Podcast appearances and mentions of Donald J Sobol

SUPPORT MY WORK through Patreon!I'm thrilled to introduce you to our new contributor voice to the Book Gang podcast. Jessica Bearak is likely a familiar voice to you because she is such a loyal participant in so many book club spaces around the web. It was such a treat to meet her IN PERSON earlier this year, and after having the best time discussing our books together, I asked if she could picture herself sharing the microphone with me.  Learn more about Jessica's reading life and the surprising destination I took her to when she visited that kickstarted our year together. We brainstormed many fun ideas for the days ahead but knew we needed to start things off with a magical hook.  What could be better to celebrate this occasion than a book stack filled with found family?  Today, we will dive into the concept of the found family trope and its significance in literature and our lives, especially around the holidays. From insights from past guests to the trivia we discovered about some of our favorite beloved stories, there is something for everyone in today's introductory episode. I hope you feel compelled to share this episode and support our new voice today. Check out our BONUS “found family” book list that includes our favorite historical fiction, middle-grade novels, and even a dark psychological thriller with this theme. EDITOR'S NOTE- Thank you to Lynda Cohen Loigman for the gorgeous chat on The Matchmaker's Gift (accidentally missing from this morning's intro!!)Meet Jessica BearakJessica is a lifelong book lover who embarked on her literary journey at three, immersing herself in childhood classics like "The Velveteen Rabbit" and "The Phantom Tollbooth." Jessica actively participates in two in-person book clubs and many online discussions regularly. She has been an invaluable member of the MomAdvice Book Club and joins us as a regular contributing voice.Mentioned in this episode:Joining the Patreon community is an affordable way to support the show and gain access to a wealth of resources, including access to our 2024 MomAdvice Book Club, the FULLY BOOKED buzzy new release show, exclusive author interviews, music playlists, and more! The 2023 MomAdvice Book Club Books (thank you to EVERY AUTHOR who participated!)The Memoirs of Stockholm Sven by Nathaniel Ian MillerThe 2024 MomAdvice Book Club Books AnnouncedFound Family Trope Books to Read Now (BONUS BOOK LIST)The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery WilliamsFrom The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E Frankweiler by E.L KonigsburgThe Phantom Tollbooth by Norton JusterEncyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Mysterious Handprints by Donald J Sobol (includes the story Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Fighter Kite)Public Library of Saint Joseph CountyWhat Chosen Family Means and How to Build Your OwnMatt Cain's Publishing Journey: The Secret Life of Albert EntwistleThe Secret Life of Albert Entwistle by Matt CainThe Magic of Old Hollywood BooksThe Sunshine Girls by Molly FaderThe Second Life of Mirielle West by Amanda SkenandoreBest Books About Hollywood to Get Swept AwayMoloka'i by Alan BrennertDaughter of Moloka'i by Alan BrennertVera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Q SutantoStrange Sally Diamond by Liz NugentHow to Use the Storygraph App For a Better Reading Life2023 Summer Reading GuideThe Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise by Dan GemeinhartCoyote Lost and Found by Dan GemeinhartThe Mostly True Story of Tanner and Louise by Colleen OakleyThe Spectacular Life Lessons from Books About Road TripsMosquitoland by David ArnoldThe Best Prime Reading Guide (FREE books, including The Second Life of Mirielle West)Amy's Interview with Nathaniel Ian MillerThe Happy Life of Isadora Bentley by Courtney Walsh Shop the above (Amazon) links or through my Book Gang Bookshop Page!! They pay a 10% commission on every sale and match 10% to independent bookstores.Connect With Us:Get My Happy List NewsletterConnect with Amy on Instagram, TikTok, or MomAdviceConnect With Jessica on InstagramJoin the MomAdvice Book ClubShop Our Bookish Shirts to support the showBuy Me a Coffee (for a one-time donation)

When he was a child, this story -- first encountered in his brother's copy of Strange but True: 22 Amazing Stories by Donald J. Sobol -- freaked Jim out...now he's passing it on to you, hoping to maybe exorcise his own hagriddenness...that is a word, right? If it ain't, it outta be! --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/wdouta/message

Today's the birthday of a mystery author known to millions of kids, Donald J Sobol. He wrote the Encyclopedia Brown series, about a 10 year old detective who solved cases because he knew, as his nickname suggested, all sorts of unusual and obscure facts in the era way before the internet. Plus: it's National Taco Day, and here's the story of one of the largest tacos ever made. Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Mysterious Author (Crimereads) Guinness confirms 102-meter taco is world's largest (Mexico News Daily) No mystery about who makes our show happen, it's our Patreon backers --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/support

