Interviews with indie authors, publishers and book service providers in the self-publishing realm
An Interview with Bill VanPatten: Author of A Little Rain – Bronze Winner in the 2022 SPR Book Awards
Bill VanPatten is a former award-winning scholar and teacher who changed careers to write full-time. He has also performed standup comedy and still does so on occasion, especially if the venue serves killer martinis.
Tell us about your book.
A Little Rain explores the complexities, lies, and secrets of a disintegrated family, as they wind up in court over the sixteen-year-old son’s actions. Twists and turns abound as the story unfolds through different points of view.
Why did you want to write a book?
Before I became a writer, I was a successful academic. I’d published eight books, about two-hundred […]
Valentyn Bannikov is an established Technical Program & Project Management Professional and Scrum Master. He possesses highly valued and widely recognized industry certifications, including PMP, CSM, and ICP-APM. With over ten years of diverse technical and professional experience, Valentyn has worked across multiple industries. 
Tamara Smith was raised in Virginia, where she resided until moving to British Columbia, Canada in her adult years. Her father was American and her mother is Canadian. Tamara has dual citizenship along with her two sisters. In her eyes, she had the best of both worlds as they lived in the States during the school year and traveled as a family to Canada during the summers. Currently, Tamara is Payroll Manager at a reputable company in BC, Canada.
Ten-year-old Dave Tabler decided he was going to read the “R” volume from the family’s World Book Encyclopedia set over summer vacation. He never made it from beginning to end. He did, however, become interested in Norman Rockwell, rare-earth elements, and “Run for the Roses.”
Susan Diane Black Blackmon is a genealogist turned Historical Fiction writer. After publishing several volumes of family history, her older sister nudged her into writing a story based on some of the family stories she had collected. The result was Emma, the first in the Heritage Series. While Emma was still in the proofing stage, Blackmon began work on Celey, the second in the series. Each of her books is a stand-alone work, so there’s no set reading order.
Sebastien Taveau is a puzzle solver and beyond-the-horizon watcher.
Manson loves and hates everyone equitably. Though she’ll read just about anything, she enjoys weird shit like Hunter S. Thompson. She also likes crime fiction, the occult, horror, transgressive, science fiction, and dark fantasy.
Born and raised in the west suburbs of Chicago, D.M. Wozniak discovered his passion for software at St. Lawrence High School, where he joined the computer lab as a ploy to get out of gym class. By the time he graduated in 1993, D.M. knew that he wanted to code for a living. But his senior year honors English teacher took him aside on graduation day and said, “Never stop writing. It’s your true calling.”