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Podcast

Suspense, Thriller, Writers on Writing

Sep 23: New Thrills in Target Down – A Matthew Redd Thriller

September 24, 2026

Aaron Decker needs to collect on a 20-year-old debt, and Matthew Redd races to the challenge.

Target Down – A Matthew Redd Thriller with Ryan Steck

Ryan Steck returns to discuss Target Down, the craft of writing, and what a decade-plus of storytelling has taught him.

Aaron Decker faked his own death twenty years ago to protect his family. Now someone’s found him, and the only man he trusts to help is former Marine Raider Matthew Redd, a man who doesn’t leave debts unpaid. That’s the spark behind Target Down, the fifth entry in Ryan Steck‘s Matthew Redd series, blending military-thriller tension with the soul of a modern Western.

We dive into the full story, how Redd and this cast have evolved across five books, and the instincts Ryan has sharpened over more than a decade in the thriller world. We also learn why connections are important to authors, and why Ryan says his “bosses” are his readers.

Meet Ryan Steck

Ryan Steck is the founder and editor-in-chief of The Real Book Spy, one of the thriller genre’s most trusted voices, and author of the bestselling Matthew Redd series, including Fields of Fire, Lethal Range, Out for Blood, Gone Dark, and now Target Down. He also continues the late Ted Bell’s iconic Alex Hawke series, most recently with Warmonge; and has launched a new series with The Second Son. Ryan lives in Michigan with his wife and six children.

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Fiction, Suspense, Thriller, Writers on Writing

Sep 16: Brad Taylor on Sleepwalking Toward Armageddon

September 17, 2026

Bestselling thriller author on the real-world fault lines behind his explosive new novel, Shadow Strike – A Pike Logan Novel

Shadow Strike – A Pike Logan Thriller with Brad Taylor

Brad Taylor returns to Conversations Live to pull back the curtain on Shadow Strike, his latest pulse-pounding thriller. Brad walks us through how the book came together, from the geopolitical tensions that sparked the idea, to research trips that took him from South America deep toward the edge of Antarctica.

We dig into the craft of writing believable characters, and the strange, unsettling experience of watching headlines catch up to a plot Brad already finished writing months before. Hamas, Hezbollah, Patagonia, and Argentina all collide in ways that feel ripped from today’s news.

Brad also shares why he believes the world is sleepwalking its way toward Armageddon. Is too late for us to wake up? Join us to find out. 

Meet Brad Taylor

Brad Taylor retired from the army as a Special Forces Lieutenant Colonel. During his 20 plus years in the army, Brad held numerous Infantry and Special Forces positions, including eight years in 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment – Delta, where he commanded multiple troops and a squadron. He’s conducted operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other classified locations. Brad’s final assignment was the Assistant Professor of Military Science at The Citadel in Charleston, SC. When not writing, he serves as a security consultant on asymmetric threats for various agencies. 

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Health & Wellness, Non Fiction, Relationships, Self-help

Sep 09: Physician Turned Author Says Connection Is the Cure – Dr Beth Ricanati

September 9, 2026

The Braided Prescription: Seven Practices for Living Well from the Ancient Ritual of Making Challah.

The Braided Prescription with Dr. Beth Ricanati

Reduce stress & anxiety, reconnect with yourself & others, get your mojo back!

When Dr. Beth Ricanati began a life-changing journey to relieve stress in her life, she simply wanted to get well and share her story. But along the way she discovered the Seven Practices for Living Well that she includes in her new book The Braided Prescription.

A balance of science, psychology, Dr’s notes, and personal stories, we share insight into those 7 Practices, including how Dr. Beth uses the making of Challah bread as a metaphor for living well with intention. And how this ongoing journey has reshaped her own life as well as thousands of others.

