Speaker 1: Welcome to Good Game with Sarah Spain, where it's two
Speaker 1: weeks until Christmas. Have you bought all your friends and
Speaker 1: family women's sports inspired books yet?
Speaker 2: Well, You're in luck. Keep listening.
Speaker 1: It's Wednesday, December eleventh, and today we chat with former
Speaker 1: television sports reporter turned mystery and suspense novelist Elise Heart Kipness.
Speaker 1: She tells about the transition from locker rooms to book editors' offices,
Speaker 1: how her work as a crime reporter influences her writing,
Speaker 1: and her latest book, Dangerous Play, which sees fictional reporter
Speaker 1: Kate Green on assignment covering the US soccer team at
Speaker 1: the Olympics when a murder occurs. Plus, we'll share a
Speaker 1: handful of other Good Game with Sarah Spain approved books
Speaker 1: that are sure to make great presents this holiday season.
Speaker 1: It's all coming up right after this welcome back slices
Speaker 1: Miche has your need to know today, Take it away, Misha.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Thank you, Sarah Beck again, so Ludacris said,
Speaker 3: right anyway. In college soccer, UNC is back on top.
Speaker 3: The tar Heels won the program's first national title since
Speaker 3: twenty twelve with a one nil win over Wake Forest
Speaker 3: on Monday, night, Sophomore Olivia Thomas scored the game winner
Speaker 3: on a free kick in the sixty second minute. And
Speaker 3: listen to this stat Of the forty three NCAA women's
Speaker 3: soccer titles ever awarded, UNC now owns twenty two. That's
Speaker 3: fifty one percent. No other women's college soccer program has
Speaker 3: more than four. In WNBA News, Indiana Fever guard Caitlin
Speaker 3: Clark has been named Time Magazine's Athlete of the Year.
Speaker 3: A quick refresher on a few of the things Clark
Speaker 3: accomplished in twenty twenty four, because it's been a long year.
Speaker 3: She became the top scorer in NCAA Division One women's
Speaker 3: basketball history and led Iowa to a second straight national
Speaker 3: championship appearance. She was the number one pick in the
Speaker 3: WNBA draft, set a new single season rookie scoring record,
Speaker 3: set the league's single season record for assists, and so
Speaker 3: much more en route to earning Rookie of the Year honors.
Speaker 3: In Sean Gregory's story on her, Clark reflected on the
Speaker 3: incredible career she's had already, the difference between college hoops
Speaker 3: and the pros, and on the ways white privilege has
Speaker 3: impacted her stardom.
Speaker 2: She told Time.
Speaker 3: Quote, I want to say I've earned every single thing,
Speaker 3: but as a white person, there is privilege. A lot
Speaker 3: of those players in the league that have been really
Speaker 3: good have been black players. This league has kind of
Speaker 3: been built on them.
Speaker 2: The more we can.
Speaker 3: Appreciate that highlight that talk about that and then continue
Speaker 3: to have brands and companies invest in those players that
Speaker 3: have made this league incredible, I think it's very important.
Speaker 3: I have to continue to try to change that. The
Speaker 3: more we can elevate black women, that's going to be
Speaker 3: a beautiful thing. End quote. We'll link to the Time
Speaker 3: cover and story in our show notes to college hoops
Speaker 3: number eighteen Iowa State in number twenty one, Iowa meet
Speaker 3: tonight as part of the Iowa Korn Syhawk series, which
Speaker 3: is sponsored by Iowa's Corn Farmers. That game tips off
Speaker 3: at nine pm Eastern on FS one. Do y'all remember
Speaker 3: corn Kid? I hope he got free tickets to that game.
