Every week, Brooklyn Magazine: The Podcast highlights prominent (and soon-to-be-prominent) Brooklynites as we explore the vast and diverse borough through the lens of culture, community and commerce. Hosted by Editor-in-Chief Brian Braiker, the show features intimate conversations with cultural luminaries, community leaders and compelling locals. These are the people who move us, entertain us, feed us and inspire us. There are a lot of little Brooklyns, and we are all a little Brooklyn.
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The inner victories of Sean Qualls
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Sean Qualls is a Brooklyn-based artist, award-winning children’s book illustrator, author and occasional DJ. His latest book is a collaboration with Roots drummer Questlove called “The Idea in You,” a charming children’s book about finding that first spark of creativity. You can see Sean’s art on display now through November 10 in a solo exhibition…
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Emily Nussbaum on the invention of reality TV
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Love it or hate it, reality TV isn’t going anywhere. It’s also probably not going to stop being divisive any time soon, either. So maybe it’s time we take seriously a genre so many people dismiss as silly. That’s the central argument of Emily Nussbaum’s deeply reported warts-and-all history “Cue the Sun! The Invention of Reality TV,” which she succ…
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The ‘Family Values’ of photography duo Guzman
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For about 40 years now, the husband-and-wife team of Constance Hansen and Russell Peacock has created an indelible body of photography produced under the name Guzman. Now they have a new book out, called “Family Values,” a series of incredibly intimate photos taken in one day at the home of Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love, five weeks after their daug…
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The Brownstone Boys have some renovation tips for you
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If you live in Brooklyn and have ever had a desire to renovate or restore your place — a total overhaul or a new kitchen, some shelving, maybe, or a rethinking of your lighting — chances are you’ve come across the Brownstone Boys online. Or if you live in Brooklyn and just have a kink for historic home restoration, you’ve probably followed the Brow…
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Since its founding as an impromptu celebration of Black joy and community in response to the murder of George Floyd in May of 2020, the Lay Out has grown into a sprawling community platform that hosts year-round parties and offshoots like the BuyBLK. ByBLK. marketplace. This week, the Lay Out’s founder Emily Anadu joimed us on the podcast as she wa…
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Eli Sussman: The man behind the memes
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Eli Sussman is a meme lord, cookbook writer, a very funny guy and restaurateur with a few big hits under his belt — notably the contemporary Middle Eastern Samesa and Gertrude’s, a Jew-ish style diner in Prospect Heights. We first became aware of Sussman before he opened Gertrude’s with partners Nate Adler and Rachel Jackson a year ago. His Instagr…
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Brooklynites: The free Black families that built the borough
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A new book, called “Brooklynites: The Remarkable Story of the Free Black Communities that Shaped a Borough,” out in September, tells the story of Brooklyn’s free Black population between 1790 and 1870, 80 years of unfathomable change in the borough and the country at large. The book, by Prithi Kanakamedala, is a cultural and social history, told th…
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Molly Roden Winter, the Park Slope polyamorist
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Molly Roden Winter never set out to be the face of Park Slope polyamory, but here we are. Her book “More: A Memoir of Open Marriage” came out earlier this year and instantly hit the best seller lists. It became the subject of think pieces and trend stories, landed her on talk shows and podcasts and essentially went viral in a way that clearly under…
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Born and raised in New York City, Cey Adams emerged from the vibrant graffiti scene of the 1970s while still in his teens, tagging “Cey City” on subway cars and painting murals — and was one of the first wave of street artists to obtain gallery representation. He met the Beastie Boys before they were the Beastie Boys, and designed their first logo,…
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The Good Liars are comedians Davram Stiefler and Jason Selvig, and for nearly a decade they have been doggedly traveling the country — most notably to presidential campaign rallies for both political parties — trolling attendees and politicians in fearless interviews that often go viral. All with an eye towards exposing hypocrisy, hubris, absurdity…
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Dan Perlman: Life after ‘Flatbush Misdemeanors’
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Dan Perlman is a comedian, writer and director in Brooklyn He co-created, wrote and starred in Showtime's critically acclaimed comedy series, “Flatbush Misdemeanors” which was sadly not renewed after its much lauded and pitch-perfect two season run. Don’t count Dan out though. He just keeps making things — short things for now. Much as Flatbush Mis…
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Erick the Architect builds his own beats
