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Marne Prinsloo 

Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I have created the Joy Journal for kids. This is for ages 5-12. This journal can be done with parents, or it can be handed to a child to fill in the daily prompt pages.

I am passionate about creating a positive mindset in children. I am currently working on a teenager version that will be for older children 12+.

What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
Joy Journal For Kids. I have seen first hand the positive effect of journalling and gratitude practice and I wanted to teach my kids to also adopt the habit. I have created this journal with my children and we have been spending time together “checking in” on our feelings and our days and it was such a positive experience I wanted to share it with other parents and children.

Do you have any unusual writing habits?
I don’t think I have unusual writing habits, but I know that children don’t have a long concentration span, so with my graphic design skills and parenting skills together with the believe of a positive mindset I created this journal.

What authors, or books have influenced you?
Rachel Hollis was definitely my biggest inspiration an visualisation, implementation and gratitude practice.

What are you working on now?
I have started my research on a journal for older children (preteens and teens), I believe older children can also benefit from adapting this habit of journaling and practising grattitude.

What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
I am new to promoting books, I have been listening to podcasts on how to get my books to be more visual to the public. I can not say that I have been very successful in promotion yet.

Do you have any advice for new authors?
Not to give up. I have found the process of merely finishing the journal and getting to publication quite hard. I haven given up, and now my journal is available on Amazon and I have 1 review.

What is the best advice you have ever heard?
If not now, when.

What are you reading now?
The teenage Brain by Frances E. Jensen.

I am reading a couple of relaxing non fiction books from the library and doing my research on teen development and struggles. I am reading

What’s next for you as a writer?
I would like to create a e-book and possibly printed book on the benefits of grattitude practice, positive mindset and how we can incorporate it into the lives of our children on a daily bases.

If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
I would take a self help book, a motivational book and one true crime book.

Author Websites and Profiles
Marne Prinsloo Website
Marne Prinsloo Amazon Profile

Marne Prinsloo’s Social Media Links
Goodreads Profile
Facebook Profile
Pinterest Account

Brian Goslee 

Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I have a passion to encourage and guide others through practical steps that help them grow in their faith and activate change in their lives. I am a family man from the Midwest with a background in education. In 2015, I founded Changed Through Faith Ministries, a nonprofit organization that helps people grow closer to God. I loves God, family, and baseball. I have been married 29 years to the love of my life and have 2 great kids who are now young adults. I have written four books, all in the category of Christian Inspiration/Christian Living. Connect with me at changedthroughfaith.com and brian@ctfaith.com.

What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
My latest book is Changed Through Faith: Four Steps to Activating a Life of Peace, Purpose, and Fulfillment, along with its companion book Changed Through Faith Action Plan. The inspiration for this book came from the fact that I had read many great books about faith development and growing our relationship with God, but they often lacked the “How do I do it?” component. They often lacked practical application steps in our daily lives. That is why I wrote this book: to provide an easy-to-remember formula of faith development that is practical and can be applied daily in our lives.

Do you have any unusual writing habits?
When I am journaling, I can only do that effectively with a physical pen and lined journal pages. However, when I am writing (i.e. blog posts, book, etc), I can only do so at a keyboard on a computer.

What authors, or books have influenced you?
Author: Pat Gano. Book: The Language of Heaven: 5 Gifts That Create Legacy
Author: Steven Furtick. All of his books, especially Sun Stand Still.
Author: RT Kendall. Book: Total Forgiveness.

What are you working on now?
I have taught Changed Through Faith and the companion 30-day CTFaith Action Plan (Journal/Workbook) as a course live and am looking to do more of that as a 9-week small-groups program. I also am working on increasing exposure to my free online curriculum on CTFaith and daily devotionals on my website, changedthroughfaith.com.

What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
changedthroughfaith.com

(I am new to promotion, so I do not have any advice on successful methods at this time)

Do you have any advice for new authors?
I am a relatively new author. I would say be true to yourself. Don’t try to imitate or be someone else.

What is the best advice you have ever heard?
Truly appreciate what you have instead of being disappointed about what you don’t have.
(-Lee Corso, College Football Gameday host)

What are you reading now?
Love Does by Bob Goff

What’s next for you as a writer?
I am considering another Christian faith development book.