This episode we're talking about Flash Fiction (aka: microfiction, sudden fiction, micro-stories, & short-short stories)! We discuss poetry hating barbarians, SEO for formats, Twitterature, intentionality, and how academic journals are Cosmopolitan for scientists! You can download the podcast directly, find it on Libsyn, or get it through Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or your favourite podcast delivery system. In this episode Anna Ferri | Meghan Whyte | Matthew Murray | RJ Edwards Things We Read (or tried to…) Flash Fiction International: Very Short Stories from Around the World edited by James Thomas, Robert Shapard, & Christopher Merrill Further Up the Path by Daniel Oz Palm-of-the-Hand Stories by Yasunari Kawabata Tiny Nightmares: Very Short Stories of Horror edited by Lincoln Michel & Nadxieli Nieto “Machine Love” by Joy Kennedy-O'Neill “Ice” by Lotte van der Krol The 4th Annual Weird Christmas Flash Fiction Contest Dans l'antre d'Aoï garden by Hye-Young Pyun  Insignia: Asian Flash Fiction & Poetry Other Media We Mentioned “For Sale: baby shoes, never worn” (Wikipedia) “El Dinosaurio” by Augusto Monterroso “El Emigrante” by Luis Felipe Lomelí Every Book Its Reader by @marccold It's lunchtime, which means it's time for a very sad story in which love is found, love is lost, he does her wrong, and she gets her revenge by @marccold Nart Sagas from the Caucasus: Myths and Legends from the Circassians, Abazas, Abkhaz, and Ubykhs edited and translated by John Colarusso New Yorker Flash Fiction Tiny Crimes: Very Short Tales of Mystery and Murder edited by Lincoln Michel Two-Minute Mysteries by Donald J. Sobol  Encyclopedia Brown by Donald J. Sobol (Wikipedia) “Human Intelligence” by Kurt Anderson Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale (Wikipedia) Links, Articles, and Things Episode 108 - Visual Novels Episode 074 - Short Story Collections Episode 027 - Non-Fiction Audiobooks Book Club for Masochists: Land Acknowledgements Drabble (Wikipedia) Cell phone novel (Wikipedia) Twitterature (Wikipedia) The Short Story Dispenser Storm Crow Beermat microfiction contest (archive.org) Episode 069 - Bizarro Fiction Lydia Davis (Wikipedia) Poetry in Transit (Vancouver) Deny Everything - Circle Jerks (Spotify) YouTube 15 Flash Fiction Books & 15 Flash Fiction Stories by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, & People of Colour) Authors Every month Book Club for Masochists: A Readers' Advisory Podcasts chooses a genre at random and we read and discuss books from that genre. We also put together book lists for each episode/genre that feature works by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, & People of Colour) authors. All of the lists can be found here. Collections The Teeth of the Comb & Other Stories by Osama Alomar How to Wrestle a Girl: Stories by Venita Blackburn People of Colo(u)r Destroy Flash Fiction! edited by Berit Ellingsen States of Grace by Stephen Graham Jones Palm-of-the-Hand Stories by Yasunari Kawabata People From My Neighbourhood by Hiromi Kawakami Complete Works & Other Stories by Augusto Monterroso Forward by Shabnam Piryaei The Pearl Jacket and Other Stories: Flash Fiction From Contemporary China edited & translated by Shouhua Qi Sudden Fiction Latino: Short-Short Stories from the United States and Latin America edited by by Robert Shapard & James Thomas Microfictions by Ana María Shua Quick Fix: Sudden Fiction by Ana María Shua Two Hundred and One Miniature Tales by Alejandro Córdoba Sosa The Censors: A Bilingual Selection of Stories by Luisa Valenzuela Work-In-Progress by Ran Walker Stories “Riddle” by Ogbewe Amadin “lil miss jackson” by Nefertiti Asanti “Smoothies” by Venita Blackburn “Gloria” by K-Ming Chang “After 'While” by Cherie Dimaline “Before the Haze Devours You” by Nelly Geraldine García-Rosas “As the North Wind Howled” by Yu Hua “A Sailor” by Randa Jarrar “Moonboys” by Stephen Graham Jones “Roe Soup Dance” by Tammy Heejae Lee “Time, Like Water” by Amal El-Mohtar “As Above” by Amal El-Mohtar “Niqqak” by Sedna Qaġaq “More than Nothing” by Nisi Shawl “God Product” by Alyssa Wong Give us feedback! Fill out the form to ask for a recommendation or suggest a genre or title for us to read! Check out our Tumblr, follow us on Twitter or Instagram, join our Facebook Group, or send us an email! Join us again on Tuesday, September 21st when we'll be discussing Piranesi by Susanna Clarke. Then on Tuesday, October 5th we'll be getting spooky in preparation for Halloween as we discuss the genre of Erotica!

