Hank Garner's Blog, page 34

Episode 551 | John Lescroart Interview

John Lescroart joins me again today to talk about his brand new book The Rule Of Law, and to drop some writerly wisdom on us from his more than two decade writing career.

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John Lescroart – the “master of the legal thriller” ( Chicago Sun-Times ) – is back in action, marshaling his witty dialogue and airtight plotting in this electrifying thriller featuring attorney Dismas Hardy as he grapples with his longtime trusted assistant being charged as an accessory to murder.

Dismas Hardy knows something is amiss with his trusted secretary, Phyllis. Always reliable and consistent, she’s been behaving out of character and disappearing without notice. Dismas becomes even more concerned when he discovers Phyllis has been reluctantly playing host to her convict brother, a man just released from San Quentin after serving a 25-year sentence for armed robbery and attempted murder. 

Things take a shocking turn with Phyllis is suddenly arrested at work, accused of being an accessory to the murder of Hector Valdez, a coyote who’d been smuggling women into the country from El Salvador and Mexico. That is, until recently, when he was shot to death – on the very same day Phyllis started disappearing from work. The connection between Phyllis, her brother, and Hector’s murder is not something Dismas can easily understand, but if his treasured colleague has any chance of going free, he needs to put all the pieces together – and fast. 

As “one of the best thriller writers to come down the pike” (USA Today), John Lescroart crafts yet another whip-smart and rousing novel filled with shocking twists and turns that will keep you guessing until the very end.

John Lescroart (pronounced “less-kwah”) is a big believer in hard work and single-minded dedication, although he’ll acknowledge that a little luck never hurts. Now a New York Times bestselling author whose books have been translated into 16 languages in more than 75 countries, John wrote his first novel in college and the second one a year after he graduated from Cal Berkeley in 1970.

The only hitch was that he didn’t even try to publish either of these books until fourteen years later, when finally, at his wife Lisa’s urging, he submitted SON OF HOLMES to New York publishers—and got two offers, one in hardcover, within six weeks!

But about six years before that first hardcover publication, John’s ambition to become a working novelist began to take shape. At that time, as Johnny Capo of Johnny Capo and His Real Good Band, he’d been performing his own songs for several years at clubs and honky-tonks in the San Francisco Bay Area. On his 30th birthday, figuring that if he hadn’t made it in music by then, he never would, he retired from the music business.

He’d been writing all along, and didn’t stop now, although his emphasis changed from music first, prose second, to the other way around. Within two months of his last musical gig, he finished a novel, SUNBURN, that drew on his experiences in Spain. Since John didn’t know anyone in the publishing world, he sent the manuscript to his old high school English teacher, who was not enthusiastic. Fortunately, the teacher left the pages on his bedside table, and his wife picked them up and read them. She loved the book and submitted it in John’s name to The Joseph Henry Jackson Award, given yearly by the San Francisco Foundation for Best Novel by a California author. Much to John’s astonishment, SUNBURN beat out 280 other entrants, including INTERVIEW WITH A VAMPIRE, for the prize.

Though SUNBURN wasn’t to be published for another four years, and then only in paperback, the award changed John’s approach to writing. He started to think he might make a living as an author, something he’d never previously believed possible for a “regular guy with no connections.” He started paying for his writing habit by working a succession of “day jobs”—everything from a computer programmer with the telephone company, to Ad Director of Guitar Player Magazine, to moving man, house painter, bartender (at the real Little Shamrock bar in San Francisco), legal secretary, fundraising executive, and management consultant writing briefs on coal transportation for the Interstate Commerce Commission!!

John moved to Los Angeles and in the next three years finished three long novels, the last of them featuring a private investigator who shared the name Dismas Hardy (and very little else) with the man who would become John’s well-known attorney/hero. Since he’d gotten SUNBURN published without using a literary agent (an old friend had shown it to a secretary at Pinnacle Books in Los Angeles, who bought it), John went on submitting his work to New York over the transom, receiving many kind rejection letters, but no offers. Finally he realized that even if he wasn’t fated to become a commercially successful author, he wanted to be involved in books and literature. So he enrolled in the Masters Program in Creative Writing at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

It was not to be.

While John and his wife, Lisa Sawyer, were preparing that summer to move to New England, he was paying bills by typing technical papers on coal transportation for a consulting firm. Asked by the boss what he thought of the paper, John commented that the argument it made wasn’t very compelling and that it wasn’t very well-written. His boss challenged him: could he do it any better? In a week, John re-wrote the 400-page draft, which went on to win before the ICC. This led to a “day job” offer that John couldn’t refuse. Graduate school fell by the wayside.

