Featured Interview With Kizzi Roberts

Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I grew up in a small town in Southern Missouri where I raised goats and cattle and showed animals at the county fair. My love of animals led me to study animal science and after college, I ran away with the circus. I joined Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey circus as a veterinary technician and spent two years traveling the country and Mexico. I lived in an RV with my dog and took care of elephants, tigers, camels, horses, and more! It was an amazing experience, but also made me miss home. After the circus, I settled back in my hometown which ultimately led me to meet my future husband. I now live just outside Springfield, Missouri with my husband, our two small children, and our dog. I recently got into beekeeping and I’m looking forward to the day I can have a couple reindeer and maybe a Norwegian Fjord too.

At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I have loved reading for as long as I can remember. I still have all the books I read as a kid and that includes the complete Animorphs series as well as tons of Boxcar Children, Babysitter’s Club and shelves and shelves of other books. I absolutely loved checking out books from the library as a kid, and my fascination with libraries continues today. My love for writing is also something I’ve had for as long as I can remember. I still have stories I wrote in elementary school. When I was in middle school, my English teacher had a big impact. She was so encouraging of my writing and made me think I could be an author someday. I got away from writing as I got older, but it was always something I dreamed about. While working at the circus, I decided I wanted to get serious about writing. I started taking online writing courses and became involved with SCBWI in 2014.

Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
I love to read fantasy books and my favorite book ever is Sabriel by Garth Nix. In my writing, I’m probably most influenced by books I read as a child (Animorphs, The Island Stallion, Island of the Blue Dolphins), although I continue to read a wide range of books today. I really enjoy middle grade books especially if they are science fiction or fantasy.

Tell us a little about your latest book?
I’ve released a couple books recently. I’ve been working on a new nonfiction picture book series called Animal Clues Guess Who and I’m having a lot of fun with that. The latest release in that series is called Farm Animals and I teamed up with a local farm (Gooseberry Bridge Farm) to take pictures of their animals for the book. These books are basically animal guessing game books with facts about different animals and closeup pictures on one spread and then you turn the page to see the full picture of the animal plus more fun facts. My idea for this series came about while reading books to my toddler. We both enjoyed the guessing game style of books, but I wanted a book with more facts about the animals so I decided to write it. So far I’ve published Farm Animals, Forest Animals and Polar Animals.

My other book that came out recently is the second book in my Critter Camp Kids chapter book series. It’s called Kinsley and the Curious Corn Snake and includes all sorts of summer camp adventures plus lots and lots of animal facts. The series focuses on four girls attending an animal summer camp and they experience lots of problems along the way as well as a lot of fun. I teamed up with illustrator Stephen Gilpin for this series and he is incredible. It was amazing seeing him bring my characters to life.

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Kizzi Roberts’s Website

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Featured Interview With Amere Dozier

Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I talked about how I was raised last time we spoke. As of now I live in North Carolina. I do have a dog she’s 2 years old. Haha last time we spoke I didn’t have a dog.

At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
In elementary school. I would always write stories and read them to the class.

Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
Jaquavis Coleman and Kwan Foye are my top two favorite. I like urban ficition and some non fiction work. The entire Bluford series inspires my writing.

Tell us a little about your latest book?
Love’s Pricetag was about the pros and cons of love. My new book that is coming out in December is highlighting addiction, sexual abuse, and violence in the urban community.

Featured Interview With William Matthies

Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I live in San Clemente California, raised close by in Long Beach California. Great time to grow up there in the ’60’s. Coulda/shoulda paid more time to school, less time to surfing, but, looking back, no real regrets.

Although I have been back many time since, I managed to get myself banished for life from Catalina Island, aged 13. You can learn more about that at https://medium.com/@coyotewm/my-first-arrest-32d1a840d7b0 if you like.

Three years in the army including 1968 in Vietnam with the First Cavalry Division, I came home, went back to college, graduated with BA’s in Economics and Business Administration, an MBA soon after.

I’ve been a successful entrepreneur in companies of my own (we won’t talk about the ones I started that failed.) I’ve owned more guitars than I can recall, and after more than 50 years of trying, have managed to play today as those I just started.

At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
My interest in books started for the wrong reasons. After college, I joined the Book of the Month Club, buying books fairly often. I did read most, but my primary interest was in people seeing I owned them, hopefully thinking because I did, I must be smart. That really didn’t work out, so I paid more attention to the reading, developing a habit of doing so every night, I’ve continued to this day.

Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
Jack Kerouac, Hemingway, too many non fiction authors to recall and mention here. Who inspires me? Probably Kerouac’s “On the Road”. I’ve read it many times since the first time, and always feel as though I’m on the road with him.

Tell us a little about your latest book?
The Unlived Lives of Raymond Quinn. The following is the synopsis I used while searching (unsuccessfully) for an agent.

The backstory is, I and three of my friends from high school all ended up in B Battery, 2nd Battalion, 19th Airborne Artillery, 1st Cavalry Division in Vietnam. We arrived December 7, 1967, Steve, my best friend of the bunch, was killed in action six months to the day we arrived, June 6, 1968. My book is dedicated to his memory.

Raymond (Ray) Quinn believes himself to be a middle-aged single man living in downtown Seattle, Washington state, US. Having accepted a buyout offer when the company he worked for was sold, he no longer needs to work. As a result, he has little to do. He is unhappy without knowing why. There is no one in his life, he has no hobbies or activities to occupy his time. His daily routine amounts to little more than going for morning coffee at Starbucks across the street from his condominium and Pike Market.

On the advice of a Starbucks barista, Ray decides to visit Other Worlds Coffee shop near the Seattle docks, where, the barista tells Ray, he will meet interesting people in an environment he will enjoy. Unable to find it on his own, he is approached by an Asian man who offers to take him there. Ray agrees to follow him, beginning a relationship between the two unlike any Ray ever could have expected. Soon after they meet, the Asian man tells Ray he has been dead for 46 years, KIA in the Vietnam war.

“Asian”, as Ray soon thinks of him, explains that he is one of very few individuals caught in a parallel universe between his actual life and death. If he wishes to learn why this has happened to him, if he wants to resolve this dilemma, he must visit alternative lives he might have lived had he made different choices prior to his death. Incredulous at what Asian tells him, Ray, nonetheless, agrees to do as he says.

The lives he visits take place in the US, Antigua, Germany, Switzerland, France, Vietnam, and Rhodesia, at different times, under different circumstances. The one he lived, and some of those he would have lived had he made different choices.

He interacts with people as a young man just graduated from high school. In another, as a college graduate who chose to move to Europe rather than remain in the US, possibly drafted and sent to Vietnam. He meets women he is attracted to, marries one and fathers children. He is forced to recall his violent death in Vietnam as a soldier. After each alternative life, he finds himself back with Asian in Other Worlds, never sure what was real, what was not.

Asian guides him through the process of discovery, always giving him the opportunity to return to what he thought was his real life as an adult in Seattle. Rejecting that, he must choose the one person in the one life he would most like to have lived to be with now.

He chooses Shelly, originally from Rhodesia, who he first meets in Antigua when both are in their late teens. And later, in another life in Vietnam, after the war. Both sense something strange about themselves and each other as a couple. Something that has drawn them together. The final chapters lead them through their discovery of exactly what that is.

Everyone has countless unlived lives, this is Raymond’s story. How different would the life you lead be had you made different choices?

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William Matthies’s Website

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Featured Interview With Vera Persiyanova

Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I haven’t always been a writer. In fact, I’m an artist. But I wasn’t always an artist either. It’s quite a long story, but I’ll try to keep it brief.
I was born in a country that no longer exists, and for the past 10 years, I’ve been living in the Kingdom of Wonder. This isn’t a joke. I was born in the Soviet Union, in Siberia, and now I live in Cambodia, also known as the Kingdom of Wonder.
I spent the first half of my life dedicated to medicine. After graduating from medical school, I worked as a doctor in a small Siberian village. The nearest district center was 65 kilometers away – not very far by Siberian standards, but sometimes in winter, during blizzards when everything was buried in snow, this distance became absolutely impassable.
Then I returned to the city and entered graduate school, and the next 14 years of my life were devoted to science. I completed my Ph.D., though I won’t mention the title to avoid scaring you with microbiological terms. This part of my life gave me a specific view of the world – the perspective of a scientist and logician.
But as I approached 50, I radically changed my life. I moved to Cambodia and picked up a paintbrush, and that’s where I became an artist. This passion led me around the world, and now my paintings can be found in 20 countries.
Currently, I live in a small provincial town called Kampot, but it’s not my first city in Cambodia. The first was Sihanoukville, a city named after a king, but that’s another story.

