Season 3 Coming Soon!
History Through Fiction is proud to announce that season 3 of our podcast is kicking off on Monday, September 12! Hosted by founder and editor Colin Mustful, season 3 includes fifteen episodes released weekly. Each episode features a historical novelist who will be talking about the craft of weaving elements of history and fiction to create engaging and enlightening stories. Notable interviews include International Best-Selling author and Emmy Award winning producer Yvette Manessis Corporon, winner of the Montana Prize in Fiction Taylor Brown, and Burruberongal writer from the Darug Aboriginal Nation Julie Janson. The podcast also features an interview with History Through Fiction’s own New York Times bestselling author, Alina Adams whose Soviet-Jewish historical novel, My Mother’s Secret, comes out November 15.
September 12 – Yvette Manessis Corporon
Yvette Manessis Corporon is an Internationally Best-Selling author and Emmy Award winning producer. She is the author of When the Cypress Whispers and Something Beautiful Happened. Yvette is three-time Emmy Award winning journalist who has traveled the world covering the biggest stories in news and entertainment. She is currently a Senior Producer with EXTRA. A native New Yorker and daughter of Greek immigrants, Yvette studied Journalism and Classical Civilizations at NYU. She loves combining both of her passions and crafting stories from little known moments in history and mythology. She lives in Brooklyn, NY with her husband, two children, and the sweetest little white lab you’ve ever seen. Her newest novel, Where the Wandering Ends, is set for release on September 6, 2022.
September 19 – K.M. Butler
K.M. Butler is an author of historical novels that seek to highlight the similarities—not the differences—shared by modern readers and their ancestors. He believes good historical fiction transports readers out of the 21st century to understand that people in the past acted as they did for eminently sensible reasons, based on the extent of their knowledge. Butler’s debut novel, The Raven and the Dove, depicts the struggles of identity, culture, and religion in the very first days when Norse settlers and the Christians of northern France began living side-by-side.
September 26 – Georgie Blalock
Georgie Blalock is a history and movie buff who loves combining her different passions through historical fiction, and a healthy dose of period piece films. When not writing, she can be found prowling the non-fiction history section of the library or the British film listings on Netflix or in the dojo training for her next karate black belt rank. Georgie also writes historical romance under the name Georgie Lee. Her newest novel, An Indiscreet Princess, paints a detailed portrait of Princess Louise, daughter of Queen Victoria.
October 3 – Judith F. Brenner
Judith F. Brenner owns Creative Lakes Media, LLC, a freelance writing and editing services company. She is the managing editor and publisher of Sharpeners Report, a national publication with paid circulation in a professional service and repair industry. Her personal essays have been published in Writers in the Know (WINK) literary magazine, (available at winkwriters.com), and Minnesota Parent magazine. She completed the Iowa University Mini-MFA Workshop in 2019. Judith is a member of the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis and the Professional Editor’s Network. She resides in Minnesota with her husband and has two daughters. The Moments Between Dreams is her debut novel.
October 10 – Julie Janson
Julie Janson is a playwright, novelist, and award-winning poet. Janson, who is a Burruberongal woman of the Darug Aboriginal Nation, is co-recipient of the 2016 Oodgeroo Noonuccal Poetry Prize, and winner of the 2019 Judith Wright Poetry Prize. Janson self-published two novels before the debut of her critically acclaimed book Benevolence (Magabala Books 2020). Janson has written ten produced plays, including two at Belvoir St Theatre – Black Mary & Gunjies: Two Plays, published by Aboriginal Studies Press in 1996. Her novel, Benevolence, was re-published by HarperCollins in August, 2022.
October 17 – Alena Dillon
Alena Dillon is the author of Mercy House, a Library Journal Best Book of 2020, which has been optioned as a television series produced by Amy Schumer. She is also the author of The Happiest Girl in the World, a Good Morning America pick, and My Body Is A Big Fat Temple, a memoir of pregnancy and early parenting, Her work has appeared in publications including The Daily Beast, LitHub, River Teeth, Slice Magazine, The Rumpus, and Bustle. She teaches creative writing and lives on the north shore of Boston where she has a 3-year-old son and a new baby. She describes writer-motherhood in 3 words: fierce, tender, marathon. Her newest novel is titled Eyes Turned Skyward.
October 24 – L. Bordetsky-Williams with guest host Alina Adams
L. Bordetsky-Williams (aka Lisa Williams) grew up in New York City. Forget Russia is her debut novel published by Tailwinds Press, December 2020. Forget Russia was chosen as an Editors' Choice Book by the Historical Novel Society. She is also the author of The Artist as Outsider in the Novels of Toni Morrison and Virginia Woolf (Greenwood Press, 2000) and has been inspired by both of these towering authors. In 2005, she published a book of creative nonfiction, Letters to Virginia Woolf (Hamilton Books). She is also a poet and has published three poetry chapbooks: Sky Studies (Finishing Line Press), The Eighth Phrase (Porkbelly Press), and In the Early Morning Calling (Finishing Line Press). She is a Professor of English and Literary Studies at Ramapo College of New Jersey.
