Django Wexler graduated from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh with degrees in creative writing and computer science, and worked for the university in artificial intelligence research.  Eventually he migrated to Microsoft in Seattle, where he now lives with two cats and a teetering mountain of books.  When not writing, he wrangles computers, paints tiny soldiers, and plays games of all sorts.

One Thing Led to Another

Episode 12: Django Wexler

Michael Poore’s short fiction has appeared in Glimmer Train, Southern Review, Agni, Fiction, and Asimov’s. His story “The Street of the House of the Sun” was selected for The Year’s Best Nonrequired Reading 2012. His first novel, Up Jumps the Devil, was hailed by The New York Review of Books as “an elegiac masterpiece.” Poore lives in Highland, Indiana, with his wife, poet and activist Janine Harrison, and their daughter, Jianna. He is also the author of Reincarnation Blues.

Episode 11: Michael Poore

Maureen was the McAuliffe Fellow for WA State in 2000. She is a poet, novelist and teacher, and enjoys presenting to students and adults. Maureen works with teachers to tailor workshops to specific writing goals.  She is also a frequent presenter at writing conferences. She has authored four books. The Peculiars, Beyond the Door (Book 1 of the Time out of Time series), The Telling Stone (Book 2 of the Time out of Time series), and her most recent novel Between Before and After.

Episode 10: Maureen McQuerry

Julia Phillips is a Fulbright fellow whose debut novel, Disappearing Earth, is forthcoming from Knopf on May 14, 2019. Her writing has appeared in publications including Glimmer Train, The Atlantic, Slate, and The Moscow Times and been supported by fellowships from Yaddo. She lives in Brooklyn.

Episode 9: Julia Phillips

Wayétu Moore is the author of She Would Be King, released by Graywolf Press in September, 2018. Her memoir is also forthcoming with Graywolf. Moore is the founder of One Moore Book. One Moore Book is a 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization that encourages reading among children of countries with low literacy rates and underrepresented cultures by publishing culturally relevant books that speak to their truths, and by creating bookstores and reading corners that serve their communities. Her first bookstore opened in Monrovia, Liberia in 2015. Her writing can be found in The Paris Review, Frieze Magazine, Guernica, The Atlantic Magazine and other publications.  She has been featured in The Economist Magazine, NPR, NBC, BET and ABC, among others, for her work in advocacy for diversity in children’s literature. She’s a graduate of Howard University and the University of Southern California, and is currently a Margaret Mead Fellow at Columbia University Teachers College, where she’s researching the impact of culturally relevant curriculum and learning aids in elementary classrooms of underrepresented groups. Moore is an Africana Studies lecturer at City University of New York’s John Jay College and lives in Brooklyn, NY. 

Episode 8: Wayétu Moore

Before settling down to write fantasy novels, Josiah Bancroft was a poet, college instructor, and aspiring comic book artist. When he is not writing, he enjoys playing post-pop music with his band, Dirt Dirt, drawing chalk pictures on his office wall, and cooking pub curry for his wife, Sharon. He shares a home with her and their two rabbits, Mabel and Chaplin, in Philadelphia. Josiah's latest book, The Hod King, is the third book of his Books of Babel series and published by Orbit Books (US/UK).  Music: https://www.bensound.com  For more, head on over to Noah's website at noahfinco.net.

Episode 7: Josiah Bancroft

While growing up, David was that weird kid with his nose in a book and his head in the clouds. He was the table-top role-playing game geek, the comic-book nerd, the story-teller and dreamer.  Fortunately, he hasn't changed much. David is a software engineer by trade and a long-time sci-fi and fantasy devotee by passion, and he lives in Silicon Valley with his partner of twenty-six years. Until recently, he also shared his life with a disturbingly spoiled cat named Freya. (Farewell, little huntress. You were loved. You are missed.) David's first book, Fid's Crusade, has just recently been published; this was his first novel-length project, but it certainly won't be his last—he's having far too much fun!

Episode 6: David H. Reiss

Jessie Chandler is the award-winning author of the Shay O'Hanlon Caper series and the National Protection and Investigation Unit Operation series. Her novels have garnered two Golden Crown Awards, an Independent Publisher Book Award, and a USA Book Award for LGBTQ fiction. Two too-adorable-for-their-own-good pooches allow Jessie and her wife of twenty years to hang with them in Minneapolis, Minnesota, as long as they are fed three squares a day—interspersed with numerous snacks. When Jessie isn't writing, you can find her selling T-shirts, books, and other assorted fun stuff at festivals, craft shows, and a multitude of other strange locations.

Episode 5: Jessie Chandler

Ian attended the University of Minnesota for both college and graduate school. Eventually the university decided it had seen quite enough of him, so it politely but firmly asked him to leave, grow up, and get a real job. Ian's parting gift was a doctorate in physics for his research on radio galaxies. After finishing his thesis, he moved to New Mexico just as soon as he found a group of people willing to hire him. He's still a bit surprised by this because he has no useful skills.  In 2005, Ian attended the Clarion Writers' Workshop in East Lansing, Michigan. (This was the second-to-last Clarion class in the program's 35 year run at Michigan State University, before the program moved to its new home at UCSD in 2007.) There he spent six weeks living in a sweltering, slightly creepy, soon-to-be-condemned sorority house with twelve other aspiring writers. Scurvy was a problem. However, in spite of many predictions, cannibalism was not.  After Clarion, and thanks to Walter Jon Williams, he was welcomed into New Mexico's disproportionately large community of professional science fiction and fantasy writers. Although he often feels like a minor league batboy inexplicably mistaken for a professional baseball player, he has shared critiques with, and worked alongside, a long list of New Mexico writers including WJW, Daniel Abraham, Melinda Snodgrass, S. M. Stirling, Ty Franck, Victor Milán, Sage Walker, and George R. R. Martin.  Nowadays he lives in northern New Mexico, where he consorts with writers, scientists, and other disreputable types.

