#WriterWednesday with Ruth J. Hartman

I’d like to welcome my friend, the fabulous Ruth J. Hartman, back to the blog for #WriterWednesday! Her newest book launches next Tuesday!

Favorite thing to do when you have free time: Take a walk on a nearby trail with my husband, Garry.

The thing you’ll always move to the bottom of your to do list: Dusting!

Things you need when you’re in your writing cave: My laptop, notebook, pen, phone, and journal with my character’s names and information in it.

Things that distract you from writing: One or more cats using me for a scratching post or a bed.

Things you will run to the store for at midnight: pizza, diet mountain dew, wet cat food.

Things you never put on your shopping list: Beets, rhubarb, refried beans.

The coolest thing you’ve bought online: My laptop!

The thing you wished you’d never bought. Shirts that looked cute online made me look like a withered potato when I bought them and tried them on.

Something you’re really good at: Talking to people who are much older than me. When I was a hygienist, the seniors were my favorite patients!

Something you’re really bad at: Trying to tell a joke.

Something you wanted to be when you were a kid: A mom (I never got to be).

Something you do that you never dreamed you’d do: Being a published mystery author.

Something you wish you could do: Be graceful and run fast.

Something you wish you’d never learned to do: I won’t go into detail, but some parts of being a dental hygienist were sort of icky.

Most daring thing you’ve ever done: Rafting down the Snake River in Wyoming with my husband, sister, and brother-in-law. So much fun!!!

Something you chickened out from doing: Walking out on the extended walkway over Grand Canyon.

The funniest thing to happen to you: I thought the possum in our shed was dead. Until I stepped closer. It raised its head and hissed at me. I screamed. He screamed. It was madness.

The most embarrassing thing to happen to you: When I was walking with some kids in junior high on a school outing and I tripped so thoroughly that I did a somersault and somehow ended back up in a standing position. I still don’t understand it.

The funniest thing that happened to you on vacation: When I was three, my brothers were playing catch with a pair of my shorts in our car. It was the 60s, so there was no AC and the windows were open. According to my mom, my little pair of orange shorts shot out the open window, floated through the air, and ended up somewhere in Chicago.

The most embarrassing thing that happened to you on a vacation: I had stomach issues when we were in a lodge restaurant, and I had to visit that ladies’ room. I can never go back there…..

The most exciting thing about your writing life: Getting a new book accepted for publication.

The one thing you wish you could do over in your writing life: Start sooner. I didn’t start writing for publication until I was 45.

Best piece of advice you received from another writer: If you’re nervous talking in front of people, always have some notes written down right in front of you, that way if you go blank, you’ll have something else to say.

Something you would tell a younger you about your writing: Publication won’t be easy or fast, but don’t give up because it’s worth it!

Let’s Be Social:

https://www.ruthjhartman.com/

https://www.facebook.com/ruth.j.hartman

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php/?id=100063631596817

https://x.com/ruthjhartman

https://www.bookbub.com/profile/ruth-j-hartman

About Ruth:

Ruth J. Hartman spends her days herding cats and her nights spinning mysterious tales that make you smile. She, her husband, and their cats love to spend time curled up in their recliners watching old Cary Grant movies. Well, the cats sit in the people's recliners. Not that the cats couldn't get their own furniture. They just choose to shed on someone else's.

Ruth, a left-handed, cat-herding, farmhouse-dwelling writer uses her sense of humor as she writes tales of lovable, klutzy women who seem to find trouble without even trying.

Ruth's husband and best friend, Garry, reads her manuscripts, rolls his eyes at her weird story ideas, and loves her in spite of her penchant for insisting all of her books have at least one cat in them. 

#WriterWednesday with Dwayne Brenna

Things you need for your writing sessions: A good night’s sleep.

Things that hamper your writing: Being anywhere else but in my study in Saskatoon.

