Novelist Christy Lefteri joins Marrie Stone to talk about her latest book, The Beekeeper of Aleppo. She talks about her time as a UNICEF volunteer and growing up as a child of two refugees and how these events informed the novel. She discusses how words and phrases trigger her memories, and how she used that experience as an effective flashback device in the book, and much more. In the second half, Susan Straight shares her memoir, In the Country of Women. She talks about her family's secret language, the effective thread of The Odyssey throughout the book, and her enduring relationship with a very special possum. Download audio.  (Broadcast date: September 4, 2019)