Talking with Authors

This is the twelfth episode of "Talking with Authors" by HEC Media and HEC Books. We're a program dedicated to speaking with some of the best selling authors around, covering many different genres.

Today our author is a Hugo, Nebula, and Arthur C. Clarke Award winning science fiction writer Ann Leckie.  We spoke with her in December of 2017, shortly after the release of her book “Provenance”, part of the “Ancillary” universe of books from the publisher Orbit that made her beloved by readers of the science fiction genre.

This New York Times Best Selling author’s rise to sci-fi stardom began with her first novel “Ancillary Justice” in 2013 and kicked off her award winning career. The “Imperial Radch” trilogy continued with “Ancillary Sword” in 2014 and “Ancillary Mercy” in 2015 and featured sharply tuned characters dealing with ancient alien cultures. And while “Provenance” is set on the other side of the same universe as the “Ancillary” books, Leckie wrote the protagonist, Ingray, with an atypical attitude for a lead in that world…one that may be more relatable to most of us down here on Earth.

We’ll learn about that new tack on a sci-fi hero and the change of focus to antiquity smuggling and forgery in “Radch Space", plus we’ll hear about the real world road taken by Ann Leckie to the worlds she creates on this episode of Talking with Authors from HEC Media and HEC Books.

Our host and interviewer this time is Brenda Madden.

HEC Media is a production company out of St. Louis, Missouri.  With the help of independent bookstore Left Bank Books and St. Louis County Library, we are able to sit down with these amazing writers and thought leaders to discuss their work, their inspiration, and what makes them special. You can watch video versions of most of our interviews at hecmedia.org.

Host of this episode - Brenda Madden
Photography - Cecil Corbett and Chris Cross
Editor & Graphics - Greg Kopp
Supervising Producer - Julie Winkle
Production Support - Jayne Ballew and Christina Chastain
HEC Media Executive Director - Dennis Riggs
Talking with Authors Podcast Executive Producer - Christina Chastain
Podcast Producer - Rod Milam
Podcast Editors - Ben Smith
Podcast Host - Rod Milam

Special thanks to Maryville University, St. Louis Public Radio, 90.7 KWMU, TechArtista

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This is the eleventh episode of "Talking with Authors" by HEC Media and HEC Books. We're a program dedicated to speaking with some of the best selling authors around, covering many different genres.

Our author this time is a two time Newberry award winning writer Kate DiCamillo. We spoke with her at the Ladue Middle School in Ladue, Missouri as she was on her summer book tour in 2018.  We talked with her about her then most current book, “Raymie Nightingale” by Candlewick Press…as well as her then upcoming companion book, “Louisiana’s Way Home”.

New York Times Best Selling author Kate DiCamillo’s wildly popular first published novel “Because of Winn-Dixie” was eventually adapted into a movie in 2005.  Her first Newberry award came for her book “The Tale of Despereaux” in 2004, and she repeated the accomplishment with the book “Flora & Ulysses” in 2014. In the world of children’s literature she writes picture and early chapter books, as well as novels, like “Raymie Nightengale”.  She knows how important it is to keep the voices of her characters true to what her young readers will accept…and that’s usually putting the stories in the third person. But one of her characters for a subsequent book kept calling out to her and made her break format and write a book in the first person for the first time since "Because of Winn-Dixie".

That book went on to be “Louisiana’s Way Home”, a stand-alone, companion novel to “Raymie Nightengale” the main subject of our interview. We’ll also talk about the road to becoming a published writer and how this self-described introvert loves getting to see the young readers she writes for in-person. All of that and more on this episode of Talking with Authors from HEC Media and HEC Books featuring the award winning, New York Times Best Selling, and former National Ambassador for Young People's Literature Kate DiCamillo.

Our host and interviewer this time is Brenda Madden.

HEC Media is a production company out of St. Louis, Missouri.  With the help of independent bookstore Left Bank Books and St. Louis County Library, we are able to sit down with these amazing writers and thought leaders to discuss their work, their inspiration, and what makes them special. You can watch video versions of most of our interviews at hecmedia.org.