Meet Dr. Beth Ricanati

Dr. Ricanati is a board certified MD in internal medicine. She’s built her career around bringing wellness and wellbeing into everyday life through traditional medical clinics, wellness programs – and now, as an author and speaker. At the Cleveland Clinic, Dr. Ricanati worked with Dr. Mike Roizen to create Lifestyle180 – a groundbreaking lifestyle modification program to treat chronic diseases with nutrition, exercise, and stress management. Dr. Ricanati’s first book was her memoir, Braided: A Journey of a Thousand Challahs. Today we discuss her latest book The Braided Prescription: Seven Practices for Living Well from the Ancient Ritual of Making Challah.

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Non Fiction, Psychology, Relationships, Self-help, Social Issues

Sep 02: You’d Never Join a Cult, Right? Daniella Mestyanek Young Says”You’re probably already in a cult. You just don’t know it…”

September 2, 2026

Why We Hand Our Power to High-Control Groups & How To Get It Back

The Culting of America: What Makes a Cult and Why We Love Them with Daniella Mestyanek Young

Today’s guest is a leading expert on group-think, high-control situations, corporate cultures, clubs, and some of the most insidious cults in America. She says, you might want to look at some of the organizations and people you associate with, before it’s too late.

Last time we spoke with Daniella Mestyanek Young it was about Uncultured, Daniella’s escape from the insidious Children of God cult. Today we explore some of the insights in her latest book, The Culting of America: What Makes A Cult & Why We Love Them.

We look at the difference between cults, groups, and clubs. Discuss a couple of well-known organizations and corporations that meet the 10 criteria shared by all cults. We unpack what makes cults dangerous. How to recognize the signs of high-control groups before it’s too late. And why, and how, we get sucked into them.

Meet Daniella Mestyanek Young

Daniella Mestyanek Young is a cult survivor, U.S. Army veteran, Harvard-trained organizational psychologist, and the author of two books about high-control groups—her critically- acclaimed memoir Uncultured. And her latest, The Culting of America. Born into the Children of God—the infamous sex cult known for weaponizing religion, sexuality, and isolation—Daniella escaped at 15, only to join another high-control institution: the United States Army. She became one of the first women to serve on an integrated ground combat team in Army history, while working as an intelligence officer who studied terrorists for a living. Her work sits at the intersection of leadership, identity, group psychology, and coercive control.

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Inspirational, Non Fiction, Women's Issues

Aug 26: She Come By It Natural – Dolly Parton and the Women Who Lived Her Songs

August 26, 2026

Sarah Smarsh explores how Dolly Parton’s musical storytelling influenced women in poverty – including her own family.

She Come By It Natural with Sarah Smarsh

With the sad loss of a great American icon yesterday, we dug through our archives to bring you an interview with journalist Sarah Smarsh on her 2020 book, described as a loveletter to Dolly Parton, She Come By It Natural.

Growing up amid Kansas wheat fields and airplane factories, Sarah Smarsh witnessed firsthand the particular vulnerabilities, and strengths, of women in working poverty – playing in the background, country songs by female artists told powerful stories about life, men, hard times, and surviving.

In her family, Sarah writes, “country music was foremost a language among women. It’s how we talked to each other in a place where feelings aren’t discussed.” And no one provided that language better than Dolly Parton.

Meet Sarah Smarsh

Journalist and award-winning author Sarah Smarsh is recognized as one of the most important commentators on socioeconomic class in America. She’s written for The New York Times, The Guardian, The New Yorker, Harper’s. She Come By It Natural: Dolly Parton and the Women Who Lived Her Songs is Smarsh’s second book. Her first, Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth, was a New York Times Bestseller, and a finalist for the National Book Award. She has a much-anticipated new book coming out next month: Bone of the Bone Essays on America by a Daughter of the Working Class.

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Non Fiction, Personal Development, Psychology, Self-help

Aug 19: Coach Bridgit Dengel Gaspard Helps You Get Unstuck

August 19, 2026

What are your inner selves & how do they help or hold you back?

