The Conversation with Nadine Matheson

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Romance author Chelsea Curto joins Nadine Matheson to discuss her journey from flight attendant to hybrid author with 16+ books. Chelsea opens up about the lack of transparency in indie publishing, the full-time reality of self-publishing, almost quitting in 2023, and how a note scribbled during a hurricane became a New York Times bestseller.

Chelsea Curto began writing during the COVID pandemic while on leave from her job as a flight attendant and has since published over 16 books, including indie titles and traditionally published works. She writes sports romance (hockey series) and weather-themed romance. Her new novel 'In Stormy Weather' about two meteorologists chasing storms in Florida became a instant New York Times and Sunday Times bestseller and marked her entry into traditional publishing. Chelsea is a hybrid author, maintaining both indie and traditional publishing careers.

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"I'd just finished my final draft and I was writing my letter and I'd planned who to send out to agents... and then Adolescence came on the TV. This is either gonna go one way or the other. It's either gonna be good or bad for me. I sent it out and I had three agents jump on it in 24 hours."

Rebecca Spargo

Former BBC journalist and debut author Rebecca Spargo joins Nadine to discuss the road to publishing her first novel, Such a Nice Boy — the story of a feminist mother who discovers her son is part of a group sexually bullying girls at school. They explore the serendipitous timing of Netflix's Adolescence, the brutal reality of rejection in publishing, why children's online worlds demand urgent parental attention, and what success really means when you've poured years of your life into a book.

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Rebecca Spargo is a debut novelist and former BBC journalist who spent years writing in secret while working as a broadcast journalist and copywriter. Her debut novel, Such a Nice Boy, is published on October 8th and tells the story of a feminist mother confronting the reality that her son has been involved in sexually bullying girls at their school.

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"Black History Month is the perfect time to discover your next favourite Black author. Browse my picks on Bookshop.org - Celebrating Black Voices

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"I always looked at that relationship and I was like, what a waste of my time that was. But now I try to rephrase it like, well, that has taught me what I do want and what I don't want going forward. And that has been really helpful."

Katie Snooks

Content creator and debut author Katie Snooks joins Nadine Matheson for a Coffee Break episode to discuss her forthcoming paranormal romance novel, The Ghost of Exes Past. Katie shares the emotional rollercoaster of publishing a first book, how a rejected earlier manuscript became the foundation for her debut, and the year she spent at university attempting to photograph ghosts, séances and all. The conversation spans writing resilience, spice levels in romance, audiobook casting, and the lessons we carry from past relationships.

Katie Snook is a content creator with 15 years of experience, having started in beauty content before expanding into relationships, dating, and lifestyle. She has built a large following sharing the ups and downs of modern dating on her YouTube channel. The Ghost of Ex's Past, a paranormal romance, is her debut novel.

And for the gamers 🎮: You can find Nadine on Xbox and Playstation

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"Black History Month is the perfect time to discover your next favourite Black author. Browse my picks on Bookshop.org - Celebrating Black Voices

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"Everyone should be able to carry the weight of a grown man just in case they need to dispose of a body."

Roz Watkins

Crime author Roz Watkins joins Nadine Matheson to trace her unlikely path from engineering student to patent attorney to acclaimed crime writer. From childhood stories dark enough to warrant a trigger warning, to the surreal experience of finding an agent at the York Festival of Writing, to blowing up her entire life in her forties. Roz shares the persistence, community, and dark humour behind her career. She also introduces her latest novel, The Wicked Girls, a gothic psychological thriller set in a Cornish village where girls keep dying on their 17th birthdays.

About Roz Watkins

Roz Watkins is a crime thriller author based in Cornwall. Before becoming a writer, she studied engineering and natural sciences at university, then trained as a patent attorney, a career she eventually left behind in her early forties to pursue creative writing. She is the author of the DI Meg Dalziel police procedural series (including her debut The Red House) and the standalone gothic psychological thriller The Wicked Girls. Roz is a Royal Literary Fund Fellow and a former resident of Derby before relocating to Falmouth, Cornwall. Find her at rozwatkins.co.uk

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"Black History Month is the perfect time to discover your next favourite Black author. Browse my picks on Bookshop.org. [link]"

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Watch as a full video episode on YouTube

On this week’s episode, we are talking about MrBeast & James Patterson’s apparent book flop, and wondering if publishers will learn that social media following doesn’t translate into book sales. Plus, we talk about the Self-Publishing Partnership’s collapse, and discuss how NOT to behave at conventions after stories of a very pushy author came out of WorldCon.

00:00 Intro

01:06 From the Slush Pile - Listener Comments

11:03 Pay to Play? US Agents Ethics Row

18:35 Marketing Myths - Publishing's Empty Promises

27:33 Memoir or Myth - Does Truth Matter?

43:32 Stranger Than Fiction - Nadine's Idea Factory

50:20 The Final Chapter - Entertainment Catch-up

Links:

DGB resign from the Association of American Literary Agents

Who holds publishers to their promises?

Earl Spencer apologises to Piers Morgan for error in memoir

Fact checking doesn't apply to memoirs, says ex-Bloomsbury boss

What happened in the failed execution of Christa Pike?

