Bookable Space: A Space to Launch (and re-launch) Books

This episode of Bookable Space was recorded live in front of an audience and streamed on Facebook Live. This episode includes the edited audio. In this episode, Helen reads from Black Swan Shock. It’s a lively discussion about writing place and space, writing stories readers can space into, writing from experience, writing the future, and more.About the bookOlympian Marla Case retires and considers becoming a medical responder. Before committing to that, she is caught in a massive earthquake. Reacting with her physical skills and newly acquired understanding of some emergency medical actions, she helps victims. However, personal tragedy also affects Marla, and she struggles to find catharsis herself.About Helen Hynson VettoriHelen Hynson Vettori (pronounced: HELL-lun HIN-suhn Ve-TOR-ee ) has always lived and worked in the Washington, DC area. Her knowledge and experiences gained as an EMT/paramedic and federal emergency manager enable her to write award-winning books with credible and thrilling Black Swan plots. She lives in Leesburg, VA.About the HostAuthor of Remembered and Curdle Creek, Yvonne Battle-Felton is an award-winning novelist, academic, event host, and podcaster, and lives a literary life bringing people together over stories. 

In this episode of Bookable Space, Alex Crockford reads from The Time Capsule Murders: A Cambridge Mystery and talks about writing place, developing characters, the past as inspiration, and more. It is a delightful episode complete with character voices.About the BookSeventeen years ago, bumbling law student Roger Whiteley and a group of his contemporaries gathered for a pre-graduation party in Cambridge. During the evening they made secret predictions about their futures, which they locked away in a time capsule. The group reassembles in college to open the capsule on the allotted date, but less than twenty-four hours into their reunion one of them is stabbed to death and the capsule itself goes missing. Whiteley is dragged into a treasure hunt with his eccentric former criminology tutor, Gerald Sinclair, as the unlikely duo race to track down the time capsule and unlock the mystery before the killer finds it.  About the Author By day, Alex is a solicitor. He lives in Cambridge with his wife, eleven-year-old son and two rather large, bumbling ragdoll cats.About the HostAuthor of Remembered and Curdle Creek, Yvonne Battle-Felton is an award-winning novelist, academic, event host, and podcaster, and lives a literary life bringing people together over stories. 

In this episode of Bookable Space, Brad Goldberg reads from Z vs V. We talk about writing vampires and zombies, writing Manhattan, creating your own rules, and more.About the BookKyle, one of the few remaining humans, struggles for survival in a world ravaged by both zombies and vampires. Trapped in Manhattan, he and a young girl, Chloe, face dangers from both undead forces, including Chloe's own vampire father who wants to turn her. About the AuthorI grew up in Chester County outside of Philadelphia. After earning a degree in Communications and Creative Writing from Carnegie Mellon University, I studied film at UCLA. As a trailer editor, writer, and producer, I’ve created thousands of pieces of advertising for motion pictures and TV. My fiction has been published in Best Indie Speculative Fiction: Volume IV, Bards & Sages Quarterly, Mobius Blvd., and on RipplesInSpace.com and Teleportmagazine.com.About the HostAuthor of Remembered and Curdle Creek, Yvonne Battle-Felton is an award-winning novelist, academic, event host, and podcaster, and lives a literary life bringing people together over stories. 

In this episode of Bookable Space, Deborah Derrickson Kossmann reads to us from her memoir Lost, Found, Kept. It’s a moving discussion about writing life, writing family, and writing home.About the Book How does a psychologist fail to recognize that her intelligent, sensitive, and book-loving mother has created "the worst hoarder house ever seen?" After making the horrifying discovery that her mother had no water in her house for at least two years, Deborah Derrickson Kossmann begins the otherworldly excavation of a childhood home she hasn't been inside for three decades.Moving back and forth in time, from this surreal nightmare of an archaeological dig to recollecting her past and long buried family secrets, Kossmann seeks to untangle a web of complicated familial relationships. In her lyrical and unflinching quest, she comes to understand what's been lost, what's been found and what's been kept in both her own and her mother's life.About the AuthorDeborah Derrickson Kossmann won Trio House Press's inaugural 2023 Aurora Polaris Creative Nonfiction Award for LOST FOUND KEPT: A MEMOIR (January 2025). Her essays, feature articles and poetry have appeared in The New York Times, Nashville Review, Memoir Monday, Psychotherapy Networker and PSYCHE to name a few. Deb is a clinical psychologist who lives in Havertown, PA. https://www.lostfoundkept.com/book-lost-found-kept-memoir-deborah-derrickson-kossmanAbout the HostAuthor of Remembered and Curdle Creek, Yvonne Battle-Felton is an award-winning novelist, academic, event host, and podcaster, and lives a literary life bringing people together over stories. 

