Author Interviews

PENNY ON THE TRACKS was selected for the 2023 WFWA Mentorship Program and is a 2023 First Pages Prize finalist. A prior unpublished novel won Top 100 in the 2023 Launch Pad Prose Competition. Nola holds a BA in French & English Literature and Creative Writing from Vassar College and an MSc in Psychoanalytic Psychology from University College London. She began her career in subsidiary rights at Simon & Schuster and as an editorial assistant at The Stonesong Press literary agency before pivoting to her current career in advertising. She’s a member of WFWA, Paragraph NY, and a mentor at Girls Write Now.

I don’t know where to begin. I’ve written all of my life. Stories, poems, essays, outfit descriptions, eulogies, biographies, but the only thing that’s ever been published (or officially released) are my songs. The author journey is very new to me. Currently I have written over fifteen short stories that I have made into my three-part book: As Told By Us. I have big dreams for these books, and I was full steam ahead when I became a mom and my parents migrated to the United States, and I lost my brother who was also my editor and critique, and so life had a huge shift for me, thus delaying my published writer’s journey. I guess all I can say is that words have always been my key to all the things that I’ve enjoyed in life.

Cassandra Kass is a writer of many things, but mostly YA Fantasy. When not writing or reading, she likes to get dirty while gardening, make a mess in the kitchen while baking, and always lets her tea get cold before drinking.

I am currently professor emeritus at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, where I spent twenty years teaching African American literature. Since my retirement in 2009, I’ve transitioned to full-time writer working on projects that interest me. As such, I’ve completed a novel, INTO AFRICA, a nonfiction study, BLACK WRITERS ABROAD, a screenplay, ODE TO FREEDOM, a full-length play, PAUL ROBESON IN BERLIN, and dozens of poems published in various periodicals and journals. Some of these projects were written in collaboration with other writers.

Markus McDowell is a multigenre author, editor, and ghostwriter of both fiction and nonfiction. He enjoys exploring the chaos that life often throws at us, and all the ways humans respond. Markus holds a PhD and a law degree, in addition to three master’s degrees, and has lectured and taught courses at universities in the US and Europe. He lives on a boat and travels extensively, having a serious case of wanderlust.

Self-honesty is paramount. When you begin to be honest with yourself about your participation in your own conflicts, everything around you gets a lot easier. I want my story to inspire you to begin your own journey into self-honesty and becoming your own best friend. I want this book to motivate you to choose to change your life. I want you to be inspired to save your own life and align your thoughts, words, and actions to cultivate peace.

Rebecca is a Canadian author who currently lives in Prague, Czech Republic. She works in not-for-profit and writes in her spare time. She began writing at the tender age of 7, when she wrote and “published” her first short story.

Sher Davidson was born in California, where she graduated from the University of California, Berkeley. She wrote her first book, Europe with Two Kids and a Van, at age 30, published in 1973 by now-defunct 101 Productions and distributed by Charles Scribner’s Sons in NY. The book follows her family’s six-month journey in nine European countries camping in a VW Van in 1972-73. This was a turning point in the family’s lives when they decided to move from urban California to a more rural environment. It was a time of national upheaval over the Vietnam War and a time when Sher wanted to share with her family what she had experienced and loved after her college graduation working in France getting to know some of the many world cultures.

Liz Leiby is an emerging romance author. She holds a bachelor’s degree in theater from Birmingham-Southern College and lives outside of Atlanta, Georgia, with her sweet cat, Opal.

Tara Marshall graduated with her B.A. from Winthrop University. She started writing community news stories over a decade ago for the greater Charlotte, North Carolina, area but she now spends as much time as she can writing creative non-fiction amidst a career in property management. When Tara isn’t writing, she’s taking care of her family and can often be seen around her town strolling with her young daughter, husband, and very peculiar pug.

Lizzie Fry is better known as Lucy V. Hay, a script editor, author, and blogger who helps writers. She’s been the script editor and advisor on numerous UK features and shorts & has also been a script reader for 20 years, providing coverage for indie prodcos, investors, screen agencies, producers, directors and individual writers.

Judy Bebelaar taught in San Francisco public schools for 37 years. Her poetry has been published widely in magazines; in nine anthologies, including The Widows’ Handbook, Kent State University Press, foreword by Ruth Bader Ginsburg; a chapbook, Walking Across the Pacific, and a poetry book, Sky Holding Fall. And Then They Were Gone: Teenagers of Peoples Temple from High School to Jonestown, written with Ron Cabral, non-fiction, has won ten honors and awards.

Michael’s debut novel, The Price of Safety, was published in 2020. Though released during a global pandemic, The Price of Safety reached #7 in Amazon’s rankings for dystopian novels and won awards for both science fiction and thriller (by Indie Book Awards) as well as New Fiction (by National Indie Excellence Awards). The second novel in the trilogy, The Price of Rebellion, was released in May 2023. It won Best Science Fiction Novel of 2022 by Indies Today and was awarded a Bronze Medal for Science Fiction by Readers’ Favorite.

I have been writing and creating since I was a small child. Since I first discovered my passion for storytelling I have cracked out countless unpublished short stories and half-finished novels as well as many, many poems. I have previously won awards in high school for my writing and had a poem published by Eber & Wein Publishing.

The writing team of Noelle Vella is two talented authors making their mark on the literary scene. Both authors began writing at an early age, and they continue to write novels, short stories, and poetry. The authors of Noelle Vella are hard at work on their next novel. During their downtime, they enjoy spending time with their families.

I am a retired Hollywood Film Editor and winner of three Emmy Awards. I am now writing novels. This is my sixth novel.

Rasana Atreya weaves tales of resilience, self-discovery, and cultural exploration. With a passion for celebrating the diversity of Indian culture, she takes readers on transformative journeys through her upmarket women’s fiction. Her debut novel, Tell A Thousand Lies, was shortlisted for the Tibor Jones South Asia Prize (UK, 2012).

Dean Schabner grew up on the Great South Bay of Long Island. He’s dug clams, framed houses, worked in bookstores, and has been a reporter, sports writer, and editor. In addition to no better place than here, he has a chapbook of poems, surf-body, out from Ghost City Press, and has had poems and stories appear in The Pushcart Prize, The Trouvaille Review, Juniper, River Heron Review, Witness, Northwest Review, and others. He lives on the shore of Jamaica Bay in the Rockaways of New York City, and is a body surfer who doesn’t particularly mind if a wave takes him and tumbles him once in a while—and he’s glad his daughter is that way, too.

I am the author of three books, Falling in Love at the End of the World, a collection of stories, Searching for Mozart, a collection of poems, and most recently The Burden of Memory, a literary crime novel. I was a professor of English for twenty-five years in Des Moines, Iowa, and now I am retired to the South Carolina Low Country.

I grew up as child #5 of 10. I was the oldest boy. We were lower middle class, but we had a very close-knit family, maintaining about a 1/5-acre garden, raising chickens and rabbits for food. I was always an avid reader, discovering the local library and its children’s section during first grade. I went on to graduate from high school with a good grade average and was accepted by a university, but did not have the funds to enroll, so I joined the Navy during the summer of 1965. I was trained in electronics and served twenty years. I married my high school sweetheart, and we have been married almost fifty-eight years. We have four children and six grandchildren. Of my nine other siblings, I have four older sisters still living and three younger brothers. We lost our two younger sisters when they were thirty-five and sixty, respectively. My wife has always been a homemaker and I have been fortunate to be able to raise my family on my income alone.