S5 Lovefest EP216 | PODCAST TAKEOVER with Sebastian Dureaux-Russell & Guest D.S. Stephens

Hello Happy People,

Today’s episode is a special April 1st podcast takeover of Book Banter with Dianne Burckhardt — Book Talk Podcast... or is it?

Sebastian Dureaux-Russell steps in as guest host, and for a minute, it might feel like you’ve landed in the wrong show. But stay with it, because this “takeover” has a twist.

Sebastian is joined by his guest paranormal romance author, D.S. Stephens and the show focuses on her new Haunted Hearts series, a seven-book paranormal romance built from real ghost hunting experiences the author had in college. Starting with Book 1, Langston Watch Hotel, this series brings together real haunted locations, emotional tension, and that constant fight between science and belief.

And if something about D.S. Stephens sounds a little familiar… well, you’re not imagining that either.

This episode pulls back the curtain on how this romance author persona came to life, where the series is headed, and what’s coming next.

So is this a takeover? Or is mischief afoot?

Links to Sebastian Dureaux-Russell’s previous episode (S3 EP143) and website, along with D.S. Stephens social media, can be found below.

Be sure to follow, share, and subscribe so you never miss an episode of Book Banter with Dianne Burckhardt — Book Talk Podcast.

Sebastian's S3 EP143 Interview

Sebastian's Website

D.S. Stephens on BurckhardtBooks.com

BurckhardtBooks LinkTree

Transcript

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Dianne Burckhardt 0:01

You're listening to BookBanter with Diane Burkhart, your Book Talk podcast. Join me every Wednesday for real conversations with authors and publishing insiders, where you get to connect with the humans behind the books you love. Let's get on with our show today.

SPEAKER_01 0:18

Greetings, shiny happy people. Welcome to the Love Fest. My name is Sebastian Doreau Russell, author of Burning with a Blue Flame. I will take over as host today Book Banner, where I will be interviewing a romance novelist about her new paranormal romance haunted heart series called Langston Watch Hotel. Without further ado, can you tell our listeners who you are and what you do?

Dianne Burckhardt 0:46

Well, hi, thank you for having me on the show today with you. Most people probably know me a little bit better by the historical fiction series that I wrote as Steven Burkhart. That one is actually an award-winning series, but right now I'm trying to pivot and go to something that's a little bit more marketable. And so I'm doing a romance series as Diaz Stevens, which is another pin name for me.

SPEAKER_01 1:15

Okay, and you're worse than sounding a little bit familiar to me. Might you be someone else as well?

Dianne Burckhardt 1:22

See, well, most people probably know me best from my podcast, Bookbanter with Diane Burkhart, because I would be Diane Burkhardt.

SPEAKER_01 1:30

All right. Um going back a little bit further, so you commenced in journalism, then then trained in forensic criminology. Yeah, how did that path originate and what connected those two fields?

Dianne Burckhardt 1:46

Well, I always wanted to be a writer. Even back in first grade, I was creating my own little books with illustrations. It was something that I've always wanted to do. But I thought it would be so hard to become an author that I wanted to find a career in writing that would be more marketable. So I went into journalism and I actually did broadcast news for a while, and I worked for newspapers and magazines and just all kinds of different avenues of journalism. I did health reporting, I did hard news, I did entertainment reporting, and you did everything. Oh yeah, a little bit of everything. And then I got into the broadcast news job where I was working in a sound booth eight hours a day, Monday through Friday, and all I did was headline news. And of course, with headline news, it's all the worst of the worst that happens in the world. It's all war and people unaliving each other and companies polluting the environment. And nobody ever warned me that doing hard news on a regular basis like that would be so depressing. There was no way I could keep doing that job. I thought I do not want to have a career where I'm just sitting around talking about all the terrible things in the world. If I'm going to have to deal with that stuff, I would rather have a job that I could do something about it. And that's when I went back to college to get a degree in forensic criminology. And I actually specialized in, let's say, violent SA kind of crimes, if you know what I mean. Have to be careful for podcast sensors for some of the platforms that we go on. Oh. And uh profiling. I I was training to be a criminal profiler. And I actually got to study profiling with one of the lead detectives on the BTK case.

SPEAKER_02 3:41

Oh.

Dianne Burckhardt 3:41

He was my regular profiling teacher. And I got to take a seminar with Robert Ressler, who is one of the original three people who helped put together the behavioral science unit for the FBI.

SPEAKER_01 3:53

Yeah, I think you would definitely have to write about that. So was that somehow connected to your relocation to Europe in 2014?