In this episode of Bookable Space, Vicky Pinpin Feinstein reads from Beyond Fear and Suspicion, The New Americans in Little Ethiopia. It’s a discussion about writing and telling people’s stories, building trust, and accepting challenges that bring us closer to the stories we want to tell. The episode was recorded in 2025. About the BookWhat happens when a Filipino immigrant tries to know her Ethiopian neighbours? A journey through the heart of Little Ethiopia in a Washington, DC suburb, Beyond Fear and Suspicion: The New Americans in Little Ethiopia braids the stories of former refugees, asylum seekers, students, and diversity visa recipients through forced exits out of their native land, all while still reeling from the traumatic effects of wars, famine, and repressive regimes. Returning to her DC area home after living in Sydney, Vicky Pinpin-Feinstein found that many Ethiopians had moved to the suburb of Silver Spring. In this enriching story of a Filipino American’s curious desire to know these people living and working in what was once an iconic American hometown, fear and suspicion greeted her at every turn. But Vicky was determined. Traveling to Ethiopia, she discovered a fresh perspective on identity, belonging, and the labyrinthine workings of a people divided by ethnicity, politics, and trauma. Beyond Fear and Suspicion: The New Americans in Little Ethiopia chronicles the connections and tensions between “others” struggling to find their way in, illuminates the often-shifting ground of who and what is an American in the 21st century, and reveals the emotional truths behind their courage, redemption, persistence, and hope.About the AuthorVicky Pinpin-Feinstein is a writer, former college lecturer, communications technology and society professional, and author of A Thousand Little Deaths, an account of her experience growing up under the Marcos dictatorship in the Philippines. With graduate degrees in the Social Sciences, her career focused on media and society at various institutions. Working with refugees inspired her to write Beyond Fear and Suspicion. She received an Individual Artist and Scholar Award from the Montgomery Arts and Humanities Council. Vicky lives by her motto that life is a curious mix of a love for organization and randomness.About the HostAuthor of Remembered and Curdle Creek, Yvonne Battle-Felton is an award-winning novelist, academic, event host, and podcaster, and lives a literary life bringing people together over stories. 

In this episode of Bookable Space, Jean Burgess reads That Summer She Found Her Voice. It’s an engaging discussion complete with character voices. Jean shares insights into writing places we love, writing from life and research, and writing about timely themes like feminism in the late 70s, racial injustice, and more.About the bookSet against a backdrop of 1970s Baltimore, this is the story of 23-year-old Margie Stevens as she tours the country as a singer in aswing band and how she clarifies her own views on emerging feminism, social injustice, and personal spirituality – eventually discovering herauthentic voice as a woman.About the authorJean Burgess is a writer, editor, playwright, and workshop presenter. Before diving into a writing career, Jean taught theatre and speech communications on both the secondary and college levels for twenty-three years. She holds an M.A. in Theatre fromNorthwestern University and a Ph.D. in Educational Theatre from New York University.

In this episode of Bookable Space we’re joined by Julie McDonald Zander. Julie reads to us from The Reluctant Pioneer and talks about writing fact and fiction, research, and more.About the book:Matilda Koontz cherishes her life as a wife and mother on a Missouri farm, but her hardworking husband wants to claim free farmland in the Pacific Northwest. When he suggests selling the farm to trek two thousand miles across the Oregon Trail, she balks. But in the spring of 1847, Matilda and Nicholas Koontz and their sons embark on a grueling journey westward. Fresh graves testify to dangers of disease, accidents, starvation, and a multitude of hazards threatening her family and her beloved’s dream.With new struggles at every turn, Matilda wonders how she can protect her sons on such a perilous journey. Will they reach the trail’s end? Will the babe growing inside her womb survive? When tragedy strikes, the question changes: How can she possibly continue? This pioneer woman’s journey is inspired by a true story. Author bio:Julie McDonald Zander, who holds a bachelor’s in communications and political science from the University of Washington, worked as a newspaper reporter and editor before launching Chapters of Life (www.chaptersoflife.com) to capture and preserve life stories. She and her husband live in the Pacific Northwest, where they raised two children. Her nonfiction book about Matilda, Washington Territory’s Grand Lady, was a finalist for two national awards. This is her debut novel.

