Bell Cow Productions: Podcasts

Mystery Conversations: A Bell Cow Podcast brings the best of Minnesota Mystery Night to listeners everywhere. These episodes are recorded live, in front of an audience, at the long-running monthly event that pairs top mystery and thriller writers with smart, engaging interviewers for lively, unscripted conversation. Expect craft talk, publishing stories, crime-fiction gossip of the respectable variety, and the kind of audience energy you only get when book people gather in a room together. Minnesota Mystery Night describes itself as a live, meet-the-author event featuring mystery and thriller writers in conversation with intriguing guests, held on the third Monday of each month in Mendota, Minnesota.

These Bell Cow encore presentations preserve those live conversations and give them a second life beyond the room. They also connect to Masters of Mystery Radio Hour, the broadcast version of Minnesota Mystery Night, which is recorded live at the event and carried on radio stations in Minnesota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin, including KRWC-AM, AM950/KTNF, KTOE, KLTF, KCCR, KKBJ, KWNO, WWIS, and KJAM. Bell Cow Productions, meanwhile, exists to support writers through podcasts, resources, and behind-the-scenes literary conversation, which makes this series a natural fit for the herd.

Originally recorded 10/20/2025 at Lucky’s 13 Pub in Mendota, Minnesota: mystery writer Michael Allan Mallory sits down with award-winning novelist Cheri Johnson, who also writes as Sigrid Brown, for an evening of lively conversation recorded before a Minnesota Mystery Night audience. This episode brings together two writers whose work crosses mystery, literary fiction, history, research, character, and the complicated question of what happens when the past refuses to remain politely in the past. Bell Cow is proud to give the evening an encore presentation, with the conversation also living on through Masters of Mystery Radio Hour.

Michael Allan Mallory is the author of The Lost Dragon Murder, winner of a Best Independent Book Award and a finalist for the Midwest Book Awards and Silver Falchion Award. He also co-authored two novels featuring zoologist sleuth Lavender “Snake” Jones, and his short fiction has appeared in mystery magazines and anthologies.

https://www.snakejones.com

Cheri Johnson is the author of Annika Rose, winner of the 2022 Women’s Prose Prize from Red Hen Press. Writing as Sigrid Brown, she published the literary mystery The Girl in Duluth, winner of a 2023 Midwest Book Award.

https://cheribooksandmusic.com/

https://sigridbrown005.wixsite.com/website

Bell Cow Productions: https://www.bellcowproductions.com

Minnesota Mystery Night: https://www.mnmysterynight.com

Masters of Mystery Radio Hour: https://www.mnmysterynight.com/mmrh

#MysteryConversations #MinnesotaMysteryNight #MichaelAllanMallory

Welcome to Bookstore Grazing, a Bell Cow Productions podcast where hosts Rob Jung and Michael David MacBride go beyond the bookshelves to get to know the independent bookstores—and the people behind them—that help make the literary community work.

Every bookstore has a story. How did it get started? What earns a place on the shelves? How do booksellers decide what to recommend, work with local authors, create events, and build a community around books? Bookstore Grazing visits bookstores for casual conversations about their history, their customers, the books they love, and the things readers and authors might never see from the other side of the counter.

In this episode, we’re grazing our way to Fine Print Bookshop in Saline, Michigan, where co-owner Bill Gibson joins Rob and Michael just as Fine Print celebrates its fifth anniversary. Bill shares how he and his wife, Lindsay, discovered while they were dating that they shared the same dream of someday owning a bookstore—and how an attempt to buy an existing shop ultimately led them to open Fine Print from scratch in downtown Saline in September 2021.

Five years later, Bill looks back at what they’ve learned: selecting those first shelves of books, discovering what Saline readers actually want, building a staff with different reading specialties, hand-selling books they believe in, and balancing the desire to support local authors with the realities of running an independent bookstore. We also talk about author events, Fine Print’s ongoing renovation, its growing role as a community “third space,” and Bill’s hopes for even more literary events—including the possibility of a larger book-centered festival in downtown Saline.

And, of course, we talk books. Bill shares what’s flying off the shelves, what Fine Print’s staff can’t stop recommending, what he’s reading himself, and why the answer to “What book should I buy?” almost always begins with another question.

Visit Fine Print Bookshop: http://www.fineprintbookshop.com

Learn more about Bell Cow Productions: https://www.bellcowproductions.com

Please follow, subscribe, like, and share. And, if you're a bookstore who wants to be featured, drop us a line. We'd love to chat.

