CLEWS The World's Worst Femmes Fatales - Season One Podcast Insights

CLEWS is a library devoted to top-shelf, literary, culturally significant true crime stories from around the world. Our chairs rest at the intersection of history, journalism, law, and murder. Every episode is the product of meticulous research and analysis that will inform, entertain, teach, and surprise even the most knowledgeable true crime aficionado. Episodes featuring true stories alternate with episodes devoted to interviews of today's best-selling true crime authors. Lead author Laura James, South Lyon, Michigan, is a polyglot with a BAA in Journalism and was a newspaper reporter for five years on the court beat before law school. She was the valedictorian of the University of Detroit School of Law, 1994, and a trial lawyer for 27 years as well as a true crime author, editor, and critic. Her literary blog CLEWS (c) 2005, devoted to true crime books, earned millions of hits and glowing reviews in the Wall Street Journal, Slate, etc. She took early retirement in 2021 to turn CLEWS into a podcast. Laura James has been hired to write or edit books, chapters, prefaces, proposals, and afterwords by the University of Michigan Press, Kent State University Press, Ivy Press, University of Nebraska Press, Pelican Press, Sterling Publishing / Barnes & Noble, the Albert Borowitz True Crime Library, and Prometheus Books, among many others. Her most recent book, THE BEAUTY DEFENSE, was named one of the Top Ten True Crime Books of 2021 by Marie Claire magazine. Laura James is also the 2009 recipient of the John Newman Edwards Award, presented by the Friends of the James Farm, for Outstanding Effort to promote, publicize, and chronicle the legend of Jesse James and the Civil War era in Clay County, Missouri. The CLEWS blog also led to lasting friendships with many true crime authors. Our first interview will be with the reigning king of the true crime genre, Harold Schechter, with many more stars to come -- broad conversations about our favorite books and stories and the hottest issues in true crime today. The CLEWS blog also led to the development of surprising (and proprietary) data on the specific, time-tested stories that audiences very much want to hear above all others. The data suggests that the thirst for certain sub-genres of true crime are vastly under-served at present. It is our intention to have provocative conversations with the stars of true crime and to find and tell the most interesting, literary, culturally significant stories for a mature, educated, thirsty audience. Christopher Ray is the founder and chief audio engineer of Counterpoint Sound Worx, based in Boston, Massachusetts. From the audio equipment used to record Laura's essays to the edited and mixed sound of the podcast--Chris adds his expertise and his creative imagination to give cinematic life to the world's most interesting true crime stories. The editing and mixing is all handled by Chris; he uses Avid Pro Tools. Additionally, all music and sound fx are selected by Chris.