Story Behind the Story
Host Clara Sherley-Appel interviews authors about their creative process, from the inspiration behind the books they write to specific choices they make.
- Update frequency
- every 33 days
- Average duration
- 54 minutes
- Episodes
- 56
- Years Active
- 2018 - 2025
Episode 60: Christopher Blackwell and Deborah Zalesne - ENDING ISOLATION: THE CASE AGAINST SOLITARY CONFINEMENT
Christopher Blackwell is an award-winning journalist currently incarcerated at the Washington Corrections Center, where he is serving a 45-year prison sentence for taking another human’s life during …
Episode 59: Alka Joshi - SIX DAYS IN BOMBAY
Alka Joshi spent 10 years working on her debut novel, The Henna Artist, before it was published in March 2020, just before the world locked down as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Then, a few mont…
Episode 58: Kirsty Capes - DAUGHTERS
In this episode of Story Behind the Story, host Clara Sherley-Appel talks to British novelist Kirsty Capes about her latest book, Daughters, which was recently released in the US following its debut …
Episode 57: John Gibler - TORN FROM THE WORLD
In this episode of Story Behind the Story, host Clara Sherley-Appel talks to journalist John Gibler about his 2014 book, Torn from the World: A Guerrilla's Escape from a Secret Prison in Mexico. Torn…
Episode 56: Laura Spinney - PROTO
Laura Spinney is the author of two novels and three non-fiction books, including Pale Rider, a historical exploration of the 1918 flu epidemic, which came out in 2017. In this interview, we discuss h…
Episode 55: Holly Goddard Jones - THE SALT LINE
Holly Goddard Jones is an author and educator best known for literary fiction. She was a recipient of The Fellowship of Southern Writers’ Hillsdale Prize for Excellence in Fiction and the Rona Jaffe …
Episode 54: Muriel Leung - HOW TO FALL IN LOVE IN A TIME OF UNNAMEABLE DISASTER
Muriel Leung is a recipient of fellowships to Kundiman, VONA/Voices Workshop and the Community of Writers, and she has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Her writing can be found in The Baffler, …
Episode 53: Hilary Leichter - TERRACE STORY
Hilary Leicther's particular brand of surrealist fiction takes metaphors and makes them tangible. Her debut novel, Temporary, followed a nameless, archetypal temp worker from one gig to the next. As …
Episode 52: Hanna Pylväinen - THE END OF DRUM-TIME
Hanna Pylväinen has been writing fiction about the small Finnish fundamentalist sect she was raised in for years. In her 2012 debut novel, We Sinners, she follows a large, Midwestern family as they n…
Episode 51: Lev Grossman - THE BRIGHT SWORD
In 2014, hot on the heels of the success of his Magicians trilogy, Lev Grossman announced that he was writing a Arthurian epic. As the project took shape, world events kept intruding: Donald Trump as…
Episode 50: Tanzila Ahmed - GRASPING AT THIS PLANET JUST TO BELIEVE
For ten years, Tanzila "Taz" Ahmed organized an annual poem-a-day project during the month of Ramadan. She began the project as an alternative form of reflection to prayer, which she had struggled to…
Episode 49: Tedd Siegel - SIGNS OF THE GREAT REFUSAL
Tedd Siegel retired from his career as an academic administrator in late 2019 after wrestling with extreme stress, burnout, and PTSD — caused, in part, by the conditions of work as it is formulated t…
Episode 48: Katya Apekina - MOTHER DOLL
Novelist, screenwriter, and translator Katya Apekina returns to Story Behind the Story to talk about her latest novel, Mother Doll — an intergenerational ghost story, tying together a Russian revolut…
Episode 47: Marcus Gazaway - BRIDGEWATER
Marcus Gazaway got his start as a writer right here on the central coast, when he joined the staff of CSU Monterey Bay’s student newspaper, The Otter Realm. Today, he works as a full-time author in S…
Episode 46: Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo - INCANTATION
This month, host Clara Sherley-Appel talks to poet and educator Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo. A former Steinbeck Fellow and Poets & Writers California Writers Exchange winner, Xochitl’s writing has been fe…
Episode 45: Sam Sax - PIG
Sam Sax is a queer Jewish poet, writer, and educator. Their debut poetry collection, madness, won the National Poetry Series Competition when it came out, and their second collection, bury it, won th…
Episode 44: Jenn Shapland - THIN SKIN
Jenn Shapland's first book, My Autobiography of Carson McCullers, was a finalist for the 2020 National Book Award and the Southern Book Prize, and it won the 2021 Lambda Literary Award, the Judy Grah…
Episode 43: Brett Christophers - RENTIER CAPITALISM
Host Clara Sherley Appel speaks with Brett Christophers, author of Rentier Capitalism.
A geographer based out of the Institute for Housing and Urban Research at Uppsala University, Brett's work focu…
Episode 42: Cheryl Harawitz - WHEN THE MAGPIE CALLS
Cheryl Harawitz is an artist and retired social worker living in Alameda. A few years ago, she published her debut middle-grade novel, When the Magpie Calls, the story of a nine year old girl named M…
Episode 41: Joss Lake - FUTURE FEELING
This month, Clara talks to author Joss Lake. A trans writer and educator based in New York, Joss teaches critical and creative writing throughout the city and runs a literary sauna series called Tran…