Art In Fiction

In this episode, I'm chatting with Pip Williams, author of two novels featured in the Literature category on Art In Fiction: The Dictionary of Lost Words andThe Bookbinder. 

Highlights include:

• The Oxford English Dictionary and Oxford University Press as inspiration for both novels.
• Finding treasure in the archives of Oxford University Press.
• Inspiration for The Bookbinder and an examination of women's work befo...

In this episode, I'm chatting with Nicola Harrision, author of two novels featured on Art In Fiction: Laguna Beach in the Visual Arts category and The Show Girl  in the Theater category. 

Highlights include:

• Origins of Laguna Beach as the story of a woman who had been a Rosie the Riveter in WWII only to be thanked and sent on her way at the end of the War.
• The Pageant of the Masters--a unique art event that's b...

I'm chatting with Liza Nash Taylor, author of Etiquette for Runaways and In All Good Faith.

Highlights include:

•  Origins of Etiquette for Runaways (Hint: don't text and talk!)
• Moll Flanders as inspiration for the main character May Marshall
• Finding Easter Eggs to inspire plot
• What happens when a fully formed character pops into your head and just won't go away
• Prohibition-era moonshine in Etiquette for Runawa...

Join me as I chat with Samantha Silva, author of Love and Fury and Mr. Dickens and His Carol.

Highlights:

• Origins of Love and Fury
• Why Mary Wollstonecraft--her life, her writing, and her ongoing contribution as the "first feminist"
• Structuring Love and Fury - the use of ten plot points
• Sense and sensibility in Love and Fury
• Mary Wollstonecraft's long road back into public consciousness a hundred years after h...

Join me as I chat with Finola Austin, author of the award-winning debut novel Brontë's Mistress.

Highlights:

• Origins of Brontë's Mistress
• Investigating Lydia Robinson, rumored to have had an affair with Branwell Brontë, the n'er-do-well brother of the famous Brontë sisters
• Inspiration from Mrs. Gaskell's biography of Charlotte Brontë
• Contrast between Lydia Robinson and the typical Brontë heroine
• Using Re...

Join me as I chat with Lauren Belfer, author of several riveting historical novels including And After the Fire and A Fierce Radiance.   

Highlights:

• Genesis of And After the Fire
• Learning about the music of Johann Sebastian Bach
• Salons of 19th-century Berlin and Fanny Mendelsohn
• Role of Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, son of Johann Sebastian Bach in the novel
• Fanny Mendelsohn's fraught relationship with her brother Felix Men...

Join me as I chat with Lynn Cullen, author of several novels including Mrs. Poe and Twain's End.   

Highlights:

• Genesis of Twain's End
• Shocking truths about Mark Twain
• Hal Holbrook, Mark Twain, and Isabelle Lyon
• How would we label Mark Twain in this age of psychological profiling?
• Francis Osgood and her relationship with Edgar Allen Poe in Mrs. Poe
• Poe and the popularity of The Raven
• Depicting the complexity of roma...

Join me as I chat with B. A. Shapiro, the New York Times bestselling author of three fabulous novels featuring visual art: The Art Forger, The Muralist, and The Collector's Apprentice.  

Highlights:

• The attraction of art, particularly late-19th and early-20th-century art, as a subject for novels
• Genesis of The Collector's Apprentice
• Writing the "bad guy " in The Collector's Apprentice
• Cézanne and M...

Join me as I chat with bestselling novelist Alka Joshi, author of two novels listed on Art In Fiction: The Henna Artist and The Secret Keeper of Jaipur, both set in India in the 1950s and 1960s. 

Highlights:

• Overview of The Henna Artist (Decorative Arts)
• Inspiration for The Henna Artist 
• Women and independence
• India in the 1950s and India today
• Resourcefulness of the characters in The Henna Artist and The Secret Keeper of J...

Join me as I chat with Erika Gaffney, the creator of the ArtHerstory website at www.artherstory.net. 