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Rapper, singer, artist, producer and, since 2010, one third of the Brooklyn hip-hop group the Flatbush Zombies, Erick the Architect has dropped his first full-length solo album, "I've Never Been Here Before.” The title is a sly allusion to where he's at in life — emotionally, physically, professionally, musically — and the 16 tracks within feature …
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Cocktail columnist Robert Simonson
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Robert Simonson writes about cocktails, food and travel for the New York Times, where he’s been a contributor since 2000. He is the author of seven books about cocktails — he literally wrote the book on the old-fashioned and one on the martini. His latest tome, out now, widens the lens — by a lot. “The Encyclopedia of Cocktails: The People, Bars an…
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For 17 years Maria Popova has kept an online literary journal of sorts, a catalogue of what she’s been reading, contemplating and grappling with across multiple disciplines — literature, science, art, philosophy, poetry and what she has called “various other tentacles of human thought and feeling.” She started her site, the Marginalian, under a dif…
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NYT's Dan Saltzstein on the art of a New York story
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What makes a story a New York story? Maybe it’s seeing a drag queen emerge from a manhole cover on Canal Street in a full look at 6:30 a.m. Or it could be a woman carrying a bag of live eels on the subway to the shock of no one. The thing is, you know a New York Story when you’ve got one, and Dan Saltzstein has collected a whole book’s worth of lit…
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The ‘Legacy’ of Dr. Uché Blackstock
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Not only is Dr. Uché Blackstock a second-generation Black woman physician, she is the first Black mother-daughter legacy to have graduated from Harvard Medical School. Today she is the founder and CEO of Advancing Health Equity, a consultancy that helps its clients in the healthcare and corporate space to provide racially equitable care. She is als…
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Veselka: ‘The Rainbow on the Corner at the Center of the World’
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Most New Yorkers don’t need an introduction to Veselka. One of the last of many Slavic restaurants that once proliferated in the East Village, Veselka is turning 70 this year, it’s more robust, vital and relevant as a cultural hub that it’s ever been. It’s expanding into Williamsburg later this year and it’s the subject of a new documentary, out no…
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Lee Fields is a funk and soul legend who has been recording for 55 years and performing for longer than that. From his roots in hardscrabble Wilson, North Carolina — where his parents ran a speakeasy on Saturday nights and took him to church on Sundays — through the funky 1970s, Fields honed an explosive live act frequently compared to James Brown.…
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Second City is the legendary Chicago improv comedy company that opened in 1969 and launched the careers of everyone from Bill Murray and Gilda Radner to Eugene Levy and Catherine O’Hara to Tina Fey and Amy Poehler to Keegan-Michael Key to Stephen Colbert and Steve Carrell and Mike Meyers and Tim Meadows and so on. This month they’ve opened their fi…
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Pizza Hut to Anthony Mongiello: Get stuffed!
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Bensonhurst-born Anthony Mongiello is the unheralded inventor, he claims to this day, of the stuffed crust pizza. Mongiello, who holds a 1987 patent for the method of making pizzas with cheese baked into the crust, sued Pizza Hut when they rolled out their own product with the same name in 1995 — for $1 billion. That lawsuit — which was rejected in…
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The hit Amazon series “Reacher" just wrapped its second season and has been re-upped for a third — and coming back with it is the character Frances Neagley, played by Maria Sten. Neagley is Jack Reacher’s colleague, a retired U.S. Army Master Sergeant, his confidante and in many ways his equal. Sten herself is just as fascinating as Reacher, and ha…
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Today we’re talking with a theatrical power couple: Joe Tapper stars in the Off Broadway dark comedy “The White Chip,” opening February 1 and co-produced by his wife, the Tony-winning actor Annaleigh Ashford. We talk about the play and Tapper’s own personal connection to the role. We discuss Ashford’s career as well and adding a producer credit to …
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Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s Adrian Benepe
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The city’s 34 Cultural Institutions Groups — organizations including The Brooklyn Museum, BAM, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and more — depend on funding from the department of cultural affairs. It is a department that is facing drastic cuts in Mayor Eric Adams’ proposed budget for the coming fiscal year, which, if approved, could be devastating to m…
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[Originally aired 2021] For Martin Luther King, Jr., Day, we look at the ways in which New Yorkers have advocated, agitated, and exercised their power to shape the discussion around civil rights. MLK himself is connected to the city in ways that may be both obvious and surprising. With Sarah Seidman of the Museum of the City of New York, we explore…
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The ridiculously prolific Scott Lynch covers food for Brooklyn Magazine: restaurant openings, news and pop-ups. He also shoots highly photogenic events like the Coney Island Polar Bear Plunge, Bike Kill and the Idiotarod, among others. Scott wrote our roundup of the best 12 new Brooklyn restaurants of 2023 and he recently launched our new monthly-i…
