Chanticleer Book Reviews

Tag: 10 Question Author Interview

Mike Murphey 10-Question Author Interview with Chanticleer – Humor, Thriller, Action, Staire

CHANTICLEER 10 QUESTION AUTHOR INTERVIEW SERIES
with Award-Winning Author, Mike Murphey

Hello friends! We have another interview with a fabulous, versatile author!

Mike Murphey took home the 2023 CIBA Grand Prize award in the Mark Twain Division for his novel, Quantum Consequences, the fifth book in the Tales of Physics, Lust and Greed series. Here, he tells us about his writing journey, how the series Physics, Lust and Greed came to be, and the subsequent heights it is now reaching! Take a minute to find out more about this talented humorist!

Chanti: Let’s start at the beginning, Mike. Tell us a little about yourself and how you first discovered you had this wonderful talent for satirical fiction.

Murphey: I suppose I’ve had a fascination with books from the time I learned to read. I loved getting lost in a story, which led me to write stories of my own. My understanding of the power of humor is rooted in Mr. Donald Dye’s ninth grade math class. Mr. Dye was a stealthy fellow adept at sneaking up on students who wrote notes in class rather than paying attention. He would either read the note to the class, or force the author to read it, whichever inflicted the most embarrassment. I’d been writing a story in study hall the previous hour and was on a roll, so I hid my story under my math book, sneaking in a few lines here and there, until a heavy hand reached out from nowhere and snatched up my prose. As I anticipated my punishment, I saw his expression drift from anger, to puzzlement, to the hint of a chuckle. He handed my back the paper and said, “Go ahead. This will get you further than math ever will.”

Chanti: That’s a great story, and Mr. Dye sounds like a wonderful teacher, too! You work in multiple genres, often combining them in your stories. How lead you to incorporate multiple genres—humor, action, sci-fi, thriller—into your novels?

Murphey: I am not a slave to genre, and my background as a journalist left me interested in a variety of topics to write about. My focus on science fiction was spurred by the work of Jack Williamson, a dean of science fiction at Eastern New Mexico University in the small town where I grew up. His granddaughter and I were the same age, and I knew her well. I was not a good physics student because I couldn’t master the math, but the romance of physics—time travel, Einstein’s relativity of time, quantum entanglement, Schoedinger’s cat—sparked my imagination. I also love baseball, so I wrote a baseball book, and I grew up in the 60’s and loved the music, so I wrote a book about The Chad Mitchell Trio and the 60’s folk music era. At this point, I would be bored if I was trapped by genre.

Chanti: Variety in genre definitely keeps things interesting! How does that carry over to your writing process, are you someone who likes to plan everything out meticulously, or do you prefer to let the story unfold as you write?

Murphey: This is the classic plotters vs. pantsers issue. For many years, what kept me from writing anything beyond short stories was the belief that when I began, I had to know how it would end. Outline the whole thing and then fill in the gaps. But my brain doesn’t work that way. When I finally decided to write a minimum of 500 words a day and see where that path would lead me, it all fell into place. The characters and their story show me where to go as the story progresses.

Chanti: I love that daily word count approach! Outside of writing, do you have hobbies or interests that feed into your storytelling or inform your work in some way?

Murphey: I am an old-man baseball player, one of thousands who defy the premise that people in their 60’s, 70’s and 80’s have no business playing baseball rather than softball. My baseball novel The Conman… a Baseball Odyssey, is a fictionalized version of a friend’s convoluted journey through professional baseball, and my short story, Old Man Baseball, was a grand prize winner in Chanticleer’s short story competition. I also have a woodshop and enjoy making what we call Southwestern-style furniture—meaning the flaws are present to add a rustic authenticity.

Chanti: I remember Old Man Baseball and how much our readers loved it. Now, every writer has their strengths. What aspect of writing do you feel most confident about, and what advice would you give to someone who’s struggling in that same area?

Murphey: Dialogue. To write in different distinct voices, you must know your characters inside and out. Dialogue is much more important in establishing character than anything else. That’s my best advice. Know your principal characters as well as you know your best friend or your worst enemy.

Chanti: That’s excellent advice about really knowing your characters. Related tangentially to that, can you tell us about the authors whose work has really shaped your own?

Murphey: Mark Twain, Douglas Adams, Tom Robbins and Christopher Moore, because every time you pick up one of their books, you are engaged in a seminar on humor, satire, irony, and subtlety. And fifth, a New Mexico writer named Richard Bradford who wrote a book called Red Sky at Morning, a funny and poignant coming-of-age story that I read the summer I left my hometown in Eastern New Mexico and was separated from the girl with whom I thought I would share my destiny with. I determined then that if I was ever able to write a novel, I wanted to write like he did. That is where my first novel, Section Roads, came from.

Chanti: Writing is definitely a craft that requires constant growth. What do you do to keep developing and sharpening your skills as an author?

Murphey: I work with excellent editors. Three editors see my manuscripts. They all have different strengths, and they are the best teachers I have.

Chanti: Smart approach—having multiple sets of expert eyes on your work! Here’s something I always like to ask: What’s the most important thing a reader can do to support an author they enjoy?

Murphey: Besides reading your work in the first place, the most important way readers can support writers is to review their books on Amazon. The review can be as simple as “I really liked this.” Or “well, at least he tried.” The number of reviews a book gets increases the possibility that Amazon will pay attention to it.

Chanti: That’s such practical advice! Now, on a more personal note—what excites you most about the actual process of writing?

Murphey: Sitting down in the morning to find out what my characters have been up to.

Chanti: Short and sweet. As we wrap up, what are you working on now? What exciting projects can your readers look forward to seeing from you next?

Murphey: I’m writing a sixth book in my Tales of Physics, Lust and Greed series, but my principal focus has drifted toward screenwriting. I have three different collaborations in progress. One involves a short film for my short story Old Man Baseball, which was a Chanticleer grand prize winner. Another involves a streaming series for Section Roads, and a third involves the Tales of Physics, Lust and Greed series.

