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Author Spotlight: John Paul

John Paul

Welcome to my weekly Author Spotlight. I’ve asked a bunch of my author friends to answer a set of interview questions, and to share their latest work. Today: I am John Paul. I started writing short stories in college, writing endless articles for my school newspaper. Years later, with the birth of the Internet I started publishing my own blog. I always found a reason to write until I let life get in the way. My vault of unfinished novels grew over the years while I let corporate America keep me busy, then the stories sat in a corner collecting … Read more

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Author Spotlight: Ef Deal

Ef Deal

Welcome to my weekly Author Spotlight. I’ve asked a bunch of my author friends to answer a set of interview questions, and to share their latest work. Today: Musician, poet, editor, video editor, and author of steampunk, fantasy, and horror, Ef Deal has been writing and composing since she was nine years old. Her short fiction has been published in numerous online zines and print anthologies including The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Dangerous Waters from Brigid’s Gate, Chris Ryan’s Soul Scream Antholozine, two anthologies from Speculation Publications, and four anthologies from e-Spec Books. She is currently public relation … Read more

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Author Spotlight: Mikko Rauhala

Mikko Rauhala

Welcome to my weekly Author Spotlight. I’ve asked a bunch of my author friends to answer a set of interview questions, and to share their latest work. Today: Mikko Rauhala is a Finnish SF author making their foray into the English speaking world. They often write their stories in both languages, which can get frustrating when there’s no one else to blame for the occasional double entendres. Informed by their master’s degree in intelligent systems, they’re most at home in hard science fiction settings, though they’re not exclusive and like to cross genres. Whether the subject is steam powered gnomes … Read more

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Author Spotlight: Martin Lochman

Martin Lochman

Welcome to my weekly Author Spotlight. I’ve asked a bunch of my author friends to answer a set of interview questions, and to share their latest work. Today: Martin Lochman (born 1989 in former Czechoslovakia) is a Czech author of science fiction and speculative fiction stories. He currently resides in Malta where he works as an academic librarian at the University of Malta. His work has appeared in a variety of venues, including New Myths, Kzine, Theme of Absence, XB-1 (Czech SFFH magazine), and others. His debut collection All Quiet in the Milky Way: Ray M. Holler’s Adventures vol. 1 … Read more

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Author Spotlight: Lori Alden Holuta

Lori Alden Holuta

Welcome to my weekly Author Spotlight. I’ve asked a bunch of my author friends to answer a set of interview questions, and to share their latest work. Today: Lori Alden Holuta lives between the cornfields of mid-Michigan, where she grows vegetables, teas, and herbs, when she’s not playing games with a cat named Chives. She’s fond of activities from the past, including canning and preserving, crocheting, reading in the dark, and cooking from scratch. Her lifelong fascination with the Victorian era dovetailed nicely with articles written for The Primgraph, a magazine which focused on historical eras in virtual worlds, as well … Read more

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Author Spotlight: Clara Ward

Clara Ward

Welcome to my weekly Author Spotlight. I’ve asked a bunch of my author friends to answer a set of interview questions, and to share their latest work. Today: Clara Ward lives in Silicon Valley on the border between reality and speculative fiction. When not using words to teach or tell stories, Clara uses wood, fiber, and glass to make practical or completely impractical objects. Their latest novel, Be the Sea, features a near-future ocean voyage, chosen family, and sea creature perspectives, while delving into our oceans, our selves, and how all futures intertwine. Their short fiction has appeared in Strange … Read more

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Author Spotlight: Siobhan Muir

Siobhan Muir

Welcome to my weekly Author Spotlight. I’ve asked a bunch of my author friends to answer a set of interview questions, and to share their latest work. Today: Siobhan Muir lives in Cheyenne, Wyoming, with her husband, two daughters, a kitten who thinks he’s a dog, a cat who’s not impressed with him, and the dog who just wants to go for a walk. In previous lives, Siobhan has been an actor at the Colorado Renaissance Festival, a field geologist in the Aleutian Islands, and restored inter-planetary imagery at the USGS. She’s hiked to the top of Mount St. Helens … Read more

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Point of View: The Making of a Cover

Office of the Lost - J. Scott Coatsworth & Kim Fielding

Universal Buy Link Every time I do a new book, there’s a whole behind-the-scenes process that goes into designing the cover, whether it’s one I do myself or one done by a graphics professional. In this case, we decided to go with an outside designer, and there were two clients to please – Kim and I. We started with a cover search in the gay romantasy genre, and found a few we really liked: For some reason, we were both really drawn to the “comic book-cartoon” images. We asked Kelley York at Sleepy Fox Studio to take a run at … Read more

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Author Spotlight: Abby Goldsmith

Abby Goldsmith

Welcome to my weekly Author Spotlight. I’ve asked a bunch of my author friends to answer a set of interview questions, and to share their latest work. Today: Abby Goldsmith is the author of 6 sci-fi novels, the Torth series, which starts with Majority and ends with Empire Ender, all published by Podium, with starred reviews from Booklist and Kirkus. Her short works have appeared in Escape Pod, Writer’s Digest Books, and anthologies. You can find her on social media, Patreon, and at AbbyGoldsmith.com. Thanks so much, Abby, for joining me! J. Scott Coatsworth: How would you describe your writing … Read more

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Author Spotlight: Pat Henshaw

Pat Henshaw

Welcome to my weekly Author Spotlight. I’ve asked a bunch of my author friends to answer a set of interview questions, and to share their latest work. Today: Pat Henshaw [pronouns she/her] was born and raised in Nebraska. She has lived on the U S’s three coasts, in Texas, Virginia, and now California. Before she retired, she held a number of jobs, including theatrical costumer, newspaper features reporter and movie reviewer, librarian, junior college English instructor, and publicist. She loves to travel and has visited Canada, Mexico, Europe, Egypt, Thailand, and Central America as well as almost all fifty US … Read more