Eliot Parker is the author of three novels: Breakdown at Clear River (Mid-Atlantic Highlands Press), Making Arrangements (Sunstone Press) and Fragile Brilliance (Roundfire Books). His second novel, Making Arrangements, was selected as a “Best Book of 2014” by USA BookNews. His latest novel, Fragile Brilliance, was a finalist for the Lords of Discipline Thriller Prize (part of the Pat Conroy Southern Book Prize) in Thriller Writing. In 2016, the National Literary Habitat Organization awarded Eliot with the Bronze Award for mystery/thriller writing. His short fiction has appeared in One Story Magazine, Apex Books, Evil Jester Press, and others. In October 2016, Eliot was awarded the Literary Merit Award from the West Virginia Library Association for his books and stories. 

Eliot currently teaches writing and literature at Mountwest Community and Technical College in Huntington, West Virginia. He received the Outstanding Faculty Teaching Award in 2015 and was honored by the West Virginia Community College Association (WVCCA) for Outstanding Contributions to Community College Education. Eliot is also a teacher consultant with the National Writing Project and his a certified online course reviewer for Quality Matters.

 Eliot also hosts the television show “Chapters” across the Armstrong Television Network, which profiles authors, editors, and publishers in West Virginia, Ohio, and Kentucky. Episodes of the show can be found at Youtube.com/armstrongonewire/chapters.

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Anita Dickason. Anita is a retired police officer with twenty-seven years of law enforcement experience, twenty-two with the Dallas Police Department. She served as a patrol officer, undercover narcotics officer, advanced accident investigator, and was a sniper with the Dallas SWAT team.

Her first book, *JFK Assassination Eyewitness: Rush to Conspiracy, *is non-fiction and details the reconstruction of a 1966 vehicle accident near Midlothian, Texas that killed a key witness to the Kennedy assassination. The book was the springboard to a new career in her retirement, author and publishing consultant.

As an author, she has always been intrigued with characters who have an extra edge, that ability to overcome adversity and danger.

Add in her infatuation with Native American myths and legends and Scottish and Irish folklore, and you have the backdrop for her characters. Her law enforcement experience is the basis for her plots. *Sentinels of the Night* is the debut novel for the Trackers, an elite FBI unit. Each agent has a secret, that extra edge that defies reason and logic. The paranormal element was pulled from a Native American myth. *Going Gone!* is the second Tracker novel. And – A third novel should be completed by the end of the year. The experience of writing led to a knowledge of self-publishing and graphic design and a new business endeavor: Mystic Circle Books & Designs, LLC. It is a tossup of what Anita enjoys more, working on her books or helping another author publish their works. She has found an unexpected enjoyment in designing book covers, bookmarks, bookplates, etc.

Anita received the Literary Titan Gold Book Award for *Sentinels of the Night*. The books are available at all retail outlets to include Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

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Traci Andrighetti is the USA TODAY bestselling author of the Franki Amato mysteries and the Danger Cove Hair Salon mysteries. Traci wrote her first mystery in her bedroom closet with her cousin Louisa when they were just twelve years old (it was called The Message in the Driftwood, à la Nancy Drew). But then she abandoned writing completely to pursue other interests, like parties, makeup, and boys.

When she went to college, Traci fell in love with foreign language and studied Spanish, French, Latin and Italian (her hands-down favorite). Thanks to her passion for Italian, she became an award-winning literary translator. She also landed her dream job teaching Italian at the University of Texas at Austin, where she eventually earned a PhD in Applied Linguistics.

After suffering through months of dry dissertation writing, Traci decided it was time to write a mystery again. She was inspired by the hundreds of Murder, She Wrote reruns she had watched to de-stress while in graduate school and the colorful mystery novels of Italian authors Andrea Camilleri and Gabriella Genisi she had read for school and for fun.

Of course, Traci would have never written a single line of text without the encouragement of her really persistent friend Linda and her Italian students, many of whom convinced her to write after listening to stories of her ’80s college escapades and crazy-amazing adventures traveling in Italy. She is extremely grateful to them all.

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21 Things You Should Know About This Author

 

What book have you gifted the most? Why?

Besides Limoncello Yellow, my debut novel, I like to gift Tarquin Hall’s The Case of the Missing Servant featuring Vish Puri, India’s most private investigator. I’ve never read a mystery series that so completely transports the reader to another country.

What is the one productivity tool you use every day? Why?

My daily planner, which my husband calls my “secret weapon.” I live by that thing.

What word do you misspell most often?

Rhythm. Cases in point: I misspelled it when I googled it to make sure I spelled it correctly for this interview. Then I misspelled it again when I typed it here.

What three things do you do to be a successful writer?

I set writing goals, I tell others my goals to hold myself accountable, and, I do the work to meet them. In theory.

