This week's episode of the Crime Cafe podcast features my interview with crime writer and entrepreneur Clay Stafford.

Check out the plans for the upcoming Killer Nashville conference!

Before I bring on my guest, I’ll just remind you that the Crime Cafe has two eBooks for sale: the nine book box set and the short story anthology. You can find the buy inks for both on my website, debbimack.com under the Crime Cafe link. You can also get a free copy of either book if you become a Patreon supporter. You’ll get that and much more if you support the podcast on Patreon, along with our eternal gratitude for doing so.

We also have a shop now. Check it out!

Check us out on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/crimecafe

The transcript can be downloaded here.

Debbi: Hi everyone. Our guest today is a return visitor. Along with being a bestselling and award-winning author, he's a poet, screenwriter, and playwright. He's also founder and CEO of Killer Nashville. It's my pleasure to have with me again as this week's guest. Clay Stafford. Hi, Clay. How are you doing?Clay: Hi, Debbi. Doing well. Absolutely wonderful.Debbi: Wonderful. You're looking good there.Clay: Well, thank you.Debbi: Looking good. It's always nice to know. The farther we get along in age, it's nice to know you're still looking good at least. Shall we talk about what's coming up at Killer Nashville then?Clay: So you're just leaving it wide open then, what's coming up?Debbi: Yeah. What's special coming up, let's say?Clay: Well, every year it changes, and this year I truly do think it's going to be the best one yet so far, and we're coming up on - what is it - it's the 18th year or something.Debbi: 18th or 19th, I was going to sayClay: Maybe 19th, but we're getting close to that two decade point. I think the lineup ... I'm currently finalizing the schedule - should have it online very quickly, and it's going to be, I think, a wonderful year.Debbi: That's excellent. That's good to hear. I happened to notice that one of your offerings was a mock crime scene, which I thought was kind of cool. Is that like a display, or do people get to interact with it?Clay: We actually used to do that all the time, and then Dan Royce, who was the assistant director of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, always put that on. This last year and the year before, he did not do it just because I think he'd been doing it for 15 whatever years and decided to take a break. But he has told me that he is coming back with another crime scene. It's basically an interactive crime scene where people try to actually solve the crime, and it looks like it's the same training methods that are used with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and the FBI and all of the other agencies. Each attendee who wants to try to solve the crime, the winner gets a heavily discounted attendance for next year for Killer Nashville.But it's a tricky business and it's always been a lot of fun. We've learned over the years how to be able to handle that, because one year we just set up the crime scene and some attendees at a hotel we were at at the time came by and happened to look in, and it looks very realistic - blood and brain matter and everything all around - and they called 9-1-1. The next thing we know, we have police officers and medical people all showing up, and they're telling us to get out of the way, and then of course, they're going over to look at the dummy, and then I guess they kind of feel like maybe a dummy. But we've now set it aside so that it's not right in front of other people who are not—The hotel we're using - Embassy Suites in Cool Springs, Franklin - we actually have sold out the whole hotel, so it should be all crime writers who are there, so there should not be any danger of the 9-1-1 team showing up. I'm hoping Dan will come through with us on that. He said he is working on an idea, so hopefully we'll have that ready to go.Debbi: Well, that's very cool.