267: The Frame-Up by Gwenda Bond – Summer Reading Spectacular

As part of the Summer Reading Spectacular, Steve chats with Gwenda Bond about her career journey, her fascination with heist stories, her experiences with licensed content, including writing for Lois Lane and Stranger Things, her approach to magic in storytelling, and the vibrant writing community she’s fostering in Lexington, Kentucky. And on The Circ Desk, Rebecca and Yaika find interesting read-alikes for the Frame-Up and discuss new exciting new subgenre of romantasy!

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Gwenda Bond is the New York Times bestselling author of many novels, including the first official Stranger Things novel, Suspicious Minds, as well as the Match Made in Hell, Lois Lane, and Cirque American series. She lives in a hundred-year-old house in Lexington, Kentucky, with a veritable zoo of adorable doggos and queenly cats. She writes a regular newsletter, Dear Reader, available on Substack.

SHOW NOTES:

The Frame-Up
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247: Nocturne by Alyssa Wees

Steve chats with Alyssa Wees, author of Nocturne and The Waking Forest, about her youth services work in libraries, writing Beanie Babies fan fiction, her love of ballet, the appeal of fairy tales and the dark fantasy genre, and why she probably won’t ever write your next beach read.

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Alyssa Wees is the acclaimed author of The Waking Forest and Nocturne. She grew up writing stories about her Beanie Babies in between ballet lessons. She earned a BA in English from Creighton University and an MFA in fiction writing from Columbia College Chicago. Currently she works as an assistant librarian in youth services at an awesome public library. She lives in the Chicagoland area with her husband and their two cats.

SHOW NOTES:

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Nocturne

175: Gail Carriger

Guest host Heather Moorefield-Lang chats with author Gail Carriger, about how she uses libraries and books for research, writing the Parasol Protectorate series, dressing well for author signing lines, and her reading recommendations.

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Gail Carriger has multiple NYT bestsellers and over a million books in print in dozens of different languages. She writes comedies of manners mixed with urban fantasy (and sexy queer joy as G. L. Carriger). Her best known books include the Parasol Protectorate and Finishing School series. She was once an archaeologist and is fond of shoes, octopuses, and tea.

Heather Moorefield-Lang is an assistant professor for the Department of Library and Information Science at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro.  She has long been interested in how technologies can enhance instruction in libraries and classrooms. Her current research focuses on makerspaces in libraries and she had the honor of being nominated for the White House Champion of Change for Making in 2016.

SHOW NOTES:

Gail Carriger’s site
The Heroine’s Journey: For Writers, Readers, and Pop Culture Dilettantes

Gail’s reading recommendations:
The House on the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune
The Afterward by E. K. Johnson
Jupiter Storm by Marti Dumas