Highlights:

• The genesis of the Art Herstory website
• Developments in celebrating women artists from the Renaissance and Baroque eras
• Why has the work of female artists not been in the public eye until quite recently?
• Erika's background as an Acquisitions Editor in scholarly publishing
• Women artists in the medieval era
• Wo...

Join me as I chat with Deborah Swift, author of four novels listed on Art In Fiction, including The Lady's Slipper and the Women of Pepys' Diaries Series, all set in England in the 17th century. 

Highlights:

• Genesis of The Lady's Slipper (Visual Arts)
• Why the novel is set following the English Civil War
• Orchids in The Lady's Slipper
• Reading from The Lady's Slipper
• The Women of Samuel Pepys' Dia...

Join me as I chat with Lilianne Milgrom, author of L’Origine, an intriguing novel about the creation and history of L’Origine du Monde by Gustave Courbet, one of the world’s most provocative paintings.

Highlights:

• Find out why Courbet's L'Origine du Monde is still raising eyebrows after 150 years
• The effect of the painting on Lilianne
• Gustave Courbet and realism
• How reactions to L'Origine du Monde are like t...

Meet Alex George, author of The Paris Hours,  a tour de force of a novel told over the course of one day in 1927 about four ordinary people whose stories are as extraordinary as the glorious city they inhabit.

Highlights:

• The genesis of The Paris Hours --Marcel Proust and his maid
• How is a writer like a magpie? 
• Paris in the 1920s--incorporating the tapestry of history into a novel
• The roles played in the novel by a panoply of stars...

Meet Donna DiGiuseppe, author of Lady in Ermine, a stunning biographical novel about Renaissance painter Sofonisba Anguissola.

Highlights:

• Lady in Ermine is "a vivid portrait of a talented woman who defied the conventions of her times." Find out why!
• Who is Sofonisba Anguissola and why is she in the news lately?
• Discover why Giorgio Vasari, who wrote Lives of the Artists, considered Sofonisba's work worthy ...

In Episode 23, meet C. C. Humphreys, bestselling author of several novels listed on Art In Fiction, including Shakespeare's Rebel, Chasing the Wind, and Vlad: The Last Confession.

Highlights:

• What is an adventure writer of historical fiction?
• The genesis of Shakespeare's Rebel: "Hamlet and swords" 
• Challenges of depicting real people such as Shakespeare, Elizabeth I, Lord Essex, and Sir Robert Cecil
• A r...

Welcome to the Episode 22 of The Art In Fiction Podcast!

Meet Charlie Lovett, bestselling author of 5 novels listed on Art In Fiction,  including his most recent, Escaping Dreamland.

Highlights:

• What is a bibliophile and why do they interest Charlie so much?
• How Charlie chooses what to write about
• Genesis of Escaping Dreamland - what's with those children's series novels?
• Who really wrote the children&ap...

Welcome to the Art In Fiction Podcast!

In this episode, I've compiled advice from nine of the authors interviewed in Season 1 of the podcast.  You'll learn five smart tips from Syrie James, Barbara Linn Probst, Maggie Humm, Stephanie Storey, Jeanne Mackin, Stephanie Cowell, Helaine Mario, Barbara Quick, and Patricia Morrisroe.

Highlights:

Tip #1: Write what you love to read 

• Syrie James and ...

Welcome to EPISODE 20  of the Art In Fiction Podcast.


Paris between the wars is the exciting setting for Jeanne Mackin's novels The Last Collection and The Beautiful American.

In this episode, find out about wacky surrealist lobsters, why pencils and paper were not allowed at fashion shows, and a lot more!

Highlights:

• The Beautiful American and the art and life of photographer Lee M...

Welcome to EPISODE 19 of the Art In Fiction Podcast.

The three novelists you'll meet in this episode are each inspired by a different classical composer. They discuss their inspiration and research processes, and touch on a topic rarely discussed in author circles--money!

Barbara Quick is the author of Vivaldi’s Virgins, Stephanie Cowell is the author of Marrying Mozart, and Patricia Morrisroe is the author...