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Molly Giles is an award-winning fiction writer. Her first collection of stories, ROUGH TRANSLATIONS won the Flannery O’Connor Prize for Short Fiction, the Boston Globe Award, and the Bay Area Book Reviewers award. Four subsequent collections—CREEK WALK, BOTHERED, ALL THE WRONG PLACES, and WIFE WITH KNIFE, have also won awards, including the Small Press Best Fiction Award, the California Commonwealth Silver Medal for Fiction, the Spokane Short Fiction Award, and the Leapfrog Press Global Fiction Prize.  She published her first novel, IRON SHOES, in 2000, and twenty-three years later, published its sequel, THE HOME FOR UNWED HUSBANDS. Giles has taught fiction writing at San Francisco State University, University of Hawaii, San Jose State University, the National University of Ireland at Galway, the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, and at numerous writing conferences, including The Community of Writers and Naropa. Her work has been included in many anthologies including the O.Henry and Pushcart Prize (three times), and she has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Arkansas Arts Council. She has won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Book Reviewing, been awarded residences at MacDowell, Yadoo, and The House of Literature in Paros, Greece. Life Spans is her first memoir.

Bill revisits his conversation with Andre Dubus last year after his release of Such Kindness.Andre Dubus III’s nine books include the New York Times’ bestsellers House of Sand and Fog, The Garden of Last Days, and his memoir, Townie, a #4 New York Times bestseller and a New York Times "Editors Choice". His work has been included in The Best American Essays and The Best Spiritual Writing anthologies, and his novel, House of Sand and Fog was a finalist for the National Book Award, a #1 New York Times Bestseller, and was made into an Academy Award-nominated film starring Ben Kingsley and Jennifer Connelly. His 2013 novella collection, Dirty Love, was listed as a “Notable Book” by The Washington Post and The New York Times, and was named a New York Times Editors’ Choice” and a Kirkus “Starred Best Book of 2013”.  His 2018 novel, Gone So Long, was named on many “Best Books” lists, including selection for The Boston Globe’s “Twenty Best Books of 2018” and “The Best Books of 2018, Top 100”, Amazon. His most recent novel, Such Kindness, was one of Amazon’s “The Best Books of 2023, Top 100”. His acclaimed collection of personal essays, Ghost Dog: On Killers and Kin, was published in March 2024. He is also the editor of Reaching Inside: 50 Acclaimed Authors on 100 Unforgettable Short Stories, 

Miles Harvey is the author of The Registry of Forgotten Objects: Stories, which won The Journal Non/Fiction Prize and was published by Mad Creek Books, the trade imprint of The Ohio State University Press. His fiction has appeared in Ploughshares, Conjunctions, AGNI, North American Review, Chicago Quarterly Review, The Michigan Quarterly Review, Nimrod, Fiction Magazine, and others, and has received a Distinguished Story in The Best American Short Stories, 2004, a Special Mention in Pushcart Prize XXXVII: Best of the Small Presses, 2013, and the Sherwood Anderson Fiction Award from Mid-American Review, 2015. His most recent work of nonfiction, The King of Confidence (Little, Brown & Co., 2020), was longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction and was named as a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice selection. He also wrote The Island of Lost Maps (a national and international bestseller for Random House, 2000) and Painter in a Savage Land (Random House, 2008). His play, How Long Will I Cry, premiered in 2013 at Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago. Harvey teaches creative writing at DePaul University in Chicago, where he chairs the Department of English and is a founding editor of Big Shoulders Books, a nonprofit, social-justice publisher. 

Jeffery Deaver is the award-winning #1 international and New York Times bestselling author of the Lincoln Rhyme, Colter Shaw and Kathryn Dance series, among many others. Deaver’s work includes forty-seven novels, one hundred short stories, and a nonfiction law book. His books are sold in 150 countries and translated into twenty-five languages.  Isabella Maldonado is the award-winning and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of the Nina Guerrera, Daniela Vega and Veranda Cruz series. Her books are published in twenty-four languages.  Their co-authored book, FATAL INTRUSION, is the launch of a new series featuring Homeland Security agent Carmen Sanchez and Professor Jake Heron. 

Maribeth Fischer is the founder and executive director of the Rehoboth Beach Writers Guild. She has received three Delaware Division of the Arts Fellowships and two Pushcart Prizes for her essays. Her two previous books, The Language of Good-bye and The Life You Longed For, have been sold in six foreign countries. She holds an MFA in creative writing from Virginia Commonwealth University. Her latest novel is A Season of Perfect Happiness. 

Bill welcomes poet and fiction writer Emily Jon Tobias to the show. Emily is an American author and poet. She is an award-winning writer whose work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, along with other honorable mentions, and has been featured in literary journals such as Santa Clara Review, Talking River Review, Flying South Literary Journal, Furrow Literary Journal, The Opiate Magazine, The Ocotillo Review, Jerry Jazz Musician, Typehouse Literary Magazine, Tahoma Literary Review, Big Muddy, Spoon Knife, Peauxdunque Review, and elsewhere. Midwestern-raised, she now lives and writes on the coast of Southern California and holds a Master of Fine Arts in Writing from Pacific University Oregon. MONARCH: STORIES (Black Lawrence Press, 2024) is her debut collection and winner of the 2024 American Book Fest International Book Awards in the short story collection category. 

Bill welcomes debut novelist Jill Fordyce to the show. Jill received a law degree from Santa Clara University in 1989. For the majority of her law career, Jill’s practice was devoted to representing indigent criminal defendants on appeal. She has argued cases before the California courts of appeal and the California Supreme Court. While practicing law, Jill studied writing through the Stanford Continuing Education creative writing program. Belonging is her debut novel.

Bill welcomes debut memoirist Suzette Mullen to the show. Suzette Mullen is the founder of Your Story Finder nonfiction book coaching and a founding board member of the Lancaster (PA) LGBTQ+ Coalition. Her “tiny love story,” the seed which became her new book, The Only Way Through is Out, was published in the New York Times “Modern Love” column. Mullen is a graduate of Harvard Law School and Wellesley College.

Bill welcomes debut novelist Sydney Morrison to the show. Sidney lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Karan. He is a retired teacher and school principal and now a part-time educational consultant and leadership coach. Frederick Douglas is his first novel.

Bill welcomes essayist and memoirist Kelly McMasters to the show. Kelly McMasters is an essayist, professor, mother, and former bookshop owner. She is the author of the Zibby Book Club pick The Leaving Season: A Memoir-in-Essays (WW Norton) and co-editor of the ABA national bestseller Wanting: Women Writing About Desire (Catapult). Her first book, Welcome to Shirley: A Memoir from an Atomic Town, was listed as one of Oprah's top 5 summer memoirs and is the basis for the documentary film ‘The Atomic States of America,’ a 2012 Sundance selection, and the anthology she co-edited with Margot Kahn, This Is the Place: Women Writing About Home (Seal Press, 2017), was a New York Times Editor’s Choice. Her essays, reviews, and articles have appeared in The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Paris Review Daily, The American Scholar, Literary Hub, Newsday, River Teeth: A Journal of Narrative Nonfiction, Romper, and The Rumpus, among others.