Dianne Burckhardt 4:03

No, that happened because I married someone who was not an American who had gone to college in Europe, and he got job offers, and we moved for his career. Unfortunately, it did not do any good for my career because he spoke the local language here. Right. I did not. And to try and work in forensic criminology or in journalism, whenever you don't speak the language, that doesn't work. So I started looking for things to do online with my careers and ended up doing social media management and started writing as a ghostwriter for other people and just picking up any kinds of freelance jobs that I could here and there. And somebody hired me to write a western for them. And it was so much fun. I had never in my wildest dreams ever thought about writing a Western. Right. But it was so much fun. I mean, because I lived on a ranch as a kid. I'd been around horses and guns and you know, I I knew what it was like to live around cattle and and taking care of chickens and all that sort of stuff. So I thought, I can I can do this.

SPEAKER_01 5:14

It has a pretty straightforward format.

Dianne Burckhardt 5:16

Yeah, and it was so well received. And I just thought, you know what? I'm going to write a series to learn how to do self-publishing for myself. And I decided to do the first one as a Western since it was so much fun. And it was also because my grandmother loved reading Westerns, and I wanted to write it for her.

SPEAKER_01 5:35

So it was basically then a lack of opportunities in your previous fields that opened the door to your writing?

Dianne Burckhardt 5:42

Yeah, to becoming self-published. It was just sort of happenstance.

SPEAKER_01 5:47

So how did you change that and evolve that into a business?

Dianne Burckhardt 5:52

Lack of money.

SPEAKER_01 5:55

That'll do it.

Dianne Burckhardt 5:56

Now I want to be clear. I do not need to work. My husband makes a fantastic living, but I want to be a contributing partner. And I really wanted to build something that was my own. Whenever I started doing the first Into the West book series, I did not have any money to put into paying editors or paying people to design covers or to do promotions. So I did some trade-offs to get somebody to edit for me. I did my own covers, which explains why they're not that great. But I I had no way to market them. So I thought, okay, what can I do to get people to find out about these books? And I created the podcast to tell people about the books. And that's all I talked about, like the first season was my own book series. I was like reading parts of the books and discussing what was in them and why I wrote them. And I got so bored listening to myself about that, that halfway through the first season, I'm like, you know, this is not good. I need to change this up. And I have friends who are published authors. So I started contacting them. And it just kind of took off from there.

SPEAKER_01 7:19

So in that journey as author and podcaster, uh, what has been the most rewarding aspect of it?

Dianne Burckhardt 7:27

Being here in Germany where I live now, I really don't have a lot of people that I've connected to. I I don't have friends that I go hang out with. I don't have a writing group that I go and sit with in a cafe and we talk about our work. So this has allowed me to connect to other people who have the same kind of interests that I do. And it's been absolutely invaluable. I have made so many good friends, you know, like you, that I never would have met otherwise.

SPEAKER_01 7:58

Yeah, Zoom has been awesome too. I agree. Right now it seems like a lot of us are still able to communicate, and it's not just overseas, but just there's someone across the United States or whatever. But everyone can still be together, which is great. So your first publications were under the pen name Steven Burkhart.

Dianne Burckhardt 8:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:18

Was there a particular reason you chose that name?

Dianne Burckhardt 8:21

There were a couple. Actually, I I have five legal names. I have a very long name, it's ridiculous. But I never use my first name for anything to do with work. So I just ignore that one. But I have Diane Stevens and I thamal Burkhart. So with the last name Stevens, I just dropped the last S and then added my married last name Burkhart and created Stephen Burkhart. But the reason that I did it was for two reasons, actually. I did some market research and it told me that if you have a Western that does not have a romantic aspect to it, it's not Western romance, right? It tends to sell better with a man's name attached to it.

SPEAKER_01 9:03

Yeah, I could see that being the the case.

Dianne Burckhardt 9:06

So that's why I went with Steven Burkhardt. But the reason that I went with a pin name in the first place was because one month before I got my forensic criminology degree, I had an accident at my part-time job that caused me to have seven surgeries in six months, and six of them were brain surgeries.

SPEAKER_01 9:27

That's a lot.

Dianne Burckhardt 9:28

Yeah. I ended up with a lot of trauma, a lot of brain damage, and I lost a lot of my language skills. So whenever I started writing, I wasn't really sure if I was still good anymore. And I thought if I write under a pen name and these books are just total crap, I can walk away and nobody will ever know that they're mine.

SPEAKER_01 9:54

But the first there is a safety there, yeah.

Dianne Burckhardt 9:57

Yeah. It was a nice little safety net for me. But the problem was the first book won awards and nobody knew they were mine.

SPEAKER_01 10:06

Yeah. Yeah. I think well, I mean, Anne Rice notoriously went through that. So I could see how that would be troublesome. So what made you reveal that identity then? So that was because you wanted to well, you wanted to claim the series, right?

