Author Interviews

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.

L.J. Goodman’s writing career spans many decades, firstly as an award-winning advertising copywriter, journalist, and public speaker, then as an award-winning animal welfare campaigner, and now as an award-winning author.

AG Flitcher is a ten-time award-winning author who also placed in finals twice for Fantasy Series and once for Fantasy Book for the OZMA Award given by Chanticleer. In addition, he has taught many the art of storytelling to novice writers and avid readers. His obsession with questioning the good and bad in life, the grey areas, and the scary parts of life, is what makes his work enthralling and colorful.

A former U.S. Army officer raised at the junction of South American, African, Caribbean, and European cultures, Andre is a disruptor of predictable tropes, a conqueror of unconventional timelines, and a slayer of unilateral perspectives.

Peter J. Boni credits his disruptive childhood, a college education from UMass@Amherst, decorated on-the-ground service as a US Army Special Operations Team Leader in Vietnam (coined his “Rice Paddy MBA”), love of his family and friendship circle, plus luck-of-the-draw DNA with making him the person he has become today—an author, advocate, and fun-loving grandfather living on Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

Valerie D. Wade is the author of the debut novel, Ivy Lee’s Rue, and the upcoming novella, Leaving Jacksonville. A lifelong resident of Michigan, Valerie currently lives in Detroit but was raised in Highland Park. She is an alum of Wayne State University and currently works as a Research Administrator.