What are the titles of the last two books you have read?

The Girl on the Train and The Hound of the Baskervilles.

What is your favorite word?

Porcospino. It’s Italian for “porcupine,” but its literal meaning is “pig thorn.” And I think it’s cute.

What do you use more often – a dictionary or a thesaurus?

In English, a thesaurus. But if I’m writing in Italian, a dictionary.

What would you name the autobiography of your life?

When Life Gives You Lemons, Make Limoncello. And Drink It!

What is your ‘go to’ munchie or drink while writing?

Nutella straight from the jar.

Is a picture worth a thousand words? Elaborate.

It depends on the picture.

What animal are you most similar to and why?

The Tasmanian Devil because I’ll come at you like a hurricane if you try to take my food.

How would your best friend describe you?

Sharon K. Miller is the author of the Clay Series, three books about a simple clay pot and its connection to three different women over the course of eight hundred years. The Clay Remembers (May 2015), The Clay Endures (July 2016), and The Clay Sustains (September 2017). She is convinced of the solidarity of women throughout time, and the pot connecting all three women is the symbol of the love, work, and suffering which binds them in shared experience.

The Clay Series was inspired by the local history of the Sonoran Desert and a specific archaeological site near Tucson, Arizona. To prepare for writing these stories, Sharon researched the history of the Spanish entrada into the Southwestern United States and the archaeological history of the area, taking archaeology classes at the local community college, and participating in excavations. Both The Clay Remembers and The Clay Endures were awarded 5-Star Reviews from Readers’ Favorite and an IndieB.R.A.G. Medallion for Excellence.

Having fallen in love with words and reading and books as a child, she wrote her first book in the second grade. She thought that since books have lots of words, all she had to do was fill a marble composition book with words, and she’d have written a book. Every day, she came home from school, climbed into the window seat, and wrote. When the last word at the bottom of the last page was written, she was one happy kid. Did she actually tell a story? No one will ever know. The book was lost when the family moved a year later.

Since then, she’s taken a much more realistic approach to writing. After a career as a high school English and Language Arts teacher, which included a number of years as a teacher-consultant for local affiliates of the National Writing Project (in Maryland and Arizona), she co-authored a successful university level textbook, Doing Academic Writing in Education: Connecting the Personal and the Professional, as well as chapters in education texts. Two short memoir pieces were selected for publication in Seasons of Our Lives: Spring and Tales of Our Lives: Reflection Pond, award-winning stories from WomensMemoirs.com. She collaborated with Dr. Cristy Kessler for her book, Surviving Healthcare: Five Steps to Cutting Through the BS, Getting the Treatment You Need, and Saving Your Life.

As a writer, she is a member of Women Writing the West, the Alliance of Independent Authors, the Independent Author’s Network, Women’s Fiction Writing Association, the Historical Novel Society, the Arizona Archaeological and Historical Society, and Old Pueblo Archaeology. As an editor, she is the owner of Buckskin Books and a member of the Editorial Freelancers Association.

Links:

The Clay Remembers at Amazon,

Jenn Flynn-Shon is an author, business owner, and snarky blogger.

Flynn-Shon began her writing life at age eleven and has crafted fictional worlds ever since. She owns a micro-press, Writesy Press, LLC, and self-publishes her catalog of titles. Her fiction tends to center around a tomboy main character. Because, whether the book is a romantic suspense or a happily-ever-after coming-of-age story, strong women are Flynn-Shon’s spirit animal.

Published works include the Shaw McLeary Mystery Series (“Reckless Abandon”, “Reckless Hearts”, Reckless Mind”, “Reckless Shot” [fall 2018]), California Dreamin’ Series (“Carol + Chad 4-eva!”, “Alternate Plans”, “Makeup Your Mind” [Nov. 2017]), “Creative Writing Kickstart” Vol. 1 & 2, “30 Chapters in 30 Days” [Sept 2017], and “Ripple the Twine” (retired).

Personally, she’s an ice hockey fanatic, road trip enthusiast, and lover of cliche. But only if it involves long walks on the beach with her husband at sunset. Flynn-Shon lives and works on the surface of the sun (AKA: Phoenix, AZ).

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Nicholas Adams grew up in the small, rural town of Boring, OR with his six brothers and sisters.

After graduating from High School in Gresham, OR he attended BYU-ID and received his Associates Degree in Pre-Med. From there he returned to Portland, OR and attended Portland State University where he earned his Bachelor’s Degree in Biology/Pre-Med before changing his career track to Architecture.

He completed his second Bachelor’s Degree in Architecture at Portland State University before going on to achieve his Master of Architecture Degree from the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, UT.

After his graduation he and his wife moved to the Phoenix Arizona area where they adopted four children over the next eight years.

Nicholas currently lives in the Salt Lake City area where he is an Associate member of the American Institute of Architects (AIA).

