Archive for the ‘Author Interviews’ Category:

Pump Up Your Book Chats with Patrick Brown

Patrick Brown was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania. He graduated Magna cum Laude from Georgetown University, where he won the Morris Medal for best senior history honors thesis. He currently teaches high school social studies in the Mississippi Delta through Teach for America. His latest book is Industrial Pioneers: Scranton, Pennsylvania and the Transformation of America, 1840-1902, a detailed history account of the town of Scranton, Pennsylvania. You can visit his website at http://www.industrialpioneers.com. Thank you for this interview, Patrick.  Do you remember writing stories as a child or did the writing bug come later?  Do you remember your first published piece? I have been writing stories since I learned
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Pump Up Your Book Chats with Biographer Steven Honigberg

As author and professional cellist, Steven Honigberg, complements his biography’s subject with a musician’s ear for language and the highest technical expertise. He currently plays on a 1732 Stradivarius (the “Stuart”), holds degrees from The Juilliard School, and combined with experience writing about legendary cellists, has produced a comprehensive first biography of America’s “first cellist.” In 1984, the author was handpicked by cellist-conductor Msistlav Rostropovich to join the National Symphony Orchestra, a position he holds to this day. Within months, he graduated from college, presented his New York recital debut, appeared as soloist in Alice Tully Hall, and accepted the Washington job. And Leonard Rose died. The author’s writing
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Pump Up Chats with Donna McDine

Donna McDine is an award-winning children’s author, Honorable Mention in the 77th and two Honorable Mentions in the 78th Annual Writer’s Digest Writing Competitions. Donna’s stories and features have been published in many print and online publications and her interest in American History resulted in writing and publishing The Golden Pathway. Her second book, The Hockey Agony is under contract and will be published by Guardian Angel Publishing. She writes, moms and is the Publicist Intern for The National Writing for Children Center and Children’s Writers’ Coaching Club from her home in the historical hamlet Tappan, NY. McDine is a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers &
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Pump Up Your Book Chats with Kathryn Shay

Kathryn Shay is a lifelong writer. At fifteen, she penned her first ‘romance,’ a short story about a female newspaper reporter in New York City and her fight to make a name for herself in a world of male journalists – and with one hardheaded editor in particular. Looking back, Kathryn says she should have known then that writing was in her future. But as so often happens, fate sent her detouring down another path. Fully intending to pursue her dream of big city lights and success in the literary world, Kathryn took every creative writing class available at the small private women’s college she attended in upstate New
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Pump Up Your Book Chats with Dean DeLuke

Dr. Dean DeLuke is a graduate of St. Michael’s College, Columbia University (DMD) and Union Graduate College (MBA). He completed residency training at Long Island Jewish Medical Center and also participated in a fellowship in maxillofacial surgery at the Queen Victoria Hospital in East Grinstead, England. He currently divides his time between the practice of oral and maxillofacial surgery and a variety of business consulting activities with Millennium Business Communications, LLC, a boutique marketing, communications and business consulting firm. An active volunteer, he has served on the Boards of the St. Clare’s Hospital Foundation, the Kidney Foundation of Northeast New York, and the Albany Academy for Girls. He has
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Pump Up Chats with Anne Fortier

Anne Fortier, the author of Juliet, grew up in Denmark and emigrated to the United States in 2002 to work in film. She holds a Ph.D. in the History of Ideas from Aarhus University, Denmark, and co-produced the Emmy-winning documentary Fire and Ice: The Winter War of Finland and Russia. You can join her on www.annefortier.com and read much, much more about Juliet on www.julietbook.com. Thank you for this interview, Anne.  Do you remember writing stories as a child or did the writing bug come later?  Do you remember your first published piece? I started writing stories as soon as I learned how to write, and sent my first
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Pump Up Chats with Women’s Fiction Author Shobhan Bantwal

Shobhan Bantwal calls her writing Bollywood in a Book, commercial fiction about India, women’s issues and socio-political topics, with romantic and cultural elements. Her articles and stories have appeared in The Writer, Romantic Times, India Abroad, Little India, New Woman, and India Currents. Her short fiction has won honors/awards in contests by Writer’s Digest, New York Stories & New Woman magazines. Her debut book, The Dowry Birde, won the 2008 Golden Leaf Award. Visit her website: www.shobhanbantwal.com and her facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/ShobhanBantwal.author Thank you for this interview, Shobhan.  Do you remember writing stories as a child or did the writing bug come later?  Do you remember your first published
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Pump Up Chats with Susie Hobson

