Anthony, Edgar, Barry, and International Thriller Writers award-winner Megan Abbott is one of my favorite writers working today. Not only the prolific author of acclaimed short stories and novels, including Queenpin, You Will Know Me, and Give Me Your Hand, she has also written White Masculinity in Hardboiled Fiction & Film Noir.

Formerly a staff writer on David Simon's HBO original series, The Deuce, as a screenwriter, Megan Abbott recently adapted her gorgeous novel Dare Me for the USA Network and served as a co-creator, executive producer, and showrunner of the series, which was repeatedly named one of the best TV shows of 2020 and has also just been made available to stream on Netflix as well.

A Grosse Pointe Michigan native who fell in love with old movies as a child and is still a highly respected film buff, she's also been a contributor to and essayist for The Criterion Collection. Megan, who received her PhD in English and American Literature from New York University, has worked as a professor at NYU, the State University of New York, as well as the New School University, and in 2013-2014, she served as the John Grisham writer-in-residence at Ole Miss.

Well known for her rich prose and female-centric spin on the crime genre, in the past, Megan edited the anthology A Hell of a Woman, which was devoted to female crime fiction, and her work has appeared in The New York Times, Salon, The Wall Street Journal, The L.A. Times Magazine, The Guardian, and more. Megan's hotly-anticipated tenth novel, The Turnout, is due to be released this summer on July 6, 2021.

It was both an honor and a privilege to speak to Megan about the underrated or overlooked films of Martin Scorsese - one of her favorite filmmakers as well as mine - in this enlightening and engaging episode, which fans of her work and Scorsese's are sure to love.

Note: Be sure to stay tuned after our conversation for a postscript, where I fill listeners in on the changes to the podcast this "season" in 2021.

Theme Music: Solo Acoustic Guitar by Jason Shaw, Free Music Archive

Originally Posted on Patreon (1/1/21) here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/45644845