Episode 82: The Magicians and Mrs. Quent.
What if Jane Austen wrote fantasy novels? Galen Beckett discusses the influences that led him to write his Gothic fantasy novel, The Magicians and Mrs. Quent.

Episode 81: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.
Annie Barrows discusses how the passion for books and reading she shared with her aunt, Mary Ann Shaffer, led to their collaboration and how The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society grew from her aunt's visit to Guernsey, where she spent three days stuck in the airport and learning local history.

Episode 80: Fractured.
Karin Slaughter talks about Will Trent, agent in the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and hero of her new novel, Fractured, and how he gets drawn into a case filled with deep, dark secrets.

Episode 79: Shadows Return.
Lynn Flewelling shares what it's like to return to the favorite characters in the Night Runner series after taking time to write a different trilogy set in the same world 500 years earlier.

Episode 78: Jessica Z..
Every summer, Shawn Klomparens is kicked out of his writing studio so his mother-in-law can stay in the room during her summer-long visit. He shares how he overcomes these difficulties — and the music and books that inspire him while he's at work on a novel — in this intimate chat.

Bonus: Free Chapters of Garden Spells.
As a bonus for Bantam Dell podcast listeners, here are three free chapters from Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen for you to read. In a garden surrounded by a tall fence, tucked away behind a small, quiet house in an even smaller town, is an apple tree that is rumored to bear a very special sort of fruit. In this luminous debut novel, Sarah Addison Allen tells the story of that enchanted tree, and the extraordinary people who tend it....

Episode 77: Say Goodbye.
Lisa Gardner talks about the different ways in which a writer — especially a writer of creepy novels — sees the world, and discusses both her love of research and fascination with spiders.

Episode 76: No One You Know.
Michelle Richmond, author of No One You Know, talks about the joys of researching her protagonist Ellie's career as a coffee buyer, including Michelle's own love of coffee.

Episode 75: How to Talk to a Widower.
In this episode, Jonathan Tropper discusses how he came to the idea for How to Talk to a Widower and also touches on his experiences with Hollywood.

Episode 74: Vicki Lane.
When Vicki Lane signed up for a writing class, her writing teacher told her that she wasn't cut out to be a writer. She tells how this sparked her determination.