  Susie Hobson has a B.A. in Special Education and an M.S. in Rehabilitation Counseling from The University of Alabama.  She worked as a Rehabilitation Counselor for the Alabama Dept. of Rehabilitation Services for sixteen years managing a deaf/hearing-impaired and blind/vision-impaired caseload.  She retired to spend more time with her family and to write as God has called her.  She and her husband Rich have two daughters.  They live in Montgomery, Alabama.  Susie’s book, Loving God with All Your Heart, was published by Nordskog Publishing (www.nordskogpublishing.com).   Thank you for this interview, Susie.  Do you remember writing stories as a child or did the writing bug come later?  Do you remember
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Talking Virtual Book Tours with Christopher Stookey

Christopher Stookey is a physician and writer living in Laguna Beach, California.  Terminal Care, a medical mystery thriller, is his first novel.  You can visit his Amazon author page (includes blog and reader discussion) at:  http://www.amazon.com/Christopher-Stookey/e/B003UVLDI4/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0 Christopher will be on a virtual book tour with Pump Up Your Book  in September and October ’10. Visit his official tour page here. He is here with us today to give his impression of virtual book tours and online book marketing. Thank you for this interview, Chris.  Can we start out by having you tell us briefly what your new book is about? Terminal Care is a medical thriller about a new
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Leonard Rose Virtual Book Tour September ’10

Join Steven Honigberg, author of the biography, Leonard Rose: America’s Golden Age and Its First Cellist (Beckam Publications Group), as he virtually tours the blogosphere September 7 – September 30 ‘10 on his first virtual book tour with Pump Up Your Book! About Steven Honigberg As author and professional cellist, Steven Honigberg, complements his biography’s subject with a musician’s ear for language and the highest technical expertise. He currently plays on a 1732 Stradivarius (the “Stuart”), holds degrees from The Juilliard School, and combined with experience writing about legendary cellists, has produced a comprehensive first biography of America’s “first cellist.” In 1984, the author was handpicked by cellist-conductor Msistlav
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Pump Up Your Book Chats with Pamela Samuels Young

Pamela Samuels Young is a Los Angeles attorney and the author of four legal thrillers. In her latest novel, Buying Time, a disbarred attorney is unwittingly drawn into a scam targeting the terminally ill. NY Times bestselling author Sheldon Siegel describes Buying Time as “a deftly plotted thriller that combines the best of Lisa Scottoline and Robert Crais.” A former journalist, Pamela is the Fiction Expert for BizyMoms.com and is on the Board of Directors of the Southern California Chapter of Mystery Writers of America. She is a graduate of USC, Northwestern University and UC Berkeley’s Boalt Hall School of Law. To invite Pamela to your book club meeting
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Pump Up Chats with Historical Novelist Leonora Pruner

Leonora Pruner (nee Borge) was born in Dubuque, Iowa, then moved with her parents to her grandparents’ home in Pasadena, California during the Second World War.  She graduated from Westmont College in 1953 and earned an MBA from Pepperdine University in 1981.  Writing was an interest since Junior High School and became a serious occupation as her children grew.  What began as a bit of research evolved into an exotic decade of living in Maldives, the middle of the Indian Ocean, with a Maldivian family, and teaching school there.  Her son and daughter have given her 13 grandchildren and 5 great-grandchildren.  Currently she lives with her daughter’s family in
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Pump Up Your Book Chats with Author Tom Graneau

Tom Graneau is the author of Renters Win, Home Owners Lose: Revealing the Biggest Scam in America. Lately, he spent roughly ten years as a financial management coach, conducting workshops and private consultations for people in the military, government agencies, and the civilian community. His first book, Are You Financially Checkmate?, was published in 2005 and is now being revised. Q: Thank you for this interview, Tom.  Do you remember writing stories as a child or did the writing bug come later?  Do you remember your first published piece? Unlike many authors who started their writing career early, mine did not begin until my mid-forties. It came as a
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Pump Up Your Book Chats with Jonathan Williams