If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
Bible
Blank journal
The Language of Heaven by Pat Gano
Sun Stand Still by Steven Furtick

Author Websites and Profiles
Brian Goslee Website
Brian Goslee Amazon Profile

Brian Goslee’s Social Media Links
Goodreads Profile

JAN UNDERWOOD 

Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I have either three novels and one collection of short stories, or two novels and two collections of short stories, depending on how you look at it My first novel, which won the 2005 International Three Day Novel Writing Contest, is a set of interlinked short stories featuring a variety of monsters with hang-ups (the title character of _Day Shift Werewolf_ is a vegetarian, which complicates his job as a hunter of manflesh.) DSW was followed by the novel _Utterly Heartless_, a magical realist satirical murder mystery. As you can see, I like to play with genre. Next came a more serious work of short fiction, _The Bell Lap_, which is a work of “cli-fi” or climate change science fiction. In my newest novel, _Fault Lines_, I return to magical realism while maintaining the more somber tone befitting a work that addresses political and personal injustice, anxiety and depression, and war.
I’ve also had numerous short stories appear in magazines and anthologies.

What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
_Fault Lines_:

“Cathie Ayala has never been to Santa María, the country of her parents’ birth. Now her beloved godmother has gone missing in that South American nation’s political turmoil. Risking her safety and sense of self, Cathie sets out to find the woman who raised her.

Instead she stumbles on two young people facing crises of their own. Injured in a terrible accident on her way to her fiesta de quinceañera, Jewel seems to have one foot in this life and one in the next—while Nicky is reeling from a spectacular failure to solve his own existential problem. The companions must succeed or fail together, navigating not only a war zone but each one’s relationship to death and life.”

I have taught Spanish for thirty years and have lived in several Spanish-speaking countries. My interest in Latin America has deep roots. I wanted to write about life there (Santa María is a fictitious, “composite” portrait of several real countries) while exploring the emotional lives of individual characters.

Do you have any unusual writing habits?
I used to write in a very non-linear fashion, beginning with a vignette, a description, a turn of phrase, or a line of dialogue, and building a story out from there. That approach is as legitimate as any other, but it is very inefficient! With _Fault Lines_ I experimented successfully with a more linear writing style–crafting the story from beginning to end, and not working on a draft until I’d completed the one before.

What authors, or books have influenced you?
Margaret Atwood, Ursula LeGuin and Barbara Kingsolver are three that leap to mind. They are master storytellers who take care to develop their characters fully and who pay close attention to the use of language.

What are you working on now?
I have completed the second draft of a new novel called _Lonely House_, about the sexual abuse of children at the hands of Catholic priests and the horrors of the Indian residential schools of the first half of the twentieth century.

What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
So far as I can tell, there is no magic. Getting your name out in front of your most likely audience in as many ways as you can is key. But probably even more important is developing genuine relationships along the way–based on authentic connection and mutuality–with readers.

Do you have any advice for new authors?
Find yourself a good writers’ group that knows how to give and receive critiques. The members should be supportive of one another and not feel they are in competition. They should know how to give feedback that is descriptive, not evaluative (“this gave me goosebumps!” rather than “this is so good!”)–so you know exactly what you’re doing right–and that is honest without being mean, so you can improve.

What is the best advice you have ever heard?
In life? Maybe “Don’t postpone joy.”

What are you reading now?
In fiction, I’m just about to finish the first of Frank Herbert’s famous _Dune_ series. In nonfiction, I am working my way through Robert Sapolsky’s _Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst._

What’s next for you as a writer?
I will be promoting my newest novel, which came out Dec. 15, for some time yet. And my next novel has many drafts to go before it will be ready for the public

If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
What an agonizing question! I’d want something meaty, like a complete works of Shakespeare, maybe alongside a book of interpretation for the moments when I get lost. I might like a Bible, not for religious reasons, but because it’s a very long and difficult book and would keep me busy for quite a while. Would it be cheating to take an anthology?

Author Websites and Profiles
JAN UNDERWOOD Website
JAN UNDERWOOD Amazon Profile

JAN UNDERWOOD’s Social Media Links
Goodreads Profile
Twitter Account

Sam Gallenberger 

Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I’ve published one book so far but have many more on the way. In 2022 alone I will be releasing an eBook, two superhero novels, in a connected universe, and a manga styled comic book.

What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
I was inspired to write The Crimson Arrow simply be being a huge fan of superheroes, and wanting to put my own spin on the genre. I think something that often gets lost is having real stakes, real characters, and building the entire story around the hero/action part. I’ve put a lot of focus on telling stories that happen to include superheroes.

