Carter Wilson's Making It Up

"The mom guilt—you hit the nail on the head. I’m like, 'Sorry guys, mommy’s writing a murder chapter right now, somebody’s getting murdered.' But at the end of the day, writing is a passion... and it makes me a better mom." — Rachael Ramas  Rachael Ramas is a multi-faceted storytelling force whose creative pursuits span novels, screenwriting, and film production. As both a publ...

"I don't like when violence is trivialized in any genre... someone's dead, like the little jokes or the puns or the whatever, it doesn't work for me... I can't buy into that atmosphere. There has to be… it's not even a ripple effect. It's a freaking tsunami when there's a violent death. So let the storm come, you know, I want to see it. I want to feel it.&qu...

"I remember rereading it and being like, 'This is what I have been looking for... through all of these jobs and career to careers, that thing that brings me happiness on a day-to-day level.' And also that macro level satisfaction of like, ‘I'm kind of proud of what I created,’ you know? It's those two levels that I think are really, really hard to find. And I think it&apos...

"Since so many thrillers are based around some kind of crime—which is a break in our social order—it is the perfect vehicle to explore the human condition... Thrillers and crime fiction really allow for an under the microscope, us looking at what happens when the social order breaks down." — Lauren Nossett  Lauren Nossett is a professor turned novelist and the award-winning author of the...

"Problem solving is done in the woods a lot of times for me... or doing dishes, you'll have an aha moment, right? It's the magic—you can't beat it into fruition... magically, it just shows itself. It's quite fun." — Katrina Denza  Katrina Denza’s stories have appeared in Nelle, Slippery Elm, and Jabberwock Review, among other places. Her work has received a scholarshi...

"Tenacity is essential. Bullheadedness is essential. You have to be really, really stubborn about it... You have to stick in there until your shot comes up. That's all it is." — Tracy Clark Tracy Clark is the author of the award-winning Cass Raines Chicago Mystery series and the Detective Harriet Foster series, featuring Harriet Foster. A multi-nominated Anthony, Lefty, Macavity, Ed...

“I learned a very important lesson from Janet Ivanovich. She said I want readers to forget they’re reading. I want them to be so lost in what they’re doing… they forget there’s a page. You want the writing to disappear… I want them to get sucked into just being lost in the book.”   Lee Goldberg is a two-time Edgar Award and two-time Shamus Award nominee and the #1 New York Times bestselling author...

"I loved it... Cosmo was a fabulous job in every sense of the word. It was like being on a television show everyday... but I could start to see, wow, this is all collapsing... I'd already written eight of my thrillers and mysteries while I was at Cosmo. I thought I'm going to get out while I still have the chance." — Kate White  Kate White is the New York Times and USA Today be...

"I’ve really been able to lean into that Southern Gothic with a touch of horror... It’s that concept of… is it a ghost or is it the guy? There is always that element in my books. Is it real, is it not real, is it an unreliable narrator having psychosis or is it truly something supernatural?" — Emily Carpenter  Emily Carpenter, a former actor, producer, screenwriter, and behind-the-scenes...

“Writing is so personal. And when you're writing a character, things come out that I know most writers, including myself, are unaware of when they're writing it... they're writing about things you're trying to work out. It's so deeply personal if you're writing honestly.” — Jeffrey James Higgins  Jeffrey James Higgins is a retired supervisory special agent who writes...

“Almost anytime somebody gives you a generalization, there's about 17 other examples that break that rule. Some of the greatest books of all time break those rules.” — Dan Miller  Daniel G. Miller is the USA Today bestselling author of the Orphanage By The Lake mystery-thriller series and the Tree of Knowledge adventure series. His books have been described as "irresistible" by thri...

“I think that when you don't have an abundance of time, you cherish the time you have more. So that goes for my kids and for writing. I take it very seriously and I do cherish it. It doesn't feel like a job. It doesn't feel like work… But then the same with them, because I'm getting pulled in two different directions. I cherish the time when I can just focus on them more. I thi...

“I think people think that the first publishing contract is a windfall... But for most of us, it's the beginning of the story. All it is, is an open door to the writing life. And if you want to succeed... you're going to roll up your sleeves and get to work like everybody else who wants to do anything well in this life.” — Lisa Unger  Lisa Unger is the New York Times and internationally...

