The Women Books & More’s Podcast

A conversation with best-selling author Caroline Alexander

Caroline Alexander is the author of internationally best-selling Skies of Thunder, The Endurance, The Bounty, and other works of literary non-fiction. In 2015, she published an acclaimed translation of Homer's Iliad, the first English translation (form the original Greek) of a Homeric poem by a woman.

Skies of Thunder: The Deadly World War II Mission Over the Roof of the World is a tale about the pilots who flew fickle, untested aircraft through monsoons and enemy fire, with inaccurate maps and only primitive navigation technology. There were deadly crashes (more than 600) and astonishing feats of courage and survival.

The Endurance: Shackleton’s Legendary Antarctic Expedition is a truly riveting account of Shackleton’s ill-fated 1914 Antarctic expedition…one of the last of the great adventures of what is now called the Heroic Age of Explorations. The plan was to cross the Antarctic on foot. Only 80 miles from Endurance’s destination, the ship was caught in thick pack ice that splintered and sank it.

Caroline’s book includes never-before published images by Frank Hurley. You can see some of them here: https://www.historyhit.com/photos-of-shackletons-endurance/

For more about Caroline Alexander: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/authors/310/caroline-alexander/

Still Alice by Lisa Genova from the archives

Since the moment I chatted with Lisa Genova about her new book, More or Less Maddy, I’ve been getting messages from you all, asking me to air the interview we did a few years ago when Lisa wrote Still Alice. Here it is—by popular demand.

For those who don’t know Still Alice, here’s the story: Dr. Alice Howland is a renowned linguistics professor at Columbia University. When words begin to escape her and she starts becoming lost on her daily jogs, Alice must come face-to-face with a devastating diagnosis: early-onset Alzheimer's disease. The once-vibrant woman struggles to hang on to her sense of self for as long as possible and her three grown children watch helplessly as their mother disappears more and more with each passing day.

Julianne Moore played the part of Alice Howland in the 2014 film Still Alice and won several awards, including the Academy Award for Best Actress. You can stream it on Amazon and Apple TV.

For more about Lisa Genova lisagenova.com 

For another podcast about early-onset Alzheimer’s, scroll down to find Barry Petersen’s conversation about Jan’s Story.

Is Everything We Know about Sacagawea Wrong?

Here’s what we think we know about arguably the most famous Native American women who ever lived: she was interpreter and guide for Lewis & Clark; she traveled 1000s of miles from North Dakota to the Pacific Ocean and she died tragically young.

 

But…what if everything we know about Sacagawea is wrong…including how we pronounce her name…

 

Sandra and Dennis Fox sit down to talk with us. They are married scholars, now retired from the educations division at the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

 

Dennis is a directly descended from Sacagawea.

 

 Our Story of Eagle Woman: Sacagawea: They Got It Wrong, aims to set the record straight through oral histories, family testimony and even DNA evidence. And uipends everything we think we know about Sacagawea.

 

For more:

Books by Sandra and Dennis Fox:  https://www.specialbooks.com/namericans.htm

The New York Times article about Sacagawea: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/23/magazine/sacagawea-biography-history.html

Tailor made Travel with Black Tomato’s Carolyn Addison

Today, we sit down with Black Tomato’s Carolyn Addison to talk about travel.

Black Tomato is one of the world’s leading luxury travel companies. Carolyn is one of the standout female leaders at Black Tomato and is the driving force behind some of Black Tomato’s most imaginative and compelling travel experiences. She’s been called an “experience architect.”

She tells us about solo travel, mother-daughter travel, generational travel, and how to travel like James Bond or follow in the footsteps of Coco Chanel or Winston Churchill.

We also discuss staying safe while traveling in what is now a much-changed world.

blacktomato.com

Becoming a Badass…From Fearful to Fierce

Margie Goldsmith is one of the most accomplished women I know.

