Barking at Thunder 2
Dear Friends,
Welcome to April’s Substack.
I hope you’ll enjoy this month’s blog Barking at Thunder 2. The audio version is available by clicking the link in the blog or clicking the link here for all podcasts. https://joanneleedomackerman.substack.com/podcast
Book News shares information, appearances, awards, and interviews on my latest novels Burning Distance and The Far Side of the Desert, including appearances and a book signing at the upcoming ThrillerFest in New York City in early May and at the American Writers Museum in Chicago in June.
The Writer at Risk section this month focuses on Belarussian writer, editor and political scientist Valeryja Kaściuhova, sentenced to ten years in prion.
The Books to Check Out section features a highly relevant nonfiction book The Checklist to End Tyranny by Peter Ackerman and the most recent novel Three Days in June by heralded novelist Anne Tyler.
In the Scene section you’ll find a photo relating to text from my novel Burning Distance. Words of the Month share a couple of words you may not use but might enjoy knowing.
Thank you to everyone who has come to bookstores, libraries, book clubs and online for my new novels Burning Distance and The Far Side of the Desert. Also available are my novel The Dark Path to the River and short story collection No Marble Angels. Word of mouth sells books so thank you for spreading the word!
If you’d like to have me speak at a venue or with a book club, click here. Thank you too for reading and sharing this free monthly Substack On the Yellow Brick Road. I hope you’ll stay in touch!
Barking at Thunder 2
Above the traffic and people on the boulevard below, I look out at the expanse of the Atlantic Ocean in the southernmost state of Florida. Occasionally the skies open with a downpour of rain then a crack of lightning slices the sky followed by a massive clap of thunder. These shows are often at night or in the early morning hours when lightning splices the horizon above the dark water and sound reverberates endlessly with nothing to stop it. The storms don’t last long but are intense.
I leave the sliding glass door to the deck slightly open so my dog can go outside if she needs. When the thunder bellows, she is on point. She races onto the deck between the raindrops and barks full throat at the sky, answering and assailing the thunder as if she is the one responsible for protecting our home. She stays out there til the thunder recedes then comes back soaking and pleased with herself. She has stopped the attack. When the sound starts up again, she turns and runs out into the rain to defend us and whatever else in her universe she feels is threatened by this assault of sound and light.
She is a small caramel-colored Australian labradoodle who normally prances down the boulevard making friends with everyone she meets. But when she is threatened, she is mighty. I have written about her brave, if useless, response to this perceived threat before. She has no understanding of the elements, and I have no way of schooling her. Instead I applaud her courage. Since she does no damage to herself or others, hers is not a cautionary tale of ignorance against forces she doesn’t understand. But I share it nonetheless in the hope those of us with more knowledge may avoid barking at thunder.
Upcoming Events and Talks:
Friday, May 8, 2026
8:00 am EDT
Panel: “FIRST, THIRD OR OMNISCIENT? The Power of POV” with Jaima Fixsen, Joanne Leedom-Ackerman, Deborah Levison, Michael Rigg, Teddy Wayne, and J. Luke Bennecke (moderator)
Thrillerfest XXI
Beekman Room
New York Hilton Midtown
New York, NYFriday, May 8, 2026
9:45 am EDT
Author Meet & Greet and Book Signing
Thrillerfest XXI
Murray Hill East & West
New York Hilton Midtown
New York, NYSaturday, June 6, 2026
4:00 pm CDT
American Writers Festival
In conversation with Brian Morra, author of The Able Archers and the Righteous Arrows
American Writers Museum
180 N Michigan Ave
Chicago, IL
I’m honored that The Far Side of the Desert (Oceanview Publishing) was named a finalist in the Suspense category for the 2025 National Indie Excellence Awards. The novel was also awarded the 2025 Bronze medal in the Suspense/Thriller category by the Independent Publishers Association (IPPY) Book Awards.
Published in 2024, The Far Side of the Desert was released in paperback April, 2025. I hope you’ll order, read and enjoy. If you’ve already read the hardcover, I hope you’ll buy the paperback and give to friends!
”The Far Side of the Desert is that rare story – a literary work and a first-rate thriller. Joanne Leedom-Ackerman, who has traveled the world advocating for human rights, is one of the few writers today who can construct a superb and complex international spy novel. The Far Side of the Desert is stellar. “
—Jennifer Clement, former President of PEN International and award-winning novelist of Prayers for the Stolen, Gun Love and The Widow Basquiat
Burning Distance (Oceanview Publishing, 2023 and paperback in 2024) was honored by the 2024 American Book Fest International Book Awards as a Finalist in the Best Mystery/Suspense and Thriller/Adventure categories.
