In Conversation with Terry Shepherd

Sooner of later, if you attend an author conference, you may have the opportunity to moderate a panel. Two ace moderators discuss the key factors that make a great performance. Cara Black best known for the twenty-one novel mystery series featuring Aimée Leduc a female Paris-based private investigator, as well as the thrillers Three Hours in Paris , a national bestseller, and Night Flight to Paris...

The Psychology of Fear and the Art of the Thriller In this episode, Terry Shepherd sits down with Dennis Palumbo , a licensed psychotherapist and veteran Hollywood screenwriter whose credits include the Emmy-winning Welcome Back, Kotter and the classic film My Favorite Year . Palumbo discusses his dual life as a therapist for creative minds by day and a mystery novelist by night. Exploring Panic A...

In this episode of In Conversation with Terry Shepherd , Terry dives deep into the writer's craft with author and artist Karen Ann Phillips to celebrate the release of A Deadly Hook , the third and final installment in her popular Rocky Nelson series. What happens when a peaceful weekend in the Sierra Nevadas is interrupted by a Bigfoot sighting and a shocking murder? Karen shares how her pro...

From DOJ Corridors to Chicago Syndicates: Chad Boudreaux on Crafting Mob Justice Imagine starting a high-stakes job at the Department of Justice on September 10, 2001. For our guest today, Chad Boudreaux, that was reality. After spending decades navigating the overlapping spheres of homeland security and defense leadership, Chad has channeled a world of classified briefings and calibrated language...

What if the secret to humanity's future was hidden inside a murdered judge's laptop? In this episode of In Conversation with Terry Shepherd , Terry sits down with debut thriller author Gary Fields to explore his globe-spanning, time-bending novel, The Book of Judges — already drawing comparisons to The Da Vinci Code . When a respected judge is killed, three unlikely heroes — a young lawy...

We recently sat down with celebrated anthropologist Dr. Mimi Nichter to discuss her gripping new memoir, "Hostage: A Memoir of Terrorism, Trauma, and Resilience." In 1970, Mimi was a college senior whose flight home from Tel Aviv was hijacked by the PFLP. What followed were six days on a sweltering plane in the Jordanian desert and weeks of captivity in Amman. But this isn't just a...

What happens when a Silicon Valley pioneer trades the boardroom for the open road? 🏍️✨ I recently sat down with Michael Yang , the founder of MySimon, to talk about his incredible new memoir, "Coming Alive on the Ride." Michael reached the "Silicon Valley summit" early, but he discovered that the view from the top can be surprisingly isolating. From arriving in San Jose as a t...

From Hollywood "Ghost" to Literary Powerhouse ✍️ For 35 years, Peter Fedorenko was the "script doctor" who fixed Hollywood’s biggest stories from the shadows. Then, in 2020, his own heart stopped. Having returned from the brink, Peter has finally stepped into the light with his debut novel, Among the Living . It’s not just a book; it’s a reckoning. Following a German Jewish med...

In celebration of it's paperback release join us for a special look at the journey of Jennifer K. Morita toward publication of her debut novel, "Ghosts of Waikīkī,"   What happens when an unemployed newspaper reporter returns to Hawaii to ghostwrite for a controversial developer? In Jennifer’s debut,  the answer is a cocktail of mystery, family secrets, and a murder investigation le...

How well do we truly know the people we love? In the latest episode, I sit down with Danielle Girard to discuss her haunting new thriller, "Pinky Swear." This isn't a story of cartoon villains or "moral origami." Instead, it’s a dive into the "slanted middle"—the messy, gray area where devotion slides into delusion. Born from the "ashes of a collapsed marria...

What happens when thirty-four years of corporate finance meets a lifelong passion for animal rescue? You get the Lily Dreyfus mystery series —where the puzzles are intricate, the stakes are high, and the four-legged characters have just as much personality as the humans. In this episode, we sit down with Darlene Dziomba , the "Dog Whisperer of the Garden State," to discuss her journey fr...

What happens when a life built on discipline, survival, and excellence finally makes room for joy? In this episode, we explore Steeped , the powerful memoir of retired neurosurgeon Dr. Craig Yorke , whose journey stretches from the charged streets of Boston’s Roxbury to the operating rooms of America’s heartland, and ultimately back to the music that first shaped him. Raised by parents determined...