She has traveled to more than 150 countries on seven continents and written more than 1,000 award-winning articles about her adventures. You can read them in Forbes, National Geographic, the New York Times and many other publications. She is a film maker, a former marathoner and triathlete. She plays blues harmonica and jams with some of the most celebrated jam bands in New York City. She’s recorded two blues albums. You can listen here: https://music.apple.com/us/artist/margie-goldsmith/1603713611

She lives her life on her own terms. But it was not always that way.

Her memoir: Becoming a Badass...From Fearful to Fierce chronicles her journey of resilience and adventure. She speaks to anyone looking to overcome a sense of powerlessness and to anyone who has ever felt “less than.

margiegoldsmith.com

 

A Conversation about Casting for Recovery

Casting for Recovery (a national nonprofit) delivers healing for women diagnosed with breast cancer that traditional medicine alone can’t offer — powerful, oncology-informed weekend retreats held on a river, not in a hospital room. CfR celebrates its 30^th anniversary and currently hosts 60 free fly-fishing retreats in all 50 states, serving over 800 women each year. Women at any age and any stage off breast cancer treatment or recovery, are eligible to apply.

Susan Gaetz, CfR’s Executive Director, tells us about the organization, how it started and what to expect from a weekend retreat.  castingforrecovery.org

Sisters on the Fly is a proud supporter of CfR. sistersonthefly.com

An article about CfR is featured in the September/October issue of The Saturday Evening Post and is available online after October 8, 2025.  thesaturdayeveningpost.com

A conversation with Darla Worden about Cockeyed Happy

Darla Worden is the Editor-in-Chief of Mountain Living magazine and Colorado Homes & Lifestyles magazine. She joins us to talk about Cockeyed Happy, her book about Ernest Hemingway’s summers in Wyoming with his second wife, Pauline.

This story is not well known. I mean…we can picture Hemingway in Paris. Fishing in Key West. Drinking rum at his favorite bar (The Floridita) in Havana. But…Wyoming?

From the book jacket: “In March 1928, after the phenomenal success of The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway returned to the U.S. with his second wife, Pauline Pfeiffer—the stylish Vogue editor and scorned “other woman” who would give up everything to be with him and in the end, lose it all. The couple left Paris in the wake of the gossip storm about Hemingway’s affair and abandonment of his first wife and son. Escaping to Wyoming’s Big Horn Mountains to write…he finished A Farewell to Arms and fell in love with the land around him.”

 They were “cockeyed happy”…until they weren’t. Hemingway went on to have two more wives after Pauline.

Darla has been fascinated by Hemingway since she was a teen in Sheridan, Wyoming. She saw his photo above the jukebox at The Last Chance Bar and was captivated.  

She tells us about some of his favorite haunts in Paris. And about the Left Bank Writers Retreats she organizes annually in June. Eight writers spend a week immersed in Hemingway’s Paris. She calls it: “Part writers’ workshop; part tour of Paris.”

darlaworden.com

leftbankwriters.com

Let's write a picture book---Julie Hedlund tells us how

Maybe you want to write a book. A children’s book. A children’s picture book.

Maybe about a wee hedgehog who wants to be a ballerina.

Or an alligator who dreams of becoming an astronaut.

Maybe about learning to cook in Nona’s kitchen.

Or a nonfiction book about the secret language of spiders

 

I mean…how difficult can it be to write a book for children?

 

The answer is…not as easy you might think.

 

But help is on the way.

 

Julie Hedlund, the founder of 12 x 12 Picture Book Writing Challenge, explains all things picture book. And about how to join 12 x 12 and the benefits of membership. Direct submissions to agents. Critique ninjas. Community of like-minded writers. Webinars with authors, editors and agents. Dance Parties. Yes, virtual dance parties. It is a fun, joyful and supportive group.

12x12challenge.com

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FYI: Big, Bold & Brave Picture Book Summit is a day-long virtual event held every year in October. Agents. Editors, Best-selling authors. Caldecott and Newberry Medal winners. And the opportunity to submit your manuscript to the featured agents and editors. October 5, 2025. picturebooksummit.com