The Crime Cafe Podcast Por Debbi Mack arte de portada

The Crime Cafe

The Crime Cafe

De: Debbi Mack
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 Interviews and entertainment for crime fiction, suspense and thriller fans.© 2015 - 2021 Debbi Mack Arte Ciencias Sociales Historia y Crítica Literaria
Episodios
  • Interview with Clay Stafford – S. 11, Ep. 1

    Interview with Clay Stafford – S. 11, Ep. 1
    Jun 22 2025
    My guest for this episode of the Crime Cafe podcast is crime writer and media entrepreneur, Clay Stafford. Don't miss our discussion of the ways the publishing and filmmaking worlds collide, so to speak. :) To download a PDF of the transcript, just click here. Debbi (00:54): Hi everyone. We are back with a new season of the show, which is starting its 11th year. I can't believe I've been doing it this long. And once again, I have with me one of the crime genre's most multimedia and multihyphenate entrepreneurs out there. His business, American Blackguard, does film and television production as well as publishing. He's also the organizer and promoter for the Killer Nashville Conference, which will be coming up later this year. It's my pleasure to introduce my guest, Clay Stafford. Hi, Clay. How are you doing? Clay (01:34): Hi, Debbi, Debbi (01:34): Gotta get you on camera. There we go. Clay (01:38): Hey, how are you? Debbi (01:39): I'm fine, thank you. How are you? Clay (01:41): Eleven years. Debbi (01:42): Eleven freaking years. Can you freaking believe? Clay (01:45): Stamina. Stamina. Debbi (01:47): It's insane. There's stamina. Yeah, I'm mustering up the stamina to keep it going. Yeah. Clay (01:56): Well, for Killer Nashville, we're coming up on 20 years. Debbi (01:59): Wow, that's impressive. Clay (02:02): Yeah, so ... stamina. Debbi (02:06): Amen to that, man. Amen. I hear you. Apart from getting ready for the conference, what projects are you currently working on? What's on your front burner, so to speak? Clay (02:17): I've actually got three projects that I'm working on right now. One is a nonfiction book and the other is a memoir. And because I come from a very eclectic kind of Appalachian background, and then Country Boy went to the city, and so there's some things to discuss there. And then I'm working on a novel now, the first in his series, and it's got a few short stories and poems and stuff like that out and some essays, but those are the long-term projects that I'm working on right now. Debbi (02:58): Very cool. It's funny you should say you were a country boy who found the city. I was a city girl who ended up in the country. Briefly. Clay (03:10): Yeah. So I sort of came back. I was a New York guy, a Los Angeles guy, and a Miami guy, and went back and forth from place to place in those areas, but ended up in Nashville. So I don't know if I'll actually, we can call Nashville the country, but it's back towards home where I'm from in Tennessee. Debbi (03:38): It's not quite as country as say, Bakersfield, California. Clay (03:43): No, I've been to Bakersfield. I love Bakersfield. But no, it's still, we've got our family farm back in east Tennessee, and so I've still got roots in that area and spend a lot of time in north Georgia and areas like that. So I get out in the tick country, so. Debbi (04:10): Excellent, excellent. Very good. Nashville is also a big place for music, correct? Clay (04:16): Yeah, they do a little bit of music here, Debbi (04:20): A little bit of music, just a little, Clay (04:26): Yeah. And the little community I live in is replete with country music and gospel pop performers, writers, producers and stuff. And so we have these tour buses that come by all the time, and I never thought I would live in an area where tour buses come by to point at houses and things and say, so and so lives there, so-and-so lives there, but it's just, yeah, Nashville's got its charm, that's for sure. Debbi (05:00): My goodness, that must be quite a thing. Having tour buses come through your neighborhood. Things have changed so fast in terms of the publishing industry and the movie industry and the television industry that I see them kind of coming together. Do you have any thoughts on that? Clay (05:24): Well, I think that they're definitely tied together now because we are in a position where we're doing IP, intellectual property more. That's what I focus on more right now.
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  • Interview with J.D. Barker – S. 10, Ep. 25

