23Jul/21

Marco Carocari

Featured Guest, , , , ,

July 23, 2021

It gives us great pleasure to welcome Marco Carocari as the guest on Season 6, Episode 29 – A Dare To Myself!

Marco Carocari joins the show with his first novel, Blackout. He had challenged himself to write a crime thriller with a gay protagonist that wasn’t about being gay, and he delivered a beach read that’s rich with characters you could expect to meet in life.

Follow Marco and support his work:

Mentioned in this episode:

Bio:

Marco Carocari grew up in Switzerland, where he, over the past fifty-odd years, worked in a hardware store, traveled the globe working for the airlines, and later as an internationally published photographer, and frequently jobbed as a waiter, hotel receptionist, or manager of a professional photo studio. In 2016 he swapped snow-capped mountains, lakes, and lush, green pastures for the charm of the dry California desert, where he lives with his husband. ‘Blackout’ is his first novel.

This Podcast episode is available on these channels (in order alphabetical):
Apple PodcastsGoogle PlayiHeartRadioSpotifyStitcherTuneIn

Or Listen Right Here:

OR Watch on YouTube:

16Jul/21

Jennifer Hanlon Wilde

Featured Guest, , , , , , ,

July 16, 2021

It gives us great pleasure to welcome Jennifer Hanlon Wilde as the guest on Season 6, Episode 28 – He Is Not A Plot Device!

Jennifer Hanlon Wilde shares her debut novel Finding the Vein – a crime read about murder at a summer camp for adopted kids. We discuss how important it is for children to be with other children with shared histories, and her inclusion of a trans character!

Follow Jennifer and support her work:

Mentioned in this episode:

Bio:

Jennifer Hanlon Wilde lives and writes in Oregon. She is a nurse practitioner and teacher who thinks of her work as opening a kind of map to study the well-worn places where storytelling intersects with health. She also enjoys real maps, traveling the world with her family, and, as a doctoral student at Washington State University, nerding out over global health data. A robust community theater and music scene, acres of orchards, and unparalleled local cider and beer have made it a joy to put down roots in the Columbia River Gorge, but being a Red Sox fan is in her DNA.

This Podcast episode is available on these channels (in order alphabetical):
Apple PodcastsGoogle PlayiHeartRadioSpotifyStitcherTuneIn

Or Listen Right Here:

OR Watch on YouTube:

09Jul/21

Chris Bedell

Featured Guest, , , , , , , , , , ,

July 9, 2021

It gives us great pleasure to welcome Chris Bedell back as the guest on Season 6, Episode 27 – You Know What Happens At Parties

Chris Bedell returns to discuss his novel Love Him/Hate Him and the real-life themes and difficulties he wove into this novel.

Follow Chris and support his work:

Mentioned in this episode:

Bio:

Chris Bedell is an author who is chasing his dreams of being a tv writer and actor.

This Podcast episode is available on these channels (in order alphabetical):
Apple PodcastsGoogle PlayiHeartRadioSpotifyStitcherTuneIn

Or Listen Right Here:

OR Watch on YouTube:

September 27, 2019


It gives us great pleasure to welcome Chris Bedell back as the guest on Episode 235 – Like High School on Steroids!

Chris Bedell returns to share his upcoming release, Deathly Desires, and then joins a conversation about YA Paranormal Romance/Thrillers and writing for magazines!

Follow Chris and support his work:

Books mentioned in this episode:

Bio:

Chris’s previous publishing credits include Thought Catalog, Crab Fat Literary Magazine, Quail Bell Magazine, Pidgeonholes Magazine, Abbreviate Journal, Short-Story.me, Foliate Oak Literary Magazine, Chicago Literati, The Vignette Review, Teleport Magazine, Entropy Magazine, Inklette Magazine, Sprout Magazine, and The Drunken Odyssey. He’s also a contributing blog writer to Moledro Magazine and YAtopia. He graduated with a BA in Creative Writing from Fairleigh Dickinson University in May of 2016.

