Author interviews: a series of conversations with published authors

Steve Jones on Nature’s Inspiration in Leadership and Life

Now 44 years beyond his bachelor's degree in forestry, Steve is devoting his life to championing the cause of Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading. Steve founded the Nature Based Leadership Institute ...

Dera Williams on discovering and writing heritage

Dera Williams lives, works, and plays in the Oakland/Bay Area, California. She is a writer, editor, mentor, researcher, and family historian. Her publications include fiction, nonfiction, memoir, ...

Jasmine H. Wade on writing, teaching, and a literary community

Jasmine Wade is obsessed with the ridiculous, and oftentimes traumatic, trials of growing up. Her short stories have appeared in Drunken Boat, TAYO Literary Magazine, Lunch Ticket, The Copperfield ...

Nicolee McMahon and the Practice of Immediacy in the Arts

Nicolee McMahon, Roshi, is a Dharma heir of Zen Master Taizan Maezumi, Roshi. She is co-founder of the Three Treasures Zen Community in San Diego, California. She is semi-retired but continues to ...

Tim Baker on writing and “living the dream”

Rhode Island native Tim Baker moved to Florida in October 2006 and has been writing ever since. His first novel, Living the Dream, was released in 2009 and he has since completed eight more novels. ...

Arbenita Mikushnica on introversion and the power of books

Arbenita Mikushnica is a psychology graduate living in London, working as a healthcare assistant at a psychiatric hospital. Her work includes the recently published essay “How Reading Saved Me,” - a ...

Julie Elizabeth Powell on dreams, imagination, and writing

Julie Elizabeth Powell has published 25 books to date, in a variety of genres and lengths. She is also a contributor to the Mind’s Eye series of anthologies of poetry and short stories inspired by ...

Rana Abdulfattah on Exile and Syria, Memoir and Poetry

Rana Abdulfattah is a Syrian living in Istanbul. She has studied in the United States, Holland and Turkey and works as a language consultant. Rana is a lover of both cats and Istanbul. Rana ...

Wade Stevenson and the poetry of love: A 21st century troubadour

Wade Stevenson was born in New York City in 1945 and his first book Beds (McCall Publishing Co., 1970) was a poetry best seller. Other books followed, including The Little Book of He and She, The ...

J. Michael Radcliffe on writing fantasy and creating character

An avid reader of fantasy and science fiction novels all his life, J. Michael Radcliffe published his first novel The Guardian’s Apprentice in 2010. He lives with his family in rural Kentucky along ...

Janet Brady Calhoun on the revealing journey of self and writing her memoir

Janet Brady Calhoun graduated cum laude from Franklin and Marshall College, Lancaster, Pennsylvania at age fifty. She went on to become the first woman president of Lancaster City Council, the ...

Maria Haskins on science-fiction, fantasy, and music

Maria Haskins is a Swedish-Canadian writer and translator. She writes speculative fiction and poetry, and debuted as a writer in Sweden in the far-off era known as the 1980s. Since 1992 she lives in ...

Maria Savva on moral dilemma, character development and the mystery of writing

Maria Savva lives in London. She works as a lawyer, and writes novels and short stories in various genres, including drama, psychological thriller, and family saga. Her short stories have appeared in ...

Kim Schultz on memoir, writing others’ stories, and the Middle East

Kim Schultz is a Chicago based author, actor and refugee advocate. In 2009, she traveled to the Middle East as an artist/activist to meet with Iraqi refugees, falling in love with Omar and forever ...

Ronne Troup on discovery and writing her mother’s story

Ronne Troup, daughter of legendary musician Bobby Troup and debutante Cynthia Hare, was handed her mother's story when she was 35. Thirty year later, she transcribed her mother's story and published ...

Hugh Martin on writing, war, and the power of poetry

Hugh Martin is a veteran of the Iraq War and the author of The Stick Soldiers (BOA Editions, Ltd., 2013) and So, How Was the War? (Kent State UP, 2010). He is the recipient of a Sewanee Writers’ ...

Ed Duncan on writing, lifelong reading, and his first thriller “Pigeon-Blood Red”

Ed Duncan is a graduate of Oberlin College and Northwestern University Law School. He was a partner at a national law firm in Cleveland, Ohio for many years. His first novel Pigeon-Blood Red wastes no ...

Mona Houghton on influences of Writing and Style, and an amazing reading list

Mona Houghton has published stories in Carolina Quarterly, Crosscurrents, Bluff City, West Branch, Oracle, Livingston Press’ Tarts 2, Harpur Palate, and Corridors. She has won the John Gardner ...

Glenn Schiffman on his novel “The Way I Was Taught” and the depth of Writing

Raised in a border town of the Cattauraugus Seneca Indian Reservation where his father was chaplain at the Indian school, Glenn Schiffman has lived around and with American Indians all of his life and ...

Piper Templeton on the art of short story and other fiction

Piper Templeton is the author of the Beatles' inspired coming-of-age novel Rain Clouds and Waterfalls and the forthcoming mystery Beneath the Shady Tree. It is from typical daily experiences that ...

Leilani Squire, Creativity, Process and Writer’s Truth

Leilani Squire has facilitated creative writing workshops for veterans and their families throughout Southern California and is a CCA Certified Creativity Coach. Her poetry and short stories have ...