Episode 4: David Heska Wanbli Weiden and the murder techniques
About the podcast
Scared Lit-less is the podcast for readers, writers, and other fans of the crime genre. Hosted by a psychological thriller author, the podcast will feature:
Thoughts about writing and telling stories in this genre
Recommendations for new books, documentaries, movies, podcasts, and other media
Interviews with writers of crime, thrillers, mysteries, and suspense
Trivia games and other fun shenanigans
Scared Lit-less is hosted by Amy Suiter Clarke, author of the novel Girl, 11 about a true crime podcast host obsessively trying to solve the cold case of Minnesota’s most notorious serial killer, whose victims were each a year younger than the last.
Quick five with a killer
In this segment, I interview a “killer” aka an author who writes stories that demand killing a lot of characters.
This episode features David Heska Wanbli Weiden. An enrolled citizen of the Sicangu Lakota nation, David is author of the novel WINTER COUNTS (Ecco/HarperCollins, 2020), nominated for the 2021 Edgar Award for Best First Novel and winner of the 2021 Spur Award for Best Contemporary Novel. WINTER COUNTS, an IndieBound and Amazon bestseller, is a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice and was named one of the Best Books of 2020 by NPR, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, Amazon, Sun Sentinel, LitReactor, CrimeReads, Deadly Pleasures, Air Mail, MysteryPeople, and BOLO Books.
You can learn more about David on his website: https://davidweiden.com.
Author or killer?
Author Bethany C. Morrow and I quiz each other with trivia facts we’ve gathered about a person who is either an author or a murderer. Can you guess?
Bethany C Morrow is an Indie Bestselling author who writes for adult and young adult audiences, in genres ranging from speculative literary to contemporary fantasy to historical. She is author of the novels Mem and A Song Below Water, and editor/contributor to the young adult anthology Take the Mic, which was the 2020 ILA Social Justice in Literature award winner. Her work has been chosen as Indies Introduce and Indie Next picks, and featured in The LA Times, Forbes, Bustle, Buzzfeed, and more. She is included on USA TODAY's list of 100 Black novelists and fiction writers you should read.
Her website is www.bethanycmorrow.com.
A nervous rec
In this episode, I recommended:
Unlikeable Female Characters podcast: Hosted by feminist thriller writers Kristen Lepionka, Layne Fargo, and Wendy Heard. This is a great podcast for readers interested in hearing more about character archetypes and why it’s so hard for any woman in fiction to be considered “likeable”.
Bad Habits by Amy Gentry: Dark academia is having a moment right now, and if you’re into the genre, look no further than Gentry’s latest thriller! Bad Habits follows a scrappy woman who has worked her way up to a grueling graduate program in an elite school, only to have her dreams for the future slowly devolve under the tutelage of a fierce, rule-bending professor.