In the spotlight is Carla Kaplan and her biography of Jessica “Decca” Mitford, titled Troublemaker: The Fierce, Unruly Life of Jessica Mitford. Kaplan is an award-winning professor and writer who holds the Stanton and Elisabeth Davis Distinguished Professorship in American Literature at Northeastern University. She has also taught at the University of Southern California and at Yale. Kaplan is the author of The Erotics of Talk and Zora Neale Hurston: A Life in Letters.

A recipient of a Guggenheim and many other fellowships, Kaplan has been a fellow in residence at the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, and the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute, among other research centers.

Learn more about Carla Kaplan here: https://carlakaplan.com/

Novelist Spotlight is produced and hosted by Mike Consol. Check out his novels here: https://snip.ly/yz18no

Write to Mike Consol at novelistspotlight@gmail.com

In the spotlight is repeat guest Tyson Cornell, the founder and publisher of Rare Bird Books, an independent press committed to bold, boundary-pushing storytelling. He has more than two decades of experience in publishing, bookselling and author advocacy, and has championed hundreds of acclaimed titles across fiction, nonfiction and music.

Learn more about Rare Bird Books here: https://rarebirdlit.com/about-rare-bird

Novelist Spotlight is produced and hosted by Mike Consol. Check out his novels here: https://snip.ly/yz18no

Write to Mike Consol at novelistspotlight@gmail.com

In the spotlight is Melissa Fraterrigo, the author of the memoir-in-essays titled “The Perils of Girlhood.” She has also written the novel “Glory Days,” as well as the short story collection “The Longest Pregnancy.”

Her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies from Shenandoah and The Massachusetts Review to storySouth and Notre Dame Review. She has been a finalist for awards from Glimmer Train on multiple occasions, twice nominated for Pushcart Awards, and was the winner of the Sam Adams/Zoetrope: All Story Short Fiction Contest.

She teaches creative writing at Purdue University and in the MFA program in creative writing at Butler University in Indianapolis and also offers instruction on the art and craft of writing at the Lafayette Writers’ Studio in Lafayette, Indiana.

Learn more about Melissa Fraterrigo here: https://www.melissafraterrigo.com/

Novelist Spotlight is produced and hosted by Mike Consol. Check out his novels here: https://snip.ly/yz18no

Write to Mike Consol at novelistspotlight@gmail.com