Looking for a story to listen to with the family this summer? Teresa recommends her favourite classic children's novels, including titles by: Judy Blume, Roald Dahl, E. B. White, L.M. Montgomery, and Donald J. Sobol.

book by Donald J Sobol

book by Donald J Sobol

From a book by Donald J Sobol. Answer will be posted on Friday.

This is from More Two-Minute Mysteries by Donald J Sobol

Charla asks: When writing into the dark, how do you finish a story when the flow stops? Resources Mentioned: Encyclopedia Brown, Boy Detective by Donald J. Sobol Join us at the Nanogang Forums The post Questions 854: When the Flow Breaks appeared first on The Every Day Novelist.

Two years ago our guest Deedee Cummings decided she wanted to introduce a book festival to the city of Louisville, an event found in many other large cities but missing here. She and her team spent those two years planning and scheduling an event all about books and reading only to have 2020 happen, a terrible, no good, very bad year that has served as a wet blanket for most kinds of fun. Deedee was, of course, disappointed, but she was not deterred. The first annual Louisville Book Festival will take place October 23 and 24 virtually including a session with headliner Tomi Adeyemi, the New York Times bestselling writer of the Young Adult fantasy novel, Children of Blood and Bone. Cumming's book festival has a unique mission statement: Literacy is a basic human right. She has worked to build an event that will bring both a reading culture and connection to the city as well as inspire children to dream. When you talk to Cummings, you realize that most of her adult life has been spent building up to something big. She has been a social worker and lawyer, and is currently a therapist, an author of children's books, and the CEO of Make a Way Media, a company that promotes reading in all kinds of unique ways. Deedee tells us why a lack of books that feature brown faces or stories was the inspiration for the Louisville Book Festival, how a book festival can be a life-changing event, and what themes unite all the children's books she has written. Books Mentioned in this Episode: 1- Nancy Drew series by Carolyn Keane 2- Encyclopedia Brown series by Donald J. Sobol 3- Blackout by John Rocco 4- The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison 5- Fahrenheit 451 by Kurt Vonnegut 6- The Hate You Give by Angie Thomas 7- Kayla: A Modern-Day Princess by Deedee Cummings 8- In the Nick of Time by Deedee Cummings 9- What We Found in the Corn Maze and How it Saved a Dragon by Henry Clark 10- Stamped by Ibram X. Kendi 11- White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo 12- The One and Only Bob by Katherine Applegate 13- Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston 14- Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi 15- Tom Petty's Southern Accents by Michael Washburn

Two years ago our guest Deedee Cummings decided she wanted to introduce a book festival to the city of Louisville, an event found in many other large cities but missing here. She and her team spent those two years planning and scheduling an event all about books and reading only to have 2020 happen, a terrible, no good, very bad year that has served as a wet blanket for most kinds of fun. Deedee was, of course, disappointed, but she was not deterred. The first annual Louisville Book Festival will take place October 23 and 24 virtually including a session with headliner Tomi Adeyemi, the New York Times bestselling writer of the Young Adult fantasy novel, Children of Blood and Bone. Cumming’s book festival has a unique mission statement: Literacy is a basic human right. She has worked to build an event that will bring both a reading culture and connection to the city as well as inspire children to dream. When you talk to Cummings, you realize that most of her adult life has been spent building up to something big. She has been a social worker and lawyer, and is currently a therapist, an author of children’s books, and the CEO of Make a Way Media, a company that promotes reading in all kinds of unique ways. Deedee tells us why a lack of books that feature brown faces or stories was the inspiration for the Louisville Book Festival, how a book festival can be a life-changing event, and what themes unite all the children’s books she has written. Books Mentioned in this Episode: 1- Nancy Drew series by Carolyn Keane 2- Encyclopedia Brown series by Donald J. Sobol 3- Blackout by John Rocco 4- The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison 5- Fahrenheit 451 by Kurt Vonnegut 6- The Hate You Give by Angie Thomas 7- Kayla: A Modern-Day Princess by Deedee Cummings 8- In the Nick of Time by Deedee Cummings 9- What We Found in the Corn Maze and How it Saved a Dragon by Henry Clark 10- Stamped by Ibram X. Kendi 11- White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo 12- The One and Only Bob by Katherine Applegate 13- Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston 14- Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi 15- Tom Petty's Southern Accents by Michael Washburn

