For the first time in its decades of existence, the Washington State-based independent press Empty Bowl has published the work of an Asian American female author.

The work in question is Virga, a full-length book of poetry written before and during the pandemic, and the author is Shin Yu Pai, a writer, photographer, and editor with no shortage of accolades. Virga is Pai’s eleventh collection of work, and her first full-length book of poetry in eight years. It follows and consists of unpublished poems written during the time that Pai assembled her last project ENSO, which was released by Entre Rios Books at the beginning of the pandemic and made Boston Globe’s “Best Books of 2020” list.

For this bonus episode host Hiba Tahir interviews celebrated writer, illustrator, and poet, Jasmin Kaur. They discuss her debut poetry and prose collection, When You Ask Me Where I’m Going, published by HarperCollins.

Adrienne Brodeur’s debut memoir Wild Game: My Mother, Her Lover, and Me tells the story of the affair the author’s mother Malabar had with a close family friend. Early on, she drew her daughter, Brodeur, into the subterfuge, a conspiracy which lasted years and had long-lasting effects on Brodeur.

The memoir was bid on by fourteen U.S. publishers in a heated auction, with foreign rights sold in numerous countries. Entertainment Weekly called it a “twisted mother-daughter story” that “could be the next big memoir.” Film rights were preemptively bought by Chernin Entertainment, with Kelly Fremon Craig, director of “The Edge of Seventeen,” set to direct.

Poet January Gill O’Neil, author of the fall 2018 release Rewilding, might not believe that poetry is ever necessarily on the side of power— but she does equate the two.

“Poetry is power,” O’Neil insists. “Making the choice to sit down and write or read a poem is power. It’s a choice. It’s self-care. It’s the start of a revolution. It’s change. Like a photo, a poem captures a moment. And that is powerful.” 

The Cave Canem fellow has been published widely to much critical acclaim, including in The New York Times Magazine, the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-A-Day series, American Poetry Review, New England Review, Ploughshares and Ecotone, among others. In 2018, she was awarded a Massachusetts Cultural Council grant, and from 2012-2018, she served as executive director of the Massachusetts Poetry Festival.

When she was accepted to a California writers' workshop in 2004, author Devi Laskar wanted to dust off an old short story she had written about arranged marriage. However, a good friend from graduate school, who was also attending, insisted she write something new. 

“So I wrote a family story about a woman and her kids and her dog,” Laskar explained. “I was torn between my love for The House on Mango Street — and my desire to emulate it — and my years of training as a reporter.” 

Nafiza Azad has always been annoyed by Shakespeare’s “What’s in a name?” question. 

“It centers the Western perspective as the only one that matters,” the YA author explained. “[But] a name has all sorts of meanings and functions in different cultures around the world.” 

This fact is reflected in the city of Noor, the setting of Azad’s diverse debut novel The Candle and the Flame. Names play a prominent role in the novel, as the main character Fatima, one of the few people left in Noor after a tribe of djinns slaughters the human residents, acquires the power to divine the true names of djinn. “Names for the djinn are very important,” Azad said. 

In this episode Hiba talks to Kris Waldherr, author of THE LOST HISTORY OF DREAMS, releasing April 9th by Atria Books. Waldherr details a bit about her process for writing the novel, how she came to be a novelist, and a few other related topics.

Brandy Colbert wrote the contemporary YA Finding Yvonne to fill a space.

“I wanted to explore the life of an unapologetically sexual black teenage girl, which we don’t often see— at least, not without their lives being ‘ruined’ shortly thereafter,” Colbert said. 

The novel features a teen violinist forced to make a difficult decision when she becomes unexpectedly pregnant. National Book Award finalist Elana K. Arnold called it “a pitch-perfect song of a book about all the ways a heart can break and mend.”

What if the Hunger Games were set in a fantasy world?

Contemplating that question during a discussion with her sisters sparked the idea behind YA author and popular designer Hafsah Faizal’s debut, We Hunt the Flame, a YA novel that took “four years and many iterations” to complete.

We Hunt the Flame features a huntress masquerading as a boy, as well as the prince sent to assassinate her. Evelyn Skye, New York Times bestselling author of The Crown’s Game series, called the ancient Arabia inspired fantasy “danger, magic, and hope all wrapped into one.”

“I never could quite escape the fact that I wanted to write books,” said former journalist-turned-novelist Sarah Henning. “I think it’s impossible for us to run away from who we really want to be…  Dreams don’t die even when we’re adults and have a mortgage and kids. Some people stuff those dreams down and let them rot in their guts and some of us go for it, even if it seems selfish or silly, though dreams never are. Anyone who tells you that you’re either of those things for going after what you want most likely has a big dream-shaped ulcer in their gut.”

Novelist Janet McNally’s latest book was inspired by her love for fairy tales and ballet. 