Do you have any unusual writing habits?
I don’t know many other writers so it’s hard to say. The way I build stories is probably unusual. I find a concept I like, twist it to a more interesting path, and then build the story around it.

What authors, or books have influenced you?
The vast majority of what I read is indepently done on personal sites or forums. Stuff like Worm, The Wicker Saga, and Operation Stingray are stories and series I love, and that have inspired me greatly. When it comes to novels I am most often reading what is mainstream.

What are you working on now?
So much. My superhero universe goes at least 30 novels deep, and I have at least one coming out each of the next four years. That includes two in 2022, one in Q1, and another in Q4. On top of that, I’ve started an eBook on finance, and we’ll see if that becomes something I revisit. Lastly, I’m working on a manga styled comic book on my own, as well as co-writing another with a close friend. It’s a dramatic shift from six months ago I had nothing out, and in another year I’ll have a relatively vast gallery out there.

What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
I’ve used a lot of instagram marketing to varying degrees of success. Influencers are kind of what is in right now, and the method I’ve been using.

Do you have any advice for new authors?
If you’re like me, you’re probably going to worry about every little detail, and change your mind a million times. Just give yourself some time off when you need it. This novel took me nine years to publish but I am so happy with how it has turned out.

What is the best advice you have ever heard?
Show don’t tell.

What are you reading now?
A lot of manga. My top priority is putting out this manga styled comic book, and I’ve trying to read as much of the genre as possible to help myself out.

What’s next for you as a writer?
A lot of publishing. I hope that the response is positive, and that audiences like what I put out. Regardless, I’m going to tell the stories I want to tell, and anything above that is just a cherry on top.

If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
I really enjoy non-fiction books. Probably Bill Simmons Book of Basketball, Mox by Jon Moxley, and The Best in the World by Chris Jericho. I find reading real stories told in someones unique voice to be my favorite type of novel to read. It’s the complete opposite of what I like to write.

Author Websites and Profiles
Sam Gallenberger Amazon Profile

Sam Gallenberger’s Social Media Links
Facebook Profile

Jim LaPierre 

Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
Hi! I’m Jim and I’m a mental health therapist. I love helping folks improve their lives. I’ve written two books. The first was The Best Therapy: A Guide for Wounded Healers. It’s a book for those in the healing and helping professions.

What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
My latest book is Who the Fuck are You? It was inspired by so many of my clients saying, “I need to find myself” or “I need to figure it out.” The book is a guide for claiming and transforming your identity in practical ways with some humor thrown in.

Do you have any unusual writing habits?
Well, I write when it flows and sometimes I’ll write for marathon lengths of time!

What authors, or books have influenced you?
So many: Tom Robbins, Kurt Vonnegut, James Frey and Gabor Mate most notably.

What are you working on now?
Currently a home study program for people seeking recovery from substance use disorder.

What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
What I know about promotion couldn’t fill a thimble!

Do you have any advice for new authors?
Schedule a time to write. Self-discpline ensures progress,

What is the best advice you have ever heard?
Do what you love.

What are you reading now?
Gabor Mate’s In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts

What’s next for you as a writer?
I’m thinking a personal challenge in writing fiction

If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
The first four novels of Tom Robbins. No question.

Author Websites and Profiles
Jim LaPierre Website

Jim LaPierre’s Social Media Links
Facebook Profile

Bethany Fine 

Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
Let’s see, what to say about myself? I grew up in California and thought I’d be a painter or an artist or something. I’ve always appreciated erotic art. There’s something about the way society seems to find sex and sexuality somehow deviant and yet finds violence and death and murder completely acceptable.

I live in the middle of the Paul Bunyan forest in northern Minnesota now and I spend most of my time writing. I’ve written four or five novels, though Untested Waters is the first I’ve found acceptable enough to publish. I’ve also written several dozen short stories. There are several available on Amazon. I am also working on a sequel to Untested Waters and additional entries to the Heather Taylor serial of short stories.

What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
It’s called Untested Waters. I don’t know exactly what inspired it. I’m drawn to deviance. Not because I am excited by or aroused by the deviance, but because I want to understand it. If you can understand a thing, then it’s easier to fix it. Correct it. Make it better. I’ve been fascinated with the notion of dubious consent for a while, and Dillon (the antagonist of Untested Waters) reminds me of someone I knew once.

He’s a photographer who uses his profession and skill to “seduce” his subjects. I’m fascinated by the idea of what drives this guy to seduce, convince, or trick his subjects into sleeping with him. But I didn’t want to tell this story from his perspective because I didn’t want to glorify that type of behavior. I wanted him to have some comeuppance.