Mike Murphey, a native of eastern New Mexico, spent almost thirty years as an award-winning newspaper journalist in the Southwest and Pacific Northwest. Following his retirement from the newspaper business, he and his wife Nancy entered into a seventeen-year partnership with the late Dave Henderson, the all-star centerfielder for the Oakland Athletics, Boston Red Sox and Seattle Mariners. Their company produces the A’s and Mariners adult baseball fantasy camps. They also have a partnership with the Roy Hobbs adult baseball organization to provide clubhouse services for major adult tournaments in Fort Myers, Florida. They live in Spokane, Washington, and Phoenix, Arizona, where Mike enjoys life as a writer and old-man baseball player.

June 3, 2025
Chanticleer 10 Question Author Interview Series with Thomas Goodman – Award-winning book, The Last Man, Laramie Grand Prize Award, Author Life

From the 2023 Laramie Division Grand Prize Winner for Americana and Western for his book The Last Man, we have a brand new Chanticleer Author Interview!

Thomas Goodman won the Grand Prize in the Laramie Division of the 2023 Chanticleer International Book Awards for his novel, The Last Man. The Laramie Book Awards recognize emerging new talent and outstanding works in the Americana and Westerns fiction genre. The Laramie Book Awards is a division of the Chanticleer International Book Awards (The CIBAs).

The Laramie division includes:

Western Romance, Adventure, Caper, Classic Western Romance, Adventure Caper Classic Western,

Civil War/Prairie/Pioneer, Contemporary Western, Americana, and First Nation

Join us in getting to know the thrilling writing of the Western genre’s newest talent, Thomas Goodman!

Chanti: Tell us a little about yourself: How did you start writing?

Goodman: I first heard the story of the 1927 Santa Claus Bank Robbery in the 1990s when I lived in the small Texas county where it took place. All the accounts ended with the deaths of three of the four robbers, with little information about the life of the last surviving member of the gang. As it turns out, the details of his spectacular prison escapes and eventual rehabilitation are as fascinating as the violent endings of the other three robbers. By the time he died in his 90s around the same time I learned of the robbery, he had received a full pardon and had been a married model citizen for 50 years. In his honor, I named my book, The Last Man: A Novel of the 1927 Santa Claus Bank Robbery.

Thomas Goodman donating his book, The Last Man, to “Books for the Brave,” which stocks military bases with books the troops can read for free.

Chanti: Let’s talk about genre. What genre best describes your work, and what led you to pick that genre for your writing?

Goodman: Identifying the genre was a challenge. It’s closely based on a true crime, so it’s non-fiction; but telling the story required some measure of speculation, so it’s fiction. Like any good novel in the crime genre, it’s a grim and violent story; and yet like any compelling novel in the inspirational genre, it’s a redemption story, too. And the story begins in the 1920s with an old-fashioned bank robbery in a small Texas town, which makes it a Western; but the story ends in post-WW2 society, which makes it historical fiction.

Thankfully, booksellers and libraries allow books to be cataloged in various genres, but my “go-to” answer when asked about the genre is “historical crime fiction.”

Chanti: What about your own personal writing structure day to day? Do you have a routine?

Goodman: Since I have a full time job, I write 3 days a week from 6:00-8:30am before the office day begins. Between the 2 approaches to writing–the “plotters,” who create a broad outline of the plot before they begin, and the “pantsers,” who start writing and just see what develops–I am definitely a “plotter.” That said, I’m often surprised at what a character decides to do or what turn my well-planned plot takes when I’m in the middle of writing.

Look for the Chanticleer Review of this Laramie Grand Prize Winner! Coming soon and will link to this article!

Chanti: It’s difficult finding time to consistently write. How do you approach your writing day to stay consistent?

Goodman: When I was at a writers conference six years ago, I met an author who had traditionally-published a series of cozy mysteries. She told me she would get up at 5am and write until 7:30am when it was time to go to her “real job” as an assistant elementary school principal. That gave me the idea to write from 6am until 8:30am when my office opened. Once I began to write under that schedule, I completed my book in 2 years.

Chanti: Who are a few of your favorite authors and how have they influenced your work.

Goodman: James Wade’s All Things Left Wild gave me the confidence to believe that the Western genre wasn’t a dead genre.

I also really like Texas author Paulette Jiles (News of the World, Chenneville, and especially Stormy Weather.) She strikes the right balance between situating her story in a world over a 100 years ago without bogging the plot down with a lot of details and explanations of how life used to be—a constant temptation for a historical fiction writer.

For prose that’s beautiful but not syrupy, I love Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead, Cormac McCarthy’s All the Pretty Horses, and Annie Proulx’s Close Range: Wyoming Stories.

Chanti: Reading books in our genre is so crucial to developing voice. What else has helped you grow your author chops?

Goodman: John Trumby’s The Anatomy of Story is helpful. So is Steven James’s Story Trumps Structure. Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird is next on my list.

Chanti: Those are both great. Lamott is the starting inspiration for so many wonderful writers. Do you have any books about the business of writing that have helped you?

Goodman: Ricardo Fayet’s How to Market a Book and Amazon Ads for Authors was helpful. And David Gaughran’s book, Following, Strangers to Superfans, and Let’s Get Digital. Every author should read Tammi Labrecque’s Newsletter Ninja.

Chanti: And from that wealth of knowledge, what are your best marketing tips? What’s helped sell more books? How have you gained notoriety? What strategies have you used to expand your literary footprint?

Goodman: Get a desirable reader magnet and build your newsletter list; sign up for the festivals that fit your genre and engage with customers at your book table; convince customers to leave starred reviews at their favorite online bookstore and review sites, and give them the direct link(s) to those sites.

Author Tom Goodman, hiking McKittrick Canyon in the Guadalupe Mountains National Park.

Chanti: What are you working on now? What can we look forward to seeing next from you?

Goodman: I’m writing a novel around a minor character who showed up late in my debut novel. She’s in her 70s when readers meet her as a boardinghouse owner in The Last Man. I go back to 1905 when she was 35. It’s turning out to be a gentler family drama as opposed to the grim and violent story of my first novel. But I’m liking it so far. After that, I’ll probably return to the crime genre. I’ve discovered a true story from the very early 1900s in East Texas about a “pistol-packing preacher” who faced down a violent gang of bootleggers who was shredding his town to bits. Irresistible story!

Chanti: Before we let you go, who is the perfect reader for your book?

Goodman: Someone who likes historical fiction that closely tracks with real characters and events.

