George Saunders

On this episode, Adam & Jill chat with George Saunders, bestselling authors and one of TIME’s 100 most influential people in the world. George is renowned for his collections of short stories and his first full length novel, Lincoln in the Bardo, recently debuted at #1 on the New York Times bestsellers list.

George explained where the idea for this novel came from, why Lincoln remains such an important character even today, how the incredible audiobook came to be and why absurdity fits so well into his stories. Take a listen!

Colson Whitehead

In this episode, Adam and Jill traveled to Chicago to speak with Colson Whitehead about his #1 New York Times bestselling and Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Underground Railroad. Their conversation covered how this book came to be, how he views his book in relation to the incredible success it has achieved, race relations throughout American history and a dive into the music Colson listens to while writing.

In addition to winning the 2017 Pulitzer Prize, the Underground Railroad was also selected as the winner of the National Book Award and Carnegie Medal. Both Oprah and President Obama chose it for their respective book clubs and the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Publishers Weekly, Buzzfeed and Esquire named it their best book of the year.

Marieke Nijkamp

In celebration of turning 200, we welcomed back our 1st ever guest, author Marieke Nijkamp! We sat down for a live event at our home library, Cuyahoga County, to discuss her latest NY Times bestseller, Before I Let Go. Marieke goes into using setting as a character, why she creates her own towns and answers audience questions about how she knew she wanted to be a writer.

Jodi Picoult

In our second ever live episode, Adam and Jill had the opportunity to sit down with Jodi Picoult, New York Times Bestselling author of over twenty novels including My Sister’s Keeper, Nineteen Minutes, Vanishing Acts and Plain Truth.

Her book Small Great Things tackles the subject of race and Jodi shares with the audience the true story that first inspired her to write this book. She also discusses the importance of having these kinds of difficult conversations in today’s climate along with her research process for the novel.