Featured Interview With Nassima Drihmi

Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
My name is Nassima Drihmi. Moroccan author and writer. Born in Souk El Arbaa Du Gharb in Morocco and raised in Khenifra.
I am currently living in Souk El Arbaa Du Gharb near my grandmother Kassmia Aroui. I love pets. I have a beautiful cat named Katy.

At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I’ve started reading books at a very young age. I remember my mother used to buy me different books in Arabic and French. I really enjoyed reading more day by day.
Later, I’ve started writing some texts and short stories in French at my teen days. Then English.

Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
I like romance books and also the stories about life and morals. I read many books of different authors like Victor Hugo, Henry Renard etc…
To write you need an imagination, and you have to set yourself free!

Tell us a little about your latest book?
I wrote a children story called “WE ALL NEED A FRIEND” for children all over the world. It is a story about the value and importance of friendship in life and what makes a friend specal.
We all need someone we trust and care about. A friend who can share our fears and dreams.

Connect with the Author on their Websites and Social media profiles

Nassima Drihmi’s Website

Nassima Drihmi Facebook Page

Featured Interview With Ahuva Batya Scharff

Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I am the daughter of Jewish pork producers (Truth!) and spent the first 11 years of my life on a hog ranch outside of Fresno, California. We also had raisins, but that’s perhaps not as interesting as Jews raising pigs.

When my parents divorced, I moved to Oregon with my mother and brother to live on a hobby farm in the Willamette Valley. Though I lived in Los Angeles for 15 years after university, I prefer rural areas with lots of trees and make my home in NW Washington, near Bellingham, in the beautiful Pacific Northwest. I live in what is essentially a writer’s retreat filled with folk and tribal art from my travels, with two cats and a miniature schnauzer. My animals all have Hebrew names and love to sleep in the bed while I’m writing.

By training, I am a mental health researcher with a doctorate in the transdisciplinary field of transformative studies. Transformative studies looks at how change occurs–in humans, systems, organizations, etc. Our research is generally focused on solving a problem rather than “advancing the knowledge base” of a field. I don’t look at a problem through the lens of psychology or anthropology to advance our understanding of psychology or anthropology. Instead I use information from many fields to find solutions to sometimes very complex issues. In my case, I look at how we can improve wellbeing and resilience in humans around the world.

To that end, I am the founder of and principal investigator for the Institute for Complementary and Indigenous Mental Health Research. I am an explorer who travels to some of the most remote communities in the world to learn how non-Western, indigenous, and often marginalized groups address mental health concerns. It has been a fascinating area of inquiry that has given me the opportunity to learn from wonderful people in every part of the world. These encounters not only inform my writing, but have given me opportunities to learn new ways of connecting with the world around me and appreciating human resilience and courage.

At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
When I was a little girl growing up on the farm, I dreamed of being a writer and an anthropologist. I longed to travel to far off lands to meet the people who lived there, and write about my adventures. And that’s what I do. While I write fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, my “work” is to learn about complementary and indigenous mental health practices to improve overall wellbeing among people worldwide. I’m particularly interested in the relationship between trauma and climate change.

That’s where my novel, “The Path to God’s Promise” was born. How might people deal with potential hardships related to climate change, and are we willing to make changes–including radical changes–to prevent the worst outcomes? Fiction gives me room to explore those themes and ideas in a way that nonfiction doesn’t.

Funny story. When I was in kindergarten in the late 1970s, we were taken to the school library weekly for a reading circle. Kindergarteners were not allowed to check out books. It was assumed that we couldn’t read. I didn’t understand that we were only at the library to hear stories, not get books. I had been to the public library and thought that libraries were a place where you chose books you wanted to read. What I failed to grasp was the concept of the library card, that one had to have permission to take books, to check them out. I thought that if you were taken to the library, you had permission to take a book. I was five; what did I know? I was caught “stealing” a library book. In point of fact, I was returning a book I had borrowed. The principal wanted to expel me. Can you imagine expelling a kindergarten student for stealing a library book? My mom was called. I should probably mention that she spent more than 30 years as an elementary school teacher. Long story short, I was not expelled and the following day, there was a small reading group set up for the handful of kindergarten students who were already readers.

