Now a Major Motion Picture!

Award-winning writer, lecturer and tarot reader Susan Wands is the author of the three-book Arcana Oracle Series, which explores the life of Pamela Colman Smith, creator of the Waite-Smith tarot deck. Ms. Wands also serves a co-chair with the NYC Chapter of the Historical Novel Society.

My co-host Ryan Brown and I were very happy to welcome Francesca Serritella to our ‘Now a Major Motion Picture!’ podcast. Both of us have known Francesca for several years and have been delighted to watch her emergence as a first-rate novelist with ‘The Ghosts of Harvard’ in 2020 and the recently published ‘Full Bloom.’ Francesca talks about the challenges of promoting her first novel at the heigh...

We are joined by the deeply fascinating and immensely talented Nelson Aspen.  Nelson has one of those resumes that could fill up an entire podcast on its own.  As a television presenter of international scope he has spent three decades bringing the latest in entertainment and pop culture to millions of viewers worldwide.  One would be hard pressed to find a celebrity he hasn’t interviewed or an en...

Film historian and critic John DiLeo joins the podcast to talk about his latest film-related book ‘Not Even Nominated: 40 Overlooked Costars of Oscar-Winning Performances.’ DiLeo examines some of the biggest Oscar snubs spanning the entire history of the Academy Awards from the late 1920s through the modern era.

It was such a pleasure to welcome Karen Olson to ‘Now a Major Motion Picture!’ Karen has one of the most interesting and far ranging bodies of work in contemporary crime fiction. She has written very well received mystery series about a Connecticut journalist; a Las Vegas tattoo artist; and an off the grid computer hacker. The new novel ‘An Inconvenient Wife’ moves the story of Henry VIII and his...

Deborah Crombie has been one of America’s finest crime writers for more than 30 years. And she has pulled off the mean feat of creating and sustaining one of the best British mystery series despite her being a Texas native. The 19th volume in her Duncan Kincaid & Gemma James series “A Killing of Innocents” has just appeared in paperback. We had some audio issues with this episode - the perils of n...

It is such a pleasure to welcome Katherine Hall Page to the podcast I cohost with Ryan Brown. I’ve been readiimg Katherine’s warm and sophisticated mysteries since she launched the Faith Fairchild series in 1991. Over the years we have followed the Manhattan born caterer as she has adjusted to life as the wife of a Massachusetts minister and built a family and friend network that Katherine has fol...

It was great to catch up with Craig Johnson last month on the eve of a month-long book tour for his 19th novel “The Longmire Defense.” Long one of our favorite crime novelists, Johnson has also found success in Hollywood with the wonderful Netflix series, “Longmire,” inspired by his books. Like Michael Connelly and Lee Child, the novelist’s stories and their deeply textured Western settings have b...

With the second season of ‘Joe Pickett’ ending on Paramount+ recently, this is the perfect time for a chat with C.J. Box who created the Wyoming game warden character in 24 best-selling novels. Box talks with me and co-host Ryan Brown about his input on the series and how he managed to combine two separate genres - the western novel and the crime thriller - into one hugely popular series.

Louis Bayard has been a reader favorite for many years for both the variety and high quality of his novels. Bayard’s mix of history and crime is the characteristic of some of his best work. He has also put real historical figures at the center of his stories and in the case of ‘Mr. Timothy’ he used Charles Dickens’ creation Tiny Tim as the inspiration for one of his own best novels. The 2007 novel...

Paul Levine launched his very successful crime fiction career more than 30 years ago with the publication of his first legal thriller ‘To Speak for the Dead.’ He was part of a wave o lawyers-turned-novelists that included Scott Turow, John Grisham and Lisa Scottoline. Paul has brought the Jake Lassiter series to a close with the recently published ‘Early Grave.’ His Solomon vs. Lord series, which...

Crime novelist Matt Witten has also written for a number of different television series including “House,” “Law and Order” and “Pretty Little Liars.” Witten’s recently published novel “Killer Story” follows a reporter turned podcaster who is coping with the massive changes in modern journalism while trying to investigate the murder of an old friend whose shift to right-wing politics made her a You...

