What happens when you mix real-world environmental science, historic landmarks, and chilling native folklore? You get the spine-tingling world of author Benjamin A Coward!

In this episode of In the Writer's Chair, host Lana McAra sits down with Ben to discuss his journey from environmental scientist to fiction author. They dive deep into his latest supernatural horror thriller, Wendigo Knights, exploring the real-life history and North American cryptid lore that inspired it. From the eerie cave systems of Hannibal, Missouri to the challenges of writing authentic modern teenagers, Ben shares how he weaves snippets of nonfiction into captivating fiction.

Plus, Lana and Ben exchange creative strategies for selling books in unexpected places (like gun shows and nature festivals!) and how to craft the perfect 30-second elevator pitch to hook readers instantly.

In This Episode, You’ll Learn:

• The Lore Behind the Monster: How Algonquin and Ojibwe tribal beliefs inspired the supernatural elements of Wendigo Knights.
• Setting the Scene: Why a real-life cave system in Mark Twain’s hometown of Hannibal, Missouri provided the perfect, creepy backdrop.
• Writing 3D Worlds: How Ben uses his environmental science background to organically seed environmental and cultural themes into his books without overtaking the plot.
• Thinking Outside the Box: Creative marketing tips for authors, including how to connect with readers at craft shows, nature events, and local festivals.
• Bouncing Between Genres: How Ben manages writing two completely different series—the fantasy world of The Dragon's Tooth and his monster-hunting supernatural thriller series—to keep his passion for writing alive.

About the Guest:

Benjamin A Coward lives in Florida with his family, where he works in environmental science. He is the author of the young adult fantasy novel The Dragon's Tooth and the supernatural thriller Wendigo Knights. You can connect with Ben on Facebook or Instagram, and find his books available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Connect with the Show:

• Host: Lana McAra
• Podcast: In the Writer’s Chair
• Sponsor: Vella Publishing

Pull up a chair, and let's talk about the writing life!

In this gripping episode of In the Writer's Chair, host Lana McAra welcomes Rand R. Timmerman, a retired attorney and Marine combat veteran who began his prolific second act as an author at age 70. Rand shares the fascinating inspiration behind his latest book, The Syracuse Hit Man Versus a Shoe Repairman, a story of violence, redemption, and spiritual transformation based on a real-life genius "hit man" he met in recovery.

Rand dives into his "movie-like" writing process and how decades of experience as a litigator prepared him to craft compelling courtroom dramas. He also recounts a harrowing real-life encounter with a client that nearly cost him his life—a story that serves as the basis for his next high-stakes novel.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

• The Attorney-to-Author Pipeline: How writing legal briefs and affidavits for decades translates into powerful fiction.
• Real-Life Inspiration: The incredible true story of "Ronnie," a Mensa-level genius and former hit man whose life transformation inspired Rand's latest book.
• The Atmosphere of Syracuse: Exploring the unique, historical ethnic enclaves of Syracuse, New York, and how they shape the setting of Rand's work.
• Writing as a "Movie": Rand’s unique process of visualizing his stories in vivid color and letting the plot unfold organically as he writes.
• Themes of Redemption: Why spiritual recovery and transformation are central motifs in both of Rand's books.
• Combat Instincts in the Courtroom: A chilling account of how Rand’s Marine Corps training saved his life during a confrontation with a dangerous former client.

About Our Guest:

Rand R. Timmerman is a retired attorney and a Marine combat veteran of the Vietnam War. Based in Syracuse, New York, he turned to writing later in life, publishing his first memoir about hiking the Appalachian Trail and transitioning into crime fiction. Rand is a dedicated advocate for recovery and uses his writing to promote messages of hope and redemption.

Connect with Rand:

• Website: randtimmerman.com

Featured in this Episode:

• The Syracuse Hit Man Versus a Shoe Repairman: Rand’s newest novel.
• A Spiritual Passage: Rand’s memoir about his journey on the Appalachian Trail.
• Vella Publishing: Today’s sponsor, a traditional publisher with an untraditional model that empowers authors to keep their rights and royalties.

Looking for more? Subscribe to In the Writer's Chair for more candid conversations about the writing life. Visit VellaPublishing.com to learn how you can grow your presence as a career author.

What happens when you combine the high-stakes adventure of Dungeons & Dragons with the emotional power of Broadway? You get The Reality Shaper, a groundbreaking musical podcast. In this episode of In the Writer’s Chair, host Lana McAra sits down with New York City-based musical theater writer and performer Sair Kaufman to discuss the "different beast" of writing for the ear rather than the stage.