The Final 8th: Enlist Your Inner Selves to Accomplish Your Goals with Bridgit Dengel Gaspard

Many listeners loved Bridgit Dengel Gaspard’s deeper dive into The Final 8th and want to know more (Deper Dive recently aired here). Sohere’s our first conversation with Bridgit, while we were still recovering from the pandemic. Bridgit’s work is more relevant than ever in today’s chaos-filled world, when so many lives are being flipped upside down.

If you’re ready to get unstuck, dive in! We learn how Bridgit, a former actor and comic turned psychotherapist, got involved in this work and how she’s developed it. Most importantly, we learn how using the tools discussed in The Final 8th can help you get unstuck or help you get over the finish line with that project that’s almost done, but you’ve been procrastinating on finishing. 

Bridgit handles the inner critic beautifully – explaining when you might want to listen to it, and when you should ignore it. We also discuss often overlooked nonverbal signals, such as tension, insomnia, frustration. How to figure out which of your inner selves is helping or hindering. Which is the perfectionist or procrastinator. And, why they sometimes have conflicting motives.

Meet Bridgit Dengel Gaspard

As a therapist and founder of the NY Voice Dialogue Institute, Bridgit Dengel Gaspard has led workshops for Omega Institute, New York Open Center, and many other organizations. She’s a former performer and comic, and as therapist and voice dialogue expert, specializes in overcohttps://bridgitdengelgaspard.com/final8th/ming creativity blocks. The foreword to The Final 8th: Enlist Your Inner Selves to Accomplish Your Goals is written by the original creators of voice dialogue, Hal and Sidra Stone.

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Craft of Writing, Fiction, Suspense, Thriller, Uncategorized, Writers on Writing

Jul 15: A Mother’s Reckoning – Kate White on Her 19th Novel, I Came Back For You

July 15, 2026

What it takes to write a page-turning psychological thriller.

I Came Back For You with Kate White

Unwilling to let her daughter Melanie’s murder stay buried, Bree begins unraveling a past that turns out to be far more complicated – and far more dangerous – than she ever imagined. The deeper Bree digs, the more she’s forced to question everything she believed: About the crime, the killer, and the daughter she thought she knew inside-out.

Kate White joins us to talk about what it really takes to build a psychological thriller, from plotting and pacing, to the art of the slow-burn reveal.

Kate also takes us behind the scenes of her own remarkable story: Her years as editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan, her life now in Uruguay, her passion for eco-tourism. And advice from a fellow author that changed how she approached writing novels. It’s a conversation about craft, reinvention, and the courage it takes to keep chasing the truth – on, and off, the page.

Meet Kate White

Although she loved her magazine career, Kate White decided to leave it behind 12 years ago to concentrate full-time on another passion: Writing suspense fiction. She is now the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of 19 novels of suspense: 11 standalone psychological thrillers, including the latest I Came Back for You and eight Bailey Weggins mysteries. A former Glamour magazine Top Ten College Women Contest winner and cover girl, Kate had a long career in the media world, which included running five national magazines. For 14 years she was the editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan, which under her leadership, became the most successful magazine in U.S. single-copy sales.

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Animals, Conservation, Memoir, Non Fiction, Wildlife, Writers on Writing

Jul 07: Award-winning Nature Writer Takes Us Inside A Season of Flight & Wonder

July 8, 2026

David Gessner celebrates 25th anniversary edition of Return of the Osprey.

Return of the Osprey with David Gessner

David Gessner spent his career chasing wild things with a pen – from ospreys, grizzlies, and hurricanes, to a red-tailed hawk named Flaco who captivated the hearts of New York. But it’s the osprey that changed him.

For six months, Gessner traded his desk for a bike, a kayak, and binoculars, fully immersing himself in one nesting season on his home turf of Cape Cod. The result is Return of the Osprey: A Season of Flight and Wonder, part memoir, part natural history, part love letter to a bird once called the very symbol of the New England coast.

