Join hosts J.D. Barker, Christine Daigle, Jena Brown, and Kevin Tumlinson as they discuss the week's entertainment news, including stories about printing cost changes, the vicious cycle of book publishing, and BookCon's return. Then, stick around for a chat with Peter Brown!

Peter Brown has always loved telling stories. Growing up in New Jersey, he told stories by drawing whimsical characters and scenes from his imagination. As a teenager, he fell in love with writing and began telling his tales with words. While studying illustration at Art Center College of Design, Peter’s love of both words and pictures led him to take several courses on children’s books, and before long he knew he’d found his calling. After graduating from Art Center Peter moved to New York City to be closer to the publishing industry. He was working on animated TV shows when he signed a book deal to write and illustrate his first picture book, Flight of the Dodo. Peter quickly signed up his second and third books, and his career as an author and illustrator of children’s books was under way. Since then Peter has written and illustrated many books for children and earned numerous honors, including a Caldecott Honor, a Horn Book Award, two E.B. White Awards, two E.B. White Honors, a Children’s Choice Award for Illustrator of the Year, two Irma Black Honors, a Golden Kite Award, a New York Times Best Illustrated Book Award and multiple New York Times bestsellers. Peter lives in Maine with his wife, Susan, and their dog, Pam.

Join hosts J.D. Barker, Christine Daigle, Jena Brown, and Kevin Tumlinson as they discuss the week's entertainment news, including stories about poisonous books, The Late Show, Oprah, and James Frey. Then, stick around for a chat with Laura Lippman!

Laura Lippman was a reporter for twenty years, including twelve years at The (Baltimore) Sun. She began writing novels while working fulltime and published seven books about “accidental PI” Tess Monaghan before leaving daily journalism in 2025. Her work has been awarded the Edgar ®, the Anthony, the Agatha, the Shamus, the Nero Wolfe, Gumshoe and Barry awards. She also has been nominated for other prizes in the crime fiction field, including the Hammett and the Macavity. She was the first-ever recipient of the Mayor’s Prize for Literary Excellence and the first genre writer recognized as Author of the Year by the Maryland Library Association.

Ms. Lippman grew up in Baltimore and attended city schools through ninth grade. After graduating from Wilde Lake High School in Columbia, Md., Ms. Lippman attended Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. Her other newspaper jobs included the Waco Tribune-Herald and the San Antonio Light.

Ms. Lippman returned to Baltimore in 1989 and has lived there since. She is the daughter of Theo Lippman Jr., a Sun editorial writer who retired in 1995 but continues to freelance for several newspapers, and Madeline Mabry Lippman, a former Baltimore City school librarian. Her sister, Susan, is a local bookseller.

Join hosts J.D. Barker, Christine Daigle, JP Rindfleisch, and Kevin Tumlinson as they discuss the week's entertainment news, including stories about Pizza Hut, Business Insider, and Meta. Then, stick around for a chat with Riley Sager!

Riley Sager is the New York Times bestselling author of nine novels, most recently Middle of the Night and The Only One Left. His novels have been published in over 35 countries, with more than 3 million copies sold worldwide. His latest book, With a Vengeance, is available now. A native of Pennsylvania, he now lives in Princeton, New Jersey.

Join hosts J.D. Barker, Christine Daigle, Jena Brown, and Kevin Tumlinson as they discuss the week's entertainment news, including stories about ethical concerns with AI, libraries, and an AI prompt left in a fantasy novel. Then, stick around for a chat with Hazel McBride!

My name is Hazel McBride and I grew up in a very small village in Scotland. Being surrounded by forests, mountains, ocean, and incredible wildlife - is it any surprise that I grew up to want to write about magical and mythical creatures? 

I signed with Ciara Finan at the Curtis Brown agency in London in October 2023 and my debut Fantasy Romance; 'A Fate Forged in Fire' was bought by Renegade Books UK and Dell US and will be published May 27th 2025!

​A Fate Forged in Fire is heavily inspired by Scottish mythology and features a sizzling enemies-to-lovers romance that burns hot as dragon fire! Make sure to subscribe to my newsletter for all the latest information below.

​I now live in the Netherlands with my Dutch husband and our border collie Whiskey, but the dream is to one day live on a farm in the Scottish Highlands (yes even in winter!).

Join hosts J.D. Barker, Christine Daigle, Jena Brown, and Kevin Tumlinson as they discuss the week's entertainment news, including stories about fake summer reading lists, Dani Francis, and Taylor Jenkins Reid. Then, stick around for a chat with Heather Graham!

New York Times and USA Today bestselling author, Heather Graham, majored in theater arts at the University of South Florida. After a stint of several years in dinner theater, back-up vocals, and bartending, she stayed home after the birth of her third child and began to write. Her first book was with Dell, and since then, she has written over two hundred novels and novellas including category, suspense, historical romance, vampire fiction, time travel, occult, sci-fi, young adult, and Christmas family fare.

