


Home of award-winning indie authors

Guest Interviews
Meet Our Season Two Author Guests
Season Two Final Episodes Podcast Schedule
Oct. 4th - Liz Shipton, Dystopian SciFi Fantasy Author and Pirate (Now Streaming)
Oct. 11th - Sagit Schwartz, Suspense Thriller Author & Licensed Psychotherapist (Now Streaming)
Oct. 18th - Otto Schafer, Award-Winning YA and Adult Fiction Author (Now Streaming)
Oct. 25th -Michele Di Pietro, SOUPified Cookbook Author (Now Streaming)
Nov. 1st -Debbie Weiss, Memoir Author & Entrepreneur (Now Streaming)
Nov. 8th -Lynne Golodner, Author, Coach, Marketing Entrepreneur & Podcaster (Now Streaming)
Nov. 15th - Michelle Glogovac, THE Podcast Matchmaker™ & Award-Winning Publicist (Now Streaming)
Nov. 22th - Leah Ann Brown, Middle Grade Fantasy Author (Now Streaming)
Nov. 29th - Faith Kramer, Jewish Global Kitchen Cookbook Author (Now Streaming)
Dec. 6th - Brian Kaufman, Textbook and Fiction Author
Dec. 13th - Mary Carroll Moore, Women's Fiction Author
Dec. 20th - Season Two Finale:
Gail Merrifield Papp, Author of Public/Private: My Life with Joe Papp at The Public Theater

Links​
Faith Kramer
Jewish Global Kitchen Cookbook Author
EP 94: November 29th
​
​
​
Faith Kramer is more than a global thinker, going beyond her own local traditions and cultural foods to bring her followers a taste of the globally inspired Shabbat recipes. Faith is a long time food writer and recipe developer who focuses on the various customs and histories around Jewish cuisine.
Beyond recipe development, Faith also writes about her travels and the different ingredients used in Jewish communities worldwide. You can find her work published in different online publications including j., the Jewish News of Northern California, where she writes about food, cooking, and shares original recipes.
​
Faith has also shared her knowledge of global Jewish food traditions in cooking classes where she taught students about Jewish customs, celebrations, and holidays, and even led food-related walking tours. During these classes and tours she would teach her students about the impact of the economic, geographic, and political influences on regional food and traditions.
For those who cannot attend her classes, she has created her new cookbook, 52 Shabbats: Friday Night Dinners Inspired by a Global Jewish Kitchen where she shares her knowledge of the global community of Jewish culinary traditions, histories, and some amazing recipes.

Brian Kaufman
Textbook and Fiction Author
EP 95: December 6th
​
​
​
Brian Kaufman is a writer who deftly manages to straddle two writing realms, academia and fiction. By day you can find Brian working diligently as a curriculum editor for an online junior college. But like a comic book superhero, his night time endeavors lead him into a more fanciful world of fictional adventures that span a plethora of genres and time periods.
​
Brian's body of work includes but is not limited to eight novels that include a Civil War era historical fiction, a Steampunk inspired paranormal romance, an alien abduction adventure, and more. This does not even include his poetry, short stories, numerous novellas, and three textbooks. It is palusible to say that writing is his life.
​
Due to the fact that writing and his family take up so much of his daily life, he has had to let go of a few other dreams, but holds fast to the idea that in other realms he has found the time to pursue being a pro-wrestler, a radio talk show host, and a heavy metal guitarist. Brian currently lives in the Colorado mountains with his wife and dog. Brian is happy to answer questions and can be reached through his website link below.
Mary Carroll Moore
Women's Fiction Author
EP 96: December 13th
​
​
​
Mary Carroll Moore has always been a creative person but chose to express this side of herself through painting and did not turn to writing until later in life. It wasn't until she turned 50 that she decided to make a long time dream a reality and returned to college to complete a MFA in Fiction.
​

​
As with many writers, Mary began writing what she knew, reateing characters who were foodies and artists, two things she is personally passionate about. She wrote three novels, including Qualities of Light, a YA queer novel. This title earned her a nomination for PEN/Faulkner and Lambda Literary awards.
Since shifting to creative writing, Mary has penned around two hundred articles, essays, and short stories which have been published in literary journals and magazines. As her experience writing grew, Mary began to consider a longer form and looked into the process to create a full-length novel. armed with new knowlegdge, Mary began teaching online writing workshops for the Loft Literary Center, Grub Street, Madeline Island School of the Arts, as well as for other venues. This teaching experience gave birth to her book on the craft of writing, Your Book Starts Here, which earned her the New Hampshire Literary “Reader’s Choice” award in 2011.
To reach further her educational reach, Mary started a weekly newsletter that has not only brought her followers from around the globe but also earned awards for her work. In her newsletter, she shares tips on how to structure a book, writing ideas, and author interviews. She also started a YouTube channel which has earned more than 200,000 views for her video tutorials.
​
When not writing, Mary loves to travel and continues to paint. She lives with her husband and their two long-haird miniature dachshunds.

