In this week’s episode of The Bookshop at the End of the Internet, author Alison Levy discusses the first two books in her Daemon Collecting fantasy series, Gatekeeper and Blue Flame. In this series, Rachel Wilde is a daemon collector from a dimension parallel to ours. Her job is to catch and repair malfunctioning daemons (creatures out of phase with our world who tempt people to do good or evil). But Rachel uncovers a shadow conspiracy across both dimensions and must battle criminals and dangerous creatures if she wants to save her own life and save both worlds. Alison knew she wanted to write this series, and after several attempts at drafting the first manuscript, she found inspiration for her dark world from Neil Gaiman’s American Gods. Once she struck upon that aesthetic, the story came together, and the first book, Gatekeeper, was born. In this episode, I’ll chat with Alison about her writing journey, how she works to build her fantasy world until she’s convinced could field questions about it, and how she discovered writing to be self-medication for her anxiety.

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​In this week’s episode of The Bookshop at the End of the Internet, author Steph Katzovi discusses her new middle grade novel, Hurricamp!. The story follows Laura “Noodle” Newman as she attends sleepaway summer camp for the first time. She battles homesickness, tries to make new friends, and then gets hit by a hurricane. If you’ve ever attended summer camp, you’ll appreciate Noodle’s adventures with an angry skunk, the pranking neighboring cabin and, of course, the beloved counselor. Steph likes to say that this book took one childhood and six years to write. If she could do it all again, Steph would embrace her camp experience more than she did when she was a kid. This book, Hurricamp!, was inspired by her wish to do things differently. In this episode, I’ll chat with Steph about her writing journey, why she chose to write this book for middle grade readers (who she admits feel like her peer group), and why she believes her main character, Noodle, is a better version of herself as a kid (and probably as an adult).

The Bookshop at the End of the Internet is also available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Audible, Amazon Music, Spotify and iHeartRadio. Subscribe to the podcast so you don't miss an episode!