November 3.

Valerie Tripp — Tuesday, November 10, at 6:30 p.m.

Author Valerie Tripp talks with host Jennifer Disano about writing historical fiction for young readers and why these stories still matter. The episode will be available November 17.

Jane Kamensky — Wednesday, November 18, at 6:30 p.m.

Jane Kamensky, president and CEO of Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, joins host Ken Budd to discuss her book Declare: A Civil Gospel, the founding generation, and civic discourse. The episode will be available November 25.

All three interviews are part of the Upstart Crow–Fairfax County Public Library series celebrating America’s 250th anniversary.

Registration: https://librarycalendar.fairfaxcounty.gov

Registration for the Valerie Tripp event opens October 20 at 6:30 p.m. Registration for the Jane Kamensky event opens October 28 at 6:30 p.m. Registration for the Shubha Sunder event is open now.

Lois Romano, Mary Todd Lincoln, An Inconvenient Widow, Abraham Lincoln, first ladies in American history, Mary Lincoln biography, Civil War history, women in politics, American history books, historical research, Upstart Crow, Fairfax County Public Library, America’s 250th anniversary

#LoisRomano #MaryToddLincoln #AnInconvenientWidow #AbrahamLincoln #AmericanHistory #UpstartCrow

For more information about our guests, hosts, upcoming events, and ways you can support the show, be sure to visit our website.

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Recorded and produced by Jon D PodCom, a production brand of Old Hundred Productions LLC.

Upstart Crow is part of Watershed Lit Radio.

© 2026 Upstart Crow Podcast. All rights reserved.

Internationally known, award-winning writer and editor Ilan Stavans sees an anthology as something akin to a library where the books come down from the shelves at night and fly around, mixing and mingling and enriching each other in a great time of sharing.

So it makes perfectly good sense that Stavans would mark the 250th birthday of his adopted country by editing a book of more than 100 works spanning four centuries—all connected by a shared theme: How Americans have grappled with God.

The anthology includes fiction, essays, political pieces, songs, poems, speeches, sermons, comic strips, and even a photograph of a TIME magazine cover. Together, they explore a country founded on the principle that its people were “endowed by their Creator” with certain rights; a country that, a little more than 200 years later, put “In God We Trust” on its money and “One Nation, Under God” into the Pledge of Allegiance.

Yet America is also a country where record numbers of people identify as religiously unaffiliated, while roughly 90 percent still profess to believe in a higher power.

In this episode of Upstart Crow, Ilan Stavans talks with William Miller about the idea behind his anthology, the works he chose and why, and some of the nearly 100 pieces he removed from an early draft. They explore what Americans have done with the idea of God—and what that idea has done to the people of America.

Ilan Stavans has published more than 30 books and is well known for his investigations of language and culture, as well as his work in anthologies.

Born in Mexico in 1961 to a Jewish family with roots in Eastern Europe, Stavans was raised in a multilingual environment. His autobiography, On Borrowed Words, appeared in 2001.

He is known for his research on English, Spanish, Yiddish, Ladino, and, in particular, Spanglish. In 2003, he published Spanglish: The Making of a New American Language, which includes a lexicon of approximately 6,000 terms and a Spanglish translation of the first chapter of Don Quixote. He subsequently completed a Spanglish translation of the entire novel by Miguel de Cervantes.

Stavans is the author of several award-winning short-story collections. The internationally released, award-winning feature film My Mexican Shivah, co-produced by John Sayles, was based on his story “Morirse está en hebreo.” His story The Disappearance, adapted for the stage by the experimental theater troupe DoubleEdge, has toured the world. His one-man show The Oven has been seen in cities across the United States.

Stavans is also the author of Resurrecting Hebrew, books on love and the Bible, Dictionary Days: A Defining Passion, Quixote: The Novel and the World, and a biography of Gabriel García Márquez's career through the publication of One Hundred Years of Solitude.

