With the Olympics here this month, there’s no better time to check out a chilling, ice skating thriller. This week, bestselling author Wendy Walker, author of the critically acclaimed new novel BLADE, joins me to talk about her approach, how details matter, adding authenticity to stories, and what is more important—plotting or receptivity. As a former competitive ice skater, she tells a gripping story you won’t soon forget.

Legendary medical thriller author Robin Cook joins me this week. Author of more than forty books, he shares his origin story of how he wrote his first book while he was underwater for 75 days on a submarine, and once interviewed a Russian scientist who defected and whose team had hoarded enough anthrax to kill everyone on the planet. In addition, Robin shares his advice on writing and the inside scoop on his latest novel, SPASM. Check it out!

This week I caught up with comedian Karen Morgan to talk about humor, comedy, and how to be funny. Listen in for tips and advice on why you should never try to be funny and why only you can do comedy like you can do. Give it a listen and don’t forget to check out her latest special on Dry Bar Comedy!

Matthew Quirk—New York Times bestselling author of The Night Agent, Hour of the Assassin, and Inside Threat—joins the show. The Night Agent hit #1 in 77 countries and returns to Netflix for Season 3 in February.

We talk his latest novel The Method, writing believable thrillers, avoiding over-plotting, and how characters grow from page to screen. A must-listen for fans of spy fiction and intrigue.

In this episode of The Story Blender, host Steven James sits down with thriller heavyweights Ryan Steck and Simon Gervais to talk about their new collaborative novel, The Second Son. The trio digs into what it takes to write as a duo, how high-concept thriller ideas are built and refined, and why today’s authors must think beyond the page and treat writing as a business. It’s a wide-ranging conversation about craft, collaboration, and the realities of building a career in modern publishing.

This week, acclaimed storyteller Tony Marr returns to talk about techniques to tell personal stories. We discuss the three key questions to ask yourself about any personal story you wish to share, how to end your stories, how to be vulnerable without oversharing, and how to retain the trust of your listeners as you tell your stories. If you have a personal story to share, this is the episode for you.

As we kick off the 2026 year, I sit down with my good friend and our first guest, Carter Wilson. His work has received starred reviews from every major trade publication, has won multiple awards, and has been optioned for television and film. His 2025 release, Tell Me What You Did, was selected by Barnes & Noble as a national monthly pick. We talk suspense, making good on plot promises, how emotions fuel character development, and a rapid-fire word association game.

Science fiction author John R. Carlos joins me to talk about world building and how emergent trends in technology might affect our lives in the future. We touch on context and trajectory—both in culture and in storytelling—and how stories can equip us with the courage to face oppression in whatever form it might come. We also talk about his debut novel Cryonic Dreams: Awakening. Check it out!

This week, bestselling author Mia Sheridan joins me to talk about how monsters can be made, whether it’s important to include the background on a villain in your story, how much believability stories need, longing for justice to occur in the stories that we read, and what’s more important—a story’s beginning or the ending? We also chat about her latest romantic thriller, The Fix. 

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Melinda Leigh, the bestselling author of 40 novels, talks about how her background in the martial arts informs how she writes fight scenes (and why you need vaguely specific details to make them believable). We also talk plot twists, why it’s so much fun to write villains, working through revisions, voice, and honest writing. Check it out!