Bringing Life To Characters

My guest this week is author Edwina Perkins. Edwina is an advocate for inclusive storytelling and a champion of diverse voices in Christian publishing. She serves as Co-Director of the Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writers Conference, where she also coordinates Mentoring Moments and manages Sensitivity Between the Lines. A long-term member of Word Weavers International, Edwina now serves on its a...

My guest this week is author Candace MacPhie. Born in Montreal, Quebec, Candace spent years backpacking and working around the world. She has a Bachelor of Commerce degree, an MBA, and worked for twenty years on four different continents and now calls Calgary, Alberta home. She got married, had kids, and things got busy. Time was moving by quickly and her kids were growing up fast. She shifted gea...

My guest this week is author Tina Susedik. Tina has been researching and writing books since 1997. She is published in non-fiction with military and local history books. She also has published children’s books and romantic mysteries. She loves to add humor in her books, putting her characters in situations and finding a humorous way to get them out of them. As Tina Susedik she writes for Soul Mate...

My guest this week is author Matt Hughes. Matt is a Canadian author, he writes crime fiction, fantasy, and space opera. He has sold 24 novels to publishers large and small in the US, Canada, UK, France, and Italy, as well as more than 100 works of short fiction to professional markets. His magnum opus is What the Wind Brings, a historical novel with magical realism elements. It was the first Canad...

My guest this week is author Carol Snow. Carol is an American author of contemporary fiction and young adult literature. After graduating from Brown University, she spent many years working as a freelance writer and editor. For a time, she wrote essays about motherhood for Salon but wisely stopped before her children were old enough to read. Her writing has also appeared in the Los Angeles Review...

My guest this week is author T.K. Bush. T.K. is a seasoned radiographic/cardiovascular technologist with more than two decades of medical experience, has also been a prolific writer since childhood. Married, with a blended family of 4 children and two Bengal cats, she bravely navigates the complexities of family life, healthcare, and the stimulating world of literature. Bush’s love of reading and...

My guest this week is author Alison McBain. Alison was born in Canada, raised in California, and arrived in Canada with a few detours along the way. She has over two hundred poems and short stories published in magazines and anthologies such as Flash Fiction Online, On Spec, and Litro. Her debut and award-winning novel is The Rose Queen: Book 1 of the Rose Trilogy, and was shortly followed by a co...

My guest this week is author J.T. Ellison. J.T. is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of more than thirty novels of psychological suspense, including the Taylor Jackson series, the Samantha Owens series, and numerous acclaimed standalones. She is the Emmy Award–winning cohost of A Word on Words, the literary television series on PBS. Over a twenty-year career, her work has earned...

My guest this week is author Holly B. Gutwillinger. Holly is an author and podcaster from a small northern Ontario town. Her debut novel, North of Broken & Furever Home, launches February 14, 2026, exploring a woman's complex relationship with her rescue dogs. Holly's writing is shaped by her deep love of family—she is the proud mother of two adult sons—and her commitment to the animal...

My guest this week is author Chris Underwood. Chris started seriously writing back in 2012 when his concerns of a power grid failure began to creep into his mind. His concerns festered into a storyline that continued to bug him until he got it on paper. It took five years of honing his craft to get the first book out, but it has been fun sharing the secret.

My guest this week is author Maria Gallucci. Maria is a multi-award-winning real estate agent and proud CODA (Child of Deaf Adults). Growing up as one of six hearing children raised by Deaf parents, she learned ASL before English and helped her parents buy a home at just 12 years old. This experience shaped her passion for inclusive communication and helping those who are often overlooked. For ove...

My guest this week is author Terrance Niedziela Jr. Terrance grew up in Wisconsin, immersed in shows, movies, and books containing the theme of good defeating evil. He started writing books in the 4th grade, and that passion continued into his adult years. He received his BS in Ancient Middle East History with a minor in Creative Fiction at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse and a MA in English...

My guest this week is author Mandy Eve-Barnett. Mandy is an Edmonton Best Seller, multi-genre author, writing children’s, YA and adult books. With eleven books published since 2011, and one more launching in September 2026, and another nine in various stages of completion, her writing life is full. This does not include her writing in numerous anthologies and magazines, and a variety of non-fictio...

