Nov 28, 2025 | Historical, Uncategorized |
Michele Drier is a fifth generation Californian. During her career in journalism at daily newspapers in California, she won awards for investigative series. She is the past president of Capitol Crimes, a Sisters in Crime chapter; the Guppies chapter of Sisters in Crime; current president of NorCal Sisters in Crime, and co-chaired Bouchercon 2020, the world’s oldest and largest convention for mystery fans and authors. Her Amy Hobbes Newspaper Mysteries are Edited for Death, (called “Riveting and much recommended” by the Midwest Book Review), Labeled for Death and Delta for Death. A stand-alone, Ashes of Memories was published May 2017.
Her paranormal romance series, SNAP: The Kandesky Vampire Chronicles, named the best paranormal vampire series of 2014 by PRG are” . SNAP: The World Unfolds, SNAP: New Talent, PLAGUE: A Love Story, DANUBE: A Tale of Murder, SNAP: Love for Blood, (Best paranormal book 2013, PRG reviewers); SNAP: Happily Ever After?, SNAP: White Nights, SNAP; All That Jazz ( best paranormal vampire book of 2014, PRG reviewers), SNAP: I, Vampire, SNAP: Red Bear Rising and SNAP: Pandemic Games. I am currently writing book 12, SNAP: The Defenders
Her new series is the Stained Glass Mysteries, Stain on the Soul, Tapestry of Tear, and Resurrection of the Roses.
She lives in Sacramento with her cat, Malley.
I’ve always considered setting as a character, both in my reading and my writing.
Although I don’t write much detail about my characters—leaving it up to the readers to draw a picture for themselves—I do include details about where the story and action take place. I want readers to be able to orient themselves both in the real world and in their imagined space, so I add details about what the characters are seeing and feeling around them.
All my life I’ve tried to imagine what went before in any place I’ve visited—or made up. As a child, going to Yosemite, I’d look at the grooves in the granite and dream of the Native Americans who ground acorns or the immigrants who dragged their wagons up the steep mountain passes.
So when I began my novel-writing career, as opposed to my news-writing and editing career, I made a conscious effort to bring setting into the story as both an understanding and a foil for the characters and action.
My first novel, Edited for Death, is set in the San Joaquin Valley, in a place that may or may not be Lodi, and quickly moves to the protagonist sweltering in the summer heat. “…the pollution trapped in this valley like a bug in a jar. The haze and smog will cook into a dangerous-to-breathe soup as the day heats up.” This heat becomes an element that the characters deal with.
My paranormal romance series, The Kandesky Vampire Chronicles, is set in Eastern Europe, primarily Hungary and Ukraine, and covers 500 centuries of war, trade, and change. The physical setting, major rivers of the area, including the Danube and the Dnieper, are the routes the early members of the Kandesky family used to build their trading empire, which, in the 21st century, has led them to be one of the richest families in the world.
The settings here are both LA, where the Kandeskys’ major industry, SNAP, the world’s largest and best celebrity gossip media is headquartered, and Kyiv and Budapest, where they maintain their homes. As the series progresses (now writing the 12th book) the setting becomes a danger as the Russians move west to invade. The Kandeskys moved over this landscape with knowledge amassed over the centuries, and this became both their protection and their offensive weapon.
With my most recent series, The Stained Glass Mysteries, setting became such a strong character that readers have said, “Reading this makes me feel as though I’m there with the characters. I can feel the ocean,” or in the case of the latest, Resurrection of the Roses, “I feel as though I’m eating with them at that Parisian cafe. How do you do it?”
I met a woman a year or so ago who retired in a small town on the Oregon Coast and, when she read, Stain on the Soul, the first Stained Glass book, she said, “How long did you live there? You’ve described it perfectly, and I can feel the fog on the beach.” I had to admit I’d never lived there but had visited, and the memories of the scents of the ocean and the feel of the air immediately took me back to that place.
