The Open Mic: Writers in Their Own Words

My guest this week is a fabulous short story writer, anthology editor and novelist. His new book Waves of Burden drops today (June 24), so he is here for his first return visit to the show to talk about that and all things writing and publishing. Please welcome Curtis Ippolito to the Open Mic!

My guest today might best be described as a true up-and-comer in the crime fiction world. She is a highly respected short story writer whose work has appeared many times in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine and Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, two of the industry’s heavyweight publications. One of her stories was later included in the 2024 edition of Best American Mystery and Suspense alongside the...

Mary Thorson has been called one of the best under-sung writers on the scene today, and her work has been published in The Los Angeles Review, Reckon Review, Cotton Xenomorph, Milwaukee Noir, Worcester Review, Rock and a Hard Place, Tough and anthologies like Bishop Rider Lives and On Fire and Under Water.  Two of her stories – “The Book of Ruth” and “Casadastraphobia” – were selections for the re...

My guest today is the bestselling author of one of the most unique thriller series out there, the ASSASSINS ANONYMOUS series, which features a protagonist who is part of a 12-step program for reformed killers. Kind of like if John Wick or Lawrence Block’s Keller or Anton Chigurh decided one day to just stop taking lives for a living. It is, in a word, effing great! Okay, that’s two words but you g...

My guest today is making a return visit to the show for the first time in three years. He is the acclaimed award-winning author of two dozen novels, including a trio of really fun and interesting series: 1) his idealistic ex-football player-turned-lawyer Jake Lassiter and 2) the equally fascinating duo of bickering attorneys, Solomon vs. Lord and 3) his great new series days featuring two folks yo...

My guest today is an multi-award-winning author, lecturer and writing instructor who has more than two dozen books to his credit, including five different fiction series as well as a number of forensic science books aimed at helping writers get their medical science-based stories right. With that you might have guessed he knows something about medicine, and you would be right – in addition to his...

My guest today is a best-selling writer who gone from designing roads on the thrill-a-minute California highway system to the even more fast-paced – and some might say equally treacherous – world of thrillers. His work has won numerous awards and I’m happy to have him on the show today. Please welcome J. Luke Bennecke to the Open Mic. 

If you are a regular viewer or listener you know that while I focus on writers I have on occasion had literary agents on this show. In that vein, today I’m welcoming back my own literary agent, Elizabeth K. Kracht of the Kim Cameron Agency. Aside from putting up with me and a host of other clients (Like James L'Etoile!) Liz is also an author and editor who’s book The Author’s Checklist is ess...

My guest today is a is the author of 10 psychological thrillers, several of which have been compared to the likes of Kafka and David Lynch. His latest, THE MEMORY WARD, came out last March and has been described as an examination of “the nature of identity, trauma, and what it means to be human.” He has described his work as a battle where the author must “grab an axe and show the story who’s boss...

My guest today, Brooke French, is the author of three thrillers, two starring intrepid disease ecologist Letty Duquesne and another series with lawyer Tess Oliver. French knows her way around the legal world for sure, having spent well over a decade as a successful lawyer in Atlanta. She refers to herself now as a "recovering lawyer" and a full-time writer, which is a good thing for ever...

My guest today is the writer behind the Twin Cities Mystery Series featuring detectives Erik Jansson and Deb Metzger, which have been widely lauded for clever plots, witty and intelligent dialogue and just generally being great reads. She is also an excellent short fiction author, including a story in the great new anthology ON FIRE AND UNDER WATER, which came out from Rock & a Hard Place Pres...

For more than two decades the Men of Mystery conference has celebrated the many great men who write the mysteries so many of us love. Established in 2000 by the late Joan Hansen, this very popular events is put on these days by today’s guests, Jan Wilcox and Cindy Woods. Over the years Men of Mystery, or MoM for short, has featured a literal who’s who of great male mystery writers: T. Jefferson Pa...

