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If you"re an aspiring author and want insights into what"s involved in launching a book into the world, this is the podcast for you. Maggie Smith, author and blogger, interviews debut novelists from the Women"s Fiction Writers Association discussing not only the inspiration behind their book, but also their insights into the writing process, the best advice they ever got, and the joys and sometimes pitfalls they encountered on their path to publication.

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All Episodes

28:01

109: Gina Wilkinson- Author of When the Apricots Bloom

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2021/09/23

Gina spoke to us from Australia only hours after a major earthquake shook her town, but she’s used to living in danger zones. In fact, her real-life experience of living in Baghdad at the time of Hussein’s toppling and discovering a good friend was an informant for the Iraqi government was the springboard for Gina’s debut which subsequently became a Target Book of the Month pick. Moving from her previous career as a foreign correspondent into novel writing offered challenges but proved to be the

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27:10

108: Tiffany Meuret- Author of A Flood of Posies

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2021/09/17

Even though her fiction often has speculative and magical elements (she’s a life-long fan of monsters and snakes) Tiffany considers her primary goal as an author to dive deep into the “why” people behave the way they do, rather than contriving intricate plots. When it came to publishing, she took a gamble and went with a small publisher just starting out that she heard about through a member announcement in the WFWA newsletter. Turned out the owner herself was also a member and soon after signing,

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27:23

107: Elizabeth Chatsworth- Author of The Brass Queen

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2021/09/08

Elizabeth and I discuss her experience with PitchWars (thumbs up), losing her first agent (thumbs down) and how she had to segment her marketing approach to appeal to divergent audiences (historical fiction, steampunk, sci-fi, fantasy, romance, and yes, women’s fiction) since her debut didn’t fit neatly into one genre. Even though she signed with a small publisher, her novel would up topping the charts, scored a BookBub deal, garnered rave reviews from Library Journal and Publishers Weekly, and is

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29:15

106: Shail Rajan- Author of The Summer Breeze

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2021/09/02

Shail Rajan woke up on December 9th, after a difficult few months for her family, and decided to publish the novel she’d had in the drawer for years. And not just sometime in the future after she’d gotten an agent and found a publisher, but that very day. She followed the KDP instructions step-by-step, worked with her teenage daughter to fashion a cover, and before the sun went down, she hit publish. Our far-ranging conversation covers why she purposely wrote a “feel-good” book, how all the

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27:46

105: L. Bordetsky-Williams: Author of Forget Russia

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2021/08/26

This week’s guest is L. Bordetsky-Williams (Forget Russia, Tailwinds Press, December 2020) whose historical fiction debut is framed around many of her family’s experiences from 1900-1980 during the Russian Revolution, the pogroms in Ukraine, and her relatives’ eventual immigration to America, and later return to their mother country once the depression hit in 1931. She’s a big believer that we’re destined to meet certain people in our lives and has stories to prove it. And because her book covers

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26:16

104: Christina Tsirkas - Author of The Night Sender

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2021/08/19

Christina comes out of a copy-editing background but caught the novel-writing bug when a vivid dream presented her with a story she couldn’t shake. She believes young writers shouldn’t be afraid to write the book they’d want to read and that an author owes it to herself to push the envelope in terms of imagination, sensuality, and intricate plot lines instead of following trends and standard tropes. She also relished the freedom to make her own decisions on marketing and book design that going indie

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26:45

103: Judith Teitelman- Author of Guesthouse for Ganesha

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2021/08/05

After years of non-fiction and business writing, Judith Teitelman fell in love with the more creative side of the craft after a friend dragged her to a regular writing group. In this interview, we discuss how her magical realism tale is an amalgam of both her German grandmother’s life story, a long-forgotten journal from an early relationship, and Judith’s longtime interest in eastern religion. And if you think getting an agent means your book is set, listen in because Judith eventually had to go

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30:39

102: Kathy Sechrist- Author of Success Is The Best...

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2021/07/29

In this interview, Kathy and Idiscuss how writing this book meant Kathy had to revisit painful memories from her own childhood as well as the breakup of her marriage, why she decided to take the hybrid route rather than endure the long wait of traditional publication, and her goal to write a book to not only satisfy her creative spirit but also to help others going through the same life challenges. Kathy's eighth career as an Award Winning Author, draws from her first seven careers. From dishwasher

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29:47

101: Joyce Yarrow - Author of Sandstorm

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2021/07/22

This novel was eight years in the making after starting life as an award-winning short story but Joyce felt like she had to grow both as a writer and as a student of human psychology before she could do it justice. She described parting ways with her first agent and switching to a small publisher as well as tips to increase pre-orders and suggestions for turning a novel to a possible screenplay. Joyce was born in the SE Bronx, escaped to Manhattan as a teenager and now lives in Seattle with her

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34:49

100: Denny S. Bryce- Author of Wild Women and the Blues

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2021/07/15

It’s our 100th podcast and it’s with Denny S. Bryce (Wild Women and the Blues, Kensington Books, March 2021). A former professional dancer as well as a marketing entrepreneur, Denny first got acquainted with agents who judged RWA writing contests she entered and eventually chose her agent over others because she was much more interested in Denny’s over-all writing and career goals rather than with a single book. We discuss how it’s important to get your name out in the writing community long before

