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The Crime CafeAuthor: Debbi Mack
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Interview with Clay Stafford – S. 12, Ep. 1
Saturday, 20 June, 2026
My guest this week on the Crime Cafe podcast is Clay Stafford. Check out the plans for the upcoming Killer Nashville conference, which celebrates its 21st anniversary. So, it can now legally drink whatever it wants. 🙂 Transcripts available for download to all free and paid Patreon members. Debbi (00:54): Hi everyone. Before we get started with the show, I’d like to announce that my third Erica Jensen novel is out now. It came out on June 6th as an ebook. It’s also coming out in print, hopefully soon, probably sometime next week. So be on the lookout for that. And with that, I just hope that you will check the book out and consider giving it a read. Now let me introduce my first guest for season 12. You could say he’s even a regular here. He’s just part of the show now, really. He is in fact a bestselling author, award-winning filmmaker, and creator of Killer Nashville, a fantastic conference that’s held every year in Nashville. It’s Clay Stafford. Hi, Clay. How are you doing? Clay (01:46): Hi, Debbi. I’m doing great. Yeah, I’ve decided that I’m just going to move in, so I hope you have a spare bedroom or something. Debbi (01:53): Dear me. Clay (01:56): Congrats on the new book. Debbi (01:59): I’m sorry? Clay (02:00): Congratulations on the new book. Debbi (02:01): Oh, well, thank you very much. It took long enough for me to get it finished in between trying to tweak screenplays and do other things in between. Clay (02:09): There’s always something going on, always juggling. Debbi (02:12): It’s weird. I mean, it’s like, okay, I’m going to go back to the book now and where was I? And who was this person? I got to go back and check. And I would find things that would change and it was like, oh my God. You really have to spend some time with a novel to really get it done. Clay (02:34): Yeah, you do. Debbi (02:36): It’s like trying to pitch a TV show, actually. TV shows are so dependent on characters that it’s just really, unless you really, really know your characters and where they’re going, there’s just no point. And you really have to know this stuff like the DNA of the whole world you’re creating in a sense. So it’s really interesting. But enough about me and my thoughts about screenwriting. It’s very good to see you. And I was going to say, how many decades have you been running Killer Nashville? And then I looked and I realized it was two. Clay (03:16): Decades. Yeah, started in 2006. Debbi (03:18): That’s amazing. Clay (03:20): Our 21st year. It’s funny how numbers work like that because 2006, 2026, but yet it’s 21. So I don’t know how math works, but … Debbi (03:31): Oh, wow. Clay (03:32): Yes. Debbi (03:33): Oh, wow. Okay. So 21 years. Ooh. Clay (03:36): Years. Debbi (03:37): Darn. Clay (03:40): I’m like 20 years ago today. Debbi (03:43): Yeah, I guess so since you started on The Zero. Yeah, that’s kind of like counting the centuries there. Interesting. Oh, math. Yeah. So what was it like at the beginning versus now? I mean, how many people signed up for the first one and how are you doing now? Clay (04:05): We had about 70 people that showed up the first year and then we started climbing and really our cap this year is 500. (04:19): And we sell out. We’ve been selling out for the past four years now. And so we will definitely sell out and I think we’re going to sell out. Even somebody I was talking to today said we may sell out at the conference by the end of June and the conference is not even until August. So any of your listeners or viewers out there that want to come to Killer Nashville, better check out the website and maybe move forward because we may be selling out early this year, but we sell out every year. And part of it had to do with the venues because they only cap a certain amount and we had only so many conference rooms. And so the first year we had a linear session where it was like class and then another class and another class. (05:13): Now we have 11 sessions going concurrently. So you got a choice of 11, you have to pick one and that goes on for the full four days of the conference. And so there’s a lot of sessions that are going on. So we’ve expanded since in the past two decades into what we’re offering as well as the increase in attendance. But we could have more people there if we opened it up. But those pesky fire marshals, they only say you can have so many people in there at the same time. And so they know what’s going on. But I think we’re at the Embassy Suites in Cool Springs area and they’re incredibly nice and they’ve refurbished the entire hotel. I mean, gutted the hotel this past year. We were the last event before they were waiting for us to finish and the next day they had the demolition crew in there tearing everything out. (06:14): So everything is completely brand new. They added restaurants and the whole little village section around it. So