I don’t intend my novels to be travelogues, but I use settings to put the reader in the place with the characters: to taste the pumpkin soup at the restaurant in Beaune or watch the tide come up in the small Kentish village, bringing a reminiscence of the Oregon coast.
Even though fans have told me my novels made them want to travel—maybe my work here is done!—I do want to give readers as full an experience as I can.
They may not know how tall Roz is or the color of Maxie’s hair, but they do know how the protagonists relate to the world around them: “As the dark, soft Ukrainian night smoothed out across the miles of fields to the east, an easy road for centuries of conquests.”
My 20th book, the fourth in the Stained Glass Mysteries series, will take the reader across Europe as the main characters help track down international art thieves. I can’t wait to get back to Switzerland!
Visit her webpage, www.MicheleDrier.me
Or her Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/AuthorMicheleDrier
Or find her on her author page at http://www.amazon.com/Michele-Drier/e/B005D2YC8G/
For a look inside Resurrection of the Roses, my latest in the Stained Glass Mysteries, I’ve included part of a scene and the setting:
The University of Paris, established in 1150, was divided into separate colleges in 1970. However, the original buildings were still used for classes, lectures, and seminars, and stained-glass workshops took up several of the medieval and later spaces. She looked up from her map, found a lecture auditorium where she was scheduled to give her keynote presentation later that day, and crossed the soaring atria at the top of the grand staircase.
The vast auditorium could hold upwards of 1,000 people, and she hoped it wouldn’t be full. Speaking before groups didn’t much bother her, she’d learned to focus on people on the first few rows, but here the tiers went up into darkness. She took a breath, moved to the side of the stage and climbed to the speaker’s dais set up in the center.
The overhead lights weren’t on but a spot lit the dais and caught a flash of red near the backdrop curtain. Roz looked out at the auditorium, getting a feel for the space and how she’d shape her talk. She had slides so needed to talk to some of the audiovisual staff.
She turned around to check out the curtain behind the dais, caught the flash of red again and walked back. As she neared the curtain, the flash resolved itself into a two-foot long shard of glass, poking up from a pile of rags. No, it wasn’t a pile of rags, there was a shape there—and something wet looking. Closer, she saw it was a body, a man, who was curled around the shard as though embracing it.
It wasn’t an embrace though, it was a fatal wound, the shard protruding through his chest and spilling his life, the same color as the glass, out on the stage.
She stifled a scream, backed away, spun around and took the steps to the auditorium floor so fast she almost lost her balance.
Buy at: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D7R1QR8G
Jun 5, 2025 | Historical, Memoir |
Shelley Lee Riley is the International award-winning author of Casual Lies—A Triple Crown Adventure. The memoir tells my story about Casual Lies, the horse I trained to compete in all three American Triple Crown Races. After five years in the United Kingdom, I returned to the San Francisco Bay Area and, in my spare time, worked as a freelance writer for various publications. Now retired in Oregon, I enjoy living in a forest, watching the deer clear-cut the garden, the sounds of the Canadian geese roosting on the chimney, and the squirrels chewing the siding, the decking, and the sprinkler heads. While not engaged in repairs and replacement gardening, I enjoy writing fiction.
Having the pleasure of being featured on George’s blog previously, I’ll skip to the point and share a bit about my recent experience promoting my memoir.
First published in twenty-thirteen, “Casual Lies – A Triple Crown Adventure” received critical acclaim and sold a significant number of copies.
While what constitutes significant is always open to debate, let’s just say that although all authors would like more, I was content with what I had. However, I was disappointed by the ratio of reviews to sales over the intervening years. We won’t even get into the ratings that Amazon removed, off and on, without explanation.
With less-than-successful forays into the labyrinthine and, I might add, very expensive Amazon advertising mechanism, after twelve years, my memoir had garnered only sixty-nine reviews and ratings. Worst of all, I saw virtually no bump in sales.