Chanti: Thank you, Thomas Goodman, for sharing your author journey with us. I am looking forward to seeing you at the next Chanticleer Authors Conference!

You can follow Thomas Goodman through his Facebook page here.

Thomas Goodman won the Laramie 2023 Grand Prize for his amazing true crime/historical fiction novel, The Last Man! And also, because he believed in his work enough to enter it into the Laramie division of the Chanticleer International Book Awards…

In other words, if you don’t enter, you will never know how your work stacks up against the other entries.

If you want a shot at the HONOR of Laramie Americana & Western Awards for 2024, don’t delay, enter the Laramie B00k Awards today!

August 7, 2024
Steven Michael Beck 10 Question Interview with Chanticleer – Screenwriter, Director, Climate Fiction Author

CHANTICLEER 10 QUESTION AUTHOR INTERVIEW SERIES

Soar a Burning Sky won the 2022 OZMA Grand Prize Award for Fantasy Fiction!

with Award-Winning Author, Steven Michael Beck

Steven Michael Beck was the OZMA Grand Prize Winner for Fantasy Fiction at the 2022 CIBAs, hosted by the 2023 Chanticleer Authors Conference. His book, Soar A Burning Sky looks at a world linked to Earth’s, and both planets are in danger due to the harsh realities of Earth’s drastic climate change.

He is also an award winning commercial director and Visual Effects art director on films like Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, The Abyss, and The Hunt for Red October.

We were so glad to meet Steven and Vicki back in 2023 and are delighted to present this interview.

Chanticleer: To begin with, tell us a little about yourself! How did you start writing?

Beck: Writing has always been part of the creative process for me. As a filmmaker, treatments and screenplays were, and are the preemptive language of my craft. Being able to convey characters, camera movement, narrative arcs complete evocative moments, could only be done by putting words to the page. Given I’d always had the practice, longform wasn’t much of stretch—or so I thought.

Chanticleer: Film and writing always seem to have huge overlap. We run into that a lot with Book to Screen interest at the Conference. When did you realize that, in addition to being a director, you were also an author?

Beck: Here’s the odd answer… I don’t want to be a writer. I have a story to tell, and I want to get it out before I’m no longer able to write anymore. Which isn’t the same thing as wanting to be a writer. What I’d love to be is a relieved human being, thankful we finally got a handle on climate change. I see my contribution to that resolution as being the writer on this one story.

Steven Michael Beck directing Isaiah Washington on the set of the Ghost Ship.

Chanticleer: The issues of climate change are serious, and we’re glad to see the shift in fiction to address this too. Would you say that’s the genre you focus on here?

Beck: My genre is eco-dystopian fantasy. Solving climate change, or at least putting a dent in it is an eco-dystopian fantasy. The only ones capable to do this are those destined to inherit it. Thus, I’m trying to speak to them directly.

Chanticleer: Tell us a little about your writing process. Where do you land on things like idea generation, writing, and writing rules?

Beck: Lol. Rules? There are rules? In coming up with ideas for a story, I imagine a scene, and then let it go. Before it hits the presses, I indent, and re-edit it several times in over in order to get it right. I imagine. It informs. We then edit together.

For the writing day, I write in the mornings until I’m starved. Then I break for lunch, and then edit in the afternoon. Can’t write at night, lest I take it to bed.

Where the writing magic happens!

Chanticleer: It sounds like you’re a fairly intuitive writer. When you’re not writing what are you up to?

Beck: I’m the type of person who’s constantly curious about the creative process. That said, I have a rather inflatable muse. She takes me everywhere; film, design, sculpture, writing, construction, architectural design… Wherever she goes, I follow.

Chanticleer: An inflatable muse? Oh, I hope there’s a picture that explains that! Thinking about the support of muses, what are areas in your writing that you are most confident in? What advice would you offer to writers struggling in that area?

Steven Michael Beck wrestles with his next scene as the Muse looms over him.

Beck: I’m most confident in writing dialogue. Again, I believe that’s due to all the years writing screenplays. Regarding advice… Listen to the conversations around you as you develop original voice. One informs the other.

Chanticleer: How would you say being an author affects your involvement in community?

Beck: It sorely keeps me from it. Writing is a monk’s existence—if you’re going to be good. Which means, you sequester yourself away for hours at a time, day after day, months on end. Sure, you could spend the remaining hours at some bar, Bokowski-ing it, but that’s not community.

Chanticleer: That’s unfortunate that it feels like being an author and participating in community are at odds with each other. Do you feel like there’s a way you can promote and improve literacy in your community still?

Beck: I’m a columnist in our local paper as well as being a local author. One feeds the other when it comes to community dialogue.

Chanticleer: That is so true. Thinking of people reading your column, who would you say is the perfect reader for your book?

Beck: Anyone ages 12-54 who’s concerned their world won’t be here someday. Hopefully I can convince them my work is fantasy.

Chanticleer: So often fantasy and reality intersect, which is one of the great joys of writing. As a final question, what excites you most about writing?

Beck: The sense of discovery. You never expect to find what you do when you write. It’s magical, frustrating, shocking, and complex, all at once. Which is odd when you’re writing a cookbook.

Steven and Vicky Beck at Chanticleer Authors Conference

Chanticleer: Indeed! Thank you so much for making the time for this interview!

You can sign up for the Napa Valley Register and read Beck’s column here.

Steven Michael Beck spent the last 30 years pursuing the art of storytelling through advertising, film, and television. Specializing in visual effects-oriented concepts (and their often-unique storylines), his direction has constantly reflected infatuation with animation—the notion that any object or idea either contained ‘life’, or could be conjured into such (needless to say, he had an imaginative childhood). These projects and life lessons have been nothing if not steppingstones, leading him to see the potential of a new type of storytelling through combinations of sculpture, photography, text, and found object.

June 17, 2024
Chanticleer 10 Question Author Interview Series with Michael Cooper – Teen & Young Adult, Award-winning book, Dante Rossetti Grand Prize Award, Author Life, Wages of Empire

CHANTICLEER 10 QUESTION AUTHOR INTERVIEW SERIES

with Award-Winning Author, Michael Cooper

Hello friends, we have another fabulous interview for you today. In 2022, Michael Cooper took home the Chanticleer Grand Prize in the Dante Rossetti Awards for his fascinating novel for his book Wages of Empire. Here, he tells us how Wages of Empire came to be and the subsequent heights it is now reaching! Take a minute or two and get familiar with Michael. You won’t be sorry!

