Author Interviews

Connecticut-born Robin D’Amato moved to New York City to attend New York University, fell in love with the city, and never left. In 1984, she was introduced to the Macintosh computer and has worked in the publishing industry as a pre-press specialist ever since. She also spent several decades pursuing dance and choreography. Her first novel, Somebody’s Watching You, won a 2021 second-quarter Firebird Book Award for fiction. She currently lives in Manhattan’s East Village with her 3,000-LP music room and two cats.

Sandra Fox Murphy is originally from Glasgow, Delaware, but grew up an “Air Force brat.” Ms. Murphy was inspired to write verse and stories while studying the beatnik poets at Indian Valley College in California and she is a graduate of The University of Texas at Austin. After retiring from the U.S. Geological Survey, she wrote her novel A Thousand Stars, the story of Ann Hill, who came to Rhode Island in 1649. Her second novel, That Beautiful Season, is a tale of the Civil War and its aftermath; a story rich in the love of family and the land near the Chesapeake Bay.

Mireille Parker is an Indian Australian author from Fremantle, West Australia, who has devoted herself to writing for the past fifteen years. Journaling since age eleven, Mireille wanted to be a writer since discovering Anais Nin in the film Henry & June on daytime TV while at university. She graduated from The University of West Australia, majoring in English Literature and Psychology, with a history minor (the Vikings and Ancient Greeks), but it was during a stay in Mumbai in 2003, while recording Hindi vinyl in a sound studio, that a book just started coming out of her.

Marian Birch was born and raised in New York City but spent most of her adult life on the West Coast, the past thirty years on the Olympic Peninsula. She was a clinical psychologist specializing in work with mothers and babies until her retirement in 2012. Marian has been writing since she was seven years old but The Age of Reason is her first novel.

Justine Gladden has always thought about putting a lot of things on the wall as far as accomplishments and certificates. After quitting school at an early age, she went back and got her GED. She became a licensed foster parent, then she became a therapeutic foster parent. She has run a home care business for the past eight years. She is a certified notary and is also certified in CPR. Justine is a co-guardian to three special needs children, and has adopted three children. She raised two grown daughters and five beautiful grandchildren. She likes to say that she is “Just working to see how many things I can accomplish before it’s all over. I believe the world doesn’t owe me anything and I believe when I leave, I will have enjoyed all that life had to offer me.”

Kendall Roberts lives in California. In his spare time, he enjoys writing, biking, and board games. Gunslingers is his first novel.

Karin Rathert grew up in North Dakota, close to where Mondak once flourished. She lives in Colorado and is a writer, editor, and mother of three amazing kids. When not writing, she loves yoga, music, travel, and photographing abandoned buildings. Invitation to a Hanging is her first novel.

Elmo Shade is the author of four poetry collections, his latest being The Dark Side of White Bread: Surviving Our Fathers – A Poetry Chapbook, 2023. His work has been published in The SubjectivJournal, Nine Cloud Journal, and The Pointed Circle, a literary magazine of Portland Community College. Elmo is the Founder of the Camas (WA) Poetry Open Mic and is a certified Mindfulness Teacher Professional recognized by the International Mindfulness Teacher Association. He is an unabashed fan of Double IPAs, Opus-X Cigars, and Rush.

Tabitha Sprunger is an art educator, illustrator, and writer. Her debut novel, Hart Street and Main has been a #1 Amazon New Release in YA Magical Realism Fiction, along with receiving 5-Star Readers’ Favorite ratings and being IndieReader approved. The series was recently featured in the August, September, and October editions of LibraryBub. Readers’ Favorite said of her novel, “Hart Street and Main is imaginative and creative,” filled with “vibrant characters.” Book two of the series, Hart Street and Main Metamorphosis was recently released in August 2022 with book three rumored to be in the works. Her writing contains spectacular characters, especially strong female personalities whom young girls can look up to. Sprunger began writing the trilogy while still a student in high school.

Patti Isaacs is a cartographer and writer who lives in Stillwater, Minnesota. She grew up in a family that loved to travel. She became the unofficial curator of the family subscription to National Geographic, which fueled her interest in maps and the wider world. In college, Patti met Gauss, an Italian who was majoring in Chinese. Ideal partners in travel and life, in 1981 they lived for a year in the city of Xian, China, where they witnessed the last days of communism and the very beginning of China’s conversion to capitalism. In 2005, Patti returned to document the change that the country, her old city, and her old friends had undergone in the intervening years.

