In keeping with this month’s themes of beginnings, I’m posting about my first podcast and first audiobook giveaway.

Murder, Mayhem, and Mystery Laced with Morality

I was very excited when author Dr. Katherine Hutchinson-Hayes agreed to let me be a guest on her podcast. I met Katherine at Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writers Conference in 2020 and then reconnected with her on Instagram. Below are a few things I learned while preparing for and doing the interview with Katherine.

• Radio experience helps. I’ve done a couple radio interviews with librarians from a local library. The set up was very similar. Katherine called me and recorded our phone conversation using the Anchor app.
• Ask for questions or topics to prepare. Katherine sent me her questions well ahead of the interview. I wrote my answers and reviewed them before she called me, but …
• Don’t read your answers. Like I said above, I reviewed them so they’d be in my mind, but I didn’t read them. I sat the answers to one side, so I could glance at them if I needed a prompt, but I knew if I read them, I would sound unnatural and boring. Katherine didn’t use all of the questions, and sometimes asked ones that weren’t on the sheet, but having done the preparation ahead of time really boosted my confidence and helped me when we veered slightly off topic.
• Smile while you speak. It made me feel more confident and, I hope, I sounded pleasant. Katherine is much more natural in front of the microphone, but I hope I will sound that way if I have the chance to do more podcasts.

To listen, click here to go to Katherine’s website. Or listen Apple podcasts, Spotify, or Google podcasts.

First Audiobook

When my publisher told me they were going to do an audiobook version of my novel, A Shadow on the Snow, I was thrilled. But when it became available, I was hesitant. What would it be like? I had no idea what to expect and was afraid I wouldn’t like it.

After my husband helped me overcome some technical difficulties, I finally got the audio version downloaded to my phone. And I fell in love with the narration of Shellie Arnold. Although she now lives in Ohio, she has a southern accent, perfect for the first-person point of view of my main character Rae Riley, a nineteen-year-old who grew up all over the South but has recently moved to Ohio. Shellie does such a wonderful job bringing the text to life that I almost forget I wrote the novel.

To celebrate the audiobook version of A Shadow on the Snow, I’m giving away three copies, which you can access through Authors Direct, to the first three people to comment on this post. If you enjoy audiobooks, you’ll love Shellie’s narration of my winter cozy mystery.