A few of your favorite things: baseball caps

Things you need to throw out: baseball caps

Something you’re really good at: I’m a pretty good cook. If you come to my house, I’ll make you an excellent gazpacho.

Something you’re really bad at: I’m a horrible singer, the sort that choir directors ask to mouth the words when it comes to performing in concert.

Favorite music or song: Springsteen’s “Born to Run”

Music that drives you crazy: Improvisational jazz.

Last best thing you ate: My grandmother’s homemade bread.

Last thing you regret eating: I once ate some jalebi at a restaurant in New Delhi, and the result was a prolonged bout of food poisoning.

Favorite places you’ve been: Greece.

Places you never want to go to again: The dentist.

Most daring thing you’ve ever done: I refused to hand my iPad over to a machine gun toting soldier in a foreign country once.

Something you chickened out from doing: Going on the tea cup ride at the fair with my sons. I invariably throw up when moved in tight repetitive circles.

The nicest thing a reader said to you: That reading my book LONG WAY HOME, which is set during the driest year of the Great Depression, made them thirsty.

The craziest thing a reader said to you: That too many people are writing novels these days.

Besides writing, what’s the most creative thing you’ve done: I was an actor at the Stratford Festival of Canada.

A project that didn’t quite turn out the way you planned it: Any carpentry project I’ve ever done.

Some real-life story that made it to one of your books: In THEORIES OF EVERYTHING, there’s a story entitled “The Sewing Machine.” It’s uncharacteristic of the rest of the book in that it is set during the Great Depression. In 1936, my grandmother was visited by the repo man. He wanted to repossess her Singer sewing machine. She rolled up her sleeves and told him he’d have to be a bigger man than she if he was going to take that machine. He left the house without the sewing machine.

Something in your story that readers think is about you, but it’s not: In my book STEALING HOME, there’s a poem about a guy making love to his girlfriend on the mound of a baseball diamond at night. Readers have brought this up with my wife, suggesting that she must be the girl in the poem. In fact, the incident was narrated to me by a fellow baseball player who shall not be named and who performed the act with his own girlfriend back in the day.

About Dwayne:

Dwayne Brenna is the award-winning author of several books of humour, poetry, and fiction. Coteau Books published his popular series of humourous vignettes entitled Eddie Gustafson’s Guide to Christmas in 2000. His two books of poetry, Stealing Home and Give My Love to Rose, were published by Hagios Press in 2013 and 2015 respectively. Stealing Home, a poetic celebration of the game of baseball, was subsequently shortlisted for several Saskatchewan Book Awards, including the University of Regina Book of the Year Award. His first novel New Albion, about a laudanum-addicted playwright struggling to survive in London’s East End during the winter of 1850-51, was published by Coteau Books in autumn 2016. It subsequently won the Muslims For Peace and Justice Fiction Award at the Saskatchewan Book Awards and was one of three English-language novels shortlisted for the prestigious MM Bennetts Award for Historical Fiction. In 2022, Pocol Press published his second novel Long Way Home, about a barnstorming baseball team travelling through the American Midwest in the eventful summer of 1934. A book of short fiction, entitled Theories of Everything, was published by Shadowpaw Press in March 2025. His short stories and poems have been published in an array of journals, including Grain, Nine, The Cold Mountain Review, and The Antigonish Review. Brenna has taught theatre and creative writing at the University of Saskatchewan.

He has acted at the Stratford Festival and has appeared on television in various nationally and internationally broadcast programs including For the Record, Judge (CBC Toronto), The Great Electrical Revolution, and The Incredible Story Studio (Mind’s Eye). His movie credits include The Wars, Painted Angels (with Kelly McGillis), Black Light (with Michael Ironside), and The Impossible Elephant (with Mia Sara). A series of character-based vignettes called The Adventures of Eddie Gustafson, written and performed by Brenna, had a five-year run on CBC Radio.