His work has been translated into fifteen languages. His lectures on Don Quixote and on visions of the divine across cultures are available from Recorded Books. Stavans is also editor-in-chief of Oxford Bibliography: Latino Studies.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• America’s relationship with God is complicated. Ilan Stavans explores how Americans have questioned, negotiated, embraced, and sometimes weaponized religion throughout the country’s history.

• Religion can be both medicine and illness. It can provide morality, community, and structure while also becoming a source of division, violence, and destruction.

• Doubt is essential to being human. Stavans argues that questioning—not certainty—is at the heart of intelligence, belief, and personal growth.

• An anthology is a conversation across time. A Nation Wrestles with God brings together more than 100 voices and perspectives, allowing writers from vastly different eras and backgrounds to “speak” to one another.

• Literature gives us access to interior life. The conversation explores how writers such as Flannery O’Connor and Mark Twain reveal the complexity of what happens inside a character’s mind.

• Language matters. Stavans discusses the importance of allowing dialects, slang, Spanglish, Yiddish, and other forms of language to retain their complexity rather than being “streamlined.”

• America is shaped by perception. The discussion moves from Walter Lippmann and Rashomon to the question of whether there is a single reality—or simply the realities we perceive.

• Technology and AI may threaten our interior voices. Stavans worries that increasingly powerful technology could diminish the space we have for uncertainty, reflection, and internal dialogue.

• America’s religious identity is changing, but religion isn’t disappearing. Even as traditional religious participation declines, belief in some form of God remains widespread.

• Outsiders can help us understand ourselves. Stavans sees the immigrant and outsider perspective as a valuable way of challenging assumptions held by people immersed in their own culture.

“Doubt is the mother of intelligence. Doubt is the mother of belief.” - Ilan Stavans

Purchase a copy of the anthology, A Nation Wrestles with God, here.

Visit the Upstart Crow website.

You can watch this full interview on our YouTube channel.

Thank you for listening to the Upstart Crow Podcast, a part of Watershed Lit Radio

Produced by Upstart Crow Podcast

Recording and Audio Production by Jon D PodCom

Copyright © 2026 Upstart Crow Podcast - All Rights Reserved

#IlanStavans #AmericanLiterature #ReligionInAmerica

From 1932 until the end of World War II, Peter J. Ortiz was almost constantly involved in international warfare—13 years of it—either fighting or gathering intelligence about fighting. He started in the French Foreign Legion, moved to the U.S. Marines when the United States entered the war, and was one of the first people to serve in America’s fledgling spy network, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS).

He was invaluable. He had grown up spending a lot of time in Europe and spoke at least five languages; some reports put the number as high as 10. By the end of the war, he had been decorated with two dozen medals from three countries. The subtitle to the book offers some insight as to why he was so acclaimed: "The Allies’ Secret Weapon Against the Nazis in France."

Nicholas Reynolds graduated from Oxford University with a Ph.D. in modern history. Having grown up in the shadow of World War II and developing an interest in history and military history especially, he immediately joined the U.S. Marine Corps, serving as an infantry officer and then as an historian. He later served as a CIA officer, ending with a years-long stint as CIA Museum historian. He now teaches and writes.

His books include Need to Know: World War II and the Rise of American Intelligence, which was designated a best book of 2022 by The New Yorker. He also wrote Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy (2017), which looks at the life and work of Ernest Hemingway and, in a way, links back to this book about Ortiz. In it, Nick looks at the OSS and Hemingway’s involvement with it in the closing days of World War II in Europe.

Katie S. Sanders is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and an award-winning journalist who has written for National Geographic, The New York Times, Washington Post Magazine, New World, Time, Smithsonian, Vanity Fair, Insider, Glamour, and Marie Claire.

Her reporting brought her to the CIA and the White House, and into the homes of many World War II veterans and Holocaust survivors. Her late grandfather, a Jewish-American bomber pilot who was shot down over France while dropping supplies behind enemy lines, was among those rescued by Peter Ortiz and the resistance fighters he led.

It was this connection that brought her to team with Nick to write the story of Ortiz’s War.

Buy Ortiz’s War wherever books are sold, including Amazon.

