Meet the Author with Allison Trowbridge

Latest Episodes:

062: What Gets a Literary Agent to Say Yes Oct 12, 2026

Show notes

Welcome to Meet the Author, a show that takes you behind the scenes to meet the authors of today's most impactful books. This is a show about stories and ideas that will educate, encourage, and inspire you to live a richer, more meaningful life. Today, we're joined by Ami McConnell, founder of WriterFest Nashville and Ami McConnell Literary Agency, and the person Allison calls the greatest champion of writers she has ever met. Ami has sat in nearly every seat at the publishing table: acquiring editor, editor-in-chief, ghostwriter, and now literary agent. In this conversation she shares what makes her say yes to a project, how the balance of power between authors and publishers has shifted, and why she believes the best thing an aspiring author can do is start now.

About Ami McConnell and WriterFest Nashville:

Ami McConnell has spent more than three decades in publishing. She rose from associate editor to vice president and editor-in-chief at a major publishing house, working on a few thousand books along the way. She then co-wrote and ghostwrote 16 or 17 books, and in 2018 she started WriterFest to build the community that solitary writing was missing. Today she represents authors through her own literary agency, including authors who self-publish and authors who go hybrid.

WriterFest Nashville is a two-day gathering for writers of books, songs, and screenplays. It runs November 20th and 21st at Belmont University, with keynotes from Karen Kingsbury, Tyler Thompson, and singer-songwriters Jamie Floyd and Maddie Diaz. Ami also shares the story behind her annual fundraiser for Dolly Parton's Imagination Library, which this year took place on September 11th, right after Dolly's passing.

Links:

Get tickets and learn more about WriterFest Nashville
Learn more about Ami McConnell Literary Agency
Follow WriterFest Nashville and Ami McConnell Literary Agency on Instagram
Follow Allison Trowbridge & Copper Books on Instagram

Download the Copper Books App: https://author.love/app
Learn more about Copper Books: www.copperbooks.com
Apply to publish with Copper: https://copperbooks.com/apply
Follow Copper Books on Instagram: https://instagram.com/copper.books
Follow Allison Trowbridge on Instagram: https://instagram.com/alliebridge

061: Self-Publishing First Gave Her the Confidence to Land a Traditional Deal Oct 05, 2026

Show notes

Welcome to Meet the Author, a show that takes you behind the scenes to meet the authors of today's most impactful books. This is a show about stories and ideas that will educate, encourage, and inspire you to live a richer, more meaningful life. Today, we're joined by author, speaker, and podcast host Monika Kirkland to discuss her new book, Ever With You: Becoming Fully Awake to the God Who Is Near. Monika wrote it after a season in 2020 when she was a working mom running on caffeine and cortisol, hit a wall, and found that the rest her soul was after came from slowing down and drawing close to God. We also dig into her road to publication: almost ten years of closed doors, a first proposal told it was too general, a second told it was too niche, and a two-book fiction deal she never planned.

About Monika Kirkland and Ever With You: Monika Kirkland spent years in LA as an actor before she felt a call to write in 2017. She started with blogging and devotionals, self-published her first devotional through Amazon KDP in 2018, and kept building her audience while raising young children and working full-time at a church. Her book proposal for Ever With You went to pub board in 2021 and was passed on. She signed the deal in 2025, and the book was released in 2026.

Ever With You is part personal story and part practical guide. Monika shares the rhythms that carried her through burnout, including walking, breath prayers, Lectio Divina, honest community, journaling, and gratitude. She also talks about her fiction, which grew out of writing "for funsies" while her first book was on submission, and her debut novel coming in September 2027.

For aspiring authors, Monika shares two pieces of advice: at some point you have to stop studying the craft and sit down and write, and you should define what success looks like for you before you reach it so you don't miss it.

