In need of literary inspiration? You’ve come to the right place! From time to time, I’ll be posting interviews with some amazing writers in the midst of launching their latest books.

First up is a transcript of one of the highlights of my literary life: introducing Pico Iyer at a reading he gave in Iowa City in February 2012.

And on to the interviews:

To meet the amazing contributors to Best Women’s Travel Writing 2010, click here.

Wendy Call’s first book of narrative nonfiction, No Word for Welcome, explores how economic globalization intersects with village life in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in southern Mexico.

Michael David Lukas’s first novel, The Oracle of Stamboul, is about an eight year-old orphan who becomes an advisor to the Ottoman sultan and, in the process, changes the course of history.

Long-time New Yorker Richard Goodman has written a book of essays on his favorite city, A New York Memoir.

The inimitable Ayun Halliday is author of half a dozen memoirs and a new guidebook, The Zinesters Guide to NYC.

Maliha Masood documents her return to her native Pakistan in Dizzy in Karachi.

Mary Jo McConahay’s memoir, Maya Roads: One Woman’s Journey Among the People of the Rainforest, documents 30 years of travels across southern Mexico and northern Guatemala.

Carolyn Nash’s debut memoir, Raising Abel, chronicles her experiences raising two adopted sons, one of whom came from a deeply abusive family.

Jessie Sholl has written the first memoir on hoarding, Dirty Secret: A Daughter Comes Clean About Her Mother’s Compulsive Hoarding.