Robert Ellis is a native Philadelphian who moved to Los Angeles to work as a writer, producer and director in film, television and advertising. But after ghost writing the final draft of ‘Nightmare on Elm Street 4’ he turned to novel writing with ‘Access to Power’ becoming a national bestseller. Since then he has worked on two crime novel series including the detective Matt Jones series which incl...

Heather Graham is one of the most prolific and most popular authors in the country, with more than 200 novels to her credit. Over the years, Graham has eluded attempts to put her in one genre box, with her work spanning thrillers, mystery, fantasy and romance. The variety of her work keeps her excited about what she does and keeps her fans delighted to be surprised by all of the twists and turns s...

A terrific episode featuring Daniel Palmer, whose latest novel is ‘The Perfect Daughter.’ He talks about his roundabout journey to becoming one of our best thriller writers. Palmer had a long stint in eCommerce as one of the creators of the early book-selling website BarnesandNoble.com - which at one point was grossing $200-$300 million per quarter - and he also performed with a number of bands. P...

We have wanted to showcase Sandra Brown on our podcast since it began in 2020, but what better time to have her as a guest than in the wake of the publication of her 74th New York Times bestseller “Overkill”? Millions of readers have come to love her special mixture of romance and suspense over more than four decades. Brown is one of the most reliable storytellers in the business, but one of the k...

The crime writing community lost one of its smartest and funniest members when Jessica Speart died in late winter. The former actress turned to journalism and then crime fiction, creating the memorable environmentalist sleuth Rachel Porter in a series of witty, fact based novels. Her non-fiction account of the very lucrative and illegal rare butterfly trade “Winged Obsession” has been optioned for...

Ever since we started the ‘Now a Major Motion Picture!’ podcastme and co-host Ryan Brown have wanted David Morrell to be a guest. Who better to talk about the connection between books and movies than the man whose novel ‘First Blood’ launched the hugely successful Rambo franchise? Morrell talks about the decade long journey of his novel to the screen and the major political shift in Hollywood duri...

With “Her Last Affair” John Searles has written another hard to describe but wonderful novel. There is suspense to be sure, and thriller elements as well, as we watch the collision of three very different characters who end up at a rundown drive-in theater for a genuinely unsettling finale. But the book’s real power comes from the characters Searles introduces to us - a retired nurse who is going...

You might rethink preconceived notions of film acting after reading “There Are No Small Parts,” critic and film historian John DiLeo’s book about the high quality work that can be found in even the briefest movie roles. Focusing on parts that took up 10 minutes or less in screen time, DiLeo takes us through a wide array of brilliant work starting with Elsa Lanchester in “Bride of Frankenstein” and...

‘From Hollywood with Love’ looks at the rise and fall and rise again of romantic comedies over the past 30 years. Scott Meslow is a senior editor at The Week magazine and a writer and critic for publications including GQ, New York magazine, and The Atlantic. Scott is a long-standing fan of romantic comedies and enjoys watching them with his wife, their daughter, and a rescue dog they named after M...

When James Benn launched his Billy Boyle World War II crime novel series in 2007, Lee Child raved - “This book has got it all - an instant classic.” Since then Benn has maintained the high quality of the series through 16 novels that have followed military investigator all over the globe.

Jon Land is one of the most prolific and versatile writers in the crime fiction field. He’s written novels, true crime books, and screenplays. He is also a regular reviewer of crime books. In this episode we talked with Jon about some of his biggest challenges, including writing a popular series of novels from the point of view of female Texas Ranger Caitlin Strong, and becoming one of the writers...

The terrific crime writer with a special interest in pop culture and social media talks about the role her background in entertainment journalism plays in her fiction. Alison also talks about Hollywood interest in her work and some of her favorite movie adaptations of books. The writer’s November 2021 novel ‘The Collective’ should be much discussed because of its portrait of the dangers of social...

The best-selling novelist talks about her latest book ‘Dream Girl’ as well as her thoughts on TV and movie adaptations of her stories. She also mentions some favorite movies derived from novels.