Links:

Purchase Ever With You at your favorite retailer (https://www.amazon.com/Ever-You-Becoming-Fully-Awake/dp/1684264790/ref=sr_1_1?crid=C043AD17CWOM&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.xmCuyhAO1WyfqLQpPwSPEQ.4-tVBISQgArse9DkFH94IYJYPBQHCWQzauMxSUkLvVQ&dib_tag=se&keywords=ever+with+you+monika+kirkland&qid=1781197561&sprefix=ever+with+you+%2Caps%2C371&sr=8-1&ascsubtag=srctok-bf25eb0457974b5d&btn_type=pt&btn_ref=srctok-bf25eb0457974b5d)
Learn more about Monika at www.monikakirkland.com
Follow Monika on Instagram: @monikakirkland
Listen to Monika's podcast, Inner Revival (https://tr.ee/axem9Dh0as)
Follow Allison Trowbridge & Copper Books on Instagram

Download the Copper Books App: https://author.love/app
Learn more about Copper Books: www.copperbooks.com
Apply to publish with Copper: https://copperbooks.com/apply
Follow Copper Books on Instagram: https://instagram.com/copper.books
Follow Allison Trowbridge on Instagram: https://instagram.com/alliebridge

060: Don't Let Your Calendar Happen to You Sep 28, 2026

Show notes

Welcome to Meet the Author, a show that takes you behind the scenes to meet the authors of today's most impactful books. This is a show about stories and ideas that will educate, encourage, and inspire you to live a richer, more meaningful life. Today, we're joined by bestselling author, former president of Time Inc. Digital, and longtime Copper mentor Fran Hauser to discuss her third book, 20 Minutes Is The New Hour. After eight years of hearing the same thing from professional women everywhere she spoke, that there simply isn't enough time, Fran set out to answer a different question: not how do we find more hours, but how do we intentionally do less and reclaim the time we already have.

About Fran Hauser and 20 Minutes Is The New Hour: Fran Hauser built the book's title around a discovery from her own career: cutting hour-long meetings down to twenty minutes made them sharper, more focused, and far more valuable, for her and for the people in them. The book's first half is organized around four behaviors she calls the four Ps: perfectionism, people-pleasing, procrastination, and padding, each explored through the specific lens of how it steals time. The fourth P, padding, came from an unplanned real-world experiment: Fran opened her own bookstore in just eight weeks instead of the standard six to nine months, and the process became the book's central case study for what's possible when you stop giving yourself more time than a task actually needs.

The book's second half draws on the ancient Greek concepts of Chronos (linear, clock time) and Kairos (quality, present-moment time), making the case that real fulfillment comes not from mastering Chronos but from protecting space for Kairos, the walks, the pauses, the unstructured moments where clarity and creativity actually show up.

Links:

Order 20 Minutes Is The New Hour from your favorite retailer
Learn more about Fran Houser at https://www.franhauser.com/
Follow Fran Hauser on Instagram @fran_hauser, Substack, and LinkedIn
Follow Allison Trowbridge & Copper Books on Instagram

Download the Copper Books App: https://author.love/app
Learn more about Copper Books: www.copperbooks.com
Apply to publish with Copper: https://copperbooks.com/apply
Follow Copper Books on Instagram: https://instagram.com/copper.books
Follow Allison Trowbridge on Instagram: https://instagram.com/alliebridge

059: 20 Years as a Literary Agent, Then She Wrote Her First Book Sep 21, 2026

Show notes

Welcome to Meet the Author, a show that takes you behind the scenes to meet the authors of today's most impactful books. This is a show about stories and ideas that will educate, encourage, and inspire you to live a richer, more meaningful life. Today, we're joined by literary agent and author Joy Eggerichs Reed, live from Paris, to discuss her first children's book, Beega Gets a Do-Over, written with her father. The book grew out of bedtime stories Joy's dad told her as a little girl in Michigan, set in a world called the Land of Nuf ("fun" spelled backwards), and it turns his decades of research on communication into a story kids (and the grown-ups reading to them) can actually use.

About Joy Eggerichs Reed and Beega Gets a Do-Over: Joy Eggerichs Reed has spent two decades in publishing as a literary agent, and Beega Gets a Do-Over is her first book as an author herself, co-created with her father, a pastor and bestselling author of over a dozen books on marriage, family, and communication. The book follows Beega and Dooga, two characters her father invented when she was a child, as they navigate a moment of hurt feelings using four questions from her father's book Speak Your Mind: is it true, is it kind, is it necessary, is it clear? At the center of the story is the idea of a "do-over," a phrase Joy hopes can give both kids and adults permission to mess up, repair, and try again.

Joy talks candidly about the parts of traditional publishing that surprised her even after years in the industry, including not being allowed direct contact with her illustrator, and offers practical advice for aspiring children's book authors on working with agents, illustrators, and publishers.