My first published work was in the fourth grade. I was taken on a school trip to the zoo and asked to write a poem about any animal that caught my fancy. I wrote a poem about a pygmy hippo. The poem was deemed so good that it, and a drawing of a hippo, were put into the school’s newsletter. My first brush with literary fame!

Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
Margaret Atwood. Barbara Kingsolver. Neil Gaiman. Stephen King. Octavia Butler. Alexander McCall Smith. Jorge Luis Borges.

I like fantasy, often choosing stories that are about our contemporary world with a little magical overlay. Or books with ghosts. Or jinn. Or witches. Seanan McGuire does an excellent job of mixing the contemporary with the completely fantastic in the Wayward Children series.

I love stories centered on people from other cultures. I love folklore and learning about people who have vastly different lives and worldviews. How do the characters see the world? What are their motivations? Do they inspire me to action? Plus incorporate an angel or mad scientist if it works with the context. That’s what I like about Borges, a South American take on fantasy.

I like stories about wonderful characters. While not fantasy, I’m crazy about Alexander McCall Smith’s Mma Ramotswe and Kingsolver’s Demon Copperhead. They’re brilliant people who I would love to meet in “real” life. I am not alone in wanting to have tea and fat cakes in Gaborone with Mma Ramotswe. While I might not want to meet her in my home or my dreams, Butler’s Shori Matthews is an interesting take on the vampire (and prejudice). I want to read characters who become alive through the telling of their story.

I love Atwood’s MaddAddam trilogy, especially “Oryx and Crake.” I love the way Atwood draws on science, history, and the genuinely possible to create her dystopian worlds. My outlook is more hopeful than Atwood’s, but I aspire to her masterful world creation.

I don’t generally like when authors read their own works, with the notable exception of Neil Gaiman. “The Ocean at the End of the Lane” is an even more intriguing story when read by Gaiman. The oddity of his voice is the perfect match for the strangeness of his tales. Too, Gaiman’s ability to add magic to anything is exceptional. I am simply crazy about “The Graveyard Book.”

I also like that many of these authors talk about the process of writing. I know he isn’t the originator of the idea, but I consistently remind myself of King’s, “Kill your darlings…” as I edit. I read “It” on a canoe trip down a river in Oregon with a group of Girl Scouts and was pretty sure that a clown was going to come out from under the canoes and kill us all. “The Stand” is one of my favorites among King’s works. I also really enjoyed “Needful Things.”

Tell us a little about your latest book?
If God asked you to be a prophet, would you do it? Before you say yes, consider that doing so likely means giving up your goals for yourself and almost certain ridicule in your community. I mean really, if someone got on TV and said they were speaking on God’s behalf, wouldn’t most people laugh?

Yet that’s exactly what God asks of Elinor Simentov in “The Path to God’s Promise.” God’s request is loaded for Elinor. Prophecy is not accepted in contemporary Jewish practice. And Elinor isn’t “special.” She’s a recovered alcoholic and a trauma survivor who has no exemplars to recommend her for the job, except that she talks with God, and despite how she sees herself, God believes she’s exactly the right person to share His message.

Originally, I was going to write a nonfiction book about climate change, but with all the anti-intellectual pushback against climate scientists as propagating “fake news,” I decided instead to write fiction. Writing a fictional story allowed me to look at climate change from a different angle than nonfiction. I got to jump into the “what ifs” by taking Elinor through past historical and mythological (depending on your religious views) events, and potential futures, so that we could learn together what might happen if we indulge the best and the worst in us.

In Elinor, we have an unlikely hero. But then, aren’t we all unlikely heroes? The story doesn’t work if Elinor is exceptional. If she is, then there’s little hope for humankind. If we’re going to stave off the worst impacts of climate change, we’ll have to take collective action, not wait for the best and brightest to “save” us. Elinor has to look at herself–her feelings of low self-worth and the negative stories she tells herself that limit what she can accomplish. As much as the book is a climate change warning, it’s also about the deeply personal struggles we have to see the best in ourselves. If we’re going to change anything, climate/politics/community, we have to stop hoping solutions will come from outside. Elinor shows a path for us to become more empowered versions of ourselves.

