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Maggie Smith

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.

  1. 4 dgn geleden

    326: Lisa F. Rosenberg - Author of Fine, I'm a Terrible Person

    This week's podcast guest is Lisa F. Rosenberg (Fine, I'm a Terrible Person, Sibylline Press, January 2025). What happens when you come across a character so juicy you want someone to write about them and the only person who can is you? If you're Lisa F. Rosenberg, you go back to school to get an MFA, make your thesis a debut novel, and enter the world of writing. We discuss her journey, including working with a woman-centric publisher, learning to grow from feedback, and the process of finding the community and the venues that match your novel.   Lisa Rosenberg has a B.A. from U.C. Berkeley in Art History, a M.A. in Graduate Humanities, and MFA in Creative writing from Dominican University. Her early professional career was in the blue-chip retail art world as a Gallerist for several prominent San Francisco art dealers including Crown Point Press and John Berggruen Gallery. After transitioning to museum education, she was most recently a public guide at SFMOMA and Museum Educator on staff at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco. Her writing until recently has been in her professional life, primarily non-fiction, essays for exhibition catalogs, art criticism, tours, and public talks. Her fiction has appeared in Amaranth: a journal of food writing, art, and design, and she was recently a quarter-finalist in the Driftwood Press in house short story contest. Her debut novel: Fine, I'm a Terrible Person was published in January of 2025 by Sibylline Press.  To learn more about Lisa, click here.

  2. 11 jun

    321: Lisa Montanaro - Author of Everything We Thought Was True

    Our guest this week is Lisa Montanaro (Everything We Thought Was True, Red Adept, January 2025). We discuss how Lisa taps into her background as an actress to "method act" her novels as she writes, including acting out scenes and writing scenes out of order based on her personal headspace that day. In the publication arena, she points out pluses and minuses to going traditional but with a smaller press and the differences between writing and marketing non-fiction and fiction. Finally we examine the challenges of distribution to bookstores and why book clubs are the best.   Lisa Montanaro is part no-nonsense Italian American New Yorker and part sunny Californian. Her background encompasses performer, teacher of the Deaf, lawyer, productivity consultant, writer coach, speaker, and author. Lisa's debut novel, Everything We Thought Was True, published by Red Adept Publishing, drew inspiration from her family history and examines the corrosive nature of secrets—those we keep from ourselves, from each other, and from society. It won Best New Fiction/Debut in the 2025 American Writing Awards and first place for LGBTQ Fiction in the 2024 International Firebird Book Awards, among other awards. Lisa has served as webinar host for WFWA since 2019 and is a passionate member of its Diversity and Inclusion committee. When not writing, you can find her cycling and hiking with her veterinarian husband, gardening, and chasing after her rescue dog. Lisa has enjoyed living snow-free since 2012 in Northern California, where she's made it her mission to sample the wines of the region.   To learn more about Lisa and subscriber to hew newsletter Prosecco & Prose, click here.

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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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