Feisty Deeds II on the Book Lovers’ Companion podcast

Super exciting to be back on the wonderful Book Lovers’ Companion podcast with my fabulous fellow Feisty Deeds editors and one of my favorite bookish podcast hosts, Edith from Vienna.

Suh a treat to appear with my fellow editors Carolyn Korsmeyer, Christy Matheson, Elaine Schroller and Kay Smith-Blum!

We discuss with Edith the highs (and lows) of creating an anthology collection.

As well as the eligibility and guidelines within the Women’s Fiction Writers Association historical fiction affinity group, including a 3,000-word limit, historical settings (50+ years past), fictional female protagonists, and a “Batches and Brews” theme tied to food, drink, and related dangers.

In this wide-ranging discussion, we describe selection criteria balancing story quality, variety, global and temporal range, and how we organized stories by geography. We outline a multi-round editing workflow (developmental, line, final pass, plus external proofreading), formatting challenges, research and historical authenticity debates, and the timeline from theme to publication.

And, most importantly, we highlight how proceeds support the WFWA Scholarship Fund and the books are available in print and on major ebook platforms.

And how, despite all the work involved, this labor of love is so much fun when you’re surrounded by amazing fellow authors. Give a listen to our podcast here below!

Concoctions, treats, brews, and potions from another batch of feisty characters

Whether cooking for solace, scrounging for food, concocting medicine, or brewing poisons, the feisty women in these stories will keep you thirsting for more. Twenty-five tales will transport you far afield in time and place: third century Ireland, medieval Europe, twentieth-century Australia.

Read your way from a hippie commune to a WW II internment camp in the Philippines; from a Renaissance palace to a Polish village wracked by war, the hills of Appalachia, and a sleepy Ontario town.

Mixtures to soothe, heal, and thrall are prepared in these pages, where lovers take revenge, mothers protect their children, and feisty women make choices in a challenging world.

Learn more about the collection – and order!

Praise

“A sweeping, intimate, and beautifully told celebration of women’s resilience. Scarce meals, secret herbs, handed-down cures, and poisons brewed in silence form the book’s heartbeat. With each act, women protect, resist, sacrifice, or seize control. The anthology moves between tenderness, darkness, and the mythic, yet each story centers on a woman acting with purpose despite her era’s constraints. Wartime mothers endure, Renaissance cooks navigate peril, and modern women face inherited wounds—each leaving a mark. Though varied in style, the stories hum with the same quiet resonance. From era to era, these women shape their worlds through what they mix, prepare, and choose. Fans of historical fiction and thoughtful portraits of resilience will feel right at home in these pages.” – The Prairies Book Review

“Another empowered collection of tall tales centered on history’s unsung heroines, Feisty Deeds II: Historical Tales of Batches and Brews is a stirring testament to righteous rule-breaking and radically independent minds … These globe-spanning tales of dauntless women are pitch-perfect, timely and meticulously crafted … While these stories range in subject matter and seriousness, each one incisively captures the burden, beauty, an unwavering resilience of women in any era.”  – Self-Publishing Review

“Each story crafts a different place, time, and circumstances of feisty women interacting on levels that both drive and support their strengths as they make choices that impact their worlds. … Touching in its personal lives, powerful in its diversity and scope, and satisfyingly thought-provoking for book clubs and reader group discussion, Feisty Deeds II : Historical Tales of Batches and Brews both supports the prior Feisty Deeds short story collection and stands alone as a compelling exploration of women’s experiences and perceptions as they reach for new inner strength and transmit them into the world around them.”  – Midwest Book Review

OnYouTube? Be sure to  follow Book Lovers’ Companion   and my (fledgling) YouTube account – Kimberly Sullivan !