Interview with Aram Schefrin, author of Marwan. We discuss the plot of Marwan; his reasons for writing Marwan; how publishers in New York reacted to Marawn; why he decided to make the book available as a podcast; which characters unexpectedly grew while writing the book and which ones didn’t; research that helped give him insight into the character of Marwan; how difficult was it to get into the other character’s heads; the challenges of providing the narration for the audio book; why he included another voice actor for the character of Carol; why some of the terrorists were Saudia Arabian; U.S. media ignoring information about the terrorists; the Al-Qaeda/Saddam Hussein connection; some of his conceptions that changed while writing the book; research material used to write Marwan; the range of responses he has received from readers of Marwan; why he broke the book into two time lines; possible outcomes of the West’s conflict with Islam; why he decided to release Marwan through Podiobooks.com and what arrangements he has with the company; releasing Marwan as a book now that it’s available as a podcast; his newly released Consider the Elephant and The Tenth Cow; how he knows when he’s done writing a book; writing dialogue for Victorian characters; what he learned from podcasting Marwan that he is applying to Consider the Elephant; why he considers The Tenth Cow the best of his three releases; genres he’s compelled to write; why he took up polo as a sport.

Featured song is “Bruce Wayne” by Daniel Link.

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