Carter Wilson's Making It Up

"The only way your journey ends is if you stop trying—and I wasn’t done." —Jeffrey Konvitz  Jeffrey Konvitz is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Sentinel . He also wrote its bestselling sequel, The Guardian , and a third bestselling novel Monster: A Tale of Loch Ness . Konvitz is an entertainment attorney, screenwriter and producer. In the 1980s and 90s, he became one of th...

It is the 200th episode of Making It Up! “Every huge risk I’ve ever taken has led to another step toward what I always wanted to do with my life.” – Michelle Jabès Corpora  Michelle Jabès Corpora received her Bachelor's Degree in English and Theatre from UMBC, then went on to earn a Master's degree in Children's Literature from Hollins University. She has been a wedding singer, has...

“The best form of marketing is just producing more work—because you never know when the next idea will catch fire.” —Joe Hart  Joe Hart is the Edgar Award-winning and Wall Street Journal-bestselling author of seventeen novels, dozens of short stories, and several novellas. His work has been translated into eight languages and optioned for film. His latest novel, WYNDCLYFFE, was just released earli...

“The desire was always there, but the drive wasn’t. I allowed other things to interfere instead of saying, ‘This is something you really want to do.’" —Dwayne Goetzel  Dwayne Goetzel is a lawyer who specializes in trademarks, domain names, copyrights, licensing, and litigation relating to those fields. He is an attorney, father, writer, and someone who’s navigated several career choices. He h...

“It was the craziest overnight five-year success story ever.” —Leigh Dunlap  Leigh Dunlap went to film school at the University of Southern California to study screenwriting, which led her to a job selling socks at Fred Segal and eventually to an assistant’s desk at a Hollywood talent agency. That’s where she really learned how to write—while reading hundreds of scripts sent in for actors. Her fir...

“I don’t know what it’s about until it’s done—and sometimes it’s on a shelf before I realize what certain things mean.”  – Lori Roy  Lori Roy’s debut novel, Bent Road , was awarded the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best First Novel by an American Author. Her work has been twice named a New York Times Notable Crime Book. Until She Comes Home was a New York Times Editors’ Choice. Let Me Die in His Foots...

Robert Bailey is the Wall Street Journal bestselling author of THE BOOMERANG, the Jason Rich series, the McMurtrie and Drake legal thrillers, the Bocephus Haynes series, and the inspirational novel, THE GOLFER’S CAROL. Robert’s novels draw inspiration from his decades as a civil defense trial lawyer in his hometown of Huntsville, Alabama. Robert obtained a Bachelor of Arts in History from Davidson...

“There are no shortcuts, right? It doesn't matter what you're writing—you just have to do it.”  — Mailan Doquang  Mailan Doquang is an architectural historian turned thriller writer. Mailan received her Ph. D. from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University. She has published extensively on the art and architecture of medieval France, in addition to teaching at some of the top unive...

"The only way your journey in publishing ends is if you stop trying."  – Kaira Rouda  Kaira Rouda is a USA TODAY, Amazon #1 and international bestselling author. She has worked in marketing, real estate, and other career fields, including being the society columnist for the Columbus Dispatch for ten years. Kaira’s work has been translated into more than a dozen languages. Three of her no...

"I just don’t buy into the whole failure thing—you either succeed or you learn."  – Laura Resau Laura Resau is the author of The Alchemy of Flowers , her debut novel for adults, and eleven acclaimed books for young people. Her books have won five Colorado Book Awards and spots on “best-of” booklists from Oprah, the American Library Association, and more. Trilingual, she’s lived in Proven...

“I got 26 rejections, and I’d kind of given up. Then Simon & Schuster gave me a three-book deal. And I thought, oh, this is awesome—then, oh shit, I have to write the other two.”  – Bryan Gruley Bryan Gruley is the award-winning, critically acclaimed author of the forthcoming thriller BITTERFROST. Gruley is also the author of the Starvation Lake trilogy, the first book of which was nominated f...

“Writing it was like chipping away at a mountain with a pair of nail scissors.”  —Ellen Birkett Morris  Ellen Birkett Morris is the author of Beware the Tall Grass, winner of the Donald L. Jordan Award for Literary Excellence. She is also the author of Lost Girls: Short Stories , winner of the Pencraft Award and finalist for the Clara Johnson, IAN and Best Book awards. Her fiction has appeared in...

