What's Kraken with Jo Szewczyk

Jo Szewczyk
  • 5.0 (1)
  • Society & Culture
  • Biweekly

Twenty minutes. One guest. No script. What's Kraken? is Empty Hell's interview series, hosted by bestselling author Jo Szewczyk (the Scarlet Mysteries series, Surviving Gen X) — raw conversations with the filmmakers, musicians, writers, activists, comedians, and elected officials shaping culture right now. The stories, the struggles, and the process behind the work. New episodes drop regularly on YouTube and everywhere you get your podcasts. Subscribe and join us.

  1. 3d ago

    Alison McBain Interview: Ghostwriting, Romance & 34 Books, No AI

    Alison McBain is an award-winning author whose novels have picked up more than 13 awards, including the Foreword INDIES. She’s also a ghostwriter, an editor and associate editor of the magazine ScribesMICRO. She joins Jo Szewczyk to compare notes from the publishing trenches: how editing turned into ghostwriting, why most of that work was romance, and what it took to write 34 books in a single year without touching AI. Key Moments How one client’s ‘can you implement these edits for me?’ turned an editor into a ghostwriterThe romance secret: roughly 80% of Alison’s ghostwriting was romance, and prolific romance authors sometimes get helpAuthor Versus AI: 34 books in 2024 with zero AI, and the burnout that followedSteal from other genres: why moving one genre’s tropes into another makes a story feel newThe Takeaway Don’t wish away the detours. Alison wouldn’t go back and fix the hard parts, because the lows gave her the lived experience she needed before she had a voice and knew what she wanted to say. Guest Links Website (books and all socials): https://www.alisonmcbain.com/ Alison McBain’s books on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B01BQZ9IDW/allbooks Jo’s novel Scarlet Shadows: https://amzn.to/4wJk4cc As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Link Tree: linktr.ee/Emptyhell

    Alison McBain Interview: Ghostwriting, Romance & 34 Books, No AI

  2. 3d ago

    Mercale SilverStorm Interview: Living Spirit, 11 Teens & Everyday Sacred

    Author Mercale SilverStorm joins Jo Szewczyk to talk about Living Spirit, a practical, grounded guide to bringing spirituality out of the weekend and into traffic jams, long shifts and hard days. It’s a practice built over 33 years and tested by loss, six kids, and five extra teenagers taken in all at once. Three bathrooms, one heroic grocery bill. They get into seeing the sacred in trees and carrots, giving grace to the meanies, and why forcing help on someone isn’t care. Key Moments Discovering meditation by accident at age two, by chanting tongue twistersTaking in five homeless teens: six months, eleven teenagers, three bathroomsGrace for the meanies: expectations, control and our inflated sense of our own goodnessWhy forcing help on someone isn’t care, it’s ego, and how to be a planter of seeds insteadThe Takeaway Be compassionate with yourself, and slow down long enough to notice what’s going on inside you. Most of us hand out grace to everyone else for free. Mercale’s advice is to be that kind, supportive friend to yourself first. Guest Links Amazon author page: https://amazon.com/author/mercale Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MercaleSpeaks/ X: https://x.com/MercaleSpeaks Living Spirit by Mercale SilverStorm: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0578849925 Jo’s novel Scarlet Shadows: https://amzn.to/4wJk4cc As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Link Tree: linktr.ee/Emptyhell

    Mercale SilverStorm Interview: Living Spirit, 11 Teens & Everyday Sacred

  3. Oct 27

    Randi-Lee Bowslaugh Interview (2026): Goodbye Too Soon, Book to Screen

    Award-winning author, mental health advocate and Write or Die Show host Randi-Lee Bowslaugh joins Jo Szewczyk to talk about turning Goodbye Too Soon, her book about losing her brother Brandon to a drug overdose, into her first feature film. She gets into what survives the jump from page to screen, why ‘based on a true story’ gives a writer room to move, and what it’s like to cast actors to play your own family, and yourself. Key Moments Why a chapter of statistics works in a book and dies on screen‘Based on’ doing real work: the pool-store phone call becomes a canal walk with her dogWriting the flashback where Brandon’s manipulation shows, and the line she refused to cutCasting her family and herself with producer Haley, two autistic collaborators who skip the soft lead-inThe Takeaway ‘You were not meant to fit in, you were meant to fit out.’ It’s the heart of the letter Randi-Lee wrote to her younger self, and diagnosed with autism in her thirties, she says it’s the thing that finally made her whole life make sense. Guest Links Website: rbwriting.ca Write or Die Show: facebook.com/writeordieshow Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube: @randileebowslaugh Jo’s novel Scarlet Shadows: https://amzn.to/4wJk4cc As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Link Tree: https://linktr.ee/Emptyhell