Daniel Varona has been a fan of video games from a very early age and was heavily inspired by some recognizable classics. What piqued his interest in writing was the attention to detail those passionate developers pulled off at the time, no matter the technical limitations. Catching these small details impacted and elevated the storytelling experience for any consumer keen enough, making them understand and think on concepts themselves rather than being told everything point blank. This hobby, along with other creative outlets, brought to fruition Daniel’s desire to write his own story.

Allyson S. Barkley is the author of the Until the Stars Are Dead fantasy series, and many other never-to-be-published novels, short stories, poems, and essays. Born in Charlottesville, Virginia, Allyson grew up an avid reader, writer, and horseback rider. She finds herself particularly inspired by hikes in far-off places, strangers in coffee shops, and clever music lyrics.

Ben Stoltzfus is Professor Emeritus of Comparative Literature, Creative Writing, and French at the University of California, Riverside. He is a novelist, translator, literary critic, and inter-arts scholar. He has published many articles on twentieth-century French, English, and American writers, twelve monographs of literary criticism on Chennevière, Robbe-Grillet, Gide, Lacan, and others, as well as books on Hemingway, Magritte, D.H. Lawrence, and Jasper Johns. An award-winning writer, he has received a fair share: Fulbright, Camargo, Gradiva, Humanities, Creative Arts, and MLA.

I was born in Denver, Colorado, but was raised in small-town Wyoming. From a very young age, I was an avid reader and tinkerer with the written word. I had always considered writing the medium that suited me best and always felt a call to it. I went to university in Montana, then ranged up to Alaska where I lived in a small cabin in the woods in the Matanuska Valley. After a year of building trails, I finally made the jump to my lifelong dream of living and working in Japan, where I currently reside on the rural seaside. I teach English, write, read, and enjoy sauntering through nature and life.

Jeff Ingber is the author of six books as well as numerous short stories and screenplays, for which he’s won numerous awards. One of his novels, Shattered Lives, was made into a documentary film by MacTavish Productions. He’s had many short stories published in various journals and magazines. You can learn more about his works at jeffingber.com.

Wilson Semitti is a Ugandan man born with sickle cells trying to be who he is at all costs despite the prejudices and cultural beliefs surrounding him.

Brett Shapiro is an American writer and the author of Late in the Day, a novel published by Atmosphere Press in 2022, and Those Around Him, a novel published in 2019. He is also the best-selling author of L’Intruso, a memoir published in Italy (Feltrinelli) that was later produced into an award-winning film and theatrical production. In addition, Brett is the author of two children’s books, one of which was the recipient of Austria’s National Book Award. Several of his short stories have been performed in theatres throughout Italy, where he lived for 25 years, and his essays and articles have appeared in numerous magazines and newspapers in Italy and the United States.

Finding teaching to be more about paperwork than expanding the minds of young children, Elsie started chasing her dreams of being a writer. She loves writing, reading, shopping, biscuits, tea, gin, and boybands. She is currently studying for her Master’s in literature, romanticism, and the Lake District.

Arman Isayan is a teacher, writer, and linguist. Introduced to literature at an early age by his beloved mother, he started to write short stories and poems at ten years old. As a teenager, Arman was passionate about the great Russian authors, such as Dostoyevsky and Nabokov. Eventually, though, it was the Bible that shaped both his literary style and philosophical mind. Thus, in his early thirties, Arman decided to publish his very first novel called Adonai, which combines his poetical creativity with his theological insight. Arman lives in Madrid with his wife and two kids, Victoria and Lazarus.

An east coast expatriate retired from college/university teaching, I divide my domestic life between homes in Chicago, Illinois, and Hot Springs, Arkansas. My wife and I travel a lot, or used to before our joints began to complain—Maui, in Hawaii, a favorite sun haven; France, from Paris to Marseille and St. Malo to Lyons for old world presence and gourmandise. We collect art from contemporary blown glass to Tang and Sung ceramics, paintings to wood carvings, and almost anything odd or splendid that will go through our doorway.