Your backstage pass to the world’s most prolific authors
What does it take to succeed as a writer? Join hosts J.D. Barker, Christine Daigle, Kevin Tumlinson and Jena Brown as they pull back the curtain and gain rare insight from the household names found on bookshelves worldwide.
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Join hosts Christine Daigle, Jena Brown, Kevin Tumlinson, and Dick Wybrow as they discuss the week’s entertainment news, including stories about Substack, scams, fake reviews, Audible, and AI translation. Then, stick around for a chat with Anthony Horowitz!
Anthony Horowitz is one of the most prolific and successful writers working in the UK – and is unique for working across so many media. Anthony is a born polymath; juggling writing books, TV series, films, plays and journalism. Anthony has written over 50 books including the bestselling teen spy series Alex Rider, which is estimated to have sold 21 million copies worldwide and has been turned into a hugely successful TV series by Amazon Freevee. A third series has just been filmed and the fourteenth Alex Rider novel, Nightshade: Revenge will be published in 2023.
Anthony is also an acclaimed writer for adults and was commissioned to write two new Sherlock Holmes novels The House of Silk and Moriarty. He was commissioned by the Ian Fleming Estate to write continuation novels for James Bond with Trigger Mortis and Forever and Day, published in 2015 and 2018 respectively. A third novel in the series With a Mind to Kill was published in May 2022.
Anthony is responsible for creating and writing some of the UK’s most beloved and successful television series, producing the first seven episodes (and the title) of Midsomer Murders. He is the writer and creator of award-winning drama series Foyle’s War, which was the Winner of the Lew Grade Audience award for BAFTA. DCS Foyle was voted the nation’s favourite detective in 2011. Anthony has also written other original complex dramas for ITV, particularly thrillers. Collision, a major five part “state of the nation” piece was transmitted on ITV1 in November 2009 to seven million viewers a night. He followed this with the equally successful legal thriller Injustice, also for ITV 1 – transmitted in June 2011. Foyle’s War returned in March 2013 as a Cold War thriller and was greeted with such critical acclaim and demands for more that he wrote one final series, bringing the show to an end in January 2015. Anthony’s series, New Blood, premiered on the BBC in 2016.
Join hosts J.D. Barker, Christine Daigle, Jena Brown, and Kevin Tumlinson as they discuss the week’s entertainment news, including stories about A Million Lives Book Festival, Findaway’s INaudio, and Agatha Christie. Then, stick around for a chat with Joe Abercrombie!
Joe Abercrombie was born in Lancaster, England, on the last day of 1974. He was educated at the stiflingly all-boy Lancaster Royal Grammar School, where he spent much of his time playing video games, rolling dice, and drawing maps of places that don’t exist. He went on to Manchester University to study Psychology. The dice and the maps stopped, but the video games continued. Having long dreamed of single-handedly redefining the fantasy genre, he started to write an epic trilogy based around the misadventures of thinking man’s barbarian Logen Ninefingers. The result was pompous toss, and swiftly abandoned.
Joe then moved to London, lived in a slum with two men on the borders of madness, and found work making tea for minimum wage at a TV Post-Production company. Two years later he left to become a freelance film editor, and has worked since on a range of documentaries, awards shows, music videos, and concerts for artists ranging from Barry White to Coldplay.
This job gave him lots of time off, and realising that he needed something more useful to do than playing video games, in 2001 he sat down once again to write an epic fantasy trilogy based around the misadventures of thinking man’s barbarian Logen Ninefingers. This time, having learned not to take himself too seriously in the six years since the first effort, the results were a great deal more interesting.
With heroic help and support from his family the first volume, The Blade Itself, was completed in 2004. Following a heart-breaking trail of rejection at the hands of several of Britain’s foremost literary agencies, The First Law trilogy was snatched up by Gillian Redfearn of Gollancz in 2005 in a seven-figure deal (if you count the pence columns). A year later The Blade Itself was unleashed on an unsuspecting public. It now has publishers in thirty countries. The sequels, Before They are Hanged and Last Argument of Kings were published in 2007 and 2008, when Joe was a finalist for the John W. Campbell award for best new writer. Best Served Cold, a standalone book set in the same world, was published in June 2009, and a second standalone, The Heroes, came in January 2011 and made no. 3 on the Sunday Times Hardcover Bestseller List. A third standalone, Red Country, was both a Sunday Times and New York Times Hardcover Bestseller in October 2012.
