Winner of the 2025 American Writing Awards Podcast of the Year in Fiction and the 2024 Positive Change Podcast Awards for Best Host and Best Book Podcast. Tune in to be introduced to new and upcoming authors in a wide variety of fiction genres – from historical to fantasy to mystery to thriller to romance – as well as inspirational memoirs.
Online for Authors is the only podcast with a host that personally reads and reviews indie-written fiction and inspirational/memoirs for avid readers who want to add books for their TBR beyond what they can find on the NYT best sellers list. As an award-winning host, Teri M Brown’s goal for Online for Authors is to introduce avid readers to characters they’d like to invite to lunch. If you read more than 40 books per year and want to veer away from the NYT Best Seller’s List or want to expand beyond your preferred genre, Online for Authors can help you discover novels written by Indie-Authors to add to your to-be-read list.
Teri M Brown is an author of character-driven fiction and lives for the moments her characters speak their stories to her. Recognizing that other authors also have interesting lives and reasons for writing, Teri uses Online for Authors as a space for these authors to shine. Avid readers listening to Online for Authors will have the opportunity to discover new authors, amazing characters, and “can’t stop reading” stories.
If you are looking for the next book on your “to be read” pile, then this is the podcast for you. Listen as authors discuss their latest work (no spoilers!), the impetus behind the storyline, how/where/why they write, what’s coming up next, and more! These conversations are in-depth because, unlike many hosts, Teri takes the time to read and review each novel before interviewing her guests. She believes that by doing so, she can guarantee a good fit for her audience as well as an interesting and inquisitive interview.
Additionally, the first Saturday of each month, Teri releases what she affectionately calls OFAU – Online for Authors University. These once-monthly episodes feature writing tips for authors in all stages of their careers and speaks directly to her desire to mentor others. Whether someone wants to know about editing, marketing, book awards, being a guest on a podcast, or how notebooking can help you overcome writer’s block, writers and aspiring writers will find useful tips to move their writing to the next level.
Want to be a guest on Online for Authors? Send Teri M Brown a message on
PodMatch, here: https://www.podmatch.com/member/onlineforauthors
Carole O’Neill’s guest today on the Online for Authors podcast is Shelley Blanton-Stroud, author of the book An Unlikely Prospect. Shelley grew up in California’s Central Valley, the daughter of Dust Bowl immigrants who made good on their ambition to get out of the field. Recently retired from teaching writing at Sacramento State University, she serves as President of the Board of 916 Ink, an arts-based creative writing nonprofit for children, and serves on the Board of Advisors for the Gould Center for Humanistic Studies at Claremont McKenna College. She also interviews mystery and thriller authors for the Mystery Review Crew. Shelley is the author of the critically acclaimed Jane Benjamin Mystery series, which includes Copy Boy, Tomboy, and Poster Girl. Her writing has been a finalist in the Sarton Book Awards, IBPA Benjamin Franklin Awards, Killer Nashville’s Silver Falchion Award, the American Fiction Awards, and the National Indie Excellence Awards. She and her husband live in Sacramento, surrounded by photos of their out-of-town sons, their wonderful partners, very first grandchild, and a lifetime of beloved dogs.
In her book review, Carole O’Neill stated: An Unlikely Prospect is historical fiction by Shelley Blanton-Stroud. I immediately found myself routing for Sandy Zimmer who inherits the job of publisher of the Prospect newspaper when she becomes a widow at the age of thirty-two. As San Francisco erupts in celebration, the VJ Peace Riot results in eleven deaths and six rapes throughout the city.
While everyone around her celebrates, Sandy is forced to take over her husband’s former duties and win the support of her controlling father-in-law. She guides her newspaper to cover the riot by printing the truth of the assaults on the victims. However, her father-in-law tries to use his position on the board to bury the scandal in order to attract the United Nations Headquarters to San Francisco.
She knows she must navigate between the needed reporting and the required votes on her board to keep her job and save the Prospect. Convincing the other newspaper publishers in the city to divide the issues and report the truth results in her finding her voice in the male dominated world of 1945 journalism.
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You can follow Author Shelley Blanton-Stroud
Website: https://shelleyblantonstroud.com/
FB: @blantonstroudauthor
IG: @blantonstroud
Purchase An Unlikely Prospect on Amazon:
Paperback: https://amzn.to/48IkFku
Ebook: https://amzn.to/4pWLb0D
Teri M Brown, Author and Podcast Host: https://www.terimbrown.com
FB: @TeriMBrownAuthor
IG: @terimbrown_author
X: @terimbrown1
Want to be a guest on Online for Authors? Send Teri M Brown a message on PodMatch, here: https://www.podmatch.com/member/onlineforauthors
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