Find out more about our guests on their websites:

Nicholas Reynolds

Katie S. Sanders

Follow and tag @ortizswarbook.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Peter J. Ortiz was an extraordinary World War II warrior who served in the French Foreign Legion, U.S. Marine Corps, OSS, and British Special Operations Executive.

• The OSS was essentially built from scratch during World War II, growing from virtually no organization into a major American intelligence operation.

• Ortiz operated far beyond the traditional role of an intelligence officer, gathering intelligence, working with the French Resistance, recruiting couriers, conducting raids, and even stealing Gestapo staff cars.

• His fluency in French, familiarity with France, and experience in the French Foreign Legion made him uniquely effective behind enemy lines.

• Ortiz's leadership was defined as much by restraint as by courage. His decision to surrender to a vastly larger German force in order to protect a French village and give his men a chance to escape became one of the defining moments of his story.

• Nick Reynolds and Katie Sanders explore what made extraordinary battlefield leaders like Ortiz and Wild Bill Donovan different, including their tolerance for risk, discomfort, and uncertainty.

• Katie Sanders' connection to Ortiz is deeply personal: Ortiz helped save the life of her grandfather, a U.S. Army Air Forces pilot whose B-24 was shot down over France.

• The authors combine military records, oral histories, contemporary accounts, and other archival material to separate the documented history of Ortiz from the many legendary stories that grew up around him.

• At its heart, Ortiz's War is a story about courage, sacrifice, duty, leadership, and the extraordinary individuals who operated outside conventional molds during World War II.

"There's something extra in their makeup that is a tolerance for risk that a lot of us don't have." - Nick Reynolds

"It's not only tolerance for risk, but it's tolerance for discomfort." - Katie Sanders

You can also watch the full interview on our YouTube channel.

Be sure to visit our website

Thank you for listening to the Upstart Crow Podcast, a part of Watershed Lit Radio

Produced by Upstart Crow Podcast

Recording and Audio Production by Jon D PodCom

Copyright © 2026 Upstart Crow Podcast - All Rights Reserved

#WorldWarII #MilitaryHistory #OSS

Marty Ross-Dolen’s memoir Always There, Always Gone, winner of the 2026 Ohio Book Awards Readers’ Choice Award, carries the subtitle “A daughter’s search for truth.” Marty Ross-Dolen is the daughter. What she searches for is a fuller knowing of her grandmother, her mother’s mother, about whom her mother will talk but can’t seem to do so without looking pained or breaking into tears. What Marty knows are the bare facts: Her grandmother and grandfather were killed in an airliner disaster over NYC in December, 1960, when a United flight from Chicago ran into a TWA flight from Columbus, Ohio. Everyone on both planes and six people on the ground were killed. Marty’s grandparents were executives in the family business, Highlights for Children. Marty’s mother was 14 at the time, and she and her four siblings were moved from Ohio to Texas to live with their uncle and aunt.

So Marty constructs a portrait of her grandmother—the warmth, the wit, the vitality and charm—a portrait she drew from poring over correspondence, photos, records, family memorabilia. Along the way, she asks, “When do humans stop defining ourselves by tragedies?” When will we stop using words like survivor, hero, warrior to describe ourselves? Her answer: Possibly never again.

What emerges is a memoir that bends the form memoirs usually take, that informs readers of the life of a woman who comes of age in the 1940s and becomes a mother working in a singular business during the 1950s, and then looks at the layering of lives and the impact of protracted mourning, and of healing through love.

Marty Ross-Dolen is a graduate of Wellesley College and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. She is a retired child and adolescent psychiatrist. She also earned an MFA in writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Earlier, she worked in graduate-level workshops at the Ohio State University.

Her essays have appeared in North Dakota Quarterly, Redivider, Lilith, Willow Review and the Brevity Blog, among others. Her essay “Diphtheria” was a notable essay in The Best American Essays series. She writes, teaches writing, and lives in Columbus, Ohio.