“What I noticed was that I started writing stories and just doing things like, ‘oh, wait, when I write, I don't need other guys. And I don't need a sound man. And I don't need a stage. And I don't need gear.’ It was so nice to be able to make something without all the crap associated with it.” — Michael Kardos  Michael Kardos is the author of the novels Fun City Heist , Bluff,...

“What I’ve always been really focused on is trying to figure out what is it in any book—and it's different in different genres—that makes you keep turning the page. That's always been my goal: to get people to keep turning.” — Amy Meyerson  Amy Meyerson is the acclaimed author of the internationally bestselling books The Bookshop of Yesterdays, The Imperfects , and The Love Scribe . Her...

“The biggest thing you have to be able to do with someone is step back, leave your ego at the door and just really both have the same mindset of like, 'Hey, we're in business together... every decision we make has got to be for the readers.” — Ryan Steck   “I get excited every time he sends me new material, then I take over and I do a little bit and he reads it and he said, 'Oh my g...

“From the time that I started publishing, my goal was to be able to do it full-time... it took 10 years to get there, but you know, slow and steady wins the race.”— Jen J. Danna  After over thirty years in infectious diseases research, Jen hung up her lab coat to concentrate on writing thrillers. She is the coauthor of the Abbott and Lowell Forensic Mysteries with Ann Vanderlaan, a series of suspe...

“I figured out at some point along the way that I was happier trying and failing than I was not trying at all.” — Clémence Michallon  Clémence Michallon is an author and a journalist. Her debut thriller The Quiet Tenant was published in June 2023 and is an international bestseller. Her thriller Our Last Resort came out in July 2025. She was a staff writer at The Independent for five years, and is...

“You want to bond with the reader, you know? And you want to take the reader and basically say to the reader, I'm about to tell you a story now. You're not gonna believe this, but bear with me, okay? And once you've established trust with the reader, you can go pretty far.” — Joseph Finder  Joseph Finder is the New York Times bestselling author of 17 suspense novels. His books have...

“I've loved the actual act of writing. You know, I meet a lot of people who wanna be writers. I meet very few who wanna write. I always wanted to write.” — Gregg Hurwitz  Gregg Hurwitz is the New York Times #1 internationally bestselling author of 27 thrillers including the Orphan X series. His novels have won numerous literary awards and have been published in 33 languages. Gregg currently s...

Episode 212 of Making It Up is out and features Wendy Walker, the bestselling author of psychological thrillers including Don’t Look for Me, The Night Before, and All Is Not Forgotten, as well as multiple Audible Originals. Her latest book, Blade, draws from her past as a competitive figure skater and marks a personal and creative turning point in her career. Before writing full-time, Wendy practi...

“If you're not exploring, if you're not really kind of pushing limits, then you really have to ask yourself, well, what am I doing here? Like, this isn't accounting, you know what I mean? It's creative writing.” —Matthew Sullivan  Matthew Sullivan is the author of Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore, an Indie Next Pick, B&N Discover pick, a GoodReads Choice Award finalis...

“Writer’s block is a myth. It’s your brain lying to you. Chefs don’t have chef’s block.” —Tod Goldberg  Tod Goldberg is a New York Times bestselling author of sixteen books, including the Gangsterland quartet, which have won/been a finalist for the Hammett Prize, the International Thriller of the Year and many more. His short fiction and essays appear widely and have been selected in Best American...

“I’ve just always been drawn to dark stuff. I’m really fascinated by why people do the things that they do—particularly bad things.” —Jennifer Fawcett  Jennifer Fawcett is an author, actor, and playwright. She grew up in Canada and spent many years in theatre there before moving to the US. She has an MFA from the Iowa Playwrights Workshop and was a founding member of Working Group Theatre. Her wor...

“The idea that you could be at the whim of something as mercurial as a muse doesn’t work if you also have to show up for a job and a family and kids.” —Danielle Girard  Danielle Girard is the USA Today and Amazon #1 bestselling author of sixteen novels. Her books have won the Barry Award, the Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award, and more. In addition, two of her titles have been optioned for sc...