Speaker 3: He is the most prominent spokesperson for Coorn that I
Speaker 3: know of it. Also in college hoops, Tennessee is back
Speaker 3: in the AP top twenty five after a win over
Speaker 3: Iowa last weekend. The Lady Balls fell out of the
Speaker 3: national rankings back in November twenty twenty three, and their
Speaker 3: twenty two week absence from the poll was the program's
Speaker 3: longest drought in the forty eight year history of the
Speaker 3: women's basketball rankings to the NWSL. Angel City has fired
Speaker 3: head coach Becky Tweed after the club finished the twenty
Speaker 3: twenty four season in twelfth place with a seven to win,
Speaker 3: thirteen loss and six draw record. First assistant Aleiri Earnshaw
Speaker 3: will serve as interim head coach until a new head
Speaker 3: coach is hired. And finally, the US women's national soccer
Speaker 3: team announced that it will host Brazil for two friendlies
Speaker 3: in California. A rematch of last summer's Olympic gold medal game.
Speaker 3: Game number one is scheduled for April fifth at SOFI
Speaker 3: Stadium in Inglewood, and game number two is on April
Speaker 3: eighth at PayPal Park in San Jose.
Speaker 1: Thanks me, we got to take a quick break when
Speaker 1: we come back. Crafting a murder With Elise heart Kipness
Speaker 1: joining us now, She's a former television sports reporter turned
Speaker 1: mystery and suspense writer. In addition to reporting for Fox
Speaker 1: Sports Network, Elise was a reporter at New York's WNBCTV
Speaker 1: News twelve, Long Island, and the Associated Press. A graduate
Speaker 1: of Brown University and a super fan of coffee ice cream.
Speaker 1: The first two books in her Kate Green fictional thriller series,
Speaker 1: Lights Out and Dangerous Play, are available now.
Speaker 2: The next book, Close Call, will be released.
Speaker 1: In October of twenty twenty five. It's Elise Heart Kipness. Elise,
Speaker 1: thanks for joining us.
Speaker 4: Oh, thank you for having me. It's so great to
Speaker 4: be here.
Speaker 1: I want you to take us back to your sports
Speaker 1: reporting days. How did you first get into that?
Speaker 4: It was such a roundabout way. I had been covering
Speaker 4: news for a while and I had the opportunity to
Speaker 4: cover the NBA lockout of nineteen ninety eight. It gives
Speaker 4: you an idea how old I am. And I went
Speaker 4: and I covered it. You know, it was like a
Speaker 4: news story but also a sports story, and it was
Speaker 4: it was I hate to say this poor lockout, but
Speaker 4: it was great. I'm going to say it was great
Speaker 4: because I have been covering murders and crashes like the
Speaker 4: Flight eight hundred crash and trials of serial killers, and
Speaker 4: I covered the monoc Lewinsky grand jury hearing, and it
Speaker 4: was just like, like covering something like the Lockout was
Speaker 4: very interesting, but it didn't have the same stakes in
Speaker 4: my mind. And then I got to cover sports, like
Speaker 4: we just hit it off, and covering games was so fun.
Speaker 4: It was just exciting and very adrenaline rushing, you know.
Speaker 4: But it was also a nice break from like the
Speaker 4: gloom and doom of what I covered in news.
Speaker 2: I mean, one thousand percent.
Speaker 1: I watch a lot of people who are really deep
Speaker 1: into very serious news or even reactions of nightly news,
Speaker 1: where so much of it is really sad and really hard,
Speaker 1: and so I'm always glad I get to be in
Speaker 1: the toy department, even when the toy department can get
Speaker 1: serious at times too.
Speaker 2: I did look at on your website.
Speaker 1: There's some great old photos and shots of you at
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of different sporting events.
Speaker 2: So you did a good job of making the rounds
Speaker 2: and getting to lots of fun stuff.
Speaker 1: So how did you decide to make the transition from
Speaker 1: reporting to writing fiction.
Speaker 4: When my first son was born, I made a decision
Speaker 4: not to keep traveling. I was covering things like a
Speaker 4: month at a time. So I went to Florida for
Speaker 4: spring training for a month, and I cover March Madness
Speaker 4: for a month. I always got lucky and got assigned
Speaker 4: to Duke, which was a super fun highlight of my career.
