In the third of our author interviews, Sonja & Vanessa are proud to feature another Lawrence, Kansas local author: Rachel McCarthy James. If the name sounds familiar, it’s because she co-authored 2017’s cold-case cracking tour-de-force, Man on the Train, in which she and her coauthor, Bill James, solve a hundred-year old serial axe murderer mystery. In her new book, Rachel traces the history of the axe as tool, weapon, and cultural artifact. Whack Job includes so many killer stories (pun intended!), like the story of a murder victim, from 430,000 BCE, found along with an axe in the “Pit of Bones” in northern Spain. Whack Job also recounts hair-raising true crime stories that hit much closer to home, like the daylight axe murder of Frank Lloyd Wright’s mistress and five others at his Wisconsin “Love Cottage” in 1914.

In our interview, Rachel shares insights into her research methods, her travels, her “rabbit holes,” her original discoveries, the experience of working with editors to shape her manuscript–in short, the honest, hard work, determination, and sacrifice behind a well-researched and well-written history book. Plus, you are in for a treat because Rachel shares some fascinating stories that didn’t make it into the book!

Along the way, Vanessa and Rachel hatch a hatchet business venture, Sonja drools at hearing a new, non-cherry-tree axe story about George Washington, and the axe gets compared to an important but much maligned female body part.

REFERENCES:

Rachel's website

You can purchase Whack Job at any bookseller, but we suggest ordering it from our outstanding local bookstore, The Raven, in the heart of Lawrence, Kansas.

This book and this episode is like a fruit smoothie by the sunny seashore–light, sweet, gentle first love vibes. This is a YA selection we have chosen to find out what the youngest set values in romance stories. Appropriately, it is not an “E” episode–first time in the season! Sonja and Vanessa are joined again by their Designated Gen Z Reader, Sage McHenry, to better understand the meteoric rise of this book series…now television series.

Unless you’ve been living under ye olde proverbial Rock, you know that the “Summer I Turned Pretty” franchise is a cultural phenomenon with staggering fan engagement on all social platforms. Join us as we explore what makes it so appealing and what tropes it shares with other romances we’ve analyzed this season. Of course, Vanessa asks Sage some pesky questions, like, are all the messages of the series positive for younger female readers. As always, Sage “Designated Z” McHenry gives as good as she gets. Join us to see what you think…can we enjoy something and look at it critically?

Along the way, incest jumps out at us, Sonja loyally picks the “right” boy from the series to keep her daughter happy, and Vanessa finds out the golden retriever she hastily adopted might not turn out to be as adorable as he seemed.

Welcome to our 2nd episode of “In Walks a Woman Writer”! Amy Stuber joined us in the studio, and the time flew by. Listening to this conversation, you’ll feel like you are sitting in your favorite coffee shop with Amy who is so kind, so unassuming–and yet so ridiculously talented.

Amy’s 2024 short story collection, Sad Grownups, won the prestigious Pen/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection. The collection is wide-ranging, packed with women’s experiences, and haunting in its melancholy telling and perceptive understanding of modern American life. If you’ve ever seen a stranger on the street and wondered, what is their story?, this is the collection for you. Amy’s imagination is rich and empathetic, and these characters will stay with you, long after you finish her luminous collection.

We uncover so much in this conversation, including Amy’s literary influences, her inspirations, and why she believes short stories are the perfect fit for readers today. Along the way, some empty-nester secrets spring out of the vault, the Boss rides by with ghosts in his eyes, and we unmask a Joan Didion thief.

REFERENCES:

If you are in the Lawrence, Kansas area, Amy would love for you to pick up her book at her favorite local bookstore, The Raven. Support Amy’s local bookstore and Buy Here!

The Pen America Literary Awards are considered the “Oscars” of books, so it’s hard to exaggerate what a big deal it is that Amy won it. Get the whole scoop here, at the Pen Book Awards site. What we get from it is KANSAS. HAS. TALENT.

Sonja and Vanessa go on a thrilling journey with Millennial reader and Romantasy fan/expert, Haley Bajorek. If you’ve ever wondered what Romantasy is, why it has a huge fan base, whether it’s for you, and where to start, this episode fills in all the blanks!

For Gen X readers like Sonja and Vanessa who grew up on tales such as Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, the focus of this episode, Sarah J. Maas’s A Court of Thorns and Roses (2015) is a radical departure. Dare we say a paradigm shift. Forget moody men dressed up as fortune tellers by firelight–Haley helps us get our bearings in Romantasy worlds where giant wolf-lions turn out to be hot fairies who look like Chris Hemsworth…with pointy ears. and retractable claws. Biting might happen. Riddles must be solved. Miles must be traveled. And here we are (again!) talking about the female odyssey. Romantasy is a genre by women, for women, and very much a female community endeavor, and even if it’s not your cup of stars, Haley offers a bite-sized, juicy taste of this feminist branch of fantasy literature.

Along the way, we wish we had a harem, we get vertigo learning the practical implications of having a “mate,” and skulls and peppers become sign posts to new worlds.

REFERENCES:

We could not have done this episode without the guidance and collaboration of our dear friend, Haley Bajorek, who often goes bravely where no man would go, and we are so lucky to be in her circle. Thank you, Haley!

