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A haunted abbey in the Scottish Highlands, a marriage of convenience, a pet piglet with a ribbon, and a heroine who is far sharper than she’s “allowed” to be. In this episode, I chat with Eloisa James, the New York Times bestselling author of historical romance (and Fordham Shakespeare professor Mary Bly), to talk about The Last Lady B and the craft choices that make a love story feel witty, intimate, and impossible to put down.

We start with the roots of desire, including Eloisa’s childhood on a Minnesota farm in a house full of literature plus a long list of forbidden pleasures. That push-pull of wanting what you can’t have becomes a blueprint for romantic tension on the page. From there, we get practical about writing: why she studies TV and comedy scripts to master timing, how Shakespeare trains a writer to land a joke inside character, and why she drafts dialogue like a script so it reads the way people actually speak.

We also go deeper into what makes a romance scene truly charged, including the power of restraint, the emotional work behind “slow burn,” and why sensory details like fabric, lace, and the scent of a cravat can do more than paragraphs of explanation. Eloisa shares what it took to claim her romance career in academia, what she’s learned about genre bias, and why she believes you can’t write romance just to chase a payday.

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Eloisa James

The last Lady B, Eloisa James

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Mandy Jackson-Beverly
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In this episode, I chat with Christina Pascucci Ciampa, founder and owner of All She Wrote Books, an intersectional, inclusive, feminist, and queer independent bookstore in the Boston area.

Shelf space is never neutral, and Christina has built a bookstore that treats that truth as a daily practice. We talk about how a mission-driven shop becomes a real refuge for readers who rarely feel represented in mainstream recommendations.

Christina shares her path from a decade in corporate marketing and sales to launching the store as a pop-up, then growing it into a community-centered bookshop with events, thoughtful curation, and a team empowered to lead. We get honest about the stress of small business ownership, what delegation really looks like, and why strong leadership is the difference between burnout and sustainability.

We touch on radical bookstores, community safety, and the modern challenges of organizing in an online world. We also dig into gaps in the publishing industry, the ongoing pullback in LGBTQ+ support, and why small independent presses and zines are crucial when big marketing dollars decide what gets attention. Finally, we land on reading as an empathy muscle, including a powerful recommendation, So Many Stars by Caro De Robertis, and why balancing heavy nonfiction with restorative fiction can keep you engaged without going numb and teach us empathy.

All She Wrote Books

So Many Stars, Caro De Robertis

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Mandy Jackson-Beverly
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In this episode, I’m joined by Cecile Pin, the acclaimed author of Wandering Souls, to discuss her latest novel, Celestial Lights, and the deeper questions it raises about identity, ambition, and what we sacrifice when we decide who we want to become.

Cecile takes us from her multicultural upbringing in Paris and New York City to her study of philosophy in London. We dig into how living between cultures can give a writer real creative range. We also get specific about craft: what it means to write in English as a second language, why rhythm matters, and how she thinks about “show, don’t tell” when emotional truth demands something sharper.

Cecile and I chat about moving from publishing to writing her own fiction, the vulnerability of touring a deeply personal debut, and why she started Celestial Lights, hoping for distance, only to find that the heart always shows up.

From Europa research and NASA details to astronaut memoirs, mission constraints, and the novel’s alternating space logs, Cecile shares how she built a believable world without turning the book into a textbook. If you love literary fiction, speculative sci-fi, and character-driven novels that stay grounded in relationships, you’ll find plenty to take with you.

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Cecile Pin

Celestial Lights, Cecile Pin

Wandering Souls, Cecile Pin

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Mandy Jackson-Beverly
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