Speaker 4: Me and a couple of other people were the East
Speaker 4: Coast bureau for Fox Sports Network, so we were traveling
Speaker 4: all the time, and I just decided it was time
Speaker 4: to stop or take a break. And then about five
Speaker 4: years later, of all the things that I missed, I
Speaker 4: actually found I missed writing the most, which really surprised me,
Speaker 4: because you know, even though we write our own stuff,
Speaker 4: it's like one page, and you don't really feel like
Speaker 4: that in your brain is the most primary part of
Speaker 4: your job. It's one aspect, but it's not the thing.
Speaker 4: And I thought I would miss the adrenaline. I thought
Speaker 4: I might miss going to the locker rooms or you know,
Speaker 4: the interviews or any of it. But I missed writing.
Speaker 4: And I started to take classes because I only knew
Speaker 4: how to write one page. And the first draft of
Speaker 4: my book was so bad. I wrote it as a
Speaker 4: reporter and I wrote the who want where? When? Why
Speaker 4: write no suspense? It is so boring? And then I
Speaker 4: just learned, and I mean one of the benefits, as
Speaker 4: you know, you would know it's it's like I didn't
Speaker 4: have to do my hair, I didn't have to put
Speaker 4: makeup on. I could sit in my bed and.
Speaker 2: Write and make your own schedule those things.
Speaker 4: Yes, yes, And actually don't you find like you're more
Speaker 4: of a late night person, yes, than a morning person
Speaker 4: because you're covering games and it's like really late. So
Speaker 4: I've never gotten over the like sleeping in part, but
Speaker 4: I just do it on my own schedule. My commute
Speaker 4: is much shorter.
Speaker 1: You and I were chatting about me trying to finish
Speaker 1: my first book. I'm impressed by your prolific efforts in
Speaker 1: the last couple of years, continuing to churn them out.
Speaker 2: But yeah, it is.
Speaker 1: It's a very different workflow, and so if you are
Speaker 1: very disciplined and good at keeping yourself on track, it's
Speaker 1: great to be able to say, Okay, well, this day
Speaker 1: something came up, I'm going to go do that instead,
Speaker 1: and then the next day I'm.
Speaker 2: Going to get back to writing. You know.
Speaker 1: It is a transition though, like you just said, both
Speaker 1: in the approach to the work but also in the
Speaker 1: actual writing. You also were a crime reporter, like you said,
Speaker 1: So is that how you decided I'm going to take
Speaker 1: my interest or background in that into writing thrillers as
Speaker 1: opposed to some other type of fiction.
Speaker 4: Yes, but I didn't realize it at the time. What
Speaker 4: happened was I just liked reading thrillers. So the decision
Speaker 4: to write a sports a sports reporter as the main
Speaker 4: character is logical, but I didn't really consider the deep
Speaker 4: reason why I went into thrillers. And then I was
Speaker 4: listening This is a year after or six months after
Speaker 4: my first book came out, and I was listening to
Speaker 4: Lisa Unger, who's a big suspense author, talk, and she
Speaker 4: said she writes thrillers to get like the darkness out
Speaker 4: of her, to purge. And it was like one of
Speaker 4: those aha moments, because I'm like, that's what I'm doing.
Speaker 4: I mean, I remember my mom saying to me when
Speaker 4: I was covering I think it was specifically when I
Speaker 4: was covering Flight eight hundred and I was out there
Speaker 4: for a month, and my mom said, you were always depressed.
Speaker 4: You know, your days are so full of tragedy. You know,
Speaker 4: as a reporter, whatever's happening, it's not happening to you,
Speaker 4: So you almost feel guilty if you're upset about about
Speaker 4: it because it's someone else's tragedy, but you still have
Speaker 4: the emotions of what's going on. So it's a very
Speaker 4: weird thing, like awkward, uncomfortable. But I think it really
Speaker 4: is me processing all this stuff that I saw back then.
Speaker 1: It's interesting how for you writing about it releases it.
