This week’s guest is Jane Rubin (In The Hands of Women, Level Best Books, May 2023). Jane’s novel, an historical fiction set in 1908 NYC and centering around both the suffragette movement and early reproductive rights issues, was inspired not only by Jane’s great grandmother but also her lived experience as an ovarian cancer survivor. Her health concerns drove her decision to forego an agent search and push for an expedited pub date with a small press, which has led to two published novels and a contract for two more. We discuss the importance of defining your book’s target market and how going after larger venues with honorariums can help finance a book tour.

With an exten­sive health­care back­ground and a pas­sion for med­ical and women’s immi­grant his­to­ry, Jane Rubin began writ­ing in 2009 after a genetically based can­cer diag­no­sis. Her novels have culminated in a four-book deal with Lev­el Best Books (Thread­bare, In the Hands of Women-2023, and Over There-2025), fol­low­ing the fic­tion­al life of her great-grandmother’s family. Her characters confront the restrictive reproductive rights of the time, the limited roles for women, and the perilous road to financial success.

Her great-grandmother, Tillie, arrived in New York City in 1866 at sixteen and married a man twelve years her senior, later dying of ’a woman’s disease.’ Ms. Rubin was determined to give Tillie a fictional life, imagining her rags-to-riches life and fight with terminal disease. Threadbare was awarded First Place by the International Impact Book Awards and a Five Star designation by Readers’ Favorite. Ms. Rubin's third book, Over There, transports her characters into the thick of WW1. Over There was shortlisted by the Historical Novel Society, 2024 First Chapters Competition.

To learn more about Jane, click here.

Our guest this week is Hope Gibbs (Where The Grass Grows Blue, Red Adept, May 2023). Hope looked around as her kids left for college and thought what now? The result is this southern women’s fiction/contemporary romance mash-up that’s won 13 major writing awards and been licensed by Blackstone for an audiobook release. We discuss how a chapter her editor had her take out because it didn’t advance the story later became the perfect epilogue, how she joined WFWA and immediately binge watched every webinars we offered to learn what she didn’t know, and how, after years of saying no to requests from her five kids, her approach to marketing her debut was to say yes to every offer that came her way.

Hope Gibbs grew up in rural Scottsville, Kentucky. As the daughter of an English teacher, she was raised to value the importance of good storytelling from an early age. Today, she’s an avid reader of women’s fiction. Drawn to multi-generational family sagas, relationship issues, and the complexities of being a woman, she translates those themes into her own writing. A mother of five, she loves playing tennis, pickleball, singing karaoke, and curling up on her favorite chair with a book. She holds a B.A. from Western Kentucky University and is a member of the Women’s Fiction Writers Association, the Women’s National Book Association, a tour guide for Bookish Road Trip, and the co-host of the Authors Talking Bookish Podcast.

To learn more about Hope, click here.

This week’s podcast guest is Michelle Paris (New Normal, Apprentice House Press, May 2023). We discuss writing as a catharsis for personal grief, creating a character who’s a stand-in for your own alter ego, the benefits of working with critique groups for useful and safe advice, and how editorial feedback is only useful when you’re ready to hear it. And tune in to hear how Michelle worked with students at the country’s only college-run press at Loyola University in Maryland to bring her book to market.

Michelle Paris is an award-winning Maryland author who writes about hope with humor. Her novels, New Normal and Eat Dessert First, both published by Apprentice House Press, deal with serious subjects told in a heart-felt and humorous way. Michelle has been featured in The Baltimore Sun, The Wall Street Journal, WYPR and WJZ-News Channel 13. Her essays about grief and mid-life dating have appeared in multiple editions of Chicken Soup for the Soul inspirational book series. She is enjoying chapter two of her life with her husband, Kevin, and is a proud cat lady.

To learn more about Michelle, click here.