Episode #79: Jake Needham on Crime & Character
Books and Brews Podcast
Books and Brews: the place where beer and literature meet! Jake Needham is an American lawyer who became a screen and television writer through a series of coincidences too ridiculous for anyone to believe. When he realized how little he actually liked movies and television, he started writing crime novels. Jake has lived in Asia and Australia since 1980, first in Sydney, then in Hong Kong, and from 1992, in Bangkok. He and his wife, an Oxford graduate and prematurely retired concert pianist, have been married for thirty-two years and have two adult sons. Jake has published seventeen novels...
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Episode #78: Technology & Truth & a Paranormal Thriller with Ashley Fontainne & Andrea Emmes
Books and Brews Podcast
Books and Brews: the place where beer and literature meet! Ashley Fontainne is an author and co-author of more than 30 novels, known for her intricate plots and writing in genres from dark comedy to mystery/thrillers to suspenseful paranormal. Andrea Emmes, a singer, performer and one-time magician’s assistant who has narrated many of Ashley’s books, steps into writing for the first time with their co-authored paranormal and psychological thriller, ETERNAL BEAUTY. We talked about masks (psychological, not covid), childhood trauma, plastic surgery…and Aquanet wiggling into tight pants in...
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Episode #77: One Family's Story of Jack the Ripper, with Robert Gereb
Books and Brews Podcast
Books and Brews: the place where beer and literature meet! Róbert Geréb is a boundary-pushing author and accomplished AI developer. As co-author of Jack the Ripper’s Assassins—the cornerstone of The Dighton Chronicles, built on multigenerational oral history from a Romani-Viking lineage—he melds immersive storytelling with rigorous historical research. He also penned two nonfiction guides through Aspect Books: EASY MILLIONAIRE MATH, a practical blueprint for building scalable, passive-income businesses; and Declutter Your Life, Enrich Your Soul, an emotionally holistic program for...
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Episode #76: Family Secrets Come to Light with Hiram Johnson
Books and Brews Podcast
Books and Brews: the place where beer and literature meet! Hiram Johnson is retired law enforcement officer, currently teaching criminal justice as an adjunct, a father, author and creator. His book Reason to Fight: a search or truth is a surprising tale of a family mystery. We talked about the event that landed his grandmother in prison for murder, prison conditions for women in the 1920s, his search for his shrouded family history and the connection he developed with a previously unknown relative in the search for his grandfather’s identity. Find Hiram’s books at Xulonpress.com ...
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Books and Brews #75: UFOs with Dona Masi
Books and Brews Podcast
Dona Masi is a writer and editor whose short fiction and articles are used in reading and writing assessments throughout the United States. Her articles on several subjects have appeared in several newspapers. She is also a playwright, and two of her plays were performed at the Provincetown Theater Company. In her writing she loves bringing relatable characters to life and depicting them in all their heroic and flawed humanity. Her debut novel, The Taking, was inspired by her interest in UFO folklore and reports of alien encounters. She lives with her husband in Dover, New Hampshire. 00:00...
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Books and Brews #74: Sci-fi and More with Bill McSciFi McCormick
Books and Brews Podcast
Books and Brews: the place where beer and literature meet! Bill McCormick is an award-winning and critically acclaimed author of several novels, graphic novels, and comic book series, and has appeared in numerous anthologies. He began writing professionally in 1986 for the Chicago Rocker Magazine in conjunction with his radio show on Z-95 (ABC-FM) and went on to write for several other magazines and blogs. He wrote a twisted news & science blog at WorldNewsCenter.org. It provided source material for his weekly radio show on WBIG 1280 AM, FOX!, which aired for 12 years. We talked about...
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Books and Brews #73: Monsters & Appalachian Lore Come to Life with Clay Gilbert
Books and Brews Podcast
Books and Brews: the place where beer and literature meet! Clay Gilbert has always believed in the power of the imagination to dissolve differences and forge connections between people. Since 2013, he has published thirteen novels, from science-fiction and horror to YA dystopia and urban fantasy. His works include the science-fiction series Children of Evohe, which began in 2013 with Annah and the Children of Evohe, as well as the horror novel Dark Road to Paradise and the dark fantasy novel Pearl: A Monster Story. Clay lives and works in Knoxville, Tennessee, where his cat, Rosalind,...
