Why Authors Write host Mary J. Cronin welcomes Jessica Brilliant Keener for a moving conversation about why betrayal and broken trust were questions that haunted her while writing Evening Begins the Day. Keener shares how her interest in fractured family relationships, marital infidelity, and the complexity of human motives became the emotional core of her latest novel. Rather than lean on clichés about abandoned relationships, she digs into the complicated reasons people hurt each other deeply, then stay connected anyway.
Keener describes her discovery of the counting of the Omer, a 49 day spiritual practice from Jewish tradition, as turning point in her writing. She was. She recounts a moving real-life encounter involving her son and a young man named Nate, whose simple act of generosity led her to discover this ritual of reflection and healing. Keener explains how the counting of the Omer became a “lightweight but profound” framework for Evening Begins the Day that that connects the lives of her characters, from troubled teenagers to grieving adults.
Mary invites Jessica to open up about her writing process and the strategies she relies on to complete her novels. The result is a treasure trove of shared insights and lessons learned over a lifetime of writing across genres that includes bouncing back from over 300 rejections to publishing bestselling novels. Keener’s discipline includes sitting down to write 500 words, five days a week with no excuses. That routine, however, doesn’t prevent period of self-doubt and agonizing decisions to throw out big sections of her manuscript and start over when early drafts go off track.
Jessica wraps up the conversation by sharing her reflections on authorship with generous, hard-earned advice for writers at every stage of plot development and publication, including the importance of surrounding yourself with people who truly want your work to thrive.
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In this episode of Why Authors Write, Christopher Mirabile tells Mary J. Cronin what inspired him to create Silas Lopez as a quirky and deeply decent outsider detective hero in “The Washashore.” Mirabile opens up about applying his entrepreneur’s mindset to a career pivot into full-time fiction writing to create and launch a new mystery series set in Provincetown and Cape Cod, and how falling in love with his book’s main characters is an unexpected bonus.
A long-time reader of detective series and an enthusiastic fan of romance novels, Christopher deliberately embraced the challenges of creating a “franchise‑worthy” cast of characters, including an outsider-meets-local-girl love interest. To build out the arc of Silas’s relationship with Provincetown and his romance with Wren, he focused on writing these scenes first, to ensure that the chemistry among his characters was strong enough to sustain a series.
Talking about his writing process, Christopher admits that as a life-long writer who authored multiple business books, he had to learn that in fiction that first draft is just the start. With that in mind, he advises debut authors that multiple drafts and “revision, revision, revision” are the core of a well-written final manuscript.
Christopher draws on his decades of business experience to navigate the commercial side of publishing and selling a new novel, including a commitment to spend time mastering the nuances of social media platforms, website design, press releases, newsletters, and reader outreach.
For readers who enjoy atmospheric mysteries with heart, and for everyone who wonder if they could make a living as a full time author, take a look at Christopher’s blend of realism, encouragement, and hard‑earned wisdom.tions seriously—at any age.
Here's the link to watch this episode on my YouTube channel: /@WhyAuthorsWrite
What’s the best location for a compelling and surprising page-turner about obsession?
In this episode of @whyauthorswrite host Sara Stanton explores how bestselling novelist Chloe Michelle Howarth answers that question, in her latest book, “Heap Earth Upon It.” Set in a fictional rural Irish town in 1965, the novel follows the O’Leary siblings—Tom, Anna, Jack, and Peggy—as they arrive in Ballycrae seeking a new beginning, only to find that old secrets and dangerous fixations don’t stay buried for long.
Drawing from her upbringing in rural West Cork, Chloe anchors her characters in the drizzly winters, eerie quiet, and isolated landscapes of rural Ireland to create the perfect backdrop for a gothic tale steeped in sapphic obsession, family tension, and identity. She and Sara dig into the craft of telling a story of obsession from multiple points of view, with each character completely convinced that their version of events is the core truth.
Chloe and Sara explore why 1960s Ireland—especially rural Ireland—was the right era for this novel. Far from the image of the swinging ’60s, Chloe points out that Irish social change and counterculture arrived much later. She wanted to place a queer protagonist in a time and place with no language, references, or community for her queerness, forcing that self‑discovery to happen in a near vacuum. To pull this off, Chloe relied heavily on the RTÉ archives, immersing herself in contemporary radio and television to capture what people were hearing, gossiping about, and angered by in that exact moment.
Can novelists make a good living from their writing? Lori Gold answers that question and opens up on everything from the challenges of perfecting your query letter, to negotiating advances in this episode of WHY AUTHORS WRITE. Lori talks with host Kristie Dickinson about how too many plot twists forced her to revise her latest novel, “Kiss, Marry, Kill,” over and over again before it was ready for publication.
Listeners get an inside look at how her over‑complicated plot was pared down so the emotional core—and the twists—could really land.
