Lee Matthew Goldberg is an awesome fiction writer and screenwriter hailing from NYC.  Listen to us discuss his new book, "The Ancestor", learn what led him to writing, how he starts his novels, & find out some of his inspirations & processes! http://yourartsygirlpodcast.com http://leematthewgoldberg.com Order your copy here:  https://downandoutbooks.com/bookstore/goldberg-ancestor/ BIO:  Lee Matthew Goldberg is the author of the novels THE ANCESTOR, THE MENTOR, THE DESIRE CARD, and SLOW DOWN. He has been published in multiple languages and nominated for the 2018 Prix du Polar. ORANGE CITY is forthcoming in 2021. After graduating with an MFA from the New School, his writing has also appeared in The Millions, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, LitReactor, Monkeybicycle, Fiction Writers Review, Cagibi, the anthology Dirty Boulevard, The Montreal Review, The Adirondack Review, The New Plains Review, Underwood Press and others. He is the editor-in-chief and co-founder of Fringe, dedicated to publishing fiction that’s outside-of-the-box. His pilots and screenplays have been finalists in Script Pipeline, Book Pipeline, Stage 32, We Screenplay, the New York Screenplay, Screencraft, and the Hollywood Screenplay contests. He is the co-curator of The Guerrilla Lit Reading Series and lives in New York City.

YourArtsyGirlPodcast

Episode 62: Lee Matthew Goldberg

Listen to poet, John Compton, read his poetry and discuss his journey into writing poetry, publishing, and connecting with industry folks! http://yourartsygirlpodcast.com https://www.facebook.com/josh.compton.12914 Bio:  John Compton (formerly John Thompson) is a 33-year-old gay poet who lives in Kentucky. His poetry resides in his chest like many hearts & they bloom like vigorously infectious wild flowers. He has published 1 book and 5 chapbooks: "trainride elsewhere" (August 2016/TBA) from Pressed Wafer/Rouge Wolf Press; "that moan like a saxophone" (December 2016); Ampersand (March 2019) from Plan B Press; "a child growing wild inside the mothering womb" (June 2020) from Ghost City Press; "burning his matchstick fingers his hair went up like a wick" (Fall), From Dark Heart Press, "to wash all the pretty things off my skin" (end of 2021) from Ethel Zine & Micro-Press. Compton has been published in numerous magazines and anthologies.   https://ghostcitypress.com/2020-summer-series/a-child-growing-wild-inside-the-mothering-womb   https://www.planbpress.com/store/p56/ampersand_by_john_thompson.html   https://www.amazon.com/that-moan-like-saxophone-thompson-ebook/dp/B01NBP6JL3   winter poem mouth open letting snow cover my burial plot of words & fingers too cold to dig the tongue out: frozen corpse, the stature of teeth chirping a ruptured poem   we seeded him holy you'll find him in a chair sequenced gay is vandalism we used white rags & smoke to purify him to bleach the sin, to poach the black resin from the heart-skin to bring him right by rules of man his arms & ankles tied    crosswise the naked body a rosary         bead tucked in each wound   how we bury fish motionless in my womb... i remembered my fish - i was eight. it was floating belly up. i tapped on my stomach as a mother – a little girl trying to tap her fish from sleep. i gave birth to a stillborn. my father explained to me how we bury fish: i heard the toilet flush behind my sobbing.   John Compton Book Launch and Open Mic with Redheaded Stepchild https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IlBdFVBCcE  

