Q&A with Danielle Bainbridge

Danielle Bainbridge is the author of the new book Dandelion: A Memoir in Essays. She also has written the book Currencies of Cruelty. She is Assistant Professor of Theatre, Black Studies, and Performance Studies at Northwestern University, and she lives in Chicago. 

 

Q: What inspired you to write Dandelion?

 

A: I initially set out to write just one essay (“The Hospital: The Spit in My Mouth Heals the Wounds on My Tongue”) about one particular hospitalization experience.

 

Once that got published I realized I had more to say about race and mental health and how Black women navigate these complex realities. So I wrote another essay… and another one … and then soon I had a series of short essays that I wasn’t sure what to do with.

 

Then I began thinking of them as a collection and the rest is history. So I guess the first essay inspired me to finish the collection. 

 

Q: The author Myriam Gurba said of the book, “Deftly reconstructs, in spare yet elegant prose, the beauty, pleasure, and horror of Black remembrance and Black forgetting...” What do you think of that assessment?

 

A: I think it’s interesting because so much of memoir is about what we remember and what we chose to withhold or forget. I was talking to my spouse the other day about how even with everything I’ve written in the book I still have so much more that could have been said.

 

I think that’s why I love essays so much. They force you to distill your thinking down to the most essential information and you can challenge and shift form and structure in interesting ways.

 

I was really touched that Myriam Gurba chose my book to win the Uplift Voices Award from Jaded Ibis Press and I cherish her assessment of the book. It gave me even more to think about!

 

Q: How was the book’s title chosen, and what does it signify for you?

 

A: So the book’s title comes from my family’s childhood nickname for me. Some members of my family still call me that actually, which I find sweet and endearing.

 

I think the title was meant to draw on the duality of the dandelion: that it’s something that is both a stubborn weed and a beautiful flower. As I was reflecting on the various stages of my life I felt that metaphor applied to me and my story so I chose the name based on that. 

 

Q: What impact did it have on you to write the book, and what do you hope readers take away from it?

 

A: Writing the book had a profound impact on how I relate to my mental health journey and to myself. I feel like it was one of the first times I gave myself permission to speak so freely and openly about the challenges I’ve faced in my life.

 

It honestly felt liberating to put it down on paper and publish it. It also felt (at times) terrifying because I kept realizing people would read it and engage with it and share it.

 

I hope that my readers are able to see themselves or someone they love in the pages of this book. I hope it gives them a greater sense of empathy and understanding for mental illness. And I hope it starts necessary conversations within their own community about the issues raised in the book. I really want this work to travel to the people who need it most. 

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: Right now I’m working on something totally different. I’m writing a novel called The Mondegreens about an improv comedy camp and cult run by a mysterious older Black woman named Sweet Mother Divine in upstate New York.

 

The protagonist, Sidra, is a young black woman who is tasked with a “mission of faith” to kill The Host--Sweet Mother Divine’s rival and a late night television host. But she has to determine if she wants to complete her mission or leave behind the camp for a life in late-night TV.

 

After working on so many heavy topics for so long I really wanted to do something that would be playful and funny, while also tackling some big questions about power, abuses of power, and human nature. It’s been a lot of fun jumping into fiction for my next project. 

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: Not at this time but thank you for the interview!

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb 

Q&A with Amaka Egbe

 

 

 

Amaka Egbe is the author of the new young adult novel Run Like a Girl.  

 

Q: What inspired you to write Run Like a Girl, and how did you create your character Dera?

 

A: The idea of Run Like a Girl came to me years ago, while I was just entering high school. In the city I went to high school, there were actually feeder high schools for 9th and 10th graders who would then go to one of three senior high schools for 11th and 12th grade.

 

While I was in the junior high school, I discovered that there wasn’t a track team for female athletes. While the 9th and 10th grade boys had their own team, 9th and 10th grade girls would need to join one of the senior high track teams.

 

This option wasn’t always accessible, as you would need your own transportation to practice. While many girls made it work out, the situation made me wonder what would happen if there wasn’t any alternative team for girls…which led to the basic premise of Run Like a Girl.

 

As for the character of Dera, she was easy to create! She started as a typical “tough girl” concept and became a more refined image the further I went in the story. 

 

There were certainly some differences between her original version and the one who made it to print (her name used to be Jordan, for example), but the core of her character has remained the same. Over time, I dug deeper into her background and motivations to bring out a more well-rounded and complex character.

 

Q: The author Mariko Turk called the book a “captivating debut about a girl fighting for herself and her dreams, told in a voice that is both funny and fierce.” What do you think of that description?

