Some stories entertain.Others quietly keep us alive.
In this powerful and deeply human episode of Spirit Talk Show: Bedtime Stories for Grown-Ups, Doyle is joined by Richard Spiegel, a prolific fantasy and dark speculative fiction author whose work lives at the intersection of imagination, trauma, love, and resilience.
Richard is the author of five published novels—with many more already written—and the creator of expansive story worlds including the Wolves and Ravens trilogy and the ongoing Eternal Nights saga. His writing blends fantasy, paranormal elements, romance, and psychological realism, not as escape, but as a way to understand what it means to survive.
This conversation moves far beyond craft talk.
Richard speaks candidly about:
Writing as a form of emotional containment and release
Living so deeply inside fictional worlds that they rival reality
Military service, medical retirement, and the unseen cost of sacrifice
Why fantasy isn’t the opposite of truth—but one of its most honest languages
Creating characters who endure trauma, break, recover, and keep going
He describes himself less as an author and more as a correspondent—someone recording events as they unfold in worlds that feel fully real to him. That intensity allows him to write full novels in weeks, but it also carries a cost, requiring constant grounding, support from his wife, and an ongoing negotiation between imagination and everyday life.
The episode includes:
A moving tribute story honoring Richard’s work and its emotional impact
A poem inspired by his fiction and the spaces it creates for readers
A live excerpt from Broken Angel, the harrowing conclusion to Wolves and Ravens, exploring sacrifice, love, and irreversible choice
Together, the hosts and Richard reflect on why readers binge his books, why he avoids filler and spectacle, and why he believes the most important stories leave room for the reader’s own imagination to do part of the work.
At its heart, this episode is about storytelling as resilience—about how imagined worlds help us process real pain, how darkness can be approached with care instead of fear, and how fiction can become rehearsal for being human.
These are not stories that distract you from life.They sit beside you in it.
Spirit Talk Show – Bedtime Stories for Grown-UpsHosted by Doyle Follow Spirit Talk Show on social media:Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/spirittalkshowInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/doylespirittalkshow/X: https://x.com/doylespirittalk Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/spirittalkshow www.spirittalkshow.info  If this episode resonated with you, please subscribe, rate, and share it with someone who might need it.

What happens when you stop chasing spectacle—and start chasing truth?
In this richly layered episode of Spirit Talk Show: Bedtime Stories for Grown-Ups, Doyle sits down with Sacramento filmmaker, actor, musician, and creative instigator Sean Kilcoyne for an evening that drifts effortlessly between laughter, philosophy, memory, and imagination.
Sean is the kind of storyteller who builds entire worlds from small rooms: public-access studios, festival-bound short films, late-night scripts, and borrowed light. From Chowder Heart and Family to Regional Treasures: Digging for Freedom, his work reminds us that storytelling doesn’t need million-dollar budgets—just heart, curiosity, and the courage to believe small stories matter.
Together, Doyle and Sean explore:
The hidden magic of Sacramento’s scrappy creative scene
Making short films as acts of faith rather than commerce
Family as collaborators, anchors, and co-creators
Why comedy, sincerity, and rebellion often live in the same breath
The episode unfolds as something more than an interview. Through live readings of AI-inspired plays, poems, and surreal short scenes—a vending machine that knows too much, strangers bonded by a shared dream in a DMV line, a lost-and-found desk that returns forgotten moments—Sean steps fully into the act of storytelling, revealing how art becomes a mirror rather than a mask.
There are detours into music, mysticism, aging, parenthood, creative burnout, ethical dilemmas in art, and the quiet ache of the roads we didn’t take. There’s laughter, awkwardness, sincerity, and the sense that something real is happening in the room.
At its core, this episode is about one essential truth:Storytelling is connection.And sometimes the most honest stories don’t live in Hollywood—they live right here, told by people who keep showing up with a camera, a question, and a contagious laugh.
Settle in.Dim the lights if you feel like it.You’re not just listening to a story tonight—you’re stepping into one.
Spirit Talk Show – Bedtime Stories for Grown-UpsHosted by Doyle Follow Spirit Talk Show on social media:Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/spirittalkshowInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/doylespirittalkshow/X: https://x.com/doylespirittalk Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/spirittalkshow www.spirittalkshow.info  If this episode resonated with you, please subscribe, rate, and share it with someone who might need it.

Dantro and Pat risk everything as they slip into Marston’s palace through a hidden tunnel, searching desperately for Billy and Jane before it’s too late. Deep behind enemy lines, every step brings new danger. Meanwhile, across the galaxy, the League of Planets prepares for open war against Marston, setting the stage for a conflict that could determine the fate of multiple worlds. Tension rises on all fronts in this suspenseful chapter of The Planet Man.
Spirit Talk Show – Bedtime Stories for Grown-UpsHosted by Doyle Follow Spirit Talk Show on social media:Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/spirittalkshowInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/doylespirittalkshow/X: https://x.com/doylespirittalk Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/spirittalkshow www.spirittalkshow.info  If this episode resonated with you, please subscribe, rate, and share it with someone who might need it.

