Featured Interview With Melina Druga

Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I often say, “I didn’t choose writing as a profession. It chose me.” I have been writing both fiction and nonfiction since I was a child. I have dozens of unpublished works that are decades old. Professionally, I didn’t begin writing until the turn of the century. I write news articles and blogs for clients. I am the author of three published books and contributor to a fourth.

I also am a history enthusiast. My area of study is the period 1890-1920 with a particular interest in WW1 and how the war changed the lives of ordinary people. I blog mostly about history on my website with the goal of educating those who know little or nothing about the topic. My most recent book, A Tale of Two Nations: Canada, U.S. and WW1, explores how the war was reported in newspapers.

I’m currently working on an historical fiction novel, and I plan on writing a book on crime in the 1910s.

I was born and raised in Northeastern Ohio, and I still live here. I am married to a wonderful, mom to an intelligent daughter, and we have a black cat.

At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I was very young. I credit The Little House on the Prairie series for giving me both a love of reading and history. I began writing when I was about eight years old.

Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
My favorite author is Edith Wharton. I was introduced to her novels after I saw the film version of The Age of Innocence. My favorite fiction genres are classics and historical fiction. My favorite nonfiction subjects are history and astronomy.

Tell us a little about your latest book?
My most recent book, A Tale of Two Nations: Canada, U.S. and WW1, explores how the war was reported in newspapers. I was inspired by two things. The first is my love of the time period, in particular who the war had lasting affects on ordinary people. The second is my own experience working as a journalist. I know how news can change as the facts come in. I wanted to look at the war without the benefit of hindsight and analysis to learn what people were reading and what they believed to be true.

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Featured Interview With TM Blayte

Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I am an aspiring journalist by day, reader by night, and author somewhere in between. My debut novel, Until We Are Free was released on 01 August 2018 by Alban Lake Publishing. It follows the story of a young rebel, who has to face down his own organisation and father, as well as the government’s elite Royal Guard, to prevent a civil war.
Where I come from is complicated, good luck solving it. I’ve stayed in Zimbabwe, Namibia, and South Africa. Currently, I split my time between Botswana and South Africa.
Did I mention I love chocolate ice cream?

At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I always liked reading as a child, but didn’t have much access to books. My first novel was written on a Nokia E63 when I was sixteen.

Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
My favourite authors. In no particular order. Marie Lu, Cassandra Clare, Brandon Sanderson, George R.R. Martin, Richelle Mead, David Baldacci, and TM Blayte … Just kidding. And my favourite author above all is Ally Carter.
I like reading anything that grabs my attention. I could say I love Fantasy and Scifi, but my favourite author writes none of these. I always enjoy a good Jodi Picoult book, and I’ve had good times with a couple of Danielle Steel novels. So I think I’m genre flexible.
As far as inspiration goes, I can say Marie Lu. I’ve always wanted to write like her. Quick pace, loads of action, high stakes, and concise pages.

Tell us a little about your latest book?
In what the characters believe to be the last shred of civilised earth, is the United Isles. In the United Isles, there are two races. The Elder race, and second class humans. A group known as the Riders exist to oppose the government, and hopefully one day free humans.
Just before Until We Are Free opens, the Rider Council is divided on whether to make war against the king, or try negotiating. They finally decide to attempt negotiations first.
Nyl Jayms is tasked with kidnaping the Elder princess, to force her brother, the king, to negotiate with humans. The alternative is a war that could lead to the annihilation of both humans and Elders.
A Rider Council faction, led by Nyl’s father, is opposed to any negotiations. They will do anything, including sabotaging his assignment, to trigger a war.
Nyl and his team have to outsmart the king’s elite Royal Guard, to get to the princess, and somehow stay one step ahead of the faction opposed to negotiations. Everyone will be forced to re-evaluate ideology they were raised with, as an impending war looms ever closer.
At a point, faces of friends, family, allies and enemies will blur, until the determination to be free becomes the only thing that remains. After all, does one person’s freedom mean another’s oppression?

I started writing Until We Are Free in around 2013/2014. It was a vampire story back then. After four years, it has certainly come a long way, and transformed into something I truly love.

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Featured Interview With S.A. Sebastian

Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
A little about myself. I've written my entire life but it took me a long time to realize I really and truly wanted to be a writer. Having spent part of my childhood on a tiny Caribbean island, every single thing I read highlighted how much bigger the world was compared to the small and sleepy former fishing village I was growing up in. Moving to Brooklyn as a kid then provided me with all aspects of the vibrancy I'd always imagined and then some. The color, the characters the confidence, the fears, the aspirations. Since then I've done some ho hum things like working in the U.S. House of Representatives and being a Washington, D.C. lobbyist, but all of it was and continues to be driven by the curiosity that began a long time ago, about how much grander the world around me really can be.

I've now moved to Los Angeles to pursue the next chapter in that journey.

At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I think I realized I loved books more than some others from the time my aunts forced a cousin and I to read books after dinner as kids. I loved it and my cousin absolutely and totally hated it. I mean they couldn't even punish her into doing it, she just wasn't having it. From that moment I realized that not everyone was itching to find out what happened in the next page of our book as much as I was, and what reading did to my imagination was something I never wanted to let go of.

I began writing short stories soon after when I moved from the tiny island of Dominica to the middle of Brooklyn, New York at 12 years old. It was a way of dealing with the enormous shifts and I used writing to express the impact it had on my imagination and my understanding of the world around me.

Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
I'm a fan of Elizabeth Gilbert's work, I've always appreciated Ta Nehisi Coates, and as a kid I loved John Steinbeck's descriptions of difficult, life altering environments. My favorite genre is probably comedy/romantic comedy, as how people envision and enliven relationships when they tell a story is something I always find interesting.

I also keep telling my friends I'm well aware that the world is difficult, I like my entertainment lighthearted.

Tell us a little about your latest book?
Sombristic at it's core is a story about romantic games and how we often try to use our minds to satisfy our hearts. The romantic journey of Caroline and her friends is meant to be as relatable as your favorite group of friends hanging out on a Friday night over drinks, or as amusing as the clever dialogue and interactions of your favorite sitcom characters over the course of their sharpest season. But it's also meant to tell the story of romantic drama a bit differently. By leaning on the structure of a play to drive the story through the characters dialogue, Sombristic infuses the rhythmic energy of a telenovella or a soap opera to make every scene as dramatic and critical as the one that precedes it and the one that follows.

All the while through the laughter and empathizing, the reader should inquisitively wonder what they and their friends would do if ever confronted with a similar situation, albeit one with several unpredictable, dramatic twists.

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