Everyone loves a good story—and I have dozens to share with you.
I think you’ll enjoy my new memoir, Broadcast Live: 71 true stories, including some I’d just as soon forget. This collection is not a summary of my life. Instead, it’s a tapestry of true tales: entertaining, thought-provoking, surprising, and yes, a few I might rather leave in the past. (You’ll know which ones those are.)
Broadcast Live was a quarterfinalist in the Publishers Weekly BookLife Prize for 2025 non-fiction, praised for its “balance of the lighthearted with the profound, springing from prosaic childhood experiences to perceptive adult reflections.” IndieReader called it “a testament to the skill and warmth of a lifelong storyteller, pairing slice-of-life moments with significant historical events.”
I invite you to discover these stories—and if you enjoy the journey, please consider sharing your thoughts with a review on Amazon, Goodreads, or any other site where books are celebrated. Your feedback helps stories find new readers and keeps the conversation going.
Steve Vogel
With a B.A. from Illinois Wesleyan University and a master’s degree from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Steve Vogel built a career that spanned print and broadcast news, radio programming, corporate communications and newspaper column writing. His work has appeared in publications ranging from The Congressional Record to Corvette Magazine. A speech he wrote was judged by American Speaker magazine to be the best business speech of 2005.
Reasonable Doubt
True Crime Classic
The New York Times best-seller has been updated with additional content and photos. Reasonable Doubt, the true story of a mother and her three children found hacked to death in their beds in their Bloomington, Illinois home, is testament to the fact truth is stranger than fiction. The book about David Hendricks, a successful businessman and devoted member of a fundamentalist religious group who was accused of murdering his wife and children, has also been used in college-level criminal justice courses to explain and illustrate the legal concept of reasonable doubt.
The Unforgiven
The untold story of one woman’s search for truth and justice
It’s a case reminiscent of the explosive story of Susan Smith, convicted in the drownings of her two young sons in South Carolina. But in The Unforgiven, three young children are in the back seat of a car driven by Amanda Hamm’s boyfriend as it slips into an Illinois lake. Amanda and her boyfriend survive. Her three children do not.