Chanti: Tell us a little about yourself: How did you start writing?

Michael Cooper: That’s kind of a long story, but I’ll try to keep it under 1,000 words…

Having been active in Zionist youth groups throughout my formative years, I emigrated to Israel after graduating high school in 1966. Studying in Jerusalem for the first three years, I attended and graduated from Tel Aviv University Medical School. Then, after living, studying, and working in Israel for a total of eleven years, I returned to the US to specialize in pediatrics and pediatric cardiology.

Michael’s first arrival in Israel (center)

After working for about fifteen years as a pediatric cardiologist in a large multi-specialty medical care consortium, I found myself disenchanted with some worsening aspects of the approach to patient-centered care. While I wasn’t personally affected by these negative changes since, as a sub-specialist, I had demanded and received the opportunity to design my own practice, however, this wasn’t the case for my primary care colleagues. So, I decided to advocate for them. I began tilting against administrative windmills in the form of impassioned letters, but found that I wasn’t getting anywhere. Though I did enjoy the catharsis of writing those letters!

Tel Aviv University Medical School

So, I decided to just enjoy my pediatric cardiology practice, and to redirect my letter-writing to another area of my interest—the Middle East. At this point (the early 1990s) under the leadership of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, there was finally a real peace process in the form of the Oslo Accords. But to my dismay, there was a good deal of angry push-back to Rabin’s efforts—both in Israel and here in the US. In this environment, I regularly published letters, opinion pieces and essays in support of Rabin’s peace efforts. Needless to say, I received more than a few angry responses.

Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin (left), American president Bill Clinton (middle), and Palestinian political leader Yasser Arafat (right) at the White House in 1993

And as the peace process moved forward, the resistance to it increased. In the Middle East this resistance came from a seemingly bizarre and unholy alliance: on one extreme, ultra-nationalistic Jewish settlers, and on the other extreme, militant Palestinians such as Hamas—strange bedfellows in their vehement opposition to the peace-making efforts. And this angry resistance spilled over—into Israel, into the Jewish Diaspora, into the Arab street, and into the Arab Diaspora.

In Israel, this resistance reached a fever pitch in 1995 prior to parliamentary elections. Rabin’s efforts were not only rejected by Netanyahu and his right-wing allies, but Rabin was personally vilified as a crypto-Nazi and a traitor to Israel. The risk of his assassination, as assessed by Israeli security services, was high. And, indeed, after a huge pro-Oslo/pro-Rabin demonstration in Tel Aviv on November 4, 1995, Rabin was killed by a right-wing Israeli zealot with two shots to the back.

The shock to the Israel public and the world-wide Jewish community was profound. And after Rabin’s death, and with the ascension of a right-wing Israeli government under Netanyahu, the peace process grew dormant and eventually, died.

For catharsis, I initially turned from writing letters and op-ed pieces to writing historical fiction set in the Holy Land at pivotal points of history. This was also my way of trying to insinuate a message of coexistence and peace into a vehicle that, unlike my previous writing, might succeed in changing a few hearts and minds. I began with historical fiction set in British Mandatory Palestine in 1948—Foxes in the Vineyard. This was followed by The Rabbi’s Knight, set in the Holy Land at the twilight of the First Crusade in 1290. Lastly and soon-to-be-released, is Wages of Empire, largely set in Ottoman Palestine at the beginning of WWI.

Michael J. Cooper examining an infant

Beginning in 2007, I also turned to volunteer work for a US-based NGO (non-governmental organization) offering pediatric specialty services to children within the Palestinian Authority. In doing about two missions per year since then, I’ve attempted to be part of the solution as a pediatric cardiologist for children with limited or no access to care.

As of this writing, recent events in Israel/Palestine would suggest that things have only grown worse. But I won’t be deterred. I will continue to write, work, speak, and advocate for reconciliation and peace. And, in the words of Forest Gump, “That’s all I have to say about that.”

And it only took 684 words.

Chanti: When did you realize you that you were an author?

Cooper: In December of 2011—the first time I held my first published book in my hands. I had dedicated the book to my big sister, Adrienne. She had fallen ill a few months before, and I was gratified to have been able to share that moment with her before she died.

Chanti: Talk about genre. What genre best describes your work? And, what led you to write in this genre?

Cooper: I write in the genre of historical fiction with added elements of mystery, action-adventure, mysticism, and a dash of romance. Having lived in Israel during my formative years (between the ages of 17 to 28), I had fallen in love with the immediacy of history that waited for you around every corner. The historical events and, indeed the historical characters also provided the scaffolding of a story that was, at once, very old, and still being written. As I researched and wrote all three books, I was pleasantly shocked by fascinating elements of hidden history, unsolved mysteries, and unbelievably engaging and bizarre characters that practically wrote themselves into the books.

Chanti: Do you find yourself following the rules or do you like to make up your own rules?

Cooper: As mentioned above, the advantage of writing historical fiction is the scaffolding, or to switch metaphors, the loom of the historical timeline you’re working with. As the historical characters move within the fabric of that framework, it’s great fun to weave the fictional characters into the pattern, creating a wonderful tapestry.

As to rules, I would paraphrase a line from the 1974 movie, Blazing Saddles (replacing the word ‘badges’ with rules), “Rules? We don’t need no stinking rules!” (a version of that line appeared in the 1948 film, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, and before that in a 1927 novel of the same name).

Another and more sophisticated way of expressing the same idea is to quote the great Somerset Maugham, who famously said, “There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.”

Somerset Maugham

Chanti: What do you do when you’re not writing? Tell us a little about your hobbies.

Cooper: Having already gone on and on about my work as a pediatric cardiologist for forty years, I would note that I’ve enjoyed running for the past 45 years, though I now do it considerably less often and am considerably slower. I used to play and perform folk music on guitar, banjo, and mandolin, though when I began writing about thirty years ago, I gradually redirected my creative energies away from music. Now that I’m retired, and when I’m not writing, traveling for research, and puttering around the house, I’m hoping to increase my volunteer work in Palestine.

Michael J. Cooper running in a marathon

Chanti: How do you come up with your ideas for a story?

