In Walks a Woman
Episodes
Author interview: Laurie Dove's Mask of the Deer Woman
08 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
IWAW loves a great mystery/thriller, and if you do, too, you should treat yourself to reading Laurie Dove’s 2025 novel, Mask of the Deer Woman. Ther...
A Bright Circle of Five Forgotten Women with Dr. Randall Fuller
01 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In his famous 1841 essay, “Self Reliance,” Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “To be great is to be misunderstood.” Emerson was a great writer, but t...
Author Interview: Mary Roach on Curiosity, Storytelling, and Her Newest Bestseller
25 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Mary Roach has created a nonfiction writing lane all her own, and in her 8th book, she embarks on a world-wide tour of the scientific quest to replace...
S5 E8 Tess of the D'Urberbilles
17 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
(show notes)
S5 E7: Fallen or Felled? The Lottery by Shirley Jackson
03 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Despite not originally planning this short story for our “Fallen Women” season, in a weird way, it may fit…Spoilers, ahoy!If you have not read S...
S5E6: How to Be a Fallen Woman in 19th Century Russia: Leo Tolstoy’s ANNA KARENINA with Special Guest, Rev. Heather Coates
27 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
There will be SPOILERS, so if you’ve gotten this far in life without hearing about the ending to this novel o' novels, don’t push your luck fu...
S5E5: How Novels Lead to Adultery: Gustave Flaubert’s MADAME BOVARY
20 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Spoiler alert!!! Many literary-curious readers have Flaubert’s 1857 debut novel, Madame Bovary, in their TBR stack. If that’s you, circle back t...
Movie Review: THE BRIDE!
13 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Sonja and Vanessa have never gone to the movies together. They made their debut screening Maggie Gyllenhaal’s THE BRIDE! (2026). This review doe...
S5E4: After the Fall: Nathaniel Hawthorne’s THE SCARLET LETTER
06 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
What’s it like to live as a fallen woman in a small town? We’ll fill you in, so SPOILERS AHOY! Hester Prynne, protagonist of The Scarlet Letter,...
Emerald Fennel's "Wuthering Heights": IWAW Movie Review
27 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
This review has something for everyone. If you hated it, we got you. If you loved it, we got you. Sonja and Vanessa don’t agree on everything,...
Kansas Story-Shapers: Clarina Nichols, Annie Diggs, & Mamie Dillard with Dr. Sarah Bell, Kansas Museum of History Director
20 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
If you’re into Women’s History, you will LOVE this episode. Dr. Sarah Bell, Director of the newly-renovated Kansas Museum of History in Topeka, ...
S5E3: This Is Not the Rake You are Looking for: or, the Cautionary Tale of Samuel Richardson’s Clarissa
13 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Please Note that this episode contains spoilers and discussion of sexual assault.“You have to get through the first 500 pages, and then you can’t ...
S5 E2: How Virgins Fall…and Bounce Back Up in Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing
06 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Shakespeare’s late 16th century play, MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING, is a perfect literary work to illustrate the dynamic of a fallen woman. The accusati...
Candice Millard Author Interview: History, Destiny, and Movie Lightning
31 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Candice Millard shares how she learned to do deep research and the leap of faith she took to land her dream job. She explains how she knows which topi...
Author Interview: Traci Brimhall on Grief, Reinvention, Creativity & LOVE PRODIGAL
23 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
If you have not read any Traci Brimhall, you’ve missed out on seeing through the eyes of someone who somehow–almost magically, at points–sews di...
S5 E1: Like a Virgin
16 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Yes, you kinda have to be LIKE a virgin because, really, who knows if there is such a thing as REAL virginity? Hanne Blank, historian and author of ...
Look How Happy I'm Making You with Polly Rosenwaike
09 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Please Note: The internet was not playing nice on the day we interviewed Polly, and though we tried several strategies, we could not totally resolve...
S4 E12: Season Finale of the Gothic with Special Guest, Dr. Gisele Anatol, Exploring Stephenie Meyer’s TWILIGHT & Its Power to Penetrate Readers’ Reality
26 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Spoilers…but hey, if you don’t know what TWILIGHT is, come out from the rock you call home and join us for a lively and insightful conversation wi...