We discuss the near-extinction of the osprey, what saved them, and why – even after their remarkable recovery – their fight for survival isn’t over. We also unpack the writer’s side of the story: How you take six months of notebooks, obsession, and raw wonder and shape it into a book so beloved it’s been reissued in a 25th-anniversary edition, with a new foreword from Helen MacDonald.

Meet David Gessner

David Gessner is the author of 14 books that blend a love of nature, humor, memoir, and environmentalism, including the New York Times bestselling, All the Wild That Remains, Return of the Osprey, Sick of Nature and Leave It As It Is. A professor at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, and the founder and Editor-in-Chief of the literary magazine, Ecotone, his writing has been featured in the New York Times Magazine, Outside, Sierra, Audubon, Orion, and more. Awards include a Pushcart Prize and the John Burroughs Award for Best Nature Essay for his essay Learning to Surf. In 2017 he hosted the National Geographic Explorer show, The Call of the Wild.

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Fiction, Magical Realism, Mystery, Writers on Writing

Jul 01: Joanne Harris Returns to the World of Chocolat with Vianne

July 1, 2026

Secrets, love, betrayal, magic, & storytelling

Vianne – A Novel with author Joanne Harris

Few writers have woven magic into everyday stories quite like Joanne Harris. The multiple award-winning, internationally bestselling author, enchanted millions with her signature blend of magical realism – including the revered Chocolat, the novel that introduced the world to Vianne Rocher.

In Vianne, Harris returns to France where it all began. Her long-awaited prequel leads us on a journey into the untold origins of one of contemporary fiction’s most unforgettable characters.

On this episode, Joanne talks craft: How she builds characters that linger long after the final page, what it takes to move fluidly across genres without losing her voice, and the storytelling instincts that have defined a career spanning decades. Plus, we learn a few surprising, fun facts about the woman behind the magic.

Meet Joanne Harris

With a French mother and English father, maybe it was a given that Joanne Harris (OBE, FRSL) would blend both worlds to create magic. While teaching fulltime Joanne published three novels, including Chocolat (1999), which was made into an Oscar-nominated film starring Juliette Binoche.

Since then, she has written more than 20 novels, plus novellas, short stories, game scripts, the libretti for two short operas, several screenplays, a stage musical (with Howard Goodall) and three cookbooks. Her books are published in over 50 countries and have won a number of British and international awards.

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Health & Wellness, Non Fiction, Personal Development, Self-help

Jun 24: How to Avoid the “At Our Age” Grumble Club with Aging Expert Dawyne Clark

June 25, 2026

Miracle Morning After 50: A Proven Path to Joy, Vitality, and Purpose for Aging Adults

The Miracle Morning After 50 with Dwayne J. Clark

“You get up in the morning, and you don’t let the old man in!” ~ Clint Eastwood

That was the actor-director’s sharp response when asked why he still worked well into his 90s. Oh, if only it were that simple, you’re thinking …

But there are ways to stay more youthful, mobile, and you can even reverse certain issues through lifestyle says aging expert Dwayne Clark.

It’s not about intensity or slowing down or narrowing your life. It’s about showing up, living with purpose, and the C-word – consistency.

Today we share some of the small changes you can make that can make a mighty difference. For example, the importance of creating and maintaining a life that you look forward to. Living well and strong. And other personal and scientific insights from The Miracle Morning After 50: A Proven Path to Joy, Vitality, and Purpose for Aging Adults including how Dwayne overhauled his own life.

Meet Dwayne J. Clark & Coauthor Hal Elrod

Dwayne J. Clark couthored The Miracle Morning After 50 with Hal Elrod, the bestselling author of the original Miracle Morning movement. As the chairman, CEO, and founder of Aegis Living, Dwayne Clark is known for redefining the industry. Hal Elrod is the bestselling author of 12 books, including The Miracle Morning, the revolutionary book that has transformed the lives of millions of people worldwide.

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