Watch our LIVE show with Tara Dorabji TONIGHT!
Weekly News from Friends & Fiction—January 15, 2025
Tune in LIVE at 7pm ET for TONIGHT’s episode!
Join us Wednesday, January 15th LIVE at 7pm Eastern on the F&F Facebook page and YouTube channel as the Fab Four gather to welcome this month’s F&F Featured Author, debut novelist Tara Dorabji, to discuss our January 2025 Pick of the Month, Call Her Freedom, a sweeping family saga following one woman’s struggle to protect her culture and her family amidst the backdrop of a military occupation.
Tara Dorabji is the daughter of Parsi-Indian and German-Italian migrants. Her documentary film series on human rights defenders in Kashmir won awards at over a dozen film festivals throughout Asia and the US. Her writing has been featured in publications such as Al Jazeera, The Chicago Quarterly, Huizache, and in the acclaimed anthologies: Good Girls Marry Doctors and All the Women in My Family Sing. She joins us from her home in Northern California to discuss her debut novel, Call Her Freedom, which was chosen as the winner of Simon & Schuster’s Books Like Us First Novel Contest for underrepresented writers.
Watch the video broadcast of this interview as it airs LIVE Wed 1/15 at 7pm ET on the F&F Facebook group page & YouTube channel. Catch the audio version on our podcast Fri 1/17.
Order Tara’s book on Bookshop.org!
Shop all of our guests’ & hosts’ books in our F&F Shop on Bookshop.org!
Upgrade to our PAID Subscription for bonus Q&A’s with our guest authors which include a writing tip, book recommendation, and information about their works-in-progress, plus other great material not covered on the show!
Latest News from the Fab Four!
PATTI CALLAHAN HENRY enjoyed one of Alabama’s rare snow days, although she was super sad it meant missing her in-conversation event with Fiona Davis in person. She is so looking forward to the Wild Dunes Reader’s Weekend this coming weekend, with F&F’s co-founder Mary Alice Monroe. Did you know there will be an F&F Official Book Club meet-up during the weekend? Meanwhile, she announced her four-part LIVE video series and hopes to see some of you there for prizes and fun!
KRISTY WOODSON HARVEY is so excited (despite the below zero temps! Yikes!) to be heading to Colorado to ski with her son this week! And… she got her first advance copy of BEACH HOUSE RULES! Hooray! She is gearing up for lots of fun events in the next few months–including, of course, the BEACH HOUSE RULES tour—which she will be announcing soon. First up, she’ll be in her hometown of Salisbury, NC at Catawba College for the Brady Author’s Symposium. Getting to be the person standing on the stage where she has been in the audience for so many years feels wild. Come see her on February 25 at 11 am. Tickets are available now!
KRISTIN HARMEL came home from the hospital last Wednesday night and is on the mend, doing physical therapy at home to regain some range of motion in her knee as her broken leg heals. She is discouraged to have started the year off this way but is so grateful for the support from so many of you; once again, you’ve made her feel supported in a time of need. Now if only she’d stop having times of need! She is broken-hearted to miss the Wild Dunes Reader’s Weekend with Patti and Mary Alice this weekend.
MARY KAY ANDREWS enjoyed a week of extremes–a rare snow day in Atlanta, followed by a fun family day watching the grandkids sledding and having snowball fights followed by a big family dinner, and then a quick trip on Tuesday to sunny Fort Myers, Florida for a speaking engagement. She’s been binge reading books by upcoming F&F guests Scott Turow, (Presumed Guilty) and Christina Clancy (The Snowbirds.) And writing. Always writing.
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Upcoming Events
Saturday, January 18, 2025 at 11am – Sunday, January 19, 2025 at 2pm — Patti with Kwame Alexander at the 20th Annual Wild Dunes Author Event & Weekend hosted by Mary Alice Monroe. Info & tickets HERE.
Tuesday, February 18 at 7pm — Live virtual event hosted by Patti on her Facebook author page. Learn the backstory of her forthcoming novel The Story She Left Behind, ask her anything, and win prizes! She’ll be doing these every Tuesday evening for four straight weeks leading up to her March 18th pub date, with a new topic and a new prize drawing each week. Mark your calendars for this first one on Tues. 2/18! Details HERE.