Dianne Burckhardt 10:22

Well, I got probably four books. There's seven books in the series, and I got probably about four books in, and it was just getting harder and harder to market them. I couldn't do interviews.

SPEAKER_02 10:34

Right.

Dianne Burckhardt 10:35

Because I mean, obviously I don't have a guy's voice, and I just could not market them well anymore. And I was trying to be so careful on my social media. It's like I would always refer to my husband just as PR Burkhart so that there would be no gender identification. But I felt like I was starting to lie about it all, and I didn't want to do that. I had been walking this real tightrope, trying to never say anything that was incorrect.

SPEAKER_01 11:03

Right.

Dianne Burckhardt 11:03

Other than saying that I was Steven Burkhart.

SPEAKER_01 11:06

Yeah.

Dianne Burckhardt 11:06

But I didn't consider that a lie because those are my names.

SPEAKER_01 11:11

Yeah, all in the family.

Dianne Burckhardt 11:12

Yeah. But I just I couldn't keep up the ruse anymore and market the books well. So I had to just come clean.

SPEAKER_01 11:20

So how do you keep those separate? Like currently, you're writing romance under DS Stevens, nonfiction FBI thrillers as Diane Burkhart. How do you manage those different sides then in your creative life?

Dianne Burckhardt 11:33

It's really kind of easy for me to compartmentalize because I did that with Stephen Burkhart for so long. But the way that I keep it all straight was I created Burkhart books. And I just make this like my imprint for everything. And then if you look on our website, it shows, you know, Meet Our Authors, and it has a color picture of me, a black and white picture of Stephen, who happens to be my father when he was my age when I wrote the books, and then Diaz Stevens has a black and white picture of my mother when she was my age.

SPEAKER_01 12:05

Right.

Dianne Burckhardt 12:06

So anytime that you see a black and white picture for an author name on Burkhart books, that's a pen name.

SPEAKER_01 12:14

So did your father uh play a role in the non-diplume?

Dianne Burckhardt 12:18

My father loved being Steven Burkhart for me. He didn't want to do interviews. He hated public speaking, but he loved being the face of Stephen Burkhart.

SPEAKER_01 12:28

Oh, that's awesome.

Dianne Burckhardt 12:29

He lived for that.

SPEAKER_01 12:31

Nice. Okay, let's talk about Langston Watch Hotel. This is your first book in your haunted heart series. What's the premise and what inspired that?

Dianne Burckhardt 12:43

Well, part of the thing was I really do not have any money coming in from any of the stuff that I'm doing. The magazine is getting few sales, but not enough to pay for everything that I'm doing. Right now, everything that I'm doing with Burkhart books, with the podcast and my books, it's just a really expensive hobby. And I would like, if nothing else, just to get to where I have enough money coming in to break even. And I really wanted to start my thriller series, which is an FBI crime series. But I thought I should probably look at something that's more marketable that might actually get some money coming in to help fund all these things that I'm doing. And I thought, well, what sells the best?

SPEAKER_01 13:30

Romance.

Dianne Burckhardt 13:31

Romance. Makes sense. And when I was in college, I went out on ghost hunting adventures with my friends. We went and investigated several places around Kansas and in Colorado. And it was just, it was so much fun. And I still have all of my notes from that.

SPEAKER_02 13:50

Perfect. Yeah.

Dianne Burckhardt 13:52

So I thought, well, why not? You know, I love paranormal romance. Why don't I do that? So I am writing a series that's based on a reality TV show that's a ghost hunting show.

SPEAKER_02 14:04

Like it.

Dianne Burckhardt 14:05

They are going to the places that we investigated when I did this in college. And I'm actually going to base these investigations on the things that actually happened at these places.

SPEAKER_01 14:16

That sounds like a really good idea. Can you share any of those ghost stories for us?

Dianne Burckhardt 14:21

For this one, the Langston Watch Hotel is after a hotel in Kansas that is fairly well known for being haunted. We went and spent a weekend there, and the things that were just so crazy was I could not ride the elevator. Every time I stepped onto the elevator, it didn't matter if I went first, if I was in the middle, if I stepped on last, the doors shut on me every time. It didn't matter if I tried to like jump in as soon as the doors opened or if I waited and then left. Every time I stepped into the doorway, the doors shut on me.

SPEAKER_01 14:56

Yeah, I think that's that's really fascinating because I think everybody's had some kind of experience.

Dianne Burckhardt 15:01

And there is a climax moment in this book that I don't want to give too much away, but it does have to do with an experience that was very powerful that had to do with psychometry about touching a cornerstone of the building that was in one of the rooms that we stayed in. And it was actually quite dramatic and a little unsettling, and you will have to read the book to find that out.