    Randi-Lee Bowslaugh Interview (2026): Goodbye Too Soon, Book to Screen

  4. Oct 23

    John Haas Interview (2026): Lunatics, Camp Nightmare, and the Not-Yet File

    Writers of the Future winner John Haas joins Jo Szewczyk to talk about writing three novels in a year while holding down a day job, plotting chapter by chapter, and building his Midnight Library stand-alones (Stay Out, Lunatics, Camp Nightmare) to read like movies. He also explains how a review calling his story racist became the seed of a prequel, and why a few of his best ideas are waiting until he’s good enough to write them. Key Moments How a Writers of the Future win and a reader’s favorite side character pulled John into Lovecraftian horrorHis outline process: know the start, know the end, plot chapter by chapter and let the characters overrule himTurning a review that called his story racist into a prequel led by the very character it singled outThe ‘not yet’ file: fifty story ideas, a few parked until his craft catches up to themThe Takeaway Write because you love it, not because you have to, and start with short stories. That’s where you learn to tell a story, and it hurts a lot less when one doesn’t work out. Then don’t quit. Guest Links Website: https://johnhaas.ca/ Lunatics: https://buy.bookfunnel.com/eav4dxk1ou Instagram: https://instagram.com/johnhaasauthor X: https://twitter.com/JohnHaas11 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/John-Haas-Author-112977303905449 Scarlet Shadows by Jo Szewczyk: https://amzn.to/4wJk4cc As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Link Tree: https://linktr.ee/Emptyhell

    John Haas Interview (2026): Lunatics, Camp Nightmare, and the Not-Yet File

  5. Oct 20

    Carla Matthes Interview: Footloose Church to Finding Herself

    Carla Matthes is a memoirist shopping her first book, and she tells her story the way she wrote it: with dark humor and zero interest in looking good. On this What’s Kraken with Jo Szewczyk, she covers a dad who ghosted her before ghosting had a name, a stepfather’s Independent Fundamental Baptist church that banned pants, movies and eventually even clapping, and a senior year spent making up for lost time. Then comes the long road from mimicking everyone around her to finally, at 40, feeling like herself. Key Moments The church that banned pants, movies, beats in the hymns and, eventually, clapping for the singerYears as ‘Skirt Girl’ Carla Pickard, then a senior-year name change nobody fell forThe night before graduation week: the whole senior class arrested at a theater party, and her lie about being 17Her father-in-law telling her husband ‘You let her be her’, the moment she finally accepted herselfThe Takeaway Carla wouldn’t change a thing, because the bad choices are what made her. Her one note to her younger self: take notes, because you’re going to write about it one day. Guest Links Find Carla as Carla Tells All on TikTok and Facebook. Jo’s book, Scarlet Shadows: https://amzn.to/4wJk4cc As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Link Tree: https://linktr.ee/Emptyhell

    Carla Matthes Interview: Footloose Church to Finding Herself

  6. Oct 16

    Jaymes Buckman Songwriting: Lyrics First, Stage Always

    Jaymes Buckman is back, and this time it’s all craft. The Hot Apollo frontman started as a poet, still writes lyrics faster than his band can learn them, and treats the stage as the one place his brain finally shuts up and stays in the present. Jo and Jaymes get into lyrics-first songwriting, why spoken word doesn’t do it for him, the merch-table problem, and what it took to stop being stubborn about notes. Key Moments He started as a poet, and writes lyrics faster than the band can learn them‘They play the music and I sell it’ — the showman who pulls pop and EDM fans into a rock setThirty-five seconds into the first song, the anxiety is gone; the stage is the only place he’s fully presentLearning to take notes, and learning which people still can’tThe Takeaway If it means that much to you, you’ll get there. It isn’t a simple path, but keep putting yourself out there and you’ll find a way in. The kid they told not to sing now hears ‘I love your voice’ after shows. Guest Links Look for Hot Apollo anywhere — Instagram, Facebook, X, Bluesky, Tumblr, TikTok, Spotify, Bandcamp, YouTube Link Tree: linktr.ee/hotapollo Watch the ‘Fistigons’ video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgUC9ygZAkw ‘Fistigons’ on Bandcamp: https://hotapollo.bandcamp.com/track/fistigons Jo’s crime mystery Scarlet Shadows, book one of the Scarlet Mysteries: https://amzn.to/4wJk4cc As an Amazon Associate, Empty Hell earns from qualifying purchases. Buying through our links costs you nothing extra and helps keep the show running. Everything Empty Hell: https://linktr.ee/Emptyhell

