Carter Wilson's Making It Up

“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...

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...