Episode 61: John Compton

Yay!  The 60th episode.  How surreal.  I introduce to you Clinnesha D. Sibley, a writer & playwright with many publications and theatrical productions under her belt.  Hear us discuss her process, her advice to writers, & what creative projects she's working on now.  http://yourartsygirlpodcast.com http://thewriteaddiction.com A Love Letter to Ntozake You played with Barbies and watched as little boys gawked at Cindy Crawford in a Pepsi commercial. Your teacher suggested The Babysitters Club, “Kristy’s Great Idea” for your book project because it was heartwarming, not um…controversial… like The Bluest Eye. You watched The Cosby Show and knew you wanted to be that kind of black. You were eating grandma’s field peas and okra when you got your period. Mama was workin. Stayed workin. Your body changed immediately and grandma gave you a girdle. Same kind of girdle she gave your mama. You stayed lookin in the mirror hoping your ass would catch up to your chest and hips. It never did, not on its own. Sophomore year, he let you wear his letterman. It was warm and smelled like November. He never let anyone but you wear his letterman. He told you he loved you. You didn’t know a man could ever do that. He would take back the number 7 when y’all hated one another. Back and forth, the jacket began to smell less like autumn and more like alcohol and meat. /// You were in the McDonald’s bathroom when you got one line and a faint. You cried into your chicken nuggets. You told your best friend and her mama who’s cool. Then, cool mama told you ’bout Mrs. Poole… He said he would come, too. He lied. But he brought you somethin to eat afterwards. /// You left home after graduation. Your mama had to work graduation day, and the day you moved away. Grandma put a rolled up one hundred dollar bill in your hand for gas money and groceries. You got a job on campus. He needed money and you would take care…he hated that you could do that. You hated going home, and seeing him reminded you of how much you hated yourself. So, you changed your look. You found a college best friend who got you into places you were too young to be in. She’s better than your old best friend who’s been actin real funny. You hate her cuz you hate you. And she hate you cause of that thing with him. You say she pulls you down every time you get elevated. But you high more than you elevated. (High, drunk people don’t keep their scholarships.) Your school daze become filled with nights you don’t remember. And now, you goin back home. At least you tried. One day, you’re gonna finish. /// Friend was like, I told you. You had white liquor in you that night, and you fought her. You looked at yourself in the McDonald’s bathroom mirror and didn’t like the scratches, or your nose, your eyes, what the perm did to your hair, your dark skin, or the fact that you flunked out of college. Maybe your mama waz right when she called you a dumb ho; that was before she got in bed with her best friend’s man. You hate everything about yourself, and your mama’s probably right about you bein a dumb ho, so… You sleep with him again. He tightens his sweaty palm around your heart. You remember the baby. This time, you won’t need Mrs. Poole. /// Two healthy babies later, you’ve changed your look again. People wonder what’s different. They don’t wonder what your new hurt is. They just know you’ve got babies by him, and so does your best friend. But you’re the main one cuz he looks at you just like the boys looked at Cindy Crawford. You haven’t seen him since y’all got into it at his mama’s house. You’ve been texting her cause she helps you understand him more…she cares about you more than your own mama…more than your best friend, who loves him, too. You finally talk to your mama about him, and she hugs you. Apologizes and says things can only get worst. /// His mama said he’s becoming like his daddy. You realize that absent in one place means present in another. There’s a new woman… You consider going back to school. You re-apply and get in. He sees you trying to move on without him, and it gets really bad really fast, like your mama said. You pray, cause every time your grandma prayed, things got better, and people would even come back Home. You didn’t confirm with admissions, but you keep a record of dreams in a spiral notebook. /// You were working part time at the library when you came across for colored girls who consider suicide when the rainbow is enuf in the return vault. You experienced it and realized somebody was missing what you were missing. You realize that you were born with the capacity to love yourself, and that changes the way you look at your daughters. -------------------------------------------------- BIO:  Clinnesha Sibley, a native of McComb, Mississippi, is a published author, community leader, and educator. She promotes creative-mindedness—believing that visual, performing, and literary arts can change the way we think about some of life’s most important questions. A writer of plays, poetry, prose, essays and creative non-fiction, Clinnesha has received numerous awards including the Holland New Voices Award, the Arkansas Arts Council Individual Artist Fellowship, and the Mississippi Theatre Association Adult Playwriting Award.  Her writing has also appeared in national literary journals, anthologies, and various publications and anthologies including Feels Blind Literary, Quince Magazine, In Full Color, Black Masks Magazine, and Muzzle Magazine. Clinnesha committed to training exclusively as a playwright while attending Tougaloo College in Jackson, Mississippi. As an Interdisciplinary Career Oriented Humanities major, she learned to focus inward—exploring identity, psyche, and the human condition. It was at this historically black college that Clinnesha also learned the connection between social activism and artistic practice. She received her M.F.A. in Theatre (Playwriting) from the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville becoming the first African-American to earn such a degree from that institution. Her plays have been called feminist, protest, political, southern, and circular. After teaching on the college/university level for many years, Clinnesha decided to move into secondary residential education, and is currently the Literary Arts Instructor at Mississippi School of the Arts where she teaches young writers to become socially-engaged artists. Clinnesha is married to her high school sweetheart, Keith Sibley, and they have three children: Kaylee, Karlee, and Keith Jr.