Host of this episode - Brenda Madden
Photography - Peter Foggy and Quinsonta Boyd
Editor - Kerry Marks
Graphics - Greg Kopp
Supervising Producer - Julie Winkle
Production Support - Jayne Ballew and Christina Chastain
HEC Media Executive Director - Dennis Riggs
Talking with Authors Podcast Executive Producer - Christina Chastain
Podcast Producer - Rod Milam
Podcast Editors - Paul Langdon
Podcast Host - Rod Milam

Special thanks to Ladue Middle School

You can follow us on all social media platforms. Just search for "Talking with Authors":

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This is the tenth episode of "Talking with Authors" by HEC Media and HEC Books. We're a program dedicated to speaking with some of the best selling authors around, covering many different genres.

Our author this time is 100 plus million book selling and Edgar award winning crime writer Patricia Cornwell. We spoke with her as she was touring the United States talking about her 22nd crime novel in her Kay Scarpetta series, “Flesh and Blood” by Harper Collins Books. This one-on-one was done in November of 2014.

Patricia Cornwell started out working with words professionally as a reporter in North Carolina in the late 70s. She began doing feature work, but eventually moved to the the crime beat where she eventually won an award for a series on prostitution. By the time she started writing novels in 1984, her news background lead her to want to make her imagined subjects as real as possible…so she began to take an almost participatory journalistic approach to her novels.

And from the position of authority that she writes from having actually learned the skills of many of her characters has helped her revolutionize the crime genre, not just in literature, but on television as well…where she’s often credited for greatly influencing the rise of forensic science being popular in crime dramas on the air. We’ll hear about the hugely popular “Kate Scarpetta” series of books and life beyond the printed word for our guest, Edgar Award winning, best selling writer Patricia Cornwell on this episode of “Talking with Authors” from HEC Media and HEC Books.

Our host and interviewer this time is Cordell Whitlock.

HEC Media is a production company out of St. Louis, Missouri.  With the help of independent bookstore Left Bank Books and St. Louis County Library, we are able to sit down with these amazing writers and thought leaders to discuss their work, their inspiration, and what makes them special. You can watch video versions of most of our interviews at hecmedia.org.

Host of this episode - Cordell Whitlock
Photography - Tom Newcomb, Peter Foggy, and Jayne Ballew
Editor and Graphics - Taunia Allen Mason
Supervising Producer - Julie Winkle
Production Support - Jayne Ballew
HEC Media Executive Director - Dennis Riggs
Talking with Authors Podcast Executive Producer - Christina Chastain
Podcast Producer - Rod Milam
Podcast Editors - Ben Smith
Podcast Host - Rod Milam

Special thanks to Maryville University and St. Louis Public Radio

You can follow us on all social media platforms. Just search for "Talking with Authors":

Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/talkingwithauthors
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TalkingwAuthors

This is the ninth episode of "Talking with Authors" by HEC Media and HEC Books. We're a program dedicated to speaking with some of the best selling authors around, covering many different genres.

Our author this time is New York Times best selling writer Piper Kerman. We spoke with her as she was touring the United States talking about her non-fiction book “Orange is the New Black: My Year in a Women’s Prison” by Spiegel and Grau/Random House books, less than a year after the debut of the fictionalized Netflix program “Orange is the New Black” based on her life. This one-on-one was done in September of 2014.

Piper Kerman was born in Boston and had a family full of educators, attorneys, and doctors. But through a relationship she had with a girlfriend in her 20s, she became involved in the drug trade and was eventually convicted of felonious drug trafficking and money laundering. Her memoir of her time in federal prison became the book “Orange Is the New Black”. The on-screen version of her life in the most-watched series on Netflix that most people are familiar with is a little different than her reality.

We’ll learn about the differences between her lived experience and the adaptation, her post-incarceration pursuit of prison reform, and her life as a public speaker now on this episode of “Talking with Authors” from HEC Media and HEC Books.

Our host and interviewer this time is Brenda Madden.

HEC Media is a production company out of St. Louis, Missouri.  With the help of independent bookstore Left Bank Books and St. Louis County Library, we are able to sit down with these amazing writers and thought leaders to discuss their work, their inspiration, and what makes them special. You can watch video versions of most of our interviews at hecmedia.org.