The first part of his viking-inspired Shattered Sea series for young and old adults, Half a King, came out in July 2014, when it won the Locus award for best young adult novel. The other two books, Half the World, and Half a War, followed in January and July 2015.
His collection of short fiction, Sharp Ends was published in 2016. A new trilogy set in the world of the First Law, The Age of Madness, began in September 2019 with A Little Hatred. The Trouble with Peace followed in September 2020, and the final part, The Wisdom of Crowds in September 2021. The first book in a new series, The Devils, will publish in May 2025.
Joe now lives in Bath with his wife, Lou, his daughters Grace and Eve, and his son Teddy. He spends most of his time writing edgy yet humorous fantasy novels…
Join hosts J.D. Barker, Christine Daigle, Jena Brown, and Kevin Tumlinson as they discuss the week’s entertainment news, including stories about Netgalley, ChatGPT, and Spotify. Then, stick around for a chat with Stephen Graham Jones!
Stephen Graham Jones is the NYT bestselling author of 35 or so books, +350 stories, some comic books, and all this stuff here. He lives in Boulder, Colorado, and has a few broken-down old trucks, one PhD, and way too many boots. More here.
Join hosts J.D. Barker, Christine Daigle, Jena Brown, and Kevin Tumlinson as they discuss the week’s entertainment news, including stories about ElevenLabs, Spotify’s AI Audiobooks, and publishing cyber attacks. Then, stick around for a chat with Steve Berry!
Steve Berry is the New York Times and #1 internationally bestselling author of twenty-four novels. His books have been translated into 41 languages with over 25,000,000 copies in 52 countries. They consistently appear in the top echelon of The New York Times,USA Today, and Indie bestseller lists. Somewhere in the world, every thirty seconds, one of his novels is sold.
Join hosts J.D. Barker, Christine Daigle, Jena Brown, and Kevin Tumlinson as they discuss the week’s entertainment news, including stories about the ‘copyrightability’ of AI works, NetGalley, and Kindle Vella. Then, stick around for a chat with Tod Lending!
Tod Lending – Academy Award™-nominated and Emmy-winning filmmaker Mr. Lending has spent nearly four decades creating documentaries that illuminate the human capacity for resilience amid adversity. Now a debut novelist, he brings his deep storytelling instincts to the written page, exploring moral dilemmas and the lingering shadows of persecution in his upcoming work.
Join hosts J.D. Barker, Christine Daigle, and Kevin Tumlinson as they discuss the week’s entertainment news, including stories about TikTok uncertainty, Apple’s AI, and Instagram Reels. Then, stick around for a chat with Joseph Finder!
Joseph Finder is the New York Times bestselling author of 17 suspense novels, most recently the forthcoming The Oligarch’s Daughter. His most recently published novel House On Fire is the fourth featuring “private spy” Nick Heller. His books have won numerous awards, including the Strand Critics Award for Best Novel for Buried Secrets (2011), the International Thriller Writers Award for Best Novel for Killer Instinct (2006) and the Barry Award for Best Thriller for Company Man (2005). The Boston Globe has called him a “master of the modern thriller.” Two of his novels have been made into major motion pictures, including High Crimes, adapted into the hit 2002 movie starring Ashley Judd and Morgan Freeman; and Paranoia, the 2013 film starring Harrison Ford, Gary Oldman, and Liam Hemsworth. A founding member of the International Thriller Writers, as well as a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Association of Former Intelligence Officers. Joe is a graduate of Yale and the Harvard Russian Research Center. He lives in Boston.
Join hosts J.D. Barker, Christine Daigle, Jena Brown, and A.I. Kevin Tumlinson as they discuss the week’s entertainment news, including stories about Esquire layoffs, Costco books, Spotify analytics, and PRH. Then, stick around for a chat with Katie Tallo!