Speaker 1: And for me when I work on things like that,
Speaker 1: I like I internalize them and it's very hard for
Speaker 1: me to like get out of that funk. So I'm
Speaker 1: glad you found this outlet. You've written about this reporter
Speaker 1: Kate Green. This is your main character and the most
Speaker 1: recent book called Dangerous Play. She's on assignment covering the
Speaker 1: US women's national soccer team at the Olympics and then
Speaker 1: a famous designer and old friend is found dead in
Speaker 1: the locker room.
Speaker 2: How did you come up with this premise?
Speaker 4: This book was so much fun to write because Kate
Speaker 4: is also a soccer Olympic soccer gold medalist. I like
Speaker 4: to say Kate is a way cooler version of me.
Speaker 4: So I mean, we're both TV sports reporters, but she's
Speaker 4: an Olympics soccer gold medalist. I'm a soccer mom, which
Speaker 4: I am. You know I made her tall, you can't tell,
Speaker 4: but I'm five feet zero inches, so every interview I've
Speaker 4: ever done, I stand on a milk crate. So then
Speaker 4: with dangerous play. My son used to play at the
Speaker 4: NYCFC Soccer Academy and they would play at Yande Stadium.
Speaker 4: They would play soccer, and he plays D one soccer now,
Speaker 4: So this was a chance to merge from an observation
Speaker 4: place as a reporter who covered sports and covered soccer
Speaker 4: a bit, and also what I experienced with my son
Speaker 4: and more specifically his friends on the girls teams who
Speaker 4: had gone through the youth academies and national teams, and
Speaker 4: I really wanted to dive into what it's like to
Speaker 4: have pressure as a youth athlete. Now, my plot is fiction,
Speaker 4: but I did interview these women who who described the
Speaker 4: way people are chosen from the youth camps and the
Speaker 4: national camps to make it to the teams. You know,
Speaker 4: based on things that they told me, Yeah, it's pretty brutal.
Speaker 4: So it was something I really wanted to explore. And
Speaker 4: then you know, I just fanned girl over Yankee Stadium
Speaker 4: all the time because I cover so much baseball there
Speaker 4: and I just couldn't think of a better like spot
Speaker 4: to set a book. It's just like you kind of
Speaker 4: can't believe you're there on the field and in the
Speaker 4: dugout and hanging out there.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean it sounds like you're using your background in
Speaker 1: journalism to inform the backbone of the book, to make
Speaker 1: sure it fits with reality, and it uses the elements
Speaker 1: of real life, and then you get to create a
Speaker 1: little fiction on top of it. Do you ever find
Speaker 1: yourself veering back toward the truth and then saying, no,
Speaker 1: I don't have to I don't have to make it real.
Speaker 2: This is fiction. I can bend it and I can
Speaker 2: move it in whatever direction I want.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's such a great question, and I think I
Speaker 4: did that more with book one, The Lights Out. You know,
Speaker 4: when you're learning to ski and your natural reaction is
Speaker 4: to kind of lean back against like what the right
Speaker 4: move is, You're supposed to lean into it. And I
Speaker 4: think and that's a very common mistake, I guess, is
Speaker 4: the right word or tendency for beginning fiction authors that
Speaker 4: you veer away from making things more dramatic and kind
Speaker 4: of blowing things up. So, yes, that was something that
Speaker 4: was edited and re edited with the first book, but
Speaker 4: then with the second I kind of learned to lean
Speaker 4: into my writing skis in a different way. And just
Speaker 4: so you don't feel bad about how long your book
Speaker 4: is taking you. I mean my first book took me
Speaker 4: like eight years. Like it takes a while because you're
Speaker 4: learning new skills and then once you get them, you're
Speaker 4: building on top of it.
Speaker 2: So you're thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1: This current book, Dangerous Play, is a follow up to
Speaker 1: lights Out, which also features reporter Kate Green character I
Speaker 1: right on your website. It's being developed into film or
Speaker 1: maybe TV by a major studio.
Speaker 2: Can you tell us about that process?
Speaker 4: What I'm allowed to share is that it's for television.
Speaker 4: Film agents came to my agent before Lights Out even
Speaker 4: came out. It was kind of like I couldn't believe it.