She is pleased to have been published in approximately thirty languages and has written over 200 novels and has 70 million books in print. Heather has been honored with awards from booksellers and writers’ organizations for excellence in her work, and she is the proud to be a recipient of the Silver Bullet from Thriller Writers and was awarded the prestigious Thriller Master Award in 2016. She is also a recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from RWA. Heather has had books selected for the Doubleday Book Club and the Literary Guild, and has been quoted, interviewed, or featured in such publications as The Nation, Redbook, Mystery Book Club, People and USA Today and appeared on many newscasts including Today, Entertainment Tonight, and local television.

Join hosts Christine Daigle, Jena Brown, Kevin Tumlinson, and Dick Wybrow as they discuss the week's entertainment news, including stories about Substack, scams, fake reviews, Audible, and AI translation. Then, stick around for a chat with Anthony Horowitz!

Anthony Horowitz is one of the most prolific and successful writers working in the UK – and is unique for working across so many media. Anthony is a born polymath; juggling writing books, TV series, films, plays and journalism.  Anthony has written over 50 books including the bestselling teen spy series Alex Rider, which is estimated to have sold 21 million copies worldwide and has been turned into a hugely successful TV series by Amazon Freevee.  A third series has just been filmed and the fourteenth Alex Rider novel, Nightshade: Revenge will be published in 2023.

Anthony is also an acclaimed writer for adults and was commissioned to write two new Sherlock Holmes novels The House of Silk and Moriarty. He was commissioned by the Ian Fleming Estate to write continuation novels for James Bond with Trigger Mortis and Forever and Day, published in 2015 and 2018 respectively.  A third novel in the series With a Mind to Kill was published in May 2022.

Anthony is responsible for creating and writing some of the UK’s most beloved and successful television series, producing the first seven episodes (and the title) of Midsomer Murders. He is the writer and creator of award-winning drama series Foyle’s War, which was the Winner of the Lew Grade Audience award for BAFTA. DCS Foyle was voted the nation’s favourite detective in 2011. Anthony has also written other original complex dramas for ITV, particularly thrillers. Collision, a major five part “state of the nation” piece was transmitted on ITV1 in November 2009 to seven million viewers a night. He followed this with the equally successful legal thriller Injustice, also for ITV 1 - transmitted in June 2011. Foyle’s War returned in March 2013 as a Cold War thriller and was greeted with such critical acclaim and demands for more that he wrote one final series, bringing the show to an end in January 2015. Anthony's series, New Blood, premiered on the BBC in 2016.

Join hosts J.D. Barker, Christine Daigle, Jena Brown, and Kevin Tumlinson as they discuss the week's entertainment news, including stories about A Million Lives Book Festival, Findaway's INaudio, and Agatha Christie. Then, stick around for a chat with Joe Abercrombie!

Joe Abercrombie was born in Lancaster, England, on the last day of 1974. He was educated at the stiflingly all-boy Lancaster Royal Grammar School, where he spent much of his time playing video games, rolling dice, and drawing maps of places that don’t exist. He went on to Manchester University to study Psychology. The dice and the maps stopped, but the video games continued. Having long dreamed of single-handedly redefining the fantasy genre, he started to write an epic trilogy based around the misadventures of thinking man’s barbarian Logen Ninefingers. The result was pompous toss, and swiftly abandoned.

Joe then moved to London, lived in a slum with two men on the borders of madness, and found work making tea for minimum wage at a TV Post-Production company. Two years later he left to become a freelance film editor, and has worked since on a range of documentaries, awards shows, music videos, and concerts for artists ranging from Barry White to Coldplay.

This job gave him lots of time off, and realising that he needed something more useful to do than playing video games, in 2001 he sat down once again to write an epic fantasy trilogy based around the misadventures of thinking man’s barbarian Logen Ninefingers. This time, having learned not to take himself too seriously in the six years since the first effort, the results were a great deal more interesting.

With heroic help and support from his family the first volume, The Blade Itself, was completed in 2004. Following a heart-breaking trail of rejection at the hands of several of Britain’s foremost literary agencies, The First Law trilogy was snatched up by Gillian Redfearn of Gollancz in 2005 in a seven-figure deal (if you count the pence columns). A year later The Blade Itself was unleashed on an unsuspecting public. It now has publishers in thirty countries.  The sequels, Before They are Hanged and Last Argument of Kings were published in 2007 and 2008, when Joe was a finalist for the John W. Campbell award for best new writer.  Best Served Cold, a standalone book set in the same world, was published in June 2009, and a second standalone, The Heroes, came in January 2011 and made no. 3 on the Sunday Times Hardcover Bestseller List.  A third standalone, Red Country, was both a Sunday Times and New York Times Hardcover Bestseller in October 2012.