 

A: Thank you, Mariko; that was certainly the goal! I wanted to really highlight Dera’s determination to hopefully leave teens and children with positive stories about sticking to your dreams.

 

In life, people are often discouraged from chasing their dreams or put down for being themselves. I wanted to write something that helped nudge them away from self-doubt and towards self-love.

 

Additionally, I wanted to show how impactful community can be when it comes to someone trying to achieve something. When we have the support of our friends and family, arduous tasks can become that much more achievable.

 

As for the humor, that’s something I enjoy weaving into my work. While there is certainly a time and place for more somber texts, this was one that I didn’t want to be too preachy or heavy. Humor helped cut through the emotional moments and uplift the overall tone of the book.

 

Q: How was the book’s title chosen, and what does it signify for you?

 

A: When I was growing up, you’d often hear taunts like “you run like a girl,” “you throw like a girl,” “you do this like a girl.” Rather than stick with the negative connotation, I wanted to spin it into something positive and kind of reclaim the phrase and girlhood (as many others have done, too!).

 

Q: How would you describe Dera’s relationship with her parents?

 

A: Dera and her mom are like five and six! In other words, her and her mom are very close. Dera’s mother was her primary guardian for most of her life, so the two are very comfortable with each other.

 

Her father, on the other hand, is someone that Dera isn’t very familiar with at the beginning of the story. Due to the circumstances surrounding her parents’ divorce, he was estranged from Dera for many years with sporadic visits to keep their barely-there relationship alive.

 

On the surface, there’s a lot of discontent and tension between the two, but as you go through the story, you start to see that there’s more to their relationship than what’s immediately visible.

 

Exploring their relationship amid their past and their present cultural differences was one of the most interesting aspects of this story for me.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: A few different things, actually, in both the adult and young adult genres. What I think will be coming sooner than the other projects is an adult contemporary romance that follows a Nigerian-American young woman who’s trying to balance her family’s expectations, friendship drama, and romance that sprouts from a very unexpected place.

 

I have a few other projects in the works that I'll share as time passes.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: If you want to keep up with my activities, feel free to follow my Instagram account or subscribe to my newsletter!

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb 

Q&A with Fred Bowen

 

 

 

Fred Bowen is the author of the new middle grade novel Special Teams, the latest in his Fred Bowen Sports Story series. He lives in Silver Spring, Maryland. 

 

Q: What inspired you to write Special Teams, and how did you create your character Leo?

 

A: My son is the head baseball coach at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). He had a player who was a very good pitcher but also wanted to play in the field and bat when he wasn’t pitching. He was not as good a player as he was a pitcher.

 

After a couple seasons my son sat him down and told him, “Luke, you are just going to have to be satisfied with being the best pitcher in the conference.”

 

He did become the best pitcher in the conference for the next two seasons. He was drafted by the Washington Nationals and is now pitching in their minor league system.

 

In Special Teams, Leo wants to play wide receiver because those are the players who score touchdowns and get all the glory. His particular skill set, however, makes him better suited to be a defensive back. The book is about how Leo comes to terms with that.

 

The writer and professor Scott Galloway has advised young people (mostly young men) not to “follow their dreams” but instead to find something they are good at and that contributes to society. I think that is good advice and applicable to sports and life in general.

 

Q: What do you think the book says about the role of special teams players?

 

A: I think it says that a team needs lots of different kinds of players with different kinds of skills. Not everyone can play the glamour positions – quarterback, wide receiver, running back – but everyone can help in the best way they know how.

 

The special teams players, the players who are on the field for punts and kickoffs, are important too. They sometimes are the difference in the final score.

 

Q: How did you research the book, and did you learn anything that especially surprised you?

 

A: Years ago, I listened to a friend’s presentation on one of her children’s books. She described all the research she did to write the book. Later I confessed to her that I felt like a fraud because I didn’t do anywhere near the research for my books that she did for hers. She said, “Fred, you have been researching your books for your entire life.”

 

In a way that’s true. I write sports books for kids and I have been a sports fan since I was 5 years old. I also coached more than 30 youth sports teams. That passion for sports has helped me get 30 books written and published.

 

For Special Teams, however, I did have to do some online research. I was surprised to find so many terrific videos on YouTube showing drills for defensive backs. I described Leo doing some of those drills in the book.

 

I also researched the players who have scored the most “non-offensive” touchdowns in the history of the National Football League (NFL). Those are touchdowns that are scored when the other team started with possession of the ball. They are plays such are kick returns, interceptions, etc.

 

I write about some of those players in the special sports history chapter that I put in the back of each one of my Fred Bowen Sports Story series books.

 

Q: What do you hope readers take away from the story?