Monday, March 17, 2025 at 6pm — F&F LIVE! in-person event with Mary Kay Andrews, Kristin Harmel & Kristy Woodson Harvey all joining Patti to celebrate the launch of her new novel, The Story She Left Behind, at the Atlanta History Center. GET TICKETS.
View Patti’s full 20205 book tour for The Story She Left Behind HERE.
Want to know what these F&F Live events are all about? Watch this video compilation!
In Case You Missed It
On last week’s episode of The Friends & Fiction Show, Patti Callahan Henry & Kristy Woodson Harvey welcomed Emmy-winning journalist and #1 New York Times bestselling author Kate Fagan to discuss her electric, voice-driven debut novel, The Three Lives Of Cate Kay (the newly announced Reese’s Book Club pick for January!), about an elusive bestselling author who decides to finally confess her true identity after years of hiding from her past.
You can WATCH that episode on Facebook or YouTube, or LISTEN to it on our podcast.
Coming Up on The Friends & Fiction Show
All shows can be watched on Facebook & YouTube each Wednesday evening at 7pm ET, and listened to on our podcast each Friday, all year long.
Already aired: Fiona Davis, The Stolen Queen
WATCH now! | LISTEN now!
Already aired: Kate Fagan, The Three Lives of Cate Kay
WATCH now! | LISTEN now!
F&F January Pick of the Month: Tara Dorabji, Call Her Freedom
WATCH LIVE: January 15 | Listen: January 17
Scott Turow, Presumed Guilty
Watch: January 22 | Listen: January 24
Lisa Genova, More or Less Maddy
Watch: January 29 | Listen: January 31
Victoria Christopher Murray, Harlem Rhapsody
Watch: February 5 | Listen: February 7
Christina Clancy, The Snowbirds
Watch: February 12 | Listen: February 14
F&F February Pick of the Month: Pam Jenoff, Last Twilight in Paris
WATCH LIVE: February 19 | Listen: February 21
C.J. Box, Battle Mountain
Watch: February 26 | Listen: February 28
Colleen Oakley, Jane and Dan at the End of the World
Watch: March 5 | Listen: March 7
F&F March Pick of the Month: Patti Callahan Henry, The Story She Left Behind
WATCH LIVE: March 12 | Listen: March 14
Emma Donoghue, The Paris Express
Watch: March 19 | Listen: March 21
Emilia Hart, The Sirens
Watch: March 26 | Listen: March 28
F&F 2025 Subscription Box with Oxford Exchange
The 2025 FRIENDS AND FICTION Subscription Box is available for purchase now, exclusively from our friends at Oxford Exchange.
This subscription includes three separate shipments:
1. MARCH 18th: A hardcover, signed, first edition of Patti Callahan Henry’s forthcoming book THE STORY SHE LEFT BEHIND with an exclusive Friends & Fiction friendship bracelet and car magnet
2. MAY 27th: A hardcover, signed, first edition of BEACH HOUSE RULES by Kristy Woodson Harvey!
3. JUNE 17th: A hardcover, signed, first edition of THE STOLEN LIFE OF COLETTE MARCEAU by Kristin Harmel!
*Optional add-on: A paperback, signed, first edition of SUMMERS AT THE SAINT by Mary Kay Andrews (coming in paperback June 3)!
Get your subscription NOW from Oxford Exchange!
F&F Merch Store
We have a Friends & Fiction merch store with t-shirts, sweatshirts, coffee mugs and a book bag on Bonfire. We also have other items like wine tumblers, reading journals, and our original white v-neck logo tees available through Oxford Exchange.
F&F Official Book Club & 2025 Reading Challenge
Join Brenda Gardner & Lisa Harrison for monthly book club picks and live online author chats on the Facebook page for the F&F Official Book Club with Brenda & Lisa, where they’ve amassed 35,000 of their own members. You can also follow the Book Club on Instagram and subscribe to their YouTube channel where you can catch past discussions, including their most recent chat with Debbie Macomber about her novel, A CHRISTMAS DUET. Mark your calendars for January 27th for their next author guest, Lauren Connolly, when they’ll discuss her novel, PS: I HATE YOU. The Book Club is also hosting the 2025 F&F Reading Challenge. Join them for a different category prompt each month to read outside your comfort zone. The January prompt is to read a book with a title that begins with a P, B, or J and for February it’s to read a romance novel by a BIPOC author.
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Loved this talk, thank you!