SAM Magazine

E122 - Jule Selbo, Novelist, playwright, screenwriter

 Jule Selbo moved from a career as a screenwriter in Los Angeles four years ago (her work as a screenwriter includes Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, animated Disney movies (Hunchback of Notre Dame Part Deux, Ariel’s Beginning and more, Melrose Place, Hercules, HBO’s Women Behind Bars, Space Above and Beyond, Flash, Life Goes On and more) to live in Portland Maine and focus on eating, drinking and writing novels. Four have been published so far, her most recent: 10 DAYS: A Dee Rommel Mystery (on the 2021 top-five list of Kirkus’ best crime/mysteries and nominated for a Foreword Review Best Award. She has just completed the second in her series: 9 DAYS, A Dee Rommel Mystery – it is out now.
https://www.juleselbo.com/

E121 - Tanis Rideout, National bestselling author and 2006 Poet Laureate for Lake Ontario

Tanis Rideout’s internationally acclaimed first novel, Above All Things, was a national bestseller, named to numerous best books of the year lists, and published in several languages around the world. It was awarded the Premio ITAS del Libro di Montagna and was longlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. Her new novel is The Sea Between Two Shores. She is also the author of the poetry collection Arguments with the Lake, and, in 2006, she was named the “Poet Laureate for Lake Ontario” by the environmental advocacy group Lake Ontario Waterkeeper. Born in Belgium, she grew up in Bermuda and in Kingston, Ontario, and now lives in Los Angeles.
We talked about The Sea Between Two Shores, which begins in the early 1800s when a Nova Scotian couple arrive on an island in the Oceanic archipelago, now known as Vanuatu, to convert the local Indigenous people. Two hundred years later a Toronto family are mourning the loss of their son. The lives of both families connect by their desire for healing.
We talked about Canada's past, the digital country disappearing due to climate change, and hopepunk!
https://www.tanisrideout.com/ 

E120 - Ann Charles, The Backside of Hades

Ann Charles is a USA Today Best-selling author, and she joined me in the studio. Ann enjoys writing spicy mysteries, and has written numerous series, including the Junction Mystery Series, the Dig Site Mystery Series, the Deadwood Undertaker Series (with her husband, Sam Lucky), and the AC Silly Circus Mystery Series. Her Deadwood Mystery Series has won multiple national awards, including the Daphne du Maurier for Excellence in Mystery/Suspense. Ann has a B.A. in English with an emphasis on creative writing from the University of Washington. She is a member of Sisters in Crime and Western Writers of America. As well, her Deadwood series has been a question on Jeopardy. We had a great conversation about her western supernatural series. Thank you, Ann.
⁠https://anncharles.com/

E119 - Susan Jane Wright, Author of the Evie Valentine Series

E119 - Susan Jane Wright has just come off the book launch of her second Evie Valentine series, that being The Glass Lake. Susan Jane Wright is a Crime Writers of Canada Awards of Excellence Finalist. Her debut novel Box of Secrets was in Amazon’s top 100 and held the number 3 spot, then moved to the number 2 spot in its second week of release. Susan was a lawyer and an executive in the energy sector before she became a writer. Her legal career took her from the board rooms in Calgary to the streets of Beijing. She’s received the PIA Public Interest Award for Southern Alberta and the Canadian Law Blog Award for her legal blog Susan on the Soapbox. We talk about writing books that are different, pipelines, and timelines and so much more.
Susan Jane Wright
 https://www.instagram.com/susanjjwright/

E118 - Meredith Hambrock, Author of Other People’s Secrets

E118 - Meredith Hambrock is a Canadian fiction and television writer who grew up in Toronto and now lives in Vancouver. Her short fiction has appeared in several magazines, including Maisonneuve and Descant. She’s been a finalist for the CBC Short Story Prize and most recently wrote for the sitcom Corner Gas Animated. Today we’ll be talking about her debut novel, Other People’s Secrets, as well as 5 beat story structure, that vomit first draft, messy heroines and the events that occur in small towns. Thank you Meredith for joining me.
Meredith Hambrock

E117 - Edward M. Lerner, Sci-Fi Author

E117 - Award-winning sci-fiction author Edward M. Lerner joins me in the studio. On Edward’s website, it is written Edward is the perpetrator of science fiction and techno-thrillers. While you probably know Ed from his SF novels, including the InterstellarNet series and the epic Fleet of Worlds series with Larry Niven, Ed is a prolific author of acclaimed short fiction. The Best of Edward M. Lerner showcases his finest and favorite shorter works.
Edward is a physicist and computer scientist. After thirty years in the industry, working at every level from individual technical contributor to senior vice president, he now writes full-time. In addition to science fiction and technothrillers, he also writes popular science, notably including Trope-ing the Light Fantastic: The Science behind the Fiction. Edward is the recipient of the Canopus Award, a Hugo finalist for best novelette Championship B’tok; Fate of Worlds (with Larry Niven) was a Locus Award finalist, and many more.
https://www.edwardmlerner.com/

E116 - Benny Sims, Author of Mile Marker Zero

E116 - Award-winning author Benny Sims returns to the podcast and we talk about his second novel, Mile Marker Zero. Benny's love of storytelling traces back to reading Jack London’s The Call of The Wild when he was seven years old. He remembers his uncle telling him stories about being an artillery cannoneer in North Africa and Italy during World War II.
Benny grew up in Tennessee but moved to the small town of Benton in southern Illinois when he was 14. After attending college in Murray, Kentucky, he relocated back to Tennessee to work as a journalist. Later he worked for three decades in the aerospace industry in Huntsville, Alabama.
Benny and I talk about Benton, the late George Harrison, and George Harrison's sister. As well as, when is that novel really done? And how many endings do we write, before we write the ending. 
https://bennysims.com/books/

E115 - Lawyers as Protagonists Roundtable - PJ Donison and Susan Jane Wright

E115 - Thriller authors, Susan Jane Wright and PJ (Pamela) Donnison join me in the studio. We enjoyed a roundtable discussion about lawyers as protagonists and the hazards and legalities involved with our protagonists having that occupation. Susan Jane Wright is a Crime Writers of Canada Awards of Excellence Finalist. Her debut novel Box of Secrets was in Amazon’s top 100 and was at the number 3 spot in the Calgary Herald Best Sellers list then went up to #2 in its second week of release. The second novel in her Evie Valentine series, The Glass Lake is being released on Nov 23, 2022. Susan was a lawyer and an executive in the energy sector before she became a writer. Her legal career took her from the board rooms in Calgary to the streets of Beijing. She’s received the PIA Public Interest Award for Southern Alberta and the Canadian Law Blog Award for her legal blog Susan on the Soapbox. Welcome, Susan.
PJ (Pamela) Donison, has been a writer in one iteration or other her entire life. Currently a practicing attorney, she is a former award-winning military journalist and acquisitions manager for a division of Harcourt Brace. Her work has been published in numerous legal periodicals, as well as chapters in three legal anthologies. Her short fiction has been published by The Dillydoun Review and Drunk Monkeys. Pamela’s first full-length novel, Death Comes for Christmas, is a murder mystery set in Regina, Saskatchewan, and the first in her Camelia Belmont series of 12.
https://susanjanewright.ca/
https://pjdonison.com/