The first part of his viking-inspired Shattered Sea series for young and old adults, Half a King, came out in July 2014, when it won the Locus award for best young adult novel.  The other two books, Half the World, and Half a War, followed in January and July 2015.

His collection of short fiction, Sharp Ends was published in 2016.  A new trilogy set in the world of the First Law, The Age of Madness, began in September 2019 with A Little Hatred. The Trouble with Peace followed in September 2020, and the final part, The Wisdom of Crowds in September 2021. The first book in a new series, The Devils, will publish in May 2025.

Joe now lives in Bath with his wife, Lou, his daughters Grace and Eve, and his son Teddy.  He spends most of his time writing edgy yet humorous fantasy novels…

Join hosts J.D. Barker, Christine Daigle, Jena Brown, and Kevin Tumlinson as they discuss the week's entertainment news, including stories about novelists becoming video game writers, NetGalley, and Amazon. Then, stick around for a chat with Sarina Bowen!

Sarina Bowen is a #1 Amazon bestselling author, a 24-time USA Today bestseller, and a Wall Street Journal bestselling author of contemporary novels. Formerly a derivatives trader on Wall Street, Sarina graduated magna cum laude from Yale University with a BA in economics.

A New Englander whose Vermont ancestors cut timber and farmed the north country in the 1760s, Sarina is grateful for the invention of indoor plumbing and wi-fi during the intervening 250 years. She lives with her family on a few wooded acres in New Hampshire.

Sarina's books are published in more than 15 languages with twenty or so international publishers.

She is a sitting council member on the Authors Guild, with committee work in finance and advocacy.

Join hosts J.D. Barker, Christine Daigle, Jena Brown, and Kevin Tumlinson as they discuss the week's entertainment news, including stories about Pizza Hut, folding e-readers, and The Great Gatsby. Then, stick around for a chat with Joanna Penn!

I'm Jo Frances (J.F.) Penn, Award-nominated, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of thrillers, dark fantasy, and crime. My stories blend my love of travel with adventure at the edge of the supernatural. They all deal with the theme of good vs evil.

I live in Bath, England with my husband and two British shorthair cats, Cashew and Noisette.

When I'm not traveling for book research, I enjoy walking by the canal, and a nice gin and tonic.

You can find me on Instagram @jfpennauthor and Facebook @jfpennauthor.

I share my travels and interview other authors about the places that inspire them on my Books And Travel Podcast.

I love reading, and my favorite authors include John Connolly, Jonathan Maberry, and Stephen King. I also read a lot of non-fiction for book research, which I share in the Author's Note at the back of my books/stories.

If you want to hear about my latest book launches, or learn about special deals on my stories, or get behind the scenes research and photos — or if you'd like to be part of my Reader's Group, the Pennfriends, then click here to sign up for my email list.

Join hosts J.D. Barker, Christine Daigle, Jena Brown, and Kevin Tumlinson as they discuss the week's entertainment news, including stories about TV writing jobs, book subscription services, and Meta. Then, stick around for a chat with Nat Cassidy!

Nat Cassidy writes horror for the page, stage, and screen.

His acclaimed novels, including Mary: An Awakening of Terror,Nestlings, and Rest Stop (Bram Stoker Award nominee), have been featured in best-of lists from Esquire, Harper's Bazaar, NPR, the Chicago Review of Books, the NY Public Library, Amazon, and more, and he was named one of the "writers shaping horror’s next golden age" by Esquire.

His award-winning horror plays have been produced throughout New York City and across the United States. He won the NY Innovative Theatre Award for his one-man show about H. P. Lovecraft, another for his play about Caligula, and was commissioned by the Kennedy Center to write the libretto for a short opera (about the end of the world, of course). 

From 2020 - 2023, Nat was the scriptwriter for Shakespeare Theatre of DC's annual WILL ON THE HILL event, a comedy fundraiser about Shakespeare and politics featuring a star-studded cast of journalists, members of Congress, ambassadors, and veteran actors. With WILL ON THE HILL, Nat's scripts helped raise over a million dollars for arts education. 

You've also maybe seen Nat on your TV, playing various Bad Guys of the Week on shows such as Law & Order: SVU, Blue Bloods, Bull, Quantico, FBI, and many others. Additionally, Nat is commercial voiceover actor and a member of the audiodrama production company, Gideon Media, which produced hit sci-fi podcasts such as Steal the Stars and Give Me Away, as well as the authorized audiodrama adaptations of the Paramount Pictures classic, Witness, and Wallace Shawn's The Designated Mourner. Nat authored the novelization of Steal the Stars, published by Tor Books and named one of the best books of 2017 by NPR. 

He lives in New York City with his wife.