I tried META (Facebook) ads; while they are far less expensive, they are still pricey. Again, although I gained followers, there was no increase in sales.
Since my memoir is about the Triple Crown of horse racing, my sales spike every year as the Kentucky Derby approaches. So, on a whim, after George mentioned he’d heard that authors were finding success using BookBub ads, I thought, why not?
Here’s the main takeaway: Since I started advertising with BookBub, there have been 426 sales and 26,962 KENP pages read, which amounts to approximately 102 additional books sold. Ratings and reviews now total 109 on Amazon. With the Triple Crown season ongoing, I may advertise again before the Belmont Stakes this week.
How does that compare to previous years with the pre-derby spike? While the number varies, I typically secure between twenty and forty sales.
How it works: Creating an ad page is very user-friendly. It also allows you to choose between click-through or cost per 1000 times the ad is displayed. I chose click-through and varied the ad cost from $ 0.21 to $ 0.51 per click. I priced the eBook from $ 0.99 (where the majority of sales occurred) to $2.99. I tried many different formats, but this one was miles ahead of the rest and was the only format that allowed the Kindle Unlimited graphic to be displayed. Finally, I set my maximum spend.
https://www.amazon.com/Casual-Lies-Triple-Crown-Adventure-ebook/dp/B00C63SVBE/
While the eBook is not currently available for $ 0.99, I may consider it again in the future. But hey, it’s a good read and far cheaper than Netflix.
BookBub put my ad in front of tens of thousands of new eyes. Copies were sold in both the UK and Canada.
Note the spike. That was the $.99 ad. The following were at $1.49 and $2.99.
Again, the spike was at the $.99 ad. You will note that the Kindle Unlimited reads didn’t fall off nearly as much. More importantly, the Kindle Unlimited reads have continued without additional ads. I have found that the royalty for each book varies month to month, but it averages between $1.08 and $1.22 per 265 pages read. If you haven’t done it already, you might want to consider KENP.
Give BookBub a try; what do you have to lose? Well, there is the cost per click. Still, my book remained at number one on the Amazon bestseller list in three different categories for days on end, attracting readers beyond the BookBub audience. (I have not received any incentive from BookBub to tout their site.)
Was it worth it for me to raise awareness? Nobody would stumble upon my book on page 8,000 or whatever with an Amazon search using “horse racing” or “equestrian sports” as criteria. So, yes, a thousand times, yes.
Finally, people seem to want to spend $.99 or nothing at all. The chart shows this. However, to gain awareness, you must try something. Set what you’re willing to spend on an ad campaign and let her rip. Try different things, such as ad copy and pricing. Remember, this is only for ebooks, although I did experience paperback sales as a result of the attention drawn to the Amazon marketing page.
Thank you for reading, and thank you, George.
Shelley Lee Riley
www.ShelleyleeRiley.com
May 29, 2025 | Crime, Historical, Mystery, Thriller |
M.E. Proctor was born in Brussels and lives in Texas. The first book in her Declan Shaw PI series, Love You Till Tuesday, came out from Shotgun Honey, with the follow up, Catch Me on a Blue Day, scheduled for 2025. She’s the author of a short story collection, Family and Other Ailments, and the co-author of a retro-noir novella, Bop City Swing. Her fiction has appeared in Vautrin, Tough, Rock and a Hard Place, Bristol Noir, Mystery Tribune, Shotgun Honey, Reckon Review, and Black Cat Weekly. She’s a Derringer nominee.
Russell Thayer’s work has appeared in Tough, Roi Fainéant Press, Guilty Crime Story Magazine, Mystery Tribune, Close to the Bone, Bristol Noir, Apocalypse Confidential, Cowboy Jamboree Press, Shotgun Honey, Rock and a Hard Place Press, Revolution John, Punk Noir Magazine, Expat Press, The Yard Crime Blog, and Outcast Press. He received his BA in English from the University of Washington, worked for decades at large printing companies, and currently lives in Missoula, Montana.
