Esra Mirze Santesso discusses and reads from Muslim Comics And Warscape Witnessing (The Ohio University Press, 2023), which looks at the growing body of Muslim graphic narratives, and how these comics have become an increasingly potent means of visualizing a variety of Muslim perspectives and experiences. Plus music by The Discipline. https://thedi…

Raymond Benson discusses and reads from The Mad, Mad Murders Of Marigold Way (Beaufort Books, 2022), a comic mystery in the vein of the Coen Brothers thrillers, set in the strange setting of the American suburbs, in the even stranger period of the COVID-19 pandemic. Plus music by Raymond Benson. https://raymondbenson.com/ [email protected]…

Alicia Barber discusses and reads from Reno’s Big Gamble: Image And Reputation In The Biggest Little City (University Press Of Kansas, 2008), which explores the history of this Northern Nevada city, and the unique push-and-pull between urban identity, civic pride, nonconformist reputation, and economic growth. https://aliciambarber.com/ abookandits…

Suzanne Morgan Williams discusses and reads from her YA/middle grade novel, Bull Rider (Margaret K. McElderry Books, 2009), in which fourteen-year-old Cam O’Mara must face the fears of riding bulls and having to reforge a relationship with his war-wounded older brother. https://suzannemorganwilliams.com/ [email protected] Bluesky:@abookan…

Eric Drooker discusses his graphic novel Naked City (Dark Horse Books, 2024), which follows a painted, a musician, and a dancer, as they ponder – and experience! – what it means to be an artist in the big city, and in the 21st century. https://www.drooker.com/ [email protected] Bluesky:@abookanditsauthor.bsky.social Twitter: @it_author In…

Alan M. Shore discusses and reads from Uncommon Allies: American Jews And Christians Uniting Against Hitler, 1933-1945 (Syracuse University Press, 2024), which looks at the development of interfaith unity in the face Hitler’s rise to power, largely manifested through a series of Madison Square Garden rallies, and how this unity helped reshape U. S.…

Ellen Hopkins discusses and reads from her latest YA novel in verse, Sync (Nancy Paulsen Books, 2024), a story of twins, as close as they can be, until they’re separated within the foster system and have to struggle through heartbreaking trauma and cling to the hope of reunion. ellenhopkinsbooks.com [email protected] Bluesky:@abookanditsa…

Jacci Turner discusses and reads from her novel, Love Virus (Tree House Books, 2024), which follows the trials of three women, from three generations, as they navigate the challenges of love, loss, and learning to connect in the time of Covid-19. www.jacciturner.com [email protected] Twitter: @it_author Bluesky:@abookanditsauthor.bsky.soc…

Ellen Wilder Bradbury-Reid & E. Marshall Wilder discuss and read from A Nuclear Family: Coming Of Age In Oppenheimer’s Secret City (Bradbury-Reid & Wilder, 2023) which recounts their childhood experiences in Los Alamos, by turns normal and extraordinary, as their father worked on the intricacies of the atomic bomb. [email protected] Twitt…

Susan Palwick discusses her novel The Necessary Beggar (Tor, 2005, 2020) in which refugees from another dimension find themselves on the outskirts of Reno, Nevada, where they learn to be American and to navigate the country's culture and systems, and also re-learn what it means to be a family. [email protected] Twitter: @it_author Bluesky…

Michael P. Branch discusses and reads from Rants From The Hill (Roost Books, 2017), a collection of essays about (to borrow from the book’s subtitle) packrats, bobcats, wildfires, curmudgeons, a drunken Mary Kay Lady & other encounters with the wild in Nevada’s high desert. https://michaelbranchwriter.com/ [email protected] Twitter: @it_a…

Robert Aquinas McNally discusses and reads from Cast Out Of Eden: The Untold Story Of John Muir, Indigenous Peoples, And The American Wilderness (Bison Books, 2024), a selective biography examining the complex interplay between Muir’s love of the land and his troubling racial biases. https://www.ramcnally.com/ [email protected] Twitter/X:…

