Lauren Groff, author of the National Book Award-nominated novel, Fates and Furies, talks to Nicole Nelson about how she came to realize she was writing one book, and not two, about the tale of a marriage. She also discusses her approach to tackling plot, and the importance of staying with your work. In the second half, debut novelist Garth Risk Hallberg, author of City on Fire, talks about being drawn to the Victorian novel, the art of bringing chapters to a close, and how when something isn’t working it means that either you shouldn’t do it, or you should do more of it.

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(Broadcast date: November 4, 2015)

Michelle Huneven, author of Off Course and Tracy Daugherty, author of the Last Love Song, a biography of Joan Didion, talk with Barbara DeMarco-Barrett about their new books and the art and business of writing.

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(Broadcast date: Oct 7, 2015)

Barbara talks with memoirist Jillian Lauren, author of Everything You Ever Wanted. 
During the second half, Nicole Nelson talks to Jonathan Galassi, President and Publisher of FSG and debut novelist, about his new book Muse.


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(Broadcast date: September 30, 2015)


Jillian will be a featured author at the Pen on Fire Speaker Series and Salon in Corona del Mar on October 13. 

Barbara DeMarco-Barrett talks with Gail Godwin, novelist and memoirist, about her new memoir Publishing, and the changes she’s seen in the industry, being a student in Kurt Vonnegut’s workshop, and working with the same agent for 50 years. Then debut novelist Parnaz Foroutan, author of The Girl from the Garden, talks with Nicole Nelson about why she used an unreliable narrator, the responsibility that comes with telling a story inspired by family history, and the benefits of “talking to your demons”while writing, and letting them guide you to the good stuff.

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(Broadcast date: September 16, 2015)