#BookstoreGrazing #BellCowProductions #FinePrintBookshop #SalineMichigan #IndependentBookstore #IndieBookstore #ShopLocal #SupportIndependentBookstores #BookPodcast #BookTube #MichiganBooks #Booksellers #ReadingCommunity

🐮 Welcome to Bell Cow Book Club, the Bell Cow Productions podcast where Rob Jung and Michael David MacBride read along with the herd and then sit down for a live, unscripted conversation about books worth talking about. No edits. No safety net. No second take. Just two readers, one book, and wherever the conversation takes us.

📖 This month, we’re discussing The Brothers McKay by Craig Johnson, the latest mystery featuring Wyoming sheriff Walt Longmire.

When the thoroughly disliked Pepper McKay turns up dead at his ranch, Walt finds himself investigating a family with no shortage of motives. Pepper’s very different sons have gathered around him—including a reckless eldest son, a journalist, a monk, and a ranch hand believed to be Pepper’s illegitimate child—and nearly everyone seems to have a reason to want the family patriarch gone.

📚 But there’s another book lurking underneath this one: Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov.

Craig Johnson deliberately borrows the family structure, characters, conflicts, and murder-mystery framework of Dostoevsky’s classic and transports them to modern-day Wyoming. Rob and Michael dig into those parallels, where Johnson follows Dostoevsky closely, where he deliberately breaks away, and whether knowing The Brothers Karamazov changes the experience of reading The Brothers McKay.

We also talk about Pepper McKay as an absent-but-ever-present character, the four very different McKay brothers, Walt’s investigation, the massive wildfire that transforms the second half of the story, the question of whether the literary framework helps or complicates the mystery…and, of course, Borax the mule, who may have a legitimate claim to being one of the book’s heroes. 🫏

🔥 Does the wildfire strengthen the story or pull attention away from the murder mystery?

📚 Does explaining the Karamazov connection make the homage more accessible—or take away some of the pleasure of discovering it?

🔎 And once Craig Johnson gives us a modern version of Dostoevsky’s famous murder mystery, does he ultimately give us a more satisfying solution?

⚠️ SPOILER WARNING: Bell Cow Book Club is a true book-club conversation. We discuss the entire novel, including the identity of the killer, major character deaths, clues, twists, and the ending. Read The Brothers McKay first if you want to experience the mystery without spoilers.

🐮 Learn more about Bell Cow Productions at:

https://www.bellcowproductions.com

📺 Follow Bell Cow Productions and join future Bell Cow Book Club conversations live:

https://www.youtube.com/@BellCowProductions/streams

#BellCowBookClub #BellCowProductions #CraigJohnson #TheBrothersMcKay #WaltLongmire #Longmire #TheBrothersKaramazov #BookTube #BookClub #MysteryBooks #BookPodcast #ReadersOfYouTube #BellCow

Bell Cow StoryLab is our monthly author panel series, hosted by authors Rob Jung and Michael David MacBride. Each episode brings writers, publishers, editors, and book people into one craft-focused conversation, spotlighting how books actually get built. Scene by scene, choice by choice. Decision by decision.

In The Other Side of the Book World: What Publishers See Before Readers Do, we talk with small press and independent publishing professionals about what happens before a book ever reaches a reader’s hands. Most of us see the finished object: the cover, the title, the bookstore shelf, the author event, the online listing. But publishers see the earlier version: the manuscript, the pitch, the rough edges, the promise, the fit, the risk, and the long series of choices that shape a book into something ready for readers.

We dig into what makes a publisher lean forward, what makes a manuscript feel ready, how presses think about fit, and what authors often misunderstand about the publishing process. We also talk about the realities of getting books into the world now: discoverability, small press labor, genre expectations, community, bookstores, readers, and the strange, stubborn magic of believing in a book before anyone else has seen it.

We get into questions like:

What does a publisher notice that readers never see?

What makes a manuscript feel ready, or not quite ready yet?

How do small presses think about fit, audience, and identity?

What do authors often misunderstand about what publishers can actually do?

How have the last few years changed the way books find readers?

What can readers do to support the presses and books they love?

