Author Interviews

Denise is a book lover with the childhood goal of reading every book in the library. A former book-seller, operating out of her home, she delivered books decades before Amazon. The highlight of her bookselling career was packing her car full of books for black men and peddling them to guys on their way to the Million Man March. She sold every last book.

Lauren Jane Redmond is a mystery writer in Austin, Texas. She received a BA in English and Film Studies from the University of Tulsa and an MFA in Playwriting from the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC.

Fernando J. Moguel (pen name: Mr. Pendlum) is a Mexican-American creative communicator, author, educator, and multi-disciplinary artist. His passion is using his creativity to inspire curiosity. He is based in Houston, Texas.

I’m a Christian teenage writer who loves the art of writing. Learning day by day how to make my work better and better.

I’m a lifelong community organizer who has always had a passion for helping people, especially those who fall under marginalized identities. I’ve often used my creativity as a way to serve others and I honestly believe if I can’t be creative in what I’m doing, then I’d rather not do it at all.

Sarah Orman used to be an attorney for public schools in Texas and California. Now she writes personal essays and poetry. Her work has been published in Narrative, Witness, oranges journal, and elsewhere. Sarah is also the author of A Reader’s Compendium on Substack. She lives with her family in Austin, where she is working on a memoir about her wayward youth. Although she spent her twenties on the East and West Coasts, she enjoys reminding her fellow Texans that she was born and raised here. Find out more about Sarah at sarahormanwrites.com.

Christie Goodman, APR, Fellow PRSA, is director of communications at IDRA, a national education equity and civil rights non-profit based in San Antonio. She is a graduate of Texas Tech University (and a Goin’ Band and Courtjesters alum). She was a long-time leader of two Girl Scout troops and a board member of the March of Dimes San Antonio, among other volunteer roles. Christie is writing a memoir featuring a motherhood journey through infertility and near-death premature childbirth, twice, while weaving the stories of feminist biblical heroines with surprisingly parallel struggles and life consequences.

Ray LeCara Jr is a master-certified life coach, educational consultant, and founder of Authentic Embassy Consulting. As the author of the self-help book Who Are You, Really? The Search for Authenticity, Ray is a respected authority in helping individuals achieve academic, professional, and personal success.

Kirsten McKenzie fought international crime for fourteen years as a Customs Officer in both England and New Zealand, before leaving to work in the family antique store. Now a full-time author, she lives in New Zealand with her family and alternates between writing time travel trilogies and polishing her next thriller. Her spare time is spent organising author events and appearing on literary panels at various festivals around the world.

Robin Modlin lives with her husband, Doug and little dog, Jack in two places: the beautiful northern California foothills town of Murphys and along–side the vineyards of Livermore, CA. As an emerging author, Robin writes with an introspective point of view influenced by her interest in psychology, spirituality, and creativity. She has a Master’s in East-West Psychology from the California Institute of Integral Studies and is a first-place winner of participatory arts by the Society for the Arts in Healthcare.

Dawn Hemmings is a true wanderer, whether she’s travelling around the world or driving through the beautiful roads of the UK in her campervan named Freeda. Dawn grew up in North
Lincolnshire and lives with her two Maine Coons, Banjo and Presley. She has been working in health and safety for more than twenty-seven years. She’s achieved academic success with
an MSc in Environmental Health and Safety and an MBA. Dawn has also been a hairdresser and a skilled personal assistant. In her books, she weaves stories inspired by her diverse travels and her fascination with mysteries and murder.

Douglas Weissman is an award-winning novelist and travel writer, as well as a Los Angeles native who has lived in Florence, Rome, Sydney, and San Francisco. He can always be swayed by a good cookie or bad ice cream because even bad ice cream is pretty good.

John Egan is a sixty-three-year-old ex-sign-writer, now living on a disability pension. Racked with constant pain, he writes in his favorite genre, science fiction, and has three books written thus far.

I am a former funeral director turned self-published poet, author, and occasional events organiser. I was born in North Shields where I still reside with my family. I have self-published several poetry pamphlets, a full collection, and more recently a novelette titled Nirvana: A Tale of Poets & The Beautifully Mad.

A. N. Horton is a two-time award-winning author living in Nashville, TN, with her husband, children, and moderately chunky corgi. When she’s not writing, she’s reading, baking more cookies than her family can eat, and plotting crimes against her characters. Best known for crafting characters that steal her readers’ hearts as much as they shatter them, A. N. Horton is a cross-genre writer focused mainly on fantasy and romance.

Andrew Fraser grew up on a farm in Manawatu, New Zealand. This in no way equipped him to string a sentence together, let alone a 90,000-word novel. These days he works in marketing, drives a standing desk in an office instead of a tractor, and welds a keyboard instead of a chainsaw.

A versatile professional writer for over thirty-five years, Chris Lincoln is a graduate of Middlebury College, who has studied at the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. He is the author of a novel, The Funny Moon (Rootstock Press, July 2023), and the widely praised non-fiction book, Playing the Game: Inside Athletic Recruiting in the Ivy League (Nomad Press 2004). The manuscript for his humorous detective novel, Thin Ice, was optioned for film, and his many articles on the arts, sports, and recreation have appeared in New England-based magazines and newspapers.

S.H. Livernois lives in Northern New York with her husband and dog. She writes in multiple genres, but everything she writes scares both herself and her loved ones.

I live and work as a clinical psychologist in Ann Arbor, Michigan. My new book, for emerging adults, will be published in the fall of 2024. I have published two prior novels, A Beautiful Land and Indigo Rose, and five psychology books: When Parents Have Problems, Emotions of Menace and Enchantment, Disgust: The Gatekeeper Emotion, Shame in Context, and The Shame Experience.

Christian W. Freed was born in Buffalo, NY, more years ago than he would like to remember. After spending more than twenty years in the active-duty US Army, he has turned his talents to writing. Since retiring, he has gone on to publish over thirty military fantasy and science fiction novels, as well as his memoirs from his time in Iraq and Afghanistan, a children’s book, and a pair of how-to books focused on indie authors and the decision-making process for writing a book and what happens after it is published.