Show Schedule | CONVERSATIONS LIVE with VICKI ST. CLAIR | Talk Radio to Inspire, Inform, Ignite.

Fiction, Women's Issues, Writers on Writing

MAY 27: Summer Reads from Kristina McMorris, Kristan Higgins, & Lori Foster

May 23, 2019

“2 children for sale” reads the sign sitting on a farmhouse porch in 1931. The sign is a last resort, but could be found anywhere in an era of breadlines, bank runs, and broken dreams. Sold on a Monday author Kristina McMorris discusses how she weaves historical fact into fiction to create a powerful and compelling story.

Kristina is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author. Her novels have garnered more than two dozen prestigious awards and nominations.

Next, Kristan Higgins admits that most of her books have a dog in them , her logic being that life without a dog is pretty lonely to contemplate. Her latest novel is Good Luck with That, a story of two women on a journey to self-acceptance.

Kristan is a New York Times, USA TODAY, Wall Street Journal and Publishers Weekly bestselling author of 18 novels, and recipient of dozens of awards for her writing.

Finally, Lori Foster joins talks about the first novel in her Summer Resort Series, Cooper’s Charm, a tale of two sisters and how a summer in a lakeside resort brings redemption and healing.

Lori is a New York Times, USA Today, and Publishers Weekly bestselling author of more than 100 titles. She is the recipient of the prestigious RT Book Reviews Career Achievement Award for Series Romantic Fantasy, and for Contemporary Romance.

Health & Wellness, Memoir, Non Fiction, Social Issues

MAY 20: Jared Yates Sexton’s The Man They Wanted Me To Be, Lauren McDuffie’s Smoke Roots Mountain Harvest, & Jodi Helmer’s Tea Garden

May 15, 2019

Depression. Lower life expectancy. Misogyny. Suicide. These are just the worst of the societal consequences of toxic masculinity, failing both men and women. The Man They Wanted Me to Be doubles as a memoir and cultural analysis, told from the point of view of Jared Yates Sexton, who was raised with strict expectations that are outdated in our current cultural climate.

Jared is a contributing political writer at Salon, and his political writing has appeared in The New York Times, The New Republic, and elsewhere. He has authored three collections of fiction and a crime novel, and is an associate professor of creative writing at Georgia Southern University.

Next, capture the flavors and modern cooking techniques of Appalachia and the Blue Ridge Mountains in Smoke, Roots, Mountain, Harvest. Author Lauren McDuffie joins us to share some tales from Appalachian country and her favorite recipes, including Drunken Short Ribs and Baked Pork Chops with Cran-Apple Moonshine compote.

Lauren admits she is not a chef, but a passionate and curious lover of food, and writes the award-wining food blog Harvest and Honey.

Later, Jodi Helmer has a love of tea that developed as a young child. While her palate and tastes have changed, her passion for tea has remained. In Growing Your Own Tea Garden, she shares tips for turning your garden (or windowsill) into a mini tea plantation..

Jodi’s writing has appeared in publications like Sierra, Entrepreneur, NPR, National Geographic Traveler, AARP, and more, and she has authored six books. She lives on a small homestead in rural North Carolina where she grows flowers and vegetables, keeps bees and raises chickens, goats and one very spoiled donkey.

Health & Wellness, Inspirational, Memoir, Non Fiction, Personal Development

MAY 13: Karen Rinaldi’s It’s Great to Suck at Something & Laura Schroff’s An Invisible Thread

May 9, 2019

Today’s first guest will help you find success through embracing failure. Karen Rinaldi joins us to discuss how resilience is born from discovering the freedom of sucking at something. It’s Great to Suck at Something: The Unexpected Joy of Wiping Out and What It Can Teach Us About Patience, Resilience, and the Stuff that Really Matters reveals the joy in the pursuit rather than the goal.

Karen has worked in publishing for over two decades, and is the founder of the imprint Harper Wave at HarperCollins. She has been featured in The New York Times, Oprah.com, Time, LitHub and other publications.