Episode 60: Clinnesha D. Sibley

Dominique M. Carson has interviewed over 100 notable figures in entertainment.  Listen to us discuss how she became a journalist for major publications and author of two biographies as well as how message therapy has sustained her while she continued to pursue her artistic goals. http://yourartsygirlpodcast.com http://dominiquecarson.contently.com   BIO: Dominique M. Carson is a freelance journalist, researcher, massage therapist, reporter and author. Carson's work has been featured in several publications including Ebony.com, The Grio, NBC News, Singersroom.com, Soultrain.com, Education Update, and Brooklyn news media outlets. She interviewed over 100 notable figures in entertainment such as Charlie Wilson, Regina Belle, Patti Labelle, Kirk Franklin, and many more. She also collaborated with Brooklyn historian and journalist, Suzanne Spellen and launched a 118 page journal on Lefferts Manor, a neighborhood in Brooklyn, and is releasing a biography on an R&B musician this fall while her first book is going through some legalities.

Episode 59: Dominique M. Carson

Listen to this week's featured guest, poet, Angela M. Brommel.  We discuss her influence & her new poetry collection, "Mojave in July". We also talk about her past & current projects supporting the art & literary community as an art curator & Editor-in-Chief at the Citron Review. http://yourartsygirlpodcast.com http://tolsunbooks.com/shop/mojave-in-july-pre-order Mojave in July by Angela M. Brommel You can’t explain to friends from home how the desert makes it better, but you try: Imagine a heat so dry that it presses down into the earth, releasing its scent so that it takes on the comforting smell of clay pots in your grandmother’s kitchen when you were a child, or your hideout under the evergreens where you used to sit for hours smelling only the dirt, the sap, the pine. Imagine a smell that reminds you of the kitchen on holidays: sage, rosemary, and something you chase that is reminiscent of honey, but feels like love. Some people still fight it. They call the heat oppressive, they call it unrelenting. They have not learned how to live within it. You must learn to smell the water beneath the surface. You must learn to let the heat pass through you, warming your bones, your ligaments, and all the pieces that you call you. Let the heat draw out everything unneeded. Let it put you to bed midday. Let it make you new. --- Images/Angela M. Brommel Book cover image art/Su Limbert --- BIO: Angela M. Brommel is a Nevada writer with Iowa roots. In 2018, her chapbook, Plutonium & Platinum Blonde, was published by Serving House Books. Her poetry has been published in The Best American Poetry blog, The North American Review, The Literary Review’s (TLR) Share, and many other journals and anthologies. A 2018 Red Rock Canyon Artist in Residence, Angela served as the inaugural poet of the program. She earned an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University and an MA in Theatre from the University of Northern Iowa. Mojave in July is her debut full-length poetry collection. Angela is the Executive Director of the Office of Arts & Culture as well as affiliate faculty in Humanities at Nevada State College. You can also find her at The Citron Review as Editor-in-Chief.

Episode 58: Angela M. Brommel

Gay Majure Wilson wrote a biography on the suffragist, Sue Shelton White, entitled: "Some Woman Had to Fight: The Radical Life of Sue Shelton White".  Listen to us discuss Gay's story on how she started writing and how she decided to write Sue Shelton White's biography. http://yourartsygirlpodcast.com/episodes https://www.amazon.com/Some-Woman-Had-Fight-Radical-ebook/dp/B0859NBB58 BIO: Gay Majure Wilson has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville and has worked as a writer, editor and project manager in software development and investment banking in Dallas, New York and London. She earned a master’s degree in family and consumer sciences from the University of Tennessee at Martin and is now an author and registered dietitian in Jackson, Tennessee. Book Synopsis Some Woman Had to Fight: The Radical Life of Sue Shelton WhiteThis biography explores the personal, political and professional life of Sue Shelton White, a militant suffragist, pioneering Tennessee lawyer and vocal leader in the controversial protests and tireless lobbying campaign for ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, granting women their equal right to vote 100 years ago.  gaymwilson@gmail.com