S4 E11: Governess, the Monster-Slayer: Virginia Feito’s Victorian Psycho
19 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Warning: SPOILERS! SPOILERS!! SPOILERS!!!After you have read VICTORIAN PSYCHO–a novel that made NPR's Books We Love 2025 List for “serious...
S4 E10: Post-Colonial Gothic? Welcome to the Wonderland of Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Mexican Gothic
12 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Warning: SPOILERS! SPOILERS!! SPOILERS!!!Get lost vampires: there are some even scarier monsters in the Gothic-sphere. They live in High Place, th...
S4 E9 American Gothic: Stephen King's 'Salem's Lot
05 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
WARNING: SPOILERS!!! SPOILERS!!! SPOILERS!!!What if Count Dracula came to small-town America? That’s the premise of this brilliant vampire novel b...
Can Women be Funny? Lynn Harris Has Thoughts
28 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Thanksgiving is a time to be grateful for the amazing women in your life, and in honor of that, we’re proud to air this fresh, energetic, edgy inter...
S4 E8 The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
21 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
WARNING: This episode contains SPOILERS!!!!In 1959, one hundred and sixty five years after Ann Radcliffe’s THE MYSTERIES OF UDOLPHO, one might rea...
S4 E7 A Haunted Marriage: Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier
14 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Welcome to Manderley…or, rather, the romantic dream of Manderley. Who needs a repurposed abbey or a Alpine castle when you have the genuine fire-d...
S4 E6 The Turn of the Screw: Henry James's Ultimate Gothic Mind...Screw?
07 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
If you’ve ever contemplated a governess career, perhaps Henry James’s THE TURN OF THE SCREW will give you pause. Or maybe this bite-sized Gothic...
S4 E5 Bram Stoker's Dracula
31 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In the world of the Gothic, after you bang on a few castle doors, you’re bound to run into a vampire. Bram Stoker, barrister and theater manager, ...
S4 E4: Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights: Gothic Armageddon?
24 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Who wants to break all the rules? Who wants to tear it all down and make the world anew? Emily Brontë does, that’s who. If you imagined WUTHERING ...
S4 E3 Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
17 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Once a genre gains popularity, here come the parodies. Jane Austen grew up, petticoats deep in Gothic novels, and Jane had thoughts on reading them,...
S4 E2 Atlas of Unknowable Things by McCormick Templeman / Special Guest Dr. Rachel Feder
10 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
McCormick Templeman’s atmospheric, twisty, gothic mystery novel, ATLAS OF UNKNOWABLE THINGS came out October 7th, and if you haven’t ordered your ...
The Irish Goodbye with Heather Aimee O'Neill
03 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Heather Aimee O’Neill published her debut novel, THE IRISH GOODBYE, on the last day of September, and it’s already started a reading wildfire: P...
S4 E2: Mysteries Revealed! Udolpho Part 2
26 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
As with the first part of our Udolpho episode, this is full of spoilers, so don’t listen if you are up for reading about 300 pages (approximately ha...
S4 E1: The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe, Part 1
26 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Welcome to Season 4: “Haunting Women”!Here’s your first scare: Ann Radcliffe’s 1794 gothic classic, THE MYSTERIES OF UDOLPHO, is 290,897 words...
S3 E12 Fifty Shades of ...Something (trailer)
19 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Sonja and Vanessa thought it best to put the last episode of season 3 safely on their Patreon...if you go there, you'll find out why! www.patreon....
Whack Job: A History of Axe Murder by Rachel McCarthy James
17 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In the third of our author interviews, Sonja & Vanessa are proud to feature another Lawrence, Kansas local author: Rachel McCarthy James. If t...
S3 E12 The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han
12 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This book and this episode is like a fruit smoothie by the sunny seashore–light, sweet, gentle first love vibes. This is a YA selection we have chos...
