The Resilient Writers Radio Show

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What does it take to finally finish the book that has been living with you for years?
In this episode of The Resilient Writers Radio Show, I’m joined by Debra Hunt, author of the contemporary women’s fiction and domestic suspense novel Unlikely Hero. 
Debra’s story is such a wonderful reminder that it is never too late to return to a long-held dream, build the support you need, and bring your book into the world.
Unlikely Hero follows Jesse, a woman trying to rebuild her life after a devastating loss, with only her loyal dog by her side. The original spark for the novel came from Debra’s own curiosity about working dogs, loyalty, and trust. She began wondering what might happen if a powerful dog had to choose between obeying a trainer and protecting the person he truly loved.
That question stayed with Debra for years. In fact, her earliest notes for the novel date back to 2002. Like so many writers, she worked on the story in starts and stops, sometimes putting it away for years at a time. 
Eventually, the unfinished book began to feel like a personal failure. She had always wanted to become an author, but she kept asking herself: Where was the book?
Everything began to change when Debra joined my First Book Finish program. She already had a draft, but the structure, accountability, coaching, and community helped her stop treating time as unlimited. 
Instead of endlessly revising as she drafted, she learned to finish the whole story and then approach revision step by step.
Debra shares how beta readers helped her strengthen the plot, deepen her characters, and expand what was initially closer to novella length. Just as importantly, their feedback helped her realize that other readers were often far kinder than her own inner critic.
We also talk honestly about self-publishing. After spending roughly 25 years with this story, Debra knew she didn’t want to wait through the traditional publishing process. She wanted the book in readers’ hands. 
She discusses what she learned from using a publishing-services package, why she might choose a more à la carte approach next time, and why authors need to understand which parts of publishing they want to handle themselves.
Of course, publishing the book introduced a whole new challenge: marketing it. Debra talks about building a street team, connecting with local bookstores and libraries, collaborating with fellow writers, creating a newsletter, pitching podcasts, and slowly becoming more comfortable with social media.
What I loved most about this conversation was Debra’s definition of success. It isn’t about phenomenal sales. It is about being able to say, “I did this, and you can do it too.”
This episode is a beautiful conversation about consistency, accountability, courage, and finally allowing other people to read the work you have carried for so long.

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Some conversations stay with you long after they end. This was one of them.
In this episode of The Resilient Writers Radio Show, I'm joined by writer, poet, playwright, and activist Crystal AJ Smith to talk about her powerful debut novel, Gitwaałtk. 
Crystal is Haisla and Ts’ymsen, was adopted into the Heiltsuk Nation, and brings both lived experience and deep cultural knowledge to every page of her work.
Our conversation begins with Crystal introducing herself in Lik̓wala, honoring the land she lives on and the ancestors who continue to guide her. 
It immediately sets the tone for a discussion about identity, language, storytelling, and the responsibility of carrying stories that matter.
At the heart of Gitwaałtk is the Highway of Tears, the stretch of Highway 16 in British Columbia where countless Indigenous women and girls have gone missing or been murdered. 
Crystal explains that while there are documentaries, statistics, and news stories about the Highway of Tears, she wanted to create something that would help readers do more than understand the facts. She wanted them to feel them.
We also talk about the novel's unique structure. Rather than following a traditional beginning-middle-end format, Gitwaałtk weaves together prose, poetry, Indigenous oral storytelling, and Sm'algya̱x language. 
Crystal shares that she didn't consciously design this structure—it simply arrived that way. The story came through her, and her role was to listen, write, and honor it.
One of my favorite parts of our conversation is our discussion about ancestors and creativity. Crystal describes writing as something much bigger than inventing a story. For her, it feels like the stories already exist, and she has the responsibility to receive them, tell them truthfully, and pass them on. 
We also talk about language revitalization, why she's learning Lik̓wala, and how reconnecting with language has become part of both her life and her writing practice.
Crystal also speaks candidly about balancing creativity with motherhood. As a mother of four, she's spent more than a decade bringing Gitwaałtk into the world while completing her education, leaving an abusive relationship, raising children, and continuing to learn her language and culture. Her honesty about protecting time for both family and creativity will resonate with many writers trying to hold all the pieces of their lives together.
This conversation is about much more than writing a novel. It's about resilience, remembrance, community, healing, and the power of stories to create empathy where facts alone sometimes cannot.
Whether you're interested in Indigenous literature, writing from lived experience, or simply want to hear one of the most thoughtful conversations I've had about why stories matter, I think you'll find this episode both moving and unforgettable.

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In this episode of The Resilient Writers Radio Show, I’m joined by Alexa Bigwarfe, USA Today bestselling author, publishing coach, founder of Write|Publish|Sell, and creator of the Women in Publishing Summit.
Alexa has spent years helping women and underrepresented voices publish professional books, build author platforms, and grow businesses around their work. But in this conversation, we also get to talk about her fiction side: the romantic comedies she writes under the pen name Lexi Haddock.
Alexa shares the story behind her Paris-inspired fiction series, beginning with 4 Days in Paris, a book that was more than ten years in the making. The novel began with real-life inspiration from Alexa’s own time living and working in Paris, including a romantic New Year’s Eve encounter in 1999. As she says in our conversation, she wrote the story the way she wished it had ended.
We talk about what it means to draw from real life while still creating fiction that works for readers. Alexa opens up about the challenge of honouring real people and true memories while also shaping the story into something with enough tension, conflict, and emotional movement to become a satisfying novel. She also shares how friendship, Paris, and even the Eiffel Tower itself became central characters in the book.
One of the things I loved most about this conversation is how candid Alexa is about the timing of creativity. She began the original version of the book years earlier, but it wasn’t until 2020, while going through a divorce and living through the pandemic, that she returned to it. At a moment when writing something heavy felt impossible, romance gave her a way back into hope, possibility, and joy.
We also talk about the other books in the Sparks in Paris series, including the Christmas novella set in Strasbourg, France. Alexa shares how much she loves European Christmas markets, how she brought in elements of her military background, and how a small character from an earlier book found her way into the starring role.
Of course, because Alexa is also a publishing coach, we talk about marketing too. She shares what it’s like to market her own fiction while also running her businesses, and why tying a book to a theme, season, or reader mood can make a big difference. 
Her Christmas novella gave her a chance to connect with readers who were already actively looking for holiday books, and she got to see some of the strategies she teaches authors actually working in her own author life.
In the second half of our conversation, Alexa shares what’s changing with the Women in Publishing Summit and why she’s moving toward a more community-based model. We talk about networking, business skills for authors, content strategy, and the importance of having a generous writing and publishing community around you.
And yes, there are more Lexi Haddock books on the way, including Back to Paris and a World War II novel set in France.
This is such a lovely conversation about romance, reinvention, publishing, community, and the long, winding path a book can take before it finally becomes what it was meant to be.

