Creative guests, big backstories, fast momentum.
The Mike Wagner Show moves fast through guest introductions, sponsor reads, and open-ended interviews with creative people. Recent episodes spotlight authors, music-adjacent makers, film craftspeople, media professionals, and unusual projects with a warm, encouraging tone.
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The Mike Wagner Show is a sprawling interview program centered on creative lives, working careers, and the projects people are trying to put into the world. It moves quickly. Recent episodes introduce an author writing about legacy, an Australian with a path through electronic music, investment banking, and a new book, a longtime motion picture hairstylist, a former attorney turned novelist, a vintage fabric seller and author, a children’s author, a Texas treasure-hunt creator, and a media expert looking back at internet humor. The show likes credentials. It also likes momentum. Guests are often introduced through a full list of degrees, places, credits, books, stores, producers, magazines, films, and side pursuits before the conversation settles in. Once it does, the interviews tend to loosen into career origin stories, practical memories, creative motivations, and the small turns that shaped a project. The tone is generous and familiar. The host encourages more than he interrogates, using broad prompts and quick affirmations to let guests keep talking. That gives the show an open-door feel, especially for authors and makers who have a story behind the public bio. It is not a polished literary salon or a hard-edged arts interview. It is a busy, upbeat showcase with a lot of promotional scaffolding around it. Sponsor reads, platform mentions, donation requests, and repeated show information appear often and can dominate some excerpts. Still, the guest material can be charmingly specific. A media veteran recalls 90-second ads and stamp-collecting education projects. A children’s author talks about identity, fear, writing habits, and getting one percent better. A treasure-hunt creator imagines a future puzzle with cryptocurrency. The strongest fit is a listener who enjoys discovering authors, artists, media people, and unusual entrepreneurs through relaxed biographical conversation. The show’s appeal is not precision. It is volume, access, and the sense that almost every guest has an unexpected detour worth hearing.
Made for: Best for listeners who enjoy friendly interview shows with authors, artists, media veterans, and people with unusual career turns. It especially suits discovery-minded fans who like origin stories more than formal critique.
What sets it apart: Its range is unusually wide, moving from film hairstyling and vintage fabric to treasure hunts, internet humor, memoir, children’s books, and music-adjacent careers. The show also keeps its promotional machinery visible, making the listening experience feel closer to independent radio than polished studio programming.
A 30+year radio veteran, Mike interviews the most amazing in the world today from actors to singers to musicians to comedians to famous celebrities and upcoming talent and the most amazing people in the world today! Mike can also be heard weekends playing your favorites on KFYR! Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-mike-wagner-show--3140147/support.
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Mike Wagner turns creative-career interviews into practical conversations about process, publishing, promotion, and the work behind a finished project.
Mike Wagner favors practical follow-ups that let guests explain how creative work becomes a public career. Kira Hartley describes self-publishing, speaking to quilting guilds, and an unexpected reality-television contact; Bill Williams looks back on advertising and teaching news…
A $3 fabric scrap catches a TV producer's eye; Mike Wagner lets you follow the detour.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A practical writing-life chat about habits, fear, and the books shaping the discussion.
Mike Wagner's conversation with a guest circles around a simple but durable idea: a writer often has to start seeing themselves as a writer before the book is finished.
A loose, puzzle-minded chat that keeps the door open for another round.
The Mike Wagner Show keeps things light here, moving from a puzzle-minded book to the chance of another round without losing its easy, curious tone.
A measured conversation about attention, media teaching, and turning stamp material into classroom tools.
Williams turns a discussion of media work into a focused episode about attention, production habits, and public education. The opening contrast is useful: a 90-second advertising spot once had room to breathe, while Mike Wagner's question about whether that length could still…
A clear publishing discussion on hybrid deals, editing, and cover design decisions.
This episode works best as a practical look at where the labor and money sit when a book is being made. The guest is especially focused on hybrid publishers that ask authors to pay for production while also taking a share of sales revenue.
A relaxed, welcoming Mike Wagner Show entry works best as broad interview programming rather than a focused performer profile.
The Mike Wagner Show presents this episode as a broad, welcoming stop in its regular interview lineup. The tone is easygoing and guest-friendly, with Mike Wagner serving as a steady guide into the program's familiar conversational space.
A grounded discussion of change, fear, and the ordinary lives left to carry the consequences.
The episode works best when it keeps a novel about upheaval grounded in the people living through it. It traces the excitement around change, the fear within the white community, and the anxiety over possible reprisals, then narrows its attention to daily pressures: food on the…
A three-dollar Etsy fabric sale opens an unexpected path toward books, branding, and possible reality TV.
A three-dollar Etsy sale gives this episode a neat little spark. A scrap of angel-print fabric connects the guest with a California TV producer, eventually leading to a signed contract and help with social media and branding.
Funk history, straight from the players.
Mike Wagner interviews Kira Hartley, an author and vintage fabric expert from Jackson Center, Ohio.
Mike Wagner interviews Eleni Katrakilis, a former attorney turned novelist from South Africa now living in Atlanta.
Debbie Sue Goodman tells Mike Wagner how she moved from diary poems and the books 'Still Single' and 'Still Dating' into stand-up comedy and short films.
This episode features an interview with New York-born author Anne Hand about her memoir 'Austrian Again: Reclaiming a Lost Legacy' and her career in global education and social impact.
This episode features an interview with Bonnie Clevering, a renowned motion picture hairstylist with over five decades of experience working with Hollywood stars like Hilary Swank, Betty Davis, Brad Pitt, and Julia Roberts on films such as Hello Dolly, RoboCop, and Ocean's Eleven.
Mike Wagner interviews multi-talented Australian Evan Marks about his diverse career journey from electronic music producer to investment banker and his new book 'Vesper'.
Mike Wagner interviews Elene Catrakilis, a former attorney turned novelist from South Africa now living in Atlanta, about her book 'Under An African Sky' and her multicultural storytelling background.
This episode features an interview with Kira Hartley, an Ohio-based author, buyer, and seller of vintage fabrics who shares her multifaceted career and new book.
Mike Wagner brings on a guest who talks about how Atomic Habits by James Clear reshaped the way she thinks about goals and daily effort.
Mike Wagner sits down with a guest creator.
Mike Wagner talks with his guest about advertising, media work, and a career built around practical communication.
Michelle DiFilippo of 1106 Design says self-publishing works when the author keeps the ISBN, the distribution, and the sales revenue.
Terry Lawrence says he started keyboards at age 6, switched to guitar after the Beatles, and later played Vegas with Bill Medley while touring with Ike and Tina Turner.
Mike Wagner interviews Darren Ault, a New Jersey author and proud 1988 graduate of the US Naval Academy, about his book 'Out of Bounds'.
This episode features an interview with Orlando Pena of the Milwaukee soul and folk band The Midnight Purchase, discussing their formation in 2018, achievements including award nominations, and their music career.
This episode features an interview with legendary soul musician Andy Stokes, discussing his music including 'No Better', while also promoting caregiver resources and other show sponsors.
This episode features an interview with Jeremy Hrdlicka of The Brother Bicker Band discussing their Americana music and new track "Another Kind of Train".
Mike Wagner interviews Colorado author Larry O'Nan, who has over 50 years of professional business experience in fund development for Christian nonprofit organizations, discussing his new practical faith-based book on stewardship.