Next, Laura Schroff was a busy sales executive when she befriended an 11 year old homeless boy, both of them embarking on a life-changing journey of hope, kindness, adventure, and love. An Invisible Thread is her memoir, showing how the power of fate can help you find your way.

Laura is a former advertising executive who helped launch three of the most successful start-ups in Time Inc. history— In Style, Teen People, and People Style Watch. She has been a keynote speaker at over 300 schools, libraries, charities and bookstores.

Fiction, Writers on Writing

MAY 06: Robyn Carr’s The View From Alameda Island and A.F. Brady’s Once A Liar

May 4, 2019

Returning guest Robyn Carr has met with tremendous success writing multiple New York Times bestselling novels for her Sullivan’s Crossing series, but today she comes to us with a standalone book, The View from Alameda Island. Today, she’ll reveal the rationale behind her decision to depart from a sure thing and take a break from her series.

Robyn is a prolific author of romance and women’s novels, repeatedly making appearances on the New York Times bestselling list, often in the number one spot, and having sold tens of millions of books. Her novels have been translated into 19 languages in 30 countries.

Later, A.F. Brady has worked in mental healthcare for many years, a career which has undoubtedly influenced her first two novels, The Blind and Once A Liar. She joins us today to talk about the latter, in which a high-powered sociopath meets his reckoning when he’s accused his mistress’ brutal murder.

A.F. Brady is a New York State licensed mental health counselor/psychotherapist, and a proud native New Yorker who has turned a lifelong passion for writing into her first two novels.

Career, Health & Wellness, Inspirational, Lifestyle, Personal Development, Spirituality

APR 29: Marc Lesser’s Seven Practices of a Mindful Leader & Ellen Grace O’Brian’s The Jewel of Abundance

April 22, 2019

Today’s show is all about finding peace and prosperity, personally and professionally.

Imagine your life if you had the ability to achieve maximum focus without losing flexibility, got more of the right things done, and added to the ultimate goal of bringing more peace into the world? With his Seven Practices of a Mindful Leader: Lessons from Google and a Zen Monastery Kitchen, author Marc Lesser dishes up the tools you’ll need for optimum accomplishment without the stress that comes with it.

Marc founded and was CEO of 3 companies, is author of 4 books, and has an MBA degree from New York University. He was a resident of the San Francisco Zen Center for 10 years, and director of Tassajara, Zen Mountain Center, the first Zen monastery in the western world.

Later, The Jewel of Abundance: Finding Prosperity through the Ancient Wisdom of Yoga provides an antidote to the hypermaterialism that poisons our lives. “When prosperity is equated with material wealth attained for its own sake, the word prosperity loses its deep meaning,” writes author Ellen Grace O’Brian. For those who seek the fulfillment of both their souls and their material desires, this book is a wellspring of inspiration and intelligent guidance.

Ellen is the director of the Center for Spiritual Enlightenment in San Jose, CA, who has been teaching Kriya Yoga philosophy and practice nationally and internationally for over three decades. She is also a radio host, and award-winning poet who weaves poetry into her teachings on spiritual matters, pointing to the mystical experience beyond words and thought.

Inspirational, Memoir, Non Fiction, Social Issues, Women's Issues

APR 22: Meredith May’s The Honey Bus & Laurie Halse Anderson’s SHOUT

April 15, 2019

Today’s show kicks off with a buzzworthy guest … literally. Meredith May learned some of life’s most pivotal lessons about community, loyalty and survival from one of nature’s most fragile and important creatures. Raised by her fourth generation beekeeper grandfather while her mother’s mental state slowly deteriorated, Merediths found everything she needed to know about family was buzzing right there in the hive. Her new memoir is The Honey Bus: A Memoir of Courage and a Girl Saved by Bees.

Meredith spent sixteen years at the San Francisco Chronicle, where her narrative reporting won the PEN USA Literary Award for Journalism and was shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize. She is a fifth generation beekeeper.

