Featured Interview With Matthew Paris

Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I was born and raised in Houston, Texas. Growing up, I never really thought too much about writing. I come from a sports family. I played football and ran track in high school. English was my favorite subject and I did well in it. However, I didn't realize that I might have a talent in this before my sophomore year in high school. I was sitting in English class and my teacher put this A paper on my desk. she said, Matt, I think this is a talent and you should explore this. I thanked her, but I didn't really get serious about writing until I went to Texas Tech University.

After I graduated college I went to Austin for 15 years. While in Austin I wrote several short films that won accolades at festivals and was distributed over the United States, Europe, Middle East, and Africa. Since, I have a background in sports I contributed articles to The Sports Column and wrote four books. My latest book is "The Passing of Time". I recently, moved back to Houston to be closer to the family.

I don't have any pets at the moment, but I grew up with three dogs in the house and I miss them.

At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I've always been into stories at an early age. As far back as I could remember. My favorite authors are Stephen King, Richard Matheson, and Chuck Palahniuk. In college, I took a British Literature class where we read "Frankenstein", and "Bram Stoker's Dracula". Those are interesting stories to study, but I also like a sports books. "Friday Night Lights" by H.G. Bissinger is the ultimate book of high school football.

I've been writing my whole life. But, I didn't get serious about it until college.

Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
I like Stephen King, Richard Matheson, and Chuck Palahniuk. My favorite book is "I am Legend" by Richard Matheson. Matheson is an interesting writer because he did a little of everything and every form. Matheson also wrote episodes of the original "Star Trek". However, in "I am Legend" he really captured the loneliness of the main character, Robert Neville. How do you live with none around? No love ones? The book goes into fine detail with that.

I like thrillers, but I also like inspirational stories. A lot of sports books focus on that. It really depends what I'm in the mood for. John Grisham is another fine author who's work I admire.

Tell us a little about your latest book?
My latest book is called, "The Passing of Time". It's much more of an inspirational, motivating, and spiritual book. The book focuses on problems that one may need to handle in a positive manner. I have written a bunch of little short stories in each chapter with a problem and how to solve it, positively. Readers who have read it seem to really love it. There's one reader that told me the book made her cry.

The book took me about three months to write. With each book, the writing process becomes quicker. When you have it mapped out in the mind or on paper. The biggest thing is to sit and do it. Always keep writing.

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Featured Interview With Gail Daley

Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
A writer of Fantasy and Science Fiction stories, Gail has received high praise for her beautifully interlaced, imaginative worlds. She populates her universes with vital and interesting characters, skillfully intertwining their everyday lives with world changing events.
An omnivorous reader, she was inspired by her son, also a writer, to finish some of the incomplete novels she had begun over the years. She is heavily involved in local art groups and fills her time reading, writing, painting in acrylics, and spending time with her husband of 46 plus years.
Gail has a background in business and used this expertise to develop a series of pamphlets (lumped together under the title “The Modern Artist’s Handbook) advising artists and authors about how to improve their bottom line by applying business practices to the development and sale of their work.
Currently her family is owned by two cats, a mischievous young cat called Mab (after the fairy queen of air and darkness) and a mellow Gray Princess named Moonstone. In the past, the family shared their home with many dogs, cats, and a Guinea Pig, all of whom have passed over the rainbow bridge. A recent major surgery on her stomach, a bout with breast cancer, and arthritis in her hands have slowed her down a little, but she continues to write and paint.

At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I think I was about three when I became fascinated by books. I started writing in middle school.

Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
My current favorite authors are: Jayne Ann Krenz, Anne McCaffrey and Nora Roberts in sci-fi, Andre Norton in Fantasy, PNR: Amanda M Lee Western: Louis L'Amour and Zane Grey. This list is subject to change at any time.

Tell us a little about your latest book?
My next release is book 2 in my Outlawed Colony Series. It's called The Heirs of Avalon. The theft Top Secret technology is the catalyst for a lab tech's murder and plunges two couples into a web of criminal activity on the colony of Barsoom, a hybrid of advanced technology and Renaissance Culture.
Returning home to Barsoom after a successful mission to earth, Randal brings an unexpected dividend with him: A data crystal with the formula for finding earth-type planets. When the data crystal is stolen and a lab tech murdered during the break-in, his father and his fiancée's father come under suspicion. It's up to him, his fiancée Judith, and some new friends to clear their fathers of murder and find and retrieve the stolen crystal before it falls into the wrong hands.
Devon Morton and Tash Higgens came to Barsoom to help set up new programming for the colony's Portal to Laughing Mountain and the other Outlawed Colonies. When an important data crystal is stolen from a lab owned by Randal's father, they join forces with Randal and Judith to clear their fathers' names and recover the stolen technology.
The name Barsoom which is used as the name of a colony in these books, BARSOOM(R) is a registered trademark of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. And Used by Permission.