Robert Miltner discusses and reads from Horse Skull Moon (SurVision Books, 2024), a chapbook of prose poems about landscapes, the passage of time, & our place in the face of such vastness. www.pw.org/directory/writers/robert_miltner www.survisionmagazine.com [email protected] Twitter/X: @it_author Facebook: abookanditsauthor Instagram: a_…

Jared Stanley discusses and reads from So Tough (Saturnalia Books, 2024), a book-length poem deeply couched in the West, where landscapes & human lives, the banal & the extraordinary collide in both violence & in hopefulness. https://jaredstanleyinfo.wordpress.com/ https://saturnaliabooks.com/ [email protected] Twitter: @it_author Faceboo…

Jenn Windrow discusses her novel Evil’s Unlikely Assassin (Irreverent Publishing, 2018), the first volume in the urban fantasy Alexis Black series about a reluctant vampire charged with slaying other creatures of the night, a task carried out with a ragtag team of misfits and a heaping dose of snark. https://jennwindrow.com/ abookanditsauthor@gmail…

Russell Jones and Jason Wrubell, the authors behind the Lewis Allan pen name, discuss and read from Mouse In The Box (Stretched Studio LLC, 2023), a legal thriller in which criminal defense attorney, Mason Mitchell, finds himself taking on two high-profile cases that rattle his faith in the system and put him in very real physical peril. https://ww…

Seanan McGuire discusses the eighteenth novel in the October Daye series, The Innocent Sleep (DAW Books, 2023), in which Tybalt, King of Cats, seeks to restore a reality rewritten by Titania, Mother of Illusions. And to reforge his mostly forgotten marriage to Toby Daye. https://www.seananmcguire.com/ [email protected] Twitter: @it_author…

John Shirley discusses and reads from Axle Bust Creek (Pinnacle Books, 2022), the first novel in the Cleve Trewe western trilogy, in which our hero comes to the titular town, Axle Bust, to claim his uncle’s mine and finds corporate intrigue, merciless outlaws, and a charmingly free-thinking woman. Plus music by John Shirley and the Screaming Geezer…

Katya Cengel discusses and reads from Straitjackets And Lunch Money, a harrowing account of the authors time in a psychosomatic ward, viewed from the perspective of the 10-year-old child who underwent the experience and from that of the journalist that she would eventually become. https://katyacengel.com/ https://www.woodhallpress.com/ abookanditsa…

Bernard Schopen discusses and reads from his novel Drowning In The Desert (University of Nevada Press, 2023), a “Nevada noir” in which an ex-deputy sheriff, Norman “Fats” Wrangle, sifts through the lies and corruption of the Silver State while navigating his own deeply flawed character. https://unpress.nevada.edu/ https://baobabpress.com/ abookandi…

Casey Bell discusses and reads from Little Fury (Metatron Press, 2023), a collection of short stories wherein the naturalistic and the surreal blend to tell the tales of women seeking a sense of place, self-care, and social justice in a less-than-welcoming world. Plus music by Fine Motor. “Mother’s Lungs” by Fine Motor comes from the Exotic Fever R…

Mark Arnold discusses and reads from Stars Of Walt Disney Productions (BearManor Media, 2022), a reference book detailing hundreds of performers, household names and vaguely familiar faces alike, who appeared in the studio’s movies and TV shows from 1929 to 1983. https://bearmanor-digital.myshopify.com// [email protected] Twitter: @it_aut…

John Mulhouse discusses and reads from Still Lives, New Mexico: Unmarked Graves In The Land Of Enchantment, a collection of photographs by Richard Baron (& text by Mulhouse), evoking uncertain lives and unknown stories of those who lived and died in the sparse landscapes on New Mexico. https://cityofdust.com/still-lives/ https://cityofdust.blogspot…

Marc Laidlaw discusses and reads from his novel, Underneath The Oversea, the culmination of the Gorlen Vizenfirthe stories, about a gargoyle-handed bard, a human-handed gargoyle, and the family that they’ve built in the fantastical world of Ique. “Sombre Hombre” by Marc Laidlaw comes from the independently released EP, Sombre Hombre. Used with perm…

