The Story Blender

Listen as Steven James chats with award-winning nationally known storyteller, Tim Lowry. As one of the country’s premier storytellers, Tim has told stories to more than a quarter million children as well as at festivals and conferences throughout the United States.

We talk about his journey toward becoming a storyteller (and how the circus played a part!), how to find moments in your life that are story worthy, and the Ladder to the Moon and how it can help you connect with an audience. Check it out!

During a circus performance, Tim was bitten by the show biz bug at six years of age. Waiting for his big break, he filled his childhood with performance opportunities. Cast as Ebenezer Scrooge in a second- grade production of Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” Tim later played Jed Clampett in “A Beverly Hillbillies Christmas.” Demonstrating that he could raise one eyebrow and thereby look “wicked” Tim’s Sunday school teacher cast him as King Herod in the annual Christmas pageant.

As a young teenager Tim produced puppet shows for children’s birthday parties. His fee was $20 per show, but he offered a $5 discount if you could give him a ride because he was not yet old enough to drive. As an award-winning high school drama student Tim toured the East Coast in 1987 with a Broadway style musical. As a theatre major in college he studied Shakespeare and Romantic Opera, but when he took an elective class in storytelling he found himself.

After graduation, Tim taught English Language Arts for five years. Drawing on his love of show business his teaching methods were often considered “unorthodox and disruptive.” In 2000 Tim left the classroom to pursue a career as a professional storyteller. To date he has shared his “unorthodox and disruptive” teaching methods with more than a quarter million children!

In 2012 Tim began touring the National Storytelling Circuit performing at over fifty different festivals. Occasionally, Tim provides workshops for corporate clients such as the North Carolina County Commissioners, Dollywood Dream More Resort, Ballad Health, and Daramic LLC.

Listen as Steven James interviews award winning, critically-acclaimed crime novelist W.C. Ryan. W.C. shares his insights into writing historical mysteries, on the importance of conflict and risk, on writing scenes drenched in intrigue ,how to keep people flipping the pages and the importance of the sense of place in the stories you tell. They discuss W.C.'s latest book, THE WINTER HOUSE, and his upcoming release, The Constant Solider. This episode of The Story Blender is a good one, don't miss it!

Jess is an Amazon Charts bestselling, ITW, Anthony and 2023 Minnesota Book Award-winning author who's also been shortlisted for Edgar and Agatha awards. She writes crime fiction, nonfiction, children's books, YA adventure, and magical realism. 

She is also a retired professor of creative writing and sociology, a recipient of The Loft's Excellence in Teaching fellowship, a Psychology Today blogger, and a TEDx presenter (check out her TEDx Talk about inspiration behind her first published novel). 

When she’s not leading women's writing retreats, reading, traveling, or fostering kittens, Jess Lourey is drafting her next story. She lives in Minnesota, where twenty-three of her books are also set. 

Jess Lourey shares some backstory on her crime fiction: “I grew up in St. Cloud, MN, in the ‘70s, at a time where there were at least two serial killers operating in my neighborhood. We then moved to Paynesville, MN in the ‘80s, when eight boys were abducted and returned in this small town, leading up to the murder of Jacob Wetterling, an eleven-year-old boy who lived nearby. There was so much violence all around me. My entire childhood, I saw women and children being harmed and not much in the way of justice or accountability. That has left an indelible mark on me, and in my thrillers, I strive to give a voice and perspective to those who are hurt.” 

This book will be a favorite of true crime lovers as will this interview! Don't miss it!

Listen to a fascinating conversation between Steven James and acclaimed novelist, Will Dean, as they talk about creativity (and how it can thrive in solicitude), living in the middle of a vast forest and staring at the wall, “Exorcism” drafts, and how to get to know characters over time.

Dean’s new book THE LAST ONE is available now.

Visit thestoryblender.com for more information.

Wow!

What a great conversation Steven James had with Lee Goldberg, a veteran TV writer and novelist. Get your pen ready to take notes as Lee talks about what characters do in a story (surprise, surprise; they don’t change), how to make compelling characters, where humor comes from, the secret to Monk’s character, how to use a “living outline,” and his latest novel MALIBU BURNING. Check out this episode of The Story Blender.

