Friday Five: historian, writer, and Dad Lit podcaster Dan Roberts

A Father’s Day weekend conversation about this new genre and the appeal of “voicey, moral, unwieldy, independent, ambitious, and impatient” literary men.

With Father’s Day just around the corner, it seems appropriate and timely to shine the Friday Five spotlight on Daniel Roberts, a historian, writer, and host of the Dad Lit podcast, which is available on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube.

A professional historian, Dan has many published works of history, but no published works of fiction — not yet, at least. He is the author of the biography, The American: The Life, Times, and War of Basil Antonelli, the story of an Italian-American immigrant that Amazon describes as “a quintessentially American biography of immigration, assimilation, and sacrifice.” Currently he is on submission with two novels, The Black Hole Pact, a Sci Fi novel about a woman investigating her father’s role in saving the world from a killer asteroid, and Cursed at the Hanging Pine Inn, a horror novel best described as The Shining meets Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life.

He established the Dad Lit Pod earlier this year, not long after a bit of hand-wringing in The New York Times about the disappearance of the literary man (a topic I also blogged about). So the topics Dan delves into on his podcast have never been more timely.

As you might expect from such a booster of Dad Lit, Dan is himself a dad. He’s the father to a four-year-old girl and has been blissfully married for eight years.

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Friday Five: Q&A with writer and sociologist Rebecca Tiger

“… the more honest I am about myself and others … the more my work resonates with people.”

In today’s Women’s History Month Friday Five, I’m happy to feature Rebecca Tiger, a writer and sociologist known for her work in both creative and academic spheres. As an associate professor of sociology at Middlebury College in Vermont, she teaches courses on topics like punishment, deviance, drugs, and celebrity, often blending sociology with creative nonfiction. As a creative writer, she has published fiction and nonfiction in various literary journals, including an award-winning essay recognized in a 2024 creative nonfiction contest(“Where’s Charlie,” published by Roi Fainéant Press). Rebecca also teaches creative writing in jails.

I first discovered Rebecca’s writing via her flash fiction piece “Dissection,” a powerful story about life, death, and family published in Trampset. I’ve since read other pieces by her — fiction as well as nonfiction — and have always been moved by the power of her stories and the way she puts the words together. Read on to learn more about her writing and academic work, her advice to other writers, and teaching creative writing to the incarcerated.

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