Episode 4: Ian Tregillis

Mike Cobley was born in Leicester and has lived in Scotland since the age of seven. Although the Scottish cultural heritage informs much of his own outlook (egalitarian, argumentative yet amiable, and able to appreciate rain), he thinks of himself as a citizen of the world.While studying engineering at Strathclyde University, he discovered the joys and risks of student life and pursued a sideline career as a DJ, possibly to the detriment of his studies. The heady round of DJ'ing, partying and student gigs palled eventually, but by then his interests had been snagged by an encounter with Pirsig's 'Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance' which led him off on a philosophical and political odyssey which continues to this day.The desire to write had its first burgeoning when he was 20/21, resulting in the creation of a short fantasy novel (that has never seen the light of day!). He later wrote a string of articles/rants for the campus paper at Strathclyde University under the pen-name Phaedrus, at the same time as he began writing short stories. Mike harbour much affection for the short story form, but has had little opportunity to write them since beginning work on the Shadowkings trilogy.The 1st 2 volumes of the trilogy - Shadowkings and Shadowgod - have been published by Simon & Schuster's now-defunct imprint Earthlight, and the 3rd part - Shadowmasque - will be published by Simon & Schuster-Pocket at the end of 2004. Mike has a number of ideas and concepts for his next big project but they're being kept on the backburner for the time being. The publication of Iron Mosaic will be a personal milestone for him, as well as a showcase of the topics and techiques which have intrigued him since the publication of his first short story back in 1986. And just recently, he has had appeared in the Thackery T Lambshead Guide to Eccentric and Discredited Diseases, with a monologue upon the malady known as 'Parabubozygosia', which is not for the faint-hearted!

Episode 3: Mike Cobley

David Wellington, aka D. Nolan Clark, aka David Chandler is the author of over twenty novels of action, suspense, and drama. He got his start in 2003 with the online serialization of Monster Island. Over a period of five months he published a chapter of the story every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, writing each section moments before it appeared online and responding in real time to user comments. The resulting manuscript became his first published novel in 2005.   He went on to write two more books in the same universe: Monster Nation and Monster Planet. His other horror series include the Laura Caxton series of vampire novels: 13 Bullets, 99 Coffins, Vampire Zero, 23 Hours, and 32 Fangs; and a werewolf duology comprising Frostbite and Overwinter.   Taking a break from horror he wrote three fantasy novels under the pseudonym David Chandler: Den of Thieves, A Thief in the Night, and Honor Among Thieves. Under his own name he wrote the Jim Chapel trilogy of spy thrillers: Chimera, The Hydra Protocol, and The Cyclops Initiative.   He returned to horror in 2015 with Positive, his grand zombie opus. In 2016 he began to publish a science fiction trilogy, The Silence, under the name D. Nolan Clark. The first two books, Forsaken Skies and Forgotten Worlds, are available now wherever books are sold. A third and final volume to the trilogy, Forbidden Suns, will be released late 2017. He has also worked in comic books and video games and has published dozens of short stories in a wide range of anthologies.

Episode 2: David Wellington

Award-winning Author and Writing Coach John DeDakis is a former CNN Senior Copy Editor for the Emmy and Peabody-Award winning news program "The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer."      DeDakis (pronounced  deh-DAY-kiss) is the author of four mystery/suspense novels -- Fast Track, Bluff, Troubled Water, and Bullet in the Chamber.  Fast Track is the story of Lark Chadwick, a young woman searching for purpose as she solves the mystery surrounding the car-train collision that orphaned her as an infant.  The novel deals redemptively with issues of suicide, journalistic integrity, anonymous sources, and mentoring relationships.      Fast Track  grew out of two events in the author's life: a fatal car/train crash he witnessed as a youngster in 1959 and the suicide of his sister in 1980.   John's second novel, Bluff,  a sequel to Fast Track, is based on his four-day, 25-mile hike along the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu in Peru. Both novels are set in south central Wisconsin and are published in hardcover and trade paperback by ArcheBooks. The novels are also available as Kindle eBooks.  In Troubled Water, John's third novel in the Lark Chadwick saga, Lark discovers the first victim of what turns out to be a serial killer while on her way to her new job as a cops and courts reporter at a daily newspaper in Georgia. Readers will come away with a better understanding of how journalism works -- and doesn't. John's fourth novel, Bullet in the Chamber, was published by Strategic Media Books October 1, 2016. In Bullet, Lark once again finds herself at the wrong place at the right time: front-row center when the White House press briefing room is suddenly attacked.  The president is missing, the first lady’s life is at risk, and Lark’s personal life is falling apart when the man she loves disappears.  In this story, John draws on his own personal pain – the heroin overdose that killed his 22-year-old son Stephen in 2011.

Episode 1: John DeDakis

One Thing Led To Another (OTLA) is a podcast focused on the techniques employed by authors to create compelling stories. Each episode, OTLA host Noah Finco will have a long form conversation with an author to unpack how they take a premise and turn it into an immersive and engaging literary adventure that readers crave.

hubhopper

One Thing Led to Another

hubhopper