My guest this week is Amy Hagstrom (The Wild Between Us, Lake Union Press, November 2023). If you’ve ever wondered whether to keep working on a manuscript or put it in a drawer, this episode will resonate with you. Amy’s debut was one that got rejected by over a hundred agents, but she kept revising this dual-timeline, dual POV story of lost kids in the Sierra Nevada Mountains and after landing an agent with another book that didn’t get picked up, this one found a home at the Amazon women’s fiction imprint and her career took off. Now working on what will be her third published novel, we discuss the women’s fiction genre, what the right agent brings to the table, and what it’s like to sign on with the biggest book retailer in the world.

Amy Hagstrom is the author of The Wild Between Us and Smoke Season. She is a writer and editor with two decades of experience in the travel and outdoor industry, recognized as an O Magazine Insider and previous columnist and feature writer at Travel Oregon, US News, and Huff Post. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Creative Writing from Whitworth University. A lifelong outdoors enthusiast, she served as a volunteer EMT with her local county search and rescue unit before launching her travel writing career. After raising three children in the Pacific Northwest, Amy traded the Cascade, Siskiyou, and Sierra Nevada mountain ranges for The Berkshires, making her home in Western Mass with her wife. You can find her writing on Substack at Beyond the Books.

To learn more about Amy, go to her website here.

This week’s guest is Kerry F. Freeman (Sedona: A Novel, The Wild Rose Press, November 2023). Kerry’s book, a reimagining of The Wizard of Oz set in present-day Sedona, was written as an antidote to COVID-isolation and has proved a hit with book clubs as they chase down the Easter Eggs Kerry planted from the original source material, including who’s the lion, the tinman, and the scarecrow. We discuss how she started a feature on her website called Books and Bevies which led to a fan base even before she was published and how that led to partnering with a well-known Charlotte brewery to produce an exclusive IPA beer for her launch.

Kerry Fryar Freeman crafts fiction as if it were a new puzzle. The settings are real and well-researched, the details are rich and layered, and the stories absorb and propel readers one piece at a time. Kerry’s debut novel, SEDONA: A NOVEL, was published by Wild Rose Press in November of 2023 and was long-listed for the Santa Fe Writers Project Literary Award and a 2023 finalist for Indie Ink’s Best Setting Award. Kerry also writes a blog called “Books and Bevies” where she features an array of authors from New York Times and Amazon bestsellers to debut Indie gems. Books and Bevies can be found on her website www.KerryFryarFreeman.com or by following her on X @KerryFFreeman and Instagram @Books_and_Bevies. Kerry resides in North Carolina and is a member of the NC Writers’ Network and the Women’s Fiction Writers Association.

To learn more about Kerry, click here.

Our guest this week is Karen Klink (At What Cost, Silence? She Writes Press, October 2023). Karen’s novel grew out of her desire to explore bi-sexuality but in an historical setting – in this case, pre-Civil War. We discuss how her writing journey began when she contributed to a fan-fiction internet site and subsequently received encouragement from a writing professor. Unable to find an agent and thus closed out of traditional publishing, she received a posthumous monetary gift from a lifelong friend which allowed her to publish through a hybrid press. We discuss research rabbit holes, her decision to write a trilogy, and how writing about sexual abuse in her novel helped her get over her own childhood trauma.

Karen’s interest and experience in psychology and therapy inform her writing about individuals who persevere through difficulty and crisis in order to become stronger and accept themselves for who they truly are. Karen is a child abuse survivor, and humbly hopes her stories give readers pleasure and confidence to face their own difficulties, knowing they are not alone.

Karen believes in taking risks, for this is how we grow. With over fifty years of overcoming her own fears and challenges she hopes to help others find their own true selves, to not only survive, but to thrive.

To learn more about Karen, click here.