Inside Scoop Live!

Desirée Calderón de Fawaz is a writer and illustrator specializing in stories about children from different cultural and religious backgrounds; stories that have universal appeal and hidden wisdom. Born and raised in Mexico City, Desirée’s earliest memories are of painting with oils and writing poems, both natural activities in a family where writers like Jose Vasconcelos and painters like Frida K...

Mark Gunther has been many things in his life— student, hippie, cook, husband, carpenter, father, dancer, administrator, musician, entrepreneur, athlete. He has worked in staff or board roles in small businesses and nonprofit organizations for forty years. After his daughter Eva was killed by a drunk driver in 1997, he and his wife started the Eva Gunther Foundation ( www.evafoundation.org ), to “...

Sherrill S. Cannon is a former teacher and grandmother of ten and the author of nine published rhymed children’s stories in addition to this newest book of poetry. Her books have received fifty-eight National and International awards. “A Penny for Your Thoughts” is a collection of poetry she has written through the years. As a teacher, she used poetry to help counsel many troubled teens and friend...

Dr. Diane Pomerantz is a clinical psychologist who has been in practice working with children, adolescents, and adults in the Baltimore, Maryland area for over thirty-five years. She has done extensive work in the area of trauma and child abuse, and research in the area of personality development of abused children. She currently runs Healing Through Writing groups in her practice. She is a breast...

J. Peter (Pete) Hoyer was born and raised in New York State, about 40 miles north of NYC.  He graduated from the Citadel, Military College of SC, then served a 22-year career with the Army. He traveled throughout the United States, Europe, and South Korea. After retiring from the Army, he worked 20 more years as a civilian instructor with the Department of Defense, teaching logistics, transportati...

Since childhood, Thomas J. Brodeur has been telling stories. Early efforts included drawing his own comics, a skill he honed from grade school through college. In high school, he composed three graphic novels and wrote his first short story. His first published novel, Regina Silsby’s Secret War (2004), was nominated for the Scott O’Dell award for historical fiction. Besides writing, Mr. Brodeur ma...

Fidelis O. Mkparu was born in Onitsha Nigeria. He is a Harvard-trained cardiologist who has written medical articles for both scientific and lay audiences. His previous novel, Love’s Affliction, was a 2016 Nautilus Book Awards Silver Winner for Fiction, a Reader Views Literary Award Winner for 2015/2016, and a finalist for the 2015 INDIEFAB Book of the Year Award for Multicultural Fiction. He live...

Melissa Muldoon is an artist, graphic designer, and award-winning author of the Studentessa Matta Website, a dual language blog, where she promotes the Italian language and culture. Through the Matta Website, she organizes small group language immersion programs in Italy twice a year, in collaboration with Italian schools as well as private Italian language homestay vacations, with teachers all ov...

Dr. Iyabo Ojikutu is a board-certified pediatrician and fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics. She received her medical degree at the College of Medicine, University of Lagos, Nigeria. She has been practicing medicine since she was 22 years old, and currently owns, and runs her practice in Atlanta, Georgia, where she lives with her two daughters. Permanent Happiness is her first book. Her w...

Adeed Dawisha was born and raised in Iraq and educated in England, where he received his Ph. D. from the London School of Economics in 1974. Until September 2016, he was University Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Miami University, Ohio, and is the recipient of many prestigious fellowships and awards. In addition to over 80 academic and public policy articles and book chapters, Dr D...

Kaylin McFarren has received more than 40 national literary awards, in addition to a prestigious Golden Heart Award nomination for Flaherty’s Crossing – a book she and her oldest daughter, Kristina McMorris, co-authored in 2008. Prior to embarking on her writing journey and developing the popular Threads action/adventure romance series, she poured her passion for creativity into her work as the di...

J. Everett Prewitt is a Vietnam veteran and a former Army officer. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, and a Master of Science Degree in Urban Studies from Cleveland State University. Prewitt was awarded the title of distinguished alumni at both schools. His debut novel Snake Walkers placed first for fiction in four different literary contests and won the Br...