Do you have any unusual writing habits?
Unusual? I don’t know. What is unusual to someone else is probably just normal for me.

I write in the morning. Not first thing in the morning. First it’s breakfast, coffee, and bathroom time. Then it’s writing. I wear headphones and listen to a binaural like BrainFM. I write for four hours a day until the novel is done, then I spend that same time editing.

I also spend several hours conducting research on what is popular in the world of erotica. Visiting video and photo galleries, reading books, etc. It’s good to know what people want.

What authors, or books have influenced you?
I’m a huge fan of Chuck Palahniuk and Robin Hobb. I think they’ve both influenced both my writing style and content. I’m also a fan of Selena Kitt.

What are you working on now?
I’m working on the sequel to Untested Waters, the next book featuring Natalie Waters.

What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
I don’t know. This is my first foray into book promotion, so Awesome Gang is the first site I’ve visited and used. Everything else has just been word of mouth.

Do you have any advice for new authors?
Just write.

I had such a hard time tuning out all the noise of the gurus and writer-cum-teachers on the interwebs telling you what you “have” to do to write a book, sell a book, publicize a book.

Don’t feel like you have to do all the things. You really don’t.

What is the best advice you have ever heard?
I took a class from Becca Syme called Write Better-Faster. In this class, we used psychometric analysis to help me understand how to write and publish in a way that works best for who I am and not for who others are. The takeaway from this class was basically, “Focus on what works for you and forget all the FOMO generated by what all those others say you HAVE to do.”

What are you reading now?
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Her Name is Knight by Yasmin Angoe
A Boy and His Dog at the End of the World by C.A. Fletcher

What’s next for you as a writer?
More writing and more publishing. It’s all about getting more work out, now.

If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palanhiuk
Snuff by Chuck Palanhiuk
The Liveship Traders Trilogy by Robin Hobb

Author Websites and Profiles
Bethany Fine Website
Bethany Fine Amazon Profile

Bethany Fine’s Social Media Links
Goodreads Profile
Facebook Profile
Twitter Account

Paul Yanuziello 

Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
A little about myself. Well, I am a Canadian of Italian heritage. I like to think of myself as a writer, storyteller, musician, martial arts instructor and author. I have two books published and those same two books have been translated to Portuguese. You see the protagonist, Ariela, is in the two books and she is Brazilian and she speaks Portuguese, so it just made sense.
The opportunity to write and teach full time came about in 2017. My day job ended abruptly and I decided it was time to follow the dream.
The dream, to be a professional martial arts instructor and so I began teaching and learning from children and this, in turn, became the motivational force to publish my first children’s book. In 2019, I published “Samba on a Snowy Day”.
I am pleased to report that it received some glowing reviews and started selling well, mostly to my students at first.
I introduced my second book “Samba in Brazil”, book 2 in The Samba Dog book series in 2021. I have been writing and telling imaginative stories ever since I can remember. I got involved in martial arts late in life as a method of dealing with high anxiety, work stress. Martial arts is the best stress reliever you can find. And now after some 35 years of practice, I am considered a highly-skilled martial artist.
It is my great pleasure to share what I know, I have been teaching adults and children Japanese martial arts on a regular basis. When I am not teaching or learning martial arts, you can find me writing, reading or practising shinrin-yoku (forest bathing) in my sanctuary near the beautiful Blue Mountains, Ontario, Canada.

What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
My latest book is called Scratchy the Squirrel – A Time For Friends. This story idea came about through a strange story I read about a person taking care of an injured bumblebee. I found the story to be quite touching and I thought it would be interesting to transfer the idea to the animal kingdom. Plus at that particular time, I had become acquainted with an aggressive squirrel who was getting treats from my wife. She fed the squirrel walnuts. The squirrel became Scratchy.

Do you have any unusual writing habits?
I am not sure if it’s unusual as I have some author friends who complain about this habit as well. I write every day and I try to write 4 or 5 hundred words. I don’t worry too much about grammar, I just try to relax and write. Some of what I write happens to be what has happened during the previous day or it may even be something I dreamed of.
Sometimes my writing is simply a stream of consciousness. The problem becomes one of trying to read what it is that I’ve written. So the habit I have gotten into is a frustrating one as I know I have a good story in all of this writing somewhere. I just can’t quite figure out what it says sometimes. I have tried writing directly to the computer, and have even gone so far as to get a writing application that is supposed to help organize you. Still, it’s not the same as just finding pen and pad and writing away to your heart’s content.