SPEAKER_01 15:25

Wow. So in Langston Watch Hotel, Dr. Samantha Voss and Clayton Barnes.

SPEAKER_02 15:34

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 15:35

These are your main characters. Seems like they would come from very different worldviews. How hard was it pairing a scientist with a paranormal true believer?

Dianne Burckhardt 15:46

You know, on the surface, it does look like it would be a very odd mismatch. She comes from a family of scientists trained to rely on logic and data and repeatable evidence. He comes from a medical military background where decisions are based on what you see, what you experience, and what's happening in front of you in real time. So they start out in conflict because they're measuring truth in completely different ways. But once they begin breaking down what they're actually encountering, the physics behind it becomes the bridge. The patterns, the energy shifts, the cause and effect. Those are things they both recognize and they're just arriving there from different starting points. That is where they start to meet in the middle. And that's what actually allows them to begin to work together. Not because they suddenly agree on everything, but because they realize they are operating under the same underlying rules, just from different perspectives. Oh. And the storyline also kind of feeds into my fascination with physics. I'm totally fascinated with physics. I love reading physics books, and so this gives me an outlet for that. So I I do tend to use it quite a bit in this story. And one thing that also kind of helped is I well, I have some friends who have actually worked in television. They they've actually worked on reality TV shows. And one of the things that I was talking to my friend about, you know, how plausible is this? And they said that actually my premise as far as the marketing idea was really good. That this ghost hunting show is not doing well on the ratings. It was marketed poorly from the beginning. So they're trying to make it a little bit edgier.

SPEAKER_01 17:34

Oh, I like it. I like this even better.

Dianne Burckhardt 17:37

So they want to bring in a skeptic to help kind of shake things up because all of the guys who are the ghost hunters are true believers. They really believe in everything that they're looking for. They expect to find it. So they bring in a scientist going to say, okay, yes, that did happen, but scientifically we can explain it this way. So it's not really a ghost, it's electromagnetic fields, it's problems with the wiring in the building, you know, things that are scientifically explainable. And of course, the true believers don't want to hear this. And it just creates this great conflict.

SPEAKER_01 18:15

It does, yes. Everyone can relate to those conflicts.

Dianne Burckhardt 18:20

And now the Langston Watch Hotel is only the first book in a seven-book series that I have planned out. And after that, I'm actually looking at maybe going and doing a few ghost hunting adventures here in Europe with my husband to create another book set after that one if this one turns out to go well. And honestly, I think I would look for any kind of excuse to go do some ghost hunting here in Europe. It would be amazing.

SPEAKER_01 18:43

Yeah. Let's see. Well, I think we've arrived at the time in the show where we do our five random questions.

unknown 18:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:52

Let's see how we can relate them. One, what is your favorite paranormal TV show or film?

Dianne Burckhardt 18:58

Poltergeist was always like my favorite. I loved that movie. There was so much that was said that happened behind the scenes. You know, they talked about that being a cursed show. Part of the reason was because they actually used real human skeletons for the skeletons in the pool scene.

SPEAKER_01 19:20

Yeah, I think we all watched that at least more than once. And there was lots going on there that you don't catch right away, and probably that was it was never explained, it seems like.

Dianne Burckhardt 19:30

Yeah. And I still think that's the reason why I don't like clowns. That clown scene with the kid or the bed.

SPEAKER_01 19:37

I was on the clowns way early on in life. Just no way. What does the quote love is just a word until someone comes along and gives it meaning signify for you? Because I noticed you used it in your DS Stevens.

Dianne Burckhardt 19:53

That has to do with my husband.

SPEAKER_01 19:56

I would think so. And and um this is the love fest.

Dianne Burckhardt 20:00

So for him, I I had had okay. I had actually been engaged five times before I met my husband. Wow. Five times. But every time that I said yes, I immediately started having anxiety and panic attacks, and just my brain was like, what on earth are you doing? No, no, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_01 20:27

You were runaway in your life?

Dianne Burckhardt 20:30

Pretty much. But it was immediate. As soon as I said yes, it was like the next day, I'm like, no. And I would say, you know, this isn't right, it doesn't feel right, and I would break up with them. Just I mean, not even, you know, stop the engagement, but stop seeing them at all altogether. And whenever my husband asked me to marry him, I said yes. And I like waited a day, and I'm like, hmm, okay, still feel good about that. Oh okay, nice. I just kept going every day, waiting to have second thoughts about it. Even on my wedding day, I was not nervous at all.

SPEAKER_01 21:05

Nice. Didn't now he propose a different way.