Host and producer of this episode - Brenda Madden
Photography - Cecil Corbett and D.J. Rockwell
Editor and Graphics - Gregg Kopp
Supervising Producer - Julie Winkle
Production Support - Jayne Ballew & Helen Hedrick
HEC Media Executive Director - Dennis Riggs
Talking with Authors Podcast Executive Producer - Christina Chastain
Podcast Producer - Rod Milam
Podcast Editors - Paul Langdon
Podcast Host - Rod Milam

Special thanks to Maryville University and St. Louis Public Radio

You can follow us on all social media platforms. Just search for "Talking with Authors":

Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/talkingwithauthors
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TalkingwAuthors

This is the eighth episode of "Talking with Authors" by HEC Media and HEC Books. We're a program dedicated to speaking with some of the best selling authors around, covering many different genres.

Today, our author is the former cabinet Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano. We spoke with her about her book “How Safe Are We?: Homeland Security Since 9/11” by PublicAffairs Books in February of 2019 at Spot Studios in St. Louis, Missouri.

As the third full-time head of the Department of Homeland Security since its creation post September 11th, Secretary Napolitano is very well versed about the threats that the United States faces: foreign states acting against US interests, transnational terror organizations, and domestic groups wishing to disrupt the lives of the American public directly being among the many threats on the list.  But she says while people don’t often think of climate change and security in the same sentence, they ought to.

In this wide-ranging interview, we’ll hear about how she approached dealing with these challenges during her 4 plus year stint in office during the Obama administration and how it compares to how things are being handled now during the Trump administration.  That and more from the former governor & cabinet secretary, and current President of the California University system and writer Janet Napolitano on this episode of “Talking with Authors” from HEC Media and HEC Books. 

Our host and interviewer this time is Paul Schankman.

HEC Media is a production company out of St. Louis, Missouri.  With the help of independent bookstore Left Bank Books and St. Louis County Library, we are able to sit down with these amazing writers and thought leaders to discuss their work, their inspiration, and what makes them special. You can watch video versions of most of our interviews at hecmedia.org.

Host and producer of this episode - Paul Schankman
Photography - Cecil Corbett and John Ross
Editor - Paul Schankman
Graphics - Gregg Kopp
Supervising Producer - Julie Winkle
Production Support - Jayne Ballew & Christina Chastain
HEC Media Executive Director - Dennis Riggs
Talking with Authors Podcast Executive Producer - Christina Chastain
Podcast Producer - Rod Milam
Podcast Editors - Ben Smith
Podcast Host - Rod Milam

Special thanks to Spot Studios

You can follow us on all social media platforms. Just search for "Talking with Authors":

Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/talkingwithauthors
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This is the seventh episode of "Talking with Authors" by HEC Media and HEC Books. We're a program dedicated to speaking with some of the best selling authors around, covering many different genres.

Today, our author is a New York Times best selling crime writer Karin Slaughter. We spoke with her as part of a tour for her book “Pieces of Her” by Harper-Collins Book. This interview conducted in August of 2018 at the Hilton Saint Louis Frontenac.

Karin Slaughter was born in Georgia and is very well known for her two groupings of books, the “Will Trent Series” and the “Grant County Series”…both of which are set in her home state. Karin’s desire to create written works was apparently born with her in the South.  When she was a little girl, she used to make little short stories with as few as 10 pages where her sisters were characters, but they didn’t always come off so well on paper.  The paying consumer group of one of all of those stories was her father. She says he always supported her pursuit of storytelling. But that support had a cut off point...living at home after graduation.

After working a large number of "terrible" jobs while she wrote, she finally got a publisher. Now she’s 18 novels into her career of writing about crime in the real and fictionalized versions of the Peach State. We’ll learn about her reasons for setting her thriller stories in Georgia, her process of writing, and her undying support of libraries of all kinds. Edgar-nominated and New York Times best selling writer Karin Slaughter is our guest on this episode of “Talking with Authors” from HEC Media and HEC Books.

Our host and interviewer this time is Victoria Babu.

HEC Media is a production company out of St. Louis, Missouri.  With the help of independent bookstore Left Bank Books and St. Louis County Library, we are able to sit down with these amazing writers and thought leaders to discuss their work, their inspiration, and what makes them special. You can watch video versions of most of our interviews at hecmedia.org.

