Our guest this week is Nigar Alam (Under The Tamarind Tree, G.P.Putnam & Sons, August 2023). We discuss the ten years she spent educating herself about writing before finding her agent in an unusual way (it involved Twitter). Hear how her first conversation with her editor took place while Nigar was stranded in Turkey during a snowstorm, and how writing a book set in Pakistan had the serendipitous effect of bringing her closer to her parents. If your dream is to sign with a Big Five publishing house, listen as Nigar takes us behind the scenes to highlight the advantages that brings and why it’s not necessarily bad to write a book that straddles genres.

Born in Karachi, Pakistan, Nigar Alam spent her childhood in Turkey, Nigeria, Italy, Kenya, Indonesia, and the United States before returning to Karachi. With an MBA and CPA, she has worked in both brand management and auditing. Currently, Alam teaches at Anoka-Ramsey Community College and lives with her family in Minnesota.

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This week’s guest is Joanna Monahan (Something Better, Blue Ink Press, June 2023). Initially starting out to write a YA novel about a reunion, Joanna worked with a book coach and eventually decided to switch to a coming of (middle) age novel about second chances. She discovered her small press through networking channels including the weekly WFWA newsletter and social media contacts and was realistic with her marketing ideas, setting both modest goals (things she could control like her launch party) and stretch goals (dream aspirations like winning a national writing contest). We discuss thinking about what’s right for this particular book vs. your ongoing career and how she approaches writing as her own small business in terms of resource and time allocation.

Joanna Monahan lives in North Carolina with her husband, their two children, and one hangry cat. When she isn’t writing, Joanna enjoys theater, baseball, and bookmarking recipes she will never make. A child of the 80s, she regrets that she no longer receives pizza coupons in exchange for reading books.

Joanna is an active member of the Women's Fiction Writers Association and the North Carolina Writers' Network. Her debut novel, Something Better, was recently named a Next Generation Indie Book Awards winner in both the General Fiction and Chick Lit categories.

To learn more about Joanna, click here.

This week’s guest is Cindy Maynard (Esperanza’s Way, Historium Press, June 2023). The inspiration for Maynard’s book came from her 500-mile trek of the Camino de Santiago in Spain at the age of 67 and her curiosity about what it would have been like for a woman making the same journey in the 13th century. Combining her love of history with her avid interest in the natural world, she fashioned a story that included the “physicians of the day” who dealt primarily in herbal medicine. She brings out a book every two years, spending one year in deep research, the other in the writing itself and also shares how a small winter festival in the Colorado mountains has been her best sales venue.

Cindy Burkart Maynard is passionate about history, and the natural world, a passion that adds rich detail and context to her historical fiction novels. Her characters come to life on the page as they portray what it was like to live in another time and place. She weaves compelling, dramatic stories based on strong characters facing daunting challenges. In addition to her works of historical fiction, she has co-authored two nonfiction works about the Colorado Plateau and the Desert Southwest and contributed articles to Images and Colorado Life and Utah Life Magazines. She has been active in many environmental and professional organizations.

To learn more about Cindy, click here.

My guest this week is Barbara Dullaghan (Secrets in the Hollow: A Sleepy Hollow Novel, MindStir Media, March 2023). Hear how her home town of Tarrytown, renamed Sleepy Hollow to revitalize the town’s tourist industry, serves as the backdrop to Barbara’s coming-of-age debut novel, how her local writing group’s format based on prompts led to her initially writing in vignettes, and how she pitched her novel to agents at a top NYC writing conference even though it wasn’t written yet (hint: not advisable). Deciding forego the agent/submissions process, she chose a hybrid publisher as her best option—the control and speed of self-publishing but with the help of people who knew the ins and outs of the system.

Dullaghan published in gifted education with Kendall Hunt and Prufrock Press, and her short stories and poetry can be found in three anthologies. She and her husband, Jack, now live in coastal North Carolina and love spending time at the beach with their three children, spouses, and six energetic grandchildren.

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Our guest this week is Donna Norman-Carbone (All That is Sacred, Red Adept Publishing, June 2023). Hear how two separate events, one with a well-known medium, came together to provide the inspiration for this award-winning debut, the advice Donna got from a famous author, and how the timing of her publisher’s offer caught her off-guard. We discuss what she did to create five different major characters and the fun swag that resulted as well as how networking with a fellow debut author led Donna to become a co-host of her own writer-focused podcast.