Today we turn to Donald J. Sobol's Encyclopedia Brown: Boy Detective, the first in the Encyclopedia Brown series. It takes a while to get to the actual book, since we detour through reading habits and Choose Your Own Adventure books first Faithful listeners may know that detective fiction is Kathryn's academic focus ... she unsuccessfully tries to hold back at first, but eventually geeks out. No apologies for getting caught up in discussions of criminal vs. criminality, and the dangers in disseminating a worldview in which one illegal action makes one a criminal -- that's a hugely important conversation .... and Kathryn will have it with anyone at any time. Brick comments on the function of criticism (a micro-glimpse into why we do what we do) and we end, as always, with flair. Also, while Kathryn says in episode that the music is Waltz of Death, it is actually Magical Dirt, also by Sir Cubworth.

Lennon Parham and Jessica St. Clair are comedians and actors, who created, wrote, and starred in Best Friends Forever and Playing House, This episode is brought to you by Highland 2, the writing software made by writers, for writers. Links and Topics Mentioned In This Episode Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery Lois Duncan, author of I Know What You Did Last Summer, Stranger With My Face, and Who Killed My Daughter? The True Story of a Mother’s Search For Her Daughter’s Murderer Encyclopedia Brown, Boy Detective by Donald J. Sobol Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George Emma and Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen “The Ladies Who Lunch” and Elaine Stritch Actor, comedian, and screenwriter Jason Mantzoukas Poet and playwright Dan O’Brien Comedy writer Rodney Rothman The Upright Citizens Brigade Who’s Line is it Anyway (TV show) The Wild and Crazy Guys, starring Steve Martin and Dan Akroyd Coneheads (SNL skit and movie) Howard the Duck (movie) Odyssey of the Mind Actor and comedian Seth Morris Actor and comedian Jack McBrayer Screenwriter Scot Armstrong Ravi Nandan, writing partner with Scott Armstrong Actor and comedian Adam Pally (who was on Happy Endings)   I want to hear from you! Have a question about writing or creativity for Sarah Enni or her guests to answer? To leave a voicemail, call (818) 533-1998. Subscribe To First Draft with Sarah Enni Every Tuesday, I speak to storytellers like Veronica Roth, author of Divergent; Linda Holmes, author and host of NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast; Jonny Sun, internet superstar, illustrator of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Gmorning, Gnight! and author and illustrator of Everyone’s an Aliebn When Ur a Aliebn Too;  Michael Dante  DiMartino, co-creator of Avatar: The Last Airbender; John August, screenwriter of Big Fish, Charlie’s Angels, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory; or Rhett Miller, musician and frontman for The Old 97s. Together, we take deep dives on their careers and creative works. Don’t miss an episode! Subscribe in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. It’s free! Rate, Review, and Recommend How do you like the show? Please take a moment to rate and review First Draft with Sarah Enni in Apple Podcasts, Google Play, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Your honest and positive review helps others discover the show -- so thank you! Is there someone you think would love this podcast as much as you do? Please share this episode on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, or via carrier pigeon (maybe try a text or e-mail, come to think of it). Just click the Share button at the bottom of this post! Thanks again!

What's a boy to do when his dad is the bumbling Chief of Police? Solve crimes, of course! Join us as we solve The Mystery of How Donald J. Sobol Wrote Detective Fiction for Kids!Special thanks to the Patreon supporters who joined us in the live chat. For more info on how to participate in bonus episode recordings, head to patreon.com/overduepod.

What's a boy to do when his dad is the bumbling Chief of Police? Solve crimes, of course! Join us as we solve The Mystery of How Donald J. Sobol Wrote Detective Fiction for Kids!Special thanks to the Patreon supporters who joined us in the live chat. For more info on how to participate in bonus episode recordings, head to patreon.com/overduepod.