Links:

Purchase Beega Gets a Do-Over at your favorite retailer
Get downloadable coloring pages at landofnuf.com
Learn more about Joy's agency at punchlineagency.com
Follow Allison Trowbridge & Copper Books on Instagram

Download the Copper Books App: https://author.love/app
Learn more about Copper Books: www.copperbooks.com
Apply to publish with Copper: https://copperbooks.com/apply
Follow Copper Books on Instagram: https://instagram.com/copper.books
Follow Allison Trowbridge on Instagram: https://instagram.com/alliebridge

058: Is There a Difference Between a Writer and an Author? Sep 14, 2026

Show notes

Welcome to Meet the Author, a show that takes you behind the scenes to meet the authors of today's most impactful books. This is a show about stories and ideas that will educate, encourage, and inspire you to live a richer, more meaningful life. This week, we're doing something a little different. Instead of hosting, I am the one in the guest seat, sharing a conversation from my friend Julie Solomon's podcast, Woman of Influence. Julie and I dig into the difference between power and influence, what actually separates a writer from an author, and why the word "publish" simply means to make something public, even though that step is often the most courageous part of writing a book.

About Julie Solomon and Woman of Influence: Julie Solomon has spent over a decade helping bestselling authors, seven-figure coaches, and high-profile creators refine their message and build brands rooted in genuine alignment rather than performance. She's the author of the bestselling book Get What You Want and hosts Woman of Influence, a podcast that's been downloaded more than 10 million times across 320+ episodes and 175 countries. Julie built her own multi-million-dollar business from a small-town, blue-collar upbringing, and now works with clients on what she calls "energetic refinement," helping people whose visibility no longer matches who they've become.

Links:

Follow Julie on Instagram: @julssolomon
Purchase Get What You Want at your favorite retailer
Listen to Woman of Influence
Follow Allison Trowbridge & Copper Books on Instagram

Download the Copper Books App: https://author.love/app
Learn more about Copper Books: www.copperbooks.com
Apply to publish with Copper: https://copperbooks.com/apply
Follow Copper Books on Instagram: https://instagram.com/copper.books
Follow Allison Trowbridge on Instagram: https://instagram.com/alliebridge

057: From the NFL to Rock Bottom to Unstriving Sep 07, 2026

Show notes

Welcome to Meet the Author, a show that takes you behind the scenes to meet the authors of today's most impactful books. This is a show about stories and ideas that will educate, encourage, and inspire you to live a richer, more meaningful life. Today, we're joined by Caleb Campbell, former NFL player, West Point graduate, and now first-time author, to discuss his debut book, Unstriving: 12 Lessons on Authentic Success from a Recovering Overachiever. From a seven-year-old scoring the game-winning touchdown to the height of an NFL career built on a carefully perfected facade, Caleb spent decades believing his worth was measured by his performance. In Unstriving, he shares the journey from a life of endlessly striving to prove himself, to a much harder, much freer way of being.

About Caleb Campbell and Unstriving: Caleb Campbell's path took him from a small town in the Texas Panhandle to West Point, and eventually to the NFL, along with a stint representing Team USA. But behind the accolades, Caleb describes a life built entirely on a "survival self," one that could help him achieve, but never let him actually live. A rock-bottom morning surrounded by the aftermath of a night he doesn't remember, and years of quietly hating who he'd become despite his outward success, eventually led him to walk away from professional football and toward a very different definition of a meaningful life.

Unstriving is Caleb's account of that unraveling and rebuilding, exploring the difference between striving to make life happen and learning to participate in life's ongoing evolution. In the book, Caleb writes about grief, darkness, and the poet Rilke's own reflections on suffering as unexpected doorways back to a person's own deepest aliveness, arguing that what we're often searching for through achievement has been within us all along.