October 31 – Roberta Seret
Roberta Seret has a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature and M.A. in French from New York University. She is director of Advanced English and Film at the United Nations for the Hospitality Committee and Founder of the NGO at the United Nations, International Cinema Education. She has created a Global Classroom for students of all ages at the United Nations and now at New York University where she also teaches. Roberta is the author of the book World Affairs in Foreign Films and the Transylvanian Trilogy, which is a 3-book historical fiction series: Gift of Diamonds, Love Odyssey, and Treasure Seekers.
November 7 – Lost in the Long March
Michael X. Wang was born in Fenyang, a small coal-mining city in China’s mountainous Shanxi province. His short story collection, Further News of Defeat, won the 2021 PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection and was a finalist for the 2021 CLMP Firecracker Award for Fiction. Wang immigrated to the United States when he was six and has lived in 10 states and 15 cities. In 2010 he completed his PhD in literature at Florida State University. Before that, he received his MFA in fiction at Purdue. Wang’s work has appeared in the New England Review, Greensboro Review, Day One, and Juked, among others. He is currently an assistant professor of English and creative writing at Arkansas Tech University and lives in Russellville, Arkansas. His debut novel is titled Lost in the Long March.
November 14 – Alina Adams
Alina Adams is the NYT-bestselling author of soap-opera tie-ins, figure-skating mysteries, and romance novels. Born in Odessa, USSR, Adams immigrated to the United States at age seven and learned to speak English by watching American Soap Operas. After receiving her B.A. and M.A. in broadcast communications at San Francisco State University, Adams worked in television as a writer and researcher. Years later she penned the As The World Turns book tie-in, Oakdale Confidential, which became a New York Times bestseller. Adams continued writing and is now a prolific and innovative writer who has authored more than a dozen books, both fiction and nonfiction. Her new novel, My Mother’s Secret: A Novel of the Jewish Autonomous Region, is an engaging family saga that provides a glimpse into a little-known piece of Soviet-Jewish history.
November 21 – Liza Nash Taylor
Liza Nash Taylor lives at historic Keswick farm in Keswick, Virginia, with her family and dogs. The farm, which was built in 1825, is the setting for both her novels: Etiquette for Runaways and her latest, In All Good Faith. After receiving a BA in Fine Art from Mary Baldwin College, and working in the fashion industry, in 2018, Taylor completed the MFA program at Vermont College of Fine Art and was named a Hawthornden International Fellow. In 2016, she was the winner of the San Miguel Writers Conference Fiction Prize. Her short stories have appeared in Microchondria II, (an anthology by the Harvard Bookstore), Gargoyle Magazine, and others.
November 28 – Taylor Brown
Taylor Brown’s work has appeared in a wide range of publications, including The New York Times, The Rumpus, Garden & Gun, Chautauqua, The North Carolina Literary Review, and many others. He is the recipient of a Montana Prize in Fiction, a three-time finalist for the Southern Book Prize, and was named the 2021 Georgia Author of the Year. He’s also been a finalist for the Press 53 Open Awards, Machigonne Fiction Contest, Wabash Prize in Fiction, Rick DeMarinis Short Story Contest, Dahany Fiction Prize, and Doris Betts Fiction Prize. He is the author of a short story collection, as well as five novels. Taylor, an Eagle Scout, graduated from the University of Georgia in 2005. He settled in Savannah, Georgia, after long stints in Buenos Aires, San Francisco, and the mountains and coasts of North Carolina. His new novel is titled Wingwalkers.
December 5 – Eileen Brill
Eileen Grace Brill is a painter, writer, and Sign Language Interpreter who grew up outside of Philadelphia and graduated from Carnegie Mellon with a B.S. in Economics. She has written professionally for the restaurant, hotel, and commercial real estate industries. A Letter in the Wall is her first novel, though she has been a writer all her life, beginning at age four when she wrote a poem (filled with spelling errors!) for her babysitter. Eileen’s short story “Christmas Angel” appeared in the international literary magazine Beyond Words in 2021. She and her husband Eli raised their sons in her hometown of Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, where they still live, along with their two adopted mutts, Athena and Gaia.
December 12 – Elizabeth Churchill
Elizabeth Churchill is an author, playwright and screenwriter, born and raised in Saint Andrew, Jamaica, in the West Indies. She attributes her love of reading and writing to Sunday evenings, spent with her mother, reading books such as Ian Serraillier’s The Silver Sword, and C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Elizabeth is also a trained Attorney, and holds a master’s degree in Intellectual Property Law. She enjoys taking trips to exotic locations, throwing parties, and writing over a glass of wine. Elizabeth is an avid TV fan, loves going to the theatre and cinema, and is a self-proclaimed history buff. In 2019, Elizabeth published her debut novel, The Time Trap’s Captive, which has been described as “a fun, imaginative and truly captivating historical read”. Her newest novel is titled Desolation of the Wicked City.
December 19 – Addison Armstrong
Addison Armstrong graduated from Vanderbilt University in 2020 with degrees in elementary education and language and literacy studies. She received her master’s degree from Vanderbilt in Reading Education in 2021. The Light of Luna Park was her first novel. She lives with her husband in New York City where she teaches elementary school. Her newest novel, The War Librarian, is a dual timeline narrative set among the first female volunteer librarians in 1918 during World War I and the first women accepted into the U.S. Naval Academy in 1976.
