Booxby's Page One: Robert Dugoni - The World Played Chess

Page One, produced and hosted by author Holly Lynn Payne, celebrates the craft that goes into writing the first sentence, first paragraph and first page of your favorite books. The first page is often the most rewritten page of any book because it has to work so hard to do so much—hook the reader. We interview master storytellers on the struggles and stories behind the first page of their books.

About the guest author:

Robert Dugoni is the critically acclaimed New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and #1 Amazon Charts bestselling author of the Tracy Crosswhite police series, which is set in Seattle and has sold more than seven million books worldwide. His latest book, The World Played Chess was published by Lake Union Publishing in October.

He is also the author of the Charles Jenkins espionage series and the David Sloane series of legal thrillers. He has written several stand-alone books, including the nonfiction exposé The Cyanide Canary, which was a Washington Post best book of the year and he’s written three other stand alone novels The 7th Canon and Damage Control; The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell, for which he won an AudioFile Earphones Award for narration. Several of his novels have been optioned for movies and television series, most recently The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell.

Dugoni is the recipient of the Nancy Pearl Book Award for fiction and a three-time winner of the Friends of Mystery Spotted Owl Award for best novel set in the Pacific Northwest. He is a two-time finalist for the Thriller Awards and the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction, and a finalist for the Silver Falchion Award for mystery and the Mystery Writers of America Edgar Awards.

Robert Dugoni’s books are sold in more than twenty-five countries and have been translated into more than thirty languages.

You can visit his website at www.robertdugonibooks.com, and follow him on Twitter @robertdugoni and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/authorrobertdugoni.

And many thanks to Tom Joyce, for submitting your first page to us! It was great to have you on the show and hear you read from your debut novel, The Missing Peace. Joyce is a creative director and designer at Creativewerks and partner at Company History Productions, with offices in Tiburon, California and Washington DC. Previously creative director at Cohn & Wells Advertising and Retail Concepts; associate creative director at Visa USA, and art director at Cunningham & Walsh, Doyle Dane Bernbach and Allen & Dorward, Tom was a founding partner of Johnson Joyce Brennan, Inc. in San Francisco and a design consultant to other marketing communications agencies in the Bay Area. He has created corporate identities, print, broadcast and on-line advertising, product branding, B2B marketing, event graphics, posters, magazines, books, websites and social media campaigns.

About the host and producer:

Holly Lynn Payne is a writing coach and the CEO and founder of Booxby , a startup helping authors succeed. Holly is also an internationally published novelist in eleven countries whose work has been translated into nine languages. Her most recent novel, Damascena:The Tale of Roses and Rumi, has been optioned for a film series. She is the founder of Skywriter Books, an award-winning small press, publishing consultancy and writing coaching service. She lives in Marin County with her daughter and enjoys mountain biking, surfing and hiking with her labrador retriever, Lady Gaia. To learn more about her writing coaching and editing services, please visit hollylynnpayne.com.

As an author and writing coach, I know that the first page of any book has to work so hard to do so much—hook the reader. So I thought to ask your favorite master storytellers how they do their magic to hook YOU. 

After the first few episodes, it occurred to me that maybe someone listening might be curious how their first page sits with an audience, so I’m opening up Page One to any writer who wants to submit the first page of a book they’re currently writing. 

If your page is chosen, you’ll be invited onto the show to read it and get live feedback from one of Page One’s master storytellers. Page One exists to inspire, celebrate and promote the work of both well-known and unknown creative talent.  

You can listen to Page One on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Pandora, Stitcher and all your favorite podcast players. 
Hear past episodes.