Carter Wilson's Making It Up

Andrew DeYoung is the author of The Temps , a speculative novel about the end of the world. He works as an editor at a children's book publishing company, and he lives with his wife and two children in the Twin Cities area in Minnesota. The Day He Never Came Home is his first domestic thriller. Stay Away From Him is coming out in July 2025.  Among other things, Andrew and Carter discuss initi...

Sydney Leigh spent several years running a seasonal business, working in the summer so she could spend cold months in cool places. Now she writes modern cozy mysteries and thinks about murder. She is a member of Sisters in Crime, International Thriller Writers, and served on the board of Crime Writers of Canada from 2018-2021. Among other things, Sydney and Carter discuss how receiving feedback mo...

Meredith Lyons collected two degrees from Louisiana State University before running away to Chicago to be an actor. In between plays, she got her black belt and made martial arts and yoga her full-time day job. She fought in the Chicago Golden Gloves, ran the Chicago Marathon, and competed for team USA in the Savate World Championships in Paris. She's a member of International Thriller Writer...

Episode 173 of Making It Up is out and it’s a different one! Today we feature the brilliant voice artists Allyson Ryan and Patrick Zeller, who are the voices behind the audio version of Carter’s latest release TELL ME WHAT YOU DID. This audiobook is the very first release of Sourcebooks’ new division Sourcebooks Audio. Both Allyson and Patrick are award-winning narrators who have voiced a range of...

Charlotte Vassell’s debut novel The Other Half was longlisted for the John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger in 2024. The In Crowd, the second in the DI Caius Beauchamp series was shortlisted for Best Novel in the 2025 Mystery Writers of America Edgar Allen Poe Awards. Charlotte studied History at the University of Liverpool and completed a Master’s in Art History at SOAS before training as an actor at D...

Kyle Prue is an award winning author, actor and comedian. He published his first novel The Sparks at just 18, which earned accolades from USA Today, Kirkus Reviews, and book festivals. Kyle later completed his trilogy with The Flames and The Ashes. Kyle received his BFA in Performance with a concentration in acting from the University of Michigan. He also has experience in many different aspects o...

Chad Boudreaux has a broad range of government, legal and corporate experience. Prior to serving as the Executive Vice President and Chief Legal Officer of the nation’s largest military shipbuilder, he served as Deputy Chief of Staff for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Boudreaux also served in several high-ranking positions at the U.S. Justice Department, where he focused most of his tim...

Midge Raymond is the author of Floreana and My Last Continent, and the award-winning short-story collection Forgetting English. Her writing has appeared in TriQuarterly, American Literary Review, the Los Angeles Times, and others. She has taught writing at Boston University and at writing conferences around the world. She earned a certificate in private investigation from the University of Washing...

Barbara Nickless is the #1 Amazon Charts and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of the Sydney Parnell crime novels. The series has been optioned for television and has won two Colorado Book Awards and twice won the Daphne du Maurier Award of Excellence. Her standalone spy thriller was released in January 2025. Barbara’s essays and short stories have appeared in Writer’s Digest , Penguin Random...

Sandra Block graduated from Harvard and is a practicing neurologist. Her work has been published in the Washington Post. Little Black Lies is her debut and a finalist in the International Thriller Awards, and The Girl Without a Name and The Secret Room are the other books in the Zoe Goldman series. What Happened That Night is her stand-a-lone novel, and Girl Overboard is a Young Adult thriller. Th...

Emily Jon Tobias is an award-winning writer whose work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, and has been featured in literary journals such as Santa Clara Review, Flying South Literary Journal, Typehouse Literary Magazine, and more. Her debut collection MONARCH: STORIES won the American Book Fest International Book Award and an International Impact Book Award. Emily is a mentor in the PEN Pr...

Pamela Statz grew up in Wisconsin and attended UW Madison, earning degrees in Journalism and History. She’s worked in media and advertising in San Francisco and Portland for Lucasfilm, WIRED, Nike, and Wieden+Kennedy. Thorn City is her first novel. Among other things, Pam and Carter discuss Pam’s experiences with writing classes, considering self publishing, and writing a book with multiple POVs....

Alex Kenna is a prosecutor, writer, and amateur painter. Before law school, Alex studied painting and art history at Penn.  She also worked as a freelance art critic and culture writer. Alex’s debut novel, What Meets the Eye , was nominated for a Shamus Award for best first PI novel. Kirkus Reviews called it a “righteous, painful debut,” and Bookpage called her “a master in the making.”  Among oth...

