213: Anastasia Zadeik - Author of Blurred Fates

This week’s podcast guest is Anastasia Zadeik (Blurred Fates, She Writes Press, August 2022). Her novel, which won the prestigious 2022 Sarton Award for Contemporary Fiction, examines the role memory—whether suppressed, purposely hidden, or misremembered—plays in a person’s life and how one of the worst days of her life gave her the insight to tell the story. We talk about how she found the perfect home with a hybrid press, embracing Facebook ads (she actually enjoys the creativity behind them) and what criteria she used to decide on which contests to enter. And don’t miss our discussion of blending genres – her readers tell her she’s written a psychological suspense when all along she thought it was women’s fiction.   Anastasia Zadeik is a writer, editor, and frequent performer of narrative nonfiction in a hushed bar. She serves as the Director of Communications for the San Diego Writers Festival, as a writing and performance coach for the literary nonprofit So Say We All, and as a board member for the International Memoir Writers Association. Her debut novel, Blurred Fates, won both the 2023 Sarton Award and the 2023 National Indie Excellence Award for Contemporary Fiction. Her second novel, The Other Side of Nothing, will be released in May 2024.  When she isn’t reading or writing, you can find her hiking, practicing yoga, or hanging out with her husband, Tom, and their empty-nest rescue dog, Charlie.    To learn more about Anastasia, click here.