Episodes

  • Interview with Tom Fowler – S. 10, Ep. 8

    Interview with Tom Fowler – S. 10, Ep. 8
    Sep 15 2024
    This week’s episode of the Crime Cafe podcast features my interview with crime writer Tom Fowler. Check out our discussion of his Baltimore-based crime fiction. Transcript coming as soon as possible.
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    Less than 1 minute
  • Interview with Crime Writer Catherine Rymsha – S. 10, Ep. 7

    Interview with Crime Writer Catherine Rymsha – S. 10, Ep. 7
    Sep 1 2024
    This week’s episode of the Crime Cafe podcast features my interview with crime writer Catherine Rymsha. Check out our discussion about leadership skills and crime fiction writing. You can download a PDF of the transcript here. Debbi: Hi everyone. My guest today has a career in workplace communication and management. She teaches leadership skills and has a nonfiction book called The Leadership Decision which she published before her crime novel. Her crime novel is Stunning. It's called Stunning, and in addition, she has given a TED Talk on the importance of listening, so listen up. You might learn something. It's my great pleasure to have with me today, Catherine Rymsha. I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly. Catherine: You are. Thank you. Yes, you are. Debbi: Excellent. Wonderful. Catherine: So happy to be here. Debbi: I was going to ask you about that, and I'd completely forgotten, in the big hubbub of trying to get connected. Catherine: That's fine. Debbi: You wouldn't believe, people. Anyway, thank you so much for being here. What is it that made you decide to write a novel, and a mystery at that? Catherine: I love murders. Debbi: Who doesn't? Catherine: It's so odd saying that, but I'm talking to an audience who understands that. I love crime, I love murder. Even as a kid, I was reading like the Fear Street books and R.L. Stein and Goosebumps, and then ventured into Stephen King and then started to watch everything on ID, and 20/20 and Dateline, and all of those shows that dig into it. When I was a kid, I always wanted to write and I fell into leadership and wrote a ton about leadership, which for some, that's not the most thrilling topic in the world, which I understand totally. But then, I was pregnant when I wrote Stunning. It was a dream. It was based on a dream that I had, and I kept having the dream, and I thought maybe I should write this down and I just started writing. I would write before bed and just write, write, write when I had time and I wasn't sleeping or working a real job, and that's how it came about. It just felt like it needed to get out of my brain. Even as a kid, I was reading like the Fear Street books and R.L. Stein and Goosebumps, and then ventured into Stephen King and then started to watch everything on ID, and 20/20 and Dateline, and all of those shows that dig into it. Debbi: Interesting. So do you picture writing more books, or is this like your one shot ? Catherine: I just came out with a textbook, also not as thrilling, very academic, but I want to get back into writing murder and crime and even if I could do something based on real life murder or crime. I think those are things that are interesting to me to explore next. But I do want to start getting into it and I keep saying that, and I thought all summer I'll write another book. And now summer has come and gone and the book is not written. So I'm thinking, well, maybe in the fall. I say that and I laugh because I don't know if it's going to happen that quickly, but it's more fun than writing leadership. I mean, leadership is important but crime and murder and making things up is way more fun. Debbi: Making things up is fun. Catherine: Yes. Debbi: It's its own form of work, but at the same time it's fun work. Catherine: It is fun work. Debbi: Yeah. Your books - do you have a traditional, hybrid or are you self-published? Catherine: I am self-published with my first two, but the textbook, I did work with a publishing company, so that was interesting too, to have that experience after doing two on my own and working with editors and beta readers and that whole spiel. Debbi: The whole shebang, yes. Catherine: The whole team. Debbi: I was going to ask you about your publishing journey. What has it been like for you? Has it been what you expected? Catherine: With the first one, it was a learning curve, because I wanted to find an editor and I found an excellent editor named Sandy.
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    Less than 1 minute
  • Interview with Anna Willett – S. 10, Ep. 6