Character building is where Lori feels most at home, and she breaks down how each of the three main characters came to live as a different facet of choice in Kiss, Marry, Kill:
- one who charges ahead and chooses selfishly,
- one who sees the world in rigid right vs. wrong,
- and one paralyzed by indecision and fear of choosing wrong.
Authors waiting for their breakthrough bestseller will especially appreciate Lori’s openness about the money and business realities of publishing: why most writers cannot live on royalties alone, how she combines teaching, retreats, and manuscript consulting with her own writing, what advances really look like, and the myth that a massive social media following is required for today’s authors.
Watch this episode of Lori Gold in conversation with Kristie Dickinson on the WHY AUTHORS WRITE YouTube channel!
Visit the Why Authors Write Channel to watch this episode. While you are there, PLEASE click to SUBSCRIBE and share the link with your friends and followers! /@WhyAuthorsWrite
Lori Gold offers us a rare blend of craft wisdom, industry transparency, and creative encouragement—especially for writers wrestling with big concepts, bigger doubts, and the question of how to build a life and earn a living by writing.
@kristiedickinson
If you have ever wondered what it takes to do justice to complicated, imperfect love stories in the full context of American history, don’t miss this conversation with Julie Dobrow on Why Authors Write.
Watch the full Julie Dobrow episode on Why Authors Write on YouTube --/@WhyAuthorsWrite
Why Authors Write features candid conversations with best-selling authors about what propels them from inspiration to publication. Weekly podcast episodes explore the powerful, emotional moments and creative ideas that shape the books we want to read.
Dobrow Episode Chapters:
00:00 The Power of Love in History
07:34 Elaine Goodale: A Trailblazer's Journey
13:18 Love and Loss: The Impact of Wounded Knee
19:41 The Struggles of a Writer and Mother
24:58 Reflections on Legacy and Identity
Julie Dobrow is a nonfiction author and Tufts University professor and researcher whose work focuses on biography and history, especially untold and under-told stories.
For more about Julie’s journey into the lives of Elaine Goodale and Charles Eastman, and what she learned along the way, visit her website
Fantastic conversation with award-winning author Christopher Castellani about his latest novels, “Last Seen” and “Leading Men.” Chris shares why he listens to his characters instead of trying to control the story line, how unsolved murders inspired him to write “Last Seen,” and the mix of fact and fiction he relied on get to the heart of the relationship between Tennessee Williams and Frank Merlo in “Leading Men.”
Castellani wraps up with reflections on the long road from the film option to the production of Leading Men and ends with a tantalizing preview of his NEXT novel;, a comic Italian American coming-of-age story.
Watch Chris NOW on my Why Authors Write YouTube Channel. /@WhyAuthorsWrite
Want more? SUBSCRIBE on YouTube for conversations with @annie_hartnett@elizabeth.graver@virginiapye@benshattuck_@ericjayd
New episodes every week.
In this episode of Why Authors Write Jonathan Losos, evolutionary biologist and lifelong cat lover, talks with Mary J Cronin about the secret language of cats, why he writes popular science books, and what he has learned about the wild beast on your sofa.
Sharing the surprising findings of his research, and heart-warming examples from his own multi-cat household, Losos explores how cross-breeding and selection, both natural and human-directed, have shaped today’s family cats to look and behave so differently from their ancestors. And he explains why even the best-behaved cat is still a predator at heart, with only one paw out of the wild.
Watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/WHvZvcYHyro
Chapters
00:00 The Science of Writing About Cats
04:30 Friends for Life
09:07 What Does That Meow Really Mean?
13:02 Breeding With Wildcats – Beauty and Danger
20:12 How Will Family and Feral Cats Evolve in a Changing World
24:21 Mapping a New Cat-Centric Research Quest
28:13 Why Cats Will Survive the Next Million Years
For the debut episode of my Why Authors Write podcast, I asked award-winning novelist and my Boston College colleague and friend, Elizabeth Graver, to share the motivations and creative origins of her celebrated novel Kantika.
Inspired by the life of Graver's maternal grandmother, Rebecca, Kantika traces a migration story from Istanbul to Barcelona and eventually to New York. As Graver reveals, the journey to writing this deeply personal story was just as complex.
Graver describes the “first seed” of the book: recording her grandmother’s voice on micro-cassette tapes when she was just 21 years old. She remembers Rebecca as a vivid storyteller — joyful, sensual, candid — yet her narratives contained gaps and mysteries. For decades, those recordings remained dormant while Graver wrote other novels. It wasn’t until later — as the older generation of her family aged, and as global conversations about immigration and history deepened — that she felt compelled to return to Rebecca’s story.
Watch this episode on the Why Authors Write channel on YouTube https://youtu.be/gcxCTfGWoV0?si=FI5wgnIsFPvVmafp