Today’s panelists and publishers

Scott R. Welvaert / Skywater Publishing Cooperative: Skywater Publishing Cooperative brings writers, editors, artists, and marketers together around a collaborative model for independent publishing. The cooperative publishes fiction, young adult work, poetry, and other projects while drawing on a shared pool of creative and publishing experience. Scott R. Welvaert is a Minnesota writer, marketer, and Skywater author whose work includes middle grade, young adult, and adult fiction, as well as poetry.

https://skywaterpub.com/

Amanda Symes / Dead Birds Publishing: Dead Birds Publishing grew out of the Dead Birds Writing Group and now publishes horror, thriller, and fantasy with a sharp sense of atmosphere, dread, and genre fun. Co-founded by A.M. Symes and Jayne Carlson, the press brings together writing, editing, marketing, and communications experience in service of stories that linger in the dark. Amanda Symes, writing as A.M. Symes, is a Minnesota writer and editor whose suspenseful, ghost-infused fiction has appeared in a range of horror and speculative venues.

https://deadbirdspublishing.com/

Catherine Lundoff / Queen of Swords Press: Queen of Swords Press is a Minneapolis-based small genre press owned and operated by award-winning author and editor Catherine Lundoff. The press specializes in science fiction, fantasy, horror, mystery, adventure, and swashbuckling stories, often centering LGBTQ+ characters and bold speculative worlds. Lundoff is also the author of the Wolves of Wolf’s Point series and other works of queer speculative fiction.

https://queenofswordspress.com/

Connect with the hosts

Rob Jung: https://robjungwriter.com/

Michael David MacBride: https://www.michaelmacbride.com/

Everything Bell Cow: https://www.bellcowproductions.com/

More StoryLab info: https://www.bellcowproductions.com/storylab

#BellCow #BellCowProductions #BellCowStoryLab #StoryLab #IndiePublishing #SmallPressPublishing #WritingCommunity #PublishingAdvice #BookTube #AuthorTube #DeadBirdsPublishing #QueenOfSwordsPress #SkywaterPublishing #FictionWriters #AmWriting

🚨 Welcome to Fresh Off the Stack, the Bell Cow Productions podcast where Rob Jung and Michael David MacBride sit down with authors to talk about brand-new books just as they arrive in the world. This series is all about new releases, the stories behind them, and the conversations that happen when a book is still fresh in readers’ hands.

🖊️ In each episode, we talk with authors about inspiration, process, research, surprises, and what readers can expect when they open the cover. Some conversations focus on craft, some on publication, and some on the real-world experiences behind the story, but every episode begins with a new book and a chance to give it a proper welcome.

🎣 This episode dives into Poontown: A Novel of Chasing Tarpon and Glory by L.M. “Mark” Weeks, released September 15, 2026. Five teams. Five grueling days. One of the most prestigious prizes in competitive tarpon fishing. But as Mark explains, Poontown is ultimately about something even bigger than catching fish: obsession.

In this conversation, we talk about what makes a hundred-pound tarpon—the legendary “Silver King”—capable of taking over an angler’s life; the surprisingly intense world of tournament fishing; and the extraordinary teamwork between angler and guide. Mark also shares how years of stories heard on skiffs found their way into his fiction, why Peter Pan and Neverland became an unexpected inspiration for the novel, how he created the book’s cast of fiercely competitive characters, and why he chose to invent his own version of the Florida Keys rather than set the story in a real location.

And with Rob Jung being an angler himself, this one naturally includes a little more fishing talk than your average author interview.

📚 About L.M. Weeks:

L.M. (“Mark”) Weeks is the bestselling and award-winning author of Bottled Lightning, an international lawyer, a three-time tarpon-tournament Grand Champion, and a multiple fly-rod world-record holder.

Raised in Idaho, Mark began fly fishing for trout and steelhead at a young age before discovering saltwater fly fishing after moving to New York for law school. His passion eventually took him around the world and onto the competitive tarpon circuit.

Throughout his years on the water, Mark kept notes about the fish, the competition, the personalities, and the stories people told him along the way. Those experiences ultimately became the foundation for Poontown.

Learn more about L.M. Weeks: https://lmweeks.com/

Learn more about Poontown: https://lmweeks.com/books/

📖 Buy a copy anywhere great books are sold!

🐮 Learn more about Bell Cow Productions:

https://www.bellcowproductions.com

#FreshOffTheStack #BellCowProductions #BookTube #AuthorInterview #BookPodcast #LMWeeks #Poontown #TarponFishing #FlyFishing #FishingBooks #ContemporaryFiction #NewBookRelease #ReadersOfYouTube #BellCow

Mystery Conversations: A Bell Cow Podcast brings the best of Minnesota Mystery Night to listeners everywhere. These episodes are recorded live, in front of an audience, at the long-running monthly event that pairs top mystery and thriller writers with smart, engaging interviewers for lively, unscripted conversation. Expect craft talk, publishing stories, crime-fiction gossip of the respectable variety, and the kind of audience energy you only get when book people gather in a room together. Minnesota Mystery Night describes itself as a live, meet-the-author event featuring the top mystery and thriller writers in conversation with intriguing guests, held on the third Monday of each month in Mendota, Minnesota.