Dianne Burckhardt 21:10

Actually, he kind of proposed over the phone. Uh-huh. We were talking about he had gotten a job offer in Europe, and he was like, you know, would you want to go with me? And I'm like, you know, I don't really feel comfortable completely leaving my life and selling off everything I own, moving to Europe with someone I'm dating. And he's like, what if we got married? And I was like, Well, that depends. Is this a what if, or are you asking me to marry you? And so he was like quiet for a moment. He's like, No, I'm asking you to marry me. I'm like, okay, then yeah, I'll marry you. I'll marry you and move to Europe with you.

SPEAKER_01 21:44

That's terrific. I love it.

Dianne Burckhardt 21:47

And I tell you what would surprise people the most about that. We met in January of 2013 and we were married in December of 2013. And if he had been able to get a break from work to come back to the United States, States, we probably would have been married by September. And we have now been married. We're coming up on our 13th anniversary. So obviously it was the right choice.

SPEAKER_02 22:10

Oh, nice.

Dianne Burckhardt 22:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:12

On that vein, um, do you do you believe in the expression love means never having to say you're sorry?

Dianne Burckhardt 22:18

Oh lord, no. No, no, no. I think saying you're sorry is one of the main reasons why we're still married.

SPEAKER_01 22:26

It's the exact opposite.

Dianne Burckhardt 22:28

Because we are both really good about if we're wrong, we say we're wrong and we say we're sorry.

SPEAKER_01 22:34

Nice. What is your favorite forensic TV show or film?

Dianne Burckhardt 22:40

You know, the one that got me interested in forensics was Quincy.

SPEAKER_01 22:44

Yeah. I yeah, we watched that.

Dianne Burckhardt 22:46

Oh, I loved that show. That was like my favorite. I would not miss an episode of that. I loved Jack Clemman. I love Quincy. I just could never get enough of that show. And I actually for a while I thought about being a coroner, but I was not good enough at science. So that kind of went out the window.

SPEAKER_01 23:07

The dark side. What book series do you think had the best book-to-movie adaptation?

Dianne Burckhardt 23:15

Since I've been asking everybody this question, I really thought about this, and I really believed that it was The Outsiders by Essie Hinton.

SPEAKER_02 23:24

Oh, really?

Dianne Burckhardt 23:25

I love that movie in high school.

SPEAKER_01 23:28

Oh, it's a classic, yeah.

Dianne Burckhardt 23:30

All of my friends and I used to act that out. Oh my god, we could recite that movie when we were in high school.

SPEAKER_01 23:36

Nice. That's great.

Dianne Burckhardt 23:38

And we loved the books. I I loved it so much. Not only did I read The Outsiders, but I read everything Essie Hinton had written. I mean, so I was just absolutely so thrilled with how faithful they were to the book that it got me into all of her books.

SPEAKER_02 23:54

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 23:56

So tell us uh what is next on your agenda?

Dianne Burckhardt 24:00

Well, I do have seven books planned in the Haunted Heart series. And like I said, each one of them is going to follow along a different actual haunted investigation that we did. And after that, I hope to go ahead and get back to my medical memoir called Free Bad Haircut with Each Craniotomy, celebrating 25 years of survival. And it's all about the accident and oh gosh, just everything that went around the seven surgeries in six months. I actually died at one point. I had spent so many times just in and out of the hospital, and there were so many crazy things that were going on around the events that happened. My doctors actually didn't expect me to survive, and it took several years after the last surgery to get to where it was functional again. And this covers all of that. You know, my my struggles with the work comp situation, trying to get it to cover everything that I was going through medically, how that didn't work out, and what I had to do to keep surviving, you know, going to work with first stitches in my head. Just to be able to keep my insurance. It was an incredible ordeal, and I do not hold back in this. I really share everything in this book. I had hoped to get it all done and publish it for the 20th anniversary after my last brain surgery, and I missed that deadline. So I decided I'm gonna go ahead and try and pitch it and see if I can get an agent and go the traditional publishing route with that one and get it out for the 25th anniversary.

SPEAKER_01 25:46

Nice. Yeah, I mean it some things you just can't fit into, you know, these time frames, and that's all right too. It absolutely is. So kindly remind our listeners who you are and where they can find you in your books.

Dianne Burckhardt 26:02

Well, I am currently writing as D.S. Stevens and writing the Haunted Heart series, a paranormal romance series. And you can find all of my books at burkhartbooks.com. And if you want to find our social media, all you have to do is Google at Burkhart Books, and it will bring up absolutely everything.

SPEAKER_01 26:22

Wonderful. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Dianne Burckhardt 26:27

This has been so much fun. It's kind of weird being on the other side of it on my own show.

SPEAKER_01 26:32

It's weird being on this side of it too.

Dianne Burckhardt 26:36

But you did a great job.

SPEAKER_01 26:37

Oh, thank you. Thank you. It was my pleasure. I love doing that kind of stuff.