Speaker 4: I was so excited and then and then it's just
Speaker 4: sort of snowballed in a very very happy way to
Speaker 4: get to this studio. And you know, we signed papers
Speaker 4: very excited a month ago or something. Yeah, it's exciting,
Speaker 4: it's really exciting.
Speaker 2: Do you have any stranger specific writing quirks or habits.
Speaker 4: What you were talking about? Coffee, ice cream? I am
Speaker 4: never ever without coffee. I mean, I'm I'm so addicted
Speaker 4: to coffee. I think most reporters are. Do you drink coffee?
Speaker 2: I do.
Speaker 1: I try not to be addicted, in waves of being
Speaker 1: able to only go a couple times a week, and
Speaker 1: then other stretches where it's every day.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I am a coffee coffee person. If I start
Speaker 4: in the morning, I always have a better writing day
Speaker 4: than I do in the afternoon. I do write in
Speaker 4: bed a lot. I guess nothing specific, like nothing like
Speaker 4: you know, candles on or things like that.
Speaker 2: Writing in bed is very quirky to me.
Speaker 1: But also that you mentioned earlier you are not a
Speaker 1: former professional athlete, which is probably how your body allows
Speaker 1: you to treat it like garbage, because my body would
Speaker 1: never write in bed without me like hobbling my way
Speaker 1: out of there with like my bad back and.
Speaker 2: My neck hurting. And Okay, do you still live on
Speaker 2: a farm.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I read about at least splitting times with a farm,
Speaker 1: and this is my dream later in life.
Speaker 2: So what animals are we talking here?
Speaker 4: Okay, so our farm has narrowed, but I do have
Speaker 4: to tell you about my farm. My husband, who's an
Speaker 4: attorney and in real estate, really should have been a
Speaker 4: vet and wanted to be a farmer. So we live
Speaker 4: on not what you would think as farmland. We live
Speaker 4: in Connecticut. But all of a sudden he's like, we're
Speaker 4: having a farm. So it starts with chickens, then it
Speaker 4: goes to goats, and then we ended up and this
Speaker 4: is a funny story. We ended up with pigs.
Speaker 2: Yes, but he knew.
Speaker 4: That I wouldn't be quite on board with the pigs,
Speaker 4: so he got up the pigs. And it's like behind
Speaker 4: a house where I don't look. I look this way,
Speaker 4: like when I get engaged in what I'm doing, I
Speaker 4: don't really focus on anything else. There was a bet
Speaker 4: going in the soccer carpool about how many days it
Speaker 4: would take me to notice the pigs. It took me
Speaker 4: ten days.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, amazing by the way pigs, pigs get
Speaker 1: a bad rap. Pigs are smarter than like toddlers and dogs,
Speaker 1: and they're wonderful creatures. They like mud because if they
Speaker 1: aren't being handled well and they aren't being kept moist,
Speaker 1: it's like uncomfortable for them. So they don't actually want
Speaker 1: to be dirty. They're just trying to like suit their
Speaker 1: skin when they get all muddy. So like people always
Speaker 1: think of pigs in a bad way. But I'm definitely
Speaker 1: gonna have pigs on my farm.
Speaker 4: So what kind of farm do you want?
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, just like I want all the animals,
Speaker 1: but I also need horses and a couple of donkeys
Speaker 1: and some chickens and maybe like an alpaca or a
Speaker 1: lama that I can use for like people to come visit.
Speaker 1: I'm still it's in the future, although the way the
Speaker 1: world is going, it might be sooner rather than later.
Speaker 1: All right, last question for you, Elise, other than your
Speaker 1: brilliant work, what is the best thriller you've ever read?
Speaker 1: Because I'm hoping that over the holidays I'm actually gonna
Speaker 1: have some time to sit and read, and so I
Speaker 1: need some suggestions.
Speaker 2: Best thriller you've ever read?
Speaker 4: My favorite thriller these days is Sarah Pekinon and Greer Hendrix,
Speaker 4: The Wife between Us. Okay, really good.