This Podcast episode is available on these channels (in order alphabetical):
Apple PodcastsGoogle PlayiHeartRadioSpotifyStitcherTuneIn

Or right here:

August 17, 2018

It gives us great pleasure to welcome Chris Bedell as the guest on Episode 177 – I Know How to Tease A Little Bit!!

Chris Bedell joins us to discuss his upcoming release In the Name of Magic – a Y/A dystopian fantasy set in an earth-like 1920s – as well as discussing the craft of writing for a Young Adult audience.

Follow Chris and support his work:

Bio:

Chris Bedell’s previous publishing credits include Thought Catalog, Entropy Magazine, and Foliate Oak Literary Magazine to name several examples. His debut YA Fantasy novel In the Name of Magic is forthcoming from NineStar Press and is the first book in a trilogy. Furthermore, Chris sold a second series to NineStar Press. A YA Sci-Fi Thriller series that can be described as Adam Silvera’s More Happy Than Not meets Arrow, and involves cryogenics and superheroes.

This Podcast episode is available on these channels (in order alphabetical):
Apple PodcastsGoogle PlayiHeartRadioSpotifyStitcherTuneIn

Or right here:

18Jun/21

D’yan Forest

Featured Guest, , , , ,

June 18, 2021

It gives us great pleasure to welcome D’yan Forest and Stephen Clarke as the guests on Season 6, Episode 24 – Try Thinking The D’yan Way!

D’yan Forest & Stephen Clarke join us to talk about living a full life, creating both stand-up and written comedy, their co-authored memoir “I Did It My Ways” and asking the difficult questions.

Follow D’yan and support her work:

Follow Stephen and support his work:

Mentioned in this episode:

Bio:

D’yan Forest has always done things her way – or her ways, because she’s lived a dozen different lives. She’s been a desperate Boston housewife, a New York night-club singer and a Paris swinger. She’s been the only Jewish girl in a Christian choir and the female pianist in a transvestite cabaret. She had day jobs teaching basketball, piano and sex education. She dated Paris’s second-ever female bus driver, a transsexual rock guitarist and a defrocked nun. She also managed to get German friends to visit Nazi concentration camps, on her personal quest to understand why her European relatives were massacred. At 86, D’yan is still a working stand-up comedian and musician, but she’s much, much more than that, as her hilarious but heartfelt memoir reveals.

Stephen Clarke grew up in Bournemouth (the Bondi Beach of England), where he played bass in some of the worst rock bands in musical history before leaving town to study French and German at Oxford. After university, he got a series of high-powered jobs – in the wine industry (grape picking), tertiary sector (washing up in a German hotel), and in international diplomacy (teaching English to bored French businessmen). Meanwhile I started writing novels, all of which remained unpublished due to a vast – and never before revealed – conspiracy in the global publishing industry. Deciding to self-publish, his Paul West series includes a sequel to a sequel. Stephen also does his bit for non-fiction, though still through his delightful comedic lens.

This Podcast episode is available on these channels (in order alphabetical):
Apple PodcastsGoogle PlayiHeartRadioSpotifyStitcherTuneIn

Or Listen Right Here:

OR Watch on YouTube:

18Jun/21

Stephen Clarke

Featured Guest, , , , ,

June 18, 2021

It gives us great pleasure to welcome D’yan Forest and Stephen Clarke as the guests on Season 6, Episode 24 – Try Thinking The D’yan Way!

D’yan Forest & Stephen Clarke join us to talk about living a full life, creating both stand-up and written comedy, their co-authored memoir “I Did It My Ways” and asking the difficult questions.

Follow D’yan and support her work:

Follow Stephen and support his work:

Mentioned in this episode:

Bio:

D’yan Forest has always done things her way – or her ways, because she’s lived a dozen different lives. She’s been a desperate Boston housewife, a New York night-club singer and a Paris swinger. She’s been the only Jewish girl in a Christian choir and the female pianist in a transvestite cabaret. She had day jobs teaching basketball, piano and sex education. She dated Paris’s second-ever female bus driver, a transsexual rock guitarist and a defrocked nun. She also managed to get German friends to visit Nazi concentration camps, on her personal quest to understand why her European relatives were massacred. At 86, D’yan is still a working stand-up comedian and musician, but she’s much, much more than that, as her hilarious but heartfelt memoir reveals.