Sad Grownups: Short Stories with Award-Winning Author Amy Stuber
05 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Welcome to our 2nd episode of “In Walks a Woman Writer”! Amy Stuber joined us in the studio, and the time flew by. Listening to this conversa...
S3 E11 A Court of Thorns and Roses: Romantasy Gateway Drug?
29 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Sonja and Vanessa go on a thrilling journey with Millennial reader and Romantasy fan/expert, Haley Bajorek. If you’ve ever wondered what Romantasy...
Midlife Abecedarian with Melissa Fite Johnson /IWAW Writer Series
27 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Welcome to our first episode of “In Walks a Woman Writer”! We are proud to kick off this special author series with talented Kansas poet and vet...
S3 E10 The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters
22 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
First, you should rush to read Sarah Waters’s The Paying Guests, a fantastic romance thriller set in 1922, post World War 1 England. We don’t gi...
S3E9 A Farewell to Romance? Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms
15 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Ernest Hemingway’s 1929 A Farewell to Arms is almost always captioned as a tragic romance. Is it? Tragic, yes. Romance…debatable. Is Frede...
S3E8 Romance in the Great War: In Memoriam by Alice Winn
08 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Sonja and Vanessa LOVE Alice Winn’s 2024 novel, In Memoriam, a moving love story of two soldiers fighting on the fabled Western Front in World War 1...
S3E7: 21st Century Regency Romance: Julie Ann Long’s The Perils of Pleasure
01 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Sonja and Vanessa dip into a wonderful historical romance novel by Julie Ann Long, The Perils of Pleasure, Book 1 of 11 in her marvelous Pennyroyal Gr...
S3 E6 Rachel Feder's The Darcy Myth
25 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
If you like your literature with a side of pop culture, you’ll love what’s on the menu for today: Rachel Feder’s clever & informative study,...
S3 E5 Gaslighting, Assault...Love?: Pamela by Samuel Richardson
18 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Sonja and Vanessa have read a 500 page novel for you (or a measly 400 pages, depending on which edition you read). You’re welcome! It’s about ...
S3 E4 Part 3: Why Shakespeare's Most Famous Tragedy Should Be Called "Juliet and Romeo"
11 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This episode focuses on acts 3-5 of Romeo and Juliet. Our spotlight is on Juliet because, when you read the original play, it’s hard not to think th...
Subscribers-only content on Patreon!
04 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Vanessa and Sonja are taking a break this week, but fear not -- there are more subscribers-only episodes on Patreon! Find us at patreon.com/InWalksAWo...
S3 E3 Romeo and Juliet, Part 2
27 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this second episode in the series, Sonja and Vanessa travel through the play, keeping a sharp eye on Juliet. Is Juliet as demure as many stage pe...
S3 E2 Romeo and Juliet, Part 1
20 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
To watch the courtly love story in action, Romeo and Juliet seems like the best place to start.In the first of a 3-part series, Sonja and Vanessa offe...
S3 E1 Tristan, Iseult, and the Invention of Romantic Love
13 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What if romantic love is just a story we made up? Looking back at the origins of courtly love, it looks like we might have. Sonja takes us back to t...
S2 E11 Mary Shelley's Victor Frankenstein: A Bad Mom, Indeed
06 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
If you’ve ever felt you should read Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel, Frankenstein, but shortly after starting, found your resolve fading…this is the e...
S2 E10 Dorothy as Mother in The Wizard of Oz
30 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Good witches and ever-loyal Kansans, Sonja and Vanessa, consider a fresh reading of the widely acknowledged “American Fairy Tale,” The Wonderful W...
S2E9: TV Moms that Shaped Us: Clair Huxtable, Rosanne, Marge Simpson
23 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Sonja and Vanessa consider TV moms who inspired American women in the 80’s and 90’s. Given the warm response to our pop culture episode in our f...
S2 E8 The Very Haunted Life of Shirley Jackson, Part 2
16 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In our second half of Shirley Jackson’s biography,* we pick up in 1939 when Shirley is about to marry Stanley, and for a full portrait of Stanley, y...