In The Looking Glass, Sylvie Blake’s older sister Julia disappears, leaving Sylvie struggling to live up to Julia’s legacy at the National Ballet Theatre Academy. With the help of their old storybook, Sylvie sets out to find her sister and ultimately learns that “the damsel in distress is often the only one who can save herself.” 

In March, sisters Kate and Elizabeth Corr finished their popular The Witch’s Kiss trilogy with its final installment The Witch’s Blood and faced some conflicting feelings. 

“On one hand, we’re really proud of what we’ve written, and kind of amazed that we’ve had three books published in less than two years,” said Kate of the fast-paced and character-driven Sleeping Beauty retelling.

“On the other hand, we’ve spent so much time with Merry and Leo and the rest of our characters— so much time in their world— that saying goodbye to them was really sad,” said Liz. “It’s sad thinking that we’ll probably never write about them again.” 

Michigan-based author, blogger, and literary agent Eric Smith is no stranger to the public eye. A popular and engaging social media user, the New Jersey native regularly and enthusiastically interacts with his literary followers and has gone viral several times. 

Smith’s book-themed ramblings have appeared on Book Riot, Paste Magazine, Publishing Crawl, and Barnes & Noble’s blog. His own books have been published by Bloomsbury, Quick, and Flux. 

Smith, who began his publishing career in social media and marketing at Quirk Books, received his BA in English from Kean University and his MA in English from Arcadia University. 

He spoke to us about the intersection of his two equally compelling careers. 

HarperCollins cover designer Jenna Stempel-Lobell looked to both old covers and modern art to create the cover for one of her latest projects, American Street author Ibi Zoboi’s second novel Pride, a novel “especially suited” to her “typical design process.” 

In June, Simon & Schuster’s Salaam Reads imprint published Saints and Misfits, a stunning debut from Canadian teacher-turned-author S.K. Ali. Pitched as a “modern day My So-Called Life… starring a Muslim teen,” the novel centers on the life of a spunky hijabi protagonist, offering a fresh perspective in an otherwise saturated genre. Ali took time out of her busy schedule to answer a few questions about her writing process and about diversity in publishing.

Novelist Julie Israel describes her writing process in no uncertain terms. 

“It’s kind of like a bell graph,” she says, “where the thing being measured is chaos.” Similarly chaotic is her unconventional route to debut author stardom. Though she holds the expected B.A in creative writing, Israel prides herself on the more atypical entries in her resume - like her experience teaching English in Japan, which she best summarizes as “HOLY CULTURAL EXPOSURE, BATMAN.” 

New York Times bestselling author Julie Cantrell grew up in what she describes as a “rural, blue-collar Louisiana town,” where the possibility of becoming a novelist was “as far-fetched as becoming the Queen of England.”

Cantrell, who from a very young age had relied on writing as a way to process the world around her, found herself nevertheless convinced she would be wasting her scholarship if she chose to study the craft professionally. A high school English teacher told her to pursue something less wasteful.

Art Director Karen Horton has over a decade's worth of experience within the publishing industry. Currently at Henry Holt & Company, she's also produced creative work for publishers such as St. Martin’s Press, Oxford University Press, Little, Brown, and Company, and Flatiron Books. Here she answers a few questions about her experience, influences, process, and her own venture in developing an online design community. 

Mothering a daughter taught author Kris Waldherr just how ubiquitous one particularly popular storybook character— the elegant princess— can be.

“I was confronted by how impossible it is to avoid the marketing of princess clothing, toys, and films,” said Waldherr.  “From there, I began researching the historical realities of what it was really like to be young, royal, and unmarried. Turned out it was kind of awful for the most part despite the fabulous gowns and tiaras. Historically speaking, most of the time you were married off to someone who wasn’t Prince Charming to form political alliances, and then were under a lot of pressure to cough up a male heir.”

Greer Macallister tells people she writes fiction because she has no material for a memoir.

“I’m far too happy and therefore boring,” said the USA Today bestselling author of The Magician’s Lie. “My characters live far more exciting lives than I do.”

Macallister’s latest release, Girl in Disguise, is a testament to that claim. The “rip-roaring, fast paced treat” (according to Booklist) features real-life detective Kate Warne.

When HarperCollins cover designer Jenna Stempel was asked to design the cover for Angie Thomas’s The Hate U Give, she was sure that the book would prove to be successful.  She could not, however, have foreseen just how successful. 

“We always start off with the plan of writing alternative chapters, but [that] doesn’t always work out in practice. One of us might get stuck and take longer to work through a particular chapter, or she might want to keep going and complete the whole of that section.  Also, the chapter outline might well change as we write: characters do things we hadn't anticipated, resulting in the story changing or needing to be told in a different order. The important thing is to get the first draft finished! Editing too early can be fatal - you just end up going over and over the same ground.”