Dianne Burckhardt 26:43

So now what are you going to be doing next?

SPEAKER_01 26:47

Well, let me see. I I'll give you a brief whatever. My name is Sebastian Dr. Russell, award-winning author of the historical fiction novel Burning with a Blue Flame, set in the Roaring 1920s and centering on a romance between a race car driver and X-War One barnstorming pilot located on the world's most famous beach. Do you want to go for a ride or a ride? So that's my book.

Dianne Burckhardt 27:12

Now I know you've got a sequel to that one that you're planning on.

SPEAKER_01 27:17

Yes, I am currently writing the sequel to Booth Flame. It's called Devil on the Wing. I've completed seven chapters so far, and I've got about 55,000 words. This novel takes place in 1927, where speed has been replaced by distance. So in this book, my aviator character Elmer Darrell, he's been recruited by President Coolidge and his old sergeant to be the first man to circumnavigate the globe solo.

Dianne Burckhardt 27:46

Oh wow. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 27:48

Yeah, and this is right after Lindbergh has crossed the Atlantic. Um so he will be doing this in exchange for flight reconnaissance. So basically he's a spy between wars. And his my race car driver characters, Bolt Braca and Lady Veronica Vandevoord, who are busy racing Le Mans and Sunning and Côte d'Azur, they will get pulled into the drama when Elm runs into trouble over Soviet-occupied airspace. So this becomes a much more philosophical, epic, sweeping tale set in the recession before the depression. So it's like on a downbeat. And my goal is to release Devil on the Wing for the 100th anniversary of Charles Lindbergh's historical flight. So I've got until May 20th, 2027 to do that. And I know when I'm finished, I'm gonna feel like I flew around the world myself. Because there's so much research, it's insane.

Dianne Burckhardt 28:51

Yeah, that's the problem. I I love doing historical fiction, but Lord, if you want to be accurate, the level of research that you have to do sometimes is just ridiculous.

SPEAKER_01 29:01

Yeah, my first one had a lot. I had created three soldis at one point for the first book, but uh this was every step of the way.

Dianne Burckhardt 29:11

Yeah, and people don't realize a lot of times for historical fiction writers, especially, you know, like in my saloon I had them giving people carbonated water. I'm like, okay, so I need to research could they have carbonated water in a small town in Kansas in 1859, you know? Oh yeah. It's crazy the kinds of things that you have to research if you want to be historically accurate.

SPEAKER_01 29:36

That's true. But you know, I love I love that structure though, myself personally, because it it either fits or it does not fit.

Dianne Burckhardt 29:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:45

So if it does, great, you get to use it.

Dianne Burckhardt 29:48

If not, you know, you just wasted a lot of time.

SPEAKER_01 29:52

Yes.

Dianne Burckhardt 29:53

And I never realized how much math would be involved and stuff like this. I actually spent an afternoon trying to figure out the equation to figure out how long it would take a guy on horseback to get from like point A to point B, how fast he could go on the horse each day, how long the horse could actually go at a time. I mean, it was ridiculous.

SPEAKER_01 30:15

And I'm not mathematical. I'm an autodidact as far as you know, writing goes. But uh, but math is like that is one of my dyslexia is math. Through this book and the last book, I had to figure all those things out with like, okay, how long is it gonna take him to fly around the world? You know, and we're gonna figure out distance and time and space and velocity, and I'm just like, oh. But I have to I have to chart it out to try to write about it.

Dianne Burckhardt 30:44

So yeah. That's one of those things that I just keep thinking, you know, I never thought I would have to do algebra being a fiction writer. It's like that never entered my mind.

SPEAKER_01 30:54

No, definitely not.

Dianne Burckhardt 30:58

So after you publish your second book in this duology, do you plan to write anything else with this storyline?

SPEAKER_01 31:06

There is a possible third. There I I think uh like you, I originally conceived it as a sort of a series, but uh each one had like a line. I could tell you like this is the line to be second book, this is the line to be the third book. So I did think of a third one. I have a line for it, meaning like one sentence of like this is what's gonna happen in the third. I just don't know if that I I can't say if that one will ever happen. I don't know. It doesn't have to, but um there's a possible third.

Dianne Burckhardt 31:42

Well Matt, you've spent so much time with this storyline. Is there anything else that you've thought about writing?

SPEAKER_01 31:48

I do have three unpublished copyrighted manuscripts, and they're not historical fiction, so it is still fiction though, so it's possible I've thought about reworking one or two of those. But um again, if I get this one done, I just be so so happy, and and two would be fine. I just need bookends, you know.

SPEAKER_02 32:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:21

But I I really do want to finish this one, and as you know, your time frame isn't always what you want it to be, but um hopefully yeah, I'll get around to uh finishing this one.