These Bell Cow encore presentations preserve those live conversations and give them a second life beyond the room. They also connect to Masters of Mystery Radio Hour, the broadcast version of Minnesota Mystery Night, which is recorded live at the event and carried on multiple radio stations in Minnesota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin, including KRWC-AM, AM950/KTNF, KTOE, KLTF, KCCR, KKBJ, KWNO, WWIS, and KJAM. Bell Cow Productions, meanwhile, exists to support writers through podcasts, resources, and behind-the-scenes literary conversation, which makes this series a natural fit for the herd.

Originally recorded 6/15/2026 at Lucky’s 13 Pub in Mendota, Minnesota: Longmire creator Craig Johnson joins iconic Minnesota author William Kent Krueger for a special evening of lively conversation recorded in front of an audience at Minnesota Mystery Night. This episode brings together two of the most recognizable voices in modern crime fiction for a discussion of storytelling, setting, character, suspense, and the enduring appeal of mysteries rooted in place. Bell Cow is proud to give the evening an encore presentation, with the conversation also living on through Masters of Mystery Radio Hour.

William Kent Krueger is the New York Times bestselling author of The River We Remember, This Tender Land, Ordinary Grace, and the Cork O’Connor mysteries. His work has earned numerous honors, including the Edgar Award for Ordinary Grace, and he makes his home in St. Paul.

https://williamkentkrueger.com/

Craig Johnson is the New York Times bestselling author of the Walt Longmire mysteries, the books behind Longmire, the hit Netflix original drama. His 22nd Longmire novel, The Brothers McKay, was released in May 2026, and he lives in Ucross, Wyoming.

https://www.craigallenjohnson.com/

Bell Cow Productions: https://www.bellcowproductions.com

Minnesota Mystery Night: https://www.mnmysterynight.com

Masters of Mystery Radio Hour: https://www.mnmysterynight.com/mmrh

#MysteryConversations #MinnesotaMysteryNight #CraigJohnson #WilliamKentKrueger

Today we’re joined by Wisconsin author Ken Humphrey for a wide-ranging conversation about his work across genres and age categories. This is a full-spectrum chat, no reading this time, just the story behind the stories.

Ken writes adult thrillers and crime fiction, including Killing the Man, The Killing Face, and Arch Enemy, plus The Breakfast Jury, a courtroom-leaning mystery inspired by his real-life experience serving on a Kenosha murder trial jury (he was the jury foreman).

We also talk about his young reader series, The Demon Hunts of Raimy Rylan, including The World Serpent, Chase of the Samurai, and Origins, and how he approaches momentum, myth, and character when writing for a younger audience.

Finally, we dig into his darker, post-apocalyptic world in Ghoul and Ghouls and Boys, and what changes when the stakes are survival and the rules of the world have shifted.

Author website: https://www.kenhumphrey.com/

You can find out more about your hosts: Rob and Michael at their webpages (https://robjungwriter.com/ and https://www.michaelmacbride.com).

And, of course, you can find everything about Bell Cow at the official webpage: https://www.bellcowproductions.com (🐮 -- moo!)

#BellCowProductions #BellCowAuthorRoundUp #KenHumphrey #ThrillerBooks #CrimeFiction #MiddleGradeBooks #AmWriting #WritingCommunity #IndieAuthors

Today we’re joined by Minnesota author S.L. Woeppel, who reads from The Butcher and the Liar, a genre-blending psychological thriller that moves between coming-of-age, murder mystery, and a darker exploration of trauma.Daisy Bellon thinks she buried her past forever. At thirty-five, she runs a butcher shop in a forgotten corner of Chicago, keeping her history locked away, until an anonymous letter drags her back to the night everything split open.As a child, Daisy becomes bound to her father’s monstrous secret and to a haunting legacy. Decades later, someone close to her is murdered in a chillingly familiar way, and Daisy has to decide what she is willing to reveal, and what it will cost to fight for love and redemption.In this episode, we talk about The Butcher and the Liar, including what it means to write a story that is both unsettling and deeply human, and how you keep readers rooting for a protagonist even when the choices get complicated.Author website: https://www.slwoeppelbooks.com/You can find out more about your hosts: Rob and Michael at their webpages (https://robjungwriter.com/ and https://www.michaelmacbride.com).And, of course, you can find everything about Bell Cow at the official webpage: https://www.bellcowproductions.com (🐮 -- moo!)#BellCowProductions #BellCowAuthorRoundUp #SLWoeppel #TheButcherAndTheLiar #PsychologicalThriller #MysteryBooks #CrimeFiction #IndieAuthors #MinnesotaAuthors #BookPodcast

Mystery Conversations: A Bell Cow Podcast brings the best of Minnesota Mystery Night to listeners everywhere. These episodes are recorded live, in front of an audience, at the long-running monthly event that pairs top mystery and thriller writers with smart, engaging interviewers for lively, unscripted conversation. Expect craft talk, publishing stories, crime-fiction gossip of the respectable variety, and the kind of audience energy you only get when book people gather in a room together. Minnesota Mystery Night describes itself as a live, meet-the-author event featuring mystery and thriller writers in conversation with intriguing guests, held on the third Monday of each month in Mendota, Minnesota.