Links:

Pre-Order Unstriving available September 22nd
Follow Caleb Campbell on Instagram: @caleb_campbell
Learn more about Caleb at his website https://www.calebcampbell.me/
Follow Allison Trowbridge & Copper Books on Instagram

Download the Copper Books App: https://author.love/app
Learn more about Copper Books: www.copperbooks.com
Apply to publish with Copper: https://copperbooks.com/apply
Follow Copper Books on Instagram: https://instagram.com/copper.books
Follow Allison Trowbridge on Instagram: https://instagram.com/alliebridge

056: Learning to Live Again at 33 Aug 31, 2026

Show notes

Welcome to Meet the Author, a show that takes you behind the scenes to meet the authors of today's most impactful books. This is a show about stories and ideas that will educate, encourage, and inspire you to live a richer, more meaningful life. Today, we're joined by Ruthie Lindsey, speaker, coach, and author of There I Am, to discuss pain, identity, and the long road back to herself. At 17, Ruthie survived a car accident that broke the top two vertebrae in her neck, an injury doctors say kills or paralyzes almost everyone who has it. Years later, an undiagnosed complication from that accident would leave her bedridden for seven years. In There I Am, Ruthie tells the story of what that pain ultimately opened up in her: not a return to who she was before, but the discovery of who she'd always been underneath the roles, stories, and conditioning she'd taken on to feel worthy of belonging.

About Ruthie Lindsey and There I Am: Ruthie Lindsey's accident at 17 left a wire from a spinal fusion surgery undiagnosed in her neck for years, a wire that eventually caused debilitating pain, a reliance on narcotics, the end of her marriage, and the loss of her father, who died suddenly while working to fund the surgery she needed. During the seven years she spent largely bedridden, Ruthie says she found within her pain an unlikely invitation: to unlearn the stories she'd carried since childhood about what made her worthy, and to remember, as she puts it, what had always been good, beautiful, and holy about her simply because she existed.

The book's title comes from a moment months into her recovery, dancing alone in her living room to Justin Timberlake on a night she calls "Justin Timberweek," when she caught her reflection in a dark window and thought, "Oh, well, there I am." Today, Ruthie works with clients on shadow work and reconnecting with the body's own yes and no, work she says she couldn't do if she hadn't lived through every part of her own story first.

Links:

Purchase There I Am at your favorite retailer
Follow Ruthie Lindsey on Instagram: @ruthielindsey
Follow Allison Trowbridge & Copper Books on Instagram

Download the Copper Books App: https://author.love/app
Learn more about Copper Books: www.copperbooks.com
Apply to publish with Copper: https://copperbooks.com/apply
Follow Copper Books on Instagram: https://instagram.com/copper.books
Follow Allison Trowbridge on Instagram: https://instagram.com/alliebridge

055: Writing a Book When Life Throws You Tragedies Aug 24, 2026

Show notes

In the years since, as she became their full-time caregiver while building a career in healthcare tech and, eventually, as an entrepreneur, Kirbee wrote her way back to herself. In Nourish, she offers readers the same tools that helped her: a guided journey of agreements, recipes, journaling, and honest reflection for anyone trying to find their way home to who they really are.

About Kirbee Miller and Nourish: Kirbee Miller built a career in biology, chemistry, and healthcare technology before a family tragedy on New Year's Eve 2018 changed the course of her life. A phone call, a coma, and years of caregiving followed, alongside the quiet unraveling of a life she'd built around achievement and compartmentalization. Kirbee found her way back to herself through writing, and eventually through cooking, journaling, and the practices that would become the foundation of Nourish: A Guide to Coming Home to Yourself.

Structured as a journey rather than a manual, Nourish opens with a set of personal agreements the reader signs alongside Kirbee, then moves through sections on rebuilding trust with yourself, nourishing your body through recipes (with an accompanying playlist), and guided journaling built around the feelings wheel, a tool for putting honest, specific language to lived experience.

In Nourish, Kirbee invites readers who feel like they're "fading away in plain sight" to rediscover what it means to show up for themselves in small, sustainable ways, even in seasons that don't look anything like what they planned.

