SAM Magazine

Today's episode is the fourth and final in a series of podcasts I’m doing in my capacity as the Official Podcast Host for the 2022 Canadian Book Club Award winners. Today, I talk with poet Natasha Silva, author of North Star Heart; and Isis Maria Henriquez, the author of Mangos and Snowflakes. Their books were the winners of the 2022 Canadian Book Club Awards in their categories.

Natasha Silva is a dual citizen of Portugal and Canada. She graduated from UBC’s School of Creative Writing, and an avid lover of the outdoors. It was through the Langley Fine Arts School where she began writing, and her passion to write has grown ever since.

https://natashasilva.ca/

Isis Maria Henriquez comes from a Salvadoran family. She was born in Guadalajara, Mexico, and grew up in Canada. At the age of 7, her parents piled the family into a baby blue 1977 Dodge van, and drove from Edmonton, Alberta to San Salvador, El Salvador. Fascinated by the experience, she knew that the journey marked the beginning of her life as an educator, traveller, and storyteller. Her first novel, Mangos and Snowflakes, is an unconventional novel that tells the silenced stories of the victims of the Salvadoran civil war and provides a multigenerational connection between those who were lost, those who survived, and those who are the fruit of the fight for survival.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59110085-mangos-and-snowflakes

Kim Herdman Shapiro with me and we’re going to talk about the first novel in her Wynter Island cozy mystery series, The Raven’s Cry.

Kim Herdman Shapiro worked as a journalist in Canada for many years, with experience in both print and broadcast journalism. Her book, Gelato with the Pope, highlights her time as a syndicated travel columnist in the Nineties. In addition to her travel column, she has written feature articles for numerous publications, edited a monthly children’s publication in British Columbia, and had her poetry published in Do Whales Jump at Night?: A Canadian Anthology of Children’s Poetry.

She won a Microsoft Network award for best website for Footloose, one of the first digital e-zines on the internet. For the past eight years she has been working on her video project, What the Hell is a Toque? which chronicles her travels with her sons from Newfoundland to Vancouver Island and north to the Canadian Arctic. Kim is also a board member of Sisters in Crime New England. She lives in New Hampshire with her husband, two sons, and three dogs.

https://www.kimhshapiro.com/

Susan Calder is a Calgary writer who grew up in Montreal. Spring Into Danger is her fifth novel and the fourth book in her Paula Savard Mystery series. Susan’s short stories and poems have won contests and appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies. She has worked as an insurance claims examiner and served on the boards of the Alexandra Writers’ Centre Society, Crime Writers of Canada, and When Words Collide Festival for Readers and Writers. Susan is a co-chair for Boucheron World Mystery Convention, Calgary 2026.  Today we’re going to talk about her latest Paula Savard mystery, Spring into Danger.

https://susancalder.com/

Francesca Maria writes dark fiction surrounded by cats near the Pacific Ocean. She is the
creator of the Black Cat Chronicles, a true horror comic book series narrated by a mystical black cat. Her short story collection, They Hide: Short Stories to Tell in the Dark is out now, published by Brigid’s Gate Press. Her short stories and essays can be found in Crystal Lake
Publishing's Shallow Waters series and anthologies and Death’s Garden Revisited. You can
find her at Francesa Maria and on Twitter @Writer_of_Weird.

They Hide: Short Stories to Tell in the Dark is a collection of 13 chilling tales that weave through shadows, exploring the nature of fear, powerlessness and control.

Tony Ollivier is the author of the David Knight, high concept thriller series. The first book was released on March 2020, The Amsterdam Deception, and on Wednesday, August 9, 2023, the second novel in his series, The Tokyo Diversion, a fast-paced international thriller that starts in Tokyo. I never knew Tokyo had so many dispensing machines.

A child of the 60s, Tony voraciously read every science fiction and adventure book he could. He lives in Vancouver with his wife.