Stephen Clarke grew up in Bournemouth (the Bondi Beach of England), where he played bass in some of the worst rock bands in musical history before leaving town to study French and German at Oxford. After university, he got a series of high-powered jobs – in the wine industry (grape picking), tertiary sector (washing up in a German hotel), and in international diplomacy (teaching English to bored French businessmen). Meanwhile I started writing novels, all of which remained unpublished due to a vast – and never before revealed – conspiracy in the global publishing industry. Deciding to self-publish, his Paul West series includes a sequel to a sequel. Stephen also does his bit for non-fiction, though still through his delightful comedic lens.

This Podcast episode is available on these channels (in order alphabetical):
Apple PodcastsGoogle PlayiHeartRadioSpotifyStitcherTuneIn

Or Listen Right Here:

OR Watch on YouTube:

11Jun/21

Peter M. Krask

Featured Guest, , , , ,

June 11, 2021

It gives us great pleasure to welcome Peter M. Krask as the guest on Season 6, Episode 23 – Who Are You Going To Be?

Peter M. Krask, the “Project Whisperer” shares his love of the creative process and nurturing creative artists by introducing us to The Creativity Guide. We cover the necessity of artistic expression, ways to work through creative blocks and stuck points, and discuss ways to view creative feedback.

Follow Peter and support his work:

Follow The Creativity Guide:

Mentioned in this episode:

Bio:

PETER M. KRASK is an artist based in New York City whose practice is concentrated in photography and writing. Krask has studied at the International Center of Photography and worked privately with photographer Carol Dragon. His non-fiction essay, The Question I Asked Him, opens the anthology The Man I Might Become and his memoir, The Way the Stars Come Home, was included in the anthology Wrestling with the Angel. He has written features and criticism for The Baltimore Sun, The City Paper, and The Boston Phoenix.

Krask is the librettist of the opera With Blood, With Ink, which received its acclaimed professional premiere at the Fort Worth Opera Festival, and has been twice featured on New York City Opera’s VOX festival, and produced by universities around the country.

Peter holds a Master’s Degree in Critical Studies from the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University.

Krask is the Founder and Creative Director of The Creativity Guide which was launched in 2019. He is returning as a Dedicated Mentor at the New Museum in New York City for their New Inc. Program. A frequent podcast guest, he has recently been heard discussing creative entrepreneurship on Queer Money and the intersections of LGBT spirituality and creativity as they connect with questions of personal and communal desire on The Forbidden Apple.

This Podcast episode is available on these channels (in order alphabetical):
Apple PodcastsGoogle PlayiHeartRadioSpotifyStitcherTuneIn

Or Listen Right Here:

OR Watch on YouTube:

04Jun/21

Brenda Murphy, Megan Hart, & Fiona Zedde

Featured Guest, , , , , , ,

June 4, 2021

It gives us great pleasure to welcome Brenda Murphy, Megan Hart, & Fiona Zedde as the guest on Season 6, Episode 22 – Worthy of a Sheet Protector!

Brenda Murphy, Megan Hart, and Fiona Zedde join us for a hilarious unveiling of their new book of three individual novellas that are bound together, Love, Blood, and Sanctuary. The innuendos, double entendres and comedic riffs happen so fast with this episode, we could almost classify it as a “jam session!”

Follow Brenda and support her work:

Follow Megan and support her work:

Follow Fiona and support her work:

Mentioned in this episode:

Bio:

Brenda Murphy (she/her) writes erotic romance. You can catch her musings on writing, books, and living with wicked ADHD on her blog Writing While Distracted. She loves sideshows and tattoos and yes, those are her monkeys. When she is not loitering at her local library, she wrangles twins, one dog, and an unrepentant parrot.