S2 E7 The Very Haunted Life of Shirley Jackson, Part One
09 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Shirley Jackson, one of America’s greatest writers, was also a mother of 4 children in the 1950’s, and she worked from home writing, cooking, writ...
S2 E6 Is Mrs. Bennet a Bad Mom? Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice
02 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Mother knows best, the old saying goes. But what if your mother is constantly trying to ship you with strange, rich men? Believe it or not, if you’...
S2 E5 Motherhood in Toni Morrison's Beloved
25 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In so many ways, Toni Morrison expanded the reaches of our cultural imagination both in terms of understanding our history and exploring the intricate...
S2 E4 Motherhood in Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse
18 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Sonja and Vanessa explore Virginia Woolf’s 1927 novel, To the Lighthouse with a focus on Mrs. Ramsay, one of the great mums of British literature. A...
S2 E3 : Motherhood in Lorca's Yerma & The House of Bernarda Alba
11 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Sonja and Vanessa are thrilled to welcome Dr. Jonathan Mayhew, an international scholar on Federico Garcia Lorca, to explore the theme of motherhood i...
S2 E2: Leaving Mothers & Becoming Mothers: Buddha in the Attic by Julia Otsuka
04 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Vanessa and Sonja examine Julie Otuska’s completely original narrative style in her novel, The Buddha in the Attic (2011). Vanessa grabs the histo...
S2 E1: What Happened to the Mother Goddess? The Creation of Patriarchy
28 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Sonja gives a tour de force presentation of Patriarchy's beginnings: when, why, how, and what it replaced. Was there Matriarchy before Patriar...
S1 E10: Madonna, Maggie, Diana, Cyndi, and Sinead--Gen X Heroines
21 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Sonja and Vanessa delve into recent history to ask if it’s even possible to be your own woman in a world that is designed and controlled by men? T...
S1 E9: Can a Lowly Governess Have an Odyssey? The Case of Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre
14 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Sonja humors Vanessa for one last sail around in the odyssey ship as IWAW asks if an orphaned, mistreated, Victorian-Era heroine is really on an odyss...
S1 E8: Are Older Women Allowed to Have Odysseys? The Case of Janie Crawford in Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God
07 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Sonja and Vanessa play around with the odyssey concept and ask if the story 40-something Janie Crawford tells her BFF, Pheoby, in Zora Neale Hurston’...
S1 E7: The Dark Side of the Hero: Margaret Atwood's The Penelopiad
28 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In the seventh episode of IWAW’s Odyssey series, Sonja and Vanessa circle back to Penelope–home base of The Odyssey in so many ways–by reading a...
S1 E6: Helpers & Monsters: Women Making the Odyssey Possible
21 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Can Odysseus even HAVE an Odyssey without female characters to help him, terrorize him, and sometimes both? Join Sonja and Vanessa as their guest, cla...
S1 E5: Valentine’s Day Special! Love Hurts: Abelard and Heloise
14 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Sonja takes Vanessa down a rabbit hole to the 12th century for a scandalous romance, starring a very learned woman named Heloise. If you’re tired ...
S1 E4: Can Witches Have Odysseys? The Case of Circe according to Homer and Madeline Miller
07 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Sonja and Vanessa visit Circe’s Island, both in the Odyssey and in Madeline Miller’s brilliant novel. For those keeping score: time with Calypso +...
S1 E3: What does The Return get right, or wrong, about Penelope and Odysseus?
31 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Sonja and Vanessa pop some popcorn and dive into Uberto Pasolini’s 2024 film,The Return.Who gets the spotlight more, Odysseus or Penelope? In terms ...
S1 E2: Penelope in Fact and Fiction
24 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What do we know about what real life would’ve been like for Penelope in the Odyssey—and for that matter what do we know about the lives of women i...
S1 E1: Do Heroes Make Good Husbands? The Case of Penelope and Two Decades of No Sex
17 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This is the first in a five-episode series on women, goddesses, and monsters in the Odyssey and its retellings.
Welcome to In Walks a Woman
04 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Welcome to “In Walks a Woman,” the podcast where we look at history and literature from a female perspective. Join Sonja Czarnecki, history teache...