 

A: Most of all, I want my readers to have fun. I have written 30 books in the last 30 years and that is always my overriding objective when I write a book. The point is to make the reader want to know what is going to happen next and by doing so fall in love with reading.

 

A couple years ago I read the obituary of the writer Dan Greenburg. He wrote, among other things, the kids book series The Zack Files. He said, “There’s nothing more fulfilling than hearing that you’ve turned a kid on to books. That’s enough for a career right there.”

 

Over the years I have had dozens of people tell me that my books have turned their kid into a reader. I hope Special Teams does that with more kids.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I am taking a bit of a break from writing books. I have had 21 books published in the last 16 years. So I think I deserve one.

 

I also stopped writing my weekly kids’ sports column for The Washington Post when the paper discontinued the KidsPost page in 2023. (The Post now has a different kids section under the KidsPost banner.)

 

I am still writing. My daughter gave me Storyworth as a gift last Christmas. Kerry sends me a question every week and I answer it in the form of an email. Storyworth collects the questions and answers and will turn them into a book after a year.

 

For example, last week’s question was: What were you like when you were 30? While I was tempted to give my all-time shortest answer … a thinner redhead … I wrote an essay about what my life was like at that age.

 

The gift has proven to be great fun and a wonderful way for Kerry and me to “talk” to one another. It has also kept my writing skills in tune.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: As I have mentioned above, I have been writing for kids for a long time. I am very proud of my books and Washington Post columns. But most of all, writing the books, visiting schools and speaking at conferences have made my life more fun. It has been a wonderful second career (I was a lawyer for 30 years).

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Fred Bowen. 

Q&A with Johnny Compton

 

 

 

Johnny Compton is the author of the new story collection Midnight Somewhere. His other books include The Spite House.  

 

Q: Over how long a period did you write the stories collected in Midnight Somewhere?

 

A: Some of these stories were published in other magazines or anthologies several years ago, but most of the previously unpublished stories were written within the last five years or so.

 

Q: The author L.P. Hernandez said of the book, “Compton shines a light on the walkways between liminal spaces, invigorating tropes with fresh perspectives.” What do you think of that description?

 

A: I'm grateful for L.P.'s positive feedback to the book, firstly. I think it's a fitting description of this collection.

 

"Liminal space" is a popular term in the horror community currently, and I love to see it in use, but I also think of it in a more classical sense, which is partly what my writing explores. Old haunted houses, the woods at night, and abandoned churches are, to me, liminal spaces just as much as the famous "backrooms."

 

I appreciate L.P. saying I'm offering a fresh perspective to the tropes I explore, because I love vintage elements of horror, but I like adding something unexpected, where appropriate, to the scares people might be more familiar with.

 

Q: How was the book’s title chosen, and what does it signify for you?

 

A: I came up with the title. To me it signifies that the dark is always present, even when it's not hovering high over our heads. Midnight is often associated with an eeriness, but also a certain amount of magic.

 

These stories aren't exclusively set at night, at least not every scene, but each evokes the feeling of thinking anything could be out there in the world after dark. Things you don't believe in, things you've been told can't be real, all of it's possible at midnight, and it's always midnight somewhere.

 

Q: What do you hope readers take away from the book?

 

A: Hopefully readers come away entertained, terrified, moved emotionally a little bit, and even amused.

 

It's a book that showcases my range. There's monster horror, there are ghost stories, there's a crime story, some harder to identify fiction on the more bizarre side, and even some comedic horror. I want readers to feel like they've experienced a variety of sensations.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: Working on my fourth novel, a crime horror hybrid about a violent man with a criminal past returning to his hometown to try to solve the murder of his childhood friend.

 

I'm also working on a sci-fi horror novella inspired by The Thing, The Philadelphia Experiment, the short story "The Fly," and a little more.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: Horror has had a great 2025. I'm thrilled to be part of it. I love this genre.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb 

Dec. 12

 

 

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
Dec. 12, 1821: Gustave Flaubert born.

Q&A with Phaedra Patrick

 

Photo by Samral Photography

 

 

Phaedra Patrick is the author of the new novel The Time Hop Coffee Shop. Her other books include The Messy Lives of Book People. She lives in Saddleworth, UK. 

 

Q: What inspired you to write The Time Hop Coffee Shop, and how did you create your character Greta?

 

A: I’d always wanted to write a book about a family who were once famous for their coffee commercials. I’m not quite sure where the idea originally came from, but it’s one I’ve had for a long time.

 

I’m fascinated by actors or pop stars who were once in the public eye and what happens to them when the spotlight fades. People still recognise them, but they have to return to and adjust to living a “normal” life.

