Author Interviews

Mariella Saavedra Carquin has practiced as a licensed mental health counselor in New York City in clinical, higher education, and middle school settings and now works as a clinician in integrated pediatric primary care. She is a graduate of Middlebury College, holds an EdM and an MA in psychological counseling from Columbia University, and recently earned an MA from Middlebury’s Bread Loaf School of English. She was the first-place winner of the Robert Haiduke Poetry Prize in 2020 and the third-place winner in 2022.

Debbie Bowles is a writer, reader and media assistant at her local elementary school. She has won numerous writing contests and loves a challenge. When she’s not working, you can find her in her garden, at any bookstore or traveling for inspiration for her writing. Her current manuscript was written due to a lack of stories addressing children whose parents are incarcerated. Debbie resides in Silver Spring, Maryland, not only in the beautiful home she grew up in, but where she and her husband over the years raised two daughters and several corgis.

Kathie Giorgio is the author of a total of fifteen books: eight novels, two story collections, an essay collection, and four poetry collections. Her newest novel, Don’t Let Me Keep You, will be released on October 3, 2024. She’s been nominated for the Pushcart Prize in fiction and poetry and awarded the Outstanding Achievement Award from the Wisconsin Library Association, the Silver Pen Award for Literary Excellence, the Pencraft Award for Literary Excellence, and the Eric Hoffer Award in Fiction.

Nancy Brashear lives in Southern California with her husband, Patrick, where her grown children and seven grandgirls support her writing. She began her teaching career as a credentialed k-12 teacher and reading specialist and ended as a university professor. She has published short stories, poems, academic articles, textbook chapters, and educational website content. Gunnysack Hell, her debut thriller, was inspired by a true-crime event. And, yes, she did live off-grid with her family in a homestead cabin in the Mojave Desert when she was a child.

Adam Horvath grew up in Bayside, Queens, and studied English at Columbia, where he was infected by Chaucerian irony and the “metaphysical ideas and scholastical quiddities” of John Donne & Co. He never recovered. After a two-year stint as Navigator of the cargo vessel USS Arcturus, he embarked on a career as a senior acquisitions editor at several university presses and a trade book editor for McGraw-Hill.

A.H. Zamparelli lives in New Jersey, U.S., with her husband Rick, and enjoys writing, and reading mystery novels and historical biographies. In addition, Annie enjoys sketching now and then, having provided the artwork for a children’s story as gifts for her niece’s and nephew’s babies.

Kristen Henderson began her writing career decades ago at the Stanford Daily (Stanford University), where she served as editor-in-chief. Her life has seen a lot of twists and turns through medical challenges, bringing her to understand that the creative process of writing fiction is where she thrives. During the pandemic, she founded Bright Flash Literary Review, an online journal for flash fiction and memoir. Through Bright Flash, Kristen has developed a vast online community of writers from all over the world.

Kim D. Brandon is a Poet/Artist/Activist/Storyteller. Her work has been included in stage performances, anthologies, and journals. She is a 2021 Brooklyn Poets’ Poet of the Week, and a VONA alum. Her poem “Love On the Front Line” was nominated for Best Of the Net. She has attended Women of Color Writers, Wild Seed Retreats and Cave Canem Writers Workshops.

Rayshell E. Clapper lives and loves in Martinez, CA, where she spends her time with words as a writer and a Professor of English at Diablo Valley College. She began her teaching career in 2002 and has found her dream job at DVC. She’s deeply involved with the literary community of her campus bringing authors to read, hosting the biannual Literature Week, and planning mini-workshops for creative writers. She loves teaching about the power of words, helping students tap into that power, and spreading her enthusiasm for writing and reading.

Michelle Lindsey has been writing professionally since she was 14. She has worked as a staff writer, columnist, feature writer and freelancer for newspapers and magazines. When she was 10, she interviewed President (then Governor) Bill Clinton for a small local newspaper of which she was the founder, publisher and editor. When she was 16, she won an international essay contest in USA Today. Her short stories have won awards in multiple contests.

Becky Houston is a former social worker turned poet who has been scribbling angsty musings in corners with night lights since she was a little girl. Her poetry explores themes of mental health, desire, sexuality, relationships, motherhood, feminism, and social justice. Her poem “Cold Floors and Blueberry Bread” was published in the anthology Song of Ourself: Voices in Unison, which was awarded the Bronze Medal for General Fiction/Literature in the 2020 Living Now Book Awards.

A. Drzal writes raw, honest poetry that carries the themes that have defined his own life: addiction, recovery, love, intimacy, trauma, healing, gratitude, and hope. When he’s not writing, he’s working as a public school teacher or playing music with his band. He lives in New York City with his fiancé and is currently working on his second poetry collection.

Louise Nayer has written two books of poetry and co-authored How to Bury a Goldfish about rituals for everyday life (Rodale). The award-winning Burned: A Memoir, an Oprah great read and winner of The Wisconsin Library Association Award in memoir, is a family story about a gas explosion in Cape Cod that burned her parents when she was four years old. She is also the author of Poised for Retirement: Moving from Anxiety to Zen and Narrow Escapes, her latest memoir.

I was born in Russia in a small town in the Kirov region. Ever since I was a child, I have loved creating something new. In 2009, I graduated from school in a small village and moved to study in the center of the region. In 2014, I graduated from the university with a degree in Organization of Work with Youth. After several years of working in different positions, I decided that I could no longer just keep dreaming that it was time to see the world.

Linda Joy Walder has written poetry in her mind daily since childhood. Her debut collection of poems, Running Naked in the Snow, is deeply rooted in a lifetime of magical and mournful occurrences.

Jeanne Savelle is a wine writer, who also dabbles in creative non-fiction, short fiction, and poetry. Her past lives include life and retirement coaching and a long international finance career. She loves travel, nature, wine, and reading and lives in the Atlanta, GA, area with her husband.

Carrigan Richards, a native of Cullman, Alabama, discovered her passion for weaving imaginative tales early on. She is a graduate of Kennesaw State University in Kennesaw, Georgia and received her Master of Arts in professional writing from Kennesaw State. Carrigan expertly merges reality and fiction to delve into life’s complexities. Her vibrant characters and thought-provoking narratives showcase a talent for captivating storytelling. Carrigan loves hiking, concerts, furbaby play with Ella and Ozzie, and fervently supports the Atlanta Braves.

I am Aubrey, but you may call me Aubs, and I am a poet who delves into the intricacies of existence, exploring the paradoxes that define the human experience. With a keen eye for the elegance and eloquence that lies within life’s contradictions, I weave words that resonate with both depth and grace.

Jodi Lawaich is a freelance copywriter living in Burlington. Jodi’s greatest production ever is her daughter, a freshly-minted, twenty-one-year-old college student majoring in Economics and Global Studies.

Eric Taveren writes and lives in Minneapolis. He is in the tail end of his MFA program at Hamline University and his work appears in Great Weather for Media, F(r)iction’s Dually Noted, and Avalon Literary Review, among others. One of the small percentage of people with aphantasia, he writes to create the worlds he cannot see.