Featured Interview With Rusty Blackwood

Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I was born in St. Thomas Ontario, Canada on October 5, 1949, and had the pleasure of growing up on my paternal grandfather’s farm in southwestern Ontario. Looking back, I was truly blessed to have been given the life I led there, where I could run to my heart’s content, share friendship with assorted animals, and really be in touch with nature. I am Mom as well as friend to two wonderful sons, grandmother to three beautiful granddaughters, one handsome grandson, and one dear great grandson. I have always loved the Arts in their many unique forms, and graduated with two diplomas in Interior Decorating & Design. I love music, and spent many years spent on the south-western Ontario stage performing with my family’s country music band, ‘The Midnight Ramblers’, and the country – rock – blues band, ‘MIRAGE’ as an accomplished vocalist, bassist, and rhythm guitarist. I still enjoy music, and I miss that life, but I still perform occasionally to help keep my skills intact. I now live in St. Catharines, Ontario, and besides writing, I enjoy art, gardening, nature walks, horses, and spending quality time with family, friends, and my loyal cat, Tipper.

At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I would say my love of writing began around eight or nine, while I was in elementary school, and I attribute my passion for it to my late father James Beecroft, who taught me colour and texture in everything around me, and the late Gladys Carroll, my elementary teacher who taught me the love of written word and saw my ability to create unique stories during composition time in class, however, I didn’t follow that love of writing as a career for it was unfortunately not an offered career for women in the early sixties, so I’m unprofessionally trained in the field of writing, but I have always had an affinity for the written word and God-given gift to express it, which I have done many times since becoming a serious writer in 2001. I love to express myself in four genres, poetry, children’s short stories, adult comedy, and romantic fiction drama, my favorite genre and the one for which I am best known.

Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
It greatly depends on the mood I’m in, but I have different authors whose work I enjoy. I don’t read as often as I should, as I will not read someone else’s work when I am writing a manuscript of my own. But when I do, I very much enjoy local author’s in my area as I am a firm believer in supporting local talent. My favorite author in my area is Niagara romance novelist, Gina IaFrate, whose incredible work takes you to exotic settings around the world, and whose work can be found on Amazon. If I were to name my favorite genre it would be expressive romantic fiction drama. I suppose because it my favorite genre to write. I have also enjoyed the work of Stephen King – I find it interesting how he can always get inside a reader’s head – and I have always enjoyed the classics. I don’t take inspiration from other authors, but instead from nature, and my own imagination.

Tell us a little about your latest book?
I am truly excited about my latest novel, ‘The Perils of Autumn’, published by Tellwell Talent, a Readers Favorite 5-star awarded novel, and now a 2019 International Book Awards Finalist in romance, as it combines a few of my favorite topics, my favorite being horses and stable life, especially English discipline. I have always admired nurses and all they do, as well as single mother’s whom for whatever the reason, endure incredible hardship to stand by their child, and endure whatever they must to give their child the best they can.

In ‘The Perils of Autumn’, I combine all three of these subjects, and they certainly continued to inspire me throughout their interactions within the book, which in turn has inspired me to continue the story in the coming, ‘Return to Autumn’. I think there’s nothing more rewarding than to create a piece from something that you greatly admire, or have an affinity to, and have it become something that makes you extremely proud.

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Featured Interview With Jen Paul

Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
My name is Jen Paul. I’m a British journalist and writer and I live in the south of France with my little dog Nucky. I grew up in Somerset in the United Kingdom but moved to France 20 years ago. I live near the sea and it calms my soul..

At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I have always loved books since I was a very small kid. I remember reading Enid Blyton’s Magic Faraway Trees under the covers with a torch when I was supposed to be asleep. I’ve written since a very young age too, words are magical.

Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
I love memoirs and biographies; there really is nothing stranger than the truth! There’s so many I love, but if I had to pick one then it would be F Scott Fitzgerald’s Tender is the Night which was set near to where I live now actually.

Tell us a little about your latest book?
I’ve written the first in a series. It’s called The Girl Lost At Sea It’s a novella so a fairly swift read. I’ve set it in Nice in France, years ago, before the history books really began, the people I’m writing about are a very early version of the Celts. It’s girl meets boy but with a twist: She’s battling serious trauma and I wanted to explore undiagnosed mental illness through a fictional setting, maybe even raise awareness. We’ll follow the same characters through a couple more novellas, the second of which I am writing at the moment. I’ve fallen in love with these people and I hope everyone else does too!

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Featured Interview With Paris Edmond

Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
VCP (Paris Edmond), is a mail carrier for the United States Postal Service in Westchester County, New York. I spend most of time playing sports, especially handball, and writing realistic fiction. I’m an avid moviegoer (action, adventure, horror) and I travel domestically throughout the year. I was born in Brooklyn, New York, and currently resides in the Bronx. I have written 9 books, but only published one of them so far.

At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
Both happened when I was around the age of twelve. While reading certain books like Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, I would envision myself playing the role of the main character. From there, I would create situations such as “What if this happened instead of that?” That helped me build my own personal story lines and concepts.

Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
I like action, adventure, horror, and thriller books. I’m into fight scenes, explosions, and guns blazing while also exploring different areas, worlds, and realms. I don’t have a favorite author in particular because I feel that each book I’ve read has either gave me wisdom and knowledge, or entertained me. The protagonists in my books inspire me to keep writing, mainly because I personally want to see what happens to them from beginning to end.

Tell us a little about your latest book?
Knights of Labor is great introduction to the series in my honest opinion. It introduces one of the main leaders of the organization. I wrote this close to ten years ago, and it took me one month to write this 412 page book.
** An interesting fact, I actually wrote this and the second book simultaneously.
This book follows two sisters. Janelle is one of the main leaders of Knights of Labor. Alexa is an affiliate of the notorious gang known as Tailores. They unite in the nation’s capital, DC to take down the Sway Society. Little do they know, the Sway Society has a hired gun who has an agenda of his own.

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Paris Edmond’s Website

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Featured Interview With Jason Heiber

Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
My name is Jason, I am the founder of Digital Marketing NYC, and I would describe myself as half successful, half a failure, half smart, and half not so much, half rich and half broke. Well, doesn’t that leave me in the no man’s land of mediocrity, you might ask?
But I associate with all my many halves, and all the self-made and self-destructed in between, and can speak from many different places of experience. I am half Swiss and half Greek, so perhaps my DNA is accountable for being a hybrid of contradictions!

I’ve traveled the world quite extensively, I have built companies in Hong Kong, Germany, and New York, and have dabbled in a variety of fields, from trading, import/export, design, advertising, product development, production in the US and overseas, branding, community building, and not-for-profit work.

I am a big fan of Roger Federer and beat myself up for not pursuing tennis when I was young, given the fact that I am his age and we grew up in the same small town, and I am pretty merciless at anything I put my mind to. I chose fencing instead, accomplishing bronze in the World Cup of 2000—despite being admittedly half-assed, lazy, and wasteful. I confess that, not with arrogance, but with a profound awareness of what I might have accomplished had I approached it all with a little less youthful lackluster, which has now cultivated in me a zero tolerance of waste—of time, of talent, and above all, opportunity.

I love to cook, ambitiously and with complications. I’m never not reading, not questioning, and not researching. I focus on maximizing all the time I have right here and right now, and do so with a dry—but unlimited—sense of humor.

It is now my contradictory laziness and wastelessness that will keep my books short but concise. I need you to get the absolute maximum out of every energy cell expended, without sacrificing a drop of senseless effort. That is my ethos.

I even out on a very Swiss pragmatic middle ground, where tech boredom is ignited by a playful creativity, working outside the box whilst being resolutely goal- and result-oriented.

At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I have always loved to read, but with personal hardships the last couple of months I found peace in writing, it felt very cathartic. Plus I am a firm believer that books and the written word sustain moments forever. Reading books had an impact on me, so I am eager to be part of this community that can inspire others.

Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
My favorite writer is someone that is not yet published, so perhaps I will come back when that is the case. I currently read mainly business books and books that inspire me and the most inspiring and humbling book I have ever read is Nelson Mandela’s autobiography “A Long Walk To Freedom”. I wish that was mandatory for every human to read, as it teaches the reader very important life lessons.

Tell us a little about your latest book?
My latest book “Instagram Stories” sounds very mundane on the first look.
It’s a book on how to use Instagram Stories and that is what you will get, but there is an underlying message running throughout, laced between every line, encrypted in the contents, and subliminally suggested throughout. This is a book on Instagram Stories. If you want it to be. It’s also a book on everything else.

I open by initially talking about your time and your use of it. I don’t need to guilt you into confession or bully you into retrospection, but I wouldn’t be me, and I wouldn’t be operating out of a damn thing that I stand for, if I didn’t attempt to light a fire under your ass and help you see just exactly the realm that you are living in. It’s my job to illuminate the potential that, in this case, quite literally lies in your palm—in a three-by-six format—the opportunity that you alone stand the chance of robbing yourself of, and to give you a polite electric jolt of perspective. A swift but precise wakeup call of the very meaning of life, and what you stand to risk by not stepping up, leveling up, and superseding every fucking expectation you ever dared to dream too small. Excuse my Swiss German.

In the grand scheme of human perspective, the odds of you being alive in this very window of time are four trillion to one. FOUR. TRILLION. TO. ONE. Whether you believe in multiple lives, re-incarnation, heaven and hell, or a bleak atheist black hole at the end of a blip spent on earth—I really couldn’t care less—but you, the living, breathing, reading you, right here, right now, on this earth for an oh so sacred, oh so fleeting, what? Ninety at best? Years… You have landed in the strangest, fastest evolving, multi-faceted, universal and accessible window of time, EVER IN THE HISTORY OF MANKIND. Soak that the f up. Sorry. Again.

