Author Interviews

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.

Writer, translator, and college professor, Teresa Dovalpage is a Cuban transplant firmly rooted in New Mexico. She is the author of four short story collections, four plays, and thirteen novels—including the Havana Mystery series. Her most recent novel, the fifth one in the series, is Last Seen in Havana, a multigenerational story that moves back and forth between 1980 and 2020 in Havana. Teresa lives with her husband, one dog and too many barn cats

Clifford Garstang’s most recent novel, The Last Bird of Paradise, was published in February 2024 by Black Rose Writing. He is also the author of two other novels, Oliver’s Travels and The Shaman of Turtle Valley, and three story collections, House of the Ancients and Other Stories, In an Uncharged Country, and What the Zhang Boys Know, which won the Library of Virginia Literary Award for Fiction. In addition to a JD, Garstang holds an MA in English and an MFA in Creative Writing. A former international lawyer with a large US law firm and the World Bank, he currently lives in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.

Born in Washington DC in 1955, Brenardo (the Sing-Song Poet) is currently a resident of Baltimore County, MD. He has been writing poetry of all facets for over two thirds of his life. This journey has taken him to platforms all over the world, where his work has been seen in countless journals, newspapers, magazines, poetry anthologies in print and online. He has performed his poems and songs at festivals, schools, libraries, coffee houses, cruise ships and assorted other public and private events, where he has astounded those in attendance.

Diane Piron-Gelman writes as D. M. Pirrone and works as a freelance editor when she isn’t spinning her own novel-length yarns. Her debut suspense novel, No Less in Blood, came out in 2011, followed by the award-winning Hanley & Rivka Mysteries (Allium Press of Chicago), set just after the Great Fire of 1871. Shall We Not Revenge (2014) was a Kirkus Prize nominee, and along with For You Were Strangers (2015), was named a Notable Page-Turner in the Shelf Unbound Indie Novel Competition.

As a Reiki Master Healer and Intuitive guide, Elle brings a unique perspective to overcoming grief and depression. Her personal experiences, including the loss of her mother and surviving three suicides including her fiancé, lend authenticity and empathy to her writing.

Caleb Michael Sarvis is the author of Dead Aquarium or (i don’t have the stamina for that kind of faith) and currently owns and operates Bridge Eight Press, where he edited the anthology Fifteen Views of Jacksonville. His work can be found in BULL, Hobart, Joyland, storySouth, and others. His story An Unfaded Black was named one of the “Other Distinguished Stories of 2017” in Best American Short Stories 2018.

Christina Milliner was born in Queens, NY, and raised in Brooklyn, where she still resides. She holds an MFA in Writing from Lindenwood University. In her spare time, she enjoys traveling and running. Meet Clay Brown is Christina’s first novel, it was selected as a finalist in the 2023 IAN Book of the Year Awards and is available in Indie New York on the BiblioBoard Library platform.