the place is really great. So we rent out the whole hotel and then it’s like a fishbowl. As you know, everybody in there, 100% of them are writers or publishers, editors, attorneys, publicists, and everybody is in there together and you just really get to network and get to know people. And so you asked how to expand from 2006 to now. (06:52): It has gone in many different directions and the expansion’s been good. I can’t believe we’re still around after 21 years. I never thought when the first one, I never looked ahead and thought, well, 21 years from now, I’ll still be doing this. I didn’t have that in mind, but it’s a blast. I love it. I enjoy every year. What’s changed there? There’s more opportunities for writers to find publishers, to find agents through Killer Nashville than we did back in 2006. And so part of the fun for me has always been, as you know, seeing people get a deal, seeing somebody reach a goal that they had and knowing that Killer Nashville and the attendees at Killer Nashville, not just me or not even me, had something to do with the confluence of events that caused that to happen. And I think that it’s been 21 years of seeing people’s lives transformed that in what I think is the most noble profession of all being a writer and being a purveyor of ideas. And so it has just been a joy ride for me. And so I look forward to 20 years more. We’ll see. Debbi (08:29): That’s fantastic. Yeah, that’s great. I can really appreciate what you’re saying because it is wonderful when you can help somebody out with something, give some knowledge to somebody that really helps them out. I’ve done some mentoring with people in my alumni, alumni mentoring, that’s the kind of thing. And it’s the kind of thing I’d like to continue to do actually. Well, Clay (09:00): Well, it’s fulfilling. Debbi (09:03): It is. Clay (09:04): I think that’s very good. Debbi (09:08): By the way, where can I find your films or film? Clay (09:12): Most of them are from PBS and NBC, CBS, ABC, and a lot of them are not available anywhere. And I have absolutely no control over that because I do not own the rights. It costs, the economics of it. People say we produce a film and throw it on Netflix. Actually, you pay Netflix to put it on there. And if the production company like PBS, PBS has a lot of my stuff. If they decided to pay Netflix or whoever, any streaming service, then you would be able to see it, but I don’t have the rights to it, I can’t stream it or put it on anything. So that answers your question. Debbi (10:05): Oh, that’s too bad. But you have made films.That’s cool. Clay (10:10): A few films. I mean, over different kinds between documentaries and episodic TV and stuff, probably about a hundred different credits. And I understand some of the stuff that I used to act in, I got a royalty check from The Guild for performances that are showing in Japan of all places, (10:38): Not in the US and not Japan of all places, but of all places, why isn’t it showing in the US? I don’t know. But anyway, stuff is out there, but it’s really, content has changed so much in the decades that I’ve been in this business. And there are tons, if you’re an old film fanatic such as myself, there are tons of TV shows and films that were major when I was growing up that you can’t find anywhere because it just costs money to put them up on a streaming platform unless the company is NBC or Paramount or something and has their own streaming network. So there’s a whole bunch of deal-making things that have to go into all that. And unfortunately, creators don’t always have the leverage to be able to be involved in those discussions. I took a long way to answer your question. Debbi (11:52): That’s okay. You covered some points that are very interesting. We could really get into that, but instead I will just mention that you have a podcast now. Clay (12:03): I do have a podcast and I’m very excited about that and it’s gotten favorable results so far. People are actually listening to the podcast, but it’s an extension of what I’m doing. I’m talking with bestselling authors just similar to what you do and getting some good perspectives on the industry and you can, of course, stream it on any podcast platform. And I’m just always looking for ways to try to keep getting the information out there to the people that need it. So I mean, that’s what Killer Nashville is all about. So the podcast was a natural evolution on that. And then Killer Nashville Magazine is now going to be an ePub. Starting with the July one issue, that you can purchase on any platform, Amazon or Google or Apple, all of those easing platforms. (13:16): And so that’s an exciting thing as well because we’re getting more exposure for our writers by doing that. And that’s really one of the things that I’ve done. I’ve been really happy. I mean, we’ve gotten picked for best mystery anthologies of the year and all kinds of stuff. So we discover a lot of great talent. And for your listeners, if they’re interested in submitting, we would love to have … I mean, we’re actively