The digital, artificially intelligent, rampant, scaling creature that we are creating, is incomparable to anything that we have ever seen. We, us brilliant human beings, have quite possibly created the biggest threat to our very existence. We are plugged in and ever connected, and more switched off and disconnected than ever before. We are saturated and over stimulated, titillated and complicated, overwhelmed and ever hungry, but we lay right here in the land of opportunity, with the most at play, and the most at stake, than ever before. Never, ever, in any of your ancestors’ history, has the entire world been so readily accessible, and so easily reachable. Never have we ever had so much information, so many resources, and so many platforms to be seen, to be heard, and to reach out and meet like-minds and kindred spirits, as we do right here in this remarkable window of time. Muse on that, and then soak in the reality that some still dare to spend their time in quicksand time-sucks, on vapid TV, pointless social media, and vain free falls of validation. I am not blaming or shaming anyone, but I saved this for the end of the book for a reason—you already know you are hungry for more and that’s how you have made your way all the way here.

Do not get sucked into a digital world that robs you of your time and takes advantage of you… as it does with the majority of humanity in this very moment. Turn the tables and take advantage of this bizarre and unique opportunity at your fingertips, and dare to buy back a time and a freedom that you didn’t even know the meaning of before.

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Jason Heiber’s Website

Featured Interview With Brian Keller

Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I was born in the Upper Midwestern US. I was an only child which, on a farm in the 70’s, simply meant that I had no siblings with whom to share the chores. During those formative years I learned the value of a strong work ethic, for which I will always be grateful.
Now, I am a blissfully happily married, retired soldier. My wife is a very patient, understanding woman (she has to be). She makes me want to be better than I am, but she loves me for the man I am.
We now live on 70 acres in NE Arkansas. I promised that after 20 years of globe-hopping and a multitude of overseas deployments, I’d bring her somewhere closer to family, and slow our lives down. We truly feel we are reaping the rewards of a demanding life.
We now look after dozens of chicken, a few pigs and an uprooted town cat named Jasper. Within the next couple of years we’ll be adding a few cattle and goats, but don’t tell the deer. They think the pasture will always remain un-fenced.

At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
As soon as I learned to read, it was more often than not that I could be found with my head over an open book. I was an active “outside kid”, but also learned that books could take me places I might never otherwise see. Through my teens I fiddled around with some short stories and even a few poems, but these are better left unread (if they were even kept at all). It wasn’t until last year that *someone* tossed down the proverbial gauntlet, inspiring me to write. So whether or not you enjoy what I’ve written, you have my wife to thank for that.

Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
Throughout my life I’ve read so many books it’s sometimes difficult to name favorites, but certainly there are those that stand out above all others. Alexandre Dumas would be at the top. The Count of Monte Cristo is a timeless classic that has resonated for me throughout my life. No library of mine could ever be complete without a copy somewhere on the shelves. I feel almost as strongly about Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables. Near the other end of the spectrum, few talespinners are as entertaining as Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens). There are so many others, it would be an insurmountable task to name them all.
As much as I enjoy reading, it was my wife who finally inspired me to write. As a soldier, working outside during a cold, wet winter day is ‘just another day’. Now as a retired individual, I tend to look at those conditions differently. Last year, when the weather turned unpleasant, I assumed a once-familiar pose above an opened book. This time, however, I wasn’t swept away by the words. Instead I felt like I was being pulled (against my will) up and down a predictable series of meticulously planned peaks and troughs. It felt like the same experience no matter which book I opened. I voiced my frustrated thoughts to my wife who simply replied, in exasperation after hearing the same comment for the 6th time (Ok, maybe it was the 20th), “If that’s the case then why don’t you write something yourself?” I remember thinking that was a fine way to say, “Put up or shut up” but wisely kept *that* observation to myself. Still, the notion stuck with me and I began to form a tale. But first I needed to carefully craft the center point of the plot, and then there was the matter of building an entire world around it.

Tell us a little about your latest book?
The reward from these imaginings is the beginnings of The Kinsman series. It is a Low Fantasy, dark protagonist story that follows the life of Cooper, an orphaned boy. In the series, Cooper learns the skills needed to become an accomplished Assassin, and despite his best efforts his friends and mentors also (unintentionally) teach him what it means to be human. What begins as a tale of revenge, grows into a life-long pursuit for excellence. Magic does exist, but while it isn’t a focal point it does provide some unique sub-plots that add some incredible depth. There’s no “Hero saving the world” and “Mankind’s fate (never) hangs in the balance”, yet I believe the world and the characters will draw you in and make you feel included, rather than merely pulling you along as an observer, as their experiences unfold.

The inspiration for the book started months before I ever sat down to write, but when things finally coalesced and I began sketching things out, it all resulted in a story that (I hope) encourages the reader to suspend their disbelief as it carries them into a world that feels familiar, yet completely new. Once I began writing, I threw myself into the task with almost single-minded fervor. Cooper had my almost-undivided attention. He revealed his tale quickly and it took only 5 months to write, edit, contract for a cover design, re-edit, proofread, send to beta readers, receive feedback, re-edit (again), and publish. Once published, I breathed a sigh of relief. It isn’t easy to be a stenographer and editor for a precocious 9 year old assassin-in-training; though if you get the opportunity to try it, I heartily recommend it. While it is a book series *about* kids, I wouldn’t say they’re books *for* kids. There’s no sexual content, but there are certainly other situations that might a bit dark, but then again what would one expect from a book about Assassins and revenge?

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