Katie Tallo: For three decades, Katie has been an award-winning screenwriter and director, collaborating on projects in animation, television and motion pictures. After winning an international novel contest for women writers in 2013, Katie landed a publishing deal for her debut novel. The thriller Dark August is set in the Wellington West neighbourhood where she lives. The novel became an international bestseller and was chosen as an Apple Book of the Month and New York Times Editor’s Choice. It inspired a trilogy including the follow-up, Poison Lilies, which brings Augusta and Levi back for another cold case when a body emerges from a frozen pond, and the final installment, Buried Road, which tumbles forward more than a decade to find Gus and her daughter, Bly, on a precarious road trip to find a missing person. Katie is currently working on a new mystery thriller.
Join hosts J.D. Barker, Christine Daigle, Dick Wybrow, and Kevin Tumlinson as they discuss the week’s entertainment news, including stories about Harper’s new deal, Amazon’s response to Spotify’s free audiobooks, and NBN’s closing. Then, stick around for a chat with Dennis E. Taylor!
Dennis E. Taylor: My name is Dennis Taylor. I share that distinction with several other authors and a couple of musicians, unfortunately. Which is why I’m using Dennis E. Taylor. No, not Dennise Taylor, dangit 🙂. I am a retired computer programmer, snowboarder, mountain-biker, runner, and now author. I hope my novels will give you a few hours of entertainment and escape. I’m open to suggestions, comments, ideas, or whatever.
Join hosts J.D. Barker, Christine Daigle, Jena Brown, James Blatch, and Kevin Tumlinson as they discuss the week’s entertainment news, including stories about renting shelves in bookstores, BQE Press Launches, the 2024 Goodreads Choice Awards, and self-publishing’s growing influence. Then, stick around for live questions at Author Nation!
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Join hosts Christine Daigle and Kevin Tumlinson as they discuss the week’s entertainment news, including stories about celebrity novels, Netflix, Kindle Colorsoft, and an AI-invented Halloween parade. Then, stick around for a chat with Leah Paulos!
Join hosts J.D. Barker, Christine Daigle, Kevin Tumlinson, and Jena Brown as they discuss the week’s entertainment news, including stories about Kindle Vella, Penguin Random House, and midnight release parties. Then, stick around for a chat with J.T. Ellison!
Join hosts J.D. Barker, Christine Daigle, Kevin Tumlinson, and Jena Brown as they discuss the week’s entertainment news, including TikTok, Audible’s AI voice replica service, and James Blatch’s new podcast. Then, stick around for a chat with Taylor Moore!
Taylor Moore – “I’m often asked how I ended up at the CIA, a question to which there are more than a few answers. But what I think people really want to know is what edged a regular guy like me out of the light and into the shadows of the intelligence world: a what makes you tick kind of thing.
It’s a question I can answer in one single phrase—passion for adventure.
This is the same passion that drew me to childhood heroes like Indiana Jones, James Bond, and Jack Ryan. This quest for adventure propelled me on a solo journey at the age of twenty-four through the jungles of Bolivia, over the Andes, and across the raging Drake Passage on a Russian icebreaker to Antarctica.
And it’s the same passion I have now that spurs me to write thriller novels and action-adventure stories.
We may grow up, but we don’t have to give in. No matter our age or what we do, a good passion for adventure never dies. And if you’re like me and you’re searching for the next one, then look no further. You’ve arrived.”
Join hosts J.D. Barker, Christine Daigle, Kevin Tumlinson, and Jena Brown as they discuss the week’s entertainment news, including Canva, AI, and The Black List. Then, stick around for a chat with Stella Sands!