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Fran Lebowitz (still) doesn't care what you think — repeat
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Back in October the writer and professional opinion-haver Fran Lebowitz swung through the borough to appear at Kings Theatre in conversation with writer Marlon James. Ahead of that appearance, she chatted with us for this episode of “Brooklyn Magazine: The Podcast” … over her landline. It’s pure Fran in all her cantankerous glory. And it was our mo…
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Sipping prosecco with Ashlie Atkinson of 'The Gilded Age'
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If you’ve watched TV or movies with any regularity over the past 20 years, you’ve probably seen Ashlie Atkinson. If you’ve gone to bars with any regularity in Central or South Brooklyn over the past 20 years, you’ve probably seen Ashlie Atkinson. She may have even poured you a drink. A character actor with an IMDB page about a mile long (and still …
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Jesse David Fox wrote the book on comedy
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If you like comedy, have we got a book for you. It’s called “Comedy Book.” And it’s by Jesse David Fox. Actually, the full title is “Comedy Book: How Comedy Conquered Culture — And the Magic that Makes it Work,” and it is at its heart an argument that comedy is an art form. And as an art form, it should be studied just as seriously as any other art…
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A founding member of Wu Tang Clan and one of hip hop’s most explosive characters, ODB was a showman, a stage crasher, a comedian, a father, a husband, a literal hero. He was also flawed. ODB struggled with addiction, had real run-ins with the law and grappled with mental health issues. But he was in no way, as the media often portrayed him, a caric…
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An oral history of the girl group sound
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“But Will You Love Me Tomorrow” is a comprehensive new oral history of the era of girl groups — the first wave of music by and for teenagers — told by the women who forged the sounds. The book, by Brooklyn writers Laura Flam and Emily Sieu Liebowitz, charts the rise, cultural domination, and ultimate disintegration of the girl group sound. Designed…
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Say She She is coming off a big, big year. The trio of discodelic sirens released their double album “Silver” late September just shy of one year after their debut “Prism.” They had their national TV debut and played Glastonbury and the Hollywood Bowl, in addition to about 100 other shows, all on the strength of their dancefloor friendly sound and …
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Restoring justice with Erika Sasson
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The American criminal justice system is built on a punitive ideology — an ideology that in practice doesn’t always deliver its desired results. There is another way. Restorative justice is an alternative to incarceration: it is an approach to justice that aims to repair harm by providing an opportunity for those harmed and those who take responsibi…
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Ramblin’ Jack Elliott: ‘Destined to be a traveler’
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The word “legend” gets tossed around a lot. But if anyone is worthy of the designation it would be singer-songwriter and cowboy poet Ramblin’ Jack Elliott. Born Elliott Charles Adnopoz in Brooklyn in 1931, Elliott is one of the last authentic living links to the great folk traditions of this country. A close personal friend and student of Woody Gut…
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The unbearable creepiness of 'Mr. Organ'
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David Farrier is a New Zealand journalist who has a knack for finding stories in the nooks of culture, bizarre phenomena hidden in plain sight. His new movie, "Mr. Organ," is about a sociopathic narcissist named Michael Organ who landed on Farrier’s radar for an extortion racket that involved putting boots on parked cars at a private antiques busin…
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Gowanus Open Studios: The show goes on
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Last month, Arts Gowanus was dealt a devastating blow when the storms that blew through the borough completely swamped the entire neighborhood. But their annual tentpole Open Studios weekend is trudging on. This year is a critical one for the group. Arts Gowanus executive director Johnny Thornton and programs director Emily Chiavelli join us to dis…
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Karen Blondel: 'The Fearless Princess of Red Hook'
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If you live and work in Red Hook you’ve probably come across housing and climate activist Karen Blondel. Last month Blondel received new, city-wide recognition when she was one of five New Yorkers presented with the annual “David Prize,” a no-strings-attached gift of $200,000 to locals doing on-the-ground work in their communities. She says she wil…
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Fran Lebowitz (still) doesn't care what you think
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Fran Lebowitz started her career writing a column for Andy Warhol’s Interview Magazine, Mademoiselle and others. She published two very funny collections of her essays, "Metropolitan Life" in 1978 and "Social Studies" in 1981. These days, is a professional talker more than a writer. She is a sardonic wit, cut from a similar cloth as Dorothy Parker …
