In this episode, we are joined by Vancouver-based Bal Khabra, debut author of hockey romance novel Collide! Bal started out as an avid reader of romance and reviewer of romance titles, and after reading over 150 romance novels in one year, decided she was ready to write one! That novel, Collide, was picked up and published by Penguin Random House after starting out as a self-published work. We can’t wait to see what Bal writes next!

We talked about Bal’s writing journey, her beginnings on Wattpad, how she utilizes social media and what happened when her book went viral on TikTok, advice for using social media to market books, reader vs. author spaces, her interest in hockey (and found family, and friendship) and how these subjects fit into her novel, and much more!

Learn more on Bal’s website, and follow her on Instagram, TikTok and Twitter/X.

In this episode, we spoke with Patrick E. Horrigan, academic and author of American Scholar, published by Lethe Press. Since recording this episode, American Scholar was shortlisted for the 2024 Lambda Literary Awards in the Gay Fiction category. Congratulations, Patrick! Patrick is also the author of two other novels, plays, essays, and more. He and taught literature for twenty-five years at LIU Brooklyn, and was a previous winner of Long Island University’s David Newton Award for Excellence in Teaching, among many other accolades.

We had a great time talking to Patrick about his career as an author, his history in academia, his past experiences at Columbia and LIU Brooklyn that helped shape him, his latest novel, the inspiration behind it, and much, much more. This episode was informative, illuminating, and an all-around great interview! Don’t miss out on listening in.

And learn more via Patrick’s website or follow him on Facebook and Instagram.

In this episode, we are joined by Jeff Adams and Michele Lucchini, online and digital accessibility experts who work at UsableNet, whose goal is to “make the digital world more accessible and usable.” Jeff and Michele recently wrote and published their first book together, an amazing guide to all things digital accessibility, Content for Everyone: A Practical Guide for Creative Entrepreneurs to Produce Accessible and Usable Web Content!

Jeff is the Accessibility Operations Direct at UsableNet, as well as a queer romance author and podcaster. Michele is Vice President of Delivery and Accessibility Operations at UsableNet, and has over twenty-three years of experience working with accessibility projects in digital spaces. Together, these two authors and accessibility experts offer so much info in this episode for anyone (and everyone) interested in broadening their knowledge of accessibility online. We at KWL learned a lot, too!

We discussed all things digital accessibility, their book “Content for Everyone,” how making small changes makes a big difference, how to think about accessibility, all about alternative text, headers, and images, and much, much more! This is a great episode for anyone wanting to learn more about accessibility online and in their own writing life.

To learn more, visit Jeff’s website.