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Episode # 72: Wild Alaska with Mr. November
Books and Brews Podcast
Books and Brews: the place where beer and literature meet! Michael Modzelewski (Mojo-less-key) grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, the son of a famous NFL football player with the Cleveland Browns, Ed “Big Mo” Modzelewski. Michael graduated from Indiana University with a degree in English Literature. He is the author of five books, including INSIDE PASSAGE, about a two year stay on a wilderness island in the Inside Passage to Alaska. After living “date-less” on the wild island, Michael was chosen a “Bachelor of the Month” by Cosmopolitan Magazine. Mr. November received 5,000 letters from...
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Books and Brews #71: Time Travel, Sci-fi and Woodstock with Beth Duke
Books and Brews Podcast
Bestselling author Beth Duke's Anywhen is the ultimate outsider story—a young woman yearning to belong across time itself. With universal themes of love, jealousy, sacrifice, friendship, joy, loss, and forgiveness, this genre-defying novel is a story like no other...one that will stay with you long after the final page. Beth read from her latest book, Anywhen, that combines sci-fi, time travel, and historical fiction. We talked about Woodstock, the central event of Anywhen, about southern fiction, stereotypes, the good and bad of AI, and Utopias. Is Baezy’s world a Utopia? Did...
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Books and Brews #70: Sherlock Holmes Alive Again! with Richard T. Ryan
Books and Brews Podcast
A lifelong Sherlockian, Richard T. Ryan is the author of nine Sherlock Holmes novels and currently working on his tenth. He’s also written a well-received murder mystery “Deadly Relations which has been produced twice off-Broadway. He pursued graduate studies at Notre Dame where he majored in medieval literature. Our talk ranged from Knights Templar finding Minnesota in the 1300s to the reasons Arthur Conan Doyle killed Sherlock Holmes to the inefficient bombers of the 1880s and the Scarlet Pimpernel and Mark Wahlberg. 00:00 START 06:20 Drink 1: Watson’s Delight 07:20 Reading 1:...
info_outlineMJ Williams is the pen-name for the writing duo, Peggy Joque Williams and Mary Joy Johnson. Peggy is a freelance writer and book editor.
A retired elementary school teacher, Peggy has taught creative writing classes and workshops for Madison College and the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Department of Continuing Studies. She is a member of the Women’s Fiction Writers Association, Sisters in Crime, and the Wisconsin Writers Association.
She will be debuting her first solo historical novel, Courting the Sun: A Novel of Versailles, next May (2024), to be published by Black Rose Writing.
Mary Joy is a retired professor of writing.
Together they co-wrote and independently published two mystery novels centering on Emily and Stan Remington who travel the country in their RV -- On the Road to Death’s Door, a Wisconsin Library Association award winner, and On the Road to Where the Bells Toll.
MJ's Readings:
- Surprise in the Rug – 11:29
- An Explosive Fourth of July – 27:26
- Calamity at Storrow Bridge – 43:10
Chris's Cocktail Pairings:
- When the Kids are Away (paired to Surprise in the Rug) – 8:39
- Blue Independence (paired to An Explosive Fourth of July) – 24:10
- The Boston (paired to Calamity at Storrow Bridge) – 39:43
Interview Highlights:
- How Non-RVers came to write about RVing – 16:45
- Writing as a team – 19:50
- Is Pelltier based on…? – 23:10
- Using a historic event in fiction – 34:02
- RV horror stories – 50:30
- Daughters of the King – 53:10
COMING NEXT MONTH: MB Zucker, author of political and historical fiction
UPCOMING EVENTS: Gabriel's Horn is accepting submissions for its anthology NEW THEME: MUSIC
Our theme music is from www.bensound.com.