Authors

Patricia Cornwell

Bill Thompson

Many authors, maybe even most authors, labor in obscurity for months or years before finally hitting it big with a bestseller .

But Patricia Cornwell hit it big with her very first book, Post Mortem in 1990. And in the three decades since then, she has sold over 100 million books.

Her wildly popular mysteries feature a medical examiner named Dr. Kay Scarpetta. Cornwell based the character loosely on a real life medical examiner for whom she worked briefly in the 1980s.

I first interviewed Patricia Cornwell when Post Mortem was published. The interview you’re about to hear is our second interview, a year later, when her second book, Body of Evidence was published.

So here now, from 1991, Patricia Cornwell.
Patricia Cornwell will be 66 in June. She lives in Massachusetts.

Her latest Kay Scarpetta mystery, Autopsy, the 25th book in the series,was published in 2021.

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Richard Marcinko

Bill Thompson

SHave you ever done a job so well that your boss is punished you for it?

That’s what former Navy SEAL team 6 Commander Richard Marcinko said happened to him.

Marcinko joined the Navy in the late 1950s, and became a part of the underwater demolitions unit. After a tour in Vietnam, Marcinko became a Navy SEAL.

After the 1979 hostage rescued attempt, Marcinko was chosen to form, and be the first commander of, the elite SEAL team. Team Six.

After three years in that role, Marcinko was given a new assignment: form a unit to test the Navy’s vulnerability to terrorism.

That new project, called Red Cell, is what got Marcinko in hot water, he says, because he exposed vulnerabilities the Navy didn’t want to acknowledge.

He was actually sentenced to prison in 1990. More on that in a moment. But in 1992 Marcinko wrote a memoir called Rogue Warrior. And that’s when I first met him.

This would be the first of many interviews I would have with Marcinko over the next few years, as he told many of his military stories in the form of novels loosely based on his experiences.

So here now, from 1992, Richard Marcinko.

Richard Marcinko died on Christmas Day 2021. He was 81.

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Art Spiegelman

Bill Thompson

While there have been thousands of books written about the Holocaust, and Nazi Germany, and the horrors of the concentration camps, few have been as powerful in the telling as Art Spiegelman’s Maus.

Originally a serialized comic strip, Spiegelman published Maus in book form in 1986, with volume 1, and in 1991 with volume two.

And despite its unusual format — it is nonfiction — It is the story of the Holocaust as told to Art Spiegelman by his father, a Polish Jew who survived the a concentration camps.

While it has been labeled history, biography, autobiography, and more, spiegelman himself doesn’t quite know how to categorize it.

I first met Art Spiegelman in 1991, upon publication of the second volume of the Maus story.

So here now, from 1991, Art Spiegelman.

Art Spiegelman celebrated his 74th birthday last month.

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Karen Salmansohn

Bill Thompson

It’s Valentine’s Day. And we could have done the usual mushy, romantic stuff, but instead I wanted to go more tongue in cheek .

Back in 1994 I interviewed the popular self-help author Karen Salmansohn. She had just written a book called how to make your man behave in 21 days or less using the secrets of professional dog trainers.

Really, how much more romantic can you get?

But you know, as much as I hate to admit it, behind every incisive piece of humor. There is a nugget of truth. As I think you’ll find out right now.

So here now, from 1994, Karen Salmansohn/

Karen Salmansohn’s most recent book, Instant Calm, was published in 2019.

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Elmore Leonard

Bill Thompson
Photo: Peabody Awards

He wants famously said that his writing was so crisp and tight because he simply left out the parts that people usually skip over.

During a writing career that spanned more than seven decades, Elmore “Dutch” Leonard produced scores of novels that established his reputation as one of America’s foremost and most popular storytellers of the second half of the 20th century.

I first met Elmore Leonard in 1986, and interviewed him every year or two for the next 20 years.

In 1990 we had a conversation about his newest novel, the interview you’re about to hear. The book we’re talking about: Get Shorty, which later became a hugely popular movie.

So here now, from 1990, Elmore Leonard.

Elmore Leonard suffered a stroke in the summer of 2013 and died a few days later. He was 87.

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bell hooks

Bill Thompson
Photo: Alex Lozupone

How and where do race, gender, class, art, and capitalism come together?

That question was at the heart of some 30 books written by author bell hooks.

That was actually the pen name that Gloria Jean Watkins adopted for herself.

But being a black female activist and feminist also often made her a target.

In her 1999 book Remembered Rapture hooks recalled some of her challenges as a writer and activist and that’s when I have the chance to meet her for the first of our several conversations.

So here now from 1999 bell hooks.

bell hooks died last month. She was 69.

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Alice Walker
Maya Angelou

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Michael Crichton

Bill Thompson
Jon Chase photo/Harvard News Office

He earned a medical degree from Harvard, but instead of pursuing a career in medicine, Michael Crichton became a writer.

And as a reader, I’m really glad he did.

I had read some of Michael Crichton’s books, and enjoyed the movie “The Andromeda Strain,” that was based on one of them, but I had never interviewed him, until November 1990 when “Jurassic Park” was published.

“Jurassic Park:” the movie was released in 1993, starring Sam Neill, Laura Dern, and Jeff Goldblum.

So here now, from 1990, Michael Crichton.

Michael Crichton died in 2008 at age 66.

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William Peter Blatty
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Cleveland Amory

Bill Thompson

It was on a cold Christmas Eve night many years ago in New York that a stray cat found a new, loving home.

His rescuer was I then crusty 60 year old curmudgeon, an author and TV and radio critic named Cleveland Amory.

Well, Amory named his new furry white companion PPolar Bear. And in 1987, when Amory wrote a book called The Cat Who Came For Christmas, Polar Bear became a celebrity.

This was my first interview with Cleveland Amory, but it was not the last. We talked several times over the next few years.

So here now, from 1987, Cleveland

Cleveland Amory died in 1998. He was 81.

Sophy Burnham

Bill Thompson

Do you believe in angels?

Does each of us have a guardian angel? What do angels really look like? Can they perform miracles?

Some thirty years ago a Washington DC-based author and psychic medium named Sophy Burnham wrote a book that became a major bestseller.

It was called A Book of Angels.

And that’s when Sophie and I had the first of our several conversations over the next few years.

And if you don’t believe in angels now, perhaps you will a few minutes from now.

So here now, from 1990, Sophie Burnham.

William Peter Blatty

Bill Thompson
Photo:Terry Ballard

Back in the 1960s, he had a very successful career writing screenplays for comedies. William Peter Blatty’s credits include movies like A Shot In The Dark, the second movie in the Pink Panther series, and The Man From The Diner’s Club, starring Danny Kaye.

The “Exorcist Stairs” in Georgetown, Washington DC

But of course, Blatty’s most famous and popular work, the one for which he is best remembered today, was his 1971 novel that at first, no one wanted to publish.

It was called The Exorcist. And it has become a classic.

In 2013 I had the chance to spend a few minutes with this very warm, funny, and personable author.

So here now, from 2013, William Peter Blatty.

William Peter Blatty died in 2017, five dayus after his 89th birthday.

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