Author Interviews

Mohammed Salihu is a poet whose work explores themes of migration, identity, spirituality, and healing. His poetry is shaped by his personal experiences and cultural heritage, blending raw emotion with spiritual depth. Mohammed is inspired by the power of language to evoke empathy and foster healing. Voices from the Soil: Wounds and Wisdom is his debut collection, which reflects his journey through grief, faith, and the search for belonging.

A retired English teacher living now in Florida, Randy is a dinosaur, born during WWII, raised in west central Indiana in the times before computers and electric cars. In fact, his earliest homes had no electricity or running water, no telephone, no central heating or air conditioning. Those were not the good old days, but those are the times Randy prefers to write about. His first book, Growing Up with Grandpa John’s Son, is a 663-page autobiographical tome being used primarily as a doorstop by the few lucky souls who have read it—or read at it. Shoal Bend is a bit shorter, but also autobiographical in that many of the characters are family members.

Kristina Fox is a fitness enthusiast, personal trainer, and now a mystery author bringing her love for suspense to the page. Drawing inspiration from her background in the fitness industry, Kristina crafts thrilling, small-town crime stories with fierce female protagonists.

A devoted Christian, wife, and mother, Ginna Andrew balances family life with a dynamic career spanning over twenty years in education. She currently serves as a Human Resources Manager and is an Associate CIPD, bringing her expertise in leadership and mentorship to help young people reach their full potential. Married for fifteen years and a proud mother of three, she finds deep fulfillment in nurturing both her family and the next generation.

Alia Luria’s debut novel, Compendium, was published in 2015 and has garnered several accolades, including the National Indie Excellence Award, the eLit Gold Medal, the Reader’s Favorite Silver Medal, and an IBPA Benjamin Franklin Silver Award. It was also a finalist for the Independent Author Network Book of the Year Award in three categories, including First Novel.

Lucinda T Green began meditating at the age of sixteen and never stopped. Having lived and studied in India and Sri Lanka, she founded Rocky Mountain Insight, a Buddhist Dharma and Vipassana center in Colorado Springs, CO. She is creator of The Enlightenment Deck, a set of artistic flashcards designed to transmit the teachings and support individuals in their spiritual practice, offering inspiration along the way. Audio recordings of her guided meditations are available through Spotify.

Gardner Landry graduated from the College of Arts and Science at Vanderbilt University in 1985 with a Bachelor of Arts in English, magna cum laude. He spent many years in branding and marketing communications before his novel, Merlin of the Magnolias, was published in 2021. Songs of My Father and Other Essays is his first nonfiction collection. Gardner is a native Houstonian.

Emily Kono is a transformational coach, healer, and storyteller dedicated to guiding others through their own journeys of awakening and self-discovery. With a background in coaching, quantum healing hypnosis, and sound therapy, She has spent years helping people break through limiting beliefs and realign with their true purpose.

Based mainly in the 1970s, Insatiable Annie speaks of a teenager navigating the free-love era and the unrestrained use of drugs and alcohol. This is a woman’s honest, explicit account of her experiences of abuse in the 1960s as a young child, her free-spirited teen years in the 1970s on to young womanhood in the early 80s.

Dorsía Smith Silva is the author of In Inheritance of Drowning (CavanKerry, 2024), which was a finalist for the Whirling Prize and reviewed by Publishers Weekly. She is a multi-nominated Pushcart Prize nominee, Best of the Net finalist, Best New Poets nominee, Cave Canem Poetry Prize Semifinalist, Obsidian Fellow, Poetry Editor at The Hopper, and Full Professor of English at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras.

Bo Huffman lives in a cottage overgrown by roses and overrun by perfect pets. She has been a lifelong writer and reader of all things fun and fantasy, and sometimes romance. Her favorite things include rabbits, being a coffee snob, hunting for speakeasies, visiting grocery stores in foreign cities, and eating a perfect croissant.

Beyond accounting, I passionately advocate for children’s literacy and early childhood education. As an Educational Service representative with PaperPie (formerly Usborne Books & More), I combine organizational expertise with a commitment to literacy, offering personalized book recommendations based on children’s unique interests and developmental needs.

Memoirist, novelist, and essayist Carolyn Dawn Flynn is the author of the memoir Boundless and seven books of nonfiction. Boundless was longlisted for the 2021 Mslexia International Memoir Prize and the 2022 First Pages Prize. Her work has been published in Fourth Genre, Under the Gum Tree, Arts and Letters, The Colorado Sun, The Tampa Review, The Whitefish Review (Montana Prize for Fiction), Albuquerque Journal, Sage Magazine, Albuquerque the Magazine, and Wilde Frauen.

Vegout Voyage is created by survey data scientist Katharina Huang. Raised in Germany, the United States, and Taiwan, Katie’s multicultural upbringing ignited a deep curiosity about the shared human experience behind diverse perspectives. Her field research in Uganda and Tibet-in-Exile further shaped her pursuit of equitable representation through analytical rigor.

My publications include numerous short stories and articles in various Russian media abroad. The novel What’s Hecuba to Him (in Russian) was published in 1991 by Boston Clio & Co Publishing House. Slavic Gospel Press, Chicago, published my Russian translations of Dan Richardson’s Eternity in Their Hearts and Francis A. Schaeffer’s How Should We Then Live?

Christine Kessides first imagined A Tail Tale when she was a student, but didn’t publish it until her first grandson arrived—who loves a good story and, coincidentally, looks like Wally. Christine is also the author of Magda, Standing, an award-winning Young Adult historical novel. She lives in Maryland with her husband and spends as much time as possible (in person and virtually) with her four children, two grandsons, and granddogs around the country.

More than just publishing a book, this journey is about showing my own children that dreams are worth pursuing. I want them to know that their mom is more than someone who packs lunches and reads bedtime stories—I’m someone who set a goal and made it happen. My hope is to inspire them, and other children, to believe that they can do anything they set their minds to.

I’m a mother of three and married to my high school sweetheart. I’ve been writing since the age of twelve. Writing has always been a healing mechanism for me, an escape from my reality. I have a book of poems published on Amazon titled Awakenings From the Dark.

By day, Robin is an academic research consultant and freelance fiction editor. She has degrees in medieval literature, historical linguistics, and political rhetoric. When not working or writing, she enjoys reading cozy mysteries, dark fantasy, and cute romances; playing video games, Magic: the Gathering, and tabletop role-playing games; and annoying/cuddling her two cats.

Karl Wegener is an American author who served as a Russian linguist in the United States Army Security Agency and with the Intelligence & Security Command during the Cold War. He also served as a combat interrogator in the United States Air Force Intelligence Service Reserve.