Longtime Harlequin and indie romance novelist turned mystery writer, Nancy Warren joins me to discuss vampires, the the relative value of wooden needles over silver ones in this final interview episode of our hiatus.

​​Nancy Warren is the USA Today Bestselling author of more than 70 novels. She’s originally from Vancouver, Canada, though she tends to wander and has lived in England, Italy and California at various times. While living in Oxford she dreamed up The Vampire Knitting Club, which became a #1 Amazon bestseller. Favorite moments include being the answer to a crossword puzzle clue in Canada’s National Post newspaper, being featured on the front page of the New York Times when her book Speed Dating launched Harlequin’s NASCAR series, and being nominated three times for Romance Writers of America’s RITA award. She has an MA in Creative Writing from Bath Spa University. She’s an avid hiker, loves chocolate and most of all, loves to hear from readers! The best way to stay in touch is to sign up for Nancy’s newsletter at www.nancywarren.net.

All music by Kevin MacLeod used under creative commons 3.0 license courtesy of Incompetech.com

"Riptide" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
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Shane Carrow lives in Melbourne, but don't bother looking for him in any Aussie phone books. Shane Carrow is an alias, a nom de plume, a pen-name. But whoever Shane Carrow is in real life, he's a great story teller, even if his speech is peppered with the occasional f-bomb.

Shane Carrow is an Australian writer of post-apocalyptic fiction, science fiction, horror and fantasy. Born and raised in Western Australia, he currently lives in Melbourne.

On Twitter, he's @ShaneCarrow and you can sign up for his email list by clicking here. 

All music by Kevin MacLeod used under creative commons 3.0 license courtesy of Incompetech.com

"Riptide" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
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From Doc Smith to Doc Savage and now Doc Vandal, there's a doctor in the house, and he's bringing the heat. Dave Robinson is reinventing the pulps for the 21st century and beyond.

Dave Robinson writes. He’s also a father, a reader, gamer, a comic fan, and a hockey fan.

The problem with those terms is that they don’t so much describe the person as label him; the map is not the territory. Calling him a father says nothing about how his daughter thinks he’s silly. It ignores the essence of the relationship for the convenience of simplicity. It’s the same with his love of books, comics, role-playing games, and hockey; labels miss all the good parts.

The best way to understand a writer is to read their works. Writing is like telepathy; it’s a window from one mind to another. The Doc Vandal series is Dave’s attempt to recreate what he likes to describe as “Yesterday’s Tomorrow.” This is his homage to the pulps, from Doc Savage and the Shadow to Astounding Stories, Planet Stories and so much more. Expect to see giant robots, alien races, lost cities, and world-spanning conspiracies. He calls it “Dieselpulp Dialed to Eleven.”

If you want a biography: Dave was born in the UK, grew up in Canada, and has spent time in the US. He currently lives in a small town on the Pacific coast with his family, the newest member of which is a cat with thumbs. He’s been freelancing for the last decade, and as a ghostwriter he’s done everything from blog posts to novels. Before that, and in no particular order, he managed a bookstore, worked in a pawnshop, and been the guy you get transferred to when you ask a phone rep for a supervisor. He even cleaned carpets for a living.

Right now, Dave is working on Doc Vandal and the team’s next adventure.

You can find Dave on Twitter where he's @DCRWrites and he blogs at DocVandal.Wordpress.com

All music by Kevin MacLeod used under creative commons 3.0 license courtesy of Incompetech.com

"Riptide" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
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On January 1, 2019, a 1978 change to US copyright law kicked in, and hundreds upon hundreds of creative works from 1923 suddenly flooded into the public domain as their copyright expired. Among those was a childhood favorite of mine (or should I say favourite?) The Inimitable Jeeves, was suddenly up for grabs.

Jeeves and his employer, Bertie Wooster, were the creative brainchild of P.G. Wodehouse, a British author and humorist (or should I say humourist?). Bertie was a privileged man/child of the British gentry in the roaring 20's. He was constantly getting himself into the kinds of scrapes that a fool and his money can get into when one has too much time on his hands and too little life-experience in his proverbial back pocket. Consequently, he constantly relied on the good graces of his butler (or as he called him, his gentleman's gentleman) to come to the rescue in the end. 

The writing was crisp and, since the stories were told from Bertie's POV, the denouement was always delivered with the impressed admiration popularized by Conan-Doyle's Watson. Which is probably why I enjoyed the series so much. Wodehouse basically took the tropes of the Holmsian model and transposed them to Downton Abbey. 

So for the next series of episodes, I will be reading for your listening pleasure, The Inimitable Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse. The music accompanying my reading will be a 1923 recording of The Charleston, composed and performed by James P. Johnson also in 1923, and also now available in the public domain. 

​Enjoy.