Lya Badgley writes suspenseful international fiction featuring characters overcoming life-changing odds. Global conflict zones and insurgencies offer a vivid backdrop to her stories. She draws deeply from personal experience living in Europe and Southeast Asia.
An Interview with David VanDevelder
I was born on Mexican Independence Day in Mexico City, Mexico. From the age of three, I grew up in the lush, sun-dappled zombie headquarters of Alexandria Virginia, where I promptly forgot all of my Spanish during an intensive program of simultaneous civic and religious indoctrination from the brightest and most delightfully psychopathic in the military establishment and the Virginia Diocese of the Episcopal Church. As soon as I was able to cover myself in enough zombie slime to effect a forward escape, I embarked with heroic earnest on an epic journey with no clear final destination in mind.
An Interview with Margarita Barresi
Raised in Puerto Rico by her grandparents, Margarita Barresi grew up hearing stories about the “good old days”—the genesis for A Delicate Marriage, her first novel. She studied public relations at Boston University, and after a successful career in marketing communications, now devotes her time to writing. Her essays have been published in several literary magazines and compilations. Margarita lives in the Boston suburbs with her husband and two Puerto Rican cats, Luna and Rico.
An Interview with Jaime Grunfeld
Jaime Grunfeld, LMHC, was born and raised in Sao Paulo, Brazil, where his parents, who lived in Hungary, fled after its invasion by the Nazis. As a teenager, he came to study at Yeshiva in Westchester County, NY, where he graduated in Talmudic Law. Returning to Brazil, he married and joined the family’s textile industry, where over the years he became its CEO.
An Interview with Elizabeth Slade
Elizabeth G. Slade is the author of Rest Stops, a coming-of-age novel that won the Next Generation Indie Book Award in 2012. In 2021, she published the nonfiction book, Montessori in Action: Building Resilient Schools with John Wiley & Sons. Elizabeth has also worked with others to create books such as Women Period and How to Raise a Peaceful Child in a Violent World. She is currently co-authoring Finding Ground with Allison Jones, a book about teaching at the elementary level, which is forthcoming from Parent Child Press.
An Interview with Deborah Trahan
After nearly twenty years of teaching secondary English, I made good on a challenge I'd issued myself years ago: to write the book I most wanted to read! I'm blessed to live along Mississippi's Gulf Coast and cannot write until I've walked my favorite stretch of beach and collected my daily quota of oyster shells.
An Interview with Joni Mann
I'm a twin: a restless, angry, merciless one. However, I can be the more patient, understanding, and loving kind. I don't blame people normally. I find my own way in life. I don't deal with loud sounds well. I try to find uplifting people and activities to make my life better. I'm a big believer in Heaven, God, and His commandments. My achievements are only because I'm blessed by God. He's trained me out of many situations and engaged me in activities that helped me be supported.
An Interview with Ken Hogarty
Dr. Ken Hogarty, who lives in San Francisco’s East Bay with his wife Sally, retired after a forty-six-year career as a high school teacher and principal. He has had stories, essays, memoirs, and comedy pieces published in Underwood, Sport Literate, Sequoia Speaks, Cobalt, Woman’s Way, Purpled Nails, the S.F. Chronicle, MacQueen’s, Bridge Eight, Under Review, Points in Case, Robot Butt, Glossy News, Kelp Journal, The Satirist, and Good Old Days. His novel, Recruiting Blue Chip Prospects, launched to good reviews.
An Interview with Carmelinda Blagg
Carmelinda Blagg was born in Oklahoma and raised in Texas. She earned her B.A. in English Literature from the University of Texas at Dallas, and fondly recalls those years as a time when she fell in love with literature and writing. After graduating, she spent several years traveling throughout Europe, living and studying in Florence and Perugia, Italy, and later in Paris, France, where she earned a certificate in paralegal studies from the American University in Paris, focusing on International Trade Law and European Union Law. After returning home, she resettled in the Washington, D.C., area where she went to work for the World Bank for fifteen years. In her free time, she began writing short stories and pursued her M.A. in Writing from Johns Hopkins University.
An Interview with Alan Cohen
Alan Cohen had his first poem published in the PTA Newsletter at the age of ten. He graduated from Farmingdale High School (where he was Poetry Editor of The Bard), Vassar College (with a BA in English), and UC at Davis Medical School. He was then a Primary Care physician, teacher, and Chief of Primary Care at the VA. He has over the years had letters to the editor in Poetry and The New Yorker and articles in the American and New England Journals of Medicine, and has had 178 poems published in ninety venues over the past three years. He’s been married to his wife, Anita, for forty-two years, and they’ve been living in Eugene, OR, these past twelve.