“A mystery solved by an audacious young lady’s wit and cunning. It has overtones somewhat comparable to a cross-cultural rendition of the Bard’s classic, Romeo and Juliet…This tale that could have been written by a contemporary Jane Austen, with a hint of John le Carré espionage seasoning.”—BookReporter
Thanks to Monica Hadley and Writers Voices for the recent interview about The Far Side of the Desert. You can listen here.
Selected recordings of past events and interviews:
Interview with Monica Hadley, Writers Voices
Strategies for Living Podcast: Finding Resilience Through Story
Interview with Janeane Bernstein on NPR’s KUCI, Get the Funk Out!
Book Launch for Akram Aylisli's People and Trees with Plamen Press
Why Baldwin Matters Series, The Alan Cheuse International Writers Center
Malaprop’s Bookstore and Café in Asheville, NC
Kinokuniya Bookstore in New York City with Salil Tripathi
Baum on Books on WSHU Public Radio
Interview with Anna Roins of Authorlink
Interview with Deborah Kalb
For more podcasts, videos and interviews, click here
Valeryja Kaściuhova (Belarus)
(Sources include PEN International, PEN Belarus, Reuters)
Belarusian writer, editor and political scientist Valeryja Kaściuhova has been sentenced to over ten years in prison for “harming national security, conspiracy to seize power by unconstitutional means and inciting social enmity.”
In the summer of 2020 Kaściuhova and thousands of citizens protested the overturning of the election of Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, wife of jailed dissident and former presidential candidate, Sergei Tikhanovsky. Official results were reported falsified in favor of Alexander Lukashenko, who has ruled the country since 1994. Sergei Tikhanovsky was convicted of causing riots and sentenced to 18-years in prison. He has since been released after 5 years of solitary confinement and is currently living out of the country.
Arrested on June 30, 2021 after a search of her home by KGB officers, Kaściuhova and researcher Tatiana Kouzina were sentenced and imprisoned in a general-security penal colony.
Founder and editor of the website of the Nashe Mneniye (Our Opinion), Kaściuhova was also editor and author of a collection of analytical reviews about the development of the situation in Belarus and was the head of Belarus in Focus monitoring group.
Reuters reported that according to human rights activists, Belarus had about “1500 political detainees arrested for criticizing the authorities or participating in the 2020 protests against the outcome of a presidential election that the opposition said was rigged.”
PEN Belarus reports: “Prison authorities systematically confiscate and destroy the literary manuscripts and letters of those imprisoned on politically motivated grounds. Their aim is not only to silence individuals, but also to dismantle their human and cultural identity and erase the intellectual and cultural heritage created even in isolation. By destroying manuscripts, the authorities seek to deprive authors of the opportunity to bear witness to their time and to maintain a connection with society. They further intend to erase evidence and society’s right to memory.”
To Take Action for Valeryja Kaściuhova:
Please send appeals to the authorities of Belarus, urging:
to release Valeryja Kaściuhova immediately and unconditionally
to ensure she receives proper medical care while detained
Send appeals to the Embassy in your own country. Embassy addresses may be found here: https://www.embassy-worldwide.com/country/belarus/
You can send messages of solidarity to Valeryja Kaściuhova. Messages can be sent via this form.
Please include a Belarusian or Russian translation of your message (e.g. using Google Translate).
Spread the word about Valeryja Kaściuhova’s case on social media. Use the hashtags # Valeryja Kaściuhova, #IWD26 and #InternationalWomensDay, tagging @peninternational (Instagram), facebook.com/peninternational (Facebook) and @peninternational.bsky.social (Bluesky).
Celebrated Guatemalan journalist Jose Rubén Zamora Marroquín, founder of elPeriódico, has been released from prison after three and a half years and transferred to house arrest while awaiting continued proceedings on his case. (Details of his case in Writers in Risk profile September 2024 Substack.)
An attack on a writer, the shutting down of a publishing house, the torching of a newspaper reduce the space in the world where ideas can flow. Freedom of expression is vital to writers and to readers but is challenged daily around the world. Listed here are organizations whose work on human rights and in particular issues of freedom of expression I’ve been engaged with directly and indirectly over the years. Some of the organizations have broader agendas, but all have contributed to keeping space open for the individual voice.