Tony works in Competitive Intelligence in a software company based out of Portugal. His high-tech career included stints at Xerox, Apple, IBM, and Microsoft. Prior to joining the corporate and writing world, Tony worked as a bartender, a DJ, and a tobacco picker! On August 22, 2023, he'll be launching The Tokyo Diversion at the Outdoor Terrace Lounge at the Library Square Public House with fellow authors Meredith Hambrock, Sarah M. Stephen, Charlotte Morganti, Winona Kent, Karen Dodd, Yvonne Maximchuk, Ken MacQueen, and with special guest David Rabinovitch. The event begins at 8:30 pm.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/tonyollivier/

https://twitter.com/tonyollivier

Donalee's mother knew she was going to be a writer in grade two. When asked to write a sentence using a specific word, like “tree” or “house” and provide one line for each sentence, one line, apparently, would not do. Donalee's first sentence ran off the line, down the margin, along the bottom of the page, and over onto the next page. A story, after all, is as long as a story needs to be.

As a communications professional, Donalee worked with words to shape messages for clients, wonderful people doing important work that matters. But it was their work, and ultimately their words. Today, Donalee and I talk about her words in her her debut mystery novel, Hung Out to Die, a Riel Brava mystery.

Donalee Moulton

Season 6 begins with an all-star Canadian cast of authors. Today's episode is the third in a a series of podcasts I’m doing in my capacity as the Official Podcast Host for the 2022 Canadian Book Club Award winners. I’m excited to feature three fiction authors this morning, Sophie Sullivan, author of The Rules for Faking It: A Romantic Comedy; Tony Ollivier, the author of The Amsterdam Deception and soon to be released, The Tokyo Diversion; and Kate Gately, the author of Tides of the Sovereign. We have a great conversation discussing the collective pain of being an author, what is success, do you interview your characters, or let those characters speak to you. The ultimate goal, despite our process, is to entertain the reader. Check it out!

⁠https://www.sophiesullivanauthor.com/⁠

⁠https://kategateley.com/⁠

⁠https://www.facebook.com/authortonyo

This episode is how you end a season!

Craig Colby is an executive producer, writer and director, and his productions have appeared on Discovery, ESPN+, TSN, BBC, CTV, and Netflix to name a few. Craig talks about the connections, trauma, and new beginnings behind each cap from the Toronto Maple Leafs to the Pittsburgh Steelers in his memoir, All Caps. ⁠https://www.colbyvision.net/craigcolby⁠

Katelyn E. Kenealy is the winner of numerous awards, including Woman of Achievement 2022, Young Professional of the Year 2021, Brainz Magazine 500 Global List, and Woman of Vision and Courage. Katelyn aims to break the stigma surrounding mental illness in her workbook, Healing is Messy AF. ⁠https://www.kenealycounseling.com/⁠

Jane Enright is an inspiring and humorous thought leader. Her book Butter Side Up is the winner of the Living Now Book Awards and a finalist in the Eric Hoffer Award. This award-winning Canadian author, speaker, university lecture and founder of My Super Awesome Life, Jane discusses the resilience, joy, creating new beginnings, and keeping the tank full in her book, Butter Side Up. ⁠https://www.janeenrightauthor.com/

Sara Desai is a multi-published romance author. She has been a been a lawyer, radio DJ, marathon runner, historian, bouncer and librarian. She wrote her first novel when she was three years old.  Sara’s diverse romantic comedy books have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, People, Oprah Magazine, Marie Claire, Pop Sugar, Bustle, Buzzfeed, Booklist, Hello Giggles, Publishers’ Weekly, Kirkus, Library Journal, Frolic, USA Today, Woman’s World, and Hello! Canada. Today we talked about her latest romance novel, To Have and To Heist.

https://saradesai.com/

Martha Anne Toll is the author of the novel, Three Muses, (her debut novel) which was shortlisted for the Gotham Book Prize and won the Petrichor Prize for Finely Crafted Fiction. It has received glowing reviews from the Washington Post, Vulture, Kirkus Starred Review, and many more.

Martha is a book reviewer and author interviewer at NPR Books, the Washington Post, Pointe Magazine, The Millions, and elsewhere.  She brings a long career in social justice to her work covering writers of color and women writers. Martha also publishes short fiction and essays. In 2021, she was excited to be nominated for a Pushcart Prize for her short story “The Gigolo.” Her short fiction has also appeared in Catapult, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, eMerge, Slush Pile Magazine, Yale's Letters Journal, Poetica E Magazine, and elsewhere.

A graduate of Yale University and and Boston University School of Law, Martha has recently joined the Board of Directors of the PEN/Faulkner Foundation. Today we talk about her beautifully written novel Three Muses. ⁠https://www.marthaannetoll.com/