looking for submissions in all different things from short stories to craft to even novellas to flash fiction poetry. Look on killernashvillemagazine[dot]com and you can find all the stuff that we’re looking for. And we love discovering new voices and publishing established voices and take all of them equally in what we’re doing. (14:17): But yeah, that’s expanding and there’s a couple other things that are in the works. So next year when we talk, we’ll be talking about some different things Debbi (14:28): The world will have changed some more. Clay (14:32): But yeah, so there’s been a lot of expansion. There’s another thing, how is it different since 2006? We got a podcast going, got an e-magazine going and we get tons of people. It’s Killer Nashville International Writers Conference and we have probably, I don’t know, 10% of our well-known, more than that, probably about maybe 15% of our demographics are outside the US from all parts of the world. So that’s been a major expansion. Debbi (15:13): Very, very interesting. Do you see any change in what people are looking for from the conference? Clay (15:21): I try to stay up-to-date and of course I do a lot of consulting and I’m always involved in the industry and I know a couple of people and so I get to hear the inside scoop on things. And so I always try to make the conference applicable to right now and even to take it beyond a lot of conferences are how to write great protagonists and stuff and that’s very important. But some of the different aspects of today, even social implications of writing that we get into academic type classes as well as just the craft classes. And then of course we got the forensic classes and forensics is always moving forward in terms of what they’re able to do in terms of uncovering crime. So that’s always contemporary and we’re trying to stay on top of all of that as well as legal issues pertaining to crime and crime punishment and justice and even in cases, some cases of injustice, try to cover all of that with all of that focus toward how to make somebody a more informed writer in terms of making sure that everything they write is plausible, especially in the crime business and making sure that everything is entertaining, which is just a basic literary thing. So we cover a lot of ground. Debbi (17:02): Interesting. Do you have any thoughts about what’s going on with AI and the copyright implications of using it? Clay (17:14): I think that any tool can be an asset and any tool can also be abused. And I have never seen a piece of AI material that I felt sounded like a real person wrote it. It’s absent of voice. So I know that on some platforms people are writing AI stories and selling them and you’re going to have that. You’re going to have people doing that sort of thing. But if you read it, it’s just for lack of a better word, very simplistic, if not some of it’s just downright trash. I’ve seen some things where people have to actually taken the AI formatting and just into a book and published it on a platform for people to purchase and they haven’t even taken the trouble to change the formatting or anything. It’s just laziness. But my son and I played an interesting game with AI, which is just fun for us. (18:26): We go on an AI program and say, write a story about a romance where this happens and then something else happens and then there’s a murder and then there’s whatever. And we have a little party just hanging out listening to the stupid stories that we up with. So in terms of writing stories, which I think is what most writers are fearful of, it’s going to take our jobs, it’s going to take whatever. I don’t foresee that at all. Now AI is excellent if you say I am doing a plot on whatever it happens to be, where’s a great place to research this or what are three books that really can give me some insight into that? AI is great for giving you that. I mean, it’s got access to data and can compute faster than … It can compute faster in a few minutes than I can at what we used to do, go sit in the library and look at microfiche. (19:44): Maybe who arrives first at a crime scene and AI can give you a list of who shows up and who gets called next and how that process works. So for that kind of stuff, AI is great, but when you start using it like that, it falls into Scrivener or any kind of a Word or docs. It just becomes a tool that you use, a research tool and there’s nothing wrong with that in terms of expediting what we used to laboriously have to do in libraries. And my eyes have crossed many times looking at that microfilm to do research on projects and now it’s just type it into an AI program and they can bring you up all sorts of leads that you can then just go investigate without having to do all that manual searching yourself. It’s been an incredible time changer. Debbi (20:55): It is. Yeah, I agree. It’s amazing the sources you can find and the way you can organize information, it will give you take something and summarize it. Most of the time it comes out really good, really well. Clay (21:13): And