Bringing Life To Characters

My guest this week on Bringing Life to Characters is Manuel Ramos. Manual is the author of eleven novels and a short story collection. He has received the Colorado Book Award (twice), the Chicano/Latino Literary Award, the Top Hand Award from the Colorado Authors League, and Honorable Mentions from the Latino International Book Awards. His first novel, The Ballad of Rocky Ruiz, was a finalist for the Edgar® award. My Bad: A Mile High Noir was a Shamus finalist. He is a co-founder of and regular contributor to the award-winning Internet magazine La Bloga (www.labloga.blogspot.com), which deals with Latino literature, culture, news and opinion. His latest novel is Angels in the Wind, published by Arte Público Press in 2021 (also a Shamus finalist.) In 2021, Manuel was inducted into the Colorado Authors' Hall of Fame.

On his episode of Bringing Life to Characters, I'll be speaking with award-winning and best-selling Author Sara Paretsky. Sara revolutionized the mystery world in 1982 when she introduced V.I. Warshawski in Indemnity Only. By creating a detective with the grit and smarts to take on the mean streets, Paretsky challenged a genre in which women historically were vamps or victims. V.I. struck a chord with readers and critics; Indemnity Only was followed by twenty more V.I. novels. Her voice and her world remain vital to readers; the New York Times calls V.I., “a proper hero for these times,” adding, “to us, V.I. is perfect.” While Paretsky’s fiction changed the narrative about women, her work also opened doors for other writers. In 1986 she created Sisters in Crime, a worldwide organization to advocate for women crime writers, which earned her Ms. Magazine’s 1987 Woman of the Year award. More accolades followed: the British Crime Writers awarded her the Cartier Diamond Dagger for lifetime achievement; Blacklist won the Gold Dagger from the British Crime Writers for best novel of 2004, and she has received the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters from a number of universities.

This month my guest is Silver Falchion and CIBA Murder & Mayhem award-winning author Lori Roberts Herbst, who writes the Callie Cassidy Mystery series. Lori is a proud member of Sisters in Crime and currently serves as Board Secretary, as well as moderator of the Cozy Cup group. She is also a member of the SinC North Dallas chapter and Mystery Writers of America. A former journalism teacher and counselor, Lori lives in Colorado Springs and is a wife, mother of two, and (gasp!) grandmother of four.

My guest this week is author Scott Graham. Scott is the author of the National Park Mystery Series, published by Torrey House Press. The nine-books-and-counting in the critically acclaimed series feature archaeologist Chuck Bender and his family as they encounter villainous intrigue in America’s iconic western national parks, illuminating environmental and social justice issues specific to the parks along the way.

In addition to his mysteries, Scott is the author of five nonfiction books, including Extreme Kids, winner of the National Outdoor Book Award. Scott is an avid outdoorsman and advocate for public lands who lives with his wife, an emergency physician, in Durango, Colorado. He has worked as a newspaper reporter, magazine editor, radio disk jockey, city councilor, and coal-shoveling fireman on the steam-powered Durango-Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad.

My guest is Cynthia Swanson. Cynthia writes psychological thrillers, often using historical settings. Cynthia’s debut novel, The Bookseller, was a New York Times bestseller, an Indie Next selection, the winner of the 2016 WILLA Literary Award for Historical Fiction, and is slated to be a motion picture produced by Julia Roberts. The Bookseller was also nominated for the Goodreads Choice Award and the Mountains & Plains Independent Booksellers Association Reading the West Award. The Bookseller is translated into 18 languages. Cynthia’s second novel, The Glass Forest, was a USA Today bestseller, has been noted in Forbes as being one of “Five Novels With a Remarkably Strong Sense of Place” and is translated into 7 languages. Her third novel, Anyone But Her, is a 2025 Colorado Book Award Finalist (Thriller) and was named 2024 Best Mystery/Thriller by the Indie Author Project. Cynthia is the editor of the anthology Denver Noir, which features dark, morally ambiguous stories set in and around Denver, Colorado, written by 14 notable literary and mystery authors. Denver Noir received the 2023 Colorado Book Award (Anthology). Cynthia lives with her family in Denver.

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My guest is Jodi Burnett. Jodi is a Colorado native and a mountain girl at heart. She loves writing Mystery and Suspense Thrillers from her small ranch southeast of Denver, where she lives with her husband and their two big dogs. There she dotes on her horses, complains about her cows, and writes to create a home for her imaginings. Burnett is a member of Novelists, Inc. and Sisters in Crime. Get free books by Burnett on her website.

My guest is author Aaron Philip Clark. Aaron is a native of Los Angeles, CA. He is a novelist, screenwriter, educator, and author of the International Thriller Writers Award-nominated Detective Trevor Finnegan series.

Clark teaches creative writing at UCLA Extension and finds inspiration while hiking in the San Gabriel Mountains and exploring the many facets of Los Angeles.

My next guest is Christy Award-winning author Patricia Raybon. Patricia was reared near Denver, Colorado under big sky, bright sunshine, and the humbling mystery of Christ. A newspaper journalist who turned to historical fiction, she authors devotional writing for Our Daily Bread Ministries and writes the Annalee Spain Mystery series set in Colorado's 1920s Klan era. She and her husband Dan live in their longtime, beloved neighborhood in beautiful Aurora, Colorado.

My next guest is author Ann Parker. Ann is a science writer by day and fiction writer at night. Her award-winning Silver Rush mystery series, published by Poisoned Pen Press (a Sourcebooks imprint), is set primarily in 1880s Colorado, and more recently in San Francisco, California, the “Paris of the West.” The series was named a Booksellers Favorite by the Mountains and Plains Independent Booksellers Association. The Secret in the Wall is the eighth and newest in the series.

My next guest is author Mark Stevens. The son of two librarians, Mark Stevens was raised in Lincoln, Massachusetts and has worked as a reporter, television news producer, and in public relations. He's the author of The Fireballer (2023, Lake Union). He's also the author of The Allison COil Mystery Series including Antler Dust, Buried by the Roan, Trapline, Lake of Fire, and The Melancholy Howl. Buried by the Roan, Trapline, and Lake of Fire were all finalists for the Colorado Book Award (2012, 2015 and 2016 respectively). Trapline won. In September of 2016, Stevens was named Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers' Writer of the Year. Stevens hosts a regular podcast for Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers and has served as president of the Rocky Mountain chapter for Mystery Writers of America. Stevens also writes book reviews; follow them at the blog link.