What does it actually take to bring that dash of vanilla extract to your kitchen counter? This week, we’re journeying deep into the "dim green hush" of the Madagascar forest canopy with Emmanuel LeRoche , author of A Taste of Madagascar: Culinary Riches of the Red Island . Emmanuel spent years seeing Madagascar as a set of procurement numbers on a spreadsheet—until a life-changing trip w...

What happens when a master planner tries to out-strategize heartbreak? Corey Seemiller's "The Soulmate Strategy," explores her honest, funny, and deeply relatable journey from trying to control the pain of a very public breakup to discovering the freedom that comes with letting go. We all inevitably become the brand. And that's why I wrote, "How to Become a Dynamic Podcast...

Dr. Angela Petersen joins me to discuss her radical new book, "The Wellness Glitch," and why tracking every step and heartbeat might be the very thing keeping us unwell. ------- We all inevitably become the brand. And that's why I wrote, "How to Become a Dynamic Podcast Guest and Sell Stuff." It's a sweet and short primer that teaches you about the gear, the appearanc...

In the coal-dusted world of Ghost Town , the haunting new novel from James R. Gregory, we travel to Sulphur Creek, a late-19th-century mining town where ambition, isolation, and buried secrets collide. At the heart of the story are two men on opposite paths, a young outsider searching for connection and a rising industrial titan facing the cost of power. We all inevitably become the brand. And tha...

12 athletes missing. One shadowy conspiracy. No room for error.   Award-winning journalist Joe Battaglia has seen it all—from the Beijing Games to London. Now, he’s using that expertise to craft Beneath the Rings , a geopolitical thriller that begins with the disappearance of twelve athletes on the eve of the 2040 Games.

With her latest novel, Bye Bye Blackbird , Elizabeth Crowens steps behind the curtain of the hard-boiled mystery to investigate the ghosts that linger around Hollywood’s most iconic sets.

RED GRADE: A Jenn Herrington Wyoming Mystery , drops us into the rarefied world of elite polo when a celebrated player dies mid-match—an apparent accident that quickly unravels into something far more sinister. Underground betting, performance-enhancing drugs, and the quiet violence of privilege all surface as former prosecutor Jenn Herrington is pulled back into the legal arena. Then the case tur...

I’m excited to welcome Julie Snider , whose debut novel, Chapel Bay Secrets , follows Brenda Kato , a Japanese American librarian in a quiet coastal California town, where a threatened book ban and long-buried tensions force everything she thought was safe into question. With themes of censorship, identity, bigotry, LGBTQ+ belonging, grief, and community , Chapel Bay Secrets is both timely and dee...

Christopher Mannino believes that one of the most powerful tools in parenting isn’t a schedule, a screen limit, or a perfect plan—it’s play. In his new book, Making It Up: A Revolutionary Way to Bond with Kids Through Play , Christopher draws on the principles of improv and theater to show parents how to step into their children’s imaginative worlds—no acting background required. With the simple i...

What if retirement isn’t the finish line—but the beginning of something more intentional? In From Work to What’s Next , husband-and-wife financial advisors Sarah K. Charles and Jim Charles rethink retirement as a redesign, not an ending. Drawing on 60 years of combined experience—and Jim’s own search for purpose after leaving his career—they share practical tools and real stories to help turn “now...

The thriller genre has a new dynamic duo. In our latest episode, we sit down with Ryan Steck and Simon Gervais to discuss their debut collaboration, The Second Son . They call it "The Vintage of Collaboration." Despite writing from a distance and having opposite backgrounds—Simon is an ex-RCMP officer, Ryan is a renowned critic—they’ve created a seamless narrative that feels like a high-...

We dive into the shadows of 1970s Vietnam with author Nancy Cole Silverman and her electrifying new Kat Lawson Mystery, A Spy in Saigon. Kat’s “simple” assignment to write a travel piece and make a covert drop goes off the rails fast, thrusting her into a deadly web of secrets, double agents, and trafficked children who desperately need her help.

From the outside, Michelle Yang’s life might look like a familiar immigrant success story—but her new memoir, Phoenix Girl , reveals something far more powerful and complex. When her family left their tight-knit Chinese community in South Korea and arrived in America, the promise of freedom quickly tangled with a domineering father, a silenced mother, and the nonstop grind of running a Chinese tak...