Author2Author

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 And three unpublished novels, which she still thinks are pretty great.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.

Bill welcomes screenwriter and novelist Brian Herskowitz to the show. Brian has worked as a writer on series such as THE LEGENDARY JOURNEY’S OF HERCULES, BLOSSOM, DREAM ON, and TOUR OF DUTY.  He directed ODESSA OR BUST with Red Buttons, Jason Alexander, George Wendt, and Jason Schwartzman, MURRAY GHOST (short content series), and Produced Candace Bushnell’s The Broadroom (web series). Brian has taught the craft of screenwriting for over thirty years, starting with a stint with Writer’s Bootcamp, then at UCLA extensions, and for the last seventeen years, he has led the Boston University Writer in Hollywood Program. As an author, Brian’s first book was a textbook on screenwriting, PROCESS TO PRODUCT. His second book, CONCEPTUS, is a novel that grew out of one of his screenplays.

Bill welcomes debut novelist Julia Sullivan to the show. Julia started working on Bone Necklace more than twenty years ago, after visiting the Big Hole Battlefield in Wisdom, Montana. Julia first became interested in the Nez Perce story because of the great injustice that the tribe suffered. What kept her interested was their conduct during the war. While under attack, the Nez Perce won the respect of the soldiers sent to fight them and the civilian population. At the end of the war, Canada offered them political asylum. Julia is a lawyer in the United States and a solicitor in England & Wales. Throughout her career, she has worked to expose and root out injustice.

Bill welcomes YA novelist Sara Bennett Wealer to the show. Sara grew up in Manhattan, Kansas, where she sang in all the choirs and wrote for the high school newspaper. She majored in voice performance at the University of Kansas before deciding she had no business trying to make a career as an opera singer. She then transferred to journalism school, where no one cares if you can hit a high C or convincingly play a Valkyrie, and became a reporter covering everything from house fires to Hollywood premieres. These days, she writes event scripts and marketing copy while the sun is out. By night, she writes books for young adults, including her most recent, Grave Things Like Love.

Bill welcomes author Michael Oren to the show. Former Israeli Ambassador to the United States, Michael is the winner of both the Los Angeles Times History Book of the Year Award and the National Jewish Book Award (both for Six Days of War: June 1967 and The Making of the Modern Middle East), as well as a celebrated historian and diplomat. With Swann’s War, Michael Oren returns to his first love, fiction writing, bringing his immense creativity, intelligence, imagination, historical perspective and expertise to this unique crime novel.

Bill welcomes author and inspirational speaker Randye Kaye to the show. Randye harnesses the power of words in her work as a radio personality, improv and stage actor, drama teacher, humorist, podcast host, writer, motivational speaker, voice talent, and audiobook narrator. Her mission is to share her lessons of resilience, humor, and the power of words to help others live happier, with the energy to reach their goals. She wrote Happier Made Simple in response to readers of her first book, the memoir Ben Behind His Voices, and attendees of her presentations, who always asked, “With all you’ve been through, how do you stay so positive?”. Randye enjoys speaking to groups of doctors, nurses, medical students, families, providers, and legislators regarding the family experience when mental illness hits.

Bill welcomes debut novelist Mark A. Salter to the show. Like many Americans, Mark A. Salter has a deep love for football–both college and professional. He has an insider’s perspective on both worlds, given that he played the sport in high school and at Canisius College and even had a brief stint with the New York Giants before earning his master’s degree from Carnegie Mellon University. While numbers had ruled his career, writing literary fiction and reading philosophy have been his favorite pastimes for decades. He resides with his wife in Jupiter, Florida, where he is a member of the South Florida Writers Association and has won several short story contests. In his debut novel, The Sins of the Tribe, Salter explores the impact of intense tribalism and its resulting dehumanization through the gripping tale of two Southern brothers on the fictional but all-too-realistic Bastille University Tribe football team.

Bill welcomes National Book Award winner Andrea Barrett to the show. Andrea is the author of ten works of fiction, including the National Book Award–winning Ship Fever and Pulitzer Prize finalist Servants of the Map, and her most recent, Natural History. She is the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and an NEA Fellowship, as well as a finalist for the Story Prize and a recipient of the Rea Award for the Short Story. Having lived in Rochester, New York, and western Massachusetts, Barrett now resides in the Adirondacks.