Sair reveals the six-year journey of transforming a novel into an 11-episode audio drama, featuring over 40 original songs. Whether you're a TTRPG fan, a theater nerd, or a writer looking to pivot between mediums, Sair’s insights on collaboration, "perfect rhymes," and creative marketing are pure gold.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• The Musical Pivot: How Sair transitioned from theater performance to writing music, lyrics, and "books" for musicals.
• Podcast vs. Stage: The unique challenges of creating an episodic arc where the protagonist must change every 30–50 minutes.
• The "Musical Truth" Rule: Why characters in musicals are trusted implicitly and why it’s harder to write a "lying" character in song than in a play.
• Comprehension & Rhyme: Why theater writers stick to "perfect rhymes" to ensure the audience understands the story on the first listen.
• Roll for Promo: Sair’s viral TikTok marketing strategy using D&D dice to decide daily tasks—including a high-stakes roll for a tattoo!

About Our Guest:

Sair Kaufman is an award-winning musical theater writer and the creator of The Reality Shaper. Based in New York City, Sair is an alum of the prestigious BMI Musical Theater Writers Workshop and the founder of Theater Writers Digest.

Connect with Sair Kaufman:

• Website: therealityshaper.com — Get tickets for live NYC/Manhattan concert events on June 8th and August 24th!
• Theater Writers Digest: theaterwritersdigest.com — A monthly resource for grants, residencies, and mentorship opportunities.
• Social Media: Follow @SairKaufman on Instagram and TikTok.

About the Show: In the Writer's Chair features candid conversations about the writing life, hosted by novelist Lana McAra and brought to you by Vandella Publishing.

✨ Don't forget to LIKE, COMMENT, and SUBSCRIBE for more deep dives into the writing craft! ✨

#InTheWritersChair #MusicalTheater #DND #Podcast #AudioDrama #WritingCommunity #IndieAuthor #Playwriting

How to Sell Your Book Before You Even Write a Single Word – With Rodney Washington

Are you locking yourself away for months to finish your book, only to realize no one knows it exists? In this episode of In the Writer’s Chair, host Lana McAra welcomes Rodney Washington, founder of Published and Thriving, to explain why waiting until your book is on Amazon to start marketing is a "Simba moment" that often leads to zero sales.

Rodney breaks down the essential shift from being "just an author" to becoming an authorpreneur—an identity that focuses on building relationships, community, and revenue streams long before the physical book is finished.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• The "Simba" Fallacy: Why simply being on Amazon isn't enough to drive sales.
• Building on Rented Land: The danger of relying solely on social media and how to move your audience to an email list you own.
• The Interest Post Strategy: How to test your book idea and find "early adopters" with a simple social media post.
• Monetizing the Journey: How one client made over $5,000 and established recurring income for a book that is still in development.
• The $15 to $15k Story: Why the book is often just the "tangible" piece of a much larger, more profitable "product suite".
• Identity vs. Mindset: Why you need an "identity shift" to see yourself as a business owner who happens to write books.

About Our Guest:

Rodney Washington is the creator of the Authorpreneur Decision workshop series and the Published and Thriving incubator. With over 30 years of experience, he helps entrepreneurial-minded creators transform their expertise into thriving brands and profitable books.

Connect with Rodney Washington:

• Download the Blueprint: Access a preview chapter of his upcoming book, The Authorpreneur Decision, featuring in-depth case studies.
• Join the Community: Connect with the Published Creator School Community for weekly monetization mapping sessions.
• Visit his Website: http://authordecision.com/

Sponsor: This episode is brought to you by Vandela Publishing, a traditional publisher with an untraditional model that lets you keep your rights and royalties while providing a full year of marketing support. Visit vendelapublishing.com.

Welcome to In the Writer's Chair with host Lana McAra! Today, we pull up a chair with veteran journalist and author Eliot Kleinberg. After a 33-and-a-half-year career at the Palm Beach Post where he wrote roughly 14,000 stories, Eliot transitioned into writing captivating historical fiction.

As the creator of the original Weird Florida books—first published in 1998 before the "Florida Man" craze took over—Eliot has always had a knack for finding the wildest true stories. Now, he is channeling that passion for his home state into vivid historical novels.