    Interview with Anna Willett – S. 10, Ep. 6
    Aug 18 2024
    This week’s episode of the Crime Cafe podcast features my interview with crime writer Anna Willett. Check out our discussion about thriller writing and her Cold Case Mystery series. You can download a PDF of the transcript here. Debbi: Hi everyone. My guest today is the author of several thriller novels, including five books in The Cold Case Mystery series. Her latest book is called Needles and Pins, and it's this week's giveaway, so make sure to check out the giveaway on my blog or on her Instagram. You can find it there on Instagram for sure. So it is my pleasure to introduce as my guest the author, Anna Willett. Hi Anna. How are you doing today? Anna: Hi, I'm well. How are you? Debbi: Good, thank you, although right now at the moment, I'm in Maryland where tornadoes are threatening somewhere on the horizon. Anna: Oh really? Debbi: Yes. Apparently we've been getting tornado warnings in different parts, not too far from where I live, but it's all very sketchy right now. Hopefully I won't be interrupting this podcast to dive under a desk or into a bathroom or something. I don't know where I'd go. Anna: Oh, that's scary. Debbi: It is. They are scary. In any case, let's talk about your thrilling novels rather than my thrilling tornadoes. At what point did you decide to write a series? Anna: Well, as I said in the post, I wrote a book called The Woman Behind Her, and the main character finds herself as the suspect in a murder. The lead detective on that case was Veronica Pope, who I became very interested in and wanted to write more of, and I thought, I think that I can do a lot more with this character, and so I'm going to write another book. So after really what was the second book in the series, I thought, there's so much more I could do. There's so many more places I could take her. I had so many more ideas for the sort of situation she could be in and her team, and it went from there. Debbi: It's fascinating. How many books had you written before you made that decision to go after that series? Anna: I think it would've been 13, maybe 12 or 13 books. Debbi: That's very interesting how a character gripped you to the point where you decided to create a series for the first time. Anna: Yes. Well, I'd had another series. It was just three books, and it was about a journalist, but all the others are standalones. And the woman behind her was, I thought, going to be a standalone, but it turned into this ongoing series. Debbi: Yes, it's fascinating. What inspired you to create Veronica Pope? What kind of inspiration went into creating the character itself? Anna: Well, I wanted a female leader. I like to write about strong female lead characters, and so I wanted a female detective, and I wanted her to be - I'm going to say normal - so that she's just an average woman who's very good at her job, and she's not a super cop. She's not invulnerable to being hurt. She cares; she worries about things. She has her insecurities, she has her family life. She's a single mother. She has ambitions for her job, but she's also a little bit funny and down to earth, and that's the sort of character I would like to read. I like to write about strong female lead characters, and so I wanted a female detective, and I wanted her to be - I'm going to say normal - so that she's just an average woman who's very good at her job, and she's not a super cop. Debbi: Yeah, a very relatable sort of character. Anna: Yeah, yeah. Debbi: And skilled. Anna: Yes. So I wanted her to be really good at her job and very insightful and very observant, but at the same time, I wanted her to have the same worries that most people would. Debbi: Yes, exactly. Do you plan to write more books in the series? Anna: I haven't decided. I'm not sure. I might. If something comes to me, if an idea comes to me that I think would be perfect for Veronica. Not all, but quite a few of the books I drew from real unsolved cases in Western Australia.
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    21 mins
  • Philip Marlowe in ‘The Orange Dog’ – S. 10, Ep. 5

    Philip Marlowe in ‘The Orange Dog’ – S. 10, Ep. 5
    Aug 4 2024
    This week’s episode of the Crime Cafe podcast features The Adventures of Philip Marlowe in "The Orange Dog." And my thanks to Old Time Radio Researchers Group for the content. You're awesome!
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    31 mins
  • Interview with Michael J. Young – S. 10, Ep. 4

