This podcast orginally appears on Thrillingreads.com
Oct. 3rd, 2017. Duration: 27 min.
This podcast originally appears on Audiobooks After Dark.
Dec. 6, 2018. Duration: 1 hr 10 min.
Tom has traveled places most people would avoid.
He’s braved the stinging winds of a category four hurricane as it pounded The Gulf of Mexico, living and working without power for days.
He’s picked his way through the Amazon jungle, trekked across the irradiated exclusion zone of Chernobyl, Ukraine, and climbed the crumbling, high-altitude stone steps leading from the barrio Tacubaya, Miguel Hildalgo, in Mexico City.
He’s been evacuated in an ambulance from the barren Badlands of western Canada.
Tom is a veteran television journalist and author who’s spent the last 20-plus years telling the biggest stories of our time.
He’s reported from the East Room of White House and Capitol Hill, interviewed Presidents and presidential candidates, and was at the Pentagon while smoke still rose in the hours after 9/11.
He’s writes post-apocalyptic thrillers, action adventure, and political conspiracies.
Tom lives in the Houston suburbs with his wife, Courtney, and their two children.
I had a career path of radio and TV in the 70s, 80s and 90s and full-time voiceover work after that. Near the end of 2012, I read a blog post that mentioned ACX and I checked it out. Armed with confidence in my related narration and production experience and a copy of the ACX production guidelines, I accepted my first offer, completed the production and got rights-holder and ACX approval. I, Kevin Pierce, was officially an audiobook narrator and producer. For the next 100 days straight (weekends and holidays included), I was in my studio auditioning, reading and producing audiobooks, managing as many as 10 at a time. My Thanksgiving Day schedule was to put two 24-pound turkeys in the oven, read and produce two one-hour chapters, then serve dinner for 50. On Christmas Day, my kids, wife and I opened presents before I started opening audio files. I was the ideal designated driver on New Year’s Eve, because I would be having a Happy New Year’s morning in the audio booth. Best of all is what’s in the amazing books I’ve read: the history of Spain and the military history of Iran, how to give a TED Talk and how to keep a beehive, why filibusters belong in the U.S. Senate and why the American economy might need to stop growing. I’ve channeled a fictional voodoo priest, UFO experiencers and a science fiction protagonist with multiple personality disorder (who had voices in his head, just like me!). I doubt I’ll ever have the chance to test my knowledge against Ken Jennings on Jeopardy! but I will never run out of material at a cocktail party. I’ve had the pleasure of repeat business from publishers like Berrett-Koehler, University Press Audiobooks, Crossroad Press and Callisto Media, as well as a number of authors both self-published and those who have regained audio rights to their previously published works. All the recording was done my own state of the art, room-within-a-room studio, the audio from which, one delighted outside producer called “pristine.” More important, I’ve done enough business (and see enough ahead of me) to be able to move into audiobook narration and production full-time (which provides an answer for the wife and kids to the question, “What exactly does your husband/father do?”). So now, as an Audible-Approved Producer and narrator (a recognition I inquired about and received after I pressed “I’m Done” on number 50), I’m looking forward to the second 50 and the second hundred and the hours and hours of fascinating storytelling in the months and years ahead.
This Podcast originally appears on TheStoryBlender.com Sept. 17, 2018 Duration: 44 min.
This podcast originally appears on www.diymfa.com Sept. 5, 2018. Duration: 46 min.
Steven James is a national bestselling novelist whose award-winning, pulse-pounding thrillers continue to gain wide critical acclaim and a growing fan base.
After consulting with a former undercover FBI agent and doing extensive research on cybercrimes, Steven wrote his latest thriller, EVERY CROOKED PATH–a taut, twist-filled page turner that is available now wherever books are sold.
If you’ve never met environmental criminologist and geospatial investigator Patrick Bowers, EVERY CROOKED PATH is the perfect chance to dive into the series and find out what fans and critics everywhere are raving about.
Suspense Magazine, who named Steven’s book THE BISHOP their Book of the Year, says that he “sets the new standard in suspense writing.” Publishers Weekly calls him a “master storyteller at the peak of his game.” And RT Book Reviews promises, “the nail-biting suspense will rivet you.”
Respected by some of the top thriller writers in the world, Steven deftly weaves intense stories of psychological suspense with deep philosophical insights. As critically-acclaimed novelist Ann Tatlock put it, “Steven James gives us a captivating look at the fine line between good and evil in the human heart.”
This podcast originally appears on thestoryblender.com May 7, 2018. Duration: 60 min.
Bookmonger: John J. Miller interviews Matthew Hennessey to discuss his book, Zero Hour for Gen X.
This podcast appears on National Review Aug. 20, 2018. Duration: 14 min.
In Zero Hour for Gen X, Matthew Hennessey calls on his generation, Generation X, to take a stand against tech-obsessed millennials, apathetic baby boomers, utopian Silicon Valley “visionaries,” and the menace to top them all: the soft totalitarian conspiracy known as the Internet of Things. Soon Gen Xers will be the only cohort of Americans who remember life as it was lived before the arrival of the Internet. They are, as Hennessey dubs them, “the last adult generation,” the sole remaining link to a time when childhood was still a bit dangerous but produced adults who were naturally resilient.
More than a decade into the social media revolution, the American public is waking up to the idea that the tech sector’s intentions might not be as pure as advertised. The mountains of money being made off our browsing habits and purchase histories are used to fund ever-more extravagant and utopian projects that, by their very natures, will corrode the foundations of free society, leaving us all helpless and digitally enslaved to an elite crew of ultra-sophisticated tech geniuses. But it’s not too late to turn the tide. There’s still time for Gen X to write its own future.
