Conversations with Writers

Author Kathy-Diane Leveille is a former broadcast journalist with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBS) and is a member of Sisters in Crime ; International Thriller Writers ; Kiss of Death RWA and Crime Writers of Canada . Her short story collection, Roads Unravelling (Sumach Press, 2003) was published to critical acclaim. A selection from its pages, "Learning to Spin", was adapted to radio drama for CBC’s Summer Drama Festival while "Showdown at the Four Corner’s Corral" was revised for the stage and performed by New City Theater in Saint John. Her work has also been published in anthologies that include Water Studies: New Voices in Maritime Fiction (Pottersfield Press, 1998) and New Brunswick Short Stories (Neptune, 2003) as well as in a number of literary journals, among them, Grain ; Room of One's Own ; The Oklahoma Review ; Pottersfield Portfolio and The Cormorant . Let the Shadows Fall Behind You (Kunati, 2009), is her first novel. In ...

Lawyer and author, E. R. Fussell was born in Peru to American citizens and moved back to the United States at the age of five. He received his law degree from Loyola Law School in Los Angeles and began practicing law in California. Since 1972, he has practiced law in his hometown of LeRoy, New York. In this interview, E. R. Fussell talks about the life and work of his grandfather, Joe Fussell, author of Unbridled Cowboy (Truman State University Press, 2008). Who is Joe Fussell? Joseph B. Fussell was born in Tyler, Texas in 1879 and was the son of a cowboy and buffalo hunter. At fourteen, he quit school, ran away from home and trekked across the Southwest working as a cowboy and livery stable operator. At 27, he married and began a family. Ten years later, when Mexico was in the throes of civil war, he travelled to Vera Cruz to check on the suitability of some land for oil drilling. After a stint as an undercover Texas Ranger, he began a new career in Arizona as Yardmast...

In this email interview, the anonymous author of the blog novel, worlds undone talks about her concerns as a transgendered lesbian, a feminist and a writer: When did you start writing? Writing fiction is a new endeavor for me, something I impulsively dove into five months ago. Heretofore, my writing was mostly of life experiences, or interacting with others in the lesbian community. Coming out for me was a daunting and destructive experience, shattering about everything and everyone around me. PTSD resulted; in therapy for years now, I sensed a need to do more. The first step was to embrace Reiki, something that empowered me in self-healing, and in giving me a way to reach out to others around me who might wish to receive healing energy. The next step was fiction, and both of these things -- Reiki and writing fiction, sprung forth after leaving a therapy session, which I attend once a month. How would you describe your writing? More than anything, it is a story of life, of people embr...

Novelist Margay Leah Justice lives in Hudson, Massachusetts. At various stages in her life, she has worked as a waitress, an aerobics instructor, a paralegal and as an administrative assistant in a computer company. Nora's Soul (Second Wind Publishing, 2008) is her first novel. In this interview, Margay Leah Justice talks about her writing: When did you start writing? I think I started writing the first time I ever picked up a pencil. I can't remember a time when I didn't write. As to when I decided to publish what I wrote, that came later, probably when I was in high school and realized that this might be a good career for me. But a lot of life has happened between that realization and my achieving my dream. I actually was approached by a friend I made in a writing contest about his desire to start a press and to publish the stories he enjoyed reading in the contest. So of course I said yes. I don't write in one genre. I write whatever story comes to me a...

Shelley Blake has been writing from a very early age. Some of her work has been published in magazines that include The Program Melbourne ; Inpress Magazine ; The Skinny ; and, The Ranfurly Review . In 2006, her poem, "Hidden" was runner-up in the Poetry Category of the Amnesty International and Sydney Pen , Freedom Writer's Awards. Two years earlier, she had been awarded membership with Golden Key International Honour Society based on results of the work she did in her Bachelor of Media Studies with LaTrobe University. In this interview, Shelley Blake talks about her writing: When did you start writing? I began writing from a young age, around 15. I was always fascinated with song lyrics, from artists like Jeff Buckley , Thom York and Nick Cave . The first poetry I read was from Australian writer Luke Davies , who is still one of my favourite writers. I always wanted to work in environmental science, but when I was around 14 I realised I wasn't inclined to the ...

Award-winning author, Dora McAlpin has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She writes under a number of different names which include D. L. McAlpin, Ivey Banks , and Z. D. Zeeks. Her first novel, Out of the Dark won first place in the 2006 TheNextBigWriter Novel Contest , and, in 2008 another novel of hers, The Keeper of the Sparrows was a semi-finalist in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award . In this interview, Dora McAlpin talks about her writing. When did you start writing? I was five the first time the writing frenzy took me. Not having pen and paper handy, I wrote my story in crayon on the wall of my bedroom. I was eight when I wrote my first manuscript. It was supposed to be a short story for a school project. Once I started writing it, I couldn't stop. I called it "Rascal, the Little Red Devil of Cherry Lane." How did you decide you wanted to get published? I can't remember ever wanting t...

Crime and mystery author, Sally Spedding was born in Wales and trained in sculpture in Manchester and at St Martin's, in London. She is also an award winning poet and short story writer. Her books include the crime mystery novels, Wringland (Pan Macmillan, 2001); A Night With No Stars (Allison&Busby, 2005) and Come and Be Killed (Severn House, 2007) as well as the collection of crime short stories, Strangers Waiting (Bluechrome, 2008). In this interview, Sally Spedding talks about her writing. When did you start writing? I began writing as a 10 year-old whilst staying with my Dutch grandparents in their amazing house on a mountainside in Wales, where the rows were constant. The tensions from leaving occupied Holland still very raw. I'd hide away in the attic and write and illustrate comic strips and stories, not fully understanding the tragedies they'd left behind. I like blurring the edges between genres. Crime is too much of a pigeon-hole. I use horro...

Rai Aren lives in Calgary, in the province of Alberta, Canada. She made her debut as an author with the publication of Secret Sands (RFS Publications, 2007), a novel she co-wrote with Tavius E. The novel has been described as "fast, furious and absolutely mindblowing." In this interview, Rai Aren talks about her concerns as a writer. When did you start writing? I have always loved writing; I started by writing my own Nancy Drew stories (early fan fiction) when I was 10. Throughout school, I always had a very easy time with essays, any kind of written question. Then, about seven years ago, my co-author and I started talking about how we wanted to do more with our lives than just earn a living, we wanted to create something larger than life, to follow in the footsteps of the epic stories that we love. From conversations we had over the course of a year, and a program I saw on the Discovery Channel came the inspiration for Secret of the Sands . How would you d...

Zimbabwean lawyer and author Petina Gappah has been writing from an early age. Some of her work has been published in anthologies that include Laughing Now (Weaver Press, 2008), Women Writing Zimbabwe (Weaver Press, 2008) and One World: A global anthology of short stories (New Internationalist, 2009) . Her debut collection of short stories, An Elegy for Easterly (Faber and Faber, April 2009) has been described as "a stunning portrait of a country in chaotic meltdown". In this email interview, Petina Gappah talks about her concerns as a writer. When did you start writing? Like most writers, I started writing as a child. I was not, however, as precocious as some that I have read about who started writing at age 5 or 3 or even before they were born. I started writing at about 10 or 11, and my first published anything was a story in the St. Dominic’s Secondary School magazine when I was 14. I started writing seriously in May 2006. I joined the Zoetrope Virtual Studio , a st...