Author Interviews

Dr. Peter J. Ramos, Jr. lives in Southern California. He is an author, artist, and Doctor of World Religious Studies. He is the Creative Director and Founder of Hous of Ibiko. He has written books such as Hello Enzo: What Does Enzo Like To Do? and Happy In A Thousand Dark Places. His soon-to-be-published book, And Then I Woke Up, Screaming, is his first collection of short stories.

Diane Lefer is the award-winning author of five published novels, three story collections, and more than 100 stories. Learn more about her fiction, plays, essays and journalism at her website, www.dianelefer.weebly.com.

A graduate of the University of Michigan (Go Blue!) with a BA in French and PhD in physiology, Christina taught college-level anatomy and physiology for close to twenty years before concentrating her passion on writing and editing. She’s the author of Rewrite the Stars and The Weight We Carry, and she’s co-author of Historic Photos of University of Michigan. She lives in Ohio with her husband, four children, and a rotating cast of pets.

Gemma Lees is a Romany Gypsy, disabled and neurodiverse fine art installationist, performance poet, actor, facilitator, journalist and theatre-maker from Bury, Lancashire. Her practise focuses on protest, advocacy and telling the stories that no one else is.

I have always loved to write! I have also always loved to spin a tale verbally, whether it be truthful, or a slightly elaborated version of the truth. My best friend and I used to team write full-length stories when we were younger, one of which my Sophomore English teacher actually thought was good enough to be published.

Valeriya Salt is a multi-genre author from the United Kingdom. She studied history and earned her master’s degree in Art Expertise at St. Petersburg University of Culture and Arts.

Deborah L. Staunton’s work has appeared in the New York Times, Pretty Owl Poetry, Six Hens, and the MacGuffin, among others. Her poetry was featured at HBO’s Inspiration Room exhibit in New York City. She is a Best of the Net and two-time Pushcart Prize nominee and a finalist in the David Wade Hogue Rocket Man Poetry Award. Her poetry and short prose collection, Untethered, is the recipient of a PenCraft Best Book Award. Her children’s picture book, Owls Can’t Sing, is forthcoming from Two Sisters Press. She holds a B.S. in Education and a B.A. in Theatre Arts and lives with her husband and two children on Long Island, NY.

Gary Green grew up on a small dairy farm in central Minnesota. He has worked in many different occupations, finally settling on mental health. He is the author of three published books, two of which are award-winners. He lives on a small farm with his wife, Tammy, dog Basil, and a small flock of chickens.

Rekha Valliappan is an award-winning multi-genre writer of short stories, poetry and creative nonfiction. She has been widely published online and in print in hundreds of literary and genre magazines and anthologies including New World Writing, Ann Arbor Review, The Museum of Americana: A Literary Review, Adelaide Literary Magazine, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, The Cabinet of Need, Queen Mob’s Teahouse, Bending Genres, Lackington Magazine, Aphelion Magazine of Science Fiction & Fantasy, Saturday Evening Post, and other places. She was nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Besides being published in winners’ anthologies her work was also named Poem of the Week and Best of Fiction by Red Fez and Across the Margin respectively.

T.R. Slauf was born and raised in Michigan, originally studying and working in the field of Biochemistry. After having open-heart surgery for congenital heart disease, Slauf changed career paths to pursue the passion of storytelling and published their debut novel, Hidden Realm, two years later. Slauf now lives in Cincinnati, Ohio, with their spouse and two cats.

Azra Rahman was born in India. She has been tapping into the profession of writing and published for the past nine years. The Mother of my Children is her debut novel. She currently lives in the beautiful valley of Salt Lake City, Utah, with her family of five.

Kim Fleet has an MA and a PhD in Anthropology, and worked with indigenous people in Australia for five years. This experience informed her murder mystery novels, Sacred Site and Featherfoot. Turning to crime closer to home, she is the author of the Eden Grey mysteries, a series of time-slip crime novels featuring determined PI Eden Grey. Kim has spoken about her writing at the Cheltenham Literary Festival and at Bristol Crime Fest. She lives in the UK with two bossy cats who assist the creative process by standing on the delete key.

When I am not sewing, cooking, gardening, roasting cacao, fire dancing, writing, crafting, singing and playing music, mixing batches of salve, seasonings and herbal infusions, painting, drawing, making candles, feeding the donkey, sheep, guinea pigs, chickens, cats or other humans, find me near a shore playing my drum while my children swim salty waves watching for whales and rainbows or deep in a forest listening to the wisdom of trees, breeze and wildflowers whisper their truth.

East Texas author JoDee Neathery has written two award-winning novels: Life in a Box, published 2017, and A Kind of Hush, released July 2021. Both have won the International Firebird Book Awards for literary fiction and were awarded Readers’ Favorite 5-Star designations. A Kind of Hush received critical acclaim as one of five finalists in the highly contested mystery category of the 16th annual 2022 National Indie Excellence Awards, the 2022 Silver Medal Winner, Readers’ Favorite Annual International Book Awards, Literary Fiction, and was a shortlisted finalist in the 11th annual 2022 Millennium Book Awards and winner in the literary fiction category.

Irena Smith is a former Stanford admissions officer, long-time college counselor, and relatively new author. She emigrated from the Soviet Union with her parents when she was nine, and after vowing strenuously that she would never learn English, she earned a PhD in Comparative Literature and taught literature and composition at UCLA and Stanford before transitioning to admissions counseling and writing. Her memoir, The Golden Ticket: A Life in College Admissions Essays, recently won the 2023 Best Book Award for creative nonfiction. Forbes lauds it as “captivating and smart,” an antidote to conventional thinking about elite college admissions.

Debut author Emily Hood is a primary school teacher from Warwickshire, UK. She started writing nearly two years ago and is incredibly excited for her debut release, The Black That Surrounds Us. She has several other works in progress, all based around the fantastical Vadorian Universe. When she isn’t writing, she is spreading her love of creativity through teaching, drawing animals, or taking long walks.

Jessica K. Foster is an author of young adult contemporary romances including Andy and the Extroverts and the forthcoming Andy and the Summer of Something. She lives in West Michigan with her husband, two boys, and ragtag crew of rescue animals. Find out more at jessicakfoster.com.

Ian D. Feldman writes page-turning, apocalyptic fiction that explores Christian themes in the real world with unique characters who challenge common thinking and shed light on issues we all face. Because no life is free from catastrophe, the apocalypse is a useful meme to explore the impact of disasters on our lives while being entertained along the way.

Jessica Genia Simon began writing poetry at age seven. As a teenager based in Rockville, MD, she competed and won a spot on the Brave New Voices D.C. National Youth Poetry Slam Team. She earned a B.A. in English and Textual Studies and Policy Studies at Syracuse University and her M.S. in Education from University of Pennsylvania. She works at a gun violence prevention nonprofit in D.C. and lives with her wife and daughter in Silver Spring, Maryland. Built of All I Shape and Name (Kelsay Books, 2023) is her first poetry collection. The poem Even After in this collection was nominated for the Pushcart Prize.

Laura Taylor Cox was born in Nashville, TN, and raised in Lewisburg. She earned her BS degree from Vanderbilt University and holds a Masters of Communications in Theater Arts from Regent University. While studying at Regent, she met her husband, Bill. They have been married over forty years and have four children and seven grandchildren.