Dianne Burckhardt 32:34

Yeah, that's the one thing. I can think of the stories and know exactly what I want to do with them, but most of the time I'm spending time doing the podcast, I've got to do all the promotions, I've gotta find people to be on the show, I've got to do the interviews, I've got to do the editing and get it all broadcast, and then I'm trying to write my own books and keep up with my website and do the dishes and do the laundry and actually see my husband once in a while, it can be really hard.

SPEAKER_01 33:06

Yeah, and you do it well, yeah. You do it, you do it very well, and it it it's really been a pleasure and honor to be on the other side of it. I really appreciate that opportunity. It was a lot, a lot of fun.

Dianne Burckhardt 33:19

Oh, thank you.

SPEAKER_01 33:20

Yeah.

Dianne Burckhardt 33:22

Since I do like doing the five quick questions, it never turn out to be quick, but I don't care. I just like doing them anyway. We're going to now do five quick questions for you. Are you ready?

SPEAKER_01 33:33

Yes.

Dianne Burckhardt 33:35

So question one. What is the one thing that you love to do on a very lazy Sunday afternoon? Besides take over my podcast.

SPEAKER_01 33:48

Yes, actually something out walking in the beach, something to do with doing something in the yard, definitely a nap with some French bulldogs. And novel writing, of course.

Dianne Burckhardt 34:00

Yes, it's gotta work that in there sometimes. Question two. What is the favorite romantic gesture that someone has ever done for you?

SPEAKER_01 34:10

Wow. It would have to be a proposal. So um, yeah, actually when my husband proposed to me, he was crying.

Dianne Burckhardt 34:19

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:21

And um that was it. I mean there was no way that I wasn't gonna accept that his proposal.

SPEAKER_02 34:32

That's so sweet.

SPEAKER_01 34:33

Yeah. How how much more genuine can you be? I mean, I'd say that's when you know, kind of like when you knew, you said. Yeah. Uh-huh. When it's right, it's right.

Dianne Burckhardt 34:44

Yeah. So now question three. I know that you write historical fiction, but what is your favorite genre to read?

SPEAKER_01 34:54

My favorite genre to read is biography or autobiography. And um I studied film so much and studied acting, and so those were the books that I really gravitated towards and always thought I would write. I always thought I would write a book, but I thought I'd be writing my own biography. So everything was like, one for the biography, yeah. You know, like let's go storm in that office and like yeah, cause a scene and didn't that'll be in our you know, when I'm famous, yeah.

Dianne Burckhardt 35:24

Considering some of the jobs that you've had, I'm surprised you don't write a biography.

SPEAKER_01 35:29

Oh, you know, it's not that exciting, but uh if I could fictionalize some of it, like the concierging stuff would would really again be a good comedic novel, if you will.

Dianne Burckhardt 35:41

I think it would be really interesting.

SPEAKER_01 35:44

Yeah, who knows? It may come out, it's just the that time thing.

Dianne Burckhardt 35:49

Yeah. Question four. Considering all of the really cool jobs that you have had in your life, is there one that you have always wanted to do that you've never tried? I don't think so. Because you've been like what, a concierge, you've been a model, you've been an author, you've been a teacher. I mean, you've done some cool jobs.

SPEAKER_01 36:13

Yeah. Um, I would maybe like to fly, believe it or not. Fear of flying. But that would be kind of fun.

Dianne Burckhardt 36:20

But if you were the pilot, do you think you would still have that same kind of fear?

SPEAKER_01 36:25

Probably not, because that's I I am one of those people who has to be the person driving.

Dianne Burckhardt 36:30

Yeah, see, because I have a fear of flying, but I know it's a control thing. It's because I'm not controlling it. If I was flying the plane, I don't think I would have that kind of fear.

SPEAKER_01 36:40

But I just want to fly one of those, you know, 1920s planes, so that's what I would like to do. I would like to really do that.

Dianne Burckhardt 36:48

That would be cool. There's gotta be someplace where you can take lessons to fly those things.

SPEAKER_01 36:53

It's all over Florida. I could do it one of these days.

Dianne Burckhardt 36:57

So now, of course, we have question five that we are asking everyone this season so that we can create a database for our Bookbanter magazine at the end of the year. Number five, which book do you think has the best book to movie adaptation?

SPEAKER_01 37:11

Okay. I really liked The Hours with Nicole Kidman from Merrill Street. Yeah. Yeah. I kind of really, really, really liked it.

Dianne Burckhardt 37:19

I hate to admit this, I forgot that was a book.

SPEAKER_01 37:22

Yeah, the book is actually really terrific. Definitely any of the Bronte, those are terrific. Blade Runner would be a good one. Since we're all Yeah. Let's stick with Blade Runner. That's I think my favorite movie.