First Draft Episode #232: Maureen Johnson Maureen Johnson is the New York Times bestselling author of several YA novels, including 13 Little Blue Envelopes, Suite Scarlett, The Name of the Star, and Truly Devious: A Mystery. She has also done collaborative works, such as Let It Snow (with John Green and Lauren Myracle), and The Bane Chronicles (with Cassandra Clare and Sarah Rees Brennan). Links and Topics Mentioned In This Episode The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle The Something Queer series, written by Elizabeth Levy and illustrated by Mordicai Gerstein, included Something Queer is Going On (A Mystery), Something Queer at the Library, Something Queer in Outer Space, and more The Encyclopedia Brown series by Donald J. Sobol One day Maureen plans to pursue writing non-fiction and humorous essays, like David Sedaris, author of Me Talk Pretty One Day, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, and When You Are Engulfed in Flames Maureen’s friend and agent is Kate Testerman with KT Literary Janklow & Nesbit Associates is the literary agency where Kate worked her way up before moving and forming her own agency Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by Ann Brashears and Sarah Dessen books, including Saint Anything, Once and For All, and her newest, The Rest of the Story  (hear Sarah Dessen’s episode of First Draft here) were the only YA books around when Maureen started watching After John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars was turned into a movie by the same name, his other books Paper Towns and Looking for Alaska were also optioned and turned into a movie and TV show. Then came Let It Snow with Lauren Myracle and Maureen Jonhson, now available on Netflix! Some of the crew of YA writers who wrote with Maureen in New York when they were beginning their careers included: John Green; Emily Jenkins a.k.a. E. Lockhart, author of The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks; We Were Liars, and the forthcoming Again Again; Cassandra Clare, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Mortal Instruments series, The Dark Artifices series, and the forthcoming Chain of Gold, which kicks off the Last Hours series; Robin Wasserman, author of Girls on Fire, and the forthcoming Mother Daughter Widow Wife (listen to her First Draft episode here); Holly Black, author of The Cruel Prince series, The Coldest Girl in Coldtown and more (listen to her First Draft episode here); Scott Westerfeld, author of Uglies and Leviathan; Justine Larbalestier, author of Liar. I can’t miss an opportunity to dig at the ending of Lost Knives Out is a great example of a mystery. Go watch Knives Out! I want to hear from you! Have a question about writing or creativity for Sarah Enni or her guests to answer? To leave a voicemail, call (818) 533-1998. Subscribe To First Draft with Sarah Enni Every Tuesday, I speak to storytellers like Veronica Roth, author of Divergent; Linda Holmes, author and host of NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast; Jonny Sun, internet superstar, illustrator of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Gmorning, Gnight! and author and illustrator of Everyone’s an Aliebn When Ur a Aliebn Too;  Michael Dante  DiMartino, co-creator of Avatar: The Last Airbender; John August, screenwriter of Big Fish, Charlie’s Angels, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory; or Rhett Miller, musician and frontman for The Old 97s. Together, we take deep dives on their careers and creative works. Don’t miss an episode! Subscribe in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. It’s free! Rate, Review, and Recommend How do you like the show? Please take a moment to rate and review First Draft with Sarah Enni in Apple Podcasts, Google Play, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Your honest and positive review helps others discover the show -- so thank you! Is there someone you think would love this podcast as much as you do? Please share this episode on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, or via carrier pigeon (maybe try a text or e-mail, come to think of it). Just click the Share button at the bottom of this post! Thanks again!