    Interview with Michael J. Young – S. 10, Ep. 4
    Jul 21 2024
    This week’s episode of the Crime Cafe podcast features my interview with crime writer Michael J. Young, MD. Check out our discussion about his medical thrillers and enter his book giveaway here! You can download a PDF of the transcript here. Debbi: Hi everyone. Today my guest is a doctor who spent 30 years as a surgeon while living and practicing medicine in Chicago. He's the author of a memoir/assessment of the current medical system - oh my - titled The Illness of Medicine: Experiences of Clinical Practice. He's also authored a trilogy of medical thrillers, and they all sound absolutely terrifying. I say that in the nicest possible way. I mean it in the best possible way. Anyway, he is also on the faculty of the Departments of Urology and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He has invented and patented various medical devices, too. Amazing guy! It's my pleasure to introduce Dr. Michael J. Young, medical thriller writer and M.D. Hi, Michael. How are you doing today? Michael: I'm wonderful, thank you. Debbi: Great. Fantastic. Wow. My first question to you, of course, is how are we going to fix our horrible healthcare system? Michael: Oh, we could spend hours and days. Debbi: Hours, yes. I was going to say, you probably ask the same question all the time in your books. Michael: Every morning. Debbi: Boy, I can tell you, I've had enough experience with it to know. So I was reading your first few chapters in Net of Deception and my gosh, what egregious examples of what not to do on the internet. Michael: Yes, it is. Well, actually, Net of Deception evolved out of my dissatisfaction and distrust and frustration, if you will, with the online pharmaceutical access that people have. As easy as it is, and in many ways, the advantages of having it are great, but the disadvantage is that patients don't have the opportunity to truly have informed consent about potentially very dangerous drugs. And in this particular scenario, nefarious activity occurred within the company that was selling these drugs. So it was really predicated on my own frustration with that evolution of how drugs are obtained today. Debbi: Yes. And not to mention medical information in general on the internet. Michael: Yes. Again, it's a double-edged sword. I encourage people to have information. The problem with the internet is that you don't always know the reliability or the source of that information. And although it may say it's from so-and-so, it may not be. And so a consumer of this data, of this knowledge, of this vocabulary has to be extraordinarily mindful and diligent in assuring that they're obtaining that information from a reliable source. I encourage people to have information. The problem with the internet is that you don't always know the reliability or the source of that information. Debbi: Yes, absolutely. And so often things will depend on other factors that aren't being addressed in the information that you have, so that you don't have the whole picture. Michael: No, you don't, and that carries over too much of the direct consumer advertising of drugs. I mean, there's only two countries in the world that allow it - the United States and New Zealand. That's it. And so when you hear or watch these ads on TV, everything looks wonderful but you're only getting a snippet because there's only so much time with which that information can be given to you and you can't decipher it. The legal information that's given is boilerplate. Everybody has the same side effects. Debbi: It's read very fast. Michael: Very fast, but also at the end, you may die. You may this, you may that. Well, of course. And so how is a consumer supposed to make that decision? But unfortunately for us as physicians, patients come to the office with a preconceived solution to the problem without really understanding the problem. But they've had this wonderful advertisement telling them all the benefits.
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    29 mins
  • Interview with Phil M. Williams – S. 10, Ep. 3

    Interview with Phil M. Williams – S. 10, Ep. 3
    Jul 7 2024
    This week's episode of the Crime Cafe podcast features my interview with crime writer Phil M. Williams. If you like thrillers, you'll want to check this out. And don't forget to check out his giveaway here! Before I bring on my guest, I’ll just remind you that the Crime Cafe has two eBooks for sale: the nine book box set and the short story anthology. You can find the buy inks for both on my website, debbimack.com under the Crime Cafe link. You can also get a free copy of either book if you become a Patreon supporter. You’ll get that and much more if you support the podcast on Patreon, along with our eternal gratitude for doing so. We also have a shop now. Check it out! Check us out on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/crimecafe The transcript can be downloaded here. Debbi: Hi everyone! This week we have with us the author of 27 books, primarily thrillers. His stories tend to explore modern dilemmas and controversies which pit powerful villains against average citizens. He's giving away an audio version of one of them, NO GOOD DEED. It's my pleasure to introduce my guest, Phil M. Williams. Hi, Phil. How are you doing today? Phil: Very good, Debbi. Thank you so much for having me on! Debbi: It's my pleasure, believe me. I noticed that most of your books are thrillers. I also noticed that you do have at least one series, the 2050 series. Phil: That's correct. Debbi: What prompted you to write this series? Phil: I think I was interested in – in thinking about what would happen in my lifetime. Right? I mean, I'm 48 years old, so I'm hoping I get another 25 years at least. So I was thinking, okay, well, I wonder what the world would look like. I don't know. 2050 is a good, seemed like a good round number. And I see a lot of the – I'm interested in history. I'm interested in some politics. And to me it was just sort of an extension of. Now it's a very exaggerated version of what's maybe happening in the world today, but it's sort of taking the extreme versions of totalitarianism and projecting it on the United States and seeing what life would be like for. And in the series, there's four main characters. And so I wanted to see, wanted to explore what life would be like for the one character as a farmer. He's an average guy that's struggling, as a lot of our farmers are today, and struggling to make ends meet. And then you have the congresswoman who's sort of a budding communist congresswoman who eventually rises to power. And then you have the banker, who sort of comes from a very shadowy family where they control a lot of the economics behind the scenes. So you get a chance as the reader to kind of, to see that. And then you have just this regular woman who's sort of, who's a nurse, and she and the farmer end up. They end up, they end up crossing paths, but they kind of show that … those two characters show the every man and every woman perspective of what life is like in this dystopian future, whereas, and then the other side of the coin, you have the corporate power banker, and then you have the governmental power person that ends up being the president. They show you the power side of the dynamics, which I think is really interesting for the readers. And you can see, as the series goes on, you can see how the plots wrap around each other and how the characters sort of interact with each other. And in the beginning, you don't always see how it all is going to connect, but it all kind of sort of weaves together, which I think was just unbelievably complex to do. The plot outline was – Yeah, the plot outline was over 100,000 words. I think it was, like, 130,000 words just for the plot outline. And I put a – put a lot. I spent over a year just working on the five book plot outline before I even wrote a single sentence of the series. Yeah, the plot outline was over 100,000 words. I think it was, like, 130,000 words just for the plot outline. And I put a – put a lot.
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    29 mins
  • Interview with Clay Stafford – S. 10, Ep. 2