What authors, or books have influenced you?
Some of my favorite children’s authors are: Thornton W. Burgess, Theodor Seuss Geisel, Roald Dahl, George Selden, Maurice Sendak, Beatrix Potter, Ezra Jack Keats, Beverly Cleary, Jacqueline Woodson, Jon Klassen and the list goes on, so many great authors.

What are you working on now?
At present, I am working on a children’s book about a group of forest animals who train in martial arts. They have a master teacher who is rough and super tough. H’s a black bear who also happens to have a big heart and loves to tell his students these wonderful tales about these famous martial artists who lived long ago.

What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
The best method I have found to get the word out is my weekly newsletter. I try to offer subscribers something interesting, something uplifting and it gives me a chance to share links to where the folks can find my books and also some free offerings by other children’s authors.

Do you have any advice for new authors?
The best advice I can give and the advice I share during creative writing workshops is to always have a pen and paper with you. Or some means or manner of writing your thoughts down. Some great ideas just pop into your head and if you don’t write them down they’re forgotten.

What is the best advice you have ever heard?
Revise to write – learn the art of editing and polishing your book.

What are you reading now?
My daytime reading, “You Are Born To Blossom” by A.P.J Abdul Kalam and my nighttime reading “Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage” by Elizabeth Gilbert.

What’s next for you as a writer?
My next project will be the third instalment in my Samba the Bernese Mountain Dog book series, Book 3: Samba and Ariela visit Switzerland.

If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
These are some of the books that I come back to time and again: Masatoshi Nakayama “Best Karate” Series – my favorite is Book 11, Michael A. Singer, “The Untethered Soul”, Mitsugi Saotome, “Aikido and The Harmony of Nature” and lastly, Kahil Gibran “The Prophet” nuggets of gold in that one, something different on each read.

Author Websites and Profiles
Paul Yanuziello Website
Paul Yanuziello Amazon Profile

Paul Yanuziello’s Social Media Links
Goodreads Profile
Facebook Profile

Gary Burroughs 

Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I am a lifelong fan of crime fiction in all its formats but in particular through the written word. I fell in love with the works of Agatha Christie as a teenager and have harboured a desire to write crime fiction ever since. Although I greatly enjoy the Golden Age of crime fiction I write more modern versions, but always with a good mystery at its heart. While you Were Out is my first work of fiction but I have written a True Crime book about my great grandfather who was a Scotland Yard Detective in the early 20th Century.

What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
While You Were out is my debut crime novel and was quite simply an idea that wouldn’t leave me alone. Most writers will tell you that very often an idea will just one day expire and not seem worthy of the effort, but While You Were Out literally kept me awake at night.

Do you have any unusual writing habits?
No, not particularly. I write wherever the feeling takes me and for as long as my cats stay off my lap. I do write quickly, though. And a lot all at once.

What authors, or books have influenced you?
Mostly Agatha Christie but also PG Wodehouse, Raymond Chandler, Dickens, Wilbur Smith.

What are you working on now?
The sequel to While You Were Out called HMP BlackRock or Her Majesty’s Prison BlackRock for non UK readers, set on an island prison 30 miles off the coast of Scotland, where Britain’s nastiest go to serve out their sentences.

What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
Still looking for that golden goose. Nothing beats paying for a bit of exposure! Difficult to do when your budget is as small as mine but it has to be done. I’m hoping Awesome Gang will be my new favourite website!

Do you have any advice for new authors?
Don’t start tomorrow, or when you ‘have time.’ Start NOW. And don’t stop. Just keep going until you finish and then re-write until it gives you a headache and then re-write some more. Never give up. Writing can be its own reward.

What is the best advice you have ever heard?
Next year you’ll be grateful you started today.

What are you reading now?
Leaving Las Vegas, purchased by my girlfriend for my 50th as it was published in the same year I was born.

What’s next for you as a writer?
More writing! And lots of it. Hopefully a little success thrown in so I can go part time at work and produce more books!

If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
And Then There Were None and The Murder Of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie because they are the best crime novels ever written. Warlock by Wilbur Smith. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens.

Author Websites and Profiles
Gary Burroughs Website
Gary Burroughs Amazon Profile

Gary Burroughs’s Social Media Links
Goodreads Profile
Facebook Profile
Twitter Account