A spirited defense of free speech, eye contact, and the virtues of patience, Zero Hour for Gen X is a cultural history of the last 35 years, an analysis of the current social and historical moment, and a generational call to arms.
Matthew Hennessey is an associate op-ed editor at The Wall Street Journal and the author of “Zero Hour for Gen X” (Encounter Books, 2018). He is a graduate of Hunter College (CUNY) and Fordham University. He lives in the New York City area with his wife and their five children.
This podcast originally appears on Diymfa.com July 4, 2018 Duration: 45 min.
Grace Kennan Warnecke’s memoir is about a life lived on the edge of history. Daughter of one of the most influential diplomats of the twentieth century, wife of the scion of a newspaper dynasty and mother of the youngest owner of a major league baseball team, Grace eventually found her way out from under the shadows of others to forge a dynamic career of her own.
Born in Latvia, Grace lived in seven countries and spoke five languages before the age of eleven. As a child, she witnessed Hitler’s march into Prague, attended a Soviet school during World War II, and sailed the seas with her father. In a multi-faceted career, she worked as a professional photographer, television producer, and book editor and critic. Eventually, like her father, she became a Russian specialist, but of a very different kind. She accompanied Ted Kennedy and his family to Russia, escorted Joan Baez to Moscow to meet with dissident Andrei Sakharov, and hosted Josef Stalin’s daughter on the family farm after Svetlana defected to the United States. While running her own consulting company in Russia, she witnessed the breakup of the Soviet Union, and later became director of a women’s economic empowerment project in a newly independent Ukraine.
Daughter of the Cold War is a tale of all these adventures and so much more. This compelling and evocative memoir allows readers to follow Grace’s amazing path through life – a whirlwind journey of survival, risk, and self-discovery through a kaleidoscope of many countries, historic events, and fascinating people.
This podcast originally appears on www.maximumfun.org July 5, 2018. Duration: 48 min
This podcast originally appears on readingandwritingpodcast.com May 30, 2018. Duration: 22 min.
Jesse Kellerman has written dozens of plays and published seven novels, two of them cowritten with his father, Jonathan Kellerman. He has won numerous awards, including the Princess Grace Award for Playwriting (“Things Beyond Our Control”) and the Grand Prix des Lectrices de Elle (“The Genius”/”Les Visages”). His novel “Potboiler” was nominated for the Edgar Award for Best Novel. An essay, “Let My People Go to the Buffet,” was included in Penguin’s Best American Spiritual Writing (2011). His next book, Crime Scene, was also cowritten with Jonathan Kellerman and will be published in fall 2017. He lives in Berkeley, California, with his wife and children.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A former star athlete turned deputy coroner is drawn into a brutal, complicated murder in this psychological thriller from a father-son writing team that delivers “brilliant, page-turning fiction” (Stephen King).
Natural causes or foul play? That’s the question Clay Edison must answer each time he examines a body. Figuring out motives and chasing down suspects aren’t part of his beat—not until a seemingly open-and-shut case proves to be more than meets his highly trained eye.
Eccentric, reclusive Walter Rennert lies cold at the bottom of his stairs. At first glance the scene looks straightforward: a once-respected psychology professor, done in by booze and a bad heart. But his daughter Tatiana insists that her father has been murdered, and she persuades Clay to take a closer look at the grim facts of Rennert’s life.
What emerges is a history of scandal and violence, and an experiment gone horribly wrong that ended in the brutal murder of a coed. Walter Rennert, it appears, was a broken man—and maybe a marked one. And when Clay learns that a colleague of Rennert’s died in a nearly identical manner, he begins to question everything in the official record.
All the while, his relationship with Tatiana is evolving into something forbidden. The closer they grow, the more determined he becomes to catch her father’s killer—even if he has to overstep his bounds to do it.
The twisting trail Clay follows will lead him into the darkest corners of the human soul. It’s his job to listen to the tales the dead tell. But this time, he’s part of a story that makes his blood run cold.
Author Steven James hosts Michael Hauge Hollywood Script consultant and guru.
This post originally appears on Blogtalkradiocom and on thestoryblender.com.
March 29, 2018 Duration: 57 min.
HARNESS THE POWER OF HOLLYWOOD STORYTELLING MAGIC
Renowned Hollywood story expert Michael Hauge’s Six Step Success Story formula gives your potential clients and buyers the emotional experience of success—and will move them to take action.
MICHAEL HAUGE is a script consultant, story expert, author and lecturer who works with writers, filmmakers, marketers, business leaders, attorneys and public speakers, both in Hollywood and around the world. He has consulted on projects starring Morgan Freeman, Julia Roberts, Tom Cruise and Reese Witherspoon, and for Overbrook Entertainment, where he consulted on the scripts for (among many others) I AM LEGEND, HANCOCK, THE KARATE KID, SUICIDE SQUAD and BRIGHT, which is currently in production.
Michael is the best selling author of Selling Your Story in 60 Seconds: The Guaranteed Way to Get Your Screenplay or Novel Read, as well as the 20th Anniversary Edition of his classic book Writing Screenplays That Sell.
Michael has presented seminars, lectures and keynotes in person and online to more than 80,000 participants worldwide. According to Will Smith, “No one is better than Michael Hauge at finding what is most authentic in every moment of a story.”