Bop City Swing: –
San Francisco. 1951 – Jazz is alive. On radios and turntables. In the electrifying Fillmore clubs, where hepcats bring their bebop brilliance to attentive audiences. In the posh downtown venues, big bands swing in the marble ballrooms of luxury hotels.That’s where the story begins, with the assassination of a campaigning politician during a fundraiser.
Homicide detective Tom Keegan is first on the scene. He’s eager, impatient, hot on the heels of the gunman. Gunselle, killer for hire, flew the coop, swept away in the rush of panicked guests. They both want to crack the case. Tom, because he’s never seen a puzzle he didn’t want to solve, no matter what the rules say. Gunselle was hired to take out the candidate, and somebody beat her to it. It was a big paycheck. It hurts her professional pride and wallet.
Book link: Bop City Swing is available in eBook and paperback – On Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/Bop-City-Swing-Proctor-Thayer/dp/B0F4DSSQ9V/
What is the most challenging part of your writing process? Russell: I’m always bubbling with ideas, but I also suffer from an egregious lack of discipline. Fully retired from regular working life, you’d think I have all day to write, but I’m involved with the care of an ailing parent. And there are movies, yardwork, ball throwing for the dog, books, straightening pictures on the wall, and baseball on TV. Distractions. My problem is that I haven’t been able to settle into a writing schedule. I don’t think I could have finished Bop City Swing without the example set by the hard-working Martine Proctor. She keeps me on task, and it’s much appreciated.
M.E.: Russ paints me as a schoolmistress with a ruler, but I used to be a terrible procrastinator. I’ve fixed that problem by giving myself deadlines. Sometimes, I make them too tight, flirt with burn-out, or chafe at life interruptions. Cross my fingers; I’m still standing, but yes, I tend to take on too much, and I run ragged. Time management is a constant challenge.
What are you currently working on? Russ: Martine and I are rolling down the rails toward finishing a sequel to Bop City Swing. It’s wilder than the first book—lots of research into organized crime and Kansas City locales. I’m loving it. Once we complete the master document, I’ll be fine-tuning a few more stories for the Vivian Davis/Gunselle collection I’m pulling together. If I’m not too distracted.
M.E.: Yep, the Bop sequel is chugging along. I also have short stories coming out in anthologies. They’re in editing stages. The next installment of the Declan Shaw PI series, Catch Me on a Blue Day, comes out in September, so I’m writing essays and interviewing. Another Declan book is in submission, and I’m considering creating a collection of science fiction and horror stories. And I’m keeping up with the Substack newsletter every other week. Did I mention I tend to load my plate?
How do you come up with character names? Russ: Many of my crime stories take place in the 1940s, and I try to give them the feel of the old movies I adore. I often search the cast lists of classic Hollywood films and extract names that strike me as being of that period. Vivian is the sultry anti-heroine at the center of Bop City Swing, but her birth name is Mildred, which was popular in the 1920s. As a teenage runaway, she made the change out of necessity, choosing a more elegant moniker to create a commanding new image of herself.
M.E.: Most of what I write is contemporary, and I like ‘plain’ names, such as Billy, Danny, Max, and Annie. I find the trendy names annoying; they also quickly feel dated. Tom Keegan in Bop, and many other stories, is a direct tip of the fedora to Gabriel Byrne’s character, Tom Reagan, in Miller’s Crossing. The name of my Houston detective, Declan Shaw, came out of the blue. I just loved the sound of it. A hard snap followed by a sensual sigh. It defines the character. When it fits, you know it.
What’s the most challenging thing about writing characters of the opposite sex? Russ: Getting the small details right. I was raised by a single mother and her gaggle of female friends. I have two sisters and have married the same woman for forty years. I’m drawn to portraying females. It’s fun to give them powerful things to do in a 1940s crime world where men usually held power. The writing group where I workshopped my female-driven short stories was made up of mostly women. If you want to make a group of ladies laugh at you, have your female protagonist wear a towel around her waist instead of under her shoulders.