But after a year and a half, even a lucrative day job had become a burden. Nothing would do for John by now but to write, but he had little time for writing with his high-paying, career-oriented job. Lisa suggested taking a look at some of the old manuscripts and submitting them—she remembered reading and liking SON OF HOLMES. How about that one? There was one 14-year-old yellowed and brittle copy of the manuscript left in the world—in the basement of their best man, Don Matheson’s, apartment. Six weeks later, John had his first hardcover book deal.

Over the next seven years, back in Los Angeles again, John and Lisa were finally ready to start their family. During this time, John wrote several screenplays and published three more books while he held down a job as a word processing supervisor at a downtown law firm. He rose each day at 5:30 and went to a room they’d built in their garage, where he wrote four pages of his latest in two hours. Then he worked his nine-to-five, ate a bag lunch, and stayed downtown, typing briefs and pleadings at various other law firms until 10:00 or 11:00 at night.

Finally he was publishing, but he wasn’t making a living. And then in 1989, at the age of forty-one, he took a break to go body-surfing at Seal Beach. The next day, he lay in a Pasadena hospital. From the contaminated sea water where he’d been surfing, he’d contracted spinal meningitis. Doctors gave him two hours to live.

John now looks back on his 11-day battle with death as the turning point in his career. He quit the last of his day jobs to move back to Northern California and to write full-time, with intense focus and a renewed dedication. The resulting books, richer in terms of theme and story, found a devoted readership and propelled him into the elite circle of bestselling authors—only twenty years to overnight success!

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Episode 550 | Donna Everhart Interview

Donna Everhart, author of the new book The Forgiving Kind, joins me today to talk all about the writing life.

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In this masterful new novel, set in 1950s North Carolina, the acclaimed author of The Road to Bittersweet and The Education of Dixie Dupree brings to life an unforgettable young heroine and a moving story of family love tested to its limits.    

For twelve-year-old Martha “Sonny” Creech, there is no place more beautiful than her family’s cotton farm. She, her two brothers, and her parents work hard on their land—hoeing, planting, picking—but only Sonny loves the rich, dark earth the way her father does. When a tragic accident claims his life, her stricken family struggles to fend off ruin—until their rich, reclusive neighbor offers to help finance that year’s cotton crop. 

Sonny is dismayed when her mama accepts Frank Fowler’s offer; even more so when Sonny’s best friend, Daniel, points out that the man has ulterior motives. Sonny has a talent for divining water—an ability she shared with her father and earns her the hated nickname “water witch” in school. But uncanny as that skill may be, it won’t be enough to offset Mr. Fowler’s disturbing influence in her world. Even her bond with Daniel begins to collapse under the weight of Mr. Fowler’s bigoted taunts. Though she tries to bury her misgivings for the sake of her mama’s happiness, Sonny doesn’t need a willow branch to divine that a reckoning is coming, bringing with it heartache, violence—and perhaps, a fitting and surprising measure of justice.

A USA Today bestselling author of THE EDUCATION OF DIXIE DUPREE, THE ROAD TO BITTERSWEET, and THE FORGIVING KIND,  Donna Everhart writes stories of family hardship and troubled times in a bygone south. A native of North Carolina, she resides in her home state with her husband and their tiny heart stealing Yorkshire terrier, Mister. Readers can also visit her at www.donnaeverhart.com.

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Episode 549 | Wil Medearis Interview

Author and painter Wil Medearis joins me to talk about his writing journey and his new book Restoration Heights.

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“Noirish…compelling…innovative.”— New York Times Book Review

“A big-bang debut.”— Library Journal

A
debut novel about a young artist, a missing woman, and the tendrils of
wealth and power that link the art scene in Brooklyn to Manhattan’s
elite, for fans of Jonathan Lethem and Richard Price

Reddick,
a young, white artist, lives in Bedford-Stuyvesant, a historically
black Brooklyn neighborhood besieged by gentrification. He makes rent as
an art handler, hanging expensive works for Manhattan’s one percent,
and spends his free time playing basketball at the local Y rather than
putting energy into his stagnating career. He is also the last person to
see Hannah before she disappears.

When Hannah’s fiancé, scion to
an old-money Upper East Side family, refuses to call the police,
Reddick sets out to learn for himself what happened to her. The search
gives him a sense of purpose, pulling him through a dramatic cross
section of the city he never knew existed. The truth of Hannah’s fate is
buried at the heart of a many-layered mystery that, in its unraveling,
shakes Reddick’s convictions and lays bare the complicated machinations
of money and power that connect the magisterial town houses of the Upper
East Side to the unassuming brownstones of Bed-Stuy.

