The world feels pretty heavy for a lot of people right now. Women are no exception. Rights we thought were settled are suddenly negotiable. Language that should protect us gets twisted.
Headlines read like history we swore we’d never repeat. When I heard about the book Counting Backwards, I felt like it truly was a story for our time.
That’s why I invited Jacqueline Friedland on the show. She’s a former attorney whose new novel was sparked by two things: the 1927 Buck v. Bell decision that green-lit involuntary sterilization—and a 2020 headline about women in a U.S. immigration detention center alleging sterilization without consent. A century apart. Same wound. Jacqueline’s book threads those timelines together through one fierce (and imperfect, human) attorney who decides to fight.
This conversation isn’t just “about issues.” It’s about people. It’s about how a teenage research project can burrow into your bones for decades. It’s about how words, choices, and consent are not abstractions—especially now. And it’s about writing the kind of novel that lets readers feel the danger and the dignity at stake.
🧵 What we talk about:
- The seed that wouldn’t let go. Seventeen-year-old Jacqueline, paging through dry Supreme Court opinions, stumbles on a three-paragraph ruling that changes her. Years later, a headline called “The Uterus Collector” lights the fuse. She starts writing because she can’t not.
- Reproductive rights ≠ one argument. We widen the lens: consent, informed care, the right to have children and the right not to be forced into it, language access in medical settings—and how easily “obvious” rights get eroded when we stop paying attention.
- Law school, then a left turn. Jacqueline tries on the big-firm life and realizes the part she loves is the thinking, the arguing, the human stakes—not the billable hours. She carries the law into fiction anyway, where it becomes plot, pressure and purpose.
- Building people, not positions. In Counting Backwards, the past belongs to Carrie (inspired by Buck v. Bell), and the present belongs to Jessa, a lawyer who thinks she knows her path—until she meets women whose stories demand more of her. Layer by draft, Jacqueline writes toward their private truths.
- Writing in a hard season. From “fill the sandbox, then build the castle” first drafts to the temptation of perfect sentences, we talk about stamina, deadlines, and showing up when the news cycle feels like quicksand.
- Publishing without losing your voice. Hybrid, then Big Five—what changed, what didn’t, and why editorial control (and the right champion) matter when you’re carrying a story with real-world resonance.
- What’s next. A D1 swimmer buckles under pressure and finds unlikely connection with an autistic teen. Different arena, same heartbeat: agency, identity, and the cost of belonging.
If you’ve felt the weight of this moment for women, or wondered how to capture some of the fear and anger we’re feeling right now, this episode is for you.
📚 About Jacqueline Friedland
Jacqueline Friedland is the USA Today and Amazon bestselling author of both historical and contemporary women’s fiction. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and NYU Law School, she practiced as a commercial litigator for as long as she could stand it. She then returned to school to earn her Masters of Fine Arts in creative writing from Sarah Lawrence College and has been writing ever since.
Jackie’s books have been awarded the 2020 and 2021 gold medals in fiction from Readers’ Favorite. Her novels have also been named the 2021 Kirkus Reviews Best Indie Book of the Year, the SheReads Best Book Club Pick of 2021, and the Women’s Fiction Writers Association Star finalist for 2022. She regularly reviews fiction for trade publications and appears at schools and other locations as a guest lecturer. Her fifth novel, Counting Backwards, was released by Harper Muse in March 2025.
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