Kristina McMorris w/ Special Guest Alma Katsu

Author of Letters from Home, and the forthcoming novel, Bridge of Scarlet Leaves, Kristina McMorris discusses her Japanese-American heritage, the extensive research that went into her new novel, and the trials and tribulations of being a writer.

Kristina McMorris is a graduate of Pepperdine University and the recipient of nearly twenty national literary awards. A host of weekly TV shows since age nine, including an Emmy Award-winning program, she penned her debut novel, Letters from Home, based on inspiration from her grandparents’ wartime courtship. The book has been praised as a must-read by Woman’s Day magazine and “a sweeping debut” by Publishers Weekly, and has achieved additional acclaim as a Reader’s Digest Select Editions feature, a Doubleday/Literary Guild selection, and a 2011 Goodreads Choice Awards semifinalist for Best Historical Fiction. Kristina lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and two sons.

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Alma Katsu's The TAKER is an American Library Association-Booklist Top Ten Debut Novel of 2011. "The Taker" has been described as "an epic supernatural love story" at the crossroads of literary and historical suspense with an unique supernatural myth. Her writing has been compared to that of early Anne Rice and Shirley Jackson. A former intelligence analyst, she is a graduate of the writing program at Johns Hopkins University, lives in the Washington, DC area, and counts fairy tales as among her greatest influences.