In this episode of Upstart Crow, Marty Ross-Dolen discusses Always There, Always Gone, her memoir about family, grief, memory, tragedy and healing. She talks about her grandmother, the 1960 New York City plane crash that changed her family, her connection to Highlights for Children, and the process of reconstructing a life through photographs, letters, correspondence and family records.

• How Marty Ross-Dolen used hundreds of letters and thousands of pages of family correspondence to reconstruct the life and personality of a grandmother she never knew.
• Why her memoir focuses on her grandmother’s life rather than allowing the tragedy of her death to define her.
• How the sudden loss of her grandparents shaped three generations of women in her family and became an exploration of multigenerational trauma.
• Why absence can have just as profound an impact on a family as the people who are actually present.
• The surprising role that Highlights for Children played in Marty’s family history and how her grandparents helped build the iconic children’s magazine.
• How seemingly small decisions can affect generations of people in ways we could never predict.
• Why memoir doesn't always have to follow a traditional chronological structure.
• How Marty used creative techniques, including erasure poetry and a game-show-style section, to tell a deeply personal family story.
• Why writers need to learn how to use feedback without necessarily following every piece of advice they receive.
• How writing a memoir can change the way we understand our own family history, grief, identity, and the stories that have been passed down to us.

Hosted by William Miller

Find out more about Marty and the book, on her website.

Follow her on Facebook and Instagram

You can also watch the full interview on our YouTube channel.

Be sure to visit our website

Thank you for listening to the Upstart Crow Podcast, a part of Watershed Lit Radio

Produced by Upstart Crow Podcast

Recording and Audio Production by Jon D PodCom

Copyright © 2026 Upstart Crow Podcast - All Rights Reserved

Kathryn DeZur – Objects of Affection

The things Kathryn DeZur focuses on—a doll, a quilt, bookshelves, a gun, an ashtray, a table, a finial—in this book of 15 essays are things that connect her to and shape her memories, which is to say that inform her sense of self, her history, her culture, the people around her. Hence, objects of affection.

She is a daughter whose father was asked by her mother to leave the home before Kathryn was 1 and who did, leaving Kathryn to live in poverty with her alcoholic mother; and so, when Kathryn was 10, she had to pick out her mother’s burial clothes after the alcoholism took her mother’s life. She moved to live with her father, to a better life in some ways but he had two preoccupations, neither of which was Kathryn. Even in this carefully constructed sense of self, Kathryn shows, things and people can knock everything askew. Though even now she regards her father as that because he fulfilled the role, he wasn’t, it turns out, her biological dad.

Before this book of personal essays, Kathryn published a poetry chapbook, Blue Ghosts, and she maintains samples of her photography at KDZ Photography on her website at kathryndezur.com.

Individual essays by her have appeared in HerStry, Dorthy Parker’s Ashes, and The Nassau Review among other places. She lives and writes in the northern Catskill Mountains and she is a professor emerita in English at SUNY Delhi.

• The relationship between objects, memory, and personal meaning
• How memory shapes and reinforces our sense of identity
• The ways memory can be reconstructed, incomplete, or unreliable
• Growing up with an alcoholic parent
• Kathryn's childhood in Oakland and her move to suburban San Jose
• Childhood experiences of loneliness, belonging, and people-pleasing
• How art can provide distance and structure for processing difficult memories
• Kathryn's mother's artistic life and influence
• The story behind the Easy-Bake Oven
• Discovering that the man who raised Kathryn was not her biological father
• Using DNA testing to uncover family history
• Discovering six half-siblings later in life
• The ways genetics can manifest through mannerisms, speech, and behavior
• The significance of the essay "Nothing"
• The emotional meaning of home, safety, and permanence
• Being forced to leave a beloved home because of a threatening neighbor
• Kathryn's attempt to use minimalism and decluttering to regain a sense of control
• Why sentimental objects can carry profound emotional meaning
• The story of Tammy, Kathryn's childhood doll
• The connection between objects and feelings of belonging
• Letting go of possessions versus letting go of the past
• Finding a second "Tammy" later in life
• Self-forgiveness and the idea of self-abandonment
• How writing Objects of Affection became a form of reckoning with the past