Host and producer of this episode - Victoria Babu
Photography - Peter Foggy and Jeff White
Editor - Kerry Marks
Graphics - Gregg Kopp
Location Producer - John Baker
Supervising Producer - Julie Winkle
Production Support - Jayne Ballew & Christina Chastain
HEC Media Executive Director - Dennis Riggs
Talking with Authors Podcast Executive Producer - Christina Chastain
Podcast Producer - Rod Milam
Podcast Editors - Paul Langdon
Podcast Host - Rod Milam

Special thanks to the Hilton St. Louis Frontenac

You can follow us on all social media platforms. Just search for "Talking with Authors":

Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/talkingwithauthors
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TalkingwAuthors

This is the sixth episode of "Talking with Authors" by HEC Media and HEC Books. We're a program dedicated to speaking with some of the best selling authors around, covering many different genres.

Today, our author is Hollywood actor, humorist, woodworker, and New York Times best selling writer Nick Offerman. He sat down with us for an interview in September of 2016 at the Goebel & Company Furniture woodworking shop in St. Louis, Missouri.

“Good Clean Fun: Misadventures in Sawdust at Offerman Woodshop” is only one of 4 books that Nick has penned or helped pen.  But his work as a writer isn’t what the Illinois native is best known for. Most people know him as the character Ron Swanson from the hit TV show “Parks and Recreation". Ron Swanson is a self-described “man’s man”. A hairy, bearded man.  A flannel wearing, Canada and France hating political libertarian man. And while Nick Offerman embodies that role for the camera and has shades of his true self show through, like his love of working with wood, Nick, the real person isn’t one dimensional. In this wide-ranging interview, we’ll hear about how he spends his time in real life his wife, fellow Hollywood actor Megan Mullally, with his very real woodworking shop in southern California, and we’ll learn how his midwestern roots have shaped his life and his book “Good Clean Fun”.

Our host and interviewer this time is Angie Weidinger.

HEC Media is a production company out of St. Louis, Missouri.  With the help of independent bookstore Left Bank Books and St. Louis County Library, we are able to sit down with these amazing writers and thought leaders to discuss their work, their inspiration, and what makes them special. You can watch video versions of most of our interviews at hecmedia.org.

Host of this interview - Angie Weidinger
Supervising Producer - Julie Winkle
Photography - Spot MPG
Video Editor and Graphics - Gregg Kopp
Production Support - Jayne Ballew & Christina Chastain
HEC Media Executive Director - Dennis Riggs
Talking with Authors Podcast Executive Producer - Christina Chastain
Podcast Producer - Rod Milam
Podcast Editors - Paul Langdon
Podcast Host - Rod Milam

Special thanks to Goebel & Company Furniture

You can follow us on all social media platforms. Just search for "Talking with Authors":

Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/talkingwithauthors
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This is the fifth episode of "Talking with Authors" by HEC Media and HEC Books. We're a program dedicated to speaking with some of the best selling authors around, covering many different genres.

Today, our author is journalist and writer, Sarah Kendzior. She sat down with us for a discussion in February of 2018 at one of her alma maters Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.

Sarah Kendzior is a Connecticut born, St. Louis based international journalist whose education in anthropology and career as a reporter in Europe, Russia, and the US led her to publish the book “The View from Flyover Country: Dispatches from the Forgotten America” from Flatiron Books.  This book is a collection of essays that she wrote for the network Al Jazeera English between 2012 and 2014 and it covers the increasingly difficult state of the lives and careers of American citizens from the perspective of people who don’t live on the East and West coasts of the country. Our conversation will cover those topics that she says were reported on journalistically.  But Ms. Kendzior is also well known to write online and speak on television about a wide range of subjects while notedly giving her studied opinion on the matters.

The US presidency, the start of the Black Lives Matters movement, the current state of academia, and more, is what we’ll hear about from our guest, journalist, cultural commentator, and writer Sarah Kendzior on “Talking with Authors” from HEC Media and HEC Books.

Our host and interviewer this time is Victoria Babu.

HEC Media is a production company out of St. Louis, Missouri.  With the help of independent bookstore Left Bank Books and St. Louis County Library, we are able to sit down with these amazing writers and thought leaders to discuss their work, their inspiration, and what makes them special. You can watch video versions of most of our interviews at hecmedia.org.

Host of this interview - Victoria Babu
Supervising Producer - Julie Winkle
Photography - Pete Foggy and Jeff White
Video Editor and Graphics - Kerry Marks
Production Support - Jayne Ballew & Christina Chastain
HEC Media Executive Director - Dennis Riggs
Talking with Authors Podcast Executive Producer - Christina Chastain
Podcast Producer - Rod Milam
Podcast Editors - Ben Smith and Rod Milam
Podcast Host - Rod Milam

Special thanks to Maryville University, and St. Louis Public Radio, 90.7 KWMU

You can follow us on all social media platforms. Just search for "Talking with Authors":

Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/talkingwithauthors
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TalkingwAuthors

This is the fourth episode of "Talking with Authors" by HEC Media and HEC Books. We're a program dedicated to speaking with some of the best selling authors around, covering many different genres.