Links:

Purchase Nourish at your favorite retailer
Follow Kirbee Miller on Instagram and Threads @kirbeeandco
Follow Allison Trowbridge & Copper Books on Instagram

Download the Copper Books App: https://author.love/app
Learn more about Copper Books: www.copperbooks.com
Apply to publish with Copper: https://copperbooks.com/apply
Follow Copper Books on Instagram: https://instagram.com/copper.books
Follow Allison Trowbridge on Instagram: https://instagram.com/alliebridge

054: How It Feels to Publish the Story You Hid for 20 Years Aug 17, 2026

Show notes

Welcome to Meet the Author, a show that takes you behind the scenes to meet the authors of today's most impactful books. This is a show about stories and ideas that will educate, encourage, and inspire you to live a richer, more meaningful life. Today, we're joined by Timothy Schraeder Rodriguez, a longtime voice behind some of the biggest names in cultural Christianity, to discuss his memoir, Conversion Therapy Dropout: A Queer Story of Faith and Belonging. For fifteen years, Tim worked behind the scenes helping megachurches build their online presence, all while spending over eight years in conversion therapy trying to change his own sexuality. In Conversion Therapy Dropout, Tim tells the story of finally stepping into the light, reconciling his faith and his sexuality, and discovering that he was fearfully and wonderfully made exactly as he is. His message offers a tender, hard-won reminder that queerness and faith were never meant to be in opposition.

About Timothy Schraeder Rodriguez and Conversion Therapy Dropout: Timothy Schraeder Rodriguez spent years as the unseen architect behind some of the biggest platforms in evangelical Christianity, helping churches like Hillsong, Elevation, and Willow Creek build their social media presence, all while quietly wondering if there was a place for him in the very communities he was helping build. After more than eight years in conversion therapy and a breaking point that brought him to the edge, Tim found his way to a community of queer Christians and, eventually, to himself.

In Conversion Therapy Dropout, Tim writes not just his own story, but the story of the more than 700,000 people in the United States who have gone through some form of conversion therapy, offering readers the message he wishes he could have given his own 19-year-old self: that he never needed to change who he was to be loved and accepted by God.

Links:

Purchase Conversion Therapy Dropout at your favorite retailer https://www.conversiontherapydropoutbook.com/#preorder
Follow Timothy Schraeder-Rodriguez on Substack https://timothysrodriguez.substack.com/
Follow Timothy Schraeder-Rodriguez on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/timothy.s.rodriguez/?hl=enand

Download the Copper Books App: https://author.love/app
Learn more about Copper Books: www.copperbooks.com
Apply to publish with Copper: https://copperbooks.com/apply
Follow Copper Books on Instagram: https://instagram.com/copper.books
Follow Allison Trowbridge on Instagram: https://instagram.com/alliebridge

053: What It Feels Like to Finally Come Home to Yourself Aug 10, 2026

Show notes

Welcome to Meet the Author, a show that takes you behind the scenes to meet the authors of today's most impactful books. This is a show about stories and ideas that will educate, encourage, and inspire you to live a richer, more meaningful life. Today, we're joined by the iconic Gail Straub, author of eight award-winning books and co-founder of the Empowerment Institute, to discuss her newest release, Home Inside the Globe: Embracing Our Human Family. Gail set out to write a collection of travel essays. Her editor told her otherwise: this was a memoir. In Home Inside the Globe, Gail weaves together thirteen cultures across a lifetime, from India to Russia to the refugee camps of Jordan, into a single, sweeping story about dignity, belonging, and what it means to call the whole world home.

About Gail Straub and Home Inside the Globe: Gail Straub has spent decades working across Africa, India, and the Middle East, influencing millions of people through her work in women's empowerment. Home Inside the Globe took her eight years to write and spans her life from age 16 to 75, girl, woman, and crone, organized around a structure that came to her in a dream. At the heart of the book is a story from a refugee camp on the Jordan-Syria border, where a woman who had lost nearly everything asked Gail to carry a message home: that human dignity resides inside us no matter what happens around us, and that the light will always outshine the dark.

In Home Inside the Globe, Gail invites readers into a life spent crossing borders, both literal and internal, and makes the case that the more we expose ourselves to people and places different from our own, the more fully human we become.

Links:

Connect with Gail: https://gailstraub.com/
Purchase Home Inside the Globe at your favorite retailer https://bookshop.org/p/books/home-inside-the-globe-embracing-our-human-family-gail-straub/05bfc47d1c287278?ean=9781963827194&affiliate=24496

Download the Copper Books App: https://author.love/app
Learn more about Copper Books: www.copperbooks.com
Apply to publish with Copper: https://copperbooks.com/apply
Follow Copper Books on Instagram: https://instagram.com/copper.books
Follow Allison Trowbridge on Instagram: https://instagram.com/alliebridge

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