Author Interviews!

Janice Laakko likes to have fun! When she was a young child, she enjoyed doing character imitations and performing in backyard plays (she was once an explorer, and another time a “professor of magic tricks”!). As a mother, she threw themed birthday parties for her kids and their friends. Whether they were baking in her kitchen, building spaceships from giant boxes and foil, or competing in backyard Olympics, a good time was had by everyone!

Roger Danchik has had one of those lives that is much more interesting to talk about than to actually have lived. The stories of a life like this can be great. For instance, how he almost decided to climb Mount Everest when he was in Nepal—where pot was legal in the 60s—because it didn’t look that high.

My wife and I have resided and traveled extensively in Russia and Eastern Europe, which provided valuable cultural context for Lost Roots. We now live in New Jersey with our mouthy cat, but I was born and raised in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I graduated from Macalester College in St. Paul and earned a master’s degree and Ph.D. from the University of Kansas. For ten years I taught history at the university level and published many academic articles and one book.

Cecil Homer grew up on an Illinois farm and survived the shock of applied science studies at the University of Illinois. From milking a cow in the early winter morning to sleeping through a lecture on Taylor series expansions, it was a long journey in ever-evolving iron cages. CH revels in the midwestern humor but only observes the real tragedies of life—his good luck.

Amy J. Schultz is an author and award-winning photographer who explores unique aspects of modern culture that hide in plain sight.

Kathryn Lund lives in the historic city of York in the north of England. She studied archaeology as an undergraduate and postgraduate before doing her masters in Creative Writing. It was from her masters’ submissions that she created her two books, a collection of short stories called The Things We Keep in the Cupboard and her critically well-received novel The Things We Left Sleeping. Released in 2022, The Things We Left Sleeping was named an Indie Top 100 by Shelf Unbound Magazine.

I was born in Mexico. My first language is Spanish. When I immigrated to the United States at age fifteen, I learned English, finished high school, then college, earned an M.A., and finally a Ph.D. I then taught at Harvard and other American colleges and universities. I was also a university administrator, the first director of La Casa Latina: The University of Pennsylvania Center for Hispanic Excellence, and the resident director of a study abroad program in Seville, Spain, for students of Cornell, Michigan, and the University of Pennsylvania. I am now a full-time poet, essayist, and independent researcher.

Daphne Birkmyer’s background as a teacher and biologist continues to exert its influence on her written work. Born overseas and currently living in California, she observes Americans through an immigrant’s eyes. She shares her home with a multitude of reptiles and mammals and the occasional child who comes home to roost. Book four of the Comfrey, Wyoming series is nearing completion.