Author Interviews

I’ve always loved writing. Complete transparency alert—I never set out to become an author. I know, that probably sounds unlikely considering, but it’s true. I sat down one day and decided I wanted to write a story because I needed to know how a dream I’d awoken from ended. It snowballed and turned into chapters and eventually into an entire book. When I finished that book, I needed to make sure my characters were OK and thriving so I wrote the second book.

Danielle Carpenter is a fiction and non-fiction writer living in Miami, FL. Her work often explores the relationship between technology and the natural world, futuristic societies, and the human condition.

I live in Oregon. I draw inspiration from the temperate rain forest and people who interact with its varied range and depth. We are on the threshold of changing the environment in ways we have not imagined. The negativity of not only the politics of the world but the implications of climate change have caused us to abandon our commitment to people in our lives in favor of defending our perception of a world that has been created to question facts and truth. When we consider our own lives and relationships, we realize that as Dylan’s lyrics state “I am meek, hard like an oak, seen pretty people disappear like smoke.” We are the result of small incremental incidents that for the most part we don’t recognize until we do.

Betty R. Wall was born and raised in British Columbia, Canada. A graduate of the University of Toronto’s Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures (M.A.), she has spent most of her professional career working in translation. In her free time, she continues to pursue her love of writing and travel, which has taken her to various parts of Europe, Africa, Asia, and South America. She is the author of No Way Out, a Canada Book Awards Winner, published in 2021. All That This House Has to Offer is her first short story collection.

Mark Jonathan Harris is a Los Angeles writer/filmmaker who has published essays, award-winning children’s novels, and non-fiction books, as well as written, directed, and produced numerous documentary films, three of which won Oscars. Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport, a feature documentary he wrote and directed, won an Academy Award in 2000 and was selected by the U.S. Library of Congress for permanent preservation in the National Film Registry. For many years, he headed the documentary program at the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California, where he was a Distinguished Professor.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Mark Pickvet was born in Pinconning, Michigan, and graduated from the University of Michigan where he received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees. He went on to obtain a PhD in History and has written many books, especially on the history of glassware and the State of Michigan, and several works of fiction.

What makes a person believe they understand a non-fiction problem to such a degree they decide to spend four years writing a book about it? First, there has to be a need for the story—to make people want to read it. I believe the first complete story of red tape: a condition that has existed in the administration of government at all levels and in all democracies for literally centuries, a very real problem that threatens democracy as a form of governance and a problem that impacts all people meets the need of a story to be told.

Albert Jaskula is the author of the novel The Fall. He never imagined he could write a book after living in London for nearly a decade. Working as an assistant manager and then as a driver gave him plenty of time to contemplate and write down ideas for something unique. The plot evolved over time until it came together as a cohesive whole. His writing career began in a very unusual way. When he became a co-author of a children’s book (which has yet to be published), he realised what a joy it was to write.

Sally Stevens has worked in film, television, sound recordings and commercials music in Hollywood for many decades, as a singer/choral director/lyricist. She has written lyrics for Burt Bacharach, Dave Grusin, Dominic Frontiere, Don Ellis and others, and her short fiction, poems, and personal essays have appeared in Hermeneutic Chaos Literary Journay, Mockingheart Review, RAven’s Perch, Funny in Five Hundred, The Missouri Review, Los Angeles Press, The Voices Project, The OffBeat, and Between the Lines Anthology: Fairy Tales & Folklore Re-imagined. Her memoir, I SANG THAT – A Memoir from Hollywood was published in October of 2022.

Milda has produced, written, and directed short films, documentaries, as well as commercials for both television and radio, winning many awards for her achievements. Having the passion to write, Milda retired early, trading the whirlwind world of the Big Apple for a quiet, relaxed lifestyle in the resort city of Ostuni (also known as the White City).