Jonathan Williams served as a missionary with the International Mission Board’s Xtreme Team in the jungles of Peru for two years. It was there, lying under a mosquito net in a hut in the middle of the Amazon Jungle, that Williams began to write his first novel, Jungle Sunrise.  Living with a previously unreached indigenous tribe, the Amarakaeri, Williams experienced first-hand the beauty and danger of native life as he had the opportunity to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ, hunt with bows and arrows, fish with spears, navigate the rivers, and encounter every aspect of the tribe’s culture. This breathtaking scene of the Amazon serves as the backdrop for Jungle
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Pump Up Your Book Chats with Maya Jax

Loving spy and mystery novels, Maya Jax entertained the idea of being a secret agent and started working at an embassy overseas while doing her master’s in international relations.  During this time, she finished her first screenplay, an action/thriller about spies and nuclear weapons.  She pitched it to a friend in Hollywood, who told her she had talent, but to never – ever – show anyone the script again.  Realizing her love for writing was stronger than her desire to spy and fight crime, she attempted a second screenplay focusing on what she knew best — trying to make it as a writer.  The screenplay turned into a manuscript
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Pump Up Your Book Chats with Sharon Donovan

Sharon Donovan lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with her family. Prior to the loss of her vision, she was a legal secretary for the Court of Common Pleas where she prepared cases for judges in Domestic Relations. Painting was her passion. When she could no longer paint, a new dream arose. Today, instead of painting her pictures on canvas, Sharon paints her pictures with words. Mask of the Betrayer is her latest book. Other books by Sharon Donovan are Echo of a Raven, Touched by an Angel, The Claddagh Ring and Lasting Love. Echo of a Raven is a CTRR award and The Claddagh Ring is a 2009 nominee for
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Pump Up Your Book Chats with Dr. Harry Saranchak

Dr. Harry J. Saranchak earned a B.A. degree cum laude from Georgetown and followed it with an M.D. from University of Connecticut School of Medicine. For 30 years he was a vascular and general surgeon in three Connecticut hospitals, and for 25 of those he was also educator and mentor to medical students, residents and colleagues—while receiving eight Golden Scalpel awards for teaching excellence. A Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, Dr. Saranchak co-authored seven medical journal articles from 1974 to 1984. After retiring from his private practice at Grove Hill Medical Center in New Britain , CT , he wrote Betrayals of Hippocrates. You can visit his
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Pump Up Your Book Chats with Kim Baccellia

Kim Baccellia has always been a sucker for the paranormal. She blames it on her families’ love for such things such as having picnics at cemeteries, visiting psychics, and reading her mother’s copies of the daily horoscope. She even had her own horoscope column in middle school, which was a big hit! Kim’s other works include the poem, “My Father”, which appears in the anthology Mind Mutations, published by The Sun Rising Press. Her essay about the adoption of her son, Finally, Our Turn, appeared in Adoptive Families magazine. Her YA multicultural fantasy, Earrings of Ixtumea, is published by Virtual Tales and available now at Amazon. A member of
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Pump Up Your Book Chats with Jackie M. Johnson

Jackie M. Johnson is an author and freelance writer. Her first book, Power Prayers for Women, has sold nearly 200,000 copies. She has also written articles, poetry, and hundreds of devotionals for Focus on the Family’s Renewing the Heart website, and was a contributor to A Cup of Comfort, coauthored by James Stuart Bell and Carol McLean Wilde. A native of Milwaukee, Jackie lives in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Visit her encouragement blog, A New Day Café, at anewdaycafe.blogspot.com or her website,  www.jackiejohnsoncreative.com. Jackie’s latest book is When the Love Ends and the Ice Cream Carton is Empty (Moody May 2010). Thank you for this interview, Jackie. Do you remember
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  • October 5, 2009
  • Author Interviews, Featured
  • Comments Off on Talking Virtual Book Tours with Young Adult Fantasy Author Melissa Burmester

Talking Virtual Book Tours with Young Adult Fantasy Author Melissa Burmester

Melissa Burmester is presently living in East Moriches, NY with her twin brother George, her parents and their cat Cosmo. Melissa has been writing about vampires and the supernatural since the age of twelve. She has written a few short stories, but Ginger High is her first novel.  She is presently attending Westhampton Beach High School, and is in the tenth grade. She is planning a career as a writer and a teacher.  You can visit her website at www.gingerhigh.com or her blog at www.melissa-gingerhigh.blogspot.com. Melissa will be on a virtual book tour with Pump Up Your Book Promotion Virtual Book Tours in October and is here with us
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