Brenna is also the author of several books on theatre research, including Scenes from Canadian Plays (Fifth House) and Emrys’ Dream: Greystone Theatre in Words and Photographs (Thistledown). His book Our Kind of Work: the Glory Days and Difficult Times of 25th Street Theatre (Thistledown 2011) was subsequently nominated for a Saskatchewan Book Award in Non-Fiction. Brenna’s entertaining academic text Nights That Shook the Stage, about forty pivotal events in theatre history, was published by McFarland Books in 2023. It was subsequently shortlisted for two Saskatchewan Book Awards. He has contributed articles on theatre to Canadian Theatre Review, Theatre Notebook (London UK), The Dictionary of National Biography (London UK) and the Czech journal Theatralia.

His stage plays have been produced at Dancing Sky Theatre in Meacham, 25th Street Theatre in Saskatoon, and the Neptune Theatre in Halifax. In 2022, Brenna’s apocalyptic full-length drama The Promised Land received an Honourable Mention in the Scripts on Fire Playwriting Contest. Also in 2022, Brenna was a recipient of the Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee Medal.

#WriterWednesday Author Interview with Syrl Kazlo

I’d like to welcome Syrl Kazlo to the blog for #WriterWednesday!

Hardest thing about being a writer: Finding the time to sit down and write. Easiest thing about being a writer: Daydreaming about the sticky situations I’m going to put my characters in.

Things you need for your writing sessions: A square of dark chocolate, a handful of walnuts and a dark chocolate and peanut granola bars. Now mind you this is all brain food right?

Things that hamper your writing: When life butts in like doctor appointments, paying the bills.

Words that describe you: Kind, caring, thoughtful, loyal

Words that describe you, but you wish they didn’t: Getting older, senior citizen, a tad overweight

Something you’re really good at: Handcrafts such as rug hooking, quilting, sewing.

Something you’re really bad at: Anything computer-related

Last best thing you ate: Chocolate crème pie

Last thing you regret eating: liver

Favorite music or song: oldies, 60’s

Music that drives you crazy: Not much does although I may not understand some of the newer stuff out there

The last thing you ordered online: a whistling coal car for my grandson’s model train set

The last thing you regret buying: Another pair of slacks. Like I need to add one more to the bazillion I already have. I’m kind of a shopaholic.

Things you always put in your books: A happy ending and of course the main characters that I include in each book especially Porkchop.

Things you never put in your books: Overt sex and violence Think Hallmark movie for my books

Things to say to an author: I liked your book. Love your characters. I’ve read all your books.

Things to say to an author if you want to be fictionally killed off in their next book: I could have written this

Favorite books (or genre): cozy mystery

Books you wouldn’t buy: thriller, horror

Some real-life story that made it to one of your books: A person killing another by throwing water on them then locking that wet person out in the cold (Hubby is a Pennsylvania State Trooper, so I often pick his brain about past cases he solved.)

Something in your story that readers think is about you, but it’s not: That I have long curly hair. Nope, mine is short and straight.

Your favorite movie as a child: Old Yeller

A TV show or movie that kept you awake at night as a kid (or as an adult): “The Twilight Zone” The episode where hands crawled across the floor.

About Syrl: Syrl, a retired teacher, lives in upstate New York with her husband a lively dachshund and a wannabe dachshund (That’s a long story.). She writes the Samantha Davies Mystery series, featuring Samantha Davies and her loveable dachshund, Porkchop. When not writing she is busy hooking, rug hooking that is, and enjoying her family. Her newest book, number seven in the series, A Pawsome Summer For Murder, will be released May 1, 2025.

Let’s Be Social:

website- http://www.sakazlo.com

Facebook: S.A.Kazlo

Instagram: @sakazlo

Twitter @sakazlo

Bluesky-@sakazlo.bsky.social

#WriterWednesday with Jenna Greene

I’d like to welcome Jenna Greene back to the blog for #WriterWednesday!

Favorite thing to do when you have free time: Read or sleep.