I will say, news seems to thrive on the bad things and it has to be something stirring the pot. And it was like, oh my gosh, cassettes have come out. My gosh, eight tracks are going to change the world. You remember eight tracks? (21:44): And ebooks are the death of publishing. It’s audiobooks. Nobody’s going to be learning to read anymore. And so it’s always just people looking for something to talk. Let me give a message to your viewers out there. Instead of worrying about how ebooks are going to destroy the industry, which we’re not worried about now anymore, everybody’s found that they’re very lucrative. Let’s look at AI. How is it going to destroy the industry? Because there’s always some nefarious thing that’s coming to destroy the industry, but it doesn’t destroy the industry. This is a multi-billion dollar business. And instead of worrying about all of that stuff, it might be best if we reframed our minds and our time to write that next page and focus there instead of all the things first of all that we cannot control. Second of all, it’s just chatter, use any tool for the good purposes and don’t be stupid and use it for something that’s bad and don’t support the people who use it for something that’s bad. (23:08): So that can apply to everything that’s been going on in the publishing industry since maybe the 1940s or if not before. Debbi (23:19): Yeah, there have been so many changes. Clay (23:23): Not that I have an opinion on the silliness of it, Debbi (23:27): Of course not. Neither of us have opinions about the publishing industry for heaven’s sake. It’s simply delightful. Clay (23:41): I don’t know how you feel, but I feel like I’ve got the best job in the world to be in the center of books that are coming out and books that are doing very well and authors that are trying to get there and writing my own stuff. I mean, for me, I can’t think of a better job. I’m just absolutely blessed. But somebody else in another profession is going to go, “Be a writer? That’s blessed?” But yeah, for me in my little world, publishing industry and the entertainment industry is an incredible place to be. Debbi (24:19): Well, I quit practicing law just to become a writer because all my life I’d wanted to be one and I said, it’s about time I started, huh? Yeah. So I did. What is it that keeps you going without burning out? Clay (24:39): Yeah, I absolutely love what I do. I think that’s what I said earlier. I am more of the Phineas and Ferb mentality, the 10-year-old boy mentality. I wake up every morning and say, okay, what am I going to do today? And I have incredible people, teammates that I work with and they make my day a pure joy and we all create together on various things and working on Killer Nashville and all that other stuff. And so I’m just surrounded with incredibly creative and wonderful people and doing something you love. If it’s work, then after a while it starts wearing you out. But if you’re playing then, and I’m a builder, I’m a creator, that’s what I’ve always done. And when you’re playing, it doesn’t feel like work. So it’s not unusual. I mean, we’ve talked before, most of my days are 14-hour days, Monday through Sunday, seven days a week. (25:53): I don’t take days off and because I miss it. It’s like I get to show up and hang out with my friends. And so how do I prevent burnout? I don’t know. I’m just having too much fun. Debbi (26:07): I understand actually. It’s really interesting because I’ve never been more engaged in a process than I was when I was directing my first movie and you just get so into the process that whatever is bothering you disappears. It’s really weird. It’s kind of like writing a novel. I mean, it’s like really just focusing on the thing that you’re doing and just getting into it and feeling that flow of creation. Really, there’s nothing like it. Clay (26:45): One day I’m going to grow up and not be the 10-year-old boy anymore, but we’ll see when that happens. Debbi (26:51): I know the feeling. I know the feeling. Is there anything you’d like to say that we haven’t covered? Clay (26:58): No, I think I came with no agenda other than to be here. Debbi (27:05): Well, I’m so glad that you came today and that you spent some time with us. I really appreciate it. Thanks, Clay. Clay (27:11): Is there anything you want to cover that we haven’t covered? Debbi (27:14): Oh, we can talk about that in the bonus round. How does that sound? Clay (27:19): That works great. Debbi (27:20): I love the bonus round. I get to ask all sorts of weird questions. Let’s see. It was really great to see you, Clay. Clay (27:30): Same here. Thank you for having me back on your show. Debbi (27:33): Well, thanks for being here. And to all my subscribers, whether you’re on Substack or Patreon, thank you so much. Thank you to everyone who’s listening. If you enjoyed the episode, please consider leaving a review. They’re helpful. They really are. And so until next time when my guest will be Jennifer Lycette, take care and happy reading. Be seeing you. Support the podcast on Patreon!
