Shelf Esteem

Airdate: April 30, 2017. Today's episode finds me hanging out with three of my best friends: Jennifer Morgan, Tina Chaulk, and Lori Savory. We talk about facing down your fears as a writer and why it might be easier to do that if you've already written a bestseller; about the books we read as kids and how many of them were available in the library near Tina's home in Aspen Cove, and, inevitably, Anne of Green Gables.

Air Date: April 9. 2017. Award-winning playwrights and short-story writers Robert Chafe and Megan Coles apologized repeatedly for straying into theatre-talk when we started talking about books. The conversation was wide-ranging and lovely, and we uncovered the real reason for Newfoundland's rich literary culture, as well as establishing the fact that Robert Chafe does not, in fact, have all the answers. Check out the book list from this podcast at http://shelfesteem2017.wordpress.com

Air Date: March 24, 2017. Writers Michelle Butler Hallett and Christine Hennebury came to the Shelf Esteem studio to discuss historical fiction, how storytelling helps us rehearse for our lives, why Orwell's 1984 is always relevant, why everyone is so obsessed with Shakespeare, and how Harriet the Spy shaped our lives as young writers.

Air date: March 12, 2017. Elayne Greeley and Lynne Sheppard dropped by to talk about dystopian fiction, book quotes that become part of your family vocabulary, and books you try to get everyone else to read. We learned that Elayne is in love with Anthony Doerr (in a literary sense), Lynne is in love with a book by Salmon Rushdie, and I am not in love with dystopia. Also, all the characters in Fall on Your Knees are really unhappy people.