First Draft Episode #189: David Iserson David Iserson, screenwriter of The Spy Who Dumped Me, writer on Saturday Night Live, United States of Tara, and New Girl, and author of YA novel Firecracker, talks about micro and macro humor, how unreliable narrators is one of the beautiful advantages of writing a book, co-writing as being in conversation with someone, and the merit of spite writing. Links and Topics Mentioned In This Episode Encyclopedia Brown by Donald J. Sobol was one of the only books marketed to boys that David read as a young boy Judy Blume, author of Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret and Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, and Sweet Valley High by Francine Pascal were some of the books David read as a kid, because he wasn’t drawn to the “Boy who only throws strike-outs!” books B. Dalton Bookstore, where David would go shopping for books at the mall -- David says, “As a New Jersey pre-teen and teen, most of my memories are mall-related.” RIP B. Dalton! David was very, very into comic strips as a kid, like Calvin & Hobbes by Bill Watterson and Bloom County by Berkeley Breathed There’s a Bat in Bunk Five by Paula Danziger, a book set in an art summer camp that made David realize he could go to something other than sports camp during the summer Buck’s Rock camp in Connecticut Quentin Tarantino, an independent screenwriter and director of Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction whose work made David realize that people wrote movies Zach Braff, actor in shows like Scrubs and writer and director of Garden State, was David’s TA and freshman year RA at Northwestern Miramax, Harvey Weinstein’s film production company, was where David got his first assistant job after moving to Los Angeles. David worked for a producer who played a part in creating The Cider House Rules, Pulp Fiction, and Bourne Identity Parks and Recreation, a TV show that I believe shows all its characters being excellent at something, which makes us like them more Tina Fey and Jimmy Fallon were the anchors on Weekend Update when David was submitting jokes to Saturday Night Live and first got a joke on the air “Seinfeld, a show about a stand up comic written by some of the funniest people in the world, but there are very few ‘joke jokes,’” David says. “They are placed in a situation and you see what this situation means to them. To me, that’s the highest form of writing comedy.” David wrote on New Girl, where he says he wrote a lot of joke-jokes The United States of Tara, starring Toni Collette, was the first scripted TV show David worked on UCLA Extension, which offers a lot of continuing education classes for writers Susanna Fogel, David’s co-writer on The Spy Who Dumped Me, which David says was written out of a “fist-shaking, ‘We’ll show you!’ energy.” David and Susanna’s episode of Scriptnotes, a screenwriting process hosted by John August, writer of Charlie’s Angels, Big Fish, Go, as well as the Arlo Finch middle grade series (listen to his First Draft episode here), and Craig Mazin, writer of upcoming series Chernobyl, as well as The Hangover Part II and Identity Thief. “I write jokes for a living, I sit at my hotel at night, I think of something that's funny, then I go get a pen and I write it down. Or if the pen is too far away, I have to convince myself that what I thought of ain't funny.” ~ Mitch Hedberg’s joke about writing jokes   Subscribe To First Draft with Sarah Enni Every Tuesday, I speak to storytellers like Veronica Roth, author of Divergent; Michael Dante  DiMartino, co-creator of Avatar: The Last Airbender; John August, screenwriter of Big Fish, Charlie’s Angels, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory; or Rhett Miller, musician and frontman for The Old 97s. Together, we take deep dives on their careers and creative works. Don’t miss an episode! Subscribe in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. It’s free! Got a book to recommend? Record yourself raving about it, and send the audio file to sarah@firstdraftpod.com! Rate, Review, and Recommend How do you like the show? Please take a moment to rate and review First Draft with Sarah Enni in Apple Podcasts, Google Play, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Your honest and positive review helps others discover the show -- so thank you! Is there someone you think would love this podcast as much as you do? Please share this episode on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, or via carrier pigeon (maybe try a text or e-mail, come to think of it). Just click the Share button at the bottom of this post! Thanks again!

Our time with Poirot has drawn to a close, but this wouldn’t be CenterForLit without a rousing literary discussion before we lay this book aside! In this episode the crew geeks out about the artistic merits of detective fiction, Agatha Christie’s unique influence on the genre, and the surprising themes lurking beneath the surface of this pleasure read. Referenced Works:– BiblioFiles #36: Mystery Fiction (and Branagh’s Murder on the Orient Express)– Murder on the Orient Express, Curtain, and The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie– Encyclopedia Brown by Donald J. Sobol– The Mary Westmacott Novels

You may or may not know that we of the Andrews variety are great fans of the mystery novel in general and Agatha Christie in particular. There is rarely a time when a Poirot or a Miss Marple is not sitting on our bedside tables. And after a family outing to see Branagh's new adaption of Christie's masterpiece, Murder on the Orient Express, we thought this would be a great opportunity to bring our favorite pleasure reads to the BiblioFiles table. Today we are giving all of our little grey cells to the problem of mystery fiction!If you haven't read Murder on the Orient Express, or if you don't want any spoilers concerning the recent adaptation, stay tuned for a warning at about 30 minutes into the show, which will be your cue to pause the podcast so that we don't ruin any of the fun for you! Referenced Materials:–The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Sleeping Murder, and Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie–Rebecca and Jamaica Inn by Daphne du Maurier–Bleak House, Nicholas Nickleby, and The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens–Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky–The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving–The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins–The Floating Admiral by The Detection Club–The Nine Tailors by Dorothy Sayers–In The Woods by Tana French–Murder on the Orient Express directed by Kenneth Branagh–Encyclopedia Brown by Donald J. Sobol–Whodunit Crime Mysteries by Hy Conrad–Cooper Kids Adventures by Frank Peretti–Nancy Drew Interactive Games by Her Interactive We love hearing your questions and comments! You can contact us by emailing adam@centerforlit.com, or you can visit our website www.centerforlit.com to find even more ways to participate in the conversation.