M.E.: My husband is my first reader, and he’s a fierce critic. When something rankles, he tells me. Lesson learned: Men don’t giggle. (Mind you: Joel Cairo in The Maltese Falcon, Peter Lorre, giggles!) You have to be careful of the little unconscious slips. I’ve done theater and improv. I step in the shoes of my characters and act. It helps to feel how they move and how they talk.
What kind of research do you do? Russ: I love Hollywood movies made in the 1930s and 40s. I try to give my stories that look and feel. The clothing and hairstyles of the time are wonderful. The automobiles and the kitchens are interesting and a challenge to describe. Old photographs are a period writer’s best friend. Most of my stories are set in L.A. or S.F. I’m always studying maps for street names and photos to get a flavor of the neighborhoods.
M.E.: For the 1950s Tom Keegan stories, I scour newspaper articles and photo archives. There’s a wealth of data out there, and there are lots of rabbit holes to drop in. I recently wrote a story for an anthology with a 17th-century theme. I dug deep into a guy’s memoirs. I used little of it, but it gave me a voice. I’m sure I took a ton of liberties with history. In writing 1950, you have to be more accurate. Movie stills and production shots are useful, especially when the film was shot on location. You see signage, architecture, traffic, that sort of thing.
Looking to the future, what’s in store for you? Russ: Before my inevitable demise, I hope to see that collection of Vivian Davis stories in print. Vivian has been a colorful part of my publishing history, with nearly thirty stories issued over the last four years. I hope the future includes more Keegan/Davis adventures in novel form, and then there are all the unfinished novels from my younger days. I’m 67, so you understand my urge to tidy up what I can.
M.E.: I’ll be very happy if Russ and I can keep the Keegan/Davis collaboration going. Writing is solitary, and finding a partner is both a joy and a relief. I’m also looking forward to more books in the Declan Shaw series and I will continue to flex my imagination in short stories. Writing in multiple genres is exciting, and sometimes great, unexpected characters come out of it that I want to spend more time with.
How do our readers contact you:
M.E. Proctor is at: Twitter: @MEProctor3, Facebook: Martine Elise Proctor
Website: https://www.shawmystery.com
Substack: https://meproctor.substack.com
Russell Thayer is at: Twitter: @RussellThayer10, Facebook: Russell Thayer
May 15, 2025 | Action & Adventure, Crime, Historical, Mystery |
Michael A. Black is the award-winning author of over 50 books. A retired police officer from the Chicago area, he has done everything from patrol to investigating homicides to conducting numerous SWAT operations. Black was awarded the Cook County Medal of Merit in 2010. He is the author of over 100 short stories and articles. He did eleven novels under the name Don Pendleton in the Executioner series and numerous westerns in the Gunslinger series under the name A.W. Hart. His Executioner novel, Fatal Prescription, won the Best Original Novel Scribe Award in 2018. His recent novels are Where Legends Lie are Where Legends Lie and Legends of the West, A Deputy Marshal Bass Reeves Book, as well as the eight novels in his Trackdown series.
I told you I was packing. Now I’ll tell you what: the first ten people who leave a comment and correctly identify the make and model of the gun I’m carrying in the picture will get one of my short stories. (Please include your email address in your comment’s response.) How’s that for being magnanimous?
Okay, on to the questions…
Do you write in more than one genre? I do; although most of my writing has been in the mystery and thriller genres, I’ve been fortunate to have been published in a variety of other genres as well. These include Westerns, sci-fi, horror, pulp fiction, young adult, mainstream, and sports. Mysteries and thrillers will always be my first love, but I also believe in genre blending. My Western novel, Gunslinger: Killer’s Ghost, was a Western but also a bit of a monster story. And although I’m still trying to break into romance, I try to include a bit of that in all my stuff.