Restoration Heights is both a page-turning mystery and an in-depth study of the psychological fallout and deep racial tensions that result from economic inequality and unrestricted urban development. In lyrical, addictive prose, Wil Medearis asks the question: In a city that prides itself on its diversity and inclusivity, who has the final say over the future? Is it long-standing residents, recent transplants or whoever happens to have the most money? Timely, thought-provoking and sweeping in vision, Restoration Heights is an exhilarating new entry in the canon of great Brooklyn novels.

Wil Medearis holds an MFA in painting from the University of Pennsylvania. His artwork has been featured in galleries in Richmond, Philadelphia and Manhattan’s Lower East Side. He has worked as an adjunct professor, tended bar at a country club, refinished furniture for an antiques dealer and hung art inside the homes of some of the wealthiest art collectors in Manhattan.

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Episode 548 | Justin Wells Interview

Filmmaker and author Justin Wells joins me today to talk about storytelling and how to connect with people through visual medium and the communal aspects of documentary films, and his new book How to Film Truth: The Story of Documentary Film as a Spiritual Journey.

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How to Film Truth explores the history of documentary film as a search for truth by filmmakers, and a journey of discovery for subjects and audiences. This process, the act of documenting, exploring, and reflecting on our reality in all its created beauty, wonder, and mystery can itself be a devotional practice. The history can be seen as moving from actuality to ecstasy, from propaganda to empathy, and finally to confessional, emotional, personal, and communal healing.

About Justin:

I have, over the years, quite inadvertently pursued an interdisciplinary education, which is why I try to bring an interdisciplinary approach to my work in film, writing and ongoing conversation. I started out in communications, and gravitated towards film, philosophy, religion and art, and then documentary film (more or less in that order). I was intellectually bored in my twenties as I worked my way up the ladder in the film industry, and began taking night classes in philosophy. This led to a master’s degree at California State University Long Beach. However, before I was finished with my thesis at Long Beach, I met a group of folks studying theology and film, under the broader discipline of theology and art at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah.

I was so impressed with what they were up to that I immediately enrolled at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, where I had a wonderful time exploring the spiritual in art, film and aesthetics. I spent time in Orvieto, Italy with a sculptor looking at Mediaeval spirituality and art, returned year after year to Sundance to participate in discussions of and dialogue about film with people of faith, explored fine art in New York at the International Arts Movement Conference, and formed relationships with scholars and artists that have gone on to do amazing things.

After Fuller, I enrolled at Art Center College of Design to get my MFA in Film and Broadcast Cinema, where I developed a passion for and appreciation of nonfiction film, and began to see documentary as a powerful nexus for public rhetoric and truth-telling. My written thesis at Art Center on the history of documentary was later expanded and built upon for the book, How to Film Truth put out by Cascade Books and the Reel Spirituality institute.

These days I spend about six months a year working on medium to big budget Hollywood films, and the rest of the year on my writing, documentary and speaking projects. On this site you can hear and read my most recent thoughts through the podcast and blog, see about my upcoming writing projects, and follow the progression for my documentary.

You can also follow me on these platforms:

Facebook

Twitter

Instagram

IMDb

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How To Be A Great Podcast Guest

So you’ve been invited to be a guest on a podcast. It can be nerve-wracking to think that you will be heard by an audience of thousands of strangers. The very thought of talking in front of people brings back pubescent memories of standing in front of a middle school English class, reading a book report with a frog in your throat. Not exactly everybody’s comfort zone.

We are approaching our 550th author interview on The Author Stories Podcast, and in conducting those 500 interviews you learn that there is a particular rhythm in conversation. These hours of recordings that I’ve collected over the last several years have been some of the most memorable conversations I’ve had the pleasure of participating in. I’ve learned more from these guests than I ever bargained for, made some really great friends, and as I hoped when I started, I’ve gotten a better understanding of what makes creative people tick and received insights into the creative process from some of the very best.

I tell my guests that the tone of my show is two friends talking about writing, and that is how I approach each interview. Two friends sitting down, sometimes with coffee or a Diet Dr. Pepper, talking about what makes the writing life what it is. Sometimes you meet someone and instantly hit it off, sometimes it takes a few moments to find the rhythm and connect with one another. If you are going to be a guest on a podcast and want your experience to be the best it can be, here are a few things that I think might help you have the best experience you can. I’ve also reached out to some friends that just happen to be some of the best podcasters out there to offer some thoughts of their own. You’ll find their thoughts sprinkled in with mine below.