My guest this week is author Mark Edward Jones. Mark is an award-winning author of mystery, thriller, paranormal, and speculative fiction. A retired higher-education finance professional, he began his full-time writing career after retiring in 2017. Born and raised in Duncan, Oklahoma, Mark developed an early love of storytelling. He attended the University of Oklahoma, earning bachelor’s and mast...

My next guests will be Mark McWaters and Mike Strickland with Galaxy Press. Join me as we discuss their books and writing process.

My next guest is author Deborah Wilde. Deborah is a global wanderer and hopeless romantic. After twelve years as a screenwriter, she was also a total cynic with a broken edit button, so, she jumped ship, started writing funny, sexy, urban fantasy and paranormal women’s fiction novels, and never looked back. She loves writing smart, flawed, wisecracking women who can solve a mystery, kick supernatu...

My next guest is author Greg Buck. Greg was born in Denver, Colorado and has always called Colorado his home. He graduated Metropolitan State University in Denver and was a software engineer for over 31 years. Currently living in Westminster, Colorado with his wife and 3 dogs. An avid fly fisherman, fly tier, and archer with a love for the outdoors and nature. "I believe the best cure for wri...

My next guest is author Joel McKay. Joel is an award-winning writer based in Northern British Columbia. His fiction includes the fantasy adventure novel The Dungeoneers and the Treasure of Roan, the werewolf novella Wolf at the Door and short dark fiction anthology It Came From the Trees and Other Violent Aberrations. His short fiction has been published by Tyche Books, Eerie River Publishing, Sle...

My next guest is author Pat Daily. Pat Daily is the CEO of Boundary Layer, Inc., a company dedicated to improving human performance in high-risk endeavors. He is a polymath, serial entrepreneur, gamer, and the author of The SPARK Chronicles, a near future science fiction series.

My next guest is author Ben Leman. Ben Leman is a businessman, rancher, and fourth generation Texan. His craving for adventure has taken him on extended trips to remote parts of Alaska, elk hunting in mountain wildernesses, flying as a licensed pilot, and on travels all over the world. Of Scottish decent, Ben has spent years studying the clashes between Highland clans, and particularly, the conten...

My next guest is author Amy Shannon. Amy is a legend keeper, storyteller, and historian whose roots run deep in upstate New York. A lifelong resident of the Capital Region—Albany, Schenectady, and Saratoga Counties—Amy calls the Ballston Spa/Malta area is her true hometown, a place where she’s planted her heart and built a life of meaning. A mother of four, Amy, shares a close bond with three of h...

My next guest is author TK Cassidy. After 40 years of traveling, award-winning author TK Cassidy has returned home to Montana. She has always been drawn to writing. From the moment she first held a pencil, she felt a profound sense of purpose. By the age of seven, she had already developed a writer's callus on her finger—a testament to her unwavering dedication that persists even after 60 year...

My next guest is author Ann Charles. Ann is a USA Today Bestselling author who writes hilarious, sometimes hair-raising, award-winning books filled with humor, mystery, adventure, romance, supernatural, and more! She has a B.A. in English (creative writing) from the Univ. of Washington. When she isn't escaping into story worlds filled with rowdy characters, she's arm wrestling her kids, road tripp...

My next guest is author Seth Voorhees. Seth is a Black Hills Author. Living in the Black Hills of South Dakota. He enjoys drawing from his experiences as a social worker, particularly in adolescent development and mental health, to shape his characters and their journeys through human morality and challenges. He identifies himself as a dark fiction author because his writing spans over several gen...

My next guest is author Liisa Kovala. Liisa is a Finnish Canadian author, book coach, and podcaster. Like Water for Weary Souls (2025) is her second historical novel. Liisa is the author of Sisu's Winter War (Latitude 46, 2022) and Surviving Stutthof: My Father's Memories Behind the Death Gate (Latitude 46, 2017) which was shortlisted for a Northern Lit Award and published in Finland by Docendo (2...