Your latest books have been Westerns. What are the challenges of working in that genre?
You’re right. I seem to have gravitated to the Western genre. My book, Where Legends Lie, is listed as two stories told as one. It begins I913 with a disillusioned veteran returning from combat overseas (the Philippine Insurrection) and getting a job at a fledgling movie studio filming a motion picture about a famous western shootout. The scene then drifts back to 1880 and the events leading up to the real shootout. The two stories continue in tandem until they coalesce at the end.
I’m familiar with the book. It also has some real historical figures and events, right? It does. Writer Ambrose Bierce, a combat vet of the Civil War, is in the book, as well as allusions to the Mexican Revolution. Bierce actually disappeared in Mexico in 1913 during the fighting. He was a journalist, too, and went south of the border to meet Pancho Villa and cover the Revolution. It’s conjectured that Villa, or his compadres, murdered Bierce, but his body was never found. I read his stories back in high school and loved them. I wanted to give him one more grand adventure, so I put him in the book.
You’ve also got another western featuring Bass Reeves, don’t you? 
Right. It’s called Legends of the West, A Deputy Marshal Bass Reeves Book. Reeves was an actual historical figure, too. He was born in slavery and freed after the Civil War. He became one of the first Black federal marshals to police the Indian Territory, which is now the state of Oklahoma. There’s a popular theory that Reeves was the inspiration for the Lone Ranger because he rode a big grayish-white stallion, often had Indian companions ride with him, gave out silver dollars (instead of silver bullets), and often used disguises like Clayton Moore did in the TV show and movies. While this theory has pretty much been discarded as B.S., I poked some fun at it in my book. I also paid tribute to a late friend of mine, David Walks-As-Bear, who was an American Indian. I made him and Reeves partners, and the books unfold like a modern-day buddy picture.
You just said books? As in the plural? Precisely. Legends of the West actually was published in hardcover and large print a few years ago and was just released in paperback by Genius Publishing. It’s on track to become a series featuring Reeves and Bear, as I called him. The second book, Retribution Trail, is due out in early summer. It’s about a renegade Confederate officer who escapes prison and is determined to start a new conflict between the Indians and the federal government. Naturally, Reeves and Bear have to stop him, but it ain’t gonna be easy. The renegades united with some of the Cherokee Indians who fought with him against the Union during the Civil War. I’ve got a few more planned featuring Reeves and Bear.
Indians fighting against the North in the Civil War? Is that historically defensible?
Yeah, when the war broke out, the South recruited a lot of Indians to fight against the North, promising them sovereignty if the Confederates won. In fact, the last Confederate general to surrender at the war’s end was half-Indian and the leader of a large Indian force.
It sounds like you have to do a lot of research on those westerns. I love research and strive to make my stories and books as accurate and real as possible, whether they’re westerns, mysteries, or thrillers. Getting an idea and them doing research to flesh it out is an enjoyable task for me. I usually get a bunch of ideas for more stories as I do research.
What else have you got coming out? Funny, you should ask. <Grin> I’ve got a police procedural story coming out in the new issue of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. It’s called “Nobody Cares” and involves the murder of an apparently homeless man. I actually started it a few years ago in a workshop session at the PSWA Conference in Las Vegas. I wrote an essay about how I came to write the story that was posted on the magazine’s Trace Evidence blog.
The PSWA Conference—that’s where you and I met. Yeah, I’ve met so many lovely people and excellent writers through the PSWA (Public Safety Writers Association), and you’re one of them. We have our annual conference every year in mid-July in Las Vegas. It’s one of the best writer’s conferences around, and you’re not going to find a more supportive group for writers. You don’t have to have a background in public safety to join the organization or attend the conference. You just have to include some mention of public safety in your writing. For more information, check it out.