Dianne Burckhardt 37:36

What was that? Um Do Electric Sheep. What was what was the name of the book?

SPEAKER_01 37:42

Um you're killing me now, Smalls. Um Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Dianne Burckhardt 37:50

Yeah, that's it. I knew there was electric sheep and dreams in there. I couldn't remember. I actually have that book. You would think I'd be able to remember that.

SPEAKER_01 37:58

Yeah. That's a really good one.

Dianne Burckhardt 38:02

Yeah, that is a great answer. I like that. So now how did you feel about taking over being the host?

SPEAKER_01 38:08

I felt more comfortable.

Dianne Burckhardt 38:10

Because you had control?

SPEAKER_01 38:12

I think that's the exact thing of the thing.

Dianne Burckhardt 38:16

See, I know for me, I'm a control freak, so I love being the one asking the questions.

SPEAKER_01 38:21

Well, with me, it's more of a truth as of to fiction, if that makes sense. I don't mind talking about the book. I talking about myself is harder. So definitely being the host is interviewing you was easier than me being interviewed for sure. But it was so much fun. And I just again thank you for that opportunity. I absolutely love doing it. I love being back on Book Banner.

Dianne Burckhardt 38:52

And of course, if anybody wants to find out more about you, because in your first interview in season three, episode 143, we did a lot more background on you where we talked about all of your different jobs in your career, your education, and how you transitioned into writing. So that way people can get a little bit more backstory on you. Where in this episode, we just basically talked about your books.

SPEAKER_01 39:15

That sounds terrific. Yay.

Dianne Burckhardt 39:17

This was really kind of interesting for me. I've never been on this side of the interview for my own podcast.

SPEAKER_02 39:25

Yes.

Dianne Burckhardt 39:26

Thank you so much for doing this for me. This has been so much fun. And I just cannot thank you enough because I could not figure out how on earth I could get my own romance series into Love Fest this year without somebody interviewing me for it.

SPEAKER_01 39:40

It was my pleasure, Diane Anytime Love Book Banner. Thank you for having me on.

Dianne Burckhardt 39:45

So there you have it, folks. That was a little bit different episode for all of you today for April 1st. Our very first official podcast takeover with guest host Sebastian Duro Russell, and what a fantastic job he did, and with me as his very first guest author. The fact that it landed on April 1st is just a happy coincidence because I got sick a couple of weeks ago and I had to rearrange the schedule because I had to drop in a best of episode. And so this just worked out perfectly. Now, if you would like to find out more about Sebastian and his work, be sure to check out his earlier episode on Bookbanter with Diane Burkhard. It was in season three, episode 143, where we talked about his education, his early career, how he transitioned into being an author, and of course his award-winning book, Burning with a Blue Flame. You'll find a link to his earlier podcast in the description of today's episode, so that you can just click and go and find his earlier information and listen to his interview. And Sebastian is really a very fascinating person. I highly recommend you go and listen to that episode as soon as possible. And in case you are not aware of a lot of the changes that we've been making at Burkhart Books and BookBanter Productions, if you go to our website, BurkhartBooks.com, you will see that we have added two new sections on our website. We now have media courses and a swag shop. These two places are still under construction, but hopefully we'll be open here very soon for business. We already have a few designs up on Swag Shop that you can check out, and we're working on the descriptions of the media courses that we're going to be offering here very soon. As a matter of fact, I hope to be recording the first jump start and the mini courses here in the next few weeks. Now, if you would like to know more about all the things that are going on at Burkhart Books and Book Bend Productions, the best thing that you can do is join our mailing list. Go to BurkhartBooks.com slash subscribe, and you can join our mailing list and start getting newsletters next week. We have recently been doing a slow reveal on the cover of the Langston Watch Hotel exclusively to our newsletter, and we have more exclusive content coming up here very soon, including special early access to different products that we're developing and discounts. You will only be able to get them through our newsletter. So be sure to go and join today. It's free to join and you can unsubscribe at any time. So what have you got to lose? Well, I think that is more than enough for today, folks, especially on April 1st. I don't want to drag it out too long. I hope you enjoyed this episode and that you're interested in finding out more about the Langston Watch Hotel and all of the books in the Haunted Heart series. I hope to have more up on DS Stevens web pages on Burkhart Books very soon and give you a nice summary of what to expect in all of the books that are going to be coming out in this series. Well, I think that's definitely enough for today, folks. So you know what that means. It's that time. It's time for you all to go forth and be very cautious since it's April 1st. But uh try and be happy about it too. Thank you for joining us today. Be sure to subscribe to BookBanter with Diane Burkhart on your favorite podcast streaming service. Because if you love books like we do, you do not want to miss a single episode of this podcast.