Episode 57: Gay Majure Wilson

Check out Susana H. Case!  She is a NYC poet & a sociology professor at New York Institute of Technology.  Listen to us discuss how her academic work and poetics intersects & where she gets her ideas! http://yourartsygirlpodcast.com/episodes http://susanahcase.com Susana reads from her book: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIyObZ_PToo http://broadstonebooks.com/Susana_H_Case.html The poems in this collection are inspired by the ways in which gender (and sometimes other divisions) creates opportunities for both victimization and survival. A theme woven throughout is the tension between being objectified and being human. There are three sections. The first section is organized around the idea of the stereotype of the living doll, and rebellion against that concept. The middle section, an ekphrastic section, is inspired by the life and the nutshell studies, crime model constructions, of Frances Glessner Lee, "mother of modern forensics," and includes some black and white images that are in the public domain. The third section, which includes the title poem, focuses more fully on the negative effects of objectified existences. Bio: Susana H. Case is the author of seven books of poetry. Drugstore Blue, from Five Oaks Press, won an Independent Publisher Book Award (IPPY). She is also the author of five chapbooks, two of which won poetry prizes. Her most recent chapbook is Body Falling, Sunday Morning from Milk and Cake Press. One of her collections, The Scottish Café, from Slapering Hol Press, was re-released in a dual-language English-Polish version, Kawiarnia Szkocka by Opole University Press in Poland. Her poems appear widely in magazines and anthologies. Recent poems can be found in: Calyx, The Cortland Review, Fourteen Hills, Portland Review, Potomac Review,Rattle, and RHINO, among others. Dr. Case is a Professor and Program Coordinator at the New York Institute of Technology in New York City.

Episode 56: Susana H. Case

I introduce to you Anne Marie Wells @amwellswrites from Wyoming, a poet and playwright.  You will find interesting tidbits about her work & her life: when she was a nanny for a rock band she wrote a draft of 70,000 word novel in 3 days, among other things!  http://yourartsygirlpodcast.com http://annemariewellswriter.com ------------------------------ Enemy Bridge My enemies will someday hold their dying mother in their arms, and their crooked hole of a mouth screaming anguished into the air above will become my next breath. We will share the same chorus of pain, the secret song that unites us all, a universal refrain that asks us to bless this world for its suffering for it’s the only thing that builds the bridge of empathy. Selected by Muddy River Poetry Review, Spring 2020 ---------------------------------- Shell Holding the shell of the man he used to be to my ear, his tidal voice crashed ashore, calling me to watch a nest of turtles break free from their sandy womb, frantic to find their ocean mother; a race from first breath to moonlit waves. I will remember you this way, I promised. Selected for publication by In Parentheses, Winter 2020 ---------------------------------- Bio: In 2015, Anne Marie Wells published her children’s book, MAMÃ, PORQUE SOU UMA AVE?/MOMMY, WHY AM I A BIRD? (Imprensa Universidade de Coimbra). She earned first place in the Riot Act Regional New Play Festival in 2017 for her play, LOVE AND RADIO (AND ZOMBIES... KIND OF), and earned second place in 2018 for her play, LAST. ONLY. BEST. In 2019, the Wrights of Wyoming judges blindly selected four of her theatrical works for the statewide play festival in Cheyenne (LAST. ONLY. BEST.; MISS SNICKLEFRITZ'S MURDER MYSTERY; THE DOOR; and INDIGO SIREN). In 2020, her play LAST. ONLY. BEST. was selected for publication in The Dallas Review, and her 10-minute play, THE DOOR will appear in The Progenitor Art & Literary Journal. Anne Marie is also an avid storyteller and performed in and won several Cabin Fever Story Slams and was selected by The Moth to perform in a 'Main Stage' event in Jackson Hole, Wyoming in 2019. Her poems have appeared or will appear in In Parentheses, Lucky Jefferson, Unlimited Literature, Soliloquies Anthology, Muddy River Poetry Review, Variant Literature, Poets' Choice, Meniscus Journal, Changing Womxn Collective, and The Voices Project. Facebook: @annemariewellsriter Instagram: @anne___.marie Twitter: @amwellswrites Pintrest: annemariewellswriter Tumblr: @annemariewellswriter