I’ve known Richie Narvaez mostly as a great crime novelist, with works like Roachkiller and Other Stories, Hipster Death Rattle, Holly Hernandez and the Death of Disco, and Noiryorican. But he is also a writing teacher, a speaker and one of the very best short fiction authors on the market today. His short stories appear in any number of anthologies, including one that I just grabbed my copy of, O...

My guest today is someone with whom most of you have at least a tangential relationship. How is that possible? Well, because before he started writing compelling techno-thrillers, he spent much of his career at Microsoft, where he led the creation and development of a little thing you might have heard of – the Xbox. His first technothriller – THE WILKES INSURRECTION – came out in 2021. That one in...

I have often noted how prolific some of my guests are in their work, but I have to say my guest today really is one of the most prolific I working in the field today. As a writer he is the author of around 1300 short stories across a wide range of genres, at least eight novels and scores more non-fiction books and articles. When not doing his own writing he has edited dozens of crime fiction antho...

Most of the authors who join me on this show are fiction writers, but this week I bring you a conversation with the really great nonfiction author Andrea Lankford. A former National Park Service ranger and investigator, Lankford's latest book TRAIL OF THE LOST is a gripping tale of her efforts to help find a trio of missing Pacific Crest Trail hikers who all seemed to vanish without a trace....

If you follow this show at all you know I am a big fan of the short story, and particularly the crime fiction and noir genres. Stacy Woodson's work has appeared in numerous high quality short story magazines, including Black Cat Mystery Magazine, Ellery Queen, Mystery Weekly and many others. She has also had her work in a lot of other great single anthologies with awesome titles like the Tatt...

My guest today has one of the most varied resumes of anyone I have ever had on this show. He is: an Author / Filmmaker / Actor / Composer / Educator / Public Speaker / Consultant / Reviewer / Writer-in-Residence /CEO/ and a columnist with Writer’s Digest. And, most important for our purposes today, Clay Stafford is the founder of the Killer Nashville International Writers Conference, which this ye...

My guest today is the award-winning author of a dozen books, including three different multi-book series and two standalones. She is also a veteran journalist who has reported from more than a dozen countries over her long career, and is now she’s back in the newsroom serving as an interim editor at the Seattle Times. And somehow between books and the news, she finds time to produce a Substack new...

I met my guest today a while back at the Left Coast Crime conference in Bellingham, Washington. She has been a magazine writer, a writing tutor and an editor during her career, but only began writing fiction about 10 years ago. In that time she has published several short stories and, in 2023, her debut novel I KNOW WHAT YOU DID, which deals with this fascinating premise: What if a bestselling nov...

My guests today are a husband and wife team of Anthony Leigh Adams and Christina Adams that collectively write under the nom de plume of A.C. Adams. They are longtime veterans of Hollywood with a ridiculously long list of credits for many major studios, including ABC, CBS and Disney. They are have worked on scores of projects with Oprah Winfrey, produced documentaries for PBS, musicals for the sta...

 My guest today is a very talented writer, particularly in one of the forms I enjoy the most – the short story. His stories have appeared in numerous publications, and he has been a finalist for the Derringer, Anthony and Macavity Awards, which for the uninitiated are kind of like the Oscars, Golden Globes and maybe the Grammies for us writer types. And on top it all, he’s one of the industry’s go...

My guest today is a very multifaceted author, editor and journalist whose work includes short stories, two nonfiction books, editing the Columbus Noir anthology, and the Andy Hayes Private Eye series, featuring a former Browns quarterback turned private eye. He is here today to talk about The Mailman, his brand new thriller starring Mercury Carter, a former postal inspection agent who must track d...

Regular Open Mic folks know I focus my attentions on crime fiction, mystery and thriller authors. But for today's show we delve into true crime as I welcome my good friend and colleague Brian Joseph to the show to talk about his new book, Vegas Concierge: Sex Trafficking, Hip Hop, and Corruption in America.

My guest today has long been a world traveler who has had more adventures than anyone I know. He is joining me today from his home in France, a country I very much look forward to returning to someday. He has been a guest before, all the way back when this was still just a blog and before the YouTube and podcast shows. His work has won numerous awards and accolades, including the Paris Prize for F...