Be prompt



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This one really should speak for itself. If you commit to an interview time, do your best to be on time or at least email or call to let the host know what’s going on. We’re all human and have families and other commitments. Trust me, we know about life getting in the way. But if you are a professional, or striving to be one, then treat this podcast interview as if it is just as important as sitting down with CNN or a literary magazine. The honest truth of the media landscape today is that the humble podcast you’re guesting on just might have a wider reach than those prestigious legacy media outlets anyway. And even if they don’t, to be a professional you have to act like one. This is a great place to start practicing for that inevitable appearance on Good Morning America.

If you’ve agreed to a time, make sure it’s on your calendar and you’ve set up alerts, had your VA set up alerts, or otherwise just have some reminder to be there. Sitting and waiting for a guest who turns out to be a no-show is infuriating, and doesn’t exactly make me want to bring you back for a re-do.
That said, when you DO have to reschedule, do it as early as possible and reach out to let me know. Don’t make me track you down just so you can tell me you had a conference call. 
Treat me the way you’d treat any client, business partner, or other professional contacts. Remember, this is for YOU. I’m giving some of my time, which is important, in exchange for some of your time, which is also important. But the end result is more about promoting you and your work than anything. Show some professional courtesy.
Give me some valid contact info, including a way to reach you last minute. And show some trust with giving me your contact info. Sometimes it’s me that has to reschedule, and if you’ve gone through a PA or PR agency or some other go-between, it all works best if I can reach you directly.  –  
Kevin Tumlinson, The Wordslinger Podcast

“As a guest be punctual. Realize podcast hosts might have a ‘real’ job and this is the only day or time they can record, or they have multiple guests on that day to record and not being on time might screw up their recording” –  
Armand Rosamilia, ArmCast  and Project Entertainment Network

Can you hear me now?

The internet has opened up avenues of communication never before available. Most of the interviews I conduct are over Skype. Some podcasters use YouTube or Google hangouts, and there are always new technologies emerging that enable us to connect with people, sometimes across the world. These technologies are relatively easy to use, and can utilize what most of us already have in our homes or offices. But there are a few things you need to consider.

Most podcasters take pride in the sound they have worked hard to cultivate. We invest in microphones, fast computers with lots of memory, and sometimes outboard equipment that helps us tweak little things here and there. You as a guest don’t need to worry about all that, but you do need to make sure that you are in a quiet environment and have a decent microphone and headphones. Life happens to all of us and the occasional dog barking or toddler squealing is completely understandable, but a television in the background will wreak havoc. You can buy an inexpensive microphone on Amazon that is more than adequate. Also, a set of headphones that are comfortable for you will eliminate feedback and will keep the host from hearing him or herself repeated, which can be confusing and throw off the conversation.

Talk. Please.

When I first started podcasting, I recorded a show that never aired. I invited someone on that had just hit a milestone in their career and had a pretty nice following. This does not automatically translate to podcast gold.

I don’t script questions, and most of the podcast hosts that I know don’t either. We usually have good background information about the guest, are familiar with their work, and have a question or two in mind to start with. Anyone that has listened to Author Stories knows that I always start with the same question: “What is your first memory of wanting to be a writer or storyteller?” This question always springboards us into a conversation that lasts for thirty minutes to an hour, and we wrap it up when the conversation has come to its natural end.

“Tell stories. Don’t be afraid to talk. 
Don’t give yes or no answers. Get into the show. 
The host and their listeners are listening because they WANT to know about you and what you have to say. This is your time to let them get to know you. 
When in doubt, elaborate. It’s much easier for a host to work with someone who talks, than someone that speaks in one sentence answers. 
Have fun with it. Ask people that know you to tell you things about yourself they like, or they don’t like, that information can be helpful in painting a true picture about yourself. –  
Josh Hayes, Keystroke Medium

The key here is conversation. If you are sitting in a room with a friend and they ask you a question, you don’t just answer with single sentence answers. That’s not much of a conversation. Well, when this conversation wrapped up I looked down at the clock and we were twelve minutes in. I had nothing left to ask or say. It was terrible. Don’t be afraid to elaborate and expound on what the host asked. When they ask you a question, that is your cue to run with it and tell us an interesting story. We WANT you to talk.

The soft sell.