Megan Hart writes books. Some of them use bad words, but most of the other words are okay. Some of them hit bestseller lists and win awards and some don’t, but that’s the way it goes. She can’t live without music, the internet, or the ocean, but she and soda have achieved an amicable uncoupling. She loathes the feeling of corduroy or velvet, and modern art leaves her cold. She writes a little bit of everything from horror to romance, though she’s best known for writing steamy fiction that sometimes makes you cry.

Fiona Zedde was born under the Jamaican sun but now makes her home in Spain. Since getting the writing bug, she’s published around thirty books and short stories, mostly about black queer romance. At this very second, she’s probably writing another book, and it has 100 percent chance of having queer romance and queer women in it. Her pseudo-healthy obsessions are French pastries, English cars, and Jamaican food.

This Podcast episode is available on these channels (in order alphabetical):
Apple PodcastsGoogle PlayiHeartRadioSpotifyStitcherTuneIn

Or Listen Right Here:

OR Watch on YouTube:

04Jun/21

Fiona Zedde

Featured Guest, , , , , , ,

June 4, 2021

It gives us great pleasure to welcome Brenda Murphy, Megan Hart, & Fiona Zedde as the guest on Season 6, Episode 22 – Worthy of a Sheet Protector!

Brenda Murphy, Megan Hart, and Fiona Zedde join us for a hilarious unveiling of their new book of three individual novellas that are bound together, Love, Blood, and Sanctuary. The innuendos, double entendres and comedic riffs happen so fast with this episode, we could almost classify it as a “jam session!”

Follow Brenda and support her work:

Follow Megan and support her work:

Follow Fiona and support her work:

Mentioned in this episode:

Bio:

Brenda Murphy (she/her) writes erotic romance. You can catch her musings on writing, books, and living with wicked ADHD on her blog Writing While Distracted. She loves sideshows and tattoos and yes, those are her monkeys. When she is not loitering at her local library, she wrangles twins, one dog, and an unrepentant parrot.

Megan Hart writes books. Some of them use bad words, but most of the other words are okay. Some of them hit bestseller lists and win awards and some don’t, but that’s the way it goes. She can’t live without music, the internet, or the ocean, but she and soda have achieved an amicable uncoupling. She loathes the feeling of corduroy or velvet, and modern art leaves her cold. She writes a little bit of everything from horror to romance, though she’s best known for writing steamy fiction that sometimes makes you cry.

Fiona Zedde was born under the Jamaican sun but now makes her home in Spain. Since getting the writing bug, she’s published around thirty books and short stories, mostly about black queer romance. At this very second, she’s probably writing another book, and it has 100 percent chance of having queer romance and queer women in it. Her pseudo-healthy obsessions are French pastries, English cars, and Jamaican food.

This Podcast episode is available on these channels (in order alphabetical):
Apple PodcastsGoogle PlayiHeartRadioSpotifyStitcherTuneIn

Or Listen Right Here:

OR Watch on YouTube:

04Jun/21

Megan Hart

Featured Guest, , ,

June 4, 2021

It gives us great pleasure to welcome Brenda Murphy, Megan Hart, & Fiona Zedde as the guest on Season 6, Episode 22 – Worthy of a Sheet Protector!

Brenda Murphy, Megan Hart, and Fiona Zedde join us for a hilarious unveiling of their new book of three individual novellas that are bound together, Love, Blood, and Sanctuary. The innuendos, double entendres and comedic riffs happen so fast with this episode, we could almost classify it as a “jam session!”

Follow Brenda and support her work:

Follow Megan and support her work:

Follow Fiona and support her work:

Mentioned in this episode:

Bio:

Brenda Murphy (she/her) writes erotic romance. You can catch her musings on writing, books, and living with wicked ADHD on her blog Writing While Distracted. She loves sideshows and tattoos and yes, those are her monkeys. When she is not loitering at her local library, she wrangles twins, one dog, and an unrepentant parrot.