Cooper: As noted above, the storylines arise organically from the historical timeline and from the different historical characters—creating a portrait that is enhanced by the fictional characters who allow for additional surprises, plot twists, betrayals, loves and alliances. As the book progresses, it’s a pleasure for me to watch the weave tighten as the different storylines are drawn together. I hope it’s also a pleasure for the reader.

Michael J. Cooper with his two First Place Ribbons before one is upgraded to a Grand Prize!

Chanti: How structured are you in your writing work?

Cooper: Not at all. When I was working full-time, I’d get up early to write or do some research for an hour or so. Then while commuting to work (sometimes up to an hour or more), I’d ruminate about what I’d written or read, and made mental notes about plot twists, opportunities for conflict to build tension, or the need for a particular fictional character to do something unexpected. Once at work, I’d scribble these ideas down during gaps in my workday. After work, (and after the kids’ homework, and once they were asleep), I’d write drafts from the ideas that had germinated during the day. Then I’d print out drafts, bring them with me to work or have them with me on family outings, and during quiet stretches of time, and using a #2 pencil with a functioning eraser, I’d read the draft aloud and edit. At work, that might happen during a lunch break while sitting outside (weather permitting). During family outings, the settings for writing and editing were more varied, ranging from video arcades, amusement parks, ski trips, RV trips, etc. Now that I’m retired and the kids are (generally) on their own, I have vast stretches of time to research and write, but again, without any rigid structure.

An early writing session with the kitten looking on

Chanti: How does being an author affect your involvement in your community?

Cooper: During my years as a practicing pediatric cardiologist, I felt that I had a certain degree of “street cred” in my community. And by that, I refer to the quality of being “worthy of respect.” As an author, I feel a certain enhancement of my “cred,” insofar as those who used to vehemently disagree with me about the Israel/Palestine question, now seem more willing to acknowledge an alternative narrative of coexistence and peace instead of confrontation and endless strife.

Chanti: What are you working on now? What can we look forward to seeing next from you?

Cooper: That’s easy. I’m putting the finishing touches on the next book in the “Empire Series,” Crossroads of Empire, which immediately follows Wages of Empire. I’m determined to see it published in 2024. And after that will come the next in the series, End of Empire. At that point, I’ll probably leave it as a trilogy. Or not.

Note from Chanti: Crossroads of Empire is in the 2023 CIBAs!

Cooper won the Grand Prize in the Dante Rossetti Awards for YA Fiction

Chanti: Who’s the perfect reader for your book?

Cooper: Wages of Empire will appeal to a wide swathe of readers beginning with those WWI aficionados who enjoy a thrilling novel of historical mystery with elements of romance and international intrigue. Readers of all ages and particularly young readers will enjoy the classic hero story of a young man coming of age at a pivotal moment in history and risking everything to play a role in the unfolding of history. Likewise, readers coming from diverse backgrounds will appreciate the cross-cultural and universal appeal. And in this turbulent time in the Middle East, readers concerned about the prospects for peace in that troubled part of the world will appreciate an informative and historical narrative of coexistence.

As it happens, Wages of Empire is a novel about war in a time of war—holding up a mirror that reflects on the current paroxysms of violence in the Middle East, and asking the question: What does that history have to do with the present?

In a word?

Everything.

Michael Cooper writes historical fiction set in the Middle East; Foxes in the Vineyard, set in 1948 Jerusalem won the 2011 Indie Publishing Contest grand prize and The Rabbi’s Knight, set in the Holy Land in 1290 was a finalist for the 2014 Chaucer Award for historical fiction. Coming in December of 2023, Wages of Empire set at the start of WW1 won the CIBA 2022 Hemingway first prize for wartime historical fiction and the grand prize for young adult fiction.

A native of Berkeley, California, Cooper emigrated to Israel in 1966, studying and working there for the next decade; he lived in Jerusalem during the last year the city was divided between Israel and Jordan and graduated from Tel Aviv University Medical School. Now a pediatric cardiologist in Northern California, he travels to the region twice a year on volunteer missions for Palestinian children who lack access to care. http://michaeljcooper.net/Michael Cooper’s Wages of Empire launches DECEMBER 2023.

You can pre-order his book from Amazon here and from Barnes & Noble here! Don’t miss out!

December 7, 2023
Laurel Anne Hill 10 QUESTION AUTHOR INTERVIEW SERIES – Author Life, Book Discovery, Young Adult Novels

10 Question Author Interview Series with Laurel Anne Hill, Award-Winning Author

Laurel Anne Hill is one of our favorite authors. Whip smart and full of life, Laurel Anne took home the Grand Prize in OZMA for her work, Plague of Flies: Revolt of the Spirits, 1846.

Let’s get to know Laurel Anne Hill a little better. Read on!

Chanti: Tell us a little about yourself, how did you start writing?

Hill: Born in 1943, I started writing stories before I could read. My older sister would write down the words I told her to, inside a paper tablet. I’d fill in the blank places with pictures I’d cut out of comics or magazines. My first published short story—Nancy Saves the Day—appeared in the children’s section of a major San Francisco newspaper when I was eleven years old. For this I received the payment of two dollars, enough money to see eight double features at my local movie theater if I hadn’t decided to spend the money on something else.

My craft may have been questionable, but I’d become a published author.

My publications as an adult include three award-winning novels, over thirty short stories, many short nonfiction pieces, and one scientific paper.

Chanti: Some of those awards are from Chanticleer! Let’s talk about genre. What genre best describes your work? And, what led you to write in this genre?

Hill: I mostly write speculative fiction: science fiction, fantasy, steampunk and horror. My warped brain has loved to create that sort of stuff since the third grade, when my parents took me to the theater to see Bela Lugosi’s “Dracula.” During the many years I worked professionally in the field of environmental health and safety, I even described my on-the-job writing assignments as “science facts, written in response to governmental fantasy, in order to avoid regulatory horror.” My novels and many of my short stories feature young adult protagonists.

Chanti: Do you find yourself following the rules or do you like to make up your own rules?

