Featured Interview With Author Matt Converse

Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I grew up in Ohio and moved to San Francisco at 21 and have lived there since. No pets other than the tarantula you see on my head!

At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
In the fourth grade I wrote a short story about a boy walking through a graveyard who finds his own tombstone. My teacher asked if I copied it from a movie or TV show. I took that as quite the compliment and have been writing ever since.

Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
I love horror and Stephen King has always been one of my idols, although my biggest idol is a director, Alfred Hitchcock. I strive to bring suspense to my stories like he did to his movies.

Tell us a little about your latest book?
They Kill is a horror anthology of four stories totally 168 pages: The Doll Lady, Gaga for Murder, A Stranger's Rope, and Insected. Haunting dolls, a psychotic serial killer, a nod to Hitchcock's Rope, and deadly Insected from another world will chill you to the bone.

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Featured Interview With Author Eric Colbourne

Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I was raised in a small fishing village on the remote northeast coast of the island of Newfoundland, linked to the ocean by tradition and lifestyle. After my university years in Canada and the UK and a career in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut, I returned to my roots. Between travels to countries worldwide, I still reside in this small community.

At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
My fascination with books began in grade school when I discovered the book of Zane Grey–stories like Riders of the Purple Sage. I started writing seriously about 12 years ago when I began documentingI some of the folktales of villages in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
I like the works of Garcia Marquez, William Faulkner, Joseph Heller, and contemporary authors like Anthony Bourdain and Joseph Heller. My greatest inspiration I would have to say, is the great Columbian writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

Tell us a little about your latest book?
My latest book is a collection of short stories that touch on various themes, including the tragedy of war, the absurdities of social media, the magical world of Fairies, and the tales of grandmothers. It is, in many ways, a curious mixture of reality and the outlandish.

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Eric Colbourne’s Website

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Featured Interview With Author Paul Bethel

Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I was born here in Nassau, Bahamas. I've lived here all my life, apart from vacations spent in the U.S., Caribbean, U.K. Germany and Israel. The story of my life is so dull, reciting it could be a cure for insomnia. I've worked as a sales clerk, an accountant, in the editorial department of a local newspaper, as an office manager in a natural health clinic, and also did part-time pet-sitting. Whatever paid the bills.

In my thirties, I helped to care for my father, who became a paraplegic seven years before his death; and in my fifties and sixties, I was one of two caregivers for my mother, who suffered from dementia. She died just over a year ago and I converted her house (which I inherited) into two apartments: a one-bedroom for myself and a two-bed/one bath, which I rent out.

Growing up, we always had both dogs and cats. After my last canine friend left me, I decided to keep only one cat. However, fate seems to have decreed that I should become a Crazy Cat Gentleman, and I now feed seven felines outside, in addition to my indoor calico. Thankfully, rabies is not a problem in The Bahamas! Of course I'm single–and, at 64, likely to remain so.

Now semi-retired, I enjoy reading (as one would expect), the beach, and meeting my friends at a local Starbucks. When not working on a novel, article, or short story, I often amuse myself by penning song lyrics, which have gotten a couple of Honorable Mentions in the American Songwriter contests. I'd like to work on music for these sometime, and I do enjoy singing in the small church which I attend regularly. Since they often ASK me to sing solos, I'm assuming that they enjoy my voice–or that they're a group of secret masochists!

I'm also a confirmed technophobe, who doesn't "do" social media and only recently acquired a cellphone, which I'm still trying to figure out–with limited success, I might add. For the moment, I'm still in the 18th Century, and not sure when I'll make it to the 21st.

At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I can't remember a time when I wasn't reading or writing something. Certainly from a very early age. A friend of mine recently reminded me how I used to tell stories to the neighborhood kids even when I was quite young. They were often horror stories, which occasionally frightened me as much as my friends! While most of them were reading the adventures of Dick, Jane and Spot, I was more into True Detective and True Romance magazines. No wonder I ended up writing romance and mystery novels!

Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
I have a lot of "favorite" writers. Some are Jane Austen, Georgette Heyer, C.S. Lewis, Agatha Christie, Thomas Love Peacock and Paul Gallico. I've been inspired by all of them! Recently I've been reading the Mitford Novels by Jan Karon and the Christian non-fiction of Timothy Keller. Favorite genres include Cozy Mysteries and classic romance, as well as humor/satire.

Tell us a little about your latest book?
THE WHISPERING TONGUES is the third book in my Sussex Mystery Series, published under my pseudonym of Beth Andrews. They feature John and Lydia Savidge, a young married couple in Regency England who have a knack for getting involved in and solving crimes. This book was one I began years ago, put aside to care for my mother, and completed near the end of 2021.