The thing you’ll always move to the bottom of your to do list: Any household chore. Cooking, especially.

Things you need when you’re in your writing cave: A cup of tea, extra hot.

Things that distract you from writing: Any person capable of talking. I’m chatty.

Things you will run to the store for at midnight: The next book in a series, especially if it’s the final of a trilogy.

Things you never put on your shopping list: A cookbook.

Something you’re really good at: Public speaking.

Something you’re really bad at: Not talking. Not interrupting. Being quiet when I’m supposed to.

Something you wanted to be when you were a kid: A fairy princess.

Something you do that you never dreamed you’d do: Write about fairy princesses.

Things to say to an author: “You’re doing great!” “I read your book and loved it!”

Things to say to an author if you want to be fictionally killed off in their next book: “You’re a writer? I’ll bet that’s easy.” “I always thought about writing a book.”

Favorite places you’ve been: London, England.

Places you never want to go to again: Las Vegas. (10 trips is enough. Please tell my husband).

Favorite things to do: Dragonboat paddling/ drumming/ coaching.

Things you’d run through a fire or eat bugs to get out of doing: Skiing. (People get up early to fall in snow, go too fast, be scared and cold???!)

Most daring thing you’ve ever done: I went rappelling once. (I was coerced).

Something you chickened out from doing: Ziplining. Anything with heights, really.

The funniest thing to happen to you: Any time I’ve been forced to pee behind a tree, pillar, etc.

The most embarrassing thing to happen to you: See above.

The nicest thing a reader said to you: “I think you’re a good writer.”

The craziest thing a reader said to you: “Can you kill me in your next book?”

About Jenna:

Jenna Greene is a YA/ Children’s author from Alberta, Canada. She is also an elementary school teacher. When she isn’t reading or writing, she enjoys dance and dragonboat racing. Jenna is known for her Reborn Marks series, her Imagine series, and her pictures books.

#WriterWednesday with Carol Light

I’d like to welcome Carol Light to the blog for #WriterWednesday!

Hardest thing about being a writer: Figuring out what to do in the middle of a book when I realize my outline isn’t working or wasn’t as complete as I thought it was.

Easiest thing about being a writer: Believe it or not, writing the first scene. I’ll probably revise it fifty times or even replace it, but the words usually flow, and it feels joyful starting a new book.

Things you need for your writing sessions: I need a cup of tea (English Breakfast or Darjeeling) and a clear mind. That’s why mornings are my best writing time.

Things that hamper your writing: Low energy, as when I try to write some late afternoons. Also, frequent interruptions or loud noises nearby.

Words that describe you: Kind, honest, creative, positive, funny.

Words that describe you, but you wish they didn’t: Stubborn, quiet (although I’m not as quiet as I used to be).

Last best thing you ate: A wonderful flan at a restaurant where my niece took me for my birthday.

Last thing you regret eating: Sour grapes (yes, really!). Why did I keep eating them??

Favorite music or song: I love Christmas music and anything by the Eagles.

Music that drives you crazy: Rap, Hip Hop, elevator music.

The last thing you ordered online: Can’t Go Home, a mystery by Melinda DiLorenzo.

The last thing you regret buying: A pair of pants that I never wear.

Things you’d walk a mile for: A meal with friends, a friend in need, a good cause.

Things that make you want to run screaming from the room: Snakes, obnoxious people (especially loud, drunk ones), fingernails on a chalkboard.

Things you always put in your books: Humor, a female protagonist (although I have male protagonists too), food.

Things you never put in your books: Sadism, violence toward children or animals, explicit sex.

Things to say to an author: “I LOVED your book!” “How are you able to be so creative?” (or brilliant is another good word to use).

Things to say to an author if you want to be fictionally killed off in their next book: “I’ve read better books than yours” (no doubt, but do you have to say it to my face?), or “I don’t ever read mysteries” (so why are you here??).

