Author Interviews

Thomas Kneeland is the author of We Be Walkin’ Blackly in the Deep (Marian University Department of Media, Communication, and Design) and a 2022 Frontier Poetry Global Poetry Prize finalist for the continent of Africa. He is a 2024 Speculative Play & Just Futurities Scholar-in-Residence, which is funded by Indiana University, the Mellon Foundation, IUPUI Arts & Humanities Institute, IUPUI Center for Africana Studies & Culture, and the Ray Bradbury Center.

I’m shallow. Things roll off my back easily and I try not to take things too seriously. Laughing is more fun than crying and worrying. I’m old-ish so I’ve got lots of experiences to choose from. I’ve got kids, grandkids and great grandkids and if they don’t slow down I’ll have great great grandkids soon. They have no interest in anything I write so I can be as smutty as I choose. I love to make my lady friends gasp when they read my stories but I don’t cross the line.

AJ Marshall is the Typesmith Fantasy award-winning author of Fate of the Scaled: The Receding Wings, a book that took ten years to craft. Although the work is fictional, certain situations were drawn from AJ’s real-life experiences to give a more personal touch to the story.

Paula Banks, a natural storyteller, discovered her talent for crafting compelling narratives during her high school years. Today, she juggles her roles as a writer and Implementation Specialist with ease, effortlessly balancing her professional and creative pursuits. Alongside her literary endeavors, Paula takes pride in raising two successful sons and supporting her spouse. Drawing inspiration from her life experiences, Paula continuously hones her storytelling skills.

Kara is a writer who lives with her family in the Midwest. With degrees in History and Interior Design, she brings a wealth of knowledge to every project she tackles. Kara also serves on the city council in her hometown and proudly serves on the local library board.

Deborah Camp is a freelance artist, writer, and art educator. She specializes in a medley of visual and written mediums from short stories and poetry to graphic design illustrations and hand painting murals for a variety of clients. Her passion for visual art derives from her great-grandfather. He loved to paint the landscapes of his motherland and horses. Her passion for writing stems from her mother’s childhood story writing musings.

Tiffany Washington is a high school English teacher, mother of four, lesbian, poet, and writer. Her works have appeared in a number of print and on-line publications including Rumble fish Quarterly, Thimble Magazine, Sheila-Na-Gig and most recently CT Literary Anthology.

Sara Frances self-identifies as a photojournalist-poet with a personal storytelling mission. She is uniquely prepared and equipped to judge poetry books from both content and design aspects. Based in part on her comparative experiences judging art and photographic contests and book contests, she has formulated a new way to evaluate and award the many, diverse sub-sets of the poetry genre.

Jen Soriano (she/they) is a Filipinx writer and movement builder who has long worked at the intersection of grassroots organizing, narrative strategy, and art-driven social change. Jen is the author of Nervous: Essays on Heritage and Healing, which was recognized by TIME, GLAMOUR, The Atlantic, Poets&Writers, and other outlets as a notable book of 2023.

Tanicia Pratt is an interdisciplinary poet, writer, and artist from the Bahamas. She began her career in Nassau’s underground poetry scene, dedicating years to spoken word performance before moving to London to study experimental poetics. Tanicia defines her practice as a spiritual act, creating space for divine connection, introspection, transformation, and ancestral reverence. She is currently interested in writing through the body within the Caribbean landscape and an afro-feminist lens.

Diane Frank is author of eight books of poems, two novels, and a photo memoir of her 400-mile trek in the Nepal Himalayas. She is also Chief Editor of Blue Light Press. While Listening to the Enigma Variations: New and Selected Poems won the 2022 Next Generation Indie Book Award for Poetry. Diane plays cello in the Golden Gate Symphony and collaborated with Matt Arnerich to create an orchestral suite based on her poem, “Tree of Life.”

Sharon Gelman is a writer, editor, and activist. She was the U.S. managing editor and lead interviewer for 200 Women: Who Will Change the Way You See the World (Chronicle, 2017). As longtime head of Artists for a New South Africa, she created the award-winning audiobook Nelson Mandela’s Favorite African Folktales (Hachette, 2009) and penned the afterword for the unabridged audiobook of Nelson Mandela’s Long Walk to Freedom (Little, Brown, 2013).

I’m Molly. I am 32. Married with two beautiful daughters. I work as a pharmacy technician. My hobbies include reading, pc gaming, and playing Dungeons & Dragons.

Lida Amiri is a former refugee from Afghanistan and a multilingual artist fluent in English, French, Persian and German. She writes multilingual poetry and translates Persian poetry into English. As Assistant Professor at Utrecht University, Lida teaches prose and poetry while contributing with her research to Persianate and Refugee Studies.

I am a ukelele-playing, Lego-building, mother-of-two writer from Australia, with many opinions about how science fiction should explore the grey areas of life. I thrive on doing lots of things: some of them well, all of them with gusto. When not writing science fiction, I build websites for creative people, write about photography, wield a camera with enthusiasm, and I have been known to teach teenagers physics and math, too.

Caterina Sauro is a multi-faceted artist, poet, and graphic designer. She’s the self-published author of Hi, My Name is Monella, an anthology of work including 80 poems and 20 illustrations released in October 2022, reflecting the journey of her return to self post-divorce. As much as she loves to hold a mic and perform, Caterina also designs book covers, logos, and other custom artwork on commission. As the founder of Exprosé, a free writing workshop series based in Mississauga, Caterina enjoys creating space for poets and poetry enthusiasts to celebrate each other and write together.

Annie Tan is an educator, writer, activist, speaker, and storyteller from Chinatown, Manhattan. Annie is working on her first book, Learning to Speak: A Daughter’s Journey Toward Languages, Activism, and Legacy, a memoir of not sharing a common fluent language with her parents while wanting to uphold the legacy of her cousin Vincent Chin, whose 1982 Detroit murder sparked an Asian American civil rights movement.

Christian Garduno’s work can be read in over 100 literary magazines. He is the recipient of the 2019 national Willie Morris Award for Southern Poetry, a Finalist in the 2020-2021 Tennessee Williams & New Orleans Writing Contest, and a Finalist in the 2021 Julia Darling Memorial Poetry Prize. He lives and writes along the South Texas coast with his wonderful wife Nahemie and young son Dylan.

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.