    Interview with Clay Stafford – S. 10, Ep. 2
    Jun 30 2024
    This week's episode of the Crime Cafe podcast features my interview with crime writer and entrepreneur Clay Stafford. Check out the plans for the upcoming Killer Nashville conference! Before I bring on my guest, I’ll just remind you that the Crime Cafe has two eBooks for sale: the nine book box set and the short story anthology. You can find the buy inks for both on my website, debbimack.com under the Crime Cafe link. You can also get a free copy of either book if you become a Patreon supporter. You’ll get that and much more if you support the podcast on Patreon, along with our eternal gratitude for doing so. We also have a shop now. Check it out! Check us out on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/crimecafe The transcript can be downloaded here. Debbi: Hi everyone. Our guest today is a return visitor. Along with being a bestselling and award-winning author, he's a poet, screenwriter, and playwright. He's also founder and CEO of Killer Nashville. It's my pleasure to have with me again as this week's guest. Clay Stafford. Hi, Clay. How are you doing? Clay: Hi, Debbi. Doing well. Absolutely wonderful. Debbi: Wonderful. You're looking good there. Clay: Well, thank you. Debbi: Looking good. It's always nice to know. The farther we get along in age, it's nice to know you're still looking good at least. Shall we talk about what's coming up at Killer Nashville then? Clay: So you're just leaving it wide open then, what's coming up? Debbi: Yeah. What's special coming up, let's say? Clay: Well, every year it changes, and this year I truly do think it's going to be the best one yet so far, and we're coming up on - what is it - it's the 18th year or something. Debbi: 18th or 19th, I was going to say Clay: Maybe 19th, but we're getting close to that two decade point. I think the lineup ... I'm currently finalizing the schedule - should have it online very quickly, and it's going to be, I think, a wonderful year. Debbi: That's excellent. That's good to hear. I happened to notice that one of your offerings was a mock crime scene, which I thought was kind of cool. Is that like a display, or do people get to interact with it? Clay: We actually used to do that all the time, and then Dan Royce, who was the assistant director of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, always put that on. This last year and the year before, he did not do it just because I think he'd been doing it for 15 whatever years and decided to take a break. But he has told me that he is coming back with another crime scene. It's basically an interactive crime scene where people try to actually solve the crime, and it looks like it's the same training methods that are used with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and the FBI and all of the other agencies. Each attendee who wants to try to solve the crime, the winner gets a heavily discounted attendance for next year for Killer Nashville. But it's a tricky business and it's always been a lot of fun. We've learned over the years how to be able to handle that, because one year we just set up the crime scene and some attendees at a hotel we were at at the time came by and happened to look in, and it looks very realistic - blood and brain matter and everything all around - and they called 9-1-1. The next thing we know, we have police officers and medical people all showing up, and they're telling us to get out of the way, and then of course, they're going over to look at the dummy, and then I guess they kind of feel like maybe a dummy. But we've now set it aside so that it's not right in front of other people who are not— The hotel we're using - Embassy Suites in Cool Springs, Franklin - we actually have sold out the whole hotel, so it should be all crime writers who are there, so there should not be any danger of the 9-1-1 team showing up. I'm hoping Dan will come through with us on that. He said he is working on an idea, so hopefully we'll have that ready to go. Debbi: Well, that's very cool.
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    Less than 1 minute
  • Interview with Weldon Burge – S. 10, Ep. 1