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28:26

99: Kathryn Holzman - Author of Real Estate

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2021/07/08

Kathryn’s book got a new cover only days before release and published in the middle of not only the pandemic but the post-election furor and the post office debacle (it took some readers two months to receive their books). This historical novel is set in northern California in the 1960’s, with the first stirrings of the computer age (Kathryn’s brother was a classmate of Steve Wozniak), a rich Silicon Valley setting, and a plucky heroine who learns to carve her own way in life despite family

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28:46

98: Melissa Hunter - Author of What She Lost

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2021/07/01

In this interview with Melissa Hunter, we discuss how this story, a fictional quasi-memoir of her grandmother’s experiences as a teenager in a concentration camp in Nazi Germany, was one Melissa felt compelled to write but couldn’t fully embrace until she became a mother herself. Through the years, she wrote it as a series of joined short stories and even a screenplay until finally settling on women’s historical fiction as the ideal structure. We discuss working with a small specialty publisher,

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29:09

97: Florence Kraut - Author of How to Make a Life

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2021/06/24

Florence’s background in social work as well as her own large extended family informed her decision to write a wide-ranging saga, spanning a century-worth of events, secrets, and history of a close-knit Jewish immigrant family with themes of resilience, mental health challenges, and how decisions made at a point in time cycle through and effect subsequent generations. After finding it difficult to land an agent, she decided to publish with a quality hybrid press, and has been successful interfacing

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29:23

96: Geeta Schrayter - Author of Reaching Riverdale

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2021/06/17

When Geeta Schrayter first signed with a small press ten years ago, little did she realize she’d have to eventually wrest back control of her debut, rework the cover and formatting including left-out pages, and re-issue it on her own through Ingram a good decade later. Her story of perseverance will inspire writers whose books deserve a second chance at success in a marketplace where indie publishing is possible given a few dollars, some ingenuity, and a lot of hard work. Geeta fell in love with

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27:37

95: Densie Webb - Author of When Robins Appear

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2021/06/10

Listen to my interview with Densie Webb where we discuss the pluses and minuses of working with a small press, the value of writer networks, how readers often prefer true-to-life endings over happily-ever-afters, and how not every writer works best with an outline. Densie Webb (not Denise) has spent a long career as a freelance nonfiction writer and editor, specializing in health and nutrition, and has published several books on the topic. She grew up in Louisiana, spent 13 years in New York City,

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28:37

94: Bhaswati Ghosh - Author of Victory Colony, 1950

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2021/06/03

In my interview with Bhaswati, we discuss how her grandmother’s short stories about life as a Pakistani during the partition of India in 1947 provided the seed for her story, how she had to drop a fascinating plot line because she could not locate the necessary historical research, and the difference between the non-fiction writing she’s done throughout her career and the tools she needed to learn to flesh out her debut novel. Bhaswati Ghosh writes and translates fiction, non-fiction and poetry

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32:02

93: KJ DellAntonia - Author of The Chicken Sisters

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2021/05/27

Hear how KJ worked with Author Accelerator’s founder, Jennie Nash, for a year before querying, how her previous platform as a well-known non-fiction writer paved the way to quickly finding an agent and a publisher, and how she researched independent bookstores to identify the best candidates to receive a sample copy. And what it’s like when your editor calls you on a random Thursday evening during the pandemic to tell you Reese Witherspoon has picked your debut novel as her December 2020 book club

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26:28

92: Rachel Mans McKenny - Author of The Butterfly Effect

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2021/05/20

In this interview, you’ll hear how an early family tragedy provided the inspiration for her story, how her research took her down rabbit holes filled with bugs, how she made a grumpy main character someone readers still want to spend time with, and how parting ways with her first agent led to a perfect fit with not only another agent but a brand-new imprint for women’s fiction as well. Rachel Mans McKenny's essays and humor have appeared recently in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Elle,

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26:38

91: Jaye Burke- Author of Venice

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2021/05/13

In this episode, Jaye and I discuss how finding her grandfather’s WWI draft card paired with the time she spent living in New Orleans provided the seeds for this historical women’s fiction, how the protagonist’s name was taken from an old Constance Bennett film, and what it requires in terms of time and energy to publish your own work. JAYE BURKE is a southern historian, genealogist, and bestselling author whose focus is primarily set in the 19th and early to mid-20th centuries. She is a member of

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28:37

90: Grace Sammon - Author of The Eves

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2021/05/06

In this interview, Grace and I discuss the 25 “life lessons” her older characters imparted to her heroine, how Grace used her beta readers as developmental editors for her manuscript, her decision to use two publicists for different aspects of marketing, and how her absolute best decision was making a book trailer that conveyed not only the story line of her novel in less than two minutes but lent her legitimacy when she approached media contacts and book clubs. Grace Sammon is an entrepreneur,

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