Episode 55: Anne Marie Wells

This week, I talk to Filipino American writer, Jason Tanamor.  It was great discovering his work & learning more about him and his writing processes.  His latest book: "Vampires of Portlandia" is a Filipino American urban fantasy novel.    http://yourartsygirlpodcast.com http://tanamor.com Bio:   Jason Tanamor has 10 plus years of experience as an entertainment writer and interviewer for Yahoo!, the Moline Dispatch/Rock Island Argus, Cinema Blend, Celebrity Cafe, Strip Las Vegas Magazine, Pulse Magazine, and Zoiks! Online.   Tanamor has interviewed the likes of author Chuck Palahniuk (Fight Club); comedians Demetri Martin, Jim Breuer (SNL, Half Baked), Aisha Tyler (Talk Soup, The Ghost Whisperer), Dane Cook, and Gabriel Iglesias; musicians Billy Corgan (Smashing Pumpkins), Ann Wilson (Heart), Taylor Momsen (The Pretty Reckless and Gossip Girl), Chad Smith (Red Hot Chili Peppers), and Henry Rollins (Black Flag); and baseball legend Pete Rose.   He has covered everyone from Steve Martin to Jerry Seinfeld and from Evanescence to President Obama (see gallery).   With novels, Tanamor enjoys writing in different genres. He is the critically acclaimed author of the dark novels, "Anonymous" (which received a star review from Publishers Weekly) and "Drama Dolls"; the satirical novels, "Hello Fabulous!" and "She's the One?"; and the epic superhero themed children's book, "I Heart Superhero Kid". His newest novel, "Vampires of Portlandia," is an urban fantasy.  Pre-order it here: http://www.tanamor.com/p/vampires-of-portlandia.html   Tanamor is married and has a family of fur children. He currently lives and works in the Portland, Oregon area.  

Episode 54: Jason Tanamor

Check out this episode with writer, Anya Ow, a Singaporean residing in Australia.  We discuss her work, her "co-workers" (cats), & reads a segment from her newly released novella, "Cradle and Grave". http://yourartsygirlpodcast.com http://anyasy.com http://neonhemlock.com   

Episode 53: Anya Ow

This week, I feature Filipinx visual artist, Pam Peacock.  She is the very talented younger sister of Eddie Peacock, a former classmate and neighbor of mine at Clark Air Force Base & Angeles City, Philippines. Listen to us discuss her work, her process, future plans, & how she is holding up during this pandemic. http://yourartsygirlpodcast.com http://thevoyagerpeacock.com Instagram: @thevoyagerpeacock 

Episode 52: Pam Peacock

I'm back in effect, and this week, I am featuring, Filipinx poet, Ina Cariño.  We discuss her work and her future plans and how she is holding up during this Coronavirus pandemic. Note: I will be discussing how other writers/poets/artists and creatives are dealing with creating during these times. http://yourartsygirlpodcast.com/episodes www.inacarino.com Bio: Born in the Philippines, Ina Cariño is a queer Filipinx-American writer. She holds an MFA in creative writing from North Carolina State University in Raleigh, NC, and is a 2019 Kundiman Fellow. Her work appears in Waxwing, New England Review, The Oxford Review of Books, Tupelo Quarterly, and VIDA Review, among other journals. In 2019, Ina founded a reading series in the Triangle area of NC called Indigena, which centers marginalized voices, including but not limited to those of BIPOC, QTPOC, and people with disabilities. Through her writing, Ina explores the navigation of being American as a brown body, and the deeply impactful effects of living in the diaspora. She hopes to find paths to not just justice, but also to healing of self and community. It Feels Good to Cook Rice by Ina Cariño it feels good to cook rice it feels heavy to cook rice it feels familiar                           good        & heavy                      to cook rice                           when I cook rice                   it is because hunger is not just                              an emptiness but a longing                                          for multo:                                    the dead who no longer linger                   two fingers in water                   I know just when to stop:                   right under the second knuckle in the morning          chew it                                                         with salted egg in the evening          chew it                                                         with salted onion at midnight          eat it                                                         slovenly                 with your peppered hands           licking relishing                         each cloudmorsel                                                       sucking greedy   as if                 there will no longer be any such thing as rice                               good                 is not the idea of pleasure                                           rather                                                it is the way                                                          I once tripped                                             spilled a basket                 of hulls & stones onto soil —                 homely sprinkle of husks                 as if for a sending off —                                 how right it was: palms                                 brushing the chalk of it                                 swirls rising in streaking sun                                 heavy                 is not the same as burden                                             rather it is falling rice                                                   as ghostly footfalls —                                             trickling mounds                                                           scattered on wood —                 my dead lolo in compression socks                 my dead lola in red slippers scuffing                 & a slew of yesterday’s titos & titas                                 their voices traveling to me                                 tinny                                ringing                                  as if from yesterday’s nova familiar just                 what it sounds like family                 blood home                 marrow bone                 grit calcified memories                                 of things that feel good                                                                 & heavy                 calcified                                 as in made stronger by mountain sun                 only to have them crumble                                 after enough time has passed                 (just like the mountain forgot what it used to be)                             still it feels good to cook rice it feels good to eat rice    even by myself & it feels familiar to know                with each grain I swallow I strap myself to my own                                          heavy                             hunger ------------------------------------------------------------ Below are links to her other works: http://www.nereview.com/vol-40-no-3-2019/bitter-melon/ http://waxwingmag.org/items/issue20/7_Carino-It-Feels-Good-to-Cook-Rice.php https://readwildness.com/21/carino-bodies https://www.the-orb.org/post/when-i-sing-to-myself-who-listens IG: @indigena.collective  / Facebook: Facebook.com/indigenaNC/

