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Writers, Ink: Your backstage pass to the world's most prolific authors
J.D. Barker, Christine Daigle
Recent Episodes
Join hosts J.D. Barker, Christine Daigle, and Jena Brown as they discuss the week's entertainment news, including stories about Oracle, TikTok, the Slush Pile, and LibGen. Then, stick around for a chat with John Scalzi!
John Michael Scalzi II is an American science fiction author and former president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. He is best known for his Old Man's War series, three novels of which have been nominated for the Hugo Award, and for his blog Whatever, where he has written on a number of topics since 1998.
Join hosts J.D. Barker, Christine Daigle, Jena Brown, and Kevin Tumlinson as they discuss the week's entertainment news, including stories about Netgalley, ChatGPT, and Spotify. Then, stick around for a chat with Stephen Graham Jones!
Stephen Graham Jones is the NYT bestselling author of 35 or so books, +350 stories, some comic books, and all this stuff here. He lives in Boulder, Colorado, and has a few broken-down old trucks, one PhD, and way too many boots. More here.
Join hosts J.D. Barker, Christine Daigle, Jena Brown, and Kevin Tumlinson as they discuss the week's entertainment news, including stories about AAP sales, London Book Fair 2025, and nonfiction paperbacks. Then, stick around for a chat with Marshall Karp!
Marshall Karp - I was born in New York City on June 4 in one of those old-timey years before they invented color TV.
I was always a writer—letters, parody songs, stories, skits, fun stuff—but I had no idea I could make a living at it, so I entered Rutgers with a grand plan. I was going to be a dentist.
Me—a man with all the manual dexterity of a drunken monkey—a dentist. Fortunately the universe intervened. I flunked freshman biology. So I started writing for the school newspaper.
After college I fell into advertising. My girlfriend at the time was a copywriter at an ad agency, and I figured, that sounds cool. So much for career planning.
Short version of that 20-year career—I was very successful, but in advertising, the punishment for being a good writer is to promote you and tell you not to write. Before long I had a big title, a big office, and I supervised a hundred people. I was the boss, and all I could think was, “is this all there is?”
So I started writing at night. The short version of the next twenty years is that I wrote a play, did a stint in Hollywood writing sitcoms, wrote and produced a feature film, returned to advertising and caught the dotcom wave, and finally the ultimate writer’s dream, these books.
I recently wrote about that twenty-year journey on quora.com in response to the question What is the single insight that most changed your life? When the post got tens of thousands of views, I sensed I’d hit a nerve. When it hit a million, I realized I’d struck the mother lode.
On a personal note, I’m married, with a son, a daughter, a grandson, and a dog. I live a hundred miles north of New York City in a small town in the mid-Hudson Valley. I love what I do, and I’m grateful for the feedback I get when I do it.
And like I said at the top, it’s been a great life so far.