Favorite places you’ve been: Australia, especially Victoria; Italy.

Places you never want to go to again: Tijuana, Mexico. The poverty there so close to the U.S. border made me very sad.

Favorite books (or genre): Mysteries, of course, although I read widely in fiction and nonfiction.

Books you wouldn’t buy: I’m not into fantasy, horror, or true crime.

My favorite book as a child: I loved the Laura Ingalls Wilder books. Some of her childhood experiences were similar to my grandmother’s, including living in a sod house.

A book I’ve read more than once: The Success Principles by Jack Canfield and Janet Switzer. It’s the book I pick up when I need a positive boost and inspiration to go after my goals.

About Carol:

Carol Light is an avid reader and writer of mysteries. Author of the Cluttered Crime mysteries, she loves creating amateur sleuths and complicating their normal lives with a crime that they must use their talents and wits to solve. She’s traveled worldwide and lived in Australia for eight years, teaching high school English and learning to speak “Strine.” Florida is now her home. If she’s not at the beach or writing, you can find her tackling quilting in much the same way that she figures out her mysteries—piece by piece, clue by clue.

Carol’s latest novel and the first in her new Southern Secrets mysteries is Deadly Inheritance. For an excerpt and buy links, click here: https://tulepublishing.com/books/deadly-inheritance/

Let’s Be Social:

website: www.carollightauthor.com/

Facebook: www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100084443127285

Instagram: www.instagram.com/wrtrcl/

Bluesky Social: @carollightauthor.bsky.social

BookBub www.bookbub.com/authors/carol-light

Goodreads www.goodreads.com/author/show/7356900.Carol_Light

#WriterWednesday with Sebastian de Castell

I’d like to welcome Sebastian de Castell to the blog for #WriterWednesday!

Things you never want to run out of: ideas for new novels

Things you wish you’d never bought: preconceptions about writing from self-styled gurus

Hardest thing about being a writer: pushing through the first draft when the plot isn’t feeling right

Easiest thing about being a writer: being on author panels

Things you need for your writing sessions: absolute quiet and an uncluttered computer screen

Things that hamper your writing: ruminations about my career

A few of your favorite things: travel sling bags, unusual silver coins, tarot cards

Things you need to throw out: travel sling bags. I’ve literally got more than a dozen of them.

Words that describe you: storyteller, traveler, romantic

Words that describe you, but you wish they didn’t: arrogant, forgetful, unfocused

Something you’re really good at: talking

Something you’re really bad at: listening

Favorite music or song: “Fall at Your Feet” by Crowded House

Music that drives you crazy: Lazy lyrics over a barely discernible melody on top of overused electronic drum patterns.

Favorite smell: my wife’s hair

Something that makes you hold your nose: our cats’ litter box

Things you’d walk a mile for: almost anything; I love walking

Things that make you want to run screaming from the room: other people’s family dramas

Things you always put in your books: friendship and idealism

Things you never put in your books: other people’s family dramas

Favorite things to do: traveling, writing, cycling and ballroom dancing with my wife

Things you’d run through a fire or eat bugs to get out of doing: filling out forms

Besides writing, what’s the most creative thing you’ve done: I used to choreograph swordfights for theatre productions

A project that didn’t quite turn out the way you planned it: Malevolent Seven. I never intended for it to be a published book and somehow it ended up being one of my most successful.

Things you never want to run out of: ideas for new novels

Things you wish you’d never bought: preconceptions about writing from self-styled gurus

Hardest thing about being a writer: pushing through the first draft when the plot isn’t feeling right

Easiest thing about being a writer: being on author panels

Things you need for your writing sessions: absolute quiet and an uncluttered computer screen

Things that hamper your writing: ruminations about my career

A few of your favorite things: travel sling bags, unusual silver coins, tarot cards

Things you need to throw out: travel sling bags. I’ve literally got more than a dozen of them.