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Gail Daley’s Website

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Featured Interview With John James Minster

Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
John James Minster was born in Norristown, Pennsylvania. He commenced a successful international business career since the 1980s in the technology sector, all the while publishing horror short stories in major magazines and horror anthologies since 1990. In July, 2018, his first middle-grade full-length horror novel, Dreamjacker, which met with five-star reader reviews, was born of nightmares.
As a child he walked in his sleep; his parents found him at the top of the stairs about to leap down, dreaming that he could fly. Every night since childhood he still talks and punches walls in his sleep during nightmares, which he describes as "Nightly mini horror movies. Terror is feeling dread at the possibility of something frightening; horror is the shock and repulsion of seeing the thing: hello! This is my head every single night of my life—so no writer's block on the horizon or chance that I’ll run out of stories.”

At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
By age, 1971, I was well-read. I read everything I could find. The entire World Book Encyclopedia. Every Hardy Boys novel. I once read the entire dictionary. As a young teen hungry for fiction especially horror and sci-fi, I jumped straight into Poe, H.P. Lovecraft, Mary Shelley, Jules Verne, Jerzy Kosiński, Geoffrey Chaucer, William Golding, Jonathan Swift, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, Stephen King…it’s a very long list. I also read everything my parents had on shelves: Reader’s Digest compilations and such. Today, I rarely miss anything by Nelson DeMille, Lawrence Block, or Lee Child. I read at least one hundred books a year.

A major magazine publishes twelve lead fiction stories per year; in 1990, they bought three of those from me, my first time getting paid for writing. Then tech business took up all my time, though I published (unpaid) pieces in various print and online newspapers and such; also creative writing every day for business. Not until 2018 did I decide to start writing books.

Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
99% of what I read is horror, true for fifty years. Edgar Allan Poe. Best writer ever. Brilliant, disciplined, gifted mind. Whenever in Baltimore, I go touch his grave and have a little talk with him. Brother from another mother, he is. Don’t ever think that dark horror stories come from dark horrible people. His life indeed was dark and yet his was a loving, sweet, and tender heart. I love the man.

Today, best of all I think is probably Neil Gaiman. The man can turn a phrase like nobody else. I would describe many of his sentences as ‘delicious’ with an almost musical quality. Like most writers I love to read and buy just about everything published. Erin Morgenstern nailed it with her debut novel, Night Circus. J.K. Rowling’s Potter books are labeled Kid’s Lit, but no, they are simply excellent literature for the ages. Of those active in my lifetime: Stephen King, Clive Barker, Cormac McCarthy, Anne Rice, F. Paul Wilson, Isaac Asimov, Lawrence Block, Mario Puzo, Nelson DeMille…I love their product and always learn a little something from each. And who doesn’t love Lee Child’s Jack Reacher books?

Tell us a little about your latest book?
Adult horror novel, The Undertaker's Daughter, is due to hit bookstores in about a month, from publisher Hellbender Books. Anna Dingel, raised in the family funeral home, turns eighteen. Israeli archaeologists unearth an ancient stone fragment; on it, a name missing for millennia. Anna’s best friend Naomi uses it to piece together old Jewish magic. The exceedingly creepy, supernatural, violent eldritch power the two friends unleash takes dark and unexpected turns. Children learn about love, forgiveness, consequences—and never to play with dead things.

I decided to write a story about a golem, something I've wanted to do for a long while. Deep research turned up a treasure-trove of fascinating Old Testament magic. When I sat before a formatted Word .doc on my screen, the entire story (characters, plot) came to me in under a minute. The author job involved writing down the 'movie scenes' in my head, which sometimes come from nocturnal nightmares but in this case a powerful, detailed daydream. It took about 100 hours to get it down, polish it up and make it submission-ready.

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John James Minster’s Website

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