Anything else you’d like to tell us about yourself and your books? I’ve written over 50 books under three different names in various genres. I hope you’ll check some of them out. As they say, every artist wants someone to appreciate his work. And don’t forget to take a shot (pardon the pun) at identifying the make and model of that gun I’m holding in the above picture. Many thanks to you, Big George, for this opportunity to be on your blog once again.
How do our readers contact you?
Give me a shout at DocAtlas108@aol.com
Please give me a list of any groups you belong to. I try to (usually) make a Facebook post and then share it with the groups I am able to reach. I suggest you do likewise by sharing it with your social media and other fans.
I’m a proud member of:
VFW- Veterans of Foreign Wars –THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE
FOP (Fraternal Order of Police)
WWA (Western Writers of America)
PSWA (Public Safety Writers Association)
Feb 6, 2025 | Crime, Historical |
Manhattan – An award-winning author of eight novels, Claudia Riess graduated from Vassar and resides in Manhattan. Her most recent novel is the fifth book in her art history mystery series. Dying for Monet was released on June 11, 2024, by Level Best Books.
Book 5 of Riess’s art history mystery series opens on a gala evening auction at Laszlo’s, an upstart auction house in New York City. After a much sought-after Impressionist still life painting is without notice withdrawn from the auction block, its broker is found dead at the foot of an imposing statue in
Laszlo’s courtyard. Amateur sleuths Erika Shawn and Harrison Wheatley are once again drawn into an art-related homicide investigation, this time with one sharing an unnerving coincidence with violent crimes occurring abroad.
As Harrison searches for clues in the archives at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, Erika is on a stakeout in Brooklyn Heights gathering information on the owner of the hijacked still life. After Harrison experiences a disastrous encounter in London, he returns home, where he and Erika, along with a few of their usual cohorts, find themselves ever more deeply at odds with the movers and shakers on the dark side of fine arts commerce.
Riess has worked in the editorial departments of The New Yorker and Holt, Rinehart, and Winston and has edited several art history monographs. Stolen Light, the first book in her art history mystery series, was chosen by Vassar’s Latin American history professor for distribution to the college’s people-to-people trips to Cuba. To Kingdom Come, the fourth will be added to the syllabus of a survey course on West and Central African Art at a prominent Midwestern university. Riess has written a number of articles for Mystery Readers Journal, Women’s National Book Association, the Sisters in Crime Bloodletter, and Mystery Scene magazine. She is available for and has been featured on a variety of podcasts and Zoom events. To read more about the author and her work, visit www.claudiariessbooks.com.
All five books in the art history mystery series are available through Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, IndieBound.org, and at independent bookstores. For bulk discount purchases, contact https://levelbestbooks.wordpress.com.
Sep 12, 2024 | Historical, Non-Fiction, Uncategorized |
Doctor Jenn Prosser is an emergency medicine physician and toxicologist passionate about poisons. She’s the creator and host of the Pick Your Poison Podcast. She’s published on topics including cocaine, meth, bath salts, fentanyl, sports supplements, and body packing of drugs for internal concealment. Her work has been recognized nationally and internationally.
Pick Your Poison is a fast-paced, interactive podcast about poisons, toxins, mayhem, and murder, spanning time from ancient history to pop culture. Make the wrong choice, and your patient won’t survive the podcast!
What inspired you to start a podcast? Poisons!! I love telling the stories of poisons and sharing everything I’ve learned, from medicine to murder, ancient history to cutting-edge science, and everything in between. I love solving the mystery of what poisoned a patient and sharing the excitement with listeners.