 

This concept sparked my idea for my character Greta Perks. Once the quintessential wife and mum, starring in the iconic Maple Gold coffee commercials on TV, that glamorous side of her life has evaporated.

 

She’s separated from her husband, Jim, who once starred alongside her, and their adorable toddler daughter is now an opinionated teenager. Greta looks back and longs for the approval and adulation that fame once gave her.

 

Exploring this tension—between the perfect persona she projected, and the person she is now—helped me to shape Greta as a very ordinary, flawed human, almost grieving for the “perfect” version of herself.

 

Q: In the book's Author’s Note, you write, “This story marks a bit of a pivot from my previous feel-good novels…” Can you say more about that?

 

A: My seven previous novels have been uplifting, feel-good, book-club-style fiction, whereas The Time Hop Coffee Shop steps into magical-realism territory. There’s always been a touch of fairy-tale charm in my writing, and this story allowed me to lean further into that, into a genre I’d never fully explored before.

 

It took me a while to relax into it and to start conjuring up an alternate world for Greta. Her longing for the perfect life she used to enjoy in the past begins when she stumbles across a mysterious coffee shop.

 

There, she discovers that drinking a cup of magical coffee transports her into the glossy, idyllic town of Mapleville—the make-believe place from the adverts she once starred in, now brought to life.

 

Q: How did you create the world of Mapleville?

 

A: When creating Mapleville, I imagined those classic coffee commercials from decades past, where the women wore elegant suits and pearls, and called everyone “darling.” The men were handsome, in suits and with slicked-back hair.

 

Everything was immaculate, with the sun shining, white picket fences, pristine gardens, no litter in sight, and a sense that everyone was fulfilled. In that world, a cup of coffee could seemingly fix anything. That polished, slightly surreal aesthetic became the foundation for Mapleville.

 

Q: What do you hope readers take away from the story?

 

A: I hope the story gives readers plenty to think and talk about—especially in book clubs. Many of us wish for change, or for things to have turned out differently. However, if you could actually drink a magical cup of coffee and transform your life into something “perfect,” would you truly want to live that life?

 

That’s the dilemma Greta faces as she slips between her real life and the seemingly perfect world of Mapleville. The heart of the story is her journey toward recognising what she truly wants—and deciding which life she will ultimately choose.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: The Time Hop Coffee Shop is my eighth novel, and I’ve just begun writing my ninth. I can’t say too much about it yet, but I always gravitate toward subjects that mean something to me, such as libraries, charm bracelets, hotels, and gemstones.

 

Book Nine follows that same path of writing about something I love. I also enjoy exploring families, dynamics, relationships, legacies, and weaving in mystery and intrigue. My new novel will bring all those elements together, and I’m thoroughly enjoying diving into it.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: The Time Hop Coffee Shop is my first book with beautiful sprayed edges and gold lettering. I hadn’t encountered sprayed edges before, so it was incredibly exciting when my editor, Erika, told me it would have these special details.

 

It feels like a very special edition—perfect for gifting to yourself or the book lovers in your life. The cover reflects the enchantment of the story inside.

 

And finally, I just want to say a big thank you to readers, bloggers, librarians, and booksellers everywhere for supporting and championing my books. I wouldn’t be here without you.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Phaedra Patrick. 

Q&A with Emily Hauser

Photo by Faye Thomas Photography

 

 

Emily Hauser is the author of the new book Penelope's Bones: A New History of Homer's World through the Women Written Out of It. Her other books include the novel For the Most Beautiful. She is a senior lecturer in classics and ancient history at the University of Exeter in the UK. 

 

Q: What inspired you to write Penelope’s Bones, and how did you choose the women to include in the book?

 

A: I have read and studied Homer’s epics – the Iliad and Odyssey – for decades now. I still remember that first thrill of reading the Odyssey in ancient Greek, and it’s an excitement, a fascination with these millennia-old texts that has never left me.

 

Yet I had always felt there was a problem at the heart of the epics: on the one hand, women are hugely important to the stories. Just think of Helen of Troy, whose seizure by Paris, prince of Troy, starts the entire Trojan War; or Penelope, to whom Odysseus needs to return to vouchsafe his role as king of Ithaca.

 

On the other hand, we see women again and again being pushed to the sidelines by the androcentric thrust of the epics’ narrative, that focus on the “stories of the glories of men” (that’s a phrase from the Greek that describes what they do: klea andrōn).

 

So I wanted to find a way to bring the women back to the foreground, to find out more about their stories, to resist the narrative that they don’t get a say.