In This Episode, We Discuss:

• From Journalism to Fiction: Eliot shares why he waited until retirement to tackle fiction, and why the secret to good writing is simply to write, read, and write some more.
• The Dilemma of Historical Fiction: Discover why Eliot is likely the only novelist who includes bibliographies at the end of his books to prove his wild historical scenes actually happened.
• Florida's Forgotten Civil War History: We dive into the Battle of Olustee, the most important Civil War battle in Florida's history, which inspired Eliot's novel Peace River.
• A Wild Prohibition Era: Eliot explains why Florida's Prohibition era was even crazier than the 1970s drug wars, complete with rum runners and gangsters.
• The Adventures of Nate Moran: Get an inside look at Eliot's upcoming four-book series featuring a Miami police detective.
• Real-Life Inspiration: Learn the tragic and fascinating true story of a 1930 shooting that inspired the first Nate Moran book, Hypocrites Row, releasing in February 2026.
• Writing Process: Eliot reveals why he considers himself a "hybrid" writer who skips outlining but relies on a solid historical framework.

About Our Guest

• Eliot Kleinberg is a passionate advocate for Florida history who regularly lectures on the topic.
• He is on a mission to teach people that Florida's history didn't start with Walt Disney in 1970, noting that St. Augustine is actually 55 years older than Plymouth Rock.
• You can sign up for his newsletter, check out his speaking schedule, and read his blog "Something Went Horribly Wrong" at his website: ekfa.com.

Sponsor Spotlight

• This episode is brought to you by Vendela Publishing.
• Vendela Publishing is a traditional publisher with a unique model that provides marketing help without requiring authors to have large social media or email followings.
• Learn more at vendelapublishing.com.

What does a Navy journalist in Vietnam have in common with a corporate communications strategist for global brands? If you're Fred Yager, the answer is a lifetime of storytelling that spans war zones, Hollywood screening rooms, and the deep, silent forests of the mind. This week on In The Writer's Chair, host Lana McAra welcomes the award-winning writer and TV executive to discuss his multifaceted career and his latest leap into the "eco-thriller" genre.

Fred shares how a chance meeting with a Hollywood icon sparked a novel, the gritty reality of the "optioning" game in Los Angeles, and why he’s now rewriting his best screenplays into books.

In This Episode, You’ll Discover:

• The Screenplay-to-Novel Pivot: Why Fred is digging into his Hollywood vault to turn unproduced scripts into "unputdownable" prose.
• The Seeds of The Asian Queen: How a real-life interview with actress Liv Ullmann and a blood-stained river boat in the Mekong Delta merged into a gripping historical novel.
• Writing Under Fire: Fred’s origins as a Navy journalist in the Vietnam War and how he learned to tell the truth when the military was accused of "smoke and mirrors."
• Psychology in Art: How a degree in psychology and NYU film training helped him "get into the mind of the killer" in collaborative works like Untimely Death.
• The "Wood-Wide Web": A deep dive into his latest book, Botanica, which explores how trees communicate through fungal networks to survive mass extinction.
• The Audio Revolution: Why Fred believes the growth of audiobooks is the best thing to happen to the modern attention span.

Instructive Insight: The "Wood-Wide Web"

In his novel Botanica, Fred relies on the fascinating science of mycorrhizal networks. This isn't just fiction; it's a real-world biological communication system.

• Communication: Large "Mother Trees" use this network to send excess sugar to smaller, shaded saplings.
• Defense: When a tree is attacked by insects, it can send chemical warning signals through the fungi to neighboring trees, allowing them to prep their immune responses.
• Mass Migration: As Fred discusses, these networks may play a role in how plant populations shift in response to environmental catastrophes.

About Fred Yager

Fred Yager is a veteran journalist (AP, CBS News), television executive, and screenwriter. He is the founder of the World News and Information Network and a prolific ghostwriter. Based in Tampa, Florida, Fred continues to explore the intersection of technology, nature, and human psychology through his fiction.

Connect with Fred:

• Books: Find Botanica, The Asian Queen, and Untimely Death on Amazon.
• Format Choice: Botanica is available in hardcover, softcover, e-book, and a high-fidelity audiobook narrated by the talented Smartwatch.

Connect with Lana McAra:

• Podcast: In The Writer's Chair
• Publisher: Vendela Publishing

Ready to hear what the trees are saying? Subscribe to hear more from writers who turn the world’s most complex issues into thrilling narratives!

80,000 Words in 3 Weeks: Johan Raubel on AI, Dictation, and Literary Restraint

Can technology actually make your writing more human? In this episode of The Writer's Chair, Lana McAra sits down with author Johan Raubel to discuss his character-driven novel, Hannah, and his unique approach to the "interior life" of fiction.