Michael Pronko has lived in Tokyo for twenty years but was born in Kansas City, a very different world. After graduating from Brown University in philosophy, he hit the road, traveling around the world for two years working odd jobs. He went back to school for a Master’s in Education, and then took a teaching position in Beijing. For two years, he taught English, traveled China and wrote. After mo...

Diana Forbes is a 9th generation American, with ancestors on both sides of the Civil War. Diana Forbes lives and writes in Manhattan. When she is not cribbing chapters, Diana Forbes loves to explore the buildings where her 19th Century American ancestors lived, loved, survived and thrived. She is passionate about vintage clothing, antique furniture, ancestry, and vows to master the quadrille in he...

Michael Kasenow is an award-winning novelist (View From The Edge; A Wicked Thing); an award-winning poet (Six Feet Down); and the author of the critically acclaimed novel The Last Paradise. He has traveled extensively, living in many places among a variety of unique personalities. His lifetime resume includes waiter, cab driver, bartender, lumberman, janitor, and ranch hand in New Mexico. These ex...

Nicole Taylor is an anthropologist who explores contemporary social issues related to education and health through the analytic lens of language practices. Her research includes teasing and bullying in schools, childhood obesity, and body image concerns and social media use among youth. She holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English and a doctorate in anthropology from the University of Ariz...

Janice Wood Wetzel is a graduate of the Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis, and a former Dean and Professor Emerita of Social Work at Adelphi University in Garden City, New York. She has served as a United Nations Representative in New York since 1988.  Dr. Wetzel is a well-published international educator and researcher who has specialized in the human rights, menta...

Donna Zadunajsky grew up in a small town in Ohio named Bristolville, spending her childhood reading, writing, and fishing. In her teens, she read nothing but Stephen King books, and it was then that she told herself she would one day write her own books. Donna’s writing career began with seven children's books about her daughter and the adventures she went on, but her dream has always been to writ...

Amanda Yoshida first dreamt of being a children’s book illustrator when she was a mere toddler, growing up in the suburbs surrounding Portland, Oregon. As a child, she spent countless hours drawing and studying the artwork inside her stacks of colorfully illustrated books. She favored the rhyming words and silly drawings of Dr. Seuss and Shel Silverstein and claimed one day she would be an artist....

Joshua Landeros was born in Pomona, CA, but was raised in Perris of Riverside County for years uncountable now. He comes from a large family in which he is admittedly “the black sheep.” Landeros grew up on Dragon Ball Z, Godzilla films, Batman the Animated Series, and Star Wars. Not to mention an infinite love for dinosaurs and all movie monsters. He began writing in middle school starting with Go...

Buck Marshall taught political science for five years and received his doctorate from Tulane in 1992. After 20 years in the private sector, his reaction to the Occupy Wall Street movement was to write a series of books and establish the non-profit SWIFT Act Alliance. For more information about Buck Marshall and his book visit his  website . Topics of conversation: What is SWIFT Act His holistic vi...

Melissa Muldoon is the Studentessa Matta—the crazy linguist! In Italian, “matta” means “crazy” or “impassioned”. Melissa has a B.A. in fine arts, art history and European History from Knox College, a liberal arts college in Galesburg, Illinois, as well as a master’s degree in art history from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana. She has also studied painting and art history in Florence....

Emilio Corsetti, III is a professional pilot and author. Emilio has written for both regional and national publications including the Chicago Tribune, Multimedia Producer, and Professional Pilot magazine. Emilio’s first book 35 Miles From Shore: The Ditching and Rescue of ALM Flight 980 tells the true story of an airline ditching in the Caribbean Sea and the efforts to rescue those who survived. E...

Dr. Emily Christensen earned her Ph. D. in Marriage and Family Therapy and has two Masters Degrees: an M.S. in Professional Counseling and an M.Div. in Pastoral Counseling. The only thing better than writing, she says, is being married to a writer. Nathan Christensen married Emily in the Oklahoma City temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on 13 October 2012, and have since fost...

Kay Williams always had an inclination to be a professional actress, so, with stars in her eyes, she moved to New York City right after college graduation (she was a theater major). She lived in a rent-controlled apartment with no heat, and lots of rodents, too busy earning money to act (her dad had saved her letters from that time so she recently took a fresh look at those hair-raising and now hi...