Megan Hart writes books. Some of them use bad words, but most of the other words are okay. Some of them hit bestseller lists and win awards and some don’t, but that’s the way it goes. She can’t live without music, the internet, or the ocean, but she and soda have achieved an amicable uncoupling. She loathes the feeling of corduroy or velvet, and modern art leaves her cold. She writes a little bit of everything from horror to romance, though she’s best known for writing steamy fiction that sometimes makes you cry.

Fiona Zedde was born under the Jamaican sun but now makes her home in Spain. Since getting the writing bug, she’s published around thirty books and short stories, mostly about black queer romance. At this very second, she’s probably writing another book, and it has 100 percent chance of having queer romance and queer women in it. Her pseudo-healthy obsessions are French pastries, English cars, and Jamaican food.

This Podcast episode is available on these channels (in order alphabetical):
Apple PodcastsGoogle PlayiHeartRadioSpotifyStitcherTuneIn

Or Listen Right Here:

OR Watch on YouTube:

January 31, 2020


It gives us great pleasure to welcome Brenda Murphy and Megan Hart as the guests on Episode 253 – Intimacy With My Imaginary Friends!

Brenda Murphy and Megan Hart join us to discuss their duology release, Soul Burn, and how the team-up happened thanks to a fun road trip!

Books mentioned in this episode:

Follow Megan and support her work:

Follow Brenda and support her work:

Bio:

Megan Hart writes books. Some of them might break your heart a little, but she promises you, it will all be okay.
She loves: glitter, zombies, rainbows, unicorns, breakfast, diners, singing, dancing, reading, movies, hummingbirds, SeaMonkeys, tattoos, bees, octopuses, breakfast, the ocean, whiskey, onion rings, roses and the smell of rain on the summer pavement.
Occasionally, she takes a selfie. Or ten. She also writes under the name Mina Hardy.

Brenda Murphy writes short fiction and novels. She loves tattoos and sideshows and yes, those are her monkeys. When she is not loitering at her local library and writing, she wrangles two kids, one dog, and an unrepentant parrot. She reviews books, blogs about life as a writer with ADHD and publishes photographs on her blog Writing While Distracted.

This Podcast episode is available on these channels (in order alphabetical):
Apple PodcastsGoogle PlayiHeartRadioSpotifyStitcherTuneIn

Or right here:

26May/21

Review – The Called by M.D. Neu

Review, , , , , ,

M.D. Neu was interviewed on WROTE in February 2021. To find out more about him and his work, check out Episode 308 – Oh God What Was I Thinking?

I read The Calling back in 2018, so I had to play a bit of catch up to grasp The Called, which is the second book in the series. Duncan, as referred to in the blurb for The Calling, is now Chris, as he had to leave his old life behind once becoming one of the Immortals.

This is an enjoyable second instalment, with Chris finding out who his real friends are and his burgeoning relationship with Kirtus happening quietly in the wings. In fact, the whole book is subtly done, without the brash colour of the first novel. The plot could also have been tightened up a little. It could be confusing at times and when that happened, I struggled to remain engaged with the story.

The story is much more character- than action-driven, and the characters are very likeable, with chemistry between the leads and a strong sense of the practicalities of being a vampire, without a sparkle in sight.

Although the tension could have been ramped up more, and it all felt somewhat low-key and a bit dour in parts, there’s a wry sense of humour running through the book, again so subtle some might miss it. I can’t help help thinking the author needs to shake loose a little and allow themselves to go all out, as the overall tone felt restrained. However, I’ll be very interested to see what happens next.

BLURB

The world is changing quickly for Chris now that he’s part of the Immortal Community. With the events of his past finally behind him, he’s still having visions and true magic is gradually taking hold in the world. Chris is still new and has no real standing in the Immortal Community, but he is learning that nothing is what he thought.

Old enemies must work together and longtime friends may not be trustworthy. With Juliet, Amanda, and Kirtus by his side, they have to prevent the immortal and witch community from being exposed.

New friendships are made, and longtime alliances are called into question. How will The Called defeat these latest threats, and what does it mean for the world?