His other interests include reading, video games, singing and motorcycles.

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21 Things You Should Know About This Author

 

What book have you gifted the most? Why?

I’d say it’s 60/40 between The Angels’ Secret and Imprint. I’m running giveaways for both on Goodreads and InstaFreebie. So far, they’re running about neck and neck. I’m doing the giveaways to build up a mailing list, to be perfectly honest. I’m also advertising on Goodreads and Amazon that I’ll be donating 25% of my sales to the Wounded Warrior Project. However, 25% of $0.00 is… let me carry the 1… 0!

What is the one productivity tool you use every day? Why?

Does Twitter Count? (not really kidding) I’m not sure how long ago, but I started using Scrivener to write. It’s so much better than Word, though I wish my Grammerly app worked with it. I could save so much time in self-editing. It’s also help me creep towards being a plotter on the plotter vs. pantser spectrum.

What word do you misspell most often?

hte… only because my fat fingers move faster than my brain most days.

What three things do you do to be a successful writer?

Read. As broadly and as much as I can.

Write. I joked about twitter, but I found some daily writing prompts that help me come up with creative ways to use common words in the hopes of getting likes and retweets. I find trying to tell a complete thought in 140 characters forces me to dig down for those last few drops of creative juices.

Connect with an audience. Another reason I’m on Twitter every day. I enjoy interacting with other writers, bloggers. I’ve had one author interview happen because of a Twitter connection, and I’ve found several new books and fellow authors to interview for my own blog.

What are the titles of the last two books you have read?

Got Hope by Michael Darling (just finished it today) Five Stars

Ghost Writer by Netta Newbound (just finished it on Monday) Five Stars

What is your favorite word?

Amazing

What do you use more often – a dictionary or a thesaurus?

Thesaurus.com because it defines the word, its variations and alternatives in one easy glance. I can’t begin to say how it’s saved my bacon, pork bellies, and breakfast meat.

What would you name the autobiography of your life?

The Weight of Air: The Life and Times of an Inconsequential Person

What is your ‘go to’ munchie or drink while writing?

Sobe Lifewater: Blueberry, Acai, & Pomegranate flavor

Is a picture worth a thousand words? Elaborate.

Is this a 1,000-minimum word essay?

Michael Sedgwick was born in 1938 in Hampshire, England, home of Jane Austen, one of his literary heroines. From the age of three in the early war years, he remembers spending many nights in a cold, damp backyard air-raid shelter, listening to bombs falling all around as the German Luftwaffe tried to destroy Britain’s most important naval base in his home town of Portsmouth. Those memories are contained in one of his short stories, The Shelter.

At age twelve, reading Daphne du Maurier’s romantic suspense novel, My Cousin Rachel, created a lifelong desire to write his own romantic suspense story.

At age fifteen, he joined a Royal Air Force cadet program and qualified for a pilot’s license before he was old enough to hold a driving license for his first car: an Austin Healey coupé. During training, he experienced some hair-raising adventures. His lucky escape from an uncertain end, after being totally lost in fog when his gyro compass failed, is the basis for another of his short stories, Tiger in the Fog. On the 1955 anniversary of the Battle of Britain, he joined an RAF squadron of WWII aircraft celebrating the day, and lay prone in the bomb aimer’s position as his aircraft flew over Buckingham Palace. In his senior years at grammar school (equivalent to Senior High School in the U.S.) his desire to write found an outlet in editing and publishing a literary journal. He was also an ardent biker and a participant in Gilbert & Sullivan’s Pirates of Penzeance while at college in London University.

In 1961, Mike joined a multinational manufacturing company and spent thirty-seven years in a technical capacity, living and working in Wales, Belgium, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, and The United States. His writing experience during those years was in the form of technical reports and international communications. In 1981, he moved permanently to Saint Paul, Minnesota and made business visits to most countries except those behind the Iron Curtain at that time. During the 1970s and 80s his reading preferences included works by John Le Carré, Jane Austen, P. D. James, John Updike, Scott Turow, and Len Deighton among many others. His interest was particularly sparked by Len Deighton’s anti-war novel, The Bomber, which he believes is one of the finest novels he has ever read.

In the 1980s, Mike began to write short stories, some of which were eventually published under the titles Of Heaven & Earth and Report from Mars. His early desire to write romance was finally satisfied during a 2005 return to Hampshire, when he visited Jane Austen’s home in Chawton. Twelve miles away, in the village of Bramdean, he discovered the small church of Saints Simon & Jude, built in 1170 A.D. While seated on an ancient wooden pew, he sensed around him the spirits of thirty generations of parishioners baptized, married, and buried there. This experience inspired him to write his first novel, Bramdean, a late 18th Century romance, which won first prize from Arizona Authors’ Association in 2010. His last novel, Light on a Distant Shore is set in future Arizona and deals with romance, remorse, and revenge.