Hill: I like to follow what I call “standard good writing practices,” the information I’ve learned (and continue to glean) from writing mentors and experts in the field. I stray from these rules when the story I’m writing demands me to deviate. For example, in Plague of Flies: Revolt of the Spirits, 1846, my protagonist, Catalina Delgado, narrated in first person present tense. One-third through the first draft, I realized I needed a second point-of-view character to provide information only an antagonist could. Two first person point-of-view characters would have confused readers. I opted for a hybrid point-of-view, like I’d experimented with in my second novel, The Engine Woman’s Light. This approach of one first person and one third person narrator solved my problem.

Chanti: What do you do when you’re not writing? Tell us a little about yourself and your hobbies.

Hill: When I was growing up, my family was poor, and my dad was an alcoholic. Three generations resided in a two-bedroom, one-toilet rented flat in San Francisco. I wanted to attend college, but realized I’d have to earn the money to do so. I entered every essay contest open to public high school students in the city and won enough money to pay for four years of college tuition and books at San Francisco State College. In 1967, I graduated with a degree in the biological sciences. In 1978, four years after I’d left my psychologically abusive first husband for a far better man, I earned my Master of Science degree at California Polytechnic State University.

In my twenties, I loved to skin and SCUBA dive, and ride a surf mat down miles of California’s white-water river rapids. I also experimented with oil paints and underwater photography. By my early thirties, I still did skin and SCUBA periodically, painting and underwater photography, but I’d married a widower with two teenage sons and one preteen, and joyfully accepted my family responsibilities. Immediately, I expanded my cooking repertoire. All those wonderful guys loved to eat.

Back then, I worked at San Francisco General Hospital as a nuclear medicine technologist. My husband owned a cabin in the Sierra foothills, and we would spend at least one weekend a month there. Our daughter was born when I was thirty-five years old. I didn’t start writing as an adult until my early fifties. By then, our daughter was a teen, the three “boys,” long-since grown, and our cabin sold.

Aside from our annual family fishing trip, my “hiking” became mostly limited to traversing the 53-acre site where I worked in environmental health and safety. When I retired in 2008, I joined my husband on his daily walks up-and-down-the hills where we resided—up to three miles daily. Now, as a widow, my physical therapist has assigned me exercises in response to the three major falls I had a couple years ago. My “hobby” has become enjoying my amazing family and learning a path to improved health. I also serve as secretary of my high school alumni association and a member of my local Methodist church.

Chanti: That’s incredible! Paying for university by writing essays? Amazing! Thank you for sharing some of your history. How do you come up with your ideas for a story?

Hill: Since my childhood, characters (often armed with their own adventurous tales) have popped into my dreams and conscious thoughts. Up until the second or third grade, they were like imaginary friends, except I understood they weren’t real people. After that, some of them gradually morphed into a cast of characters for possible future stories. Throughout the past thirty years, characters have moved into my mind with their own stories to tell as the need arose. I’ve often said that a main character has to feel real in my head before I can make him/her/they “real” on the page. Once characters and I start communicating inside my brain, my ideas flow.

Chanti: How do you approach your writing day?

Hill: Before I retired from my job as an environmental health and safety specialist at a pharmaceutical research and development site, my writing time was early in the morning, after dinner, and/or as weekends allowed. Once retired, I wrote at the table while my beloved husband sipped coffee and read the morning paper or while he watched the evening news. I would write in-between my household, family and other obligations. After my husband passed away six years ago, my “approach to my writing day” has consisted of consulting my kitchen calendar in the morning, then deciding the best time to grab my laptop, open it and start working.

Chanti: What areas in your writing are you most confident in? What advice would you give someone who is struggling in that area?

Hill: I’ve had over thirty of my short stories published since 1995, served as the editor-in-chief for three anthology collections, and assisted in the editing of several others. I’ve also judged a number of short story contests. I love the short story as a writing medium, but caution new writers to consider the following advice before creating one: The short story is not a very, very short novel. Remember to avoid the temptation to use subplots and multiple point-of-view characters. Read a lot of short stories in your preferred genre. Reading the classics is great, but read plenty of contemporary pieces to see what’s getting published today.

Chanti: That’s great advice! What craft books have helped you the most?

Hill: You might laugh, but I vote for Writing in General, and the Short Story in Particular by L. Rust Hills, first published, I believe, in the late 1970s. I read a lot of classical literature years prior to my first attempt to write a short story as an adult. Despite my Craft of Fiction class in college, I never understood that the difference between a short story and a novel involved a lot more than length. Nor did I comprehend the ways in which the modern novel had evolved in the twentieth century. The diagrams in Orson Scott Card’s Characters and Viewpoint (1988) helped me visualize the differences between the various point-of-view options writers have. Recently, I discovered a website blog by David G. Brown that explains what I’ve been learning at conferences about point-of-view for the past ten years. [Go to: https://darlingaxe.com/blogs/news/history-of-pov.]

Chanti: Thank you for that information. Give us your best marketing tips, what’s worked to sell more books, gain notoriety, and expand your literary footprint.

Hill: I’m active in the California Writers Club and participate in their “Writers Helping Writers” outreach programs. I’ve been a program participant at many science fiction/fantasy “cons” internationally for fifteen years. I’ve run Amazon book promos, with up to 3,000 book sales (and Amazon best seller status in particular categories) over the promotional period. My most recent novel, Plague of Flies: Revolt of the Spirits, 1846, has won seventeen awards and a number of excellent professional reviews. My previous novel, The Engine Woman’s Light, won thirteen awards and received a Kirkus Star. Yet my overall book sales are not particularly impressive. At age eighty, I’m still not sure what the heck works at all, let alone the best. With luck, maybe I’ll figure it out by the time I hit ninety.

Chanti: You figure it out and let us know, okay? What are you working on now? What can we look forward to seeing next from you?

Hill: I’m writing a steampunk fantasy set in Mexico and California in the nineteenth century. Working title: Saints of Fire. In this novel, the mass murder of family members forces a Mexican woman and her two daughters to flee into hiding from the unidentified perpetrators. The spirit of her now-deceased husband seeks to identify the persons responsible for the disaster, but death has stolen most of his memory. He finds he can only communicate with his fifteen-year-old daughter. Gradually, he and his daughter start to realize he might have played a role in the horrific event.

Chanti: That actually sent chills up and down my arms! Do you ever experience writers block? What do you do to overcome it?