This is a biggie. Most of the time when someone invites you to their podcast, it’s because you have something to promote, or have done some interesting things that we’d like to hear you talk about. We know you have something to sell and promote. The nature of the business is that we all have something we’d like to bring to people’s attention at any given moment. But here is the fact of the matter, people tend to fall in love with a person and then support their work more than the other way around. Tell engaging stories, offer advice about something you’ve learned as you honed your craft, tell us something funny or heartbreaking, but above all else, give us something to like about you and something to connect with. Then people will buy your stuff. And don’t worry, we as podcast hosts are more than prepared to give you plenty of time to talk about your new project, we asked you here so that you could. But let’s get to it in the natural course of conversation.

“As a veteran health podcaster since 2006 having conducted more than 2,000 interviews over that time period, I’ve literally seen it all when it comes to podcast guest etiquette. Some people are very natural at being lucid, engaging, and informative while others make me work hard to get any useful content out of them. But if there’s one pet peeve I have about a podcast interview guest that supersedes everything else, it’s who I will refer to as Car Salesman Carl. Poor Carl tries so very hard to sell you on what he is offering and neglects the details of what it takes be a good guest. When you only show up to an interview to sell your product and not provide information, you’re just gonna frustrate the interviewer and all of his audience of listeners. But if you provide nuggets of practical information throughout the show and the host promotes what you’re offering at the end, then you’ll likely get more people buying your stuff. It’s only common sense. Don’t be “that” guest that never gets invited back for another interview or recommended to other podcasters.” –  
Jimmy Moore, The Livin’ La Vida Low Carb Show, Keto Talk, The Nutritional Pearls Podcast, The Keto Hacking MD Podcast

“As a guest, sell yourself. Not your book. Show your personality. Have fun. This is to promote YOU, so don’t turn off potential readers by seeming boring or cocky. You’ll sell way more books by smiling when you answer questions and showing you are fun.” –  
Armand Rosamilia, ArmCast  and Project Entertainment Network

Be humble

This one should be self-explanatory, but here goes. Treat people the way you want to be treated. If a host has invited you to their show, chances are they’ve already put in hours of preparation to get to know about you and your work. Then they will spend somewhere near an hour with you. Then after the show they will spend several more hours editing the audio, writing show notes, publishing the show on various platforms, and promoting it everywhere they can. Thank the host for having you. Act like a guest in their home. Be nice. Be humble.

Don’t be an ass. 
Be humble. –  
Josh Hayes, Keystroke Medium

Now this is not to say you can’t have fun, and if the conversation is going well and you and the host have a rapport, be funny if that’s your style. But be cognizant of how your words might be interpreted to the audience. You want people to want to know more about you, not be impressed by your rapier wit and cynicism.

Help people follow you.

You’ve spent the time preparing for an interview, you’ve told witty, engaging stories, you’ve sold the audience on your new book or widget, now give them something to remember you by. Be sure to share your website and social media with them. Don’t have a web site? This isn’t 1985 anymore. Stop right now and setup a site. You can start a site at WordPress.com for free until you can have a professional help you. This is non-negotiable in today’s world. Give people a way to follow you forward and to find out news about you.

Share.

The podcaster that has invited you on their show has gone to great pains to build up a loyal listenership. They will share you and your work with their audience and appreciates if you will do the same. We all benefit from exposing our personal networks to each other’s work and in the end the exponential nature of networking works for all our benefit.

SHARE YOUR INTERVIEW. The idea is for us to combine our PR powers, reach our mutual networks, and spread this thing as far as possible. It helps promote you, it helps promote me, we are promoted. We are in bliss. ” –  
Kevin Tumlinson, The Wordslinger Podcast

I hope you find these thoughts helpful, and thank you to Jimmy, Josh, Kevin, and Armand for chiming in with their thoughts and experiences as well. Podcasting has grown from a frontier technology to the very center of the mainstream. I hope we help you find a new audience and continue to share your stories with us. Without great guests like you, we couldn’t do what we do.

Let me leave you with one last thought. Relax. Have FUN. You’re going to do great.

If you liked this article, please share widely. 

Be sure to follow my guest podcasters at:

Jimmy Moore

Josh Hayes

Kevin Tumlinson

Armand Rosamilia

The Author Stories Podcast

Episode 547 | James Rollins Talks Witches and AI In Crucible

I am honored to welcome James Rollins back to the show today to talk about his brand new Sigma Force novel Crucible.

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In the race to save one of their own, Sigma Force must wrestle with the deepest spiritual mysteries of mankind in this mind-expanding adventure from the #1 New York Times bestselling author, told with his trademark blend of cutting edge science, historical mystery, and pulse-pounding action.

