Author Interviews

I was born in 1956, and am Dad to two grown up children, and Granddad to two little grandsons.

I am a retired software architect living in Mexico. My passions include reading, writing, and composing music.

Rita Jo Norvoteny is a dark fiction author and creator of The Reformed Killers Universe, a series that blends psychological horror, dark humor, and morally complex characters. Her work explores themes of trauma, survival, and the uneasy line between redemption and destruction.

After years of writing for the worlds of science and tech, Helen has traded white papers for world-building to pursue her lifelong love of YA fantasy. A devotee of literary escapism since childhood, she writes with the hope of giving a voice to all those who need to see themselves on the page.

Bryan Sanders writes quiet, atmospheric fiction that treats emotion as a physical force. His work is rooted in restraint rather than spectacle, allowing mood, sensation, and implication to carry narrative weight. He favors intimate interiors, institutional settings, and moments of charged stillness where characters experience recognition before understanding.

Born and raised in the Magic Valley of Southern Idaho, Dakota Frandsen has been a published author since the age of sixteen and is a seasoned paranormal investigator, often dubbed the ‘Specialist of the Strange,’ whose work transcends traditional ghost hunting by delving deeply into the human psyche and the harsh truths of life few dare to admit.

Born into the mountains of Southwest Virginia and spending early childhood with a family of artists, Sandra Baldwin’s Appalachian childhood and travels have given her a unique American perspective. Though she resided in Virginia, New York, North Carolina, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Nebraska, Kentucky, and finally Delaware, her notoriously ‘itchy feet’ have taken her through forty-seven states.

Skye Gent is a UK children’s author whose writing is rooted in one simple belief – that no child should feel alone while they’re growing up. Before becoming an author, she trained and worked as a nurse, where she saw first-hand how deeply emotional experiences shape the way we understand ourselves. That perspective stayed with her, but it was her own lived experiences – of confusion, change, and not always having the right words or support at the right time – that ultimately led her to writing.

I hold an MA in global studies, with a focus on peace and security in Africa, from the Institute for Peace and Security Studies and Leipzig University, as well as a bachelor’s degree in political science and international relations from the University of Roma Tre. For almost ten years, I have worked as a project manager and country representative for non-governmental organizations. Right now, I live in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

I’m a much-published scholar of translation, literature, rhetoric, and semiotics (forty books, one hundred and twenty articles) who has always wanted to be a published novelist – and now my fourth published novel is out!

Born in the back room of a Wisconsin tenant farm, went to a one-room grade school, and rode a bus fifty-two miles to high school. A peacetime army veteran who discovered theatre and my wife-to-be the same week my college football career ended. Began writing fiction only after my college teaching career ended with five awards, a Fulbright lectureship in Poland, and acting in seven foreign countries.

Whitney Healy specializes in poetry, creative nonfiction, memoir, and fantasy. In 2025, Whitney’s small poetry series, Blackberry Winter: Songs of the Appalachian Trails, received first place in Appalachian Literature with West Virginia Writers, Inc. A lover of hot tea, watching her son at first base, and Stranger Things, Evermyst: The Awakening will be Whitney’s debut novel.

D.K. Dillenback is an American author and military strategist who explores the intersection between the human condition and our perceived reality. His writing attempts to capture reason, order, and peace from an infinite web of complex adaptive systems.

Originally from the east, I lived in a hundred-year-old log cabin in the Colorado foothills while I attended CU Boulder, earning a degree in Natural Resource Conservation. Upon graduation, I turned down a state job to work in game management and agriculture in East Africa, after which I went to horseshoeing school in Texas to become a farrier.

Ralph S. Souders is an American author of suspense and literary fiction. His first novel, Hans Becker’s Family, was published in 2010. It takes place in Munich and other locations in Southern Germany. It contains a very unusual plot, a plot that quite possibly has never been previously featured in a published story.

I am Jade Shade. A poetess. A storyteller. A gardener. A daughter.

Susan McLeod resides with her husband John in Alplaus, New York. She is originally from Southold, Long Island, New York. In the fall of 1975, she moved to Troy, New York, attending Hudson Valley Community College’s nursing program, and received her A.A.S.

Lisa Riddoch lives in Liverpool, UK with her husband, two teenagers and her doggy writing companion, Dex. She works full time as a programmer manager for a large retail company, but her passion is reading and writing.

A.B. Taylore is an imaginative storyteller and high school biology teacher who believes that the natural world is the greatest source of wonder. By day, she guides students in Grades 9 to 12 through the intricate beauty of cells, ecosystems, evolution, and the delicate systems that sustain life. By night – and in every spare creative moment – she transforms that same sense of awe into fantastical tales born from boundless curiosity.

Mari, pronounced Mary, Miller is a retired oral communication educator of thirty-three years, having taught at private and public high schools and at the collegiate level. She has been a speech coach and drama director and presented at communication, education, and technology conferences across the country. She now divides her time between Iowa and South Dakota.