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In this episode of The Resilient Writers Radio Show, I’m joined by Toronto writer and journalist Christine Fischer Guy, author of The Umbrella Mender and her new novel, The Instrument Must Not Matter.
Christine’s latest novel follows Lila, a gifted young classical pianist who leaves Toronto for New York City after being chosen to study with a prestigious mentor. It’s an exciting opportunity, but also a terrifying one. Lila has to leave behind everything she knows and step into a world of artistic pressure, ambition, loneliness, and possibility.
What I loved about this conversation is how Christine talks about the way her novels begin: with character. For The Instrument Must Not Matter, the spark came from walking past the statue of Glenn Gould outside the CBC building in Toronto. That small moment of curiosity led her into biographies, research, music, and eventually into the world of this novel.
Christine isn’t a classical pianist herself, but while writing the book, she took piano lessons and even learned to play a Bach Partita in C. I loved hearing about that kind of immersive research—the kind that lets a writer feel their way into a character’s world, even when that world is technically demanding and unfamiliar.
We also talk about the deeper family history behind the novel. Lila’s grandmother was a violinist in Prague in 1968, when Soviet tanks rolled in after the Prague Spring. On the night before her planned debut, she goes out after curfew and plays the piece she was meant to perform—an act of artistic resistance that leads to her arrest and to a lifetime of silence as a musician.
One of the most fascinating parts of our conversation is Christine’s discussion of writing about music. Music exists beyond language, so how do you put that on the page? For Christine, part of the answer came through Lila’s synesthesia. Lila experiences sound as colour, which gives the novel a vivid, sensory way to bring music into language.
And of course, we talk about the writing process. Christine describes herself as a discovery writer. She doesn’t begin with an outline. Instead, she writes a messy first draft to find out what happens, then shapes the book through revision. 
The Instrument Must Not Matter took ten years and at least ten major revisions, including one big change: in the first draft, the pianist was a man. When the protagonist became a young woman, the story truly opened up.
This is such a generous conversation about research, revision, artistic courage, and trusting the long process of writing a novel.
For any writer who is deep in the messy middle of a project, I think you’ll find real comfort here. Some books take the time they take—and sometimes, the long way through is exactly what allows the book to become its best self.

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What if the way your brain works isn’t something to fix, but something to understand, support, and work with?
In this episode of The Resilient Writers Radio Show, I’m joined by Catherine Quiring, a licensed mental health counselor, podcast host, empath, mystic mom of two, and writer, for a thoughtful and deeply validating conversation about neurodiversity, creativity, and what it means to support yourself as a writer.
Catherine specializes in neurodiversity, and much of that work began with discovering her own neurodivergence. Over time, she noticed that many of the clients who were drawn to her were also late-diagnosed with ADHD, autism, or both. 
Together, we talk about how neurodivergence can show up in ways that are often missed, especially in women and highly sensitive people.
Catherine explains that the “female presentation” of ADHD often looks less like outward hyperactivity and more like internal overwhelm, perfectionism, difficulty organizing thoughts, struggling with task initiation, or feeling like the brain is constantly jumping from one thing to another. 
For writers, this can show up as starting a shiny new book idea, getting 10,000 or 15,000 words in, and then abandoning it when the project starts to feel hard or boring.
And if that sounds familiar, you are definitely not alone.
We also talk about the gifts of ADHD, including creativity, intuition, and the ability to hyper-focus once you’re able to get into flow. Catherine shares practical ways writers can make writing feel more inviting again: creating a writing ritual, using music or silence, lighting a candle, bringing in a favourite drink, trying dictation, taking walks, using body doubling, or finding ways to “gamify” the writing process so it feels more enjoyable and less like a chore.
One of the most powerful ideas Catherine shares is the difference between fixing yourself and supporting yourself. So many writers carry shame around how they “should” be working, especially when they don’t fit the traditional advice of writing every single day or producing at a consistent pace. 
Catherine invites us to ask better questions: What do I need? What helps me focus? What lowers the pressure? What makes this feel possible?
We also discuss her Define Your Neurodiversity Workbook, the idea of a “Goldilocks nervous system,” and how writers can create environments that feel “just right” for their brains and bodies. 
Catherine also reminds us that while a diagnosis can be helpful, you don’t need one in order to use tools that support your executive function, creativity, and writing life.
This conversation is a beautiful reminder that your brain is not a problem to be solved. Your writing process does not have to look like anyone else’s. The more you understand what supports you, the easier it becomes to return to the page with compassion, curiosity, and maybe even a little more joy.