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Eric Gonzalez made history in November 2017 when he became the first Latino district attorney elected in New York State. And with a promise to helm “the most progressive D.A.’s office in the country,” he didn’t stop making history there. Gonzalez joins the podcast to discuss his track record on safety, guns, crime in the borough, justice versus ven…
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Confessions of a former NYC landmarks preservationist
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We have granted anonymity to this week’s guest in order for her to speak candidly about her years as a preservationist for the New York City Landmark Preservation Commission. We’ll get into the inner workings of the LPC, how it operates, some recent wins and fails in Brooklyn and we’ll get a little tour of her own favorite city landmarks. Brooklyn …
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Kendra Morris is who you were waiting for
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For someone who professes not to be special on her new album, “I Am What I’m Waiting For,” Kendra Morris is … pretty special. Morris is a Greenpoint-based soul singer-songwriter and visual artist who has been recording and gigging steadily — at her own pace and on her own terms — since her 2010 self-titled debut. The lead single off her new album, …
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How and why Clive Thompson biked across the country
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In April, journalist and author Clive Thompson set out to bicycle across the entire country — 4,150 miles total — as part of the reporting for his next book on “micromobility.” He documented his trip in real time online: 70 days on the road, broken up by a brief return trip home. Here we discuss what micromobility is and why this ride was so import…
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State Senator Zellnor Myrie is the first generation American son of Costa Rican immigrants and a native Brooklynite who represents the district that includes Prospect Lefferts Gardens — where he grew up and currently lives. Today he joins the podcast to talk about life in Flatbush, possible solutions to the city’s housing crunch, illegal guns, the …
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Now in its 25th year, Tanoreen is a James Beard nominee and a Michelin Bib Gourmand-winning restaurant. It has spawned two excellent cookbooks. It has been featured on the Food Network's "Best Thing I Ever Ate," and it has been named one of the best restaurants in New York City by Bon Appétite. Rawia Bishara, who emigrated to Bay Ridge from Nazaret…
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Eli “Paperboy” Reed delivers the musical news
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Singer, songwriter, DJ and producer Eli “Paperboy” Reed has spent a lifetime mining the deep vein of Americana — from soul to country to gospel. He has put out eight albums of his own over the past 20 years, including last year’s “Down Every Road,” a funky tribute to Merle Haggard. He has mentored and produced the group The Harlem Gospel Travelers,…
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Two weeks ago NPR’s Tiny Desk online video series broke the internet with a bombastic performance by New Orleans rapper Juvenile. The man who produced that viral segment is NPR Music's Bobby Carter. If you’ve seen the viral Anderson .Paak or Usher or Mac Miller Tiny Desk shows, you have Bobby to thank for those, too. In a special live episode of th…
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This week we are joined by a legend, an empress, an icon of reggae. In an industry dominated by male voices, Marcia Griffiths is about to enter her 60th year as a trailblazing vocalist, songwriter, performer and collaborator. You may know her from early hits like “I Feel Like Jumping,” or her work with the great Bob Andy. She also collaborated with…
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Leah Goodridge is a tenants’ rights attorney who serves on the New York City Planning Commission, where she is the first and only tenants’ rights attorney. Born and raised in Brownsville, she lives in Bed-Stuy where, like anyone else in Brooklyn can tell you, the rent is too damn high — and newcomers are consistently pushing historic, legacy famili…
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Man on Man love to love and love to rock
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Roddy Bottum and Joey Holman are a couple of regular guys with regular dad bods. And they’re a couple. As Man on Man, they make music that tackles themes of love, intimacy, sex, queer culture and quirks. But above all, they make music that rocks, which has been an anomaly in mainstream queer culture since, well, always. Their second album, “Provinc…
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Stacey Mei Yan Fong is Ms. American Pie
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The question of home is a driving force of Stacey Mei Yan Fong's new book “50 Pies, 50 States,” out this week. The book is also, as the title suggests, a pie cookbook — an ingenious one at that. In 2016 Fong undertook a wildly ambitious project to design a pie recipe for every state in the union, and dedicate each pie to someone special from that s…
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Romance writer Sarah MacLean: 'Happiness is terrifying to tyranny'
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You or someone you love probably reads a lot of romance fiction. Which means that you or someone you love has probably read a book by Sarah MacLean, a New York Times best seller with 19 novels and novellas under her belt. But do not call what she writes “bodice rippers.” MacLean, a Washington Post contributor and host of the popular romance fiction…
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