• Memory is creative. We don't simply retrieve memories; we reconstruct them, fill in gaps, and sometimes reshape them over time.
• Objects can become repositories of memory. A seemingly ordinary possession can carry layers of personal history, emotion, and meaning.
• Art can help us approach difficult experiences. The structure and distance created through writing and photography can make painful memories easier to examine.
• Belonging matters. Homes, objects, and relationships can become tangible representations of safety and permanence.
• Decluttering doesn't necessarily erase emotional history. Getting rid of objects doesn't mean getting rid of the memories attached to them.
• Identity isn't determined solely by biology. Kathryn's discovery about her biological father did not fundamentally change her understanding of who she was.
• Loss and replacement aren't the same thing. The second Tammy couldn't replace the childhood doll, but it could take on a new meaning.
• Self-forgiveness can be part of healing. Sometimes an object or experience can help us recognize where we've abandoned our own needs and begin to forgive ourselves.

“Objects can serve as places of meaning and of memory and of experience and history.” - Kathryn DeZur

Find out more about Kathryn and purchase Objects of Affection on her website.

Follow Kathryn on Instagram.

This entire episode is also available for viewing on our YouTube channel.

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Recorded & Produced by Jon D PodCom

Be sure to check out our website for more information about our hosts, guests, and ways you can support the show: UpstartCrow.org

Follow us on Facebook here.

Thank you for listening to Upstart Crow, a part of Watershed Lit Radio.

© 2026 Upstart Crow Podcast – All Rights Reserved

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#UpstartCrow #KathrynDeZur #ObjectsOfAffection #Memoir #PersonalEssays #Memory #Identity #MemoirWriting #CreativeWriting #FamilyHistory #Genealogy #DNA #Minimalism #LiteraryArts #WatershedLitRadio

Emil Wilson – The Nightingales.

Based in San Francisco, Emil Wilson is an advertising art director and illustrator as well as a comic artist. His work has appeared in magazines and newspapers, on websites, the Oscars, even the Super Bowl. You’ve probably seen his work and not known it. The Nightingales is his first book, a graphic novel. He sets it in Oregon and the story he tells is semi-autobiographical. It’s the story of a family, a sick man, a charitable act by one family member and the repercussions that act has for the other members of the family.

Set in 1985, the novel has strong relevance to today—the social phenomenon called othering, how people deal with issues, or don’t, the meaning of an offer of sanctuary.

Emil talks with host William Miller about the themes of the novel, the seeds of the story, how he shaped it and the why’s behind his choices, and his work to illustrate it—spreads rather than panels, for example—that together resulted in the created artifice this novel is.

• The true family story that inspired The Nightingales
• Why the novel is set during the AIDS epidemic of 1985
• Compassion versus fear during times of crisis
• Growing up in small-town Oregon
• Family dynamics under extraordinary circumstances
• The challenges faced by LGBTQ+ communities during the early AIDS crisis
• How volunteering with AIDS patients shaped Wilson's life
• Creating a graphic novel that feels like memory instead of a comic book
• Using sketchbooks and visual language to tell emotional stories
• The lasting impact of kindness and empathy

• Small acts of compassion can have life-changing consequences.
• Fear often grows from misunderstanding and lack of information.
• Kindness sometimes comes with personal sacrifice but can transform everyone involved.
• Graphic novels can tell emotionally rich literary stories equal to traditional novels.
• Memory is imperfect, and visual storytelling can capture its emotional truth.
• Understanding people unlike ourselves begins with empathy rather than judgment.
• Family relationships are rarely simple, but compassion can bridge difficult divides.

This episode is perfect for:

• Readers of literary fiction
• Graphic novel enthusiasts
• Fans of memoir and family stories
• Writers and illustrators
• History enthusiasts interested in the AIDS epidemic
• LGBTQ+ history readers
• Anyone interested in stories about compassion, resilience, and humanity

Find out more about Emil through his website.

Follow Emil on Instagram.

Purchase your own copy of The Nightingales here.

