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Welcome to the debut episode of Miles of Books that focuses on fiction.

I'm your host Sarah Bowen-Shay.

This biweekly podcast is, in part, a spinoff of our most popular episodes of the

Another Mother Runner podcast, our annual summer reading and winter reading episodes

featuring Ellison Waste, who, yes, is my co-host for these fiction-focused episodes.

So to give a sense of flow, Miles of Books now airs every other Tuesday, alternating with

AMR answers. One Tuesday, I'll talk about novels with Ellison, then two weeks later, I'll discuss

nonfiction books with Coach Liz. And the debut episode with Coach Liz aired on Tuesday, April 22nd. So if you missed it,

cue it up. It's a couple of shows behind us in our feed. Our plan is for each book-related

conversation to last about 30 minutes. So, with no further ado, welcome, Ellison. I'm delighted to be embarking on the new Miles of Books journey with you.

And I'm going to confess up front, one of the reasons I launched Miles of Books is because I decided our podcast feed needed more Ellison in it, as did my life.

So welcome.

Oh, my goodness.

Okay, I'm going to get reclimbed right from the get-go.

And use one of my favorite words. I'll try to fit twee in there later. Yes, please, please, please.

All right. So before we start talking about novels, tell us about your book bully self, including the origin of that nickname, as well as a little bit about your running background, please.

Sure, sure.

When my daughter, who is now approaching her 41st birthday, when she was about 14 or 15, we went into a bookstore.

And we were poking around, and I noticed a woman with two books in her

...