Speaker 1: We look forward to the time to read it and
Speaker 1: your books as well. Thank you so much for hopping
Speaker 1: on with us a lease, We appreciate it.
Speaker 4: Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: Thanks again to Elise for joining us when we get
Speaker 1: back from break, a whole new batch of books to
Speaker 1: add to that unwieldy stack. On your bedside table just me. Sorry,
Speaker 1: Marie Condo, welcome back. We love that you're listening, but
Speaker 1: we want you to get in the game every day too.
Speaker 1: So here's our good game play of the day, and
Speaker 1: it's a fun one. Just consider buying a few of
Speaker 1: the books that we've featured here on Good Game with
Speaker 1: Sarah Spain. Buying a women's sports book supports not just
Speaker 1: the author, but it helps give the folks in your
Speaker 1: life the gift of knowledge about athletes, teams, and women's
Speaker 1: sports history.
Speaker 2: So write these down.
Speaker 1: Hail Mary, The Rise and Fall of the National Women's
Speaker 1: Football League by Britney Dela Creta and Lindsay dark Angelo,
Speaker 1: Locker Room Talk by Melissa Lutkey, and Dangerous Play by
Speaker 1: Elise Heart Kipness. Few other books we've mentioned also include
Speaker 1: Standing Tall, The ce Vivian Stringer Memoir, and The National
Speaker 1: Team by Caitlin Murray. Now, please buy these books at
Speaker 1: a local bookstore, or at least order from a local
Speaker 1: spot like the legendary Powells Books in Portland or Semi
Speaker 1: Colon Books, Chicago's largest black woman owned bookstore. Amazon is
Speaker 1: not a cute place you can go settle in with
Speaker 1: a coffee in a book and lose yourself. It doesn't
Speaker 1: have a counter with adorable bookmarks and stickers and knickknacks
Speaker 1: that make perfect present toppers. There's no cozy kids section
Speaker 1: with cardboard cutouts of beloved characters and little pillows strewn
Speaker 1: about for reading and lounging. Those shop around the corner
Speaker 1: type bookstores will not exist anymore if you don't buy
Speaker 1: stuff from them. So go there and shop, or at
Speaker 1: least go to their website if you're not willing to
Speaker 1: leave the house. You know we always love to hear
Speaker 1: from you, so hit us up on email, good game
Speaker 1: at Wondermedia neetwork dot com, or leave us a voicemail
Speaker 1: at eight seven two two oh four at fifty seventy,
Speaker 1: and don't forget to subscribe. Rate and review slices. It's easy.
Speaker 1: Watch pawcrastinating rating five out of five Boops and Snugs review.
Speaker 1: Can we really be expected to be productive on late
Speaker 1: winter afternoons when the weather dips below thirty and darkness
Speaker 1: arrives before four pm? Of course, not Pauw crastinating snuggling
Speaker 1: with your dogs or cats on the couch instead of
Speaker 1: I don't know tackling your to do list or responding
Speaker 1: to your boss's email. It's not just allowed, it's recommended.
Speaker 2: Work can wait. Those boots and snugs can't.
Speaker 1: See not that hard. Subscribe rate and review. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 1: We'll see you tomorrow. Good game, Elise, Good game, My
Speaker 1: little snugglebugs, Fletch Banks and Indie Few. Not enough hours
Speaker 1: in the day to read all the books in our pile.
Speaker 1: Good Game with Sarah Spain is an iHeart women's sports
Speaker 1: production in partnership with Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment. You
Speaker 1: can find us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts. Production by Wonder Media Network,
Speaker 1: our producers are Alex Azzie and Misha Jones. Our executive
Speaker 1: producers are Christina Everett, Jesse Katz, Jenny Kaplan, and Emily Rudder.
Speaker 1: Our editors are Emily Rudder, Britney Martinez, Grace Lynch, and
Speaker 1: Lindsay Craterwell. Production assistant from Lucy Jones and I'm your
Speaker 1: Host Sarah Spain