#TheNightingales #MLWilson #GraphicNovel #BookTube #AuthorInterview #LiteraryPodcast #UpstartCrow #WilliamMiller #BookDiscussion #HistoricalFiction #Memoir #VisualStorytelling #LGBTQHistory #AIDSCrisis #BookLovers

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This entire episode is also available for viewing on our YouTube channel.

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Recorded & Produced by Jon D PodCom

Be sure to check out our website for more information about our hosts, guests, and ways you can support the show: UpstartCrow.org

Follow us on Facebook here.

Thank you for listening to Upstart Crow, a part of Watershed Lit Radio.

© 2026 Upstart Crow Podcast – All Rights Reserved

Lina Patton – The Lake Club

A spirited read about the sort of people who spend summer days sitting poolside and playing golf, versus ambitious young adults starting their lives and wanting to right all the wrongs they know of even as they make their own mistakes. Competing goals among a troika of main characters, mysteries, wrongs to be set right—all within a tight-knit community in the land of 10,000 lakes.

Lina Patton is a writer, illustrator, and teacher. She is a native of Maine who spent her teen years in Minnesota. She earned her BA from Elon University and her MFA from George Mason University. Her writing has appeared in Elle, The Cut, Narrative, and Driftwood Press, among other publications. She and her husband lived abroad for seven years and currently live in Washington, DC. The Lake Club is her first novel.

Hosted by William Miller

• Lina Patton discusses how her debut novel The Lake Club evolved from a single character's perspective into a layered story about class, power, ambition, and belonging.
• The conversation explores the realities behind wealth and privilege in exclusive communities and how fiction can reveal hidden social dynamics.
• Patton explains how mystery, romance, and character-driven storytelling work together to create narrative tension.
• A fascinating discussion on writing craft, including lessons learned from acclaimed author and teacher Alan Cheuse at George Mason University.
• The episode examines how character motivation drives plot and why understanding what characters truly want is essential to compelling fiction.
• Patton shares how real-life experiences in Minnesota country clubs, advertising, and international living informed the novel's setting and characters.
• Insights into the difference between literary and commercial fiction—and why great storytelling can successfully blend both.

"Writing is an act of empathy. Reading is an act of empathy."

"When you're young, you think if you just put the puzzle pieces into place, you'll become the version of yourself you want to be." - Lina Patton

Find out more about Lina and purchase your own copy of The Lake Club on her website.

#LinaPatton

#TheLakeClub

#AuthorInterview

#BookPodcast

#LiteraryFiction

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This entire episode is also available for viewing on our YouTube channel.

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Recorded & Produced by Jon D PodCom

Be sure to check out our website for more information about our hosts, guests, and ways you can support the show: UpstartCrow.org

Follow us on Facebook here.

Thank you for listening to Upstart Crow, a part of Watershed Lit Radio.

© 2026 Upstart Crow Podcast – All Rights Reserved

Melody Lomboy-Lowe — Founder, Luna Peak Foundation

Melody Lomboy-Lowe was 6 years old when she planned her own funeral. She had been diagnosed with leukemia, and in 1983, treatment options were limited. But Lomboy-Lowe survived, and today her Los Angeles-based organization, the Luna Peak Foundation, publishes books on cancer and grief. Luna Peak has donated over 4,000 books to children, families, hospitals, palliative care and hospice centers, therapist offices, schools, and universities. This includes workbooks, children’s books, and an inspirational photography book, Beyond Remission. Upstart Crow host Ken Budd profiled Melody for his “Everyday Heroes” column in The Saturday Evening Post and he interviews her here about survival, hope, and helping others.

• Melody Lomboy-Lowe shares her remarkable journey from being diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia at age six to becoming a long-term cancer survivor.
• Hear how she planned her own funeral as a child and why that experience gave her a sense of control during treatment.
• Learn how surviving cancer in the 1980s shaped her outlook on life, family, and purpose.
• Discover how the Luna Peak Foundation uses books, care packages, and creative resources to support cancer patients and their families.
• Melody discusses the inspiration behind her books Beyond Remission, Follow Me Cancer Free, Sean's Best Week at Camp Luna Peak, and more.
• An emotional story about a young cancer patient named Zoe illustrates the power of representation and hope.
• Why Melody believes cancer doesn't have to define a person—and can even become a source of strength and purpose.
• A candid conversation about grief, mortality, and why we need to talk more openly about death.