    Interview with J.D. Barker – S. 10, Ep. 25
    May 4 2025
    My guest for this episode of the Crime Cafe podcast is crime writer J.D. Barker. Don't miss our discussion on writing across different genres and the benefits of collaborative writing. You can download a copy of transcript here. Debbi (00:52): Hi everyone. My guest today is a New York Times and international bestselling author whose work has been broadly described as suspense thrillers, often incorporating elements of horror, crime mystery, science fiction and supernatural. That's quite a bit. His debut novel Forsaken was a finalist for the Bram Stroker Award in 2014. Several of his works have been optioned for adaptation to motion pictures. It's my pleasure to have with me my guest, JD Barker. Hi, JD. How you doing today? J.D. (01:32): I'm doing great, Debbi. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. Debbi (01:34): Well, it's my pleasure to have you on, believe me. I'm glad you're here. I love that you have no problem with mixing genres in your work. I think that's awesome. Would you say that there's any particular genre that tends to be dominant in your writing? J.D. (01:51): Well, it's funny. I grew up, I've been writing my entire life, but I worked behind the scenes for about 20 some years. I worked as a book doctor and a ghost writer, basically helping other people get published, and one of the things I saw over and over again is an author would write a particular book and it would hit, and then all of a sudden they had to write that same book, but different for the next 20 books. The publisher just wanted that same book but different, and honestly, that scared me. I didn't want to get caught in that kind of hole, so I made a conscious effort from the very beginning. I'm a huge fan of horror. I'm a huge fan of thrillers, so I basically bounced back and forth, and I think my Wikipedia page probably sums it up the best. I think that's what you were reading from, but I describe it as a suspense novel as the common thread with little elements of horror, of sci-fi of this, of that and what that allows me to do. As long as I keep that thriller-suspense framework in place, I can branch out a little bit and the readers come along for the ride. It's not so different that it frightens 'em off. As long as I keep that thriller-suspense framework in place, I can branch out a little bit and the readers come along for the ride. It's not so different that it frightens 'em off. Debbi (02:51): That's really cool. That's great. So it gives you more flexibility J.D. (02:54): And agents hate it, and publishers hate it because again, they want you to write that same book, but different. But I'm finding that the fans, they actually enjoy it because I'm not giving them the same book every single time. I think it gets old as a reader too, so it allows me to mix it up and just keep it fresh. Debbi (03:12): Totally, I agree. Yeah, so you're directly reaching the readership as opposed to going through what a publisher thinks this should work, which is something I've advocated a long time. J.D. (03:27): Everybody approaches this from different angles, which is something else I picked up on over time. As a business model, publishers really only care about selling that book, the one they have in front of 'em, the one they signed you for. That's really their only priority. But you as an author, you really need to look at your business, your model, your brand, and approach it from that standpoint. And you can really see the stark differences. If you walk into a major bookstore, you walk into a Barnes & Noble and you're going to see pretty much the title of every book is huge. The author name is tiny little print at the top or the bottom. It's an afterthought because the publisher knows they have to put it on there, but they just want to sell that one title. But if you look around that same bookstore at the brand name authors, the ones that we all know, the household names, you see Stephen King, Nora Roberts, James Patterson,
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  • Interview with Deven Greene – S. 10, Ep. 24

    Interview with Deven Greene – S. 10, Ep. 24
    Apr 20 2025
    My guest for this episode of the Crime Cafe podcast is crime writer Deven Greene. Check out our discussion about her medical and scientific thrillers. You can download a copy of the interview transcript here. Debbi (00:53): Hi everyone. My guest today writes fiction in the suspense and thriller genres. Most of her works involve science or medicine. She has a PhD in biochemistry and an MD, and she practiced pathology for more than 20 years. Her books include the Erica Rosen Trilogy, Ties That Kill, and her latest novel, The Organ Broker. She's also published several short stories. It's my pleasure to introduce my guest, Deven Greene. Hi, Deven. How are you doing today? Deven (01:29): I'm doing great. How about yourself? Debbi (01:31): Great, thank you. And I'm glad you're here today, so very glad that you're on the show. You live in Northern California? Yes? Deven (01:39): That's correct. Yeah. Debbi (01:40): What part? Because I used to live in Petaluma. Deven (01:43): Oh, okay. Well, I live, you may have heard of then of Orinda, which is a tiny town, but it's near Walnut Creek in Berkeley. Debbi (01:52): Oh, yeah. I remember. It's the Napa Valley, right? Deven (01:55): Yeah. Well, yeah. Debbi (01:57): I'll be darned. Beautiful country up there. Deven (02:01): Yeah, no, I like it here. Debbi (02:03): Yeah. So with a background like yours, I can certainly see how you got inspired to write medical thrillers or science thrillers. When you started writing fiction, did you find you had to kind of adjust your writing to be a bit less formal and more engaging, so to speak? Deven (02:22): Well, it's quite different than writing pathology reports, I'll say that. But I'd say that I've read enough fiction, especially in my genre, to be able to adapt pretty easily. And interestingly, when I first started out, I had a resident working under me, and she wrote a pathology report, and she did a description of everything, but she didn't say what it was, and it was like she was waiting, trying to build up suspense. I said, no, this is a pathology report. You have to say what it is. Debbi (03:04): Yeah, yeah. Just say it. Deven (03:06): Yeah. But it's different in what I'm doing now, Debbi (03:10): For sure. Yeah. I'm sure you do work in technical terms though. And how do you, what's your method for taking complex scientific subjects and making them understandable to the average reader? Deven (03:26): That's a good question. So I really like to put what I call sciencey things in my writing. That's one thing I really enjoy doing, and hopefully people will learn things. So I'll write something and then I'll go through it several times to simplify it, and then I give it to other people to read who are not in the medical or scientific field and get feedback. And a great one is my little brother who didn't know the difference between a gallbladder and a kidney, I found out. So he's a good one. If he can understand it, most people can. So I wind up simplifying. I try to keep it still accurate. Some people may find it too much. I don't know. They can skip over those parts, but that's not the main substance of my books. So I really like to put what I call sciencey things in my writing. That's one thing I really enjoy doing, and hopefully people will learn things. So I'll write something and then I'll go through it several times to simplify it, and then I give it to other people to read who are not in the medical or scientific field and get feedback. Debbi (04:28): You'd rather sprinkle it in than overwhelm with detail? Deven (04:31): Yes, that's my attempt. That's my attempt. Debbi (04:35): I think that's generally the way people approach it. I know that when it comes to legal terminology, I tend to, I used to be very, what'd you call it? Literal in the way I would present something, or very explanatory. It's like, no, no, no, Debbi. Cut back, make it less explanatory, make it more, make it more like fiction. Duh.
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