This week our guest is Lindsay Marie Morris (The Last Letter from Sicily, Storm Publishing, January 2025). We discuss how actually going to your book's location beats online research, the difference between writing as a journalist and as a novelist, and why it's good to have a second novel in your back pocket when you're querying your debut. We also explore content creation as a marketing approach (Lindsay published 300 articles related to her book in the months before publication) and how you also need a plan to maintain momentum after your debut's release.

Lindsay Marie Morris is a novelist and journalist in Los Angeles. Inspired by her Sicilian-American roots, her debut novel traces a World War II–era story of love, resilience, and family secrets that spans continents and generations. Her second novel, Beneath the Sicilian Stars, returns to this pivotal moment in history, following a family divided between California and Sicily whose lives are forever changed by the war, forcing them to confront questions of loyalty, belonging, and sacrifice. A graduate of Marquette University, Lindsay began her career in magazine publishing, serving as an editor at publications including Folio: and Shape, before expanding into digital media and nonprofit communications. She coaches writers, visits book clubs, and blogs about history, culture, and writing. She has presented lectures at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, libraries, bookstores, museums, and organizations throughout the US.

To learn more about Lindsay, click here.

N.J. Mastro writes historical fiction and publishes Herstory Revisited, a blog where she reviews biographical novels about prominent women from the past. In 2025, she published her debut novel, Solitary Walker: A Novel of Mary Wollstonecraft. Besides writing, Mastro is an avid reader, a seasoned cook, and a wine enthusiast. A former school superintendent, she holds a doctorate in educational leadership, a master's in school administration, and a bachelor's degree in elementary education. Originally from Minnesota, she and her husband retired to South Carolina so they could golf year around. You can find N.J. and her blog Herstory Revisited on Substack at https://nancy691.substack.com/.

To learn more about N.J., click here.

Lisa Rosenberg has a B.A. from U.C. Berkeley in Art History, a M.A. in Graduate Humanities, and MFA in Creative writing from Dominican University. Her early professional career was in the blue-chip retail art world as a Gallerist for several prominent San Francisco art dealers including Crown Point Press and John Berggruen Gallery. After transitioning to museum education, she was most recently a public guide at SFMOMA and Museum Educator on staff at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco. Her writing until recently has been in her professional life, primarily non-fiction, essays for exhibition catalogs, art criticism, tours, and public talks. Her fiction has appeared in Amaranth: a journal of food writing, art, and design, and she was recently a quarter-finalist in the Driftwood Press in house short story contest. Her debut novel: Fine, I'm a Terrible Person was published in January of 2025 by Sibylline Press.

To learn more about Lisa, click here.