PEN International (with its 147 centers in over 100 countries)
PEN American Center
English PEN
PEN/Faulkner Foundation
Human Rights Watch
Amnesty International
Amnesty International USA
International Freedom of Expression Exchange (IFEX)
Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)
Article 19
Index on Censorship
Poets and Writers
Authors Guild
International Center for Journalists
This month’s Books to Check Out column has been difficult to focus. I’ve been reading widely, but in an erratic way, alternating between nonfiction for information and research and fiction. In reading for information I’m often lured well beyond what I need in research because I want to understand the full context, but in fiction, if I’m not engaged after a period, I set the book aside. There are so many books I want to read and will not have the chance that I find my tolerance has diminished for staying with a book that doesn’t capture me. A fellow reader once offered a formula that in your youth you should give a book a hundred pages, but then you can subtract your age from that figure as you mature. So if you are 70, only 30 pages. That is not a reliable guide or one I necessarily endorse, but I do find I move on more quickly these days if a novel hasn’t drawn me in. In doing so, I’m also continuing to learn as a writer what it takes to hold a reader in one’s world.
This month I’m offering two books that have no particular relation to each other except that I’ve read both to the end and admire the authors.
The Checklist to End Tyranny by Peter Ackerman has resonance both personal and global, especially at this moment in international affairs. Peter was one of the foremost experts in the history and use of strategic nonviolent action—civilian-based resistance—for societies facing authoritarian regimes and asymmetric power, a scholar who studied in depth what makes nonviolent civilian resistance succeed or fail. With a PhD from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and a doctoral thesis supervised by renowned scholar in the field, Dr. Gene Sharp, Peter founded and headed the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict for decades.
Peter was also my husband of fifty years. The Checklist to End Tyranny was his final and seminal work. It is well worth studying at this time in global affairs. Among its central principles are:
1. A civilian-based nonviolent campaign can rarely (if ever) mix violent with nonviolent methods and achieve success.
2. Successful campaigns are launched from within, not outside, a country.
3. Support from outside sources can be helpful but are rarely strategic.
The Checklist to End Tyranny shares the history of nonviolent campaigns and the successful underlying principles and tactics for battling against tyranny, including the essential elements of unity of purpose and leadership, discussions on how to build coalitions, training and the use of multiple tactics, not just mass gatherings. At the end of the small volume are outlines of workshops and courses to facilitate training in the methods for successful campaigns and tables, including the Theory of Change.
From The Checklist to End Tyranny:
It is generally assumed that tyrannies persist because they possess a monopoly on the use of force. While violence against their citizens can be decisive for a time, there is a better explanation: Tyrannies persist as long as citizens fail to understand how—without needing to resort to violence—they can undermine the tyrant’s base of support and force him from power. Oppressed populations using nonviolent tactics—such as strikes, boycotts, mass protests, and other forms of disrupting societal order—are often the most powerful drivers of their own liberation.
Increasingly this good news has been embraced by dissidents and others concerned with the advancement of human rights and democratic governance free from corruption. Yet the potential of civil resistance remains widely under recognized because its premises sharply challenge conventional assumptions about the nature of power. Policymakers, scholars, journalists, and other interested observers consistently overestimate the extent to which tyrants can rely on violence to manipulate a population they assume they control. At the same time, they underestimate the capacity of ordinary people to undermine tyranny and achieve rights through the strategic use of nonviolent tactics.
Anne Tyler has long been a writer I have read and enjoyed. We recently read her newest novel Three Days in June in a new (and my first) book club in Florida. The story of a long-divorced schoolteacher and administrator Gail Baines, who is losing her job on the weekend of her daughter’s wedding, tracks familiar Tyler territory of characters in families under the quotidian stress of life.
Gail’s ex-husband appears on her doorstep with a stray cat to stay for the weekend of the wedding, stirring old failures and aspirations. Gail’s daughter is about to marry into a family with a different rhythm and values than her own to a husband she suspects may have already cheated on her daughter. The plot is not remarkable nor are any characters on their own, but the whole mix opens a window on the misperceptions and also insights that are there for characters who are open to them.
Readers of Tyler’s heralded and prize-winning Dinner and the Homesick Restaurant, The Accidental Tourist, A Spool of Blue Thread and other of her 25 novels may not find Three Days in June as compelling, but the reader will feel in safe and extremely competent narrative hands.
Click to enjoy a rare and extensive interview with Anne Tyler.