Episode 51: Ina Cariño

Thanks for tuning in and being patient! Episode 50 features poet/writer, Tony Robles who I have back on the show. He had just been awarded the Carl Sandburg Writer-In-Residency. Tony discusses his past & current work.  He also recites his poem, "My Father's Music".   http://yourartsygirlpodcast.com https://www.nps.gov/carl/learn/news/2020-wir-tony-robles.htm   http://tonyrobles.wordpress.com   My Father's Music My father's music Percolates and palpitates Like hot coffee dreaming A tap dancer's arrival Hitting throat with the Right note, going back, Deep, unopposed My father's music is Caught in a kettle whose Grease endured screams And flame of gas stove Decisions where curling irons Bent notes and contemplated Hooks landing on the chin and Announcing a verdict on a Rippled canvas My father's music is An empty cup of my Favorite things where soup Is made from pain and Love is made from rain My father's music is Made in wood when he Would then wouldn't then Would again and would Is softer than stone and Woodn't you know it? My father's music is the Chamber of cool poking Into the greenness of the Sun's estate of ecstatic static My father's music Is sky minus rain Divided by sun Multiplied by incense In the smoldering Pyramid of branches My father's music is the In-time pantomime of The heaven-hell debate Whose defense rest On the 8th day My father's music floats And glides from Head to thigh and on that other Side where up is down and down Is up, sticking like flap jacks Whose wings lap lap lap the Tick tock oil of greasy time My father's music Skips, bumps, burps, Slurps, sizzles on the Sunny side of the street Crackle pop Bop Pan fried With an Egg on Top My Father's Music   ------------------ If you are interested in being featured on yourartsygirlpodcast.com, please send me your bio, black and white photo, and work samples to yourartsygirl@gmail.com .  Please know I cannot respond to every email, but I will reach out to if I'd like to feature you on the show!

Episode 50: Tony Robles (Part 2)

Beverly Parayno is a talented fiction and creative non fiction writer. Learn more about her journey as a writer and her tremendous volunteer & outreach work for arts organizations. Do follow her work.  She is someone to look out for!  http://yourartsygirlpodcast.com http://www.beverlyparayno.com Bio: Beverly Parayno is from East San Jose. Her fiction, memoir, essays, and author interviews have appeared in Narrative Magazine, Bellingham Review, World Literature, The Rumpus, Warscapes and Huizache, among others. Her work has been translated into Mandarin by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. She is currently working on a memoir entitled RUN, set during her teenage runaway years in upstate New York in the mid-1980s. Parayno earned an MA from University College Cork and an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Currently, she serves on the board of PAWA, a nonprofit arts organization and publisher dedicated to supporting and promoting Filipinx writers, and on the executive committee of Litquake. She is a grants consultant for social justice nonprofits in the Bay Area. You can find her at www.beverlyparayno.com.

