Our podcast guest this week is Gabi Coatsworth (A Beginner’s Guide to Starting Over, Atmosphere Press, April 2023). The concept of a benevolent ghost helping a loved one move on is a popular trope at the moment and Gabi’s book fits right in. Readers like its blend of optimism and small town charm and it has proved there is room for humor in women’s fiction as well as heavier topics like grief and loss. Gabi is a member of both a local critique group and also runs one of WFWA’s Write-Ins, partly because she writes “with an English accent” and often needs help making her prose more accessible. We discuss her success with co-op ads to build her mailing list and how she’s enhanced her own author platform by positioning herself as a go-to interviewer for authors coming through Connecticut on national book tours.

Gabi Coatsworth is an award-winning British-born author and blogger, who has spent half her life living in the United States. Her memoir, Love’s Journey Home, was published by Atmosphere Press in May 2022 and her debut novel, A Beginner’s Guide to Starting Over, came out in April 2023. They both won first-place awards in the Connecticut Press Club, and the novel came first in the Indie Author Project Awards. She’s been published in trade publications, and literary journals, both in print and online, and anthologies, and is active in the Connecticut writing community, where she runs several groups for writers. If she’s not writing or traveling, she’ll be in her flower garden, wondering whether to weed, or relaxing with a book.

To learn more about Gabi, click here.