In this moving episode of Spirit Talk Show – Bedtime Stories for Grown Ups, Doyle sits down with writer, paraglider pilot, and rare cancer survivor Jonathan Hutton, author of Unflappable: Soaring Beyond Diagnosis.Jonathan’s journey begins with an unassuming runny nose that turned out to be a rare, incurable head and neck cancer. What followed was a 16-year odyssey through surgeries, treatments, loss, and rediscovery. Yet, amid the pain and rebuilding, Jonathan found new meaning—in the air. As a paraglider, he learned to trust the invisible, to find lift where others saw only gravity, and to write about life not as triumph, but as motion.Doyle and Jonathan talk candidly about illness, identity, faith, and the courage to keep rising when control is gone. Together, they explore how writing can become an act of flight and how healing isn’t about being cured—it’s about learning to live inside a body that has been remade.Listen for:How Jonathan found freedom and creativity through paraglidingWhat it means to “fly afraid” and write honestly about survivalThe role of faith, fear, and humor in facing mortalityA powerful tribute story and poem celebrating Jonathan’s resilienceUnflappable is available now at unflappable.press and on Amazon.“Life isn’t about escaping gravity—it’s about learning how to dance with it.”
Spirit Talk Show – Bedtime Stories for Grown-UpsHosted by Doyle Follow Spirit Talk Show on social media:Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/spirittalkshowInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/doylespirittalkshow/X: https://x.com/doylespirittalk Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/spirittalkshow www.spirittalkshow.info  If this episode resonated with you, please subscribe, rate, and share it with someone who might need it.

The war escalates beyond Earth as Dantro takes the fight into space itself. With Martian forces pressing their advantage, the Planet Man and his allies engage in a high-stakes confrontation among the stars. As ships collide and strategies are tested, courage and ingenuity become Earth’s last defense. Victory is uncertain, danger is everywhere, and the future of two worlds hangs in the balance in this pulse-pounding chapter of The Planet Man.
Spirit Talk Show – Bedtime Stories for Grown-UpsHosted by Doyle Follow Spirit Talk Show on social media:Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/spirittalkshowInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/doylespirittalkshow/X: https://x.com/doylespirittalk Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/spirittalkshow www.spirittalkshow.info  If this episode resonated with you, please subscribe, rate, and share it with someone who might need it.

Author, adventurer, and lifelong dreamer Alison Gieschen—known as the nautical novelist—shares her remarkable story of courage, creativity, and reinvention.After three decades running an equestrian program, Alison and her husband sold everything to pursue a dream many only imagine: circumnavigating the globe on a 43-foot sailboat. Their voyage has taken them through 46 countries, across the Panama Canal, and into the heart of what it means to live freely and fully.From terrifying storms and miraculous rescues to the quiet awe of Polynesian sunsets and island friendships, Alison transforms every experience into art. Her works—Blue Ridge, Riding the Waves of Reality, The Legend of Altor, Julie’s Vaulting Dream, The Seven, and her forthcoming Sienna: A Mermaid’s Tale—weave myth, truth, and the spirit of adventure.Discover more about Alison’s writing, voyages, and creative journey at alisongieschen.com
Spirit Talk Show – Bedtime Stories for Grown-UpsHosted by Doyle Follow Spirit Talk Show on social media:Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/spirittalkshowInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/doylespirittalkshow/X: https://x.com/doylespirittalk Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/spirittalkshow www.spirittalkshow.info  If this episode resonated with you, please subscribe, rate, and share it with someone who might need it.

The threat becomes reality. As Mars launches its long-anticipated assault, Earth faces destruction from the skies and beyond. With defenses failing and panic spreading, Dantro races against time to counter Marston’s plan and protect the planet he has sworn to defend. Loyalties are tested, sacrifices loom, and the true cost of interplanetary war comes into focus as The Planet Man pushes the story into full-scale conflict.
Spirit Talk Show – Bedtime Stories for Grown-UpsHosted by Doyle Follow Spirit Talk Show on social media:Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/spirittalkshowInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/doylespirittalkshow/X: https://x.com/doylespirittalk Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/spirittalkshow www.spirittalkshow.info  If this episode resonated with you, please subscribe, rate, and share it with someone who might need it.

We launch the new year with a guest whose life reads like a classified dossier—and whose message may define the decade ahead. Michael D. Selig, former Marine Corps aviator turned bestselling author of Hush, steps into the Spirit Talk Show studio to reveal what he believes is humanity’s most important, most suppressed truth: we are not alone, we have never been alone, and the world is racing toward an event that will change everything.Selig’s novel may be fiction, but the research behind it—military recoveries, multidimensional beings, covert programs, and a rising planetary shift—is very real to him. In this gripping conversation he explains why 2027 looms large, why love might be humanity’s ultimate superpower, and why our understanding of ghosts, angels, and the paranormal may all point to the same hidden reality.This is not just an interview.This is a warning, an invitation, and a spark for the year ahead.Explore more from Michael D. Selig:https://mdselig.com/https://www.facebook.com/michael.d.selighttps://x.com/QHRPubhttps://www.instagram.com/real.mdselig/
Spirit Talk Show – Bedtime Stories for Grown-UpsHosted by Doyle Follow Spirit Talk Show on social media:Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/spirittalkshowInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/doylespirittalkshow/X: https://x.com/doylespirittalk Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/spirittalkshow www.spirittalkshow.info  If this episode resonated with you, please subscribe, rate, and share it with someone who might need it.