Donna Norman-Carbone, the award-winning author of All That is Sacred and Of Lies and Honey, published by Red Adept Publishing, has a passion for writing women’s fiction that tugs at the heartstrings. Donna is also co-host of the podcast, Authors Talking Bookish, and a tour guide for the Bookish Road Trip. Her writing affiliations include membership of WFWA and CAPA.

Donna is an English teacher in a small CT suburb, where she and her husband have raised three children, two Labrador retrievers and a Siamese cat. In her spare time, she enjoys reading a good book on a sunny Cape Cod beach (her happy place), spending quality time with family and friends and traveling overseas.

To learn more about Donna, click here.

This week’s guest is JJ Elliott (There are No Rules For This, She Writes Press, May 2023). We discuss how a family tragedy formed the backdrop for this debut which JJ wrote to challenge herself rather than with an eye to being published, how picking up a random book to read led her to a retreat that reawakened her love of writing, how she resisted the lure of big-name publishers who wanted to change her core message, why she changed her initial title, and how this last year has been one of saying “yes” to unexpected and serendipitous marketing opportunities, including a mention in Katie Couric’s newsletter.

JJ Elliott’s debut novel, There Are No Rules For This, is the winner of two Zibby Awards—Best Book for Best Friends and Best Book That Made You Cry. It was also a finalist in Best New Fiction in the International Book Awards.

Elliott lost her mother to suicide as a teenager, and spent over two years volunteering on the suicide hotlines in LA. One of the reasons she wanted to write her novel is because she is increasingly frustrated by the way suicide is treated in print and on-screen, as a mystery to be solved rather than a multi-layered, complex mental health situation that can rarely be boiled down to one specific "reason." A native of Northern California, JJ now lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband, two teenage kids, and two poorly trained bulldogs. She loves to read, drink wine, play tennis, and eat cheese.

To learn more about JJ, click here.

This week my guest is Tracey Buchanan (Toward the Corner of Mercy and Peace, Regal House, June 2023). When Tracey was tapped to write a script for an historical re-enactment troupe in her small Kentucky town, little did she realize it would propel her into a whole new career as a novelist. We discuss the life lesson her lead character learns during the course of her book which wound up being one Tracey herself experienced, the difference between developmental editing and working with a book coach, how Tracey believes daydreaming about your novel should count as writing time. Finally she shares the atypical venues she’s used for successful book events and the quirky trait she and I share.

Tracey Buchanan crashed into the literary world when she was six and won her first writing accolades. Fast forward through years as an award-winning journalist, mom, volunteer, freelance writer, newspaper and magazine editor, artist, small business owner, and circus performer (not really, but wouldn’t that be something?) and you find her happily planted in the world of fiction with her debut novel, Toward the Corner of Mercy and Peace. Tracey and her husband, Kent, live in Paducah, Ky., with their dog, Leapin’ Naughty Lottie Moon. They travel to see their kids and eight grandchildren as often as possible. Tracey hopes to see her second novel come out soon-ish (the publishing world is frustratingly slow). She is working on her third novel while she waits.

To learn more about Tracey, click here.

Our guest this week is Rachel Corsini (Sushi and Sea Lions, Creative James Media, May 2023). What started out as journal entries morphed into Rachel’s debut which she wound up writing in standalone scenes rather than chronologically, later splicing them together using the Save the Cat story structure. We discuss her query process in depth, which resulted in 100 rejection but also 20 agent requests for full manuscripts and three offers from small presses. She went with Creative James Media and shares the pluses and minuses in working with a small press as well as how to market your book after the launch hoopla dies down.

After declaring herself a pretty pink princess during her first ballet class, Rachel dreamt of sugar plums and began pirouetting her way through life. While studying to become a ballerina, she compulsively read books under her covers by flashlight and scribbled in spiral-bound notebooks. The urge to tell stories culminated in her graduation from Columbia College Chicago with a B.F.A. in fiction writing. Never one to keep her feet on the ground, she traveled the world from Prague to Cape Town. Once settled back in Queens, she dabbled in journalism before working as an Editorial Assistant for a medical publisher. Seeking a more fulfilling career, she earned her MAT from Queens College and currently works as an English teacher in an alternative program in NYC. Rachel spends her time sipping coffee, trying to cook, and practicing her pirouettes. She currently resides in Freeport, Long Island.

To learn more about Rachel, click here.