Huckleberry Rahr discusses and reads from Wolf Healer, the first book in the Jade Stone Chronicles, which explores the struggles of self-definition, community, & acceptance associated with teenage, LGBTQ identity, & living with a werewolf pack. https://huckleberryauthor.com [email protected] Twitter: @it_author Facebook: abookanditsauthor…

Jill Creech Bauer discusses & reads from The Soul’s Echo: Thirteen Pieces Of Short Fiction (Jill Creech Bauer, 2021), a collection of stories, some speculative, some literary, all steeped in deep empathy for those struggling to face the challenges of life & human connections. [email protected] Twitter: @it_author Facebook: abookanditsauth…

Danny Nielsen discusses and reads from Straight Flossin’ And Other Stories Of The American West (Whistling Rabbit Press, 2022), a collection of essays about the author’s wanderings through landscapes filled with punishing heat, ornery skunks, menacing wildfires, and strange stewards of the desert. https://www.whistlingrabbitpress.com/ abookanditsau…

Robert Aquinas McNally discusses and reads from The Modoc War: A Story Of Genocide At The Dawn Of America’s Gilded Age (Bison Books, 2017), which tells of the U. S. government’s violent 1872-1873 campaign to at first remove and then to extinguish the indigenous Modoc people in what would become California’s only full-blown Indian war. www.ramcnally…

Claire Stanford discusses and reads from Happy For You, a novel which follows Evelyn Kominsky Kumamoto as she struggles to navigate what it means to be happy in regards to relationships, ethnicity, and working for the third-most popular internet company to develop an app to define, quantify, and augment…happiness. www.clairestanford.com abookandits…

Sholeh Wolpé discusses and reads from Abacus Of Loss: A Memoir In Verse (The University Of Arkansas Press, 2022), which blends forms to explore the nature of memory and examine the author’s tumultuous life, its losses & gains, its downfalls & windfalls, its subtractions & additions. www.sholehwolpe.com www.metmuseum.org/perspectives/videos/2022/10/…

Jacci Turner discusses and reads from her new YA novel, Tree Singer (Lucky Bat Books, 2021), which tells the story of fifteen-year-old Mayten, sent on an unexpected quest to confront an unnatural blight on the forests, a journey that also reveals secrets about her world and herself. www.jacciturner.com www.luckybatbooks.com abookanditsauthor@gmail.…

Shwa Laytart discusses and reads from F*d-Up Poetry For F*d-Up People In F*d-Up Times (AvantPop Publishing, 2021), a collection of verse that weaves comedy and activism to reflect upon environmentalism, family, music, food, social justice, and more. www.avantpopbooks.com shwalaytart.contently.com [email protected] Twitter: @it_author Face…

Suzanne Roberts discusses and reads from Animal Bodies: On Death, Desire, And Other Difficulties (University of Nebraska Press, 2022), a collection of essays that explore, in deeply personal ways, how we deal with the distresses of loss, illness, relationships, travel, and the limitations of our physical beings. https://www.suzanneroberts.net/ aboo…

Mark Maynard discusses and reads from Grind (Torrey House Press, 2012), a collection of stories based in and around Reno, Nevada, depicting the unique relationship of the city with an array of characters seeking to come to terms with their place, geographically and personally. https://www.markmaynard.info/ [email protected] Twitter: @it_a…

Katya Cengel discusses and reads from Bluegrass Baseball: A Year In The Minor League Life (University of Nebraska Press, 2012), which introduces us to the uncertain life – the hopes, dreams, triumphs, & disappointments – of minor league players, staff, fans and families. https://katyacengel.com/ Katya Cengel on Ukraine: https://lithub.com/when-stor…

John M. Mulhouse discusses and reads from Abandoned New Mexico: Ghost Towns, Endangered Architecture, And Hidden History (America Through Time, 2020), which explores the land of enchantment’s forgotten corners and the stories that they tell. Plus music by Naked Raygun. “Living In The Good Times” by Naked Raygun comes from the Wax Trax! Release, Ove…

Leslie Cook discusses and reads from her debut novel, Ethereal’s Call (Cook/Fulton Books, 2021), about a young, headstrong woman, raised by witches and swept into a world of fae, where she faces all manner of fantastic creatures and begins to learn secrets about her own past and family history. https://www.etherealscall.com/ abookanditsauthor@gmail…