From Three Days in June:
“I’ll be back on Tuesday, good as new. No need to alter your routine in the slightest. However,” she said, and then she sat straighter behind her desk; she cleared her throat; she briskly aligned a stack of papers that didn’t need aligning. “However, it brings me to a subject I’ve been meaning to discuss with you.”
I stood a bit straighter myself. I am very alert to people’s tones of voice.
“I’ll be sixty-six years old on my next birthday,” she said, “and Ralph just turned sixty-eight. He’s starting to talk about traveling a bit, and seeing more of the grandchildren.”
“Really.”
“So I’m thinking of handing in my resignation before the new school year begins.”
The new school year would begin in September. We were already in late June.
I said, “So…does this mean I’ll take over as headmistress?”
It was a perfectly logical question, right? Somebody had to do it. And I was next in line, for sure. I’d been Marilee’s assistant for the past eleven years. But Marilee let a small silence develop, as if I’d presumed in some way. Then she said, “Well, that’s what I wanted to chat about.”
She selected the top sheet on her stack of papers, and she turned it around to face me and slid it across her desk. I stepped forward, grudgingly. I squinted at it. A typewritten page with a newspaper clipping stapled to one corner—a black-and-white photo of a serious young woman with energetically curly dark hair. “Nashville Educator’s Study on Learning Differences Wins McLellan Prize,” the headline read.
I said, “Nashville?” (We lived in Baltimore.) And I had no idea what the McLellan Prize was.
“I brought her name to the board’s attention when I first began to think of retiring,” Marilee said. “Dorothy Edge; maybe you’ve heard of her. I’d read her book, you see, and I’d found it very impressive.”
“You brought her to the board’s attention,” I repeated.
“After all, Gail,” she said. “You’re sixty-one years old, am I right? You won’t be working much longer yourself.”
“I’m sixty-one years old!” I said. “Nowhere near retirement age!”
“It’s not only a matter of age,” she told me. She was looking at me with her chin raised, the way people do when they know they’re in the wrong. “Face it: this job is a matter of people skills. You know that! And surely you’ll be the first to admit that social interactions have never been your strong point.”
Image and passage of text from my novel Burning Distance:
Mom released the tasseled cord on the drapes and enclosed the living room in ivory brocade. We lived in Winston’s house now. “Consider this house your home,” Winston had told me when we moved into the white stone and brick Victorian house on Stafford Terrace in Kensington, two blocks from Holland Park. With Winston had come a son, Dennis, now at university, and a daughter nicknamed Pickles who was Sophie’s age. None of us wanted any more sisters or a brother, but we had no choice. We didn’t understand why Mom had married Winston. She must love him, we told each other, but it was hard for Jane, Sophie, and me to understand why. He was nice, but boring, not at all like our father. He fell in love with her, he said, because she was so unconventional. Jane and Sophie thought she married him because he was safe after being married to our father. They thought she spent all her passion on our father, but I thought they didn’t know what they were talking about.
Over the years I’ve accumulated a running list of words I haven’t known from two main sources: WordDaily and WordGenius and from the books I read.
Littoral
/ˈlid ə rəl/
Parts of speech: adjective, noun
Adjective:
1. relating to or situated on the shore of the sea or a lake.
2. relating to or denoting the zone of the seashore between high- and low-water marks, or the zone near a lake shore with rooted vegetation.
Noun:
1. a region lying along a shore.
Examples:
“The Navy had five small ships — two destroyers and three littoral combat ships — in the waters off Iran as of Tuesday.”
“It will likely be deployed for search and rescue, troop transport, anti-submarine warfare, or sea control in the South China Sea’s congested littorals.”
Tailleur
/tah yur/
Part of speech: noun
1. a woman’s tailored costume
2. the dealer in a card game
Examples:
“She looked elegant in her tweed tailleur.“
“Deep down, Michele knows that; at the press conference, he even worked in a couple of specifics about the clothes: ‘I was really obsessed with tailleur, blazers and suits,’ and, ‘I really take care of the shoulders.’”
I’ve spoken at bookstores, university classes, book luncheons and in-person and zoom book clubs and look forward to more ahead. I enjoy giving readings and addressing audiences in many venues and moderating discussions on a wide range of topics and most of all meeting readers.
Click here for a list of future and past public events.
Or fill out the speaking request form to schedule an event.
I like engaging with readers so if you are in a Reading Group or Book Club and read one of my books, I’m glad to be in touch by email, zoom, or when possible in person. I can also suggest discussion topics.
Fill out the reading group form here to schedule a meeting.