Adventures in Publishing-land is brought to you by STET Podcasts - the one stop shop for all your writing podcast needs, featuring Page One - The Writer's Podcast, The Conversation with Nadine Matheson and more! Find all our shows here!

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"You have to point out these are the things that people were willing to look past because he was so charismatic, because he gave people great opportunities..."

Cheyenne Roundtree

Investigative journalist Cheyenne Roundtree joins Nadine Matheson to discuss her debut book Bad Boy for Life, a comprehensive look at the rise and fall of Sean "Diddy" Combs. Drawing on three years of reporting, over 100 interviews, and six weeks sitting in the federal courtroom, Cheyenne breaks down what the public saw versus what was happening behind closed doors, from the Cassie Ventura lawsuit to the criminal trial, the emotional complexity of the victims' testimony, and the broader questions about accountability, fandom, and institutional protection.

Cheyenne Roundtree is an investigative reporter at Rolling Stone. She co-authored the magazine's landmark investigation into Sean "Diddy" Combs alongside colleague Nancy Dillon, published shortly after the hotel surveillance video of Combs attacking Cassie Ventura became public. Bad Boy for Life is her first book. Her work focuses on long-form investigative reporting, and she has spent nearly three years covering the Combs story from the initial allegations through the federal criminal trial.

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"It's old men thinking they can dictate to everybody else about what it is to be part of something. They want to dictate who is in the tent and who's outside the tent."

Abir Mukherjee

Abir Mukherjee sits down with Nadine Matheson for a candid, frequently hilarious conversation about his journey from a 20-year career in finance to becoming one of crime fiction's most distinctive voices. He shares the extraordinary story of winning a writing competition with an unfinished novel, getting the biggest names in crime fiction to fix his book for free, and why he finds publishing more prejudiced than the City. He also introduces his new satirical thriller, The Pinnacle.

Abir Mukherjee is a British Asian crime fiction author who spent two decades in finance, working in international mergers and acquisitions, before winning the Telegraph/Penguin Random House crime writing competition in 2014. His Sam Wyndham historical crime series, set in British Raj-era India, has been published to critical acclaim. His standalone thriller Hunted won the Crime and Thriller Book of the Year at the British Book Awards 2025 and Theakston's Old Peculiar Crime Novel of theYear Award 2025. He was published in 2016, the same year as Vaseem Khan, and together they helped prove that British Asian crime fiction could be commercially successful, opening doors for a new generation of writers. His latest novel is The Pinnacle, a satirical thriller set in a Mumbai luxury skyscraper. He lives in Surrey with his family. Find him at abirmukherjee.com and on Instagram and Facebook.

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"You need to find it in yourself if you want to keep going."

Ruth Dugdall

Former probation officer and crime author Ruth Dugdall joins Nadine Matheson to discuss her journey from working inside prisons to writing the Kate Austin crime series. Ruth shares vivid stories from her probation career, including being handcuffed by a prison officer "for a laugh", and opens up about winning a major writing award only to be told nobody wanted her book. They also explore the ethics of writing about real crimes, Ruth's fascination with the women who keep secrets, and her new novel Mother Missing.

Ruth Dugdall is a former probation officer who worked with sex offenders, stalkers, and young men who committed murder, before becoming a crime novelist. She won the Crime Writers' Association Debut Dagger for The Woman Before Me and recently completed a PhD by publication on her own novels, arguing that the probation perspective is uniquely absent from crime fiction. She has just signed a six-book deal with HarperCollins for the Kate Austin series. Her new novel Mother Missing is published on 26th September. Find her on Instagram @ruthdugdall.

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In this extended coffee break conversation, Nadine Matheson sits down with debut author NJ Hatton (Nick Jones) to discuss his psychological suspense thriller Truth Will Out. They explore the real-life hit-and-run that inspired the novel, the moral grey areas of fatherhood and justice, the transition from screenwriting to novels, and what's coming next, including teasers for books two and three.

NJ Hatton is the pen name of Nick Jones, a former screenwriter and kids' media producer turned psychological thriller author. His debut novel Truth Will Out is out now. Before turning to novels, he worked in television development and at Moonbug Entertainment on preschool animation. He lives in Worcestershire with his family.

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"The art isn't created on the page or on the stage. It's created in the mind of the reader or the person watching the play. What you're trying to do is give the watcher or the reader the space to use their imagination and co-create what you've done with them."

Ajay Chowdhury

Nadine Matheson welcomes bestselling author, tech entrepreneur and theatre director, Ajay Chowdhury, for a wide-ranging conversation about his multi-hyphenate creative life. They discuss how Ajay helped create Shazam, his six-year journey from competition winner to seven published books, the AI fears that drove his latest thriller Eden Falls, and the realities of the publishing industry he didn't see coming.

Ajay Chowdhury is a British crime novelist, tech entrepreneur, and theatre director. He co-created Shazam, the music recognition app that became a verb, and has published seven books in six years, including the Kamil Chowdhury detective series and the standalone thriller Eden Falls. His upcoming books include The Patriot (a heist novel about stealing the Koh-i-Noor diamond, out November 2026) and The Outsider. He is also directing the play Dog Mom at Southwark Playhouse in October/November 2025. Find him at ajaychowdhury.com.

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