Stella Sands is the bestselling author of six true-crime books: Baby-Faced Butchers, The Dating Game Killer, Behind the Mask, Murder at Yale, Wealthy Men Only, and The Good Son. She is also the author of a children’s book, Odyssea, and many educational books, and served as the Editor-in-Chief of the award-winning magazine Kids Discover for nineteen years. She has appeared on numerous television shows, including People Magazine Investigates, ABC’s 20/20, and several episodes of Investigation Discovery. Her plays, Lou Passin’ Through, Black-eyed Peas, and E-me, have been produced in Off-Off Broadway theaters in New York City.Sands lives in Sag Harbor, New York.
Join hosts J.D. Barker, Christine Daigle, Kevin Tumlinson, and Jena Brown as they discuss the week’s entertainment news, including Sherryl Clark’s Amazon deal, Anthropic’s AI lawsuit, and ElevenLabs’ new app. Then, stick around for a chat with S.B. Caves!
Born and raised in North London, S.B. Caves is the international bestselling author of A Killer Came Knocking and I Know Where She Is, which The Sun described as ‘sinister, unsettling and gripping’. His new high concept thriller novel, Honeycomb, will be published by Datura Books on July 9, 2024. He now lives in South London with his wife and two sons.
Join hosts J.D. Barker, Christine Daigle, Kevin Tumlinson, and Jena Brown as they discuss the week’s entertainment news. Then, stick around for a chat with Karin Slaughter!
Karin Slaughter is one of the world’s most popular and acclaimed storytellers. Sheis the author of more than twenty instant New York Times bestselling novels, including the Edgar–nominated Cop Townand standalone novels Pretty Girls, The Good Daughter, and Pieces of Her. She is published in 120 countries with more than 40 million copies sold across the globe. Pieces of Heris a #1 Netflix original series starring Toni Collette, and WILL TRENT, based on her Will Trent series, is on ABC (and streaming on Hulu in the U.S. and Disney+ internationally). False Witness and The Good Daughter are in development for television. Slaughter is the founder of the Save the Libraries project—a nonprofit organization established to support libraries and library programming. A native of Georgia, she lives in Atlanta.
Join hosts J.D. Barker, Christine Daigle, Kevin Tumlinson, and Jena Brown as they discuss the week’s entertainment news, including: “CCC Announces Collective Solution for Internal AI Licenses,” “Audible Rolls Out New Royalty Plan,” and “Hachette Reorgs Workman, Moves Algonquin into Little, Brown.” Then, stick around for a chat with Katherine Wood!
Katherine Wood – QUICK FACTS:
Hometown: Jackson, Mississippi
University: University of Southern California
Current city: Atlanta, Georgia
Lived the longest in: Los Angeles, CA
Favorite city: Barcelona, Spain
Favorite food: dark chocolate
Favorite drink: Aperol spritz
Favorite holiday: Halloween
Loves: yoga, hiking, travel, words, house music, sunshine, red lipstick, modern art, fireworks, laughter
Family: husband, two daughters, a naughty pug, a ferocious kitty
‘Flatliners Resurrection’ Poised To Test Genre IP Frenzy With J.D. Barker Novel – https://deadline.com/2024/07/flatliners-resurrection-novel-tests-genre-ip-frenzy-jd-barker-1236013981/
International Bestselling Author J.D. Barker Tapped to Reboot the Flatliners Franchise with a New Novel – https://www.morningstar.com/news/globe-newswire/9177833/international-bestselling-author-jd-barker-tapped-to-reboot-the-flatliners-franchise-with-a-new-novel
International Bestselling Author J.D. Barker Tapped to Reboot the Flatliners Franchise with a New Novel – https://finance.yahoo.com/news/international-bestselling-author-j-d-141300897.html
International Bestselling Author J.D. Barker Tapped to Reboot the Flatliners Franchise with a New Novel – https://www.bakersfield.com/ap/news/international-bestselling-author-j-d-barker-tapped-to-reboot-the-flatliners-franchise-with-a/article_762c4a37-9fa1-58fb-82ce-994b5891c793.html
J.D. BARKER SET TO BREATHE NEW LIFE INTO ‘FLATLINERS’ – https://www.horrornewsnetwork.net/j-d-barker-set-to-breathe-new-life-into-flatliners/