Episode 49 - Beverly Parayno

I open this new year, 2020, with John A. Vanek: a mystery/thriller writer with a sleuthing priest series about Father Jake Austin's life. Listen to him discuss how having a great creative writing teacher in college while going to med school inspired him to write & publish poetry & now a mystery series. http://yourartsygirlpodcast.com/episodes http://www.johnvanekauthor.com   BIO: John A. Vanek graduated from Case  Western Reserve University, where his passion for creative writing took root. He received his M.D. from the University of Rochester and practiced medicine for a quarter century, but his interest in writing never waned. Medicine was his life, but mysteries became his drug of choice.  He began honing his craft in creative writing workshops and college courses and was gratified when his early work won contests and was published widely. He now lives happily as an ink-stained-wretch in Florida with Geni, his wife, fellow writer, and best friend. He teaches a poetry workshop for seniors at a local college, and enjoys swimming, hiking, sunshine, good friends, and red wine. John is an active member of the International Thriller Writers. DEROS (book 1): Father Jake Austin returns home in search of inner peace after a brutal war, but a series of murders force him to confront his own violent past, regrets over lost love, and his doubts about the priesthood.    Miracles (book 2): Father Jake Austin’s life is hurled into the vortex of three storms: A dying sister, a bleeding Virgin Mary statue, and a comatose infant in the intensive care unit. What will be left standing after these tempests have passed?  Absolution (book 3): Father Jake Austin must decide whether to turn his back on his biological father, the man who deserted him as a child, or to turn the other cheek and save him from a vengeful drug lord, risking his own life and the lives of those he loves.  Genesis of the Father Jake Austin Mystery Series: Father Jake Austin is a fictional character, but aspects of his personality and struggles are modeled after two Catholic priests who became my close friends and confidants. When I first met them, I expected the usual stereotypes, but when their Roman collars came off, I found that they were simply human. One priest confessed his attraction to a young nun. Call his love unrequited; he called it hell. I watched this righteous man struggle with his commitment to his vows. This became the inspiration for Jake and Emily’s relationship in my novels. Seeing these men wrestle with the same emotions that we all share shattered my preconceived notions. I wanted to portray Father Jake as a spiritual man, but as realistically as possible.  Coffeetown Press in Seattle, WA published DEROS and Miracles in paperback & eBook formats in 2018 & 2019 respectively. Book 3, Absolution, will be released March 15, 2020.  *** Thorndike Press (an imprint of Gale/Cengage, which merged with McGraw Hill in 2019) recently purchased the large-print rights to DEROS and Miracles as part of their Clean Reads selections for libraries and schools. Clean Reads is billed as: "General fiction, mystery and romance titles that do not contain graphic violence, explicit sexuality or strong profanity. Full of encouragement, warmth and humor that you’d be comfortable giving to your grandmother!"    Note: get your  local library to stock John Vanek's large-print editions!   *** In praise of the Father Jake Austin Series:  “Interesting, nuanced characters in a finely wrought setting.” -- Laura Lippman, New York Times bestselling author of Wilde Lake.  "John Vanek guides the reader through the seldom-seen worlds of both medicine and the priesthood. His years as a physician at a Catholic hospital make him the perfect creator of this literary mystery, but few physicians can manage prose as well as Vanek does." -- Sterling Watson, Professor of Creative Writing at Eckerd College, and author of Suitcase City.  “A riveting tale of mystery and murder. Superb storytelling with a deft touch by this talented author who keeps ratcheting up the tension until the explosive ending. A page-turner, but the characters linger in your memory. File DEROS  under 'good books to read.' ” -- Ann O'Farrell, author of the Norah's Children Trilogy. “John Vanek writes from a place of unusual experience and expertise while bringing the reader into worlds of mystery, medicine, and religion — and the human connections that bridge them all. Father Jake Austin is an intriguing and emotionally compelling character.” - Michael Koryta,  New York Times bestselling author of How It Happened “John A. Vanek deftly takes readers up to the high wire of difficult moral choices. Father Jake Austin’s search for a balance between science and faith will make you a fan of the series, the mystery genre, and physician-writer John Vanek.” - Martin Kohn, PhD, director, Program in Medical Humanities, Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine  Buy John A. Vanek's books! Fiction: Order from Amazon! Order from Amazon! Poetry Order from Amazon! 

Episode 48: John A. Vanek

This podcast is a place to talk about creativity, learn about some artists and writers. It is a safe place for artists and writers to learn about each other's creative processes and craft.

hubhopper

YourArtsyGirlPodcast

hubhopper