Today, our author is journalist and New York Times best selling writer Charles Fishman. We spoke with him as part of a book tour for his latest work “One Giant Leap: The Impossible Mission that Flew Us to the Moon” in July of 2019….50 years to the month after the first historic words transmitted from the surface of the moon were heard, "Houston...Tranquility Base here...the Eagle has landed."

Charles went from being a little kid in 1969 repeatedly listening to that call from Neil Armstrong on the moon to capsule communicator Charlie Duke on Earth on a phonograph record, to being a journalist with multiple beats, including being a space reporter with the Washington Post.  When writing this book, he didn't want  to tell the stories of the 21 individuals that flew to the moon during NASA’s Apollo program. They've already been widely told. In “One Giant Leap”, he wanted to tell some of the stories of the more than 400,000 people on Earth that were involved in the entire Apollo program. We'll talk about those stories as well as thoughts on the state of space travel today from journalist and writer Charles Fishman on this episode of “Talking with Authors”. 

Our host and interviewer this time is Angie Weidinger.

HEC Media is a production company out of St. Louis, Missouri.  With the help of independent bookstore Left Bank Books and St. Louis County Library, we are able to sit down with these amazing writers and thought leaders to discuss their work, their inspiration, and what makes them special. You can watch video versions of most of our interviews at hecmedia.org.

Host of this interview - Angie Weidinger
Supervising Producer - Julie Winkle
Photography - Pete Foggy and Ken Calcaterra
Video Editor - Kerry Marks
Sound - Paul Langdon
Production Support - Jayne Ballew & Christina Chastain
HEC Media Executive Director - Dennis Riggs
Talking with Authors Podcast Executive Producer - Christina Chastain
Podcast Producer - Rod Milam
Podcast Editors - Paul Langdon and Rod Milam
Podcast Host - Rod Milam

Thanks to NASA for the audio clip of the moon landing from July 20, 1969

You can follow us on all social media platforms. Just search for "Talking with Authors":

Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/talkingwithauthors
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This is the third episode of “Talking with Authors” where we’ll be talking to a variety of best selling authors spanning genres — authors like Judy Blume, Janet Napalitano, and so many more.

Today, our author is New York Times best selling writer Brad Meltzer. We spoke with him in January of 2019 as part of a book tour for his then latest work “The First Conspiracy: The Secret Plot to Kill George Washington” on the campus of Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.

Brad Meltzer is a writer of many genres…from children’s books and comics, to television and political thrillers. But his book that he’ll discuss at length today, “The First Conspiracy”, is his first foray into non-fiction. Here, he heads back to the time period before the end of the Revolutionary War and through the early days of the United States where George Washington had to set up an entire operation to counter a probable attempt against his life. We'll also hear about other items he uncovered in his research for this book, plus have a wide ranging discussion about his in-person contact with other former US Presidents, his connection to 9/11, and his “I Am…” series of children’s books on this episode of “Talking with Authors” from HEC Media and HEC Books.

Our host this time is Angie Weidinger.

You can see this interview as well at https://hecmedia.org/posts/adventures-in-writing-with-brad-meltzer

HEC Media is a production company out of St. Louis, Missouri, and with the help of independent bookstore Left Bank Books and St. Louis County Library, we are able to sit down with these amazing writers and thought leaders to discuss their work, their inspiration, and what makes them special. You can watch all of these video interviews on hecmedia.org.

Host and Editor of the video version of this program - Angie Weidinger
Supervising Producer - Julie Winkle
Photography - Pete Foggy and Ryan Fitzgerald
Graphics - Gregg Kopp
Production Support - Jayne Ballew & Christina Chastain
HEC Media Executive Director - Dennis Riggs
The Talking with Authors Podcast Executive Producer - Christina Chastain
Podcast Editor - Rod Milam
Podcast Host - Rod Milam

You can follow us on all social media platforms. Just search for "Talking with Authors":

Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/talkingwithauthors
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TalkingwAuthors