Robert Dugonii

This week I catch up with #1 international best selling author Robert Dugoni. As both an acclaimed writer and popular conference speaker, Robert is an expert at both understanding story and delivering thrilling novels. Join us as we chat about trusting your reader, leaving out what readers can presume, what it really means to show and not tell, and creating honest and authentic characters. We also talk about his latest release THE KILLING ON THE HILL. Check it out, give it a listen, and subscribe!

Transcription available on request.

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Christopher Reich

This week I chat with New York Times, bestselling author, Christopher Reich, about his latest novel, Matterhorn, and his writing process. We talk about the importance of believability in stories (even if they’re spy thrillers and international intrigue novels), some of his favorite authors, how to get started if you have the passion to write a story, and the dangers of reaching for a sandwich on a mountain in the Alps. Check it out, give it a listen and subscribe!

Transcription available on request.

Janice Hallett

Janice Hallett is a former magazine editor, award-winning journalist, and government communications writer. She wrote articles and speeches for, among others, the Cabinet Office, Home Office, and Department for International Development. Her enthusiasm for travel has taken her around the world several times, from Madagascar to the Galapagos, Guatemala to Zimbabwe, Japan, Russia, and South Korea.

A playwright and screenwriter, she penned the feminist Shakespearean stage comedy NetherBard and cowrote the feature film Retreat. She lives in London and is the author of The Examiner, The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels, The Appeal, The Christmas Appeal, and The Twyford Code.

Transcription available on request.

Troy DeVolld

Troy DeVolld has been, for more than two decades, one of America's leading experts on the unscripted storytelling process.  His credits span more than 50 projects reaching as far back as regional television in the 1990s to modern hits like The Surreal Life, Dancing With the Stars and Basketball Wives.  He's currently a partner in the fledgling Big Picture Collective, has written five bestsellers including Reality TV and And Another Thing, and is a sought-after keynote speaker and industry pundit.

Transcription available on request.

Mark Greaney

Mark Greaney is the #1 NYT Bestselling Author of The Gray Man series, the 13th of which, The Chaos Agent, will be released in February 2024. The film version of his first novel, the Gray Man, was released in July 2022 starring Ryan Gosling, Chris Evans and Ana de Armas.  He is also the author or co-author of 7 Tom Clancy Jack Ryan Novels, and the co-author of Red Metal, a NYT Bestselling thriller released in 2019.  In research for his novels Mark has visited dozens of countries and trained alongside military and law enforcement in firearms tactics and battlefield medicine.

Mark lives in Memphis, Tennessee.

Transcription available on request.

Jean Kwok

Jean Kwok is the award-winning, NYT and international bestselling author of The Leftover Woman, Searching for Sylvie Lee, Girl in Translation and Mambo in Chinatown. Her work has been published in twenty countries and taught in schools across the world. She was one of twelve contemporary authors asked by the Agatha Christie estate to write an original, authorized Miss Marple story. All of her novels are in development for film and television. The Leftover Woman was a Good Morning America Book Club Buzz Pick, CBS New York Book Club Top 3 Pick, Book of the Month Pick, and a LibraryReads Top 10 Pick selected by library staff across America. An instant New York Times bestseller, Searching for Sylvie Lee was chosen for the Read with Jenna Today Show Book Club. She divides her time between the Netherlands and New York City.

Transcription available on request.

Hank Phillippi Ryan

Hank Phillippi Ryan is USA Today bestselling author of 15 thrillers, winning five Agathas and the coveted Mary Higgins Clark Award, as well as 37 EMMYs for television investigative reporting. Her newest novel is the page-turning standalone ONE WRONG WORD – a twisty non-stop story of gaslighting, manipulation, and murder.  She is host of CRIME TIME on A Mighty Blaze, as well as co-host of THE BACK ROOM and FIRST CHAPTER FUN. She lives in Boston.

Transcription available on request.

Jon Lindstrom

Jon Lindstrom is a 4-time Emmy© nominated actor, an award-winning filmmaker, sometimes-a-drummer, and now a published author. By most accounts, he is a pretty nice guy. He lives mainly in Los Angeles, which is what he mostly writes about: The good people, the bad people, the business of show and the experience of living in sunny, glittery, seductive, corrupt LA.

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Amina Akhtar

Amina Akhtar is a novelist and former fashion editor. Her satirical first novel, #FashionVictim, drew critical acclaim. Kismet, her second book, was set in the stunning and creepy world of wellness. 

Akhtar has worked at Vogue, Elle, the New York Times, and New York Magazine, where she was the founding editor of the women’s blog The Cut. She currently lives not too far from the Sedona vortices.

Almost Surely Dead is Akhtar’s third novel.

Transcription available on request.

Bob Saenz

Bob Saenz is a screenwriter, author, and actor from Nashville with 20 produced films. His film works include “Extracurricular Activities”, “Church People”, “Help for the Holidays”, “Rescuing Madison”, “The Right Girl”, “The Christmas Yule Blog”, the award winning “The Farmer and the Belle”, and “A Dash of Christmas”. He regularly does rewrites, adaptations, and polishes on film and TV projects for Producers and Production Companies. He speaks and teaches at Film Festivals and Writer’s Conferences across the country and is the author of the popular screenwriting book, “That’s Not the Way It Works: a no-nonsense guide to the craft and business of screenwriting” and his first novel, which released in November of 2023, “Jessica’s Vampire Diary”, a unique and funny take on the undead. Acting roles: six seasons on “Nash Bridges”, Francis Ford Coppola’s “Jack”, David Fincher’s “Zodiac”, and Finn Taylor’s “Unleashed”, among dozens of others.

Transcription available on request.