Arriving home on Christmas Eve, Commander Gray Pierce discovers his house ransacked, his pregnant lover missing, and his best friend’s wife, Kat, unconscious on the kitchen floor. With no shred of evidence to follow, his one hope to find the woman he loves and his unborn child is Kat, the only witness to what happened. But the injured woman is in a semi-comatose state and cannot speak—until a brilliant neurologist offers a radical approach to “unlock” her mind long enough to ask a few questions.

What Pierce learns from Kat sets Sigma Force on a frantic quest for answers that are connected to mysteries reaching back to the Spanish Inquisition and to one of the most reviled and blood-soaked books in human history—a Medieval text known as the Malleus Maleficarum, the Hammer of Witches. What they uncover hidden deep in the past will reveal a frightening truth in the present and a future on the brink of annihilation, and force them to confront the ultimate question: What does it mean to have a soul?

James Rollins is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of international thrillers, translated into more than forty languages, with more than 20 million copies sold. The New York Times says, “Rollins is what you might wind up with if you tossed Michael Crichton and Dan Brown into a particle accelerator together,” and NPR calls his work “Adventurous and enormously engrossing.” Rollins unveils unseen worlds, scientific breakthroughs, and historical secrets–and does it all at breakneck speed and with stunning suspense. A practicing veterinarian, Rollins has pursued scuba, spelunking, and other adventures around the world, and currently lives and writes in Lake Tahoe, Nevada.

As a boy immersed in the scientific adventures of Doc Savage, the wonders of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells, and pulps such as The Shadow, The Spider, and The Avenger, James Rollins decided he wanted to be a writer. He honed his storytelling skills early, spinning elaborate tales that were often at the heart of pranks played on his brothers and sisters.

Before he would set heroes and villains on harrowing adventures, Rollins embarked on a career in veterinary medicine, graduating from the University of Missouri and establishing a successful veterinary practice. He continues to volunteer his time and veterinary skills in support of the local SPCA. His hands-on knowledge of medicine and science helps shape the research and scientific speculation that set James Rollins books apart.

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Episode 546 | Lynda Cohen Loigman Interview

My guest today is Lynda Cohen Loigman, author of the brand new book The Wartime Sisters, a dynamic historical novel set during WWII.

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For fans of Lilac Girls, the next powerful novel from the author of Goodreads Choice Awards semifinalist The Two-Family House about two sisters working in a WWII armory, each with a deep secret.

“Loigman’s strong voice and artful prose earn her a place in the company of Alice Hoffman and Anita Diamant, whose readers should flock to this wondrous new book.” ―Pam Jenoff, New York Times bestselling author of The Orphan’s Tale

“The Wartime Sisters shows the strength of women on the home front: to endure, to fight, and to help each other survive.” ―Jenna Blum, New York Times and international bestselling author of The Lost Family and Those Who Save Us

Two estranged sisters, raised in Brooklyn and each burdened with her own shocking secret, are reunited at the Springfield Armory in the early days of WWII. While one sister lives in relative ease on the bucolic Armory campus as an officer’s wife, the other arrives as a war widow and takes a position in the Armory factories as a “soldier of production.” Resentment festers between the two, and secrets are shattered when a mysterious figure from the past reemerges in their lives.

“One of my favorite books of the year.” ―Fiona Davis, national bestselling author of The Dollhouse and The Masterpiece

“A stirring tale of loyalty, betrayal, and the consequences of long-buried secrets.” ―Kristina McMorris, New York Times bestselling author of The Edge of Lost and Sold on a Monday

Lynda Cohen Loigman grew up in Longmeadow, Massachusetts. She received a B.A. in English and American Literature from Harvard College and a law degree from Columbia Law School. Lynda practiced trusts and estates law in New York City for eight years before moving out of the city to raise her two children with her husband. She wrote The Two-Family House while she was a student of the Writing Institute at Sarah Lawrence College. The Two-Family House was chosen by Goodreads as a best book of the month for March, 2016, and was a nominee for the Goodreads 2016 Choice Awards in Historical Fiction. Her second novel, The Wartime Sisters, is out now..

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Episode 545 | Nick Petrie Interview

Nick Petrie returns to the show to talk about his fantastic new Peter Ash thriller Tear It Down.

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In the new edge-of-your-seat adventure from national bestselling author Nick Petrie, Peter Ash pursues one case–and stumbles into another–in the City of the Blues.

