My guest this week is Marcy Lane (A Mercy of Widows, indie published, August 2023). Hear how two life events – serving on a jury and losing a partner – formed the basis of Marcy’s debut novel. We discuss the MAID initiative in Canada (Medical Assistant in Dying), her very personal reason for determining early on to self-publish, and how her second book is springing not from what she knows but what she wants to know more about. We close with an interesting result from a DNA test.

Marcy Lane writes character-driven fiction rooted in the quiet resilience of ordinary people navigating extraordinary challenges. Her debut novel, A Mercy of Widows (2023), explores grief, assisted dying, friendship and second chances—drawing on her lived experience of losing two life partners to cancer. After a long career leading a local charity, she turned to fiction in early 2021, diving headfirst into workshops, retreats and critique groups with a beginner’s mindset and a deep curiosity for craft.

Born to parents with itchy feet, Marcy grew up as an army brat, living across Canada, the UK, and Germany—experiences that lend authenticity to her settings. Today, she lives in a small cottage in southwestern Ontario with her two opinionated dogs, Bug and Lucy. She draws inspiration from art supplies, Lake Erie’s moods, and the layered history of her adopted community. She’s currently working on a cozy mystery set in Erie Bluff, a fictional lakeside town steeped in small-town warmth and buried secrets.

To learn more about Marcy, click here.

Our guest this week is Rosey Lee (The Gardins of Edin, Waterbrook Press, January 2024). Rosey, whose alter ego is as a float physician and health equity advocate, first began with flash fiction, which eventually helped her complete a rough draft of her novel in only 6 weeks. We discuss finding an agent and publisher for crossover “Christian” fiction, her use of a mental health sensitivity reader, and how she augmented her publisher’s marketing plan with her own, including a self-funded book tour.

Rosey Lee writes stories about complicated families and complex friendships, but a happy ending is guaranteed. She is a nominee for a 2025 Georgia Author of the Year Award for The Gardins of Edin, her debut novel. A Gardin Wedding is her second novel. Rosey lives in Atlanta, about an hour away from the fictional town of Edin, Georgia, where her characters live. She grew up on the Westbank of New Orleans and carries the area and her loved ones in her heart when she’s away from them.

To learn more about Rosey, click here.

This week we talk with Lorraine Norwood (The Solitary Sparrow, Atmosphere Press, February 2024). Lorraine fell in love with the Middle Ages at a young age and carried that interest paired with her love of research into adulthood where, as a young mother, she started writing a book about a fictional peasant girl who aspired to be the first woman doctor in 14th century England, a novel which took her 30 years to write. We discuss finding the perfect agent but being unable to land a publisher, her decision to sign with a hybrid publisher and an inspiring story of how her interest in archaeology came full circle in her fifties, when she joined a dig in York and unearthed the shoe of a Viking and the bones of a dog buried centuries ago.

Lorraine is a North Carolina native who lives in the Blue Ridge mountains. The Solitary Sparrow is her first novel. She is working on the sequel, A Pelican in the Wilderness. She is a member of the Historical Novel Society and the Women’s Fiction Writers Association where she served as a judge in the Rising Star awards. She worked as a professional journalist for over 20 years, then took a turn at midlife, earning an anthropology degree and a master’s in medieval archaeology. She then worked in archaeology and historic preservation, participating in excavations in the US and England. She is the mother of two grown daughters and two granddaughters. She is happy that at long last, after two marriages, two children, fourteen jobs, three college degrees, and twenty-three moves (two of which were abroad), she has a room of her own in which to write.

To learn more about Lorraine, click here.