Words that describe you: storyteller, traveler, romantic

Words that describe you, but you wish they didn’t: arrogant, forgetful, unfocused

Something you’re really good at: talking

Something you’re really bad at: listening

Favorite music or song: Fall at Your Feet by Crowded House

Music that drives you crazy: Lazy lyrics over a barely discernible melody on top of overused electronic drum patterns.

Favorite smell: my wife’s hair

Something that makes you hold your nose: our cats’ litter box

Things you’d walk a mile for: almost anything; I love walking

Things that make you want to run screaming from the room: other people’s family dramas

Things you always put in your books: friendship and idealism

Things you never put in your books: other people’s family dramas

Favorite things to do: traveling, writing, cycling and ballroom dancing with my wife

Things you’d run through a fire or eat bugs to get out of doing: filling out forms

Besides writing, what’s the most creative thing you’ve done: I used to choreograph swordfights for theatre productions

A project that didn’t quite turn out the way you planned it: Malevolent Seven. I never intended for it to be a published book and somehow it ended up being one of my most successful.

About Sebastian:

Sebastien de Castell had just finished a degree in Archaeology when he started work on his first dig. Four hours later he realized how much he actually hated archaeology and left to pursue a very focused career as a musician, ombudsman, interaction designer, fight choreographer, teacher, project manager, actor, and product strategist. His only defence against the charge of unbridled dilettantism is that he genuinely likes doing these things and that, in one way or another, each of these fields plays a role in his writing. He sternly resists the accusation of being a Renaissance Man in the hopes that more people will label him that way.

Sebastien's acclaimed swashbuckling fantasy series, The Greatcoats. was shortlisted for both the 2014 Goodreads Choice Award for Best Fantasy. the Gemmell Morningstar Award for Best Debut, the Prix Imaginales for Best Foreign Work, and the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. His YA fantasy series, Spellslinger, was nominated for the Carnegie Medal and is published in more than a dozen languages.

Sebastien lives in Vancouver, Canada with his lovely wife and two belligerent cats.

Let’s Be Social:

Website: www.decastell.com

#WriterWednesday with Brad C Anderson

I’d like to welcome Brad C Anderson to the blog for #WriterWednesday!

Things you never want to run out of: Toilet paper

Things you wish you’d never bought: A Skinny Puppy cassette. What, you’ve never heard of the band Skinny Puppy? There’s a reason for that.

A few of your favorite things: My comfy chair

Things you need to throw out: I suppose I ought to toss out that Skinny Puppy cassette some day.

Things you need for your writing sessions: Music! 😊

Things that hamper your writing: Reddit ☹

Hardest thing about being a writer: The first draft
Easiest thing about being a writer: Imagining scenes

Favorite foods: Peanut butter sandwiches

Things that make you want to gag: Liver

Things to say to an author: I loved the scene in your book where … happened
Things to say to an author if you want to be fictionally killed off in their next book: I found a typo in your published novel.

Favorite places you’ve been: Pompeii!
Places you never want to go to again: Malvern, Pennsylvania.

Favorite books (or genre): Lovecraftian demon horror
Books you wouldn’t buy: Books written by politicians

Favorite things to do: Gardening
Things you’d run through a fire or eat bugs to get out of doing: Taxes

The funniest thing to happen to you: When I was fourteen, this woman approached me at the bus stop and asked if I ever lived in Grand Prairie. I told her no. She was relieved because, for a moment, she thought that I (a fourteen-year-old boy) was her ex-husband who left town.

The most embarrassing thing to happen to you: I laughed so hard a booger shot out my nose.

 About Brad:

Brad C. Anderson is a science fiction author who loves exploring flawed characters' journeys through nasty situations. He lives with his wife and puppy in Vancouver, Canada, where he teaches undergraduate business at a local university and researches organizational wisdom in blithe defiance of the fact that most people do not think you can put those two words in the same sentence without irony. Previously, he worked in the biotech sector, where he made drugs for a living (legally!).