In this episode of Bookable Space, we’re joined by Nikki Alexander. Nikki reads from Arc of the Universe and talks to us about writing about space, the pursuit of equality, and what space and place make possible for the book.About the Book:Arc of the Universe is a contemporary fiction novel exploring themes of social justice and moral courage. Carrie Davenport, a Black law professor in North Carolina, has the career opportunity of a lifetime to design a system of government for a new experimental settlement on Mars. Can Carrie regain faith in herself and in democracy to craft the “government of the future” after an instance of police violence destroys all trust in institutions?Author BioNikki Alexander is a debut fiction author based in the greater Washington, DC area. She earned her J.D. from Harvard Law School. When she’s not lawyering or writing, she enjoys tap dancing and attempting to keep her temperamental houseplants alive.About the HostAuthor of Remembered and Curdle Creek, Yvonne is a novelist, writer, academic, event host, and podcaster, and aims to live a literary life bringing people together over stories. 

In this engaging episode of Bookable Space, we’re joined by Amy W Daughters reading from  You Can Not Mess This Up. A True Story That Never Happened. Three readings and three questions, Amy talks to us about writing herself, researching the past, and writing her way back to who she was. Bio:A native Houstonian and a graduate of Texas Tech University, Amy W. Daughters has been a freelance writer for more than a decade — mostly covering college football and sometimes talking about her feelings. Her debut novel, You Cannot Mess This Up: A True Story That Never Happened (She Writes Press), was selected as the Silver Winner for Humor in the 2019 Foreword INDIES and the Overall Winner for Humor/Comedy in the 2020 Next Generation Indie Awards. Her second book, Dear Dana: That time I went crazy and wrote all 580 of my Facebook friends a handwritten letter (She Writes Press, 2022), has won several awards, including the 2023 Reader’s Favorite Gold Medal for NonFiction Relationships, and caught the attention of Kelly Clarkson! An amateur historian, hack golfer, charlatan fashion model, and regular on the ribbon dancing circuit, Amy — a proud former resident of Blackwell, England, and Dayton, Ohio, currently lives in Tomball, Texas, a suburb of Houston. She is married to a foxy computer person, Willie, and is the lucky mother of two amazing sons, Will and Matthew.About the book:It’s 2014 and Amy Daughters is a 46-year old stay-at-home mom living in Dayton, Ohio. She returns to her hometown of Houston over the Thanksgiving holiday to discuss her parents’ estate—and finds herself hurled back in time. Suddenly, it’s 1978, and she is forced to spend 36 hours in her childhood home with her nuclear family, including her 10-year old self. Over the next day and a half, she reconsiders every feeling she’s ever had, discusses current events with dead people, gets overserved at a party with her parents’ friends, and is treated to lunch at the Bonanza Sirloin Pit. Besides noticing that everyone is smoking cigarettes, she’s still jealous of her sister, and there is a serious lack of tampons in the house, Amy also begins to appreciate that memories are malleable, wholly dependent on who is doing the remembering. In viewing her parents as peers and her siblings as detached children, she redefines her difficult relationships with her family members and ultimately realizes that her life story matters and is profoundly significant—not so much to everyone else perhaps, but certainly to her. Amy’s guide said her trip back in time wouldn’t change anything in the future, but by the time her 36 hours are up, she’s convinced that she’ll never be the same again.About the Host:Yvonne Battle-Felton is an author, academic, and podcaster. Her debut, Remembered, was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction and the Not the Booker, and shortlisted for the Jhalak Prize. Winner of The Shirley Jackson Award, Curdle Creek is her second novel. Yvonne was a finalist in the Hurston Wright Foundation Legacy Zora Award for Fiction, has been awarded the RSL Scriptorium Award, and lives in West Yorkshire, England. She aims to create a literary community bringing readers and writers together over words.