Key Takeaways

Children are often more resilient than adults realize when facing serious illness.

Honest communication can help young patients feel empowered rather than helpless.

Cancer affects entire families, not just the person receiving treatment.

Seeing yourself represented in stories can provide comfort, encouragement, and hope.

Community and connection are critical for cancer patients, survivors, caregivers, and siblings.

Surviving a life-threatening illness can profoundly change your perspective on everyday life.

Hope doesn't always come from grand gestures—it often comes from knowing you're not alone.

Discussion Topics

• Childhood leukemia and cancer treatment in the 1980s
• Growing up after a life-threatening diagnosis
• The role of honesty when talking to children about illness
• Cancer survivorship and long-term emotional impacts
• Creating books that inspire hope for patients and families
• Supporting siblings and caregivers during cancer treatment
• Grief, loss, and preparing for life's difficult conversations
• The mission of the Luna Peak Foundation

• Cancer patients and survivors
• Parents and caregivers
• Healthcare professionals
• Nonprofit leaders
• Anyone facing adversity or life challenges
• Readers interested in inspirational true stories
• People seeking hope, resilience, and perspective

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This entire episode is also available for viewing on our YouTube channel.

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Recorded & Produced by Jon D PodCom

Be sure to check out our website for more information about our hosts, guests, and ways you can support the show: UpstartCrow.org

Follow us on Facebook here.

Thank you for listening to Upstart Crow, a part of Watershed Lit Radio.

© 2026 Upstart Crow Podcast – All Rights Reserved

Caroline Bock – The Other Beautiful People

In the entertainment world, there are the on-stage, front-of-camera, beautiful people, and there are those who actually make things happen. The ones who work behind the scenes, who make the deals, sell the projects, ensure the funding, move things forward. It is their lives that are the focus of this taut and evocative novel. The story juxtaposes the shocks and aftereffects of 9/11 with the more routine shocks of normal everyday life when business-world reasoning comes to bear on entertainment-world decision-making, and catches the lead character, Amy Greene, in the vortex. She has a life and a love she understands, until she doesn’t, until she is sure of almost nothing, including herself.

Caroline Bock was a movie-loving executive of tv, working for 20 years in the cable television industry at AMC, Bravo, IFC and IFC Films, before stepping out of that world and writing. She is the author of the short story collection Carry Her Home, winner of the Fiction Award from the Washington Writers’ Publishing House, and also the young adult novels Before My Eyes and LIE. She graduated from the City College of New York and its MFA Fiction program, and she also attended Syracuse University. The Other Beautiful People is her first novel for adults.

"The other beautiful people are the people behind the scenes—the ones who make everything happen, but rarely get the credit."

"It doesn't matter if the world's ending. What matters is what you're going to do today."

-Caroline Bock

Hosted by William Miller

The novel shines a light on the overlooked professionals working behind the scenes in television, film, and media—the people who make success possible without ever appearing in the spotlight.

Bock discusses how experiences surrounding 9/11 shaped both her life and her fiction, demonstrating how major historical events are ultimately experienced through individual lives.

Amy Green's journey explores the tension between ambition, family, relationships, and personal fulfillment—questions many professionals continue to face today.

Whether it's technological disruption, corporate mergers, or shifts in personal identity, adapting to change becomes one of the novel's central themes.

Bock's path to publishing her first adult novel demonstrates that creative success can happen at any stage of life.

The conversation explores autofiction, memory, and how writers transform real-life experiences into compelling stories.

• Caroline Bock discusses the inspiration behind The Other Beautiful People.
• A behind-the-scenes look at cable television during the early 2000s.
• How the events of 9/11 influenced both her life and her fiction.
• The challenges of balancing career ambition, marriage, and family.
• Why the "other beautiful people" are often the most important people in the room.
• The role of autobiographical experiences in shaping fiction.
• Caroline's journey from YA fiction to publishing her first adult novel.
• The surprising story of how the book found its publisher.

