Author Interviews

The secretary of White Rock and Surrey Writers’ Club, Ekaterina Lobanova (penname Kate Valery) is a professional musician, journalist, and writer. She was born in Moscow, Russia, and educated at Tchaikovsky Conservatory of Music. In 1996, she immigrated to Canada, where she started to write in English—her second language—and authored seven books. Her latest novels are Midget or Symphony of the Ocean (2020), and Clay Mask (2022). They are both winners of the Gold Seal award for literary excellence from the US Review of Books and now both are accepted by British Columbia Libraries. Currently she is working on her eighth book, memoir/anthology Why I Like Being a Writer

Sarah Westbrook is a Licensed Professional Counselor and the founder of Westbrook Counseling Services and Daisy Girl Communications. As a trauma survivor, she shares her story of growing up with personality-disordered parents and working through c-PTSD with the hope of helping others develop the courage to speak their truth and have their voices heard. In her spare time, she loves creating content with her husband and co-host Mason, entertaining her children, and hiding in her closet so she doesn’t have to share her chocolate or caramel popcorn with anyone else.

Spent my childhood in Upstate New York. In school, I was very much a math and science nerd so, of course, when I enrolled at Harvard for college I took up History & Literature as my area of concentration. (This all makes sense later, I promise.) I graduated with honors having written my senior thesis on Edgar Allan Poe. I moved to NYC in the mid-nineties and started working in fashion public relations. In 2002, I left and headed to Los Angeles where I continued in PR while also picking up freelance work as a travel writer for OUT and The Advocate. That led to me becoming the editor of OUTTraveler and then at Logo News (part of the MTV networks.) Currently, I’m a features contributor to The Onion. It was from writing daily that I mustered up the wherewithal to attempt writing a book.

Sami McKay (she/her/they/them) is a Canadian illustrator and writer. Her work is deeply symbolic and leans on themes of curiosity and exploration, (dis)connection, and navigating the human experience. Fixated on the abstract and strangeness of our existence, Sami looks to share the paradoxical, existential, and confusing aspects of life, death and coping with the conditions of being. She aims to display through art and writing, the rawness, complexity and beauty of existence.

This is a collection of 50 + years of my photographs with text by my son, the poet and writer Sebastian Matthews.

Shobana Gomes is a poet and writer from Malaysia who has gained a prominent place in the literary world through her published works on Amazon. Her storytelling prowess can be read in stories like An Author of the Past, Where the Rain Falls, The Goddess of the Himavan, and other books published under the ancient and classical literature category. The Goddess of the Himavan and Where the Rain Falls have reached the No.1 best-seller list on Kindle’s new releases.

Fred Falcón believes that the NCAA Division I Wrestling Championships is the greatest sporting event in the world. He still collects music CDs (1,255 at last count), is amazed that the same albums he bought as a kid for $5.99 at the Warehouse now sell for five times that much, and still brags about seeing Queen when he was a teenager. Still the best concert he has ever seen, and he’s seen plenty. He has run 28 marathons, is a terrible swimmer, has somehow morphed into a “cat-guy,” and enjoys debating top five lists with his brother. The Box: A Time Travel Sci-Fi Thriller is Fred’s first novel. He lives in Utah with his wife, kids, two cats, and his Great Dane, Dan.

I am a Romanian American award-winning novelist and playwright. I arrived in the United States in 1983 as a political refugee, having escaped the Communist Dictatorship of my native country. I obtained a PhD in French and Italian Literatures from the University of Chicago, in 1992. I am the author of three critically acclaimed novels: Train to Trieste (Knops 2009 & 2010), Black Sea Twilight (Transworld 2010 & 2011) and Country of Red Azaleas (Grand Central Hachette 2016). Train to Trieste was published in thirteen languages and is the 2009 winner of the Best Fiction Award from the Library of Virginia. Both Train to Trieste and Black Sea Twilight were best sellers in the UK, in 2009 and 2011, respectively. I have also authored three books of original plays and more than a dozen books and edited collections of literary criticism. I am twice a Fulbright scholar and a distinguished service professor of French and Comparative Literature at Washington and Lee University.

