Author2Author

Bill welcomes memoirist Jessica Machado to the show. Jessica Machado is an editor at NBC News. Previously, she was a staff editor at Vox, The Daily Dot, and Rolling Stone. Her work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Cut, BuzzFeed, Vice, and Elle, among others. Born and raised in Hawai‘i, she currently lives in Brooklyn, New York. Local is her debut memoir.

Bill welcomes award-winning slam poet Layla Josephine to the show. Leyla is a performance poet, theatre maker, screenwriter, facilitator and project leader. She won the 2014 UK National Poetry Slam at The Royal Albert Hall with Hammer and Tongue.  In 2019 she performed for the First Minister of Scotland and supported John Cooper Clarke on his Scottish tour. She has been featured on BBC Radio 4, BBC The Social, The Guardian Online, Buzzfeed, Huffington Post, Upworthy, The National and The Scotsman and the anthology Choice Words: Writers On Abortions alongside the likes Margaret Atwood, Audre Lorde and Gloria Steinem. The Scottish Poetry Library named her poem 'Good with our Hands' in The Best Scottish Poems of 2020. Her solo shows Hopeless and Daddy Drag have taken the UK by storm, with sold out shows across the country; Hopeless was runner up for Saboteur’s Best Spoken Word Show 2018. Daddy Drag won the Autopsy Award 2019, which celebrates artists making ground-breaking work in Scotland. It was also shortlisted for Filipa Braganca Award 2019, which honours solo female artists creating important work at The Edinburgh Fringe Festival.Her short film, Groom, was nominated for a Scottish BAFTA in 2022 (under Leyla Coll-O'Reilly).

Bill welcomes author Henriette Lazaridis back to the show. Henriette's debut novel, The Clover House, was a Boston Globe bestseller and a Target Emerging Authors pick. Her work has been published in such outlets as Elle, Forge, Narrative Magazine, The New York Times, New England Review, The Millions, WBUR’s Cognoscenti and Pangyrus, and she is a recipient of a Massachusetts Cultural Council Artists Grant. Henriette earned degrees in English literature from Middlebury College, Oxford University, where she was a Rhodes Scholar, and the University of Pennsylvania. Having taught English at Harvard, she now teaches at GrubStreet in Boston. Her latest novel is Terra Nova.

Bill welcomes award-winning author Lydia Millet back to the show. Lydia is the author of A Children's Bible, a finalist for the National Book Award and a New York Times Top 10 book of 2020, among other works of fiction. She has won awards from PEN Center USA and the American Academy of Arts and Letters and been shortlisted for the National Book Award, National Book Critics Circle Award, and Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Her story collection Love in Infant Monkeys was a Pulitzer Prize finalist. Her latest novel is Dinosaur. She lives in Tucson, Arizona.

Bill welcomes author Priscilla Long to the show. Priscilla is a Seattle-based writer of poetry, creative nonfiction, science, history, and fiction, and a long-time independent teacher of writing. Her seventh book is Dancing with the Muse in Old Age. Her two poetry books are Holy Magic and Crossing Over: Poems. Her awards include a National Magazine Award for a science-based feature. Her how-to-write book is The Writer's Portable Mentor: A Guide to Art, Craft, and the Writer's Life. Other books are a collection of memoirist essays, Fire and Stone: Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? and Minding the Muse: A Handbook for Painters, Composers, Writers, and Other Creators. Her first book was Where the Sun Never Shines: A History of America’s Bloody Coal Industry.

Bill welcomes filmmaker and debut author Brian O'Hare to the show. Brian O’Hare is a graduate of the US Naval Academy and former US Marine Corps officer. His career began in a Baltimore bar, the legendary Club Charles, where director John Waters cast him to appear in his film Cry Baby. Currently, he’s an award-winning writer and filmmaker living in Los Angeles. His work has appeared in War, Literature and the Arts; Santa Fe Writers Project; Hobart; and other journals, and he has been nominated for two Pushcart Prizes. He was named a Writing Fellow at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and recently served as Visiting Writer at CUNY/Kingsborough (Brooklyn). He’s currently at work on his debut novel. His short story collection, Surrender, is his first published book.

Bill welcomes novelist, violinist, and arts lecturer Erica Miner back to the show. Former Metropolitan Opera Orchestra violinist Erica is an award-winning author, lecturer, screenwriter, and arts journalist. Erica’s debut novel, Travels with my Lovers, won the Fiction Prize in the Direct from the Author Book Awards. Her screenplays have won awards in the Santa Fe, WinFemme and Writer’s Digest competitions. Erica’s 3-part Julia Kogan “Opera Mystery” novel series, released by Level Best Books starting on Oct. 28, 2022, with Aria for Murder, in which young violinist Julia Kogan investigates murder and mayhem behind the Met’s “Golden Curtain.” Erica’s real-life experiences working with operatic superstars such as Luciano Pavarotti lend authenticity to the ale. Sequels take place at the Santa Fe and San Francisco Operas. A resident of the Pacific Northwest, Erica is a top speaker and lecturer on opera and writing. In addition to pre-concert lectures for the Seattle Symphony, Erica regularly presents for Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at the University of California San Diego and University of Washington; Creative Retirement Institute at Edmonds College; Wagner Societies in Boston, New York, the Bay Area, Los Angeles, San Diego, North Carolina and New South Wales (Sydney, Australia). As a lecturer in writing, she has presented for the WOTS, Fields End, and Los Angeles Writer Conferences.

In this special episode, your host Bill Kenower tells a short story about success, failure, parenting, and creativity. Bill is the author of Everyone Has What It Takes: A Writer’s Guide to the End of Self-Doubt,  Fearless Writing: How to Create Boldly and Write With Confidence, and Write Within Yourself: An Author’s Companion, and the Editor-in-Chief of Author magazine. In addition to his books, he’s been published in The New York Times, Writer’s Digest,Edible Seattle, Parent Map, and has been a featured blogger for the Huffington Post.

Bill welcomes memoirist and novelist Cheryl Klein to the show. Cheryl is the author of CRYBABY (Brown Paper Press), a memoir about wanting a baby and getting cancer instead. She also wrote a story collection, THE COMMUTERS (City Works Press) and a novel, LILAC MINES (Manic D Press). And three unpublished novels, which she still thinks are pretty great. She is also a Senior Editor and columnist for MUTHA Magazine, where she often writes about adoption, foster parenting, fear, and her hatred of LEGOs. Her stories and essays have appeared in Entropy, The Normal School, Blunderbuss, and several anthologies. Her work has been honored by the MacDowell residency program and the Center for Cultural Innovation.

Bill welcomes debut memoirist Brooke Siem to the show. Brooke Siem was among the first generation of teens to be medicated with antidepressants. After spending half her life—and her entire adult life—on antidepressants, she wondered: Who might I be without them? Unfurled against a global backdrop, Brooke's writing, speaking, and work as an award-winning chef chronicles explosive and terrifying antidepressant withdrawal and the fight to manage the modern mental health system, all while demanding hope and forgiveness in the name of healing. Her debut memoir, MAY CAUSE SIDE EFFECTS, was published in September 2022 and was named as one of Good Morning America's Most Anticipated Reads. Her work on antidepressant withdrawal has also appeared in The Washington Post, The New York Post, Psychology Today, Insider, Mad In America, The Washington Examiner, and more. She is also a Food Network "Chopped" champion and author of the newsletter, Happiness Is A Skill.