SEASON TWO FINALE
Gail Merrifield Papp
Author of Public/Private: My Life with Joe Papp at The Public Theater
EP 97: December 20th
​
​
​
There is absolutely no we would be able to sum up Gail Merrifield Papp in a few paragraphs on this page, so we are not even going to attempt it. Instead we are going to share the text provided in a press release from Applause Theater & Cinema Books.
From the Press Release:
​
Blending the ultimate insider’s account of the creation and first decades of New York City’s Public Theater with the star-studded story of life working alongside her husband, The Public's founder Joe Papp, Public/Private: My Life with Joe Papp at the Public Theater is theater director of new works Gail Merrifield Papp’s enthralling memoir of their rich partnership and of the legendary theatrical institution. Opening in the early Sixties, Merrifield Papp’s narrative spans the twenty-six years she and Joe worked, then lived together until Joe's death in 1991. During most of that time, Gail was Developer of New Plays and Musicals at The Public while it staged hundreds of productions, ranging from free Shakespeare in Central Park to new plays, such as Ntozake Shange's for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf, and musicals like Hair and A Chorus Line. Gail and Joe’s production genius was responsible for an extraordinary body of work that launched the careers of dozens of actors, including James Earl Jones, Colleen Dewhurst, Gloria Foster, Morgan Freeman, Raúl Juliá, Kevin Kline, George C. Scott, Martin Sheen, Meryl Streep, and Diane Venora, all of whom make an appearance in the book.
Gail Papp paints a comprehensive picture of the ways that The Public was driven by Joe's ambition to create a democratic theater whose artists and audiences would reflect the city's population. Also highlighted are unfamiliar aspects of his many battles with the establishment, from tilts with Robert Moses to theater critics. She remembers the scourge of AIDS, its impact on the many friends, family and colleagues close to Joe and Gail, and the toll it exacted on Joe's son, Tony. In recounting setbacks and frustrations alongside moments of passionate artistry and theatrical innovation, Gail's personal remembrances lend the narrative a keen, emotional edge which will captivate readers. At a time when America remains divided over issues of equality, identity, and freedom of expression, Public/Private is an important chronicle of how The Public Theater became a transformative beacon for social change and of the couple who created it.
​
About the Author:
​
GAIL MERRIFIELD PAPP was born in San Francisco into a family with a deep theater lineage. After joining Joseph Papp’s New York Shakespeare Festival in 1965, she became Director of New Works Development for The Public Theater and was responsible for identifying up and coming playwrights and composers. Gail’s work curated some of its best-remembered productions in Public Theater history. These include The Normal Heart, Larry Kramer’s Tony Award-winning play about the AIDS crisis, for which she received the Human Rights Campaign Arts and Communication Award, and Rupert Holmes’s Tony Award-winning Best Musical The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Gail Merrifield and Joseph Papp were married in 1976.
Producer-Director JOSEPH PAPP (1921–1991) is the founder of the New York Shakespeare Festival, which since 1956 has produced free Shakespeare in New York City. In 1965 he steered the New York City’s acquisition of the Astor Library landmark building where he created The Public Theater dedicated to new American work, opening in 1967 with the original production of Hair. Papp produced over six hundred plays and musicals which, by 1991, had won more than 200 stage, film, and television awards. Called “the most important force in the English-speaking theater” in the twentieth century, he was also an outspoken champion of human rights and the First Amendment who, in the words of the Congressional Record, “struggled to make New York City and our country a more livable place, to uplift our spirits, to challenge our minds, and see us through to another day.”

Book Banter is Funded by
Pedro R. Burckhardt
You can now find all Book Banter podcast episodes on your favorite podcast provider. Thank you, Pedro!
Important Podcast Links
Listen to our podcast, Book Banter with Dianne Burckhardt, every Wednesday
on any of the providers listed and more.
Check your favorite streaming service for listings.
​
Featured Podcast Providers:​
Buzzsprout Apple Podcasts Spotify Amazon Music
​​
Burckhardt Books Pages:
(Join FREE and stream our complete audiobook Into the West: The Orphan Train for FREE)
-
Manic Monday Vlogs on TikTok
About Dianne:
-
Want to know more about the host of Book Banter with Dianne Burckhardt?
Check out Episode 1: Who Am I?
-
What is a Chiari Malformation, a Syrinx (Syringomyelia), and Hydrocephalus?
-
The Mutant Chronicles on TikTok​
​​
Podcast Archive
-
Season One Interviews​​
Complete Guest List from Book Banter with Dianne Burckhardt Season One ​
Complete Guest List from Book Banter with Dianne Burckhardt Season Two
​
Support Us:
It's even easier now to support Burckhardt Books and our Book Banter Podcast, many options are no cost to you.
Click here for more information.