Sally Kilpatrick discusses how growing up in a rural area and being raised by a librarian informed her decision to become a novelist. She illustrates how the novel, Wuthering Heights, and the 2026 film vary in the way each manages consent between romantic partners, and introduces her latest novel, Little Miss Petty.

Sally is the USA Today bestselling author of seven novels and counting. She has won multiple awards, including the Georgia Author of the Year, the Maggie Award of Excellence, the Booksellers’ Best, and the Nancy Knight Mentorship Award. She lives in California with her husband, two kids, and two cats.

Learn more at sallykirkpatrick.com

Special thanks to NetGalley for an advance copy of Little Miss Petty.

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Alice Henderson discusses the challenges of writing thrillers set in nature, her adventures in plotting, and how listeners can contribute their own regional climactic observations to ecological research. Plus, she offers a preview into the latest installment of her Alex Walker thriller series, Storm Warning.

Alice Henderson’s love of wild places inspired her new thriller series, which begins with A Solitude of Wolverines, as well as her novel Voracious, which takes place in Glacier National Park. Alice is a dedicated wildlife researcher. Using a variety of methods including bioacoustic studies, she undertakes wildlife surveys to determine what species are present on lands that have been set aside for conservation. There she ensures there are no signs of poaching and devises ways to improve habitat. Using geographic information systems (GIS), she also designs wildlife corridors and builds habitat suitability models and species distribution models. She has surveyed for the presence of grizzlies, wolves, spotted owls, wolverines, jaguars, endangered bats, and more. She has also written media tie-in novels, including official novels for the TV shows Supernatural and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. While working at LucasArts, she wrote material for several Star Wars video games. She was selected to attend Launchpad, a NASA-funded writing workshop aimed at bringing accurate science to fiction. She holds an interdisciplinary master’s degree.

Learn more at alicehenderson.com

More information about the topics Alice discussed:

US Phenology Network

Nature’s Notebook

American Pika

North American Pika Consortium

Irina Shapiro

James Rollins

Graham Brown / Clive Cussler

Special thanks to NetGalley for early novel previews.

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Shea Serrano is an American author, journalist, humorist, and former teacher. He is best known for his work with the sports and pop culture websites, The Ringer and Grantland, as well as his books, including The Rap Year Book, Basketball (and Other Things) and Movies (and Other Things), all of which were The New York Times #1 best-sellers. Serrano lives in San Antonio, Texas with his wife, Larami Serrano, their three sons, and their French bulldog Younger Jeezy. Shea and Larami met in college in 2000 and were married in a hospital after Larami was hospitalized the day before their wedding.

His latest book is Expensive Basketball.

Find him on Instagram at Shea.serrano.

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Jessi Cole Jackson grew up in rural Michigan surrounded by lakes, cornfields, and hard-working pragmatists who would never call themselves artists, despite woodworking, sewing, baking, flower arranging, building, drawing, and crafting. Thus, it took her twenty long years to accept that she was, in fact, creative, just like everyone had been telling her all along. But she wasn’t quite ready to admit her true dream of writing, so she studied and pursued a backup career: theatre.

Jessi spent twelve years building costumes for various award-winning theatres in Cincinnati, DC, Philadelphia, Princeton, and the north shore of Boston. After getting an MFA in writing at Hollins University–where she honed her craft and found her people–she left theatre and moved back to rural Michigan where she lives with her family, has a very practical day job, and rarely calls herself an artist despite sewing, amateur sculpting, embroidering, and, of course, writing. Jessi has published various short stories, mentored emerging writers. RUINOUS CREATURES is her debut novel.

Learn more at JessiColeJackson.com

Thanks to NetGalley for early previews.

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What does an author do when her debut novel becomes an instant bestseller? Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney went right back to work on her next one, and her next-also instant hits. In this episode, Cynthia discusses growing up in the seventies, her hometown, and her parents' book collection influenced her latest novel, Lake Effect. People Magazine calls Lake Effect: “Astute and immersive with a surprising twist.”

Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney is the author of the instant New York Times bestselling novels The Nest (named a best book of the year by People, the Washington Post, and NPR) and Good Company (a Read with Jenna selection). She has been a guest on Today, Late Night with Seth Meyers, and NPR’s All Things Considered. Her work has been translated into more than 28 languages, and The Nest is in development as a limited series with AMC Studios. Sweeney holds an MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars. She and her husband live in New York City. Her latest novel is LAKE EFFECT.

Learn more at daprixsweeney.com

Thanks to NetGalley for early preview copies.

Ragdale Writing Residencies

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Inspiration doesn't always find authors at their desk, and it doesn't give a darn about deadlines. Where does a creative go when the muse is silent?

Nick Petrie's back at the Writing Table. He shares his secrets to writing adventure-filled thrillers and provides accessible tactics everyone can use to to refill their creative well.

*Plus* a peek at what goes into his Peter Ash novels. This is a fun episode, y'all.

Nick Petrie received his MFA in fiction from the University of Washington and won a Hopwood Award for short fiction while an undergraduate at the University of Michigan. His story “At the Laundromat” won the 2006 Short Story Contest in The Seattle Review, and his first novel, The Drifter, won the ITW Thriller and Barry Awards. It was also nominated for Edgar, Anthony, and Hammett Awards. He won the 2016 Literary Award from the Wisconsin Library Association and was named one of Apple’s 10 Writers to Read in 2017. Light It Up was named the Best Thriller of 2018 by Apple Books. Light it Up, The Wild One and The Price You Pay were shortlisted for the Barry Award. A husband and father, he has worked as a carpenter, remodeling contractor, and building inspector. He lives in Milwaukee, where he is hard at work on the next Peter Ash novel. His latest novel is THE DARK TIME.

Learn more at nickpetrie.com

Special thanks to NetGalley for early previews.

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Regarded as a master of suspense, Lisa Unger stops by the Writing Table to talk to Kris about her writing career and how she channels inspiration into suspense-packed novels.

Lisa Unger is the New York Times and internationally bestselling author of twenty-three novels. Her books have been published in thirty-three languages with millions of copies sold worldwide Unger’s critically acclaimed novels have been featured on “Best Book” lists from the Today Show, Good Morning America, Entertainment Weekly, People, Amazon, Goodreads, L.A. Times, The Boston Globe, Sun Sentinel, Tampa Bay Times and many others. She has been nominated for, or won, numerous awards including the Strand Critics, Audie, Hammett, Macavity, ITW Thriller, and Goodreads Choice. In 2019, she received two Edgar Award nominations in the same year, an honor held by only a few authors including Agatha Christie. Her short fiction has been anthologized in The Best American Mystery and Suspense, and her non-fiction has appeared in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Daily Telegraph, NPR, and Travel+Leisure. Lisa is the current co-President of the International Thriller Writers organization. She lives on the west coast of Florida with her family. Her latest novel is Served Him Right.

Lisa mentioned Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way during this episode.

Learn more at lisaunger.com

Special thanks to NetGalley for an early peek at Served Him Right.

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Linda Rhodes began her career as a dairy cow veterinarian after she graduated from the University of Pennsylvania summa cum laude in 1978. After several years in dairy practice, she was granted a fellowship at Cornell University, where she obtained her PhD in 1988. The rest of her career was spent in the pharmaceutical industry, helping to develop medicines for many species of animals. She retired in 2016 and has subsequently served on several corporate and start-up boards in the animal health industry. She has received the Iron Paw Award for her lifetime achievements. Breaking the Barnyard Barrier is her first book.

Lean more about Linda Rhodes at lindarhodes.com.

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Email questions or tell us who you'd like us to invite to the Writing Table: writingtablepodcast@gmail.com.