April 2024 Lineup

Episode 385 – April 2

In this episode, we feature M. Scott Douglass, acclaimed writer and publisher/managing editor at Main Street Rag Publishing Company, and his memoir, “8000 Mile Roll,” a story about a motorcycle adventure across America. Joseph Bathanti, former North Carolina Poet Laureate, says it is impossible to read the memoir “and not conjure Steppenwolf’s ‘Born to Be Wild,” the revving, reverberating anthem to the iconic film, Easy Rider.” This is a story about the places where Scott went and the people and stories he met along the way.

Episode 386 – April 9

In this episode, we feature acclaimed author Katherine Faulkner, and her novel, The Other Mothers . Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review) calls the book “[A] menace-infused thriller . . . Faulkner is a pro at ever-so-gradually ratcheting up the tension bit by tiny, spine-tingling bit. And, as the narrative deftly swings between timeframes . . . we get a vertiginous view of just how tightly a group of people’s lives can be inexorably twisted together. Faulkner pulls out all the psychological-thriller stops—and then some.”

Episode 387 – April 16

In this episode, we feature Dana Trent and her memoir, Between Two Trailers, a powerful story about a girl who escapes her childhood as a preschool drug dealer in rural Indiana, to become a graduate of Duke Divinity School. Publishers Weekly calls the memoir a “blend of grit and hope.” Other reviews invoke the phrases: “luscious prose,” “ludicrously good plot,” “unflinching truth,” “full of resilience and redemption,” and “a memoir in the vein of great literary coming-of-age narratives.” The book is a fast, surprising, shocking, and inspiring read.

Episode 388 – April 23

In this episode, we feature Brooke Shaffner and her debut novel Country of Under, which won the 1729 Book Prize, was a runner-up for the PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction, and was shortlisted for Dzanc Books’ Prize for Fiction and Black Lawrence Press’s Big Moose Prize. Author Helen Benedict says this is “a novel about the pain and wonder of being between identities. Between male and female. Citizen and immigrant. Fulfilled and empty. Outsider and insider. A novel of our time, told with deep compassion and striking beauty.”

Episode 389 – April 30

In this episode,  we welcome critically acclaimed Southern fiction writer, Gerry Wilson, and talk with her about her new historical fiction novel, That Pinson Girl. While it’s a story that takes place in Mississippi during World War I, there are plenty of aspects of the plot that are relevant to today’s world. Clifford Garstang, author of Oliver’s Travels and The Shaman of Turtle Valley says, “devastating and beautifully written, Gerry Wilson’s That Pinson Girl is at once a heart-rending tragedy and a testament to the indomitable human spirit.”