    Jaymes Buckman Songwriting: Lyrics First, Stage Always

  7. Oct 14

    David R. Wilcox interview: Pat Robertson’s former bodyguard on the money behind the 700 Club

    David R. Wilcox, award-winning author of Protecting Pat Robertson: Confessions of a High-Priced Bag Man, spent the mid-'80s to the mid-'90s as Pat Robertson's bodyguard. On What's Kraken with Jo Szewczyk, he takes us into the back seat of the company car where one sentence, 'give them the list,' sent the Christian Broadcasting Network into a tailspin. From secret diamond-mining deals with dictators to a polluting oil refinery and a hundred-million-dollar stock deal, this is the 700 Club the cameras never showed. Key Moments * The back-seat argument over CBN's 3.5-million-name donor list, and the three words that changed everything * Donations drop 42% and more than 600 ministry staff lose their jobs * Secret mining deals with Mobutu Sese Seko and Charles Taylor, and the cholera appeal that shipped Tylenol and mining equipment * Dede Robertson's brutally honest review of Pat's Larry King appearance * The Family Channel IPO, and the question about the cleaning lady nobody wanted to answer The Takeaway Don't put your faith in a man in a nice suit. David's advice to his younger self: question your pastors, ask where the money goes, and if they won't show you the books, get the hell out of Dodge. Guest Links God's Glorious Grifters podcast: https://www.thegggpodcast.com Big Fat Cat Books: https://www.bigfatcatbooks.com Jo's book, Scarlet Shadows: https://amzn.to/4wJk4cc As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Link Tree: https://linktr.ee/Emptyhell

    David R. Wilcox interview: Pat Robertson’s former bodyguard on the money behind the 700 Club

  8. Oct 9

    Brian Brady: Cop to Crime Novelist

    Former Berkeley cop turned police chief Brian Brady writes the Golden Gate Tales, a series of San Francisco crime novels built from decades on the job. He and Jo talk about why fiction beats true crime for him and the dead time TV never shows. They also get into AI as a research tool rather than a writer, and the $3,000 ‘bestseller guarantee’ that burned an ex-cop who should have known better. Key Moments Why crime fiction beats true crime for him, and how his characters are composites of real cops (with the occasional thinly veiled villain)The dead time TV skips: weeks waiting on DNA, and why that downtime is where his characters get builtAI as ‘Google on steroids’ for research only, and why he still drove the road himself to check itGetting taken by a fly-by-night publisher, and why a few hundred dollars on a literary attorney protects your rightsThe Takeaway Brian’s advice to his younger self: be a little more realistic, set reasonable goals, and take time with the people around you who’d like to have you there. Guest Links Books: https://www.goldengatetales.com/books Website: https://www.goldengatetales.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bbrady132/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/goldengatetales YouTube: https://youtube.com/@AuthorBrianBrady TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@goldengatetalebbrady Jo’s book, Scarlet Shadows: https://amzn.to/4wJk4cc As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Link Tree: https://linktr.ee/Emptyhell

    Brian Brady: Cop to Crime Novelist
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About

Twenty minutes. One guest. No script. What's Kraken? is Empty Hell's interview series, hosted by bestselling author Jo Szewczyk (the Scarlet Mysteries series, Surviving Gen X) — raw conversations with the filmmakers, musicians, writers, activists, comedians, and elected officials shaping culture right now. The stories, the struggles, and the process behind the work. New episodes drop regularly on YouTube and everywhere you get your podcasts. Subscribe and join us.

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