If you want to dip your toes into Romantasy, you can start with Sarah J. Maas’s A Court of Thorns and Roses, like we did, and if you want to check out her whole universe, the Sarah J. Maas Website would be a good starting point.

If you are more in the mood for dragons, check out Rebecca Yarros's Website where love and battle take flight.

Welcome to our first episode of “In Walks a Woman Writer”!

We are proud to kick off this special author series with talented Kansas poet and veteran teacher, Melissa Fite Johnson. You are in for a treat as Melissa’s warmth will make you feel welcome, and, like Sonja and Vanessa, you’ll be grateful for Melissa’s shrewd insights about life and writing.

Melissa’s third collection, Midlife Abecedarian, is filled with nostalgia, self-discovery, and a wisdom that only comes through reflecting deeply on one’s younger self…or is it selves? After she shares her poems on the show today, you’ll wonder why-oh-why you don’t already have this collection on your bedside table, right at the top of your TBR stack. Melissa’s poetry is honest, precisely crafted, and nothing short of revelatory. Plus, pop culture pulses through her verses. In fact, if you remember what it was like to look for videos at a Blockbuster store, Melissa’s recollections of being a teen in the 1990's will feel like cozying up in your favorite oversized sweater.

We discover so much in this conversation, including Melissa’s literary influences, her unique writing process, and why she believes poetry should be for everyone. Along the way, we blow kisses to a young Luke Perry in his white t-shirt, try to dress like So-Called Claire Danes, and Poetry and Pro Wrestling go on a date.

REFERENCES:

Melissa loves her hometown bookstore, The Raven, right here in Lawrence, Kansas, so if you want to buy her book, she’d love it if you’d check them out.

Midlife Abecedarian is published by Riot in Your Throat Press.

Melissa Fite Johnson’s website is here.

First, you should rush to read Sarah Waters’s The Paying Guests, a fantastic romance thriller set in 1922, post World War 1 England. We don’t give spoilers, exactly, but the historical context we cover gives you some idea of events and situations that come up in the novel. And the novel is wall-to-wall women’s issues: society’s expectations of decorum, cooking, cleaning, birth control, wifely duties, sex, widowhood, spinsterhood, motherhood, and a fair amount about 1920's housekeeping.

Sonja helps us understand the economic state of the UK after WW1, women’s voting rights, early attempts at family planning, abortion law and practices, and whether there were laws about lesbians.

Along the way, we find out some people (not female people, mind you) once believed that robust menstruation was a sign of good health, and we learn that “servants don’t organize themselves,” while someone dramatic dons a dress made entirely of jewels.

REFERENCES

We reference other IWAW episodes here: S3E1 on Tristan & Iseult; S3E on Romeo & Juliet; and the reference to the “ritual death” is from our episode on Julie Ann Long’s The Perils of Pleasure.

Sarah Waters has written several novels during her very successful career, and you can find out more about her at her website.

The biography that Sonja mentions is Vera Britain’s Testament of Youth, which is still in print, and if you want an overview of her life, this article from The Guardian offers a quick insight.

Marie Stopes’s 1918 work, Married Love, can be found at Project Gutenberg.

Here’s a great essay about the fear that lesbians were taking over Britain after World War 1: "The Cult of the Clitoris": Sexual Panics and the First World War

Check out Maude Allen in her jewels-only dress as Salome.

Here’s a 2024 article from The Guardian, that hits the high points of the Edith Thompson and Freddie Bywaters's Trial, plus how even a hundred years later, Edith’s heirs are trying to clear her name.

Ernest Hemingway’s 1929 A Farewell to Arms is almost always captioned as a tragic romance. Is it? Tragic, yes. Romance…debatable. Is Frederick Henry a compelling romantic hero and Catherine Barkley an inspiring romantic heroine? Join Sonja and Vanessa as they run through the text (SPOILER ALERT), and give their verdict on the love story.

This show will also offer you a mini Hemingway bio, an explanation of his writing philosophy and style, and it highlights distinctions between warfare on the Western and Italian Fronts in World War 1. Vanessa also shares an overview of feminist literary critics’ takes on Hemingway’s treatment of Catherine–both supportive and disapproving.

Along the way, we discover how Catherine Barkley feels about rent-by-the-hour hotel rooms; we bump up against old-man-doctor theories, claiming the benefits of “good” alcohol during pregnancy, and stale Cheetos--of course--make a cameo.

REFERENCES:

Other Episodes of IWAW are mentioned: the reference to Tristan and Iseult is explained in IWAW S3E1; the reference to Elly and Gaunt and Paul Fussell (author of The Great War and Modern Memory) are explained in our episode on Alice Winn’s novel, In Memoriam, IWAW S3E8; to learn more about Romeo as a romantic hero, check out our 3-part series on Romeo and Juliet that starts with IWAW S3E2; Colin Eversea is the hero of Julie Ann Long’s The Perils of Pleasure, covered in IWAW S3E7; and the reference to Esther in Sarah Water’s The Paying Guests links to our next show, that drops on Friday, 8/22/25. Stay tuned!

Here is a link to Ernest Hemingway’s essay, "The Art of the Short Story" from 1959.

CORRECTION: The quote from Hemingway in which he mentions raisin bread is actually from a 1954 TIME Magazine interview that can be found here.

The audio of Hemingway's Nobel Prize Speech is a quick listen, in case you are interested, and it focuses mostly on the loneliness of a writer’s life.