Jill Creech Bauer discusses and reads from The Nine Lives Of John Aslin (Jill Creech Bauer, 2020), a non-fiction novel about a man sentenced to life in prison for an accidental death, and about the personal and family history underlying the incident and its repercussions. Plus, an interview with John Eric Aslin. https://jillcreechbauer.com/ abookan…

Curtis Bradley Vickers discusses and reads from This Here Is Devil’s Work: A Novel (University Of Nevada Press, 2021), which presents a harrowing braided narrative of wildfire “hotshots” and cattle rustlers in the New West. https://curtisbradleyvickers.com/ [email protected] Twitter: @it_author Facebook: abookanditsauthor Instagram: a_boo…

Michael P. Branch discusses and reads from On The Trail Of The Jackalope: How A Legend Captured The World’s Imagination And Helped Us Cure Cancer (Pegasus Books, 2022), which documents the cultural and scientific impact of horned rabbits, both real (?) and imagined. https://michaelbranchwriter.com/ [email protected] Twitter: @it_author Fa…

Susan Devan Harness discusses and reads from Bitterroot: A Salish Memoir Of Transracial Adoption (University Of Nebraska Press, 2018), in which the author recounts her journey to learn about her family and personal history, all the while wrestling with questions of racial stereotypes, cultural identity, and self-acceptance. https://susanharness.com…

B. J. West discusses and reads from Teeth Of The Rakshasa (Xenophile Press 2021), the first book in his cyberpunk series, SpliceFire, which recounts the adventures of hacker extraordinaire, Spider King, as he faces a world where neurointerfaces make the man and corporate interests dominate public life. bjwest.net www.xenophilepress.com/ www.StoryFo…

Chuck Rogers discusses and reads from his novel Bastard Of The Apocalypse: The Earth Died Screaming (Rogers, 2019), in which Benjamin Frame finds love, violence, and mutated bears at the end of the world as we know it. www.facebook.com/ChuckRogersAdventures www.graphicaudio.net [email protected] Twitter: @it_author…

Michael Carter discusses and reads from In The Belly Of The Bell-Shaped Curve (Carter/iUniverse, 2020), a satirical novel about a frustrated claims adjuster seeking to improve his lot with a bad idea and misuse of chimpanzees. www.michaellcarter.com [email protected] Twitter: @it_author

Mark Arnold discusses and reads from “Aaaaalllviiinnn!”: The Story Of Ross Bagdasarian Sr., Liberty Records, Format Films And The Alvin Show (BearManor Media, 2019), an account of the life and works of the creator of The Chipmunks, “Witch Doctor,” and more, a.k.a. David Seville. bearmanor-digital.myshopify.com [email protected]…

Linda Kay Hardie reads and discusses her short story, "Cooking With Butter," which appears in the anthology, Peace, Love, And Crime (Untreed Reads, 2020), a collection of crime fiction inspired by the songs of the '60s. https://www.untreedreads.com/ [email protected] Marc Oxoby

John McNelis O'Keefe discusses and reads from Stranger Citizens: Migrant Influence And National Power In The Early American Republic (Cornell University Press, 2021), a historical examination of how the experiences of migrants shaped American notions of citizenship, residency, and belonging.By Marc Oxoby

Lilace Mellin Guignard discusses and reads from When Everything Beyond The Walls Is Wild (Texas A&M University Press, 2019), which blends memoir and analysis of gender in outdoor recreation and activity. www/tentofonesown.com [email protected] Marc Oxoby

A. L. Nielsen discusses and reads from his poetry collection, Tray (Make Now Press, 2017), which explores the intersection of media, history, and culture in relation to the killing of Trayvon Martin (and also other matters). www.makenowpress.com [email protected] Marc Oxoby

Stephen L. Bruneau discusses and reads from his novel, The SCOTUS Affair (Bruneau/iUniverse, 2019), a thriller filled with political intrigue and the second book in the Dimase Augustin series. https://bruneaubooks.com/ [email protected] Marc Oxoby