Later, frustrated by how little has changed in the 20 years since first writing about sexual assault in her groundbreaking, award-winning novel Speak, Laurie Halse Anderson reveals her personal history as a survivor of sexual assault and her journey to healing in her new book SHOUT. Today, she’ll discuss solutions to this ongoing problem, sharing key insights from among the thousands of women she has interviewed over the last two decades.

Laurie’s is a New York Times bestseller whose writing spans young readers, teens, and new adults. In addition to combatting censorship, she regularly speaks about the need for diversity in publishing and is a member of RAINN’s National Leadership Council.

Health & Wellness, Non Fiction, Personal Development, Self-help

APR 15: Dr. James Creighton’s Loving Through Your Differences & Dr. Ronald Frederick’s Loving Like You Mean It

March 29, 2019

Even the strongest relationships encounter shaky ground … the key is keeping those tremblors from becoming destructive and devastating relationship earthquakes. Loving Through Your Differences: Building Strong Relationships From Separate Realities explores how your unique emotional reality influences your interactions with the world. Today, Dr. James Creighton offers tips on how to keep combustible situations in check through expressing your feelings while minimizing blame and accusation, and how the five minute rule can improve your relationships.

Dr. Creighton is a psychologist and relationship consultant who has worked with couples and conducted communications training for more than 50 years.

Later, if you’ve ever frustrated yourself by acting (or reacting) in a way that defies your better judgement, take solace in the fact that we are all hardwired in infancy to act the way we do. Dr. Ronald J. Frederick joins us today to reveal how to rewire our brains to achieve healthy, secure relationships. Plus, you’ll learn your attachment style … secure, avoidant, anxious, or fearful-avoidant.

Dr. Frederick has provided innovative and experiential therapy to individuals and couples for over twenty years and actively teaches and trains psychotherapists. His new book is Loving Like You Mean It: Use the Power of Emotional Mindfulness to Transform Your Relationships.

Finally, to eliminate negative behaviors, you have to find the root and extract it. “It is our minds that drive the eating bus,” writes nutritionist Carly Pollack in her new book, Feed Your Soul: Nutritional Wisdom to Lose Weight Permanently and Live Fulfilled. We’ll discuss how to change your story and find the courage to look deep and heal from the inside.

Carly is the founder of Nutritional Wisdom, a thriving private practice based in Austin, Texas. She is a Certified Clinical Nutritionist with a master’s degree in holistic nutrition.

Environment, Lifestyle, Non Fiction, Personal Development, Women's Issues

APR 08: Keep Going with Austin Kleon, National Geographic’s Night Sky Guy, & Dr. Tammy Nelson’s When You’re the One Who Cheats

March 22, 2019

What do the tough do, when the going gets tough? They Keep Going, which just happens to be the name of Austin Kleon‘s new book where he shares 10 ways to stay creative in good times and bad.

We’ll find out why this “writer who draws” describes himself as a mongrel, and how that benefits his work. Why he says life is for art, and not other way around. And, the big question that many have asked over the past few months in light of scandalous celebrity behavior, can you separate the art from the man, and the man from the art?

Austin Kleon’s New York Times bestselling books include Steal Like an Artist, and Show Your Work.

Want a fun, educational, and free activity to enjoy with your kids? Try star gazing. Andrew Fazekas, aka the “Night Sky Guy”, turned his life-long passion into his career. Today, he shares fun science facts such as what causes the elusive “green flash” at sunset. He also discusses his partnership with National Geographic in taking the world’s first open air augmented-reality planetarium to a global audience. Explore the cosmos with him in Backyard Guide to the Night Sky.

A science writer, speaker, and broadcaster Andrew Fazekas writes the StarStruck for National Geographic, and is the author of Star Trek: The Official Guide to Our Universe.

Sex therapist Dr. Tammy Nelson returns to Conversations Live to help unravel confusion and make sense of unfaithful behavior. She’ll offer tips on how to stop cheating, and share advice for those still involved in an affair with When You’re the One Who Cheats: 10 Things You Need to Know.