Where do you write? Anywhere. I write a script for each show. I want to cram in as many fascinating facts as possible, but I also want to keep episodes short and concise. The script provides balance, so I don’t ramble on forever. Locations include the desk in my office, hotels, cafes, trains, planes, beaches, hair salons, and waiting rooms, to name a few. My favorite? On a quiet redeye flight with noise-canceling headphones. It feels like a silent cocoon with no distractions. As for distractions…
Do you allow distractions when writing? Yes! I’d love to be more disciplined, i.e., faster, but I’m continuously sucked into rabbit holes and pulled down meandering paths during research. Like Alice in Wonderland, sometimes. It yields many fascinating facts, but sadly, it wastes lots of valuable time. I’ve discovered things like which celebrity has drug-inspired artwork in their home, what moonshine has to do with NASCAR, what medicine comes from a bean used in African witchcraft trials, and which plant, now used as a drug, might’ve been used by Medea to kill her children in ancient Greece.
What is your writing/research process? I always follow the same framework. First, the topic is something I feel inspired to share and discuss. I try to vary episodes between natural toxins, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, etc. Second, the invention of a fictional patient with symptoms and presentation representative of the poison. Then, research using medical resources like toxicology textbooks or journal articles to review scientific details like mechanisms of action, treatment, etc. (Want to hear more about my research methods? I’m giving a talk on this topic for SinC Central Virginia on October 10, 7 pm EST – RSVP). Then it’s time for my favorite part, the rabbit holes and meandering paths. I scour the internet for interesting historical facts, mythological stories, pop culture references, crazy criminals, and other random facts.
What settings do you use for the podcast? Generally, the Emergency Department. I start each case as a mystery, allowing the listener to solve the case as a toxicologist or ER doctor would. Every case is fictional but based in real life. I love learning this way myself. I can remember patients and cases much more easily than long recitations of facts. I mix up the settings. For example, I’ve included tropical destinations with vacations gone wrong thanks to culinary misadventures or encounters with local wildlife.
What obstacles do you encounter? One challenging element is balancing content. I have highly knowledgeable medical professionals listening and those with no medical background, because who doesn’t love hearing about poisons? I try to walk a fine line straight down the middle with something for everyone without losing anyone in the weeds. Another issue is medicine, and toxicology especially, doesn’t always have all the answers. I wish we had an antidote for every poison, but that’s not the case. We aren’t allowed to conduct randomized, controlled clinical trials by poisoning half of the patients to see what treatment works best. Instead of glossing over these issues, I try to involve listeners in these real medical dilemmas.
What’s the most challenging part? Time!! I balance the podcast with family and a real job. For each episode, I research the topic, write the script, record the podcast, edit it, publish it, and try – emphasis on try- to promote via social media. Most days, I could use more than 24 hours!
Want to find out more? Check out the podcast!
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/pick-your-poison/id1686838151
https://open.spotify.com/show/2saYRMCoQEMneVKxJ94pjf?si=bfa792e2c30a4149
Social Media and Contact Info:
Website: Pickpoison.com
X: @pickpoison1
Instagram: @pickpoison1
Email: pickpoison1@gmail.com
Writers Clubs:
Sisters in Crime (Main, Guppies, NorCal)
Hi Michele! I’m late to your interview, but enjoyed it! Thanks George, tyoo. You’vemade me want to put aside the beta read I’m doing (it’s really good , but…) to pull yours from the TBR pile and read it right now! Forget dinner…
xoAna
Hi Michele!
I wholeheartedly agree!
I’ve always treated location/setting as a character. I suspect, and am eager to learn first hand, that you err on the side of suspense with the location setting contributing to that feeling. West Coast to eastern Europe, such diversity! Best of luck!
Best,
Dave
I haven’t read your books yet, Michele, but the Stained Glass Mysteries have now moved to the top of my list!
I’m Australian-born, live in New York City, and my book series, Prague Soul-Steps, is set in – you guessed it – Prague. I have spent many happy visits there, and love the city and the country.
The first of the series, The Skull of Wenceslas, will be released in the spring of 2026. Kat is an American, vlsiting Prague for the first time. She discovers the magic of Prague takes her psychic skills way beyond seeing ghosts, and she can now see through the eyes of ghosts and legends in their own time.
I love writing about Prague, and I’m constantly treading a fine line between suspense and a travelogue. Great blog – thank you!