It took me a decade to write the book. I dove deep into the history in and of the Torah, Jewish mysticism, and the roles of prophets and angels in Jewish stories. I studied Talmud and Jewish folktales. I also researched climate change projections and recent examples of extreme storms, fires, and other natural disasters in various parts of the world. Whether she was in the distant past or here and now, I wanted the world in which Elinor lives to become real.

Books take on a life of their own after they are published. Sometimes new themes develop that I didn’t initially see as the author. What surprised me is how much of the waves of antisemitism that are part of the book have played out since the novel was published a few months ago. “The Path to God’s Promise” came out only days after the October 7 massacre in Israel. It has been disheartening to see this particular potential future come to pass.

While it may be difficult to be a Jewish author at a time when antisemitism is at an unfortunate high, I have genuinely enjoyed the feedback I’ve gotten from readers, including and especially those who are not Jewish. What I call “service oriented” Christians and Catholics have rallied behind the story. By service oriented, I mean people who see their expression of faith to be through acts of service. At a book signing, one Christian reader shared that she fell in love with Elinor precisely because she was so broken. She appreciated the ways in which Elinor fights through her deficits in a commitment to her relationship with God. It’s a spiritual story I’m told inspires those of us who might need a boost. As an author, such feedback is heartening.

Because the book has moved so many Christian and “spiritual but not religious” readers, I feel I must underscore what prophecy is in a Jewish context. Prophecy is a warning, not a reading of a predestined future. It’s a parent saying to a teen, “put on your sunscreen so you don’t get burned.” We don’t force them to act, but do warn of potential consequences. The best prophets are those who are heeded and horrific outcomes averted. I hope that Elinor does not become a fortuneteller. I hope that like Job, she is able to be one of the voices to whom people listen and motivate all of us to create change.

Connect with the Author on their Websites and Social media profiles

Ahuva Batya Scharff’s Website

Ahuva Batya Scharff Facebook Page

Ahuva Batya Scharff Twitter Account

Featured Interview With Darcy Flynn

Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
My name is Joy Dent and I write clean and wholesome romance novels as Darcy Flynn. I’m originally from New Orleans, LA, and spent my childhood, ridding streetcars, celebrating Mardi Gras and cheerleading for the University of New Orleans. I studied music and theatre in college and after I got married, my husband and I moved to Nashville, TN. I’m a former fashion model and Mrs. Tennessee and I now live on a horse farm just down the road in Franklin. And even though I’ve spent years surrounded by a menagerie of living creatures, I’m partial to my barn cats and my beautiful English Setters.

At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
Georgette Heyer was my favorite author. At fifteen, her novel, Sylvester, was the first romance I’d ever read and from that moment on I was hooked. Since then, I’ve read every one of her books and have a collection of her hardbacks in my office. Her books were so much run, romps really, and I adored her characters so much. Even though I don’t write historical fiction, her writing has influenced the fun that’s a hallmark of my stories. I tell people there’s an F word associated with my books and it’s FUN!
I started writing romantic fiction during my son’s freshman year in college. Up until that time, under my real name, Joy Dent, I’d written several non-fiction magazine articles, authored The Home School Planner, and contributed both the art and text for the four charts on The Plants of the Bible in Thomas Nelson’s, The Woman’s Study Bible.
I’d always wanted to try my hand at romantic fiction. To ease the pain of the “empty nest,” I started de-cluttering and in the process, found a box of old Harlequin novels. I decided to re-read some of them and after each one, I’d think, I could write one of these. I made notes as I read through several of my old favorites just to teach myself the pattern or the formula for that type of romance.
I’ve always heard, write what you know, so I decided to write a novel surrounding a lighthouse in a small fishing village in Maryland.

Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
I really enjoy Colleen Goble’s books, and Mary Higgins Clark is still a favorite. I also enjoy reading Julia Quinn and Debbie Macomber. My favorite genre to read is romance. It can be mystery, historical, or contemporary. All of these authors inspire me in one way or another. I love ‘fun’ elements, clean and wholesome, lots of sexual tension is a must, and you can take me back in time or to the future… just give it to me with a generous helping of romance.

Tell us a little about your latest book?
Absolutely, I’d love to tell you about my young adult, time travel adventure, Flight Time. My heroine, sixteen-year-old Rylee Dean has grown up hearing stories about her grandfather Jaxon C. Scott. She has inherited her grandfather’s love of flying, but on her first solo flight, a strange incident throws Rylee into the past, bringing her face to face with her long-lost grandfather. Only he is a young man working as a test pilot for the US Air Force. Rylee knows she is the one who can save her grandfather’s life. But changing the past means the future will disappear, making Rylee’s existence vanish as well.
Flight Time is the story of my heart, as my own uncle disappeared in flight leaving behind his pregnant wife at the time. He was twenty-two-years-old and he, nor his plane, were ever found. As a child I heard many wonderful

Connect with the Author on their Websites and Social media profiles

Darcy Flynn’s Website

Darcy Flynn Facebook Page

Darcy Flynn Twitter Account

Featured Interview With Peggi Davis

Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
Hello! I am Peggi Davis, 77 years old, a widow, and living my best life this very minute. I was raised in New York City by an eccentric British father and sometime-model mother, in an untethered, unusual home filled with fashion, formality, and a few friendly ghosts. After graduating from Texas A&M University, I entered the wacky world of retail advertising as a fashion art director and creative director. This painfully shy and quiet young girl was introduced to a world she never knew existed. There, I developed a cadre of creative colleagues with whom I shared decades of outrageous experiences and escapades. I have lived and worked all across the country, from New York to San Francisco for Macy’s and Saks Department Stores, but have retired in Birmingham, Alabama, which I love. There is just something about Southern hospitality that soothes my soul. Cool restaurants, warm biscuits, gentle people. It’s my little piece of paradise.

For years, my colleagues said I should write a book about my childhood and adult experiences. During the pandemic, I began posting stories about my family on Facebook. Before long I began receiving messages from people all over the country asking for more. I later enrolled in a writing class and was encouraged to create a blog. My first book “Funny Face: a Memoir” consists of hilarious and horrifying stories from that blog. It was one of the most exhilarating experiences of my life as those stories flowed from my fingertips and seemed to literally write themselves. I had found my voice. “Funny Face” was recognized as Reader’s Favorite International Bronze Award winner and the Non-Fiction Book Award Silver winner.

The chapter that resonated most with the readers was an essay on aging, something we face with little information and no guidance. No one prepares you for feeling one way on the inside and looking another way on the outside. I began wondering What if we could change that narrative? How would the ability to look and feel young again present itself and how? I challenged myself to write about the possibilities, and “Rewind Ranch” was born.

At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
After retirement in 2014, I opened The Schoolhouse Art Studio and began teaching collage, jewelry making, and painting. However, the pandemic forced its closing, and I turned my focus from art to writing during my masked hibernation at home.

Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
Growing up I was a voracious reader. I still am. It is impossible to state my favorite authors as I have so very many. I will say I am inspired by Anne Lamott, Augusten Burroughs, Jeanette Walls, and Joan Didion. What they have in common is their transparency, honesty, and courage. I am the most unlikely author. Sometimes I look at my printed books in total disbelief. My writing has given me a sense of accomplishment and pride. I know I won’t be accepting the Pulitzer Prize anytime soon, but to see my books on a shelf next to Joan Didion makes me feel like I have left a mark on our crazy world. It’s like saying, I am here.

Tell us a little about your latest book?
“Rewind Ranch,” emerged as an award-winning thriller about four sassy seniors who miss the allure of their youth and embark on a vacation of a lifetime to the Hana Hawaiian paradise Rewind Ranch. The resort promises unlimited cosmetic enhancements, romantic evenings with available suitors, and luxury they could never imagine. Their journey becomes one of hair-raising secrets and situations as they realize something sinister lurks. On their roller-coaster ride of life-threatening suspense and unwavering camaraderie, they ultimately learn that beauty is more than skin-deep and that friendship is the ultimate savior. A recent review stated “Adventure unfolds in this book and takes you on an amazing ride you won’t forget! Love, love, love the characters, the slow reveal of their island paradise, and a few surprises along the way! As fabulous as the cover design is… it does not come close to what’s in store for you inside! And, oh the ending … you’ll never see it coming!”

Connect with the Author on their Websites and Social media profiles

Peggi Davis’s Website

Peggi Davis Facebook Page

Featured Interview With J.M. Kirkley

Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I’m a Texas transplant, originally from Southern California. I still miss the San Gorgonio Mountains covered in snow and the cresting surf at Newport Beach, but my home is among the Pineywoods of East Texas. Here, I live with my spouse of 50+ years, where we raised our son and daughter.

I’m a late bloomer: I graduated college at 40, plowed through my master’s degree in counseling, and published my debut novel in my sixties. Proof that it’s never too late to pursue your dreams.

My life centers around my faith, our kids and grandkids, and listening to the stories of my clients, who inspire me.

At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
My fascination with books began as a young adult when I became an avid reader. First the enduring classics reeled me in, then the process of writing began to intrigue me. How authors craft an entire story.

I began putting pen to paper as our kids left home and the house became Too Quiet. Writing answered the question, what now?

Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
Choosing favorite authors is like an ice cream lover picking a favorite flavor of ice cream. It depends on my mood. Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte rate the top of my classics list.

My favorite genre is historical Christian fiction with at least a romance thread woven throughout. Favorite authors in that category include Roseanna M. White, Lisa Wingate, Tamera Alexander, Laura Frantz, Sarah E Ladd, and Michelle Griep.

All these authors inspire me in my writing.

Tell us a little about your latest book?
A Writing Upon the Sand is a page-turning tale, seen through the eyes of the protagonist, Emily Cleburne, who returns to the place that spawned her nightmares. The scene of the deadliest natural disaster in US history, the 1900 Great Storm of Galveston. It’s taken her a quarter of a century to face her fears and her deepest secret. At last, she allows the memories of that year to flow. Despite surviving the worst of times, she experiences love with a happily ever after ending.

The book took me more than 20 years to research and write, as it weaves in events leading up to and after the 1900 Great Storm. I wove in historical people, like Clara Barton and R.C. Buckner, who aided in the relief effort.

“Draped in southern charm, cloaked in mystery and belted in real tragic history, J.M. Kirkley’s, A Writing Upon the Sand is a prize Christian Historical Romance debut.” Iris Fuller for Artisan Book Reviews

Connect with the Author on their Websites and Social media profiles

J.M. Kirkley’s Website

J.M. Kirkley Facebook Page

Featured Interview With John Pendleton

Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
John Pendleton is the pen name of John Cowpe, a former newspaper editor who had a 39-year career in journalism and public relations.
Born in the English holiday resort of Skegness in Lincolnshire, John edited a series of local newspapers, most recently for Johnston Press.
His fourth novel, “The Men in the Marsh”, begins with the dramatic events of October 12, 1984, when an IRA bomb exploded at the Grand Hotel, Brighton, in an attempt to assassinate Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and members of her Cabinet. A young entrepreneur leaves the Grand Hotel minutes before the bomb goes off but the event returns to haunt him many years later.
John’s previous books are three novels “Hector’s Revenge”,“Ill Winds” and “All For Blood”, and “Skegness Past”, a mainly photographic record of his home town.
John, who still lives n Skegness, is married to Wendy and has two grown-up children, Colin and Trudi, and four grandchildren. His interests include politics, reading, angling, tennis and going to the gym.

At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I was fascinated by books as soon as I learnt to read. The first book which really got me hooked was an “As told to the children” version of Homer’s “The Iliad”. From the age of about seven or eight I started to write stories, mainly my own versions of Greek myths and some tales about a fictional criminal called Harry Droner.,

Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
My favourite authors are Charles Dickens, Anthony Trollope, Thomas Hardy, Jane Austen, D. H. Lawrence, Evelyn Waugh and Kate Atkinson. As you can see from that list, my preferred genre is literary classics. I am inspired by the insight into human nature and the humour in the writings of Dickens, Trollope, Austen and Waugh, by the passion and innermost yearnings portrayed by Lawrence and Hardy, and by the clever plots of Kate Atkinson.

Tell us a little about your latest book?
On October 12, 1984, an IRA bomb explodes at the Grand Hotel, Brighton, in a bid to assassinate UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
Graham Robinson, an ambitious young entrepreneur, who is attending the Conservative Party Conference, leaves the hotel minutes before the explosion.
The Men in the Marsh traces Robinson’s life, loves and politics, leading up to dramatic events which have haunting echoes of his 1984 experience.
Much of the novel is set in the fictional east coast holiday resort of Sanderholme. It has strong elements of mystery, crime, romance and humour, a mixture which typifies John Pendleton’s work.
Published by Blossom Spring Publishing, “Hector’s Revenge” is available from Amazon as a paperback and as an e-book on Kindle.

Connect with the Author on their Websites and Social media profiles

John Pendleton’s Website

John Pendleton Facebook Page

John Pendleton Twitter Account

Featured Interview With Elizabeth Harlan

Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
Growing up in Manhattan in an apartment with limited space, my siblings and I weren’t permitted by our parents to have a dog or cat, but we had just about everything else that was small enough to keep in cages and tanks: canaries and parakeets, turtles and tropical fish, hamsters, snakes, guinea pigs, and even an occasional loaner bunny rabbit from school. But what I wanted most of all was to have a horse, for which I worked up a rendering of one of our bathrooms repurposed as a stall. My drawing was posted on the refrigerator, but a pet horse never happened in my childhood. Reading the entire Black Stallion series by Walter Farley and riding at summer camp was the closest I got. When it came to raising my own family, we chose to live on a farm. In addition to dogs and cats, my kids grew up with a horse, a pony, goats, a sheep, and two llamas.
In my novel, Carly, also a New York City kid without pets, is delighted when she’s invited to handle shar-pei pups at a boarding school in the Pennsylvania countryside. When Headmaster McAdams cautions her “to be careful not to get peed on,” Carly loosens up in her interview, figuring that, “anyone who could talk about puppies peeing on you couldn’t be too judgmental about anything she could say.”
Even though I’m a native born New Yorker and was raised and schooled in the city, my heart has always been in the country. I now split my time between my cottage on the Peconic Bay on Long Island’s East End and my home on a bridgeless, barrier island off Florida’s Gulf coast. I travel too much to keep pets, but my children and grandchildren bring Parker, their adorable Beaglier — a combination beagle and Cavalier King Charles Spaniel — when they visit.

At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I can’t remember not being fascinated by reading and writing. My mom was very strict about lights out at bedtime, so as a very young girl, I kept a notebook and flashlight under my pillow to record ideas for stories in the middle of the night.

Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
I like lots of different genres, but especially fiction. As a child, Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White and Frances Hodgson Burnett’s A Secret Garden and A Little Princess were among my favorite books. When I was a girl growing up, Young Adult fiction wasn’t a separate category, but that became what I loved most, including Scott O’Dell’s Island of the Blue Dolphins and every single volume of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House on the Prairie, which figures in my novel as Carly’s obsession, as well. As an adult, I’ve been entranced by Jean Auel’s Clan of the Cave Bear, of which I’ve read and reread all six volumes several times. Clearly, a strong thread of interest in the lives of girls growing up and overcoming adversity weaves its way through my passion for reading and writing. My teenage character Carly connects the dots as she wends her way through seemingly insurmountable obstacles to writing a beautiful essay about Thomas Hardy’s Tess, one of literature’s most beloved young heroines.

Tell us a little about your latest book?
Becoming Carly Klein has been in gestation for many years. It began as a series of linked short stories that I submitted as my thesis for the Columbia Writing Program Master’s in Fiction. My next project, which grew out of my background in French and France — I went to a French high school in New York, studied French literature in college and graduate school, and lived in Paris for ten years — was a biography of George Sand, a French 19th century woman writer. It wasn’t until the Covid pandemic when I was sequestered on my remote barrier island in Florida that I pulled my Columbia thesis out of a drawer and began to reconfigure it as a novel. And while it seems on the surface that my biography of George Sand and my novel Becoming Carly Klein tell two altogether different stories cast in two altogether different literary genres, they share the common premise of a young, highly individualistic and rebellious girl straining against misguided mothering, struggling with identity, and prevailing against daunting challenges as she grows up to discover who she was meant to be.

Connect with the Author on their Websites and Social media profiles

Elizabeth Harlan’s Website

Elizabeth Harlan Facebook Page

Featured Interview With Yurie Kiri

Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
Yurie Kiri, born in a trailer in rural America, studied Mathematics and languages and speaks Japanese, English, French and has also studied Chinese, Arabic and Spanish as well as a smattering of other languages such as Korean and Russian along with binary, octal and hexadecimal machine language because if you really want to get to know someone you need to speak their language no matter if they’re machine or human. Yurie lived and worked in Asia for decades before coming back to America where Yurie went on an extensive backroad journey across the US and Canada from the rough Mexican border towns to the icy cold town of Yellowknife in Canada’s NWT where you need to cross a frozen lake to get into town in the winter. Yurie also sailed (single-handed) from Mexico to the Canadian border, retracing a well-traveled road journey by sea in a small, live aboard sailboat. Yurie has been traveling and gathering story ideas from Asia for the Game Series which covers Japan and other Asian countries and North America for the Murder and Mystery Series which covers the American Southwest.

Yurie Kiri is a shy, secretive person who used to live on a boat, sailing between various ports in the Pacific Ocean. Yurie lived on the boat until some crazy mega-yacht got loose and went on a full throttle rampage through the marina squashing everything it hit. Alas, sailing was one of Yurie’s passions, now writing and photography are the main passions in Yurie Kiri’s life along with cats of course like the enhanced, intelligent cats featured in New York Stories…

At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
When did you start writing?

In my childhood. I wish I still had the evidence of that but alas, couldn’t keep every scrap…

What was it like to write your first book?

My first book or rather the first book I planned to publish; Tokyo Games was written as a kind of revenge story about the people who unjustly kicked me out of a good job. So instead of moping around feeling sorry for myself I used my new, free time to construct a good story about their destruction. I changed everyone’s name as well as some of the circumstances but that book (like all of my books) are full of real people, people I know and new people I’ve met. The only thing I’d do differently would be to not use a “professional” editor who changed my style a bit and then I’d publish it instantly on Amazon instead of waiting around for all those agents and their rejection letters..

Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
I read most everything: history, science, business, travel and fiction… I wanted to write about venture business and Asia as a straight up non-fiction, this is how it is book, so I arranged to study and interview some very rich and successful venture capitalists… however the information I gleaned from those studies turned me in another direction and went into parts of my novels, “Moonlight Beach”, “Tokyo Games” and “Osaka Games” all of which feature VCs from California. Names etc. have been changed to protect everyone including me and one subject actually tried to buy “the story” after I let him read it however I didn’t want to sell regardless of his “Hollywood connections” because I’d rather be free (and relatively poor) to do what I want which allows everyone to read those stories instead of keeping them locked away.

Tell us a little about your latest book?
I will soon be releasing Advance Review copies (ARCs) of the latest book in the Moonlight Series called “Moonlight Skull” which won the 2024 Beach Book Festival’s award for Unpublished Fiction…. excerpts are shown below:

“Hey!” Gigi said. “What are you doing?” The sight of the big man carrying a bloody skull freaked her out. She wanted to run, but the horny Archeologist guy was still on top, pressing into her and he kept pumping like he was some kind of sex robot drilling for oil. It now felt like she’d made a big mistake letting the men pick her up at the truck stop.

“Relax,” Bob said. “Señor Ocotillo just wants to watch…” He held the skull carefully and let it watch. “He hasn’t had any in a long while since as you can see…. He’s been dead for some time…”
“You guys are too weird,” Gigi said. “This will cost you extra…”.
“Right,” Bob said with a laugh. “I’ll pay you even more to ignore me…” He held the skull and watched quietly for a while as the moonlight played on the canyon wall. He could almost imagine a ghostly moonlight skull image on the wall.

Margarita stared at the huge apparition that approached her. It was like some kind of evil nightmare had materialized right out of a bad dream. He was even more evil and more dangerous than before. He was someone who was supposed to be dead because she’d watched him die. She started to scream as he got closer.

If you want to get an ARC please let me know…

Connect with the Author on their Websites and Social media profiles

Yurie Kiri’s Website

Yurie Kiri Facebook Page

Yurie Kiri Twitter Account