Mike Sedgwick’s writings span a wide range of fictional subject matter with novels focused on political intrigue, action and romance while his short stories cover humor, drama, murder, adventure, science-fiction, and horror. He is currently working on his new novel titled Time & Again, a blend of romance and mystery, set in the Gower Peninsula of South Wales, UK, and scheduled for publication in late 2017.

Mike and his wife, after 54 years of married life, now live in the foothills of the Catalina Mountains, 20 miles north of Tucson, Arizona. Mike is a member of the Arizona Authors Association and of the Society of Southwestern Authors.

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Greg Dodd lives in Columbia, South Carolina with his wife, Caroline, and their Anatolian Shepherd, Desmond. He earned both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of South Carolina. Greg’s other published works include contributions to the anthologies Precious, Precocious Moments (compiled by Yvonne Lehman) and Birds of Passage (compiled by Diogenes Ruiz). Greg and Caroline are active in their church and enjoy vacationing on Pawleys Island.

The book A Seed for the Harvest explores the meaning and purpose of Christian faith. Within its pages, Greg Dodd tells a powerful, challenging story full of diverse, engaging characters whose lives are woven together through times of innocence, depravity, joy, and heartbreak.

Greg’s second work of Christian fiction is a 2017 CIPA EVVY Award winner in the Humor category and a 2017 Red City Review Award winner in the Spiritual/Christina category. The Gills Creek Five brings a comic blend of characters into one setting for a most unusual men’s study group. Written in classic stage play format, it’s a humorous story of personal discovery and renewal.

 

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2017 Interview

 

2016 Interview

 

21 Things You Should Know About Greg Dodd

 

* What book have you gifted the most? Why? I gave away about 70 copies of A Seed for the Harvest. It being my first novel, I was hungrier for readers than sales. I believe in the book’s message; whether I make any money from it has always been a secondary concern. And while I believe people are more likely to read a book they paid to own, I still hear from those freebee recipients, who (after 3 years) say, “Hey, I finally got around to reading your book. I’m really enjoying it.” That’s all I’m after.

* What is the one productivity tool you use every day? An alarm clock. Why? For whatever reason, my best and most creative story ideas come between the hours of 5:00 and 7:00 in the morning. After that, I get lost in the day.

* What word do you misspell most often? It’s a tie between excersize and suprise.

* What three things do you do to be a successful writer? (1) I write. (2) I read what I write. (3) I rewrite what I wrote.

* What are the titles of the last two books you have read? I can name many books I’ve read recently, but if you’re asking me to name the last two I’ve finished, that may prove more difficult. I refuse to read from the current best seller lists, for fear of becoming like everyone else. So I’m always looking out for that obscure novel no one has ever heard of, hoping it will be an amazing, secret discovery just for me. But it usually takes only a few chapters, if that, to realize why no one has ever heard of it.

* What is your favorite word? Um…

* What do you use more often – a dictionary or a thesaurus? I find that when choosing from the vast lexicon of words which comprise my ubiquitous – albeit finite – vocabulary, I prefer the capacious prospects afforded me by every author’s comrade, the thesaurus.

* What would you name the autobiography of your life? “Is it over, yet?”

* What is your ‘go to’ munchie or drink while writing? A bowl of chocolate Honey Bunches of Oats cereal, chased down by a cold can of Diet Mt. Dew.

Helen Hipp gained first-hand experience with autism as she helped her son face his unique challenges. At the same time, she learned to overcome the barriers to finding adequate services for her son. Helen received her M.A. in counseling and began her career as a psychotherapist to help people find answers for their life problems. Her work eventually evolved into a coaching practice, WithinU Life Coaching, focusing on individuals with special needs and their families. Helen’s approach to finding solutions along with her tendency to look at things in different ways remains an integral part of who she is and how she works.

Helen has authored articles for Family Works and Washington Family Magazine and written multiple self-help articles published by ezine.com where she is viewed as an expert in her field. Her children’s adventure books, combine all the best of Helen’s beliefs in tales that celebrate the value of differences, motivating kids of all ages to meet their challenges with self-acceptance, offering readers ever-changing perspectives that transform personal challenges into opportunities.

She is the author of two books titled A Different Kind of Safari and Rosie and Friends: Positively Different inspired by a once-in-a-lifetime trip led by the author’s father to Africa.

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L.B. Johnson is a birthmom, a rescue dog mom, and a #1 best selling author – someone who has spent many years in service to her country, while still managing time to provide comic relief to a black lab. Born in Seattle and raised out West, she now lives in Chicago with her husband and is active in animal rescue. All sales proceeds from her books are donated to animal rescue non-profits and Search Dog Foundation.

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Newest Interview 2017

First Interview 2016