Each week, freelance writer and lifelong bookworm Alli Hoff Kosik will challenge a guest to reread a literary throwback or to experience for the first time ever a book they may have missed as a kid. After that, they’ll be asked to spill all the feels and all the opinions about that book on the air for your podcast-listening pleasure. Every Tuesday, you can find us breaking down an old school read from our tween and teen days on a new episode of the show. We’ll cover everything from The Baby-Sitters Club to Holes, Nancy Drew to Harry Potter. This time around, we’re a little wiser (yay!), a lot older (ugh.), and of legal age to drink wine… so we’ll have a lot to say. Happy Reading!
Abby and Alli welcome their first-ever guest to the WriTing Friends series for a conversation about the publishing process, astrology, and everything in between. Carinn Jade is the co-host of Pop Fiction Women and the author of The Astrology House. Follow her on Instagram @carinnjade.
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Longtime listeners know that Sarah Dessen books always, always bring the spice and juicy discussion to the podcast. This episode is no exception as Alli and her guest dish about 1998’s Someone Like You. The book tackles a lot of issues—and we try to do the same on today’s show. Topics include bad boyfriends, intense…
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Jump aboard Episode 293 for a transatlantic voyage on the gorgeous writing of kid lit GOAT, Sharon Creech. This week, it’s all about her 2000 Newbery Honor winner, The Wanderer, and the big thinking it inspires. Alli and her guest dive into discussions of trauma, accidental feminism, real-world fantasy, diary-style writing, and so much more….
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Join Alli and her guest for a trip to one of our favorite settings: Stonybrook, Connecticut—home of the Baby-Sitters Club. This time, the discussion focuses on the fourth book in Ann M. Martin’s beloved series, Mary Anne Saves the Day, which is a critical text in the BSC cinematic universe. Tune in to Episode 292…
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At long last, we tackle the final book in the original Hunger Games trilogy: Mockingjay. This is a heavy book, so there’s lots to get into in this episode: cycles of violence, the consequences of war, what it means to be a symbol, PTSD, and plenty of moral ambiguity. And it wouldn’t be a Hunger…
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Welcome back to SSR: WriTing Friends! This time around, Alli and Abby are digging a little deeper into one of their favorite elements of the writing process: creating characters. They discuss what inspires their characters, how they create nuanced fictional people, and what it’s like to find compassion for antagonists. They also consider the challenges…
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It’s been too long since we paid a visit to Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield in good old Sweet Valley, California. Let’s fix that! Episode 289 covers the twenty-eighth installment in Francine Pascal’s beloved series, Alone in the Crowd, a book that explores insecurity, songwriting, the complicated nature of mother/daughter relationships, and rocking chair fundraisers. Alli…
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This special bonus episode features Rachelle Bergstein, author of the new book The Genius of Judy. In it, Alli and Rachelle cover all things related to SSR queen JUDY BLUME! They chat about Judy’s journey to publication, the process of researching her career, their favorite (and maybe least favorite) Judy books, the Blume legacy, feminism,…
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This week, SSR gets a jump on Halloween festivities with a long overdue trip to R.L. Stine’s Fear Street. Specifically, Episode 288 is all about the first title in the series, The New Girl, in which a lovesick teenager falls for a villain disguised as a manic pixie dream girl. The book takes us into…
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Colleen McKeegan returns this week to celebrate another book hitting the shelves and to unpack another one of her favorite summer reads from childhood. This time, it’s Fearless by Francine Pascal (RIP!)—the first title in a series of the same name that explores the nature of fear, social anxiety, vigilantism, and (of course) the dramas…
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