Iraq war veteran Peter Ash is restless in the home he shares with June Cassidy in Washington State. June knows Peter needs to be on the move, so she sends him to Memphis to help her friend Wanda Wyatt, a photographer and war correspondent who’s been receiving peculiar threats. When Peter arrives in Memphis, however, he finds the situation has gone downhill fast–someone has just driven a dump truck into Wanda’s living room. But neither Wanda nor Peter can figure out why.

At the same time, a young homeless street musician finds himself roped into a plan to rob a jewelry store. The heist doesn’t go as planned, and the young man finds himself holding a sack full of Rolexes and running for his life. When his getaway car breaks down, he steals a new one at gunpoint–Peter’s 1968 green Chevrolet pickup truck. 

Peter likes the skinny kid’s smarts and attitude, but he soon discovers that the desperate musician is in far worse trouble than he knows. And Wanda’s troubles are only beginning. Peter finds himself stuck between Memphis gangsters–looking for Rolexes and revenge–and a Mississippi ex-con and his hog-butcher brother looking for a valuable piece of family history that goes all the way back to the Civil War.

Nick Petrie received his MFA in fiction from the University of Washington, won a Hopwood Award for short fiction while an undergraduate at the University of Michigan, and his story “At the Laundromat” won the 2006 Short Story Contest in The Seattle Review, a national literary journal. A husband and father, he has worked as a roofer, carpenter, remodeling contractor, and freelance building inspector. He lives in Milwaukee. 

For more on Nick Petrie, see his website, www.nickpetrie.com

Nick’s book tour dates

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Episode 544 | Christopher Paolini Returns To The World Of Eragon

On today’s show, Christopher Paolini returns to the world of Alagaësia with his new book The Fork, the Witch, and the Worm: Tales from Alagaësia, and drops by the show to talk all about it. We talk fantasy, sci-fi, writing process, and much more.

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The internationally bestselling fantasy sensation is back, with brand-new stories set in the world of Eragon and the Inheritance Cycle!

A wanderer and a cursed child. Spells and magic. And dragons, of course. Welcome back to the world of Alagaësia.

It’s been a year since Eragon departed Alagaësia in search of the perfect home to train a new generation of Dragon Riders. Now he is struggling with an endless sea of tasks: constructing a vast dragonhold, wrangling with suppliers, guarding dragon eggs, and dealing with belligerent Urgals and haughty elves. Then a vision from the Eldunarí, unexpected visitors, and an exciting Urgal legend offer a much-needed distraction and a new perspective.

This volume features three original stories set in Alagaësia, interspersed with scenes from Eragon’s own unfolding adventure. Included is an excerpt from the memoir of the unforgettable witch and fortune-teller Angela the herbalist . . . penned by Angela Paolini, the inspiration for the character, herself!

Relish the incomparable imagination of Christopher Paolini in this thrilling new collection of stories based in the world of the Inheritance Cycle. Includes four new pieces of original art by the author.

Christopher’s first visit to ASP





Tad Williams’ interview we reference in this show

Christopher Paolini was homeschooled by his parents. As a child, he often wrote short stories and poems, made frequent trips to the library, and read widely. Some of his favorite books were Bruce Coville’s Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher, Frank Herbert’s Dune, and Raymond E. Feist’s Magician (now available in volumes one and two), as well as books by Anne McCaffrey, Jane Yolen, Brian Jacques, E.R. Eddison, David Eddings, and Ursula K. Le Guin.

The idea of Eragon began as the daydreams of a teen. Christopher’s love for the magic of stories led him to craft a novel that he would enjoy reading. The project began as a hobby, a personal challenge; he never intended it to be published. Before he began writing Eragon, he plotted out the entire adventure. He found that doing some of the same things as his characters allowed him to better understand their world, as well as to think of descriptions that otherwise would not have occured to him. To this end he forged his own knives and swords, made chain mail, spun wool, camped in the Beartooth Mountains, made his own bow, built survival shelters, learned to track game, fletched arrows, felled trees, hiked, and camped. In short, the books embody a great deal of his experience of living in Montana.

His work also combined elements gathered from research and from his imagination. He read a huge amount of folklore while growing up, ranging from the Brothers Grimm to Beowulf, Nordic sagas, and the Aeneid, along with contemporary fantasy and science fiction. In addition, he learned about weaponry, food, clothing, and customs from the Middle Ages, which is roughly the era he envisioned Eragon living in. Armed with that information, he daydreamed the scenes with his characters. Then he took pen to paper and tried to recreate those images with words.