Purchase a copy of The Other Beautiful People here at Regal House Publishing, or wherever books are sold.

#WritingCommunity #LiteraryFiction #AuthorInterview #UpstartCrow #TheOtherBeautifulPeople #CarolineBock #9/11 #BehindTheScenes

This entire episode is also available for viewing on our YouTube channel.

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Recorded & Produced by Jon D PodCom

Be sure to check out our website for more information about our hosts, guests, and ways you can support the show: UpstartCrow.org

Follow us on Facebook here.

Thank you for listening to Upstart Crow, a part of Watershed Lit Radio.

© 2026 Upstart Crow Podcast – All Rights Reserved

Zach Powers – The Migraine Diaries: A singular, first-person novel.

This story goes into the interior life of a thirty-something man who has just lost the best friend he ever had, a man he has known for ten years, a man he has seen most every day of those ten years as they pursued their separate creative projects and shared a social life, a man who knew to kick the narrator’s butt when it needed kicking and offer the right encouraging words when it was words and not a kick the narrator needed. All of that, suddenly gone. Told in the form of a headache journal, the novel renders the first year of loss starting with the beachside funeral/ash spreading of the friend’s remains, and captures the mix of headache hopelessness with the need to carry on, building to the final resolve. In this way, it is like life itself. Not all bleak. Filled with humor. Even offering moments of weirdness.

Zach Powers is the author of the short story collection Gravity Changes, winner of the BOA Short Fiction Prize; and also a prior novel, First Cosmic Velocity, which combines history and fiction to look at the sham of the Soviet space program in 1964 and earlier. His writing also has appeared in American Short Fiction, Lit Hub, and other publications. He is the executive and artistic director of The Writer’s Center in Bethesda, Maryland, and Poet Lore, the nation’s oldest poetry journal. He is originally from Savannah, Georgia, and now lives in Arlington, Virginia.

Hosted by William Miller

• Zach Powers discusses how The Migraine Diaries functions not just as a grief novel, but also as a chronic illness narrative and, most importantly, a story about friendship and surviving loss together.
• The conversation explores the ethics of writing chronic illness narratives, especially avoiding the traditional “everything gets resolved” story arc that doesn’t reflect real-life experiences with migraines or grief.
• Zach shares deeply personal inspirations behind the novel, including the deaths of close friends and his own struggles with chronic migraines, while emphasizing the book is fiction rather than autobiography.
• A major theme of the interview is how friendship can become the emotional anchor of a story, sometimes even more powerful than romance.
• Zach explains his fascination with experimental storytelling, layered narratives, fragmented structure, and allowing readers to interpret meaning rather than over-explaining themes.
• The discussion dives into the surreal “corgi” sequences in The Migraine Diaries, which blend grief, hallucination, memory, and imagination into symbolic emotional journeys.
• Zach reflects on his earlier novel First Cosmic Velocity and how his writing evolved from more traditional narrative structures into more expansive and unconventional literary forms.
• The episode also explores Zach’s acclaimed short story collection Gravity Changes, including his philosophy that fiction does not need to explain every surreal or impossible element to the reader.

“You don’t have to explain the sheep.” — Zach Powers on discovering the freedom of literary fiction and surreal storytelling.

“The friendship aspect is the actual thing driving everything in the background — how to be a good friend and maintain that in the face of adversity.”

Find out more about Zach Powers on his website.

This entire interview is also available to watch on our YouTube channel.

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Recorded & Produced by Jon D PodCom

Be sure to check out our website for more information about our hosts, guests, and ways you can support the show: UpstartCrow.org

Follow us on Facebook here.

Thank you for listening to Upstart Crow, a part of Watershed Lit Radio.

© 2026 - Upstart Crow Podcast – All Rights Reserved

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#WritingCommunity

#BookPodcast

#AuthorInterview