Make Meaning Podcast Episodes
Category: Fiction

Sara Bennett Wealer

Episode 138 – Sara Bennett Wealer – Connecting with YA Readers

When your mother is an English teacher and your favorite TV show is Masterpiece Theater on PBS, it’s almost inevitable that you’ll take to writing creative, compelling, fantastical stories that captivate readers. “Writing was something I knew I could do,” says Sara Bennett Wealer, the latest author to share her story on the Make Meaning Podcast. In this episode, host Lynne Golodner interviews Sara Bennett Wealer about how to make a living as a writer, how to earn money writing books and how they are not often the same thing. Sara discusses the importance of the author hustle to keep […]

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Tammy Pasterick

Episode 136 – Tammy Pasterick – Writing & Publishing Your Way

Tammy Pasterick didn’t intend to become a historical fiction novelist. But when a deep dive into her family’s immigrant history unearthed fascinating storylines about Eastern European emigres who settled in Pennsylvania, she knew she had a great story on her hands. In the latest episode of the Make Meaning Podcast, host Lynne Golodner interviews Tammy Pasterick about her journey of writing Beneath the Veil of Smoke and Ash, why she went for hybrid publishing, growing up in a family of steelworkers and coal miners, and her career as an investigator with the National Labor Relations Board, a paralegal and a […]

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Camille Pagan

Episode 135 – Camille Pagan – Making Writing Your Career

As a first-generation college student, Camille Pagan thought she’d study medicine. She ended up writing about health and then penned her first novel after the birth of her daughter, selling it at auction in a six-figure deal. But all was not easy after that. While Camille has enjoyed a hearty career as the bestselling author of eight novels, she endured ups, downs and redirects along the way and now guides other writers in staying the course to build success as an author. In the latest episode of the Make Meaning Podcast, host Lynne Golodner interviews Camille Pagan about being an […]

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Merryn Glover

Episode 132 – Merryn Glover – Literary Fiction about Place

Merryn Glover writes literary fiction from the Scottish Highlands, deep into the Cairngorm Mountains. Her lyrical prose invokes place and relationship in gorgeous ways, her words rising from the page to attach to the reader’s heart. Born in Kathmandu and raised in Nepal, Pakistan and India, Merryn is the daughter of Australian missionaries and moved to Scotland after she met the love of her life. In the latest episode of the Make Meaning Podcast, host Lynne Golodner interviews Merryn Glover about how a sense of place shapes us, how we belong, and the shifting territories of culture. Writing since she […]

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Weina Dai Randel

Episode 131 – Weina Randel – The Last Rose of Shanghai

Weina Dai Randel emigrated to the United States from China at the age of 24, switching from her native Chinese to English, as she began to write fiction. She wrote a duology about China’s first and only female emperor, Wu Zetian, and then penned a truly stunning historical novel called The Last Rose of Shanghai, about a love story between a Chinese woman and a Jewish refugee in Shanghai during World War II. In the latest episode of the Make Meaning Podcast, host Lynne Golodner interviews Weina Randel about the long road to landing an agent and a multiple book […]

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Rosina Lippi – author of the Wilderness series

Episode 129 – Rosina Lippi – Author of the Wilderness Series

Rosina Lippi writes under her own name and under the pseudonym Sara Donati, and her Wilderness series of six historical novels is some of the most gorgeous fiction you’ll ever read. A former linguistics professor, Rosina has been writing for decades and built quite a following, even as the publishing industry has changed. In the latest episode of the Make Meaning Podcast, host Lynne Golodner interviews Rosina Lippi about how to make fiction your career, frustrations with book marketing, and how to create believable characters in authentic landscapes. In the episode, Rosina quotes George Orwell on writing: “Writing a book […]

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