Some readers complained that the second book in the series, THE UNFORGIVING EYE, lacked romance, so I gave them two in this story: the arranged marriage between Anthea and Gideon, which quickly becomes much more; and the budding romance between Rachel and Quentin, which provides some comic relief, especially from the over-the-top character of Rachel. But the plot revolves around the need to restore Anthea's shattered reputation and discover what happened to a missing servant.

There have been objections to the depiction of antisemitism in the novel. I wanted to explore an aspect of Regency society which rarely makes it into standard historical mysteries. However, since the overall tone of the series is lighthearted rather than heavy, I didn't want this to dominate the plot. To me, humor is a way of opening people's minds to things they might otherwise choose to ignore–and the contrast between Serious and Funny makes the former stand out in relief and stay in the minds of readers. If I'm mistaken in this, at least it's an honest mistake. A few readers have erroneously assumed that all the Jewish characters in the story are converts to Christianity. Actually, this only applies to Gideon. I chose to present him that way so there would not be another unnecessary complication in his relationship with Anthea,, who is Anglican. They have enough to deal with! If the distinction is not always clear, that is hardly surprising, as cultural assimilation was advancing rapidly and it was not always easy for non-Jews to tell the difference between the orthodox and the newly-converted, since many who remained in the faith abandoned traditional cultural and religious norms and practices.

I consider this book more of a suspense story than a traditional mystery, and took my cue from THE TALISMAN RING by Georgette Heyer. It's one of my old favorites–and one of her funniest, in my opinion. It's a book I often re-read when feeling ill or depressed! My style, however, is influenced more by Jane Austen than by Heyer. I don't try to recreate a detailed picture of the Regency period, but merely to create an impression of it, particularly through dialogue. Although I do as much research as possible, I have been known to make more than my share of mistakes! In the end, the reader must decide on the success or failure of any work.

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Featured Interview With Author Jeff R. Kelland

Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I was born and raised in Newfoundland, but I now make my home on the banks of the Miramichi River in New Brunswick, and I absolutely love it here!

At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
My fascination with books started soon after I learned to read, and I started writing late in elementary school. I've been writing ever since….essays, short stories, poetry, songs…a blank page and I get along famously!

Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
My favourite authors are Robertson Davies and Leon Uris. I've read everything they have written. I like to write fiction, but I prefer to read non-fiction.

Just about anyone or anything can inspire me to write a poem, a short story, or an essay. But when it comes to inspiration for writing a book, it has to be a major issue that people need to know more about. For my first book, Grace Ungiven, it was the plight of countless children sexually abused by Catholic clerics. For my latest book, The Dying Party, I was moved by inaction and complacency regarding climate change, so I decided to write a book that shows people what human life will be like if we don't get out climate act together.

Tell us a little about your latest book?
“The Dying Party”, along with its prequel novella “Two of All People” (free and available everywhere), asks the question: ‘What happens when they tell us it's too late to stop climate change; when we are forced to face a future that will be increasingly hellish, and an horrific end that will come within our lifetimes?’ The novel answers this question with two parallel story lines that alternate from chapter to chapter and eventually merge – one about how the poor will deal with the advancing crisis, and one about how the rich and powerful will fare.

The former story line, starting a few years earlier in the prequel, focuses on two main characters. It is late in the 2040s, and Lizzie and Donnie are two of only six people left alive in a residential complex that had been built into the side of Newfoundland’s Gros Morne mountain in the 2030s, now the only piece of habitable land left above water in all of what was once eastern Canada. In the second story line we follow a group of humanity's richest and most powerful, the super-elite, as they try to establish an off-Earth colony for themselves.

“The Dying Party” explores in fascinating detail the complex brutality of what having to accept such a fate would mean for human civilization; what it would look like on a global scale, a local context, and from a variety of personal perspectives. The author’s extensive research shows that if we stay on our present course of inaction, confusion, and complacency, such a declaration will come sooner than we think. The thrust of the novel, however, is to illustrate the under-appreciated impact that passing the climate change tipping point will have on the human psyche; an impact that will further complicate and accelerate what is happening on a number of levels.

This is not fanciful speculation about the near and distant future, but rather the logical extension of the current course of humanity if we fail to up our game. The novel is a courageous, unflinchingly depiction of the worst-case scenario, with a measure of redemption, and is therefore a cautionary tale to end all cautionary tales.

Anyone interested in knowing my experience in writing "Grace Ungiven" or "The Dying Party" can visit my author website for an interview about each (https://jkellandmysites.io/)

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Jeff R. Kelland’s Website

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