Christopher was fifteen when he wrote the first draft of Eragon. He took a second year to revise the book, and then gave it to his parents to read. The family decided to self-publish the book and spent a third year preparing the manuscript for publication: copyediting, proofreading, designing a cover, typesetting the manuscript, and creating marketing materials. During this time Christopher drew the map for Eragon, as well as the dragon eye for the book cover (which now appears inside the Knopf hardcover edition). The manuscript was sent to press and the first books arrived in November 2001. The Paolini family spent the next year promoting the book at libraries, bookstores, and schools in 2002 and early 2003.

In summer 2002, author Carl Hiaasen, whose stepson had read a copy of the self-published book while on vacation in Montana, brought Eragon to the attention of his publisher, Alfred A. Knopf Books For Young Readers, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books. Michelle Frey, executive editor at Knopf, contacted Christopher and his family to ask if they might be interested in having Knopf publish Eragon. The answer was yes, and after another round of editing, Knopf published Eragon in August 2003. The book immediately became a New York Times Best Seller.

After an extensive United States and United Kingdom tour for Eragon that lasted into 2004, Christopher began writing his second book, Eldest, which continues the adventures of Eragon and the dragon Saphira. Upon publication of Eldest, in August 2005, Christopher toured throughout the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Spain, Germany, France, and Italy.

In December 2006, Fox 2000 released the movie adaptation of Eragon in theaters around the world.

Early in 2007, as Christopher was writing Book Three, he realized that the plot and characters demanded more space than could fit into one volume and that a fourth book would be necessary to give each story element the attention it deserved. What began as the Inheritance trilogy became the Inheritance cycle. Book Three, Brisingr,was published on September 20, 2008.

In 2009 Christopher wrote Eragon’s Guide to Alagaësia—an illustrated tour of the most interesting peoples, places, and things in Eragon’s world. It was published in November of the same year.

Book Four, Inheritance, published November 8, 2011, completes the story that Christopher envisioned years ago when he first outlined the adventure. His tour for Inheritance took Christopher across the United States and to Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Czech Republic, Spain, The Netherlands, Australia, and New Zealand.

In 2011, the Guinness World Records recognized him as the “youngest author of a bestselling book series.”

Christopher is grateful to all his readers. He is especially heartened to hear that his books have inspired young people to read and to write stories of their own. Although Christopher will one day return to Alagaësia, he is currently working on several projects set in other worlds, including a new science fiction novel.

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Episode 543 | Taylor Adams Interview

Taylor Adams, author of the fantastic new book No Exit drops by the show today to talk about his history as a film maker and author, how the two intersect, and the story behind his stories.

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“What a box of tricks! This full-throttle thriller, dark and driving, rivals Agatha Christie for sheer ingenuity and James Patterson for flat-out speed. Swift, sharp, and relentless.” —  A. J. Finn, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Woman in the Window

A brilliant, edgy thriller about four strangers, a blizzard, a kidnapped child, and a determined young woman desperate to unmask and outwit a vicious psychopath.

A kidnapped little girl locked in a stranger’s van. No help for miles. What would you do?

On her way to Utah to see her dying mother, college student Darby Thorne gets caught in a fierce blizzard in the mountains of Colorado. With the roads impassable, she’s forced to wait out the storm at a remote highway rest stop. Inside are some vending machines, a coffee maker, and four complete strangers.

Desperate to find a signal to call home, Darby goes back out into the storm . . . and makes a horrifying discovery. In the back of the van parked next to her car, a little girl is locked in an animal crate.

Who is the child? Why has she been taken? And how can Darby save her?

There is no cell phone reception, no telephone, and no way out. One of her fellow travelers is a kidnapper. But which one?

Trapped in an increasingly dangerous situation, with a child’s life and her own on the line, Darby must find a way to break the girl out of the van and escape.

But who can she trust?

With exquisitely controlled pacing, Taylor Adams diabolically ratchets up the tension with every page. Full of terrifying twists and hairpin turns, No Exit will have you on the edge of your seat and leave you breathless.

Taylor Adams directed the acclaimed short film And I Feel Fine in 2008 and graduated from Eastern Washington University with the prestigious Edmund G. Yarwood Award. His directorial work has screened at the Seattle True Independent Film Festival and his writing has been featured on KAYU-TV’s Fox Life blog. Taylor lives in Washington state and has written three novels, published by Joffe Books:

EYESHOT (Thriller): Miles into the Mojave desert, a husband and wife are pinned down by a ruthless sniper.

OUR LAST NIGHT (Paranormal thriller): Ghosts, romance, and a cursed antique rifle. What could possibly go wrong?

NO EXIT (Thriller): A kidnapped little girl locked inside a stranger’s van. No help for miles. What would you do?

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