His stories have appeared in a variety of publications. He has published two science fiction novels, Ashme’s Song in 2025 and Duatero in 2022 as well as several non-fiction books. His short story, Naïve Gods, was longlisted for a 2017 Sunburst Award for Excellence in Canadian Literature of the Fantastic. It was published in the anthology Lazarus Risen, which itself was nominated for an Aurora Award.

Let’s Be Social:

Find him at http://bradanderson2000.com and https://www.facebook.com/bradanderson2000/

#WriterWednesday with Melanie Smith

I’d like to welcome Melanie Smith to the blog for #WriterWednesday!

Hardest thing about being a writer:

Juggling all the other things that get in the way of writing. As an independent author, I am responsible for managing my brand, promoting my work, updating my website, publishing my next story and networking with other authors. Life often gets in the way of creativity. I am routinely trying to balance my private life and necessary tasks with my desire to just sit down and write.

Easiest thing about being a writer:

Writing. I know some authors complain about writer’s block. This has never been an issue for me. Maybe because I am constantly juggling multiple books at the same time. If I get stuck, or the plot isn’t moving forward, I simply refocus my attention on another story.

Words that describe you:

I asked my husband, and this is what he said — Competent, knowledgeable, family oriented, frugal, financially responsible, natural, adventurous.

Words that describe you, but you wish they didn’t:

Accommodating – I sometimes let those close to me take advantage. I am also stubborn. Sometimes this is a good thing, but not everyone sees it that way.

Favorite foods:

Mexican food of any kind.

Things that make you want to gag:

Hotdogs

Something you’re really good at:

Computer programs, graphic design and promotional art, grammar

Something you’re really bad at:

Remembering names, singing

Favorite music or song:

I love all kinds of music, but my favorite is anything from the 80s

Music that drives you crazy:

Rap music

Favorite smell:

Honeysuckle

Something that makes you hold your nose:

The smell of death

Things you always put in your books:

Strong characters with tight family bonds.

Things you never put in your books:

Politics – people read my stories for entertainment. They don’t need to know what I think or how I feel.

Favorite places you’ve been:

I really enjoy visiting Yellowstone National Park. I also had an amazing trip to Italy.

Places you never want to go to again:

East LA

Favorite things to do:

Ride my Harley and explore the backcountry on my ATV

Things you’d run through a fire or eat bugs to get out of doing:

Public speaking

Best thing you’ve ever done:

Conquer my fears and publish my first book

Biggest mistake:

For many years, I treated my writing as a hobby instead of a talent

Most daring thing you’ve ever done:

I have been skydiving, rappelled out of a ski resort tram, cliff dived at Lake Powell, and learned to ride a motorcycle on challenging canyon roads

Something you chickened out from doing:

Eating sushi or oysters

About Melanie:

Long before she delved into the world of fantasy and suspense, Melanie P. Smith served nearly three decades in the Special Operations Division at her local sheriff’s office supporting SWAT, Search & Rescue, K9, the Motor Unit, Investigations, and the Child Abduction Response Team. She now uses that training and knowledge to create stories that are action-packed, gripping, and realistic. In addition to writing, she is also the Editor-In-Chief for Connections eMagazine — a free quarterly publication focused on bringing authors and readers together.

You can find more about Melanie and her books on her website and social media platforms.

Let’s Be Social:

Visit Melanie on her website at www.melaniepsmith.com

Find her on Facebook at https://geni.us/MPSFacebook

Twitter https://geni.us/MPSTwitter

Instagram https://geni.us/MPSInstagram

YouTube https://geni.us/MPSmithYouTube

Locals Community https://geni.us/MPSLocals

BoobBub https://geni.us/MPSBookBub

LinkedIn https://geni.us/MPSmithLI

Pinterest https://geni.us/MPSPinterest

Goodreads https://geni.us/MPSGoodreads