Stuart Aken's Blog, page 347

Interview with Valmore Daniels, Author of Forbidden The Stars.

 In true nomadic spirit, Valmore Daniels has lived on the coasts of the Atlantic, Pacific, and Arctic Oceans, and dozens of points in between.

An insatiable thirst for new experiences has led him to work in several fields, including legal research, elderly care, oil & gas administration, web design, government service, human resources, and retail business management.His enthusiasm for travel is only surpassed by his passion for telling tall tales.
Tell us about Forbidden The Stars in a few...

Review of From Pitch to Publication by Carole Blake

From Pitch to Publication, subtitled Everything You Need to Know to Get Your Novel Published, is the insider's guide to getting published successfully. Carole Blake has worked in the book industry for 47 years. That's a lot of time and it shows in her excellent volume on getting your fiction published. She's been a literary agent for a large part of that time, starting her own agency in 1977, after spending 14 years in publishing. She is now co-director of the agency she set up with Julian...

Neil White, Author Interview

Neil White works as a criminal lawyer by day and a crime fiction writer by night. Born 1965, above a shoe shop, in Mexborough, a small South Yorkshire mining town, as the middle son of the manager and his teenage bride. His father's career in the retail trade took the family back to where they started, Wakefield in West Yorkshire where Neil gained an accent and a love of rugby league.Kettlethorpe, a rough council estate on the edge of the tough city, was where he lived but that isn't how he r...

Face to Face

With increasing numbers of literary festivals offering chances to meet experienced writing practitioners, I thought I'd look at the value of such one to one events.I've been writing for more years than I care to count, starting with illustrated articles for the photographic press in my late teens before moving on to fiction. In all that time, I've repeatedly heard how face to face meetings with acknowledged experts can be inspiring. Until last year, I believed this was all so much hype...

Interview with Author, BethAnn Buehler

BethAnn's world revolves around family, friends, and her love of writing.  When not working on her next story, she can usually be found having breakfast at a local restaurant with her parents, enjoying a caramel latte with girlfriends or neglecting her responsibilities as wife and mother because she's thinking about her next story. 
She writes romance with an erotic bent and gets most of her ideas from talking with friends about what everyone really wants for Christmas---the perfect...

Avril Field-Taylor and her WIP

Image via WikipediaAvril Field-Taylor writes crime novels, and, like her contemporary detective, Georgia Pattison, sings. But, she also writes alternative history crime novels and is currently working on a series set in Tudor Britain featuring Luke Ballard, apothecary and elemancer. Yes, like you, I know what an apothecary is, but an elemancer? Well, it's a magician who uses the elements to perform magic. And Luke is involved with the court of King Henry IX, the son of Henry VIII and Anne...

Interview with J Russell Rose

"Storytelling is an ancient and honorable act. An essential role to play in the community or tribe. It's one that I embrace whole heartedly and have been fortunate enough to be rewarded for." Russell Banks, author of  The Darling ,  The Sweet Hereafter . Like Banks, J Russell Rose is a story teller who embraces the honourable act wholeheartedly. Born and raised in Virginia and travelling far and wide, he has returned to the mountains that he loves and now spends a great deal of his time...

Author Interviews, Revisited.

I have been running the author interviews on here now for long enough to review the process. So far, more than 20 published writers have shared their ideas, inspirations, methods and thoughts with us. There are another 8 lined up so far, with promises of more in the pipeline. What has come across from those so far posted has been the incredible mix of opinion on topics that beginners might have expected to be uniform. The attitudes to grammar are really varied, as are those regarding editing ...

Author Interview with Lila Munro

Image by stuartaken via Flickr
Lila Munro is a writer of contemporary romance currently residing on the coast of North Carolina. She is currently under contract for two novels with Wild Horse Press, and a third with Whiskey Creek Press. When she's not writing, she enjoys reading everything she can get her hands on, trips to the museum and aquarium, taking field research trips, and soaking up the sun on the nearby beaches. She loves to hear from her readers.
Tell us about your current title.
The...

Writers Plus Writers Equals Writers

Reading the following article from the weekly newsletter of Funds For Writers Small Markets, by C. Hope Clark, I thought it deserved as wide an audience as possible. So, with her kind permission, I reproduce it here for your consideration. The website, by the way, has been one of Writers' Digest 101 Best Websites for Writers for the past 10 years.
Writers have an incestuous relationship with other writers.
Ever noticed how writers sell to each other? Read each
other? Study each other?I can't...