    Interview with Weldon Burge – S. 10, Ep. 1
    Jun 23 2024
    This week’s ad-free episode of the Crime Cafe podcast features my interview with crime writer Weldon Burge. Check out the first interview of our Tenth Season. Dear God Good grief! Has it really been ten years? And check us out on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/crimecafe You can download the transcript here! :) Debbi: Hi everyone. This is the first episode of our 10th season here at The Crime Cafe. And boy, that decade sure went fast. Where did all that time go? In any case our guest today is a writer, indie publisher, and a full-time editor, although I now believe he has retired, but we can talk about that. He's written numerous articles for various publications as a freelancer. His first novel, Harvester of Sorrow was originally published by Suspense Publishing, but is now published through his own company, Smart Rhino Publications, which focuses mostly on horror and suspense thriller books. He has also published 17 books. That company has published 17 books, including the most recent anthology, Asinine Assassins. There's the tongue twister for you - Asinine Assassins - which I believe is also part of a trilogy. His latest short story collection is Toxic Candy, which he is offering as a giveaway. Check the notes in this recording for his guest post and giveaway details. Alrighty then. So in any case, it is a great pleasure for me to introduce Weldon Burge as my guest today. Hey, Weldon. Weldon: Hi. Thanks, Debbi. Good to hear you. Debbi: It's great to see you and great to hear you, and glad to have you on the show. So you are no longer working full-time and you are devoting yourself to writing fiction these days? Weldon: Yes. Pretty much. Debbi: As well as publishing. Weldon: If a nonfiction job comes up, I will take it, but I'm focusing primarily on fiction at this point. Debbi: Yeah, yeah. I reached a point where I pretty much said, okay, that's all I'm going to do. Weldon: Well, I was working for an educational consulting firm, so I was dealing with PhDs every day, and then I'd come home and I have to get into fiction because I'd had enough brainy stuff all day long. So now that I'm retired, I'm going full force into the fiction and enjoying it. I love it. Debbi: Awesome. That's great. That's a wonderful thing. So how do you structure your writing schedule? Weldon: I don't. I mean, I'm constantly writing. I'm constantly writing notes, bits of dialogue that come into my head I will write down. So as far as the schedule goes, it's just whenever I have time to do something, I'll do it. But I have things churning in my head constantly, so getting something on paper is something I do all day long. Ideas come for me and I try to work them out in my head, and I have notebooks everywhere, notes everywhere, and when I have time to sit down and do it, I do it. I'm constantly writing notes, bits of dialogue that come into my head I will write down. So as far as the schedule goes, it's just whenever I have time to do something, I'll do it. Debbi: Yeah. Notes everywhere. I think that's kind of like a writer's life. Notes everywhere. Weldon: Yes, that's right. That's right. Debbi: What was it that inspired you to create the Ezekiel Marrs character, and what are your plans for the series? Weldon: Okay. Actually there's one chapter in the book that has nothing to do with Ezekiel Marrs. That actually spun the tale for me. There's a section in the book where a teenage couple find a body in the woods, and that was the very first thing that came into my head, and everything kind of spread from there. Ezekiel Marrs was first called Simon something, and it went through umpteen different names, and I liked the Ezekiel because of the biblical parlance there and then Marrs because it's out there. So I like the idea of that name, and it's fairly unique, which was the other thing I was looking for. The character kind of grew out from himself. It was kind of interesting how that occurred.
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    Less than 1 minute