Tammy Nelson, PhD is a sex and relationship expert, an international speaker, an author and a licensed psychotherapist with almost thirty years of experience working with individuals and couples. Enjoy her previous appearance here.

Fiction, Writers on Writing

APR 01: Greg Iles’ Cemetery Road & Glen Hamilton’s Mercy River

March 22, 2019

Described as the William Faulkner of the Breaking Bad generation, #1 New York Times Bestseller Greg Iles is no stranger to adversity in a career spanning nearly three decades as an author. Following a car accident that left him in a coma for 8 days, Greg, much like bandmate Stephen King, rejoined the legendary and notorious lit-rock band The Rock Bottom Remainders. Today we’ll discuss how his body of work has helped put his homestate of Mississippi on the map.

Born in Germany in 1960, where his father ran the US Embassy Medical Clinic during the height of the Cold War, Greg spent his youth in Natchez, Mississippi, graduating from the University of Mississippi in 1983. His novels have been made into films, translated into more than twenty languages, and published in more than thirty-five countries worldwide. His latest is Cemetery Road.

Later, while Glen Hamilton’s novels always begin and end in rain-soaked Seattle, Mercy River stays in the Pacific Northwest as the central plot sees our hero race on a mysterious quest to the arid high desert of central Oregon. A Seattle native and award-winning author, Glen returns to Conversations Live to discuss the fourth installment in his popular Van Shaw series.

Glen is the current President of the Southern California chapter of Mystery Writers of America. He is a winner of the Anthony, Macavity, and Strand Magazine Critics Awards. A resident of California, he frequently returns to Seattle to soak up the rain.

Fiction, Writers on Writing

MAR 25: Steve Berry’s The Malta Exchange, Kris Frieswick’s The Ghost Manuscript, & Elise Hooper’s Learning to See

March 8, 2019

Today, Vicki chats with three authors who weave historical twists with fictional tales to create suspenseful page turners!

First, returning guest Steve Berry is noted for his mastery of blending fiction and history into a cocktail of intrigue and deception. The Malta Exchange, The latest in his best-selling Cotton Malone series, finds the titular character caught in a web of Vatican intrigue that involves the Knights of Malta and lost documents that could change history.

Steve’s novels have been translated into 40 languages with 20,000,000 copies in 51 countries.

Next, Kris Frieswick’s 20 years of writing experience didn’t prepare her for the journey as she embarked on her first novel. The Ghost Manuscript is Indiana Jones with a female lead — we see our heroine on a quest to find King Arthur’s tomb that takes readers from Wales, to Boston and eventually to Cape Cod.

Kris is a journalist, editor, humorist, teacher and author whose work has appeared in national magazines, newspapers and books for more than 20 years.

Finally, Seattle based author Elise Hooper gives readers a peek into the life of photographer Dorothea Lange … the woman who captured the real America … in Learning to See.

Elise has taught high school English and history and enjoys highlighting characters in her books who are real woman that have been often overlooked in history books.

MAY 27: Summer Reads from Kristina McMorris, Kristan Higgins, & Lori Foster

MAY 13: Karen Rinaldi’s It’s Great to Suck at Something & Laura Schroff’s An Invisible Thread

MAY 06: Robyn Carr’s The View From Alameda Island and A.F. Brady’s Once A Liar

APR 29: Marc Lesser’s Seven Practices of a Mindful Leader & Ellen Grace O’Brian’s The Jewel of Abundance

APR 15: Dr. James Creighton’s Loving Through Your Differences & Dr. Ronald Frederick’s Loving Like You Mean It

APR 08: Keep Going with Austin Kleon, National Geographic’s Night Sky Guy, & Dr. Tammy Nelson’s When You’re the One Who Cheats

APR 01: Greg Iles’ Cemetery Road & Glen Hamilton’s Mercy River

MAR 25: Steve Berry’s The Malta Exchange, Kris Frieswick’s The Ghost Manuscript, & Elise Hooper’s Learning to See

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