Hill: I have never been blocked from writing words. Writing the best words, however, can pose a challenge. Sometimes, I’ll stare at the screen, pour another cup of coffee and keep mulling over possibilities until the answer materializes in my gray matter. Other times, I’ll move to a different part of my manuscript and work there. Eventually, I’ll find my words in all the places I need them to be.

Chanti: What excites you most about writing?

Hill: The ability to combine words, ideas and art to create a piece unique to me—a dynamic adventure with authentic, engaging characters. I’m excited by the possibility of touching another human heart and changing that organ’s owner in some small yet positive way.

Chanti: What is the most important thing a reader can do for an author?

Hill: Some might say to read the author’s latest book and give it a good review on Amazon. Then recommend that book to other readers. Some might say to read multiple books by the same author. Those are both important. Yet I really hope at least a few of my readers will allow my words to touch their hearts—to encourage them to modify their thoughts and lives in a positive manner, if only in some small way.

Chanti: Here is the link to Laurel Anne’s website where you can discover her works

December 4, 2023
MARK H. NEWHOUSE – 10 Question Interview – Author’s Journey, Author Interviews, Writing Life

CHANTICLEER 10 Question Author Interview Series with

Mark H. Newhouse

We met Mark H. Newhouse in Florida where he wondered whether or not he should enter his epic historical novel into our CIBAs.

Turns out he did and he took home the GRAND PRIZE in our new Division, The SERIES Awards for The Devil’s Bookkeepers: The Noose, The Noose Tightens, and The Noose Closes. The series tells the story of what happened to the residence of Lodz, Poland, a Jewish ghetto during WWII.

Mark’s story is unique and powerful – and his unwavering sense of humor will catch you off guard!

Let’s get to it. Dear Chanticleerians, meet my friend, Award-Winning Author, Mark H. Newhouse.

Chanticleer: Tell us a little about yourself, how did you start writing?

Newhouse: I was born in Germany two years and one day after Mom was freed from Auschwitz and my father from Buchenwald. I lost my grandparents and most of my family in the Holocaust. With my parents struggling as new immigrants and in a terrible marriage, I turned to writing. My pen was a magic wand where I could make the world better. I still think of that as my goal.

Chanticleer: Wow, there’s a lot there to unpack. I cannot imagine the trauma your parents must have gone through during that horrendous time. Ultimately, I believe to have a goal of making the world a better place is the best goal one could possibly have. When did you realize you that you were an author?

Newhouse: I think of myself as a ‘struggling author’ because I learn something new every day. It is the challenge of capturing my thoughts and ideas, and learning something new, that makes this so exciting. I feel like an author when I read reviews that tell me I touched a reader’s heart and soul and made a difference in their lives.

Chanticleer: Well, you certainly touched our souls and made a difference in our lives with your series, The Devil’s Bookkeepers. Your books have won a number of awards and the series as a whole is getting many great reviews. Why did you write this series that is so different than your other work?

Newhouse: My parents never told us about what they suffered during the Holocaust. They were focused on survival as immigrants. Mom gave me a copy of The Chronicle of the Lodz Ghetto published in 1984 by Yale University Press. Reading the anonymous entries, I was shocked by the true events. I realized few people knew about this incredible story and the efforts by its controversial chairman to save the ghetto by brutally forging it into a factory for the Nazis. I had to try and write this story so my children would know what I didn’t.

“My pen was a magic wand where I could make the world better. I still think of that as my goal.” – Mark H. Newhouse

When I read chapters of The Devil’s Bookkeepers to critique clubs, they encouraged me to publish it and enter contests. I was surprised and thrilled when we won. I think the suspense and unique love story keeps people reading. Unlike many Holocaust books, it is not about death and the gas chambers, but about people searching for friendship, love, and survival, in a time of terror. When its protagonist tries to save his loved ones from the tightening Nazi noose, readers ask themselves what they would do. I asked myself that question with every page. It will haunt you.

Chanticleer: I’m glad you told that story. It needs to be told! And you did it beautifully. What do you do when you’re not writing? Tells us a little about your hobbies.

Newhouse: I get in trouble. Actually, I was an elementary school teacher who loved working with my sixth graders. I have more than one thousand of my former students on Facebook with me sharing our lives, some more than 50 years after they left my classroom. I think it says a lot about their ‘crazy’ teacher, but also about them that they still care about me. I love feeling I am helping them and others, so I lead a writing group, write the Writing Bug monthly column mailed to thirty-thousand homes, and am Florida Writers Association’s Youth Chairperson and a Board of Directors member. I keep pretty busy. I also play lousy golf, read, swim, and drive my wife crazy.

Mark and Linda relaxing.

Chanticleer: Mark – that’s just – well, remarkable! The connections you forged with your students, the care and concern you gave them, means a lot. So much that they maintain contact with you! I don’t know of many teachers that have that same influence in their students lives. Good for you! And, dude, it doesn’t look like Linda minds you driving her crazy… How do you come up with your ideas for a story?

Newhouse: I wish I knew. Ideas drop from the sky—too many–I learned to focus on one at a time. I keep ideas in a file cabinet and carry a pocket notebook to grab ideas as they hit. I get a lot of ideas from news. For example, I read about an elderly woman evicted from her home to build a parking lot and turned it into The Case of the Disastrous Dragon, where a dragon is imprisoned for burning the butts of knights evicting him from his ancestral home. Welcome to Monstrovia, an award-winning comical mystery, started out as a play I wrote for my students. Most of my books started as my way to help my students have fun while learning.

Chanticleer: I love the covers! And who wouldn’t want to read a story about a butt-burning dragon? I know I would! How structured are you in your writing work?

Newhouse: I’m usually at the computer before 6:30 in the morning and work until breakfast. I also like to write after dinner. I’m not a t.v. watcher or video game player. Instead, I sneak into my office whenever my patient wife is busy. My biggest problem is forcing myself to stick to one project at a time. I never thought I had the discipline to finish The Devil’s Bookkeepers trilogy. It was a tough challenge, three years of hard work, but worth it.

“My advice: join a critique group and be willing to learn from and help others.” – Mark H. Newhouse

Chanticleer: I’ll say! It’s important to work on your craft. What do you do to grow your author chops?