At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
Recently, after turning 55, I’ve been captivated by a new passion – writing. My life has accumulated so many incredible events, coincidences, travels, and encounters that I wanted to share them.
Currently, I have two book series, both unfinished. But I’m determined to complete them.
The first is about my journey as an artist, my travels, encounters, and paintings. At the moment, there are three books in this series, with a fourth one planned.
The second series is science fiction and adventure. So far, only the first book in this series has been published, and I’m working on the second. The third one exists too, but only in my mind for now.
What surprised me recently while editing the second book was the realization that it incorporates Kant’s philosophical paradigm of the “thing-in-itself” and some references to Schopenhauer’s “On the Basis of Morality.” These elements are naturally woven into the plot. I used to be seriously interested in philosophy, but I never consciously intended to include it in the book. It happened subtly and organically. Well, I suppose that’s how it’s meant to be.

Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
Ah, here too, it turns out to be a strange cocktail with very different ingredients, but for me, it leaves a long, deep aftertaste, a sense of the beauty of the world and humanity.
The good old fantasy classic – Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings” saga literally consumed me in its time. I don’t know if I’ll reread it, but it left something grand, unusual, warm, and heroic in my memory.
Erich Maria Remarque also made an indelible impression on me in his time.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry – definitely. But not so much “The Little Prince,” although that fairy tale is wonderful in itself. Rather, “Wind, Sand and Stars” and “Night Flight.” The author was a pilot himself, and he opens up a world from above for the reader, where there are no unnecessary details, and everything comes together in a fascinating picture.
And lastly, I’ll mention “Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality” by Eliezer S. Yudkowsky. At first glance, it’s just fanfiction. But since it was written not by a writer, but by a scientist who was at the forefront of AI, it turned out to be an absolutely amazing work. This book is not for children, unlike the original. You can reread it several times, and each time something new is revealed.
So, my favorite genres now are good science fiction with scientific and philosophical accents, and, oddly enough, adventures and detective stories. But as a writer, I’m still afraid to tackle detective stories, because I believe it’s a special genre where everything must be built perfectly – the mystery, the structure, and the solution. What’s even more surprising is that my former scientific supervisor, a Doctor of Medical Sciences, writes detective stories.

Tell us a little about your latest book?
My latest published book is “Insomnia: Strange Faces and Lost Dreams.” I’m not sure if I can call it a full-fledged book; it’s more like an expanded chapter from the previous book, “Fate and Art: Bridging Time.” I wouldn’t say it was inspired, per se. After all, insomnia doesn’t just steal sleep, but dreams too… it changes one’s personality, and that’s dangerous, not just in a medical sense. This book is more about how insomnia is so exhausting and interferes with living a full life that I decided to write about it, to share my thoughts, feelings, and… paintings. Paintings that were brought to life by insomnia itself, attempts to live through, understand this state, and do something with it.
So, this book also came about on its own, as, in fact, does much of what I do.

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Vera Persiyanova Facebook Page

Featured Interview With Sabinah Adewole

Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
Sabinah Adewole is a bestselling author. She has enjoyed reading from an early age. She studied English and her poetry has been formed from her own experiences as chronicled in her “Journeys of Life” which has inspired many readers across the globe.
This book is her fifth Children’s book focusing on -Identity, Values, Unique, Race and Self belief
The poems in this series (Vol 2) were created in the United Kingdom on the authors’ journey to a shopping mall with her daughter during the easing of lockdown restrictions during the Covid Pandemic. It was an opportunity for children to enjoy a day out with their families during the summer break. This experience brought back childhood memories for both the author and her daughter, and which is shown through the eyes of the children in the shopping

At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
From a very young age I enjoyed reading comics and children books 📚
At secondary school I enjoyed literature and studied English . I started writing in 2019 from. a park bench.

Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
Maya Angelou
Chinua Achebe
Shakespeare
George Orwell

Tell us a little about your latest book?
Identity, Values, Uniqueness

The Inspiration behind the book – Belief in your self

We are all individuals and our unique qualities are demonstrated in this inspiring book!

The Author was inspired to write about Children enjoying a day in the shopping mall with their family or foster parent showcasing each unique quality in each child in the mall.