Georgia Jeffries is a writer of Emmy Award-winning drama and acclaimed noir fiction, and has been honored with multiple Writers Guild Awards, Golden Globes, and the Humanitas Prize. She worked as a journalist for American Film before writing and producing Cagney & Lacey, China Beach, and Sisters. Her short stories have appeared in national suspense anthologies, and she has also written biograp...

Rebecca McKanna is an associate professor of English at the University of Indianapolis. Her debut novel, Don’t Forget the Girl , was nominated for the 2024 Lambda Literary Award in LGBTQ+ Mystery and the 2023 Strand Magazine ’s Critics Award for Best Debut Mystery, and awarded the 2024 Indiana Authors Award for Genre Fiction. Her short stories have been anthologized in The Best American Mystery St...

Elise Hart Kipness is a television sports reporter turned crime fiction writer. In addition to reporting for Fox Sports Network, Elise was a reporter at New York’s WNBC-TV, News 12 Long Island, and the Associated Press, covering events including the Olympics, NBA and NCAA Championships, and the US Open. She is the President of Sisters in Crime Connecticut, and a member of the Board of Directors of...

Brad Parks is an international bestselling author, and the only writer to have won the Shamus, Nero, and Lefty Awards, three of American crime fiction’s most prestigious prizes. His novels have been translated into 16 languages and have won critical acclaim across the globe, including stars from every major pre-publication review outlet. A graduate of Dartmouth College, Parks is a former journalis...

Edward Hamlin is a fiction writer and composer of music for acoustic guitar. Edward’s NIGHT IN ERG CHEBBI was selected by Karen Russell as winner of the 2015 Iowa Short Fiction Award and went on to win the Colorado Book Award. Other honors have included a Nelson Algren Award, a Nelligan Prize, an NCW Short Story Prize, a Top of the Mountain Novel Prize and a Hawthornden Fellowship. His composition...

Libby Cudmore is the author of Negative Girl and The Big Rewind , as well as the Wade & Jacks P.I. series in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, and Tough . Her short fiction has appeared in numerous places including The Dark, Smokelong Quarterly, Shotgun Honey, and more. She is the 2018 recipient of the Oregon Writer’s Colony prize, the 2023 Shamus award for be...

Jen Ruiz is a lawyer turned full-time travel blogger. A multiple bestselling author, TEDx speaker, and national award-winning travel journalist, she has been featured in The Washington Post, Forbes, and ABC News. Jen has been named a Latina Travel Expert by Mitu and Top 40 Under 40 by the Naples Herald. She is the solo female traveler behind Jen on a Jet Plane. Among other things, Jen and Carter d...

Gina DeMillo Wagner is an award-winning journalist and author. Her writing has been featured in The New York Times, Washington Post, Memoir Magazine, Modern Loss, Self, Outside, Writer’s Digest, and other publications. She is a Yaddo Fellow, a winner of the CRAFT Creative Nonfiction Award, and her memoir was longlisted for the 2022 SFWP Literary prize. Gina has a master’s degree in journalism and...

Barbara Feigin is an advertising executive and World War II refugee, having fled with her parents from Nazi Germany as a young child in 1940. She attended Whitman College, then completed a graduate program in business run jointly by Harvard Business School and Radcliffe Graduate School. She had a 30-year career in advertising, mostly with Grey Advertising, and in 2017 she was named one of the cent...

Karen Dionne is the USA Today and #1 internationally bestselling author of the award-winning psychological suspense novels The Marsh King’s Daughter and The Wicked Sister , both published by G.P. Putnam’s Sons in the U.S. and in dozens of other countries. The Marsh King’s Daughter was named one of the best books of 2017 by iBooks and many other booksellers and reviewers, and released in 2023 by Li...

Lisa Gardner is a #1 New York Times bestselling thriller novelist. Her internationally acclaimed novels have been published across 30 countries. She’s had four books become TV movies (At the Midnight Hour; The Perfect Husband; The Survivors Club; Hide). Her novel, The Neighbor, won Best Hardcover Novel from the International Thriller Writers, and the Grand Prix des Lectrices de Elle in France. She...

​​Erin E. Adams is a first-generation Haitian American writer and theater artist. She received her BA with honors in literary arts from Brown University, her MFA in acting from The Old Globe and University of San Diego Shiley Graduate Theatre Program, and her MFA in dramatic writing from NYU Tisch School of the Arts. She is an award-winning playwright and actor, and also the author of One of You a...