Johan shares how he broke free from the "exhausting" traditional advice of writing from beginning to end, instead discovering a liberating workflow that involves AI-powered dictation and cinematic thinking. If you’ve ever struggled with a slow first draft or found yourself over-explaining every detail to your reader, this conversation is a masterclass in trusting your muse—and your audience.

🎙️ In this episode, you’ll discover:

• The "Floodgate" of Dictation: How Johan used OpenAI’s Whisper to get 80,000 words down in just over three weeks.
• Voice vs. Hands: Why Johan believes the voice is the "creator" while the hands are the "editors."
• The Power of Restraint: Writing for a literary audience by favoring emotional truth over overt explanation.
• Cinematic Writing: How "camera positions" in your mind can help pace a slow-burn romance.
• Being Ruthless: The painful but necessary process of "killing your darlings"—even the scenes that make you cry.

📖 About Johan Raubel

Johan Raubel is the author of Hannah, a novel exploring intimacy, connection, and the risks of being seen. His writing focuses on quiet moments and the "reassembly" that follows grief. He is currently working on his next book, The Gentle Orbit.

✨ Connect with Johan:

• Website: [Insert Website Link Here]
• Book: Find Hannah on Amazon and Kindle.
• Mailing List: Join Johan’s list via his website to get the first chapter of Hannah for free!

This episode is sponsored by Vandela Publishing. Vandela Publishing is a collaborative, traditional publisher that acts as a strategic partner to build career authors. Visit them at VandellaPublishing.com.

#WritingCraft #AuthorsOfYouTube #LiteraryFiction #WritingWithAI #BookMarketing #TheWritersChair #JohanRaubel #PodcastForWriters

The Power of the Series - Building Worlds with Julie Robitaille

What’s the secret to keeping readers hooked for seven novels? According to Julie Robitaille, it’s all about creating a world so vibrant that it feels like home. This week on In The Writer's Chair, host Lana McAra welcomes the prolific author and former English professor to discuss the strategic and creative benefits of writing in series.

Julie, the architect of the Corey Marin Female Detective series, shares how her experience in the classroom and her background in screenwriting helped her craft a series that balances social issues with high-stakes crime—all set in the unique, moss-draped landscape of Gainesville, Florida.

In This Episode, You’ll Discover:

• The "Economic" Writer: Why writing a series is a smart business move, allowing you to focus your advertising dollars on "Book One" while enjoying a high "sell-through" rate for subsequent titles.
• The Series Bible: Why you must keep a meticulous record of eye colors, minor characters, and setting details to avoid the dreaded "continuity error" that eagle-eyed readers love to point out.
• Standalones vs. Spoilers: How to write books that can be read independently while still rewarding long-term fans with deep character growth.
• The Setting as a Character: Why choosing a unique, real-world location like Gainesville allows you to skip the "reinventing the wheel" phase and get straight to the story.
• Amazon Ads & Algorithms: A peak behind the curtain of how Julie uses targeted keywords and Amazon’s "also-bought" feature to keep her series in front of the right eyes.
• The Audio Advantage: Why making your entire series available on Audible is essential for reaching modern readers who "read" while gardening, cooking, or driving.

Instructive Insight: The "Read-Through" Funnel

One of the most powerful reasons to write a series is the marketing funnel it creates. Instead of finding a new customer for every book, you find one customer for the series.

• Entry Point (Book 1): This is where you spend your marketing effort.
• The Hook: Once a reader connects with your protagonist (like Julie’s Corey Marin), they are statistically more likely to buy the next book without any additional advertising from you.
• Compound Value: By the time you reach Book 7, the lifetime value of a single reader is significantly higher than that of a standalone novel reader.

About Julie Robitaille

Julie Robitaille is an accomplished author with over 11 titles, including literary novels, psychological suspense, and short stories. She holds multiple degrees in English and Creative Writing and spent over 20 years teaching at Santa Fe College. Her Corey Marin series is celebrated for its strong female lead and its immersive Gainesville setting.

Connect with Julie:

• Website: jwrobitaille.com (Sign up for her mailing list to get a free download of her short story collection, Trust Me: Voices from the South!)
• Shop: Explore the Corey Marin series in paperback, e-book, and audiobook on Amazon.

Connect with Lana McAra:

• Podcast: In The Writer's Chair
• Publisher: Vendela Publishing

Ready to start your own literary legacy? Subscribe to hear more from authors who have mastered the art of the "unputdownable" series!