She highlights each unique relationship a child has with their parent; exposes grey spots like disability, a father having to change a daughter, a father caring for a baby in the food court, a single parent with four young children, a black mum with a white son, a black dad with a mixed-race son
A foster parent and her children, the boy with dread locks and his mum, the Arabic girl with her parents, the Somalian boy.

As a British born she portrays her background in her writing and also gives children the opportunity to be proud of who they are and accept difference and diversity. We are a diverse world, and we need to show case the different gaps in our society.

The names are of no representation and she applies the names of children that the children would identify with in their communities: as this would help to broaden their mindset and think about their unique qualities.

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Sabinah Adewole’s Website

Sabinah Adewole Facebook Page

Sabinah Adewole Twitter Account

Featured Interview With Jeff Kerr

Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I was born in St. Louis and still love that city’s gooey butter cake. Raised in Texas, I’ve lived in Austin for over 30 years. I spend as much time as I can on a slice of Texas Hill Country land in Blanco County. My wife of 45 years has stuck with me through thick and thin. We are the proud parents of two adult children. My dog Maggie is very cute, which is lucky for her given the pee stains I’ve had to scrub from the carpet. She lives for tummy rubs. I live for writing.

At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I’ve always loved books. This came from my father, who once left my about-to-deliver mother in the car to run into the house for a book to take to the hospital. Twenty years ago my son grew tired of me regaling him about a bit of local history and said, “Dad, write a book.” So, I did. I’ve been writing ever since.

Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
Over the years my reading interests have ranged quite a bit but lately I lean most toward mystery, thriller, and crime fiction. Favorite authors include Elmore Leonard, Michael Connelly, Craig Johnson, and Jeff Carson. In my writing, I strive to emulate Leonard’s lean prose, Connelly’s and Johnson’s character exploration, and Carson’s intricate plots.

Tell us a little about your latest book?
I got the idea for Murder Creek while contemplating some people’s distrust of banks. What would happen, I wondered, if a wealthy person kept all their money stashed in a secret place? And what would happen if that secret got out?
The result is a tale of secrets, betrayal, misguided motives, and murder set in the fictional Texas Hill Country town of Pinyon. It is up to stalwart Deputy Adam Cash to untangle the lies, catch the killer, and bring justice where he can. All while avoiding becoming the killer’s next victim.

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Jeff Kerr’s Website

Jeff Kerr Facebook Page

Jeff Kerr Twitter Account

Featured Interview With Barchelle (Chelly) Bolger Wathen

Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I was born and raised in San Diego, CA, lived there most of my life. I attended college, earning a Master’s degree in Public Administration, and worked as a Senior Paralegal for the City Attorney’s Office. After retirement we moved to Prescott, AZ. We now operate a woodcrafting business, and I work for the State/NACOG as an Ombudsman.
I have penned and published 3 books now, with two more pending submission to publisher. The books “Shayla & Friends” and “Shayla’s Adventure” (adventure stories for kids) are all about our pet dog, Shayla. She came from an orphanage in Ukraine.

At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
From college papers to writing my master’s degree thesis, to publishing Shayla’s books, I have always loved writing. One of my favorite topics in school was Creative Writing, dreaming that one day I would publish a book. Now I have published a few, with Shayla’s inspiration.

Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
I enjoy non-fiction adventure stories and history; fictional stories about animals (esp. dogs); and inspirational stories. My “Shayla” books were actually inspired by sweet Shayla, and the Korniyko Family who operate Father’s House and raised Shayla.

Tell us a little about your latest book?
I recently published the kids book “Shayla’s Adventure: FInding the Light in the Darkness” (with an Activity booklet). I just finished my latest book, “Shayla & Friends: Into the Light” for a teen audience. This book shares the story of Shayla’s exodus from Ukrainian orphanage, across the ocean, to find her forever family in America. This adorable shepherd/wolfdog
joins our fictional 8 acre ranch with my husband and I, and our supposed dog pack (comprised of our prior dogs and some of my favorites from the senior dog sanctuary where I volunteered). Together the dogs overcome troubled pasts, share adventures (like surviving a forest fire, catching bank robbers) and lessons in love and friendship. After finding her forever family, Shayla is tempted to go join the wild wolfpack – will she stay with her family or join them in the night?
This book took about 6 months to write and format with photos.

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Barchelle (Chelly) Bolger Wathen’s Website