 

And that was how I started thinking that we might tell this story another way: that we might begin with the women of history instead, the real experiences of women written into bones and objects and texts, that tell us something about the lives of the historical women who might have influenced the stories and the myths the men ended up telling.

 

In terms of how I chose the women, I wanted to make sure I had a sweep of as many of the women from the Iliad and Odyssey as possible. That meant surveying not just mortal women and queens like Helen and Penelope, but also goddesses like Hera and Athena, nymphs like Circe and Calypso, and enslaved women like Eurycleia.

 

My aim in rewriting a narrative of the epics through them is that one strand of the book is like reading the Iliad and Odyssey, told through the women.

 

At the same time, each of these women also dovetailed with an experience of historical women in the Late Bronze Age world that I’m teasing out – since the starting point of the book is always women’s history.

 

In so many ways it was an extraordinary experience of the historical evidence speaking into Homer – so that, as I was discovering recent interpretations of DNA or new archaeological discoveries, I could see how each of these would weave into the later tales of the women of the Trojan War. And the book just came together.

 

Q: How was the book’s title chosen, and what does it signify for you?

 

A: For me, Penelope’s Bones is all about the inherently difficult juxtaposition of a legendary, mythical, epic character (Penelope) and the real, tangible nature of bones in the archaeological record, and the amount of evidence that archaeologists are able to unravel from them to reveal the real lives of women.

 

It’s attempting to get at the book’s heart, which is using archaeology and new advances in science as a starting point towards the silenced women of epic and myth.

 

Interestingly, it’s worth noting that the book has a different title in the UK: while it’s Penelope’s Bones in the USA, in the UK it’s Mythica. Each title points to something different in what the book is doing, whether that’s rewriting the myths through women, or articulating a new way of looking at legendary women through archaeology, science and history.

 

Q: How did you research the book, and did you learn anything that especially surprised you?

 

A: I’m a scholar of the ancient world by training (I did my Ph.D. in Classics at Yale), so research is one of the bits I love.

 

What was amazing about this book is that I came to the material as a philologist – which means someone who is trained in the ancient languages – and so the process of writing the book was kind of my discovery of everything that archaeology and science has to offer when we are able to put stories and experiences to what might look like dry and dusty bones or teeth or burials, in complementary ways to what we do as readers of texts.

 

I hope that excitement comes through, and my readers can take that voyage of discovery with me.

 

There was so much about writing the book that surprised me – above all, the coincidences that I kept running across, where a lead I was following I hadn’t even known would be helpful would have elements that spoke so directly to the women of Homer.

 

I think Calypso’s sail was the biggest one for me. Calypso – the nymph who, we’re told, keeps Odysseus captive for seven years on her island on his return – had always bothered me: the way she’s presented as an obstacle to Odysseus’ path seemed so motivated by the male narrative, but I didn’t have a way to push back against it.

 

Then I was reading about modern experimental archaeological approaches to textiles – where archaeologists recreate the tools that ancient women would have used, in order to learn about the kinds of fabrics they made and the time they took – and I found that it would have taken multiple years for a single woman to spin and weave a sail.

 

And something clicked. What if Calypso wasn’t keeping Odysseus hostage after all – but if she, rather, was just busy making him a sail to help get him off her island?

 

It’s this kind of rethinking, through women’s work – and through making the effort and the time of women’s work visible – that made me realise there is such a different way of looking at these tales.

 

Q: The writer Jennifer Saint called the book a “stirring, enlightening, and fascinating exploration of the real lives of women written with expert knowledge, wit, and poetic flair.” What do you think of that description?

 

A: I’m so grateful for that wonderful endorsement, from a writer as accomplished and thoughtful as Jennifer Saint is.

 

I have a background as a novelist, and so I’m really interested in the ways that we can intertwine fiction and nonfiction, the story-making of experience and voices that fiction provides with the evidence and on-the-ground reality of history, as a way to address the silences of women in the archive.

 

Each chapter of the book opens with a fictional re-imagining of the woman I’m discussing, before we dive straight into an archaeological discovery and its ramifications for understanding the women of the past. So Jennifer’s description means a lot in terms of acknowledging what I’m trying to do.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: My current project is an introductory handbook to women in Homer, which I hope will be an interesting way into the ancient texts and how Homer represents the female figures there. I’ve also got plenty of other ideas and projects on the horizon ahead, so stay tuned!

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: If you’d like to order a copy of Penelope’s Bones or are thinking of gifting it for the holiday season (thank you!), we can all do with a little financial help, so here’s a little holiday gift: my publisher is offering it at 30 percent off on their website (here) with the code UCPNEW. I hope you enjoy it!

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb