Top Selling Authors: Get To Know Them Better

Featured Interview With Gabrielle Dahms

Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
Coastal fog appeals to me. I have lived in San Francisco, California for some thirty years. The city – like all cities – has changed throughout the years. There’s even less fog now. Temperatures have steadily increased over the last fifteen years. It almost feels like L.A.. Still, San Francisco is the city of choice for me in the United States. I grew up in Germany and love to travel the world. And yes, I have a toilet-trained cat. Her name is Sheba.

At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
Pinpointing an age seems impossible. Books fascinated me before I could read. I loved the feel, the weight and the mystery. As a young child, any pictures inside books captivated me. Then, when I began to read, books were my steady companions. I dreamt about being surrounded by them and working in a bookstore.
Although it never occurred to me that I’d be writing books, I wrote journals daily since the time I could write. Then, in the last few years, writing books became a deep desire and reality. I’ve not looked back.

Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
Good writing is more important to me than genre, though I gravitate toward non-fiction, history and art books. Sometimes I read novels and even a self-help book. I read books in English, German and Spanish, though the list of books to read is always longer than the time to read.

Isabel Allende, Eudora Welty, William Zinsser, Joseph Campbell, Carlos Fuentes are among writers who inspire me. Others exist.

Tell us a little about your latest book?
I write a series of non-fiction books about real estate and real estate investing. The first book How Trends Make You A Smarter Investor is about nine big trends that affect real estate investment and how investors can gain from them. The second book Finding Profitable Deals spells out many real estate niches – some of which readers may never have thought about-, what makes them attractive, how to find great deals in them, and how to assess the niche, etc.
As a real estate broker and investor of twenty years the books aim to guide others through the vast body of knowledge about the field, to save those who are or want to become real estate investors time, money, and painful lessons. Having read many books on the subject, I realized that most other authors write their books as sales tools for their services, membership programs, and systems. While that is fine, the series I am writing wants to inform and educate and help people make good decisions instead. No hype. No sales pitch.

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Gabrielle Dahms’s Website

Gabrielle Dahms Twitter Account

Featured Interview With Krissy May

Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I grew up in several parts of the country, and even spent some time in Greece (which I loved). I miss most of the places I’ve lived. I currently live in Pittsburgh for two more days, and then I am relocating to Saratoga Springs, New York. My bunny Fuffles and my cat Meowser are coming with. I suspect the cat will exact her revenge about the move in creative ways.

At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I can’t remember a time when I could read and didn’t. I’ve read thousands of books in multiple languages, and I can’t seem to stop. I also know way too many fascinating and useful quotes from those books.

My first “book” (it was a whole paragraph long) was one I wrote when I was seven. A girl at my school had recently died of leukemia and I wrote a story about a little girl who changed the world when she died. I think it was my way of processing the odd grief of a stranger my age dying.

Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
My absolute favorite author is Orson Scott Card, with the caveat that I am so disappointed about his beliefs regarding marriage equality. Other favorites are Connie Willis, for her creativity and sense of humor, Terry Pratchett for the same, and Jane Austen for her subtlety.

For genres, I love books about self-discovery, about the inevitable comedy of being human, and about ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances.

Tell us a little about your latest book?
I am excited about Blue Note. The main character, Niels, is one of my loudest voices I work with. This is a book about a not-so-ordinary person – he is a celebrity – thrust into extraordinary circumstances. He has his army of friends and his two girlfriends and *wow* did they fight while we wrote this story. None of them could agree on plot or which girl he was with at the end of the book. I’m pretty sure I completely rewrote the last half of the book about a dozen times, searching for the right resolution.

I also love Blue Note because it is such a story of perspective and individual perception. It’s about how biases and personal history influence how we react to our experiences, and how our reactions can change our future.

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Krissy May’s Website

Krissy May Facebook Page

Featured Interview With Holly Graf

Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I was raised on a farm, in a small town called Newberg, near Portland, Oregon. I married my high school sweetheart, moved up and down the west coast for a few years (he was in the Navy), finished college at Portland State, and now I live just south of my childhood home, in Salem. We’re still married with two kids, two dachshunds, two cats, two gerbils, and a beta fish.

At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I’ve always loved books. I remember learning to read BOB books, Frog and Toad, everything. I got in trouble in 2nd and 3rd grade for writing all the time. Our property had a creek and I would make little forts and dams and everything had a story. I was working on co-writing some books in 4th and 5th grade with one of my best friends at the time. We (Krissy and I) have been working on the Elesara Series since 2015. Loving books and loving writing were synonymous with learning those skills – instant passion.

Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
How do I pick? One of my favorite authors is David Clement-Davies. I’m still a Brian Jacques fan and I’m trying to get my kids to listen to me read Redwall, but my four year old is a marathon reader so if I start one, he’ll stay up until I finish. I like fantasy, romance…I’ve surprisingly enjoyed some war books…I’m not that picky. I love reading books written by people I know and supporting indie authors.

Tell us a little about your latest book?
Blue Note is a book about Hattie Bordelon (an emancipated wiccan) and Talise Alandrial (a fairy princess)…but it’s really about Niels Poulsen. He’s young and famous and he has the world in his hands, but only his world. He’s naive to everything else out there, and you get to see this amazing person show his true colors – which, he’s still a great guy, but he also has views about the world – some right, some wrong – that get challenged. We’ve been working with the idea of Niels for a few years (since 2015). You get to see these three characters deal with their own feelings about the world and their positions in it. It’s a bit of a love story, a lot of an adventure, and something I’m really proud of. We’re working on the sequel now – it comes out December 2019.

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Holly Graf’s Website

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Holly Graf Twitter Account

Featured Interview With Ruby Marley

Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I like to not get super specific with my personal life, but I’ll answer what I can. I was raised in Montana and now I live in Wyoming (I went the long way through Kansas). I don’t have any pets now but I hope to change that soon.

At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I started writing when I was 15, but I got into my erotic genre around 18. I started to like books around the age of 10.

Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
I like to read all genres, but my latest favorite authors in my genre are Tiffany Smith and Harley Laroux. And when it comes to who inspires me, literally anyone whose part of a fetish that is relatively unexplored in literature.

Tell us a little about your latest book?
So I recently found a bunch of short stories I wrote a LONG time ago and they all fell into the same general theme – sexy maids. So I updated them, through them together, and created my first flash fiction collection: “The Mischievous Maids of Master Marius”, which will be published in eBook form on July 23rd.

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Ruby Marley’s Website

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Featured Interview With Chaitali Nath

Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I am a young lady of 16. I was raised and have lived in Siliguri, India. I don’t have any pets, unlike a good number of authors. I like to think of my marigold plant as a low-maintainance pet.
I believe in empathy and compassion for the society that we dwell in, and hope that the world becomes a better place to live in with each setting sun.

At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I started reading at the age of about 6. I would always wonder how people wrote books, till I discovered that I could write stories, too. I began writing short stories based on some guidelines till the age of 9, after which I had to put a halt to writing.
I never thought I would be able to continue, but I was, at the age of 13. After a break of about 4 years, I found out I could write poetry, the only form of writing that I couldn’t write earlier and the form that I loved reading the most. Within the span of an year, I completed my first book, Soul Spoken, which completes it’s one year of publication on the 27th of June, 2019.

Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
I’ve always loved diversity in what I read. Though historical fiction and mythological fiction have a special place in my heart, I have enjoyed reading suspence and young adult, among other genres. I don’t have any favorite authors, since that would be unfair to the others whose works I have read, but I do have a special place in my library for some authors whose books I could re-read about a hundred times, namely, Amish Tripathi, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Jhumpa Lahiri, Meghan Nutall Sayres, etc.
My writing is inspired by all that I can observe and feel. It’s all about expressing what I can’t express otherwise, and much more.

Tell us a little about your latest book?
A teenager is usually interpreted as a confused adult or an overgrown child and this misinterpretation needs to be cleared. Teenage is a completely different phase of life, the intermediate between the other two and a teenager is a different kind of individual.

Soul Spoken is a teenager’s view on the world and its constituents. After all, the world hasn’t seen how a teenager has seen it.

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Chaitali Nath’s Website

Chaitali Nath Twitter Account

Featured Interview With M.L. Little

Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
Hi! Thank you for having me on your website. I have never lived anywhere but Alabama, but within Alabama I grew up moving a lot and have lived in quite a few different places. I wouldn’t have wanted to spend my whole childhood in one house. It would have been a lot less interesting. I have owned four dogs in my life. The dog in my author headshots passed away three weeks after the photos were taken. I currently live with a clinically insane poodle.

At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I think it really began when I was six, at which point I could read chapter books by myself. Before that, I loved books but I don’t really remember it. But by the time I reach six and beyond I can remember hundreds of books that I read. I began writing when I was nine.

Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
I read a little bit (or a lot) of absolutely everything. I don’t have a favorite genre. If I bond with the characters or if the plot keeps me reading, I will like the book. I am easy to please. Because I am easy to please, I am easily inspired. Marcus Zusak left an enormous imprint on my writing. I am influenced by fantasy writers who break traditional molds. As a recent example, I am impressed by Neil Gaiman’s and Melissa Albert’s ability to write pure creepiness that you can’t put down.

Tell us a little about your latest book?
I am shy and hate talking about myself (terrible traits for an author), so let me give you the blurb from my publisher.

“After Gabriel Draven smuggles home the Stone of the Seven Realms, his fear of facing consequences launches him and his oddball family on a rollicking run for their lives across the world they only thought they knew. As his journey takes him out of his realm and into another, Gabriel discovers that the deepest mystery lies at the heart of his own family, and he must do whatever it takes to find his way back home.
Strong and unapologetic, full of vivid, well-timed simile and lilting rhythm, bright with humor, at times bursting into a depth of pure simplistic beauty, THE BOOK OF SECRETS looks beyond the typical medieval swords-and-sorcery and, instead, introduces mystical creatures, absurd new worlds, and, at its heart, a hymn of praise to the complicated bond of siblinghood.”

I don’t know exactly how long I spent writing The Book of Secrets from scratch, but it occurred over several months beginning in the summer of 2017. For awhile it had a happy home on Wattpad, where I met some great people. I never, ever planned to do anything else with it. Then my friend Verity Buchanan had her book accepted by a traditional publisher, and it made me brave enough to try. I took the book down from Wattpad for hefty rewrites, submitted to 35 agencies and publishing houses, and the rest is history.

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M.L. Little’s Website

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Featured Interview With Matt Nagin

Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
Astrology may be bogus, but, for what it is worth, I definitely have a bit of that Gemini mercurial spirit. I’m a creative type, of course, who feels comfortable expressing himself in a wide array of mediums. I’ve worked in standup comedy, fiction and poetry writing, film making, radio, acting, educating, to name just a few. Expressing myself has always been very important to me, perhaps because I was bullied for doing so as a kid and often discouraged as a bit of an outsider.

I was born in Queens Hospital. Grew up in Queens when young, and then Long Island, the Jericho area. I lived in Ithaca, when I went to Cornell, and Los Angeles for a year, working in film production, and I’ve traveled quite a bit. All that being said, for the better part of my adult life I’ve lived in the NYC area and I consider myself to have the rhythms and styles of NYC in my blood; to embody that kinetic energy; to sort of be that weird melting pot of different influences and cultures. New York City definitely has its drawbacks, but, then again, would
any other place equally feel like home?

At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I had an English teacher in High School who was very inspiring. He was totally outside-the-box. On Halloween we gathered in a circle and he read us Edgar Allan Poe in the dark with a flashlight under his face. He encouraged us to be creative and would show us strange movies and then do odd things like put on the fans all over the room and then spray us with flour–so that the whole classroom was covered in powder. He broke rules. He didn’t care what others thought of him. I liked that about him. I came from a home and a culture that was very repressed. Literature symbolized rebellion–and I started–from that point forward–to take an interest in it. Before long I began filling up black-and-white notebooks with poetry. I haven’t looked back since!

Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
I enjoy reading a wide range of works. Some of my favorite authors are Nathaniel West, Charles Bukowski, John Fante, Stephen King, Jonathan Swift, Emily Dickinson, Richard Wright, John Kennedy Toole, Denis Johnson, Brett Easton Ellis and William Blake. I am always inspired by new and unique writing. What probably inspires me most though is writing that is either beautifully constructed with a kind of detailed craftsmanship or writing that breaks cultural norms or challenges the status quo. I love genre-bending, satire, dark comedy, horror, anything on the fringe–anything that is sort of rabid. One of my favorite books is “Notes From The Underground,” by Dostoevsky, and I think it is because it is just this kind of mad, deranged voice, this subterranean character, that can tell us what we most need to hear.

Tell us a little about your latest book?
My latest book is titled “Feast Of Sapphires.” This is my second poetry collection. It is influenced, I guess, by beat and imagistic poetry as well as my own spiritual exploration. Probably Arthur Rimbaud is an influence–to take one example. I try to write poetry that comes from a deep place within; that I am connected on many levels. This isn’t always a success. Sometimes, frankly, the poems turn out like crap. But I at least aim for the heights. One thing I believe readers might like about my poetry is the way it covers a range of styles and subject matters. Some of the poems are more comedic, others are morose and reflective. I try to really play on expectations. The eclectic nature of the book will hopefully make it appealing to a wide-range of audiences.

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Matt Nagin’s Website

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Featured Interview With La Fonceur

Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
La Fonceur is a Dance Artist and a Health Blogger from India. La Fonceur is Masters in Pharmacy specialized in Pharmaceutical Technology. She has published a Review Article on “Techniques for Producing Biotechnology-Derived Products of Pharmaceutical Use” in Pharmtechmedica Journal. She is a Registered State Pharmacist. She is National Level GPAT Qualifier in the year 2011 and among Top 1400 nationwide.

Being a Research Scientist, she has worked closely with drugs and based on her experience she believes Vegetarian Foods are the remedy for many diseases, one can prevent most of the diseases with Nutritional Foods and Healthy Lifestyle.

At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
Writing has always been my passion after writing many scientific Review Articles and writing Dissertation on Drugs during Masters of Pharmacy, I realized I enjoy writing and sharing knowledge with others.

Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
I see various Diet trends catching fire every day but these are far from Healthy
diets, they may give temporary solution for health issues whether it is weight loss, diabetes or other disease but for healthy life one must have a thorough knowledge of food that they eat, what is the actual purpose of that food and how actually nutritious they are. I am trying to help people to understand their food in a scientific and real way.

Tell us a little about your latest book?
I am currently working on my next book which will be a Guide to how to stay healthy in the rainy season as most people fall sick or feel depressed in this season. Also, this season comes with problems like hair fall, skin infections, and many others. I will give a to z guideline to prevent these problems in my new Book.

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La Fonceur’s Website

La Fonceur Facebook Page

La Fonceur Twitter Account

Featured Interview With Maureen Joseph

Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I am a former copywriter and I love most genres of metal music. People are still waiting for my gothic phase to be over.
I was born in Brooklyn. I spent half of my childhood there and the other half abroad. You can say I have been to a few places. The only pets I have are my Israeli Black Mollies.

At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I was around six years old. My mother used to take me to our public library in Sheepshead Bay. There was the upstairs area for kids. We had stuffed animals to cuddle with while reading a book. I still go there to reminisce when I miss her. I started writing poetry and short stories when I was around nine.

Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
Dean Koontz is one of my favorite authors. My first book was The Eyes of Darkness. I would also add the classics like Daphne Du Maurier and Edgar Allen Poe. I have recently started reading Sylvain Reynard. I have a whole list of favorite authors. It depends on the genre.
I read different genres. I cannot stick to one thing. My reading list consists of genres from politics and science to thrillers and classical romance.
Evil people and haters really inspire my writings. They really help me formulate situations and characters when I write. I thank them.

Tell us a little about your latest book?
First, I’d like to say that when I wrote the first two chapters of my book; I was going through a very dark and tough time in my life. It took me almost four years between writing and editing to get my book out. It took too long because I moved from one continent to another and I was finishing a ghostwriting gig. This won’t happen with my next book.
Twice The Demise is about an undertaker who is stuck in a love triangle. She is not your average undertaker. She lived a non-eventful life in her little goth bubble till her childhood best friend, Michael Nabakov, turned her world upside down. For many years, he had managed to keep his identity and motives under wraps. Polly is caught between her guilt with the familiarity of Michael’s presence and a strange yearning for his dark pursuer. Did I mention that Michael is a ballet dancer?

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Maureen Joseph’s Website

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Featured Interview With Wen Soon

Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I’m a current graduate student studying marriage and family therapy. I’ve been surrounded by public health and behavior change my whole life and that influenced how I grew up. I was raised in the Bay Area in Northern California. I still live here. Unfortunately, I do not have much time to take care of any pets.

At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I would say I started writing in the past year because I got inspired to be courageous and take a chance on writing a book. I’ve always wanted to write one since I was a child because I loved reading and the adventures it used to take me on inside my mind.

Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
I love self-help books because they teach me so much about myself. I can count on Brene Brown, John Gottman, and Margaret Moore as some of my favorite authors.

Tell us a little about your latest book?
In Self-Care: Ideas and Stories for Putting Yourself First, there are five pillars of self-care that Wen introduces to you that you need in your life. He also brings up common myths that we all have about self-care and really explores what self-care means to different people. Wen interviewed everyday people from around the world with different backgrounds to understand how they view their own well-being because he believes that everyone is an expert of their own care. In addition, he brings up common self-care ideas backed by research. In the end, he challenges each reader to build their own self-care routine and gives steps that have been helpful for people he has worked with in creating behavior change.

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Wen Soon’s Website

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Featured Interview With Maria Ann Green

Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
Maria lives in the Midwest with her husband and their family, despite the cold winters. She adores everything about writing. She loves how it makes her feel and how creative it lets her be. Nothing is as exciting as creating her own world and entire people in the midst of a twisting plot. She also loves reading, almost as much as writing. If you look for her, and she’s not writing, you’ll probably find her curled up with a creepy book and a cup of hot coffee or a glass of sweet white wine.

Maria aims to paint with her words, so her readers can feel connected to her passion for writing. She continues to believe that though not every story is for her, and her stories aren’t for everyone, every story has a reader.

At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I started writing in elementary school and have been writing ever since! I’ve taken a few breaks, once for a couple years, but I always come back to it. I also devour books as a reader; so far I’ve ready 61 in 2019, and it’s only May!

Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
My favorite genres to read are thrillers, horror, and contemporary romances. My favorite authors include Gillian Flynn, Chuck Palahniuk, Tana French, Megan Miranda, Ruth Ware, and Jamie McGuire. There are defintiely more; I could go on and on!

Tell us a little about your latest book?
My current books are a series, and the first two are from serial killer points of view. They’ve been really fun to write! I had a dark idea and started running it, and now all of a sudden I’m writing the third book in the series. I never even anticipated it being more than one book!

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Maria Ann Green’s Website

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Featured Interview With Samantha Goodwin

Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I’m a Chartered Marketing Manager and have written professionally for my business career for over a decade before turning my hand to fiction. Raised in York, England, I now live in Leeds with my husband Chris and my son Jack.
As an avid crime fan, I regularly participate in the renowned Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate and I relish attending literature festivals across the country as well as engaging with online writing communities.
Keen to support upcoming authors, I recently launched the #IndieWritingWisdom initiative on Instagram to collate and share inspiring, original quotes from a wide range of different writers to encourage others.

When I’m not writing, I enjoy reading, countryside walks, movies, musicals and almost all chocolate (but controversially not Oreos).

At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I’ve always written stories, ever since I was about 5 years old. I find it to be a really positive creative outlet, it makes me feel so alive! Murder at Macbeth is my first full-length novel, before that I mainly focused on short stories and poems.

I’ve always wanted to write a book and it was my husband, Chris, who finally convinced me that I could do it.

Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
I’ve always been drawn to the crime genre, from books and TV shows to murder mystery games! There is such a sense of satisfaction in trying to identify the culprit in an intriguing whodunnit, especially when there are lots of twists and turns as new clues turn up. I’ve always found the best mysteries hook you so well that you end up thinking about solving the crime even when you’re not reading it.

One of the most influential authors for me is Paula Hawkins (who wrote The Girl on a Train and Into The Water). I really loved how her stories unfold through different narrators’ perspectives and the mystery is gradually revealed. That writing approach is definitely something that influenced my own novel.

Tell us a little about your latest book?
Murder at Macbeth is a crime mystery novel centred around a talented, young actress who unwittingly stabs herself live onstage after a prop knife is tampered with. It’s a classic whodunnit as suspicion immediately falls on her eclectic band of castmates and the detectives have to figure out who had the motive to kill the show’s leading lady. Bitter rivalries, secret trysts and troubled pasts are just the beginning of the story…

Murder at Macbeth was longlisted for an international debut novel award and has received a lot of advanced praise from a number of other authors, including the No.1 bestselling crime author Joy Ellis, who said she “loved the book” and “for a debut novel, it is a cracker”) and Carol Deeley, author of the Britannica series, who said it is “a classic whodunnit that entertains in true Poirot style and read like a really good episode of a prime-time crime series.”

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Samantha Goodwin’s Website

Featured Interview With Pamela Q. Fernandes

Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I was born and raised in Kuwait. I graduated in the Philippines. I’ve worked in India and now I live in New York. I don’t have any pets though I’d love to get a husky some day.

At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I loved books in school. I wasn’t a very popular girl so books became my friends. I started writing fiction about ten years ago. nothing ever got published. Five years ago, my first novella won a competition and SEOUL-Mates was published. From then onward, I’ve been steadily accepted by publishers and now 13 books are out ten years later!

Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
My favorite author is George Elliot since I first read her in school. I also love Anne Cleeves, her voice is just so amazing even though it’s too brazen and honest. Then there’s Lisa Kleypas and Arundhati Roy. Roy writes very evocative prose and Lori Roy who’s book, Let me die in his footsteps, I’ve just finished reading is very similar. Arundhati is a Booker Award winner and Lori won an Edgar. Their words come alive on the page.
I love reading women’s fiction and romance.

Tell us a little about your latest book?
Painting Kuwait Violet was the second book I started writing ten years ago. Back then the book focused on the relationship between the women. Two years ago, I submitted this for a pitmad competition and two agents were very interested. Carrie Prestritto gave me amazing feedback and I reworked the novel. When I submitted the book, my editor, John De Boer worked with me to focus on the side-stories and so we honed in on the thriller aspects of the novel.
By then the Filipino president had recalled all his workers from Kuwait and there were huge human rights issues in the country. I was inspired to finish this story and I’m so glad that I did. Women keep writing to me, saying their so grateful they’re born in the West….

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Pamela Q. Fernandes’s Website

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Featured Interview With Thomas Anthony Lay

Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
Hi there,
My name’s Thomas and I hail from the rural areas of Somerset, UK. I was raised in Street but moved to Glastonbury in 2016. It’s the perfect town for fantasy inspiration as the entire place is like stepping into a medieval village. I have a cat called Zelda and two rats called Ciri and Yen.

At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
It may sound a little odd, but I didn’t get into reading until AFTER I got into writing. In school, my English teacher always praised me for my creative writing skill, often using my work as a positive example to the rest of the class. It was around here I felt a passion for world-building and storytelling. The more I wrote, the more I read!

Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
My favourite author is Douglas Adams. The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy was one of the few books I read in my youth and I’ve reread it so many times. It keeps me laughing the whole way through! My favourite genres are fantasy and comedy, but I also like sci-fi. My biggest inspirations are those around me. Other authors and fans who are a part of my writing journey showing great support and constructive criticism that ultimately makes me a better writer with each passing day. I love the community and always make an effort to be an active part of it.

Tell us a little about your latest book?
My latest book is also my debut novel. It took a total of ten years (!) to write. It has taken many shapes and forms, been scrapped and reworked from the ground up several times until I crafted it into something I was truly happy with. Fortunately, not all my works take this long – book 2 is almost complete already! It’s the first part of a trilogy set in the Naeisus universe and it’s called The Age of Reckoning. It’s an immersive, lore-rich, character-driven dark fantasy featuring completely unique races and an action-packed plot that is sure to keep you gripped from page one. Early readers have praised the character building and the drive behind them, one, in particular, being Captain Levana. She’s a ruthless, psychopathic killer who enjoys what she does. She’s cocky and badass and for some reason, readers fall in love with her. She has an allure despite her nature and it’s a great feeling being able to give an inherently evil character enough charisma to still be adored.

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Thomas Anthony Lay’s Website

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Featured Interview With Nancy Farkas

Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I was raised New York. I studied Psychology and English Literature at New York University. As undergraduates, my friend and I harmonized at a coffee house in Greenwich Village every Wednesday night. I always dreamed of becoming a singer; I never intended to become a writer, but certain events inspired me. I continue to live in New York with my husband. My children and grandchildren live nearby. I am sorry to say that I am no longer a pet owner. My dogs have a permanent place in my heart and a prominent place in my writing.

At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
My fascination with books followed closely behind my love of the cinema. Often I would watch a film that was based on classic literature, then “devour” the source material.
After my three three children left the nest, I developed a love of writing and did my best to perfect my craft. I particularly enjoy writing about the true events of my past, then fictionalizing episodes when the truth just does not seem interesting enough.

Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
My favorite authors are James Michener, William Somerset Maugham, Lawrence Block, and Bill Bryson. I spend most of my time reading non-fiction; mainly books about linguistics, and travel. I am inspired by the members of my local authors society and writers workshop, all of whom are published authors.

Tell us a little about your latest book?
My first and only novel, This Nearly Was Mine, was published in 2013. The ebook version went on to become an Amazon Bestseller in three categories in 2015. This autobiographically inspired work takes the reader on Annie’s journey through many European countries in the years following her studies. Once the protagonist lands happily in New York, she goes on to marry the love of her life and have a successful career, all the while raising children and dogs. When Annie’s past unexpectedly came back to confuse her very existence, she began writing a novel that seemed to complicate her life even more.

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Featured Interview With Deb McEwan

Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
Originally from Pontypridd, South Wales, I left home aged 17. Following a career of over thirty years in the British Army, my husband and I moved to Cyprus to become weather refugees.

I spend my time writing, entertaining our dog Sandy, and avoiding housework.

At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I’ve always loved reading and writing stories and started writing song lyrics about fifteen years ago. I collaborated with local musicians and once I started, I couldn’t stop.
My first book, ‘Reindeer Dreams’, is a rhyming children’s story about a reindeer who wants to join Santa’s team. My Aliens series followed shortly after, then the Afterlife series, Jason the Penguin and Unlikely Soldiers.
We adopted our lovely rescue dog Sandy in 2018. I wondered what her story would be if she could talk and so The Island Dog Squad series was born and is told from Sandy’s point of view.

Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
I have a number of favourite Indie Authors including Jean Gill, Rose English, Maria Gibbs and Kelly S Marsden to name but a few.

Tell us a little about your latest book?
Some of the events in the first book of my ‘Unlikely Soldiers’ series are based on my experiences in the British Army. I’m currently working on book four where Mouse (my heroine) finds herself in some tricky situations on the other side of the world.
The book will be published in early 2020.

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Featured Interview With J. C. Gilbert

Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I was raised on one of a series of islands in the South Pacific which are collectively known as New Zealand. These days I am quite nomadic, and currently based in the mostly rural Waikato province. I live with a small dog named Bowie who is not my responsibility but is generous in his cuddles. Until recently, I was a practicing psychologist off the back of 10 years of university attendance. Now I spend most of my time wandering the hills, giggling, and taking notes.

At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I first started writing a full novel when I was 18. It was frankly terrible. I wasn’t quite sure how quotations worked and thus spent a good deal of time describing conversations which had taken place. 14 years and an English degree later and things have improved somewhat. My first favorite series was Anamorphs, and later Harry Potter. It was Terry Pratchett’s Discworld which turned me into a serious reader.

Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
My favorite authors to read are actually Jane Austen and Oscar Wilde. This may be a bit of a hangover from my university years, but I find myself re-reading their works annually. Terry Pratchett and Niel Gaiman are highly ranked in my tastes. These four authors along with J. K. Rowling and John Green inspire my work the most.

Tell us a little about your latest book?
The Secret Library: A New Keeper is a fictional and fantastical account of my experience of social anxiety during my teen years. It combines my love of books, libraries, adventures, and silliness. The main character is Alex who lives with social anxiety and uses reading to escape from her troubles. However, when she is selected by a magical library to be its new Keeper she discovers that some books have troubles of their own, and now they are relying on her to fix them. The book is perfect for lovers of magic, adventure, and books. Loaded it up and begin your escape.

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J. C. Gilbert’s Website

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Featured Interview With Elizabeth Jade

Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I was born in the county of Yorkshire in the UK in 1998 and moved to my current home in the county of Somerset before I was 5. My early schooling didn’t go well and I was home-schooled from the age of 7. When I was 18, I was diagnosed with Aspergers (an autistic spectrum disorder) which explained a lot about the difficulties I had experienced in school.

While I struggle to understand people, I have a natural flare with animals and have volunteered in a number of different animal rescues. Animals make far more sense to me than people. This is probably why my stories are written through the eyes of the animals.

I an definitely an animal lover and my pets are as quirky as I am. have a Shih Tzu who thinks she’s a Border Collie, and a Border Collie with the attention span of the average Shi Tzu. While my autism means I struggle with sensory processing and social anxiety, a really cool quirk of this is that I can smell colours.

At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I stumbled into writing at 14 when I began to struggle with depression and anxiety, and quickly found my ideas pouring out faster than I could get them onto paper. Writing is rather like a mad frenzy at the best of times and I often have no real concept of what I’m writing about until after the story ends. It can feel more like being a secretary than a writer. Despite this, my first foray into writing was very successful and the second children’s book I wrote was published in 2017. This is the first in a planned series of books for 7-11 year-olds.

My inspiration can come from a conversation, dream, YouTube video or photograph.

Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
Whilst I grew up with the Animal Ark books by Lucy Daniels (a collective pseudonym), my preference these days is towards scifi by Gene Rodenberry, and books by Brian Jacques and Erin Hunter (another collective pseudonym).

Tell us a little about your latest book?
‘Akea – The Power of Destiny’ is a middle grade chapter book for 7-11 year-olds, although younger children will enjoy having it read to them, and adults will enjoy it as a light read. Wonderful illustrations accompany the narrative, giving a nice visual. This husky/wolf story is a new addition to the great animal fiction tradition of Jack London and Erin Hunter, where the story is told through the eyes of the animals. It is a captivating coming of age story which also teaches children about friendship and loyalty, and that being different doesn’t mean you can’t belong.

From the moment she was born into her husky family, her father, Kelleher, knew Akea was different. She somehow stood out from the rest of the litter even though Kelleher didn’t know why. As the pups grew and were able to play outside, a lone wolf appeared and watched from a distance. Akea was intrigued and felt drawn to the wolf, despite the firm warnings from her parents to stay away from him.

“Akea would always scan the edge of the woods in case the wolf came back, but she dare not let her father see her. Every night the wolf plagued her dreams, and although she had no idea what it meant, she was not afraid.”

Akea is born into a family of sled dogs and a life that follows a predictable path, but from the day she first sees the lone wolf, Kazakh, Akea knows her future lies beyond the safety of her home. Kazakh is well aware of Akea’s destiny and the pack laws he will break to help her reach it. Regardless of the challenges ahead, he must make sure this young husky will be ready, even if it means his life.

Her journey includes love and loss, teaching her a great deal about herself and her priorities. As in all the best stories, good and evil battle for supremacy, with several surprises and twists along the way.

The follow up story to this, ‘Akea – His Mother’s Son’, will be available later this year. Chapter one of this dual narrative story is available to download from the website.

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Elizabeth Jade’s Website

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Featured Interview With Frank Prem

Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I was raised in the little town of Beechworth, in Victoria (Australia) in the 1960s and 70s. Like so many Small Town Kids I hightailed it out of there as soon as I could, only to find myself drawn back by the tug that little towns everywhere seem to hold. They don’t let go of their young very easily.

Actually, I found that by the time I had small children of my own, the entire childhood that I’d enjoyed and remembered as freedoms that were only natural for a child to have, had disappeared. The change seemed profound enough to me to prompt me to write a memoir of some of my growing up experiences. That resulted in my first free verse poetry collection (released in December 2018) called Small Town Kid. Bonfire nights and blowing up school teachers letterboxes with crackers, riding a bicycle for 14 miles just to see a girl. All those things that had disappeared by the mid 1990s, it seemed to me.

I don’t have any pets now, but I’m a dog person. I have two dogs I remember with especial fondness – An apricot coloured Standard Poodle named Sparky; and a black and white Border Collie named Leelu. Wonderful dogs that I still miss, from time to time, years later.

At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
Oh, I started reading very young. I was one of those kids that ended up with their own allocated reading space because I was a devourer of books. I started writing early, too. I was just fascinated with stories and enjoyed writing essays at school.

I discovered poetry by chance, really. As I recall, I was feeling lazy and didn’t want to submit a full length essay on some subject or other (Autumn, I think the theme was), so I whipped up a free verse poem that took no time at all.

I was amazed to get a good mark for my effort and so I did more (and more, and more . . .) until, over time, writing stories in free verse poetry has become something I now associate with sense of self. I AM a free verse poet.

Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
These days, I’m quite taken with Speculative fiction – also known as ‘what if . . .’ fiction. What if we went to the stars? What if we survived a World War 3? What if Gandalf was alive, and Elves roamed the earth?

Some of my favorite authors include: Robin Hobb (The Farseer books); Ursula Le Guin (Earthsea books and science fiction); Suzanne Collins (The Hunger Games).

I’ve been inspired in my writing by short story authors such as H. E. Bates, and Damon Runyan (both largely forgotten, now), and in recent times by a French Philosopher named Gaston Bachelard who wrote about poetry and poetics and used imagery in his work that i found extraordinarily inspiring and ended writing some 800 pieces of work in response. I hope to publish this work in book form one day.

Tell us a little about your latest book?
My latest book is Devil In The Wind. This is a free verse poetry collection of the voices of survivors and victims of our catastrophic Black Saturday bushfires in 2009.

The events and the stories of survivors haunted me for a long time, and there are still a lot of folk that have been traumatised by those fires. So I wrote them down, and now a decade later, I’ve put them into a book that I’m quite proud of.

Some of the stories show how a fire can be like a living thing with a mind of its own. Others speak of the ultimate futility of good fire plans, when the fire doesn’t obey the old rules. Hiding in a dam with the ducks; using the Army Reserve to find suspicious mounds left behind in the rubble.

It is very powerful reading, particularly as wildfires feature more and more frequently in all parts of the world.

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