Bárbara Mujica is a novelist, essayist, short story writer and critic. Her latest novel, Miss del Río, is based on the life of Mexican movie star Dolores del Río, who was both a Hollywood sensation and a key figure in the Golden Age of Mexican cinema. Miss del Río was named one of the best books of 2022 by Library Journal and one of the five best recent historical novels by The Washington Post. It won second place in the ScreenCraft Cinematic Novel competition out of thousands of submissions. It was a Target Book Club Book of the Month, and the audio version was an Apple Audio “Must Listen.”

Rebecca Miller is a twenty-five-time award-winning author known for her sweeping debut novel Touch, a story about a fragile young relationship between two teens that boldly addresses a critical issue in society while also reminding us of the goodness that remains in the world.

Tinamarie Cox lives in Arizona with her husband, two children, and their one-eyed cat. Her written and visual work has appeared in numerous publications in a variety of genres. Her first poetry collection, Self-Destruction in Small Doses, was published with Bottlecap Press in 2023. She is currently working on more poetry collections as well as her first fiction novel. You can find more of her work at tinamariethinkstoomuch.weebly.com.

Sue Coletta is an award-winning crime writer and an active member of Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, and International Thriller Writers. Feedspot and Expertido.org named her Murder Blog as “Best 100 Crime Novel Blogs on the Net.” She also blogs at the Kill Zone (Writer’s Digest “101 Best Websites for Writers”) and Writers Helping Writers. Sue lives with her husband in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire. Her backlist includes psychological thrillers, the Mayhem Series (books 1-4), the Grafton County Series, and true crime/narrative nonfiction. Now, she exclusively writes eco-thrillers, Mayhem Series books 5-8 and continuing. Sue’s appeared on the Emmy award-winning true crime series, Storm of Suspicion, and three episodes of A Time to Kill on Investigation Discovery.

Leslie Cieplechowicz is a photographer who developed her craft by working the streets of Detroit as a paramedic and shooting old, historical buildings she found on her runs. Her love of creating unique imagery lead her across the state, then the United States, then globally, where she currently finished shooting in the country of Cuba, documenting its lively culture, friendly people, and classic automobiles. She currently works as an instructor after leaving the road and spreads her love of photography to her students.

Karen Hill Anton wrote the popular column “Crossing Cultures” for the Japan Times, Japan’s oldest and largest English-language newspaper, for fifteen years. Also during that time her column “Another Look” appeared in the Japanese daily Chunichi Shimbun.

John M. McIlveen is the bestselling author of the paranormal suspense novel HANNAHWHERE, winner of the Drunken Druid Award, and nominated for the Bram Stoker Award, and GIRL GONE NORTH, which was shortlisted for the Wilbur and Niso Smith Foundation Award. He also authored three collections, A VARIABLE DARKNESS, INFLICTIONS, and JERKS and Other Tales from A Perfect Man.

Sherry Leclerc is an award-winning independent fiction author, a certified developmental editor, copyeditor, educator, and content creator. She likes to spend her free time getting lost in fantasy worlds, sometimes alone, and sometimes with her two sons.

David Doersch has worked for nearly 40 years in the performing arts as an Actor, Director, Fight Director, Stunt Coordinator, Theatre Educator, Audiobook Narrator, and Touring Musician. As a Fight Director and Sword Master, he has worked at regional theatres and Shakespeare festivals from coast to coast, including the Guthrie Theatre, the Dallas Repertory Theatre, American Players’ Theatre, the American Shakespeare Center, the Virginia Shakespeare Festival, the Utah Shakespearean Festival, the Crossroads Theatre, the Virginia Repertory Theatre, and many others.

Lauryne Wright lives in the Las Vegas area with her critter sidekicks hoping that one day soon, she’ll hit the jackpot and her novels will come true…or the truth will come to light.

I’m a British author addicted to writing contemporary and historical fiction. Love and heartbreak are constant themes throughout my novels (excluding my horror) but I believe in a HEA, even if it takes some of my gritty heroines a little longer to achieve.

How Long the Way is not quite “modern poetry,” in the sense of, “a faster way than short stories or journalism to dive into the narratives of others.” Though I have nothing against the narrative bent, poetry, for me, has been more of a mystical quest, as with Mary Oliver, William Stafford, Vachel Lindsay, e e cummings, Dylan Thomas, Yeats, Hopkins, Hesse, Rilke, Whitman, Dickinson, Shelley, Blake, Goethe, and many more; more about love and freedom and how they can work together.