These Bell Cow encore presentations preserve those live conversations and give them a second life beyond the room. They also connect to Masters of Mystery Radio Hour, the broadcast version of Minnesota Mystery Night, which is recorded live at the event and carried on radio stations in Minnesota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin, including KRWC-AM, AM950/KTNF, KTOE, KLTF, KCCR, KKBJ, KWNO, WWIS, and KJAM. Bell Cow Productions, meanwhile, exists to support writers through podcasts, resources, and behind-the-scenes literary conversation, which makes this series a natural fit for the herd.

Originally recorded 1/20/2025 at Lucky’s 13 Pub in Mendota, Minnesota: KARE 11 reporter and true-crime author Lou Raguse sits down with historian Jeff Sauve for a conversation about investigating the past, reconstructing crimes, sorting fact from speculation, and turning extensive research into narratives readers cannot put down. This episode brings together a working crime reporter and a historian who has spent years digging into Minnesota’s forgotten stories. Bell Cow is proud to give the evening an encore presentation, with the conversation also living on through Masters of Mystery Radio Hour.

Lou Raguse is an award-winning reporter for KARE 11 News in Minneapolis and the author of Vanished in Vermillion, which recounts the decades-long investigation into the disappearance of two South Dakota teenagers. His journalism specializes in crime, courts, and the people caught inside complicated investigations.

https://www.louraguse.com

Jeff Sauve is a Minnesota historian and the author of Murder at Minnesota Point, the true story of an unidentified woman’s 1894 murder and the nationwide hunt for her killer. A former St. Olaf College archivist, he has written and edited numerous works of Minnesota history.

https://www.mnhs.org/mnopedia/search/index/author/jeff-m-sauve

Bell Cow Productions: https://www.bellcowproductions.com

Minnesota Mystery Night: https://www.mnmysterynight.com

Masters of Mystery Radio Hour: https://www.mnmysterynight.com/mmrh

#MysteryConversations #MinnesotaMysteryNight #LouRaguse

🐮 Welcome to Bell Cow Book Club, the Bell Cow Productions podcast where Rob Jung and Michael David MacBride read along with the herd and then sit down for a live, unscripted conversation about books worth talking about. No edits. No safety net. No second take. Just two readers, one book, and wherever the conversation takes us.

📖 This month, we’re discussing Heartbreak Hollow by Frank F. Weber, one of the authors featured in the Bell Cow Cattle-Log. Weber’s true-crime novel follows Eliana Castillo after a horrific assault leaves her fighting to survive, while BCA investigator Jon Frederick tries to unravel what happened, who was responsible, and how the people closest to Eliana may be connected.

🔎 In this conversation, Rob and Michael dig into the book’s shifting perspectives, Eliana’s journey from trauma toward recovery, the complicated relationship between Jon and Serena, Lorenzo’s endless ability to rationalize his own behavior, the forensic investigation, and the betrayals at the center of the story. We also talk about Weber’s use of humor and Minnesota detail alongside some very dark material, the clues that point toward the novel’s larger mystery, and whether the characters ultimately earn the endings they receive.

⚠️ Spoiler warning: Bell Cow Book Club is a true book-club conversation. We discuss the entire novel, including major twists, character revelations, and the ending. Read first if you want to experience Heartbreak Hollow without spoilers.

📚 Heartbreak Hollow author Frank F. Weber is also a member of the Bell Cow Cattle-Log, our guide connecting readers, bookstores, and libraries with authors and their books.

Learn more about Frank here: https://www.frankweberauthor.com/ and pick up a copy of Heartbreak Hollow (or any of Frank's books) at any of the great independent bookstores out there.

🐮 Learn more about Bell Cow Productions at:

https://www.bellcowproductions.com

📺 Follow Bell Cow Productions and join future Bell Cow Book Club conversations live:

https://www.youtube.com/@BellCowProductions/streams

#BellCowBookClub #BellCowProductions #FrankFWeber #HeartbreakHollow #BookTube #BookClub #BookPodcast #TrueCrimeFiction #AuthorBooks #ReadersOfYouTube #BellCow