Author and screenwriter Lee Goldberg has topped bestseller lists, earned wide critical acclaim, and garnered a worldwide devoted fan base for his compelling and meticulously researched police procedurals and spy thrillers. His latest book, MALIBU BURNING, which Thomas & Mercer will publish on September 1, 2023, marks a brand-new direction in crime fiction for the talented storyteller. It’s a relentless thriller tracking both a master thief with a conscience and the dogged investigators out to stop him from pulling off the ultimate heist in the midst of a raging wildfire.

Lee Goldberg is a two-time Edgar Award and two-time Shamus Award nominee and the #1 New York Times bestselling author of nearly 40 novels, including Lost Hills, True Fiction, fifteen Monk mysteries, and the first five “Fox & O’Hare” books, co-written with Janet Evanovich. He’s also written and/or produced many TV shows, including Diagnosis Murder, SeaQuest, and Monk, and co-created the Hallmark movie series Mystery 101. As an international television consultant, he has advised networks and studios in Canada, France, Germany, Spain, China, Sweden, and the Netherlands on the creation, writing, and production of episodic television series. 

Listen to the newest episode of The Story Blender as Steven James chats with Chris Pavone, the author of 5 international thrillers whose latest book TWO NIGHTS IN LISBON is available now.

They talk about what to include and what to avoid in writing stories, the importance of setting, credibility and characters and other secrets to keeping people flipping the pages. 

Kelly J. Ford has earned wide critical acclaim for her gritty novels of queer Southern suspense ever since the release of her award-winning debut, Cottonmouths, a Los Angeles Review Best Book of the year, followed by Real Bad Things, which critic Jon Land called “an outstanding literary crime thriller in all respects.” Ford, who is Southern by several generations and grew up in the foothills of the Ozarks, says that “Arkansas is in my roots and made me who I am.” 

Ford returns to the rural South for the setting of her third novel, THE HUNT, which Thomas & Mercer will publish on July 25, 2023. Partly set at a plastics factory similar to where she worked as a press operator in college, the story centers on blue collar workers in a small, insular town. It was important to her to highlight family influences and circumstances that can potentially lead people to become accidental criminals, or to be perceived as such due to bias within the criminal justice system. 

Kelly shared in an interview for CrimeReads: “Everything I write seems to come from a nugget of my Arkansas upbringing that I can’t shake…[like] the sounds of my favorite local radio DJ revealing the latest clue to the annual Hunt for Golden Egg once Easter rolled around. For some reason, this family-friendly event and associated clues filtered through my mind and ears as creepy. I never even went on a hunt. As always, I was in the background as an observer, so I could only imagine what it was like. For years, I’ve been noodling on how to write a story about that feeling I got. THE HUNT is the outcome of all that noodling.” 

Acclaimed online personality and author Sara Divello shares her insights into writing “true crime fiction,” what it means, the challenges of capturing the essence of a story and being faithful to it while also telling it in an engaging way.

Sara DiVello is a true crime novelist and the creator/host of Mystery and Thriller Mavens, a popular interactive Facebook group. For her weekly Mystery and Thriller Mavens live events, she has interviewed more than 300 authors, ranging from the bestselling and world-renowned (Dean Koontz, Patricia Cornwell, Lee Child, Jeffery Deaver, Tamron Hall, Karin Slaughter, Ruth Ware, Lisa Unger, and many more) to the buzziest debuts. 

While creative and active on her own social media platforms, DiVello also serves as the director of social media strategy for the International Thriller Writers association. Sara has appeared on CBS, ABC, and CNBC, as well as in the New York Times, Forbes, the San Francisco Chronicle, and more. Her articles have been published in Marie Claire, Elle, Redbook, Cosmopolitan, and Woman’s Day, among others. 

Join Steven James for a new episode of The Story Blender featuring Alice Hoffman.

As one of our country’s most distinguished novelist, Alice has written more than 30 novels, as well as short fiction that has appeared in more than 100 editions worldwide. Her newest novel THE INVISIBLE HOUR releases August 15.

Listen as we chat about the importance of fairytales, the power of storytelling to not only capture imagination but shape (and change) lives, and the incredible depths storytelling can take us to.

Join me as a chat with Taylor Adams, the acclaimed novelist of the latest book title as we talk about the dynamics and mechanics of writing twists (while keeping them believable and also surprising) without cheating and while satisfying readers in the process. His book NO EXIT is a Hulu movie and has been published in 32 languages. If you’re a writer, or you just love a good story and want to know why the twist works, check it out!