Newhouse: When I was young, I thought I had to write by myself, as if in a jail cell. As a teacher, I realized when students worked together, they learned from each other and it was more fun. I join writing groups to improve my work and help others. I attend conferences, read articles. I challenge myself by entering contests such as those offered by Chanticleer. Contest deadlines help break through Writer Block. My advice: join a critique group and be willing to learn from and help others.

Chanticleer: Ah yes, the magical thinking strikes again. Writing is writing. Many authors get wound up in the notion that everything has What do you do in your community to improve/promote literacy?

Newhouse: As an author, especially for children, I work to create positive role models. My heroes are underdogs who solve problems with courage and intelligence, not violence and magic. I try to infuse plots with humor and suspense that make children want to read.

Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes

I love visiting schools, libraries, and other institutions to share my message: “Never Give Up.” I do presentations to help people learn about the Holocaust. I want to inspire others to end hate and prejudice as well as to preserve their family histories.

I originated and am ‘Top Cat’ of a club where we collaborate on books we donate to worthy causes. Our latest, SuperBudz, promotes literacy and fights pollution. I am the Florida Writers Association Youth Chairperson and a member of the Board of Directors. We offer clubs, webinars, contests, and a professional conference to help youth writers. I write the monthly Writing Bug column promoting local authors and inspiring writing, mailed to more than 30,000 homes. I’m pretty busy but love it. It keeps me out of mischief.

Chanticleer: You are an amazing man, Mr. Newhouse. You truly are. Tell me, what drives you to write for children?

Newhouse: Being abused and bullied as a child, I want my writing to help others solve problems without violence. I try to empower children, and adults, to face life’s obstacles with hope and faith that they can overcome whatever is thrown at them with courage and intelligence. They don’t need violence and magic to do magical things with their lives.

“I love visiting schools, libraries, and other institutions to share my message: Never Give Up.” – Mark H. Newhouse

Chanticleer: I appreciate that message. Give us your best marketing tips, what’s worked to sell more books, gain notoriety, and expand your literary footprint.

Newhouse: The best advice I give authors is: Don’t sell books, sell yourself. Think of your books as helping others, educating, entertaining, them. Seeing myself as performing a public service, and not just as a book salesman, helped me overcome my marketing phobia. It also steers me to groups and media that may be interested in my contributions.

Most important: make sure your book is the best it can be. Don’t rush to publish until you have tested your work with your critique group, beta (pre-publication) readers, and have it edited. A final test: enter a contest, especially where you get impartial feedback. Nothing hurts book sales worse than a poorly edited book.

Chanticleer: That’s good advice! What are you working on now? What can we look forward to seeing next from you?

Newhouse: I just finished, My Family Secret: The Holocaust, and it won a Silver Medal from the Florida Writers Association, so now I am back writing my multi-award-winning Defenders of Monstrovia comical mysteries. In Book 5, The Case of the Cruel Cyberbullies, a teenage boy and half-human girl face danger when they must solve a tricky case in Monstrovia, a secret sector of the USA where humans are rare. Will the cyberbully get away with murder? That’s the fun of this series. It teaches law in a land of monsters and fictional characters with edge-of-the-seat suspense. I love writing these fun mysteries.

Chanticleer: They sound hysterical! Congratulations on your Silver Medal from FWA. What a treat! I do hope we get to see it in our CIBAs… Who’s the perfect reader for your book?

Newhouse: That’s easy. The perfect readers for my books are children and adults who care. My books deal with things I care about, and I try to create page-turners for people who love humor and mysteries but most importantly, care.

Chanticleer: I’m raising my hand, can you see me? What is the most important thing a reader can do for an author?

Newhouse: Buy our books. Seriously, share your thoughts or endorse our books with your reviews on Amazon, Goodreads, or with your friends. Several years ago, a boy wrote me and said, “Rockhound is my favorite human being.” Rockhound, the hero of the Rockhound Science Mysteries, is a teenage dog detective, so that got a laugh, but the best was yet to come: “I know all authors are rich so can I come and swim in your pool?” I replied, “If I had a pool, I would invite you.” I really would.

Chanticleer: Oh, that’s so sweet. I agree with you – Everyone who picks up a book and reads it needs to review it! Simple as that. Do you ever experience writers block? What do you do to overcome it?

Newhouse: I have tons of ideas waiting for me, but everyone gets WB at some point. When I get it, I enter contests with a theme. I also have a few quick-tricks. I love titles, so I shake up a Boggle or Scrabble set and see if any of the words suggest a great title. I do a ‘blind’ search in a book: flip to any page, close my eyes and see what words my finger lands on. I then form a title and brainstorm a story idea. Goodbye WB. Hey! Not a bad title.

Chanticleer: I have never thought of that. How fun! What excites you most about writing?

Newhouse: Everything. But it is the passion for my story. I care about my subject and my readers. I am excited and proud when readers write about The Devil’s Bookkeepers.

What readers are saying about The Devil’s Bookkeepers: “I could not put it down.” “It kept me reading all night.” “I felt myself choking.” “One of the most powerful books I have ever read.”

When you feel you touched someone’s heart and soul, all the sweat is worth it. I get an amazing high when I hear a child laugh at my creations. I am honored and grateful for the awards and when someone shares how my work made a difference in their life.

Chanticleer: No doubt, that is a tremendous high. I love it! What other goals do you have?

Newhouse: I would love to work with a television/film producer to create a miniseries of The Devil’s Bookkeepers. It is an important and powerful story that needs to be shared so it never happens again to anyone. Readers root for the characters and are haunted by the true events. I can visualize the scenes with powerful performances that could win awards. I know it is a long shot but am going to try and send it to agents. The awards from Chanticleer will help open the door.

Chanticleer: It absolutely will. Thank you, Mark. You are a delight and we are honored to call you friend. You truly do make the world a better place.

Newhouse: Thank you for allowing me to share my journey and books with your readers. My books are available on Amazon/Kindle. The Devil’s Bookkeepers novels are also available as wonderful audiobooks. For more information, please contact me at www.newhousecreativegroup.com.

Mark’s view – nothing short of inspirational!

Chanticleer: Well, you heard the man! Go seek out Mark H. Newhouse’s works, read them and review them. Trust me, you’ll not be sorry!

Follow Mark on Twitter

Or on Facebook!

You can order his books on Amazon or wherever good books are sold!

March 27, 2022