Flatliners Resurrection’ – New Novel Will Adapt the Original Script for 1990 Movie – IMDb – https://m.imdb.com/news/ni64707608/?ref_=nm_nwr_1
‘Flatliners Resurrection’ – New Novel Will Adapt the Original Script for 1990 Movie – https://bloody-disgusting.com/books/3820900/flatliners-resurrection-new-novel-will-adapt-the-original-script-for-1990-movie/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=flatliners-resurrection-new-novel-will-adapt-the-original-script-for-1990-movie
Flatliners Resurrection novel puts a twist on the original Flatliners story – https://www.joblo.com/flatliners-resurrection-novel/
Author J.D. Barker to Write Novel That Tells New Story Based on the 1990 Thriller FLATLINERS – https://geektyrant.com/news/author-jd-barker-to-write-novel-that-tells-new-story-based-on-the-1990-thriller-flatliners
‘Flatliners Resurrection’ Poised To Test Genre IP Frenzy With J.D. Barker Novel – https://m.imdb.com/news/ni64707517/?ref_=nws_nwr_li
Join hosts J.D. Barker, Christine Daigle, Kevin Tumlinson, and Jena Brown as they discuss the week’s entertainment news, including Barnes & Noble purchasing Tattered Cover, how you can read classics with A.I. guides, Saturday Books’ new launch, and how authors seek help to plug their own books. Then, stick around for a chat with Ace Atkins!
Ace Atkins is an award-winning, New York Times bestselling author who started his writing career as a crime beat reporter in Florida. Don’t Let the Devil Ride is his thirtieth novel. His previous novels include eleven books in the Quinn Colson series and multiple true-crime novels based on infamous crooks and killers. In 2010, he was chosen by Robert B. Parker’s family to continue the iconic Spenser series, adding ten novels to the franchise. He lives in Oxford, Mississippi with his family.
Join hosts J.D. Barker, Christine Daigle, Jena Brown, and Kevin Tumlinson as they discuss the week’s entertainment news, including the Amazon Audible Audiobook Antitrust, Microsoft’s AI deal with UAE, the 2024 U.S. Book Show, and Beventi. Then, stick around for a chat with Ellery Lloyd!
Ellery Lloyd – Collette Lyons and Paul Vlitos
Collette Lyons is a journalist and editor, the former content director of Elle (UK) and editorial director at Soho House. She has written for The Guardian, The Telegraph, and the Sunday Times.
Paul Vlitos is the author of two previous novels, Welcome to the Working Week and Every Day is Like Sunday. He is the program director for English Literature with Creative Writing at the University of Surrey.
Join hosts J.D. Barker, Christine Daigle, Jena Brown and Kevin Tumlinson as they discuss the week’s entertainment news, including the world’s first book with a ‘NO-AI’ warranty, how you can clone your voice for audio production, and the prison book program. Then, stick around for a chat with author Sarina Bowen!
Sarina Bowen is a 24-time USA Today bestselling author, and a Wall Street Journal bestselling author of contemporary romance novels. Formerly a derivatives trader on Wall Street, Sarina holds a BA in economics from Yale University.
A New Englander whose Vermont ancestors cut timber and farmed the north country in the 1760s, Sarina is grateful for the invention of indoor plumbing and wi-fi during the intervening 250 years. She lives with her family on a few wooded acres in New Hampshire.
Sarina’s books are published in over a dozen languages with fifteen international publishers.
Join hosts Christine Daigle, Jena Brown and Kevin Tumlinson as they discuss the week’s entertainment news, including AI that will create audiobooks for foreign titles, Don Winslow’s retirement, and how “no one buys books.” Then, stick around for a chat with AutoCrit’s Daniel Kaplan!
AutoCrit began humbly as the brainchild of an unpublished writer with dreams of becoming an author. She faced a common problem: how could she get expert, unbiased feedback on her writing without breaking the bank? Writers’ groups, critique partners, and other beta readers weren’t at the expert level, and friends and family weren’t unbiased. Getting feedback took time, and the quality of the feedback was hit-or-miss. Hiring a professional editor was an expensive investment, especially for early, unpolished drafts.