“Not that my work is superior to Rear Window , but I thought—what’s more interesting than a broken leg? A broken mind.”  —A.J. Finn  A. J. Finn is the author of The Woman in the Window , the #1 internationally-bestselling phenomenon published in more than forty languages and adapted for the screen as a film starring Amy Adams, Gary Oldman, and Julianne Moore. His second novel, End of Story , was r...

“If I'm going out to sea, I'm doing it in a ship I built, not in the piece of crap they want me to build."  – Matt Goldman quoting Jerry Seinfeld  Matt Goldman is a New York Times Bestselling author and Emmy Award winning television writer.  He has been nominated for the Shamus Award and Nero Award. Matt's television writing credits include Seinfeld, Ellen, The New Adventures o...

“The best part of writing that first, terrible book was realizing I could write a book. That changed everything.”  – Joshua Moehling  Joshua Moehling is the USA Today bestselling author of the Ben Packard series. The first book, AND THERE HE KEPT HER, was a Barnes & Noble monthly Mystery/Thriller pick and a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Best LGBTQ+ Mystery. His second novel, WHERE...

"Two simple words—'what if'—can create thousands of novels."  – Traci Abramson Traci Hunter Abramson was born in Arizona, and after graduating from Brigham Young University, she worked for the Central Intelligence Agency, eventually resigning in order to raise her family. She recently retired after twenty-six years coaching her local high school swim team. She has written forty...

Cynthia Pelayo is a Bram Stoker Award winning and International Latino Book Award winning author and poet. She is the first Latina in history to win a Bram Stoker Award. Pelayo writes fairy tales that blend genre and explore concepts of grief, mourning, and cycles of violence. She is the author of Loteria, Santa Muerte, The Missing, Poems of My Night, Into the Forest and All the Way Through, Child...

Bob Johnson is an award-winning short story writer and graduate of the lowa Writers’ Workshop. His work has been published by The Common , Philadelphia Stories , Vol. 1 Brooklyn , The Barcelona Review , and elsewhere. His story "The Continental Divide" was named Short Story of the Year in The Hudson Review .  Among other things, Bob and Carter discuss growing up with undiagnosed ADD, wri...

G.T. Karber is a mystery writer, computer programmer, and the creator of Murdle , the USA Today and #1 Sunday Times bestselling murder-mystery puzzle book series. The first two paperback volumes of Murdle were published in 2023, with the third volume published in March 2024. In 2023, Murdle was the UK Christmas #1 bestseller, making Karber the third non-British author to achieve a Christmas number...

Emily Carpenter is the critically acclaimed, bestselling author of suspense novels, Burying the Honeysuckle Girls, The Weight of Lies, and Every Single Secret. After graduating from Auburn with a Bachelor of Arts in Speech Communication, she moved to New York City. She’s worked as an actor, producer, screenwriter, and behind-the-scenes soap opera assistant for the CBS shows, As the World Turns and...

Lori Brand is a lifting enthusiast, group fitness instructor, yoga teacher, and software quality engineer. She’s been a gymnast, dancer, Playboy model, and bodybuilder. Her time in the body wars trenches led to her realization that getting strong, rather than shrinking, is the way out. She’s published articles in STRONG Fitness Magazine, T-Nation, Inside Fitness Magazine , D’FYNE Fitness Magazine...

Lisa Williamson Rosenberg is an author and psychotherapist specializing in depression, complex trauma and racial identity. She is also a former ballet dancer, with essays published in Longreads, Mamalode, The Common, and more, and fiction in Literary Mama and The Piltdown Review, where she was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She graduated from Princeton University, got her Masters from Hunter Coll...

Douglas Brunt attended The Haverford School and graduated from Duke University. He was formerly a management consultant for the information tech company, Booz Allen & Hamilton, and served as a director with Idealab. Until 2011, Brunt was CEO and president of the Florida-based security software company Authentium, Inc. His first novel, Ghosts of Manhattan , was a New York Times bestseller.  Amo...

James L’Etoile uses his 29 years behind bars as an influence in his novels, short stories, and screenplays. He is a former associate warden in a maximum-security prison, a hostage negotiator, facility captain, and director of California’s state parole system. He is a nationally recognized expert witness on prison and jail operations. He is a two-time Silver Falchion Award nominee and shortlisted f...

Internationally bestselling author Tess Gerritsen’s books have been translated into 40 languages, and more than 40 million copies have been sold around the world. She has won both the Nero Wolfe Award (for VANISH) and the Rita Award (for THE SURGEON). Time Magazine named THE SURGEON one of the best mystery/thrillers ever written. Tess's first medical thriller, Harvest , marked her debut on th...