Gina DeMillo Wagner is an award-winning journalist and author. Her writing has been featured in The New York Times, Washington Post, Memoir Magazine, Modern Loss, Self, Outside, Writer’s Digest, and other publications. She is a Yaddo Fellow, a winner of the CRAFT Creative Nonfiction Award, and her memoir was longlisted for the 2022 SFWP Literary prize. Gina has a master’s degree in journalism and is an instructor at Lighthouse Writers Workshop.

Among other things, Gina and Carter discuss how writing scientific biology papers led Gina to pursue journalism, the guilt associated with writing about struggles with family members with disabilities, and navigating the publishing process during the pandemic. At the end of their conversation, they make up a humorous story using a line from R.G. Belsky’s Broadcast Blues.

Barbara Feigin is an advertising executive and World War II refugee, having fled with her parents from Nazi Germany as a young child in 1940. She attended Whitman College, then completed a graduate program in business run jointly by Harvard Business School and Radcliffe Graduate School. She had a 30-year career in advertising, mostly with Grey Advertising, and in 2017 she was named one of the century’s Legendary Pioneers by Grey. Her memoir was released January 2024.

Among other things, Barbara and Carter discuss Barbara’s family’s experiences escaping Nazi Germany, working in advertising as a woman in the 1960s, and how Barbara utilized writing coaching to start her memoir. At the end of their conversation, they make up an imaginative story using a line from Alex Kenna’s Burn This Night.

Karen Dionne is the USA Today and #1 internationally bestselling author of the award-winning psychological suspense novels The Marsh King’s Daughter and The Wicked Sister, both published by G.P. Putnam’s Sons in the U.S. and in dozens of other countries. The Marsh King’s Daughter was named one of the best books of 2017 by iBooks and many other booksellers and reviewers, and released in 2023 by Lionsgate as a major motion picture.

Among other things, Karen and Carter discuss why Karen returned to writing after 30 years, the process behind writing The Marsh King’s Daughter, and the struggle of self-identifying as an author. At the end of their conversation, they make up a multiple-POV story using a line from Clare Mackintosh’s The Last Party.