Here you will find the bios of the authors whose submissions have been accepted for inclusion in “Fireflies and Fairy Dust.”
Comments are welcome.
Artyv K is a writer currently living in the Bay Area, California. Her work has appeared in Madras Mag, NILVX, Obra Artifact and Chicago Literati.
Jamie McLachian is a Canadian author of the Memory Collector Series: Mind of the Phoenix (an Amazon Bestseller in Dark Fantasy), Pawn of the Phoenix, and Rise of the Phoenix. In addition to novels, Machlan writes poetry and short stories such as “The Eyes of the Heart”, which can be found in the collection Déjà You: Stories of Second Chances. When not writing, she enjoys reading, dabbling in various crafts, spending time with her husband and two sons, and letting her imagination roam with the help of great music.
Links
Shirani Rajapakse is an internationally published, award winning poet and author. She won the Cha “Betrayal” Poetry Contest 2013 and was a finalist in the Anna Davidson Rosenberg Poetry Awards 2013. Her collection of short stories Breaking News (Vijitha Yapa 2011) was shortlisted for the Gratiaen Award. Her poetry collection Chant of a Million Women was published in August 2017.
Rajapakse’s work appears in publications around the world including, Flash:The International Short-Short Story Magazine, Litro, Silver Birch, International Times, City Journal, Writers for Calais Refugees, The Write-In, Asian Signature, Moving Worlds, Citiesplus, Deep Water Literary Journal, Mascara Literary Review, Kitaab, Lakeview Journal, Cyclamens & Swords, New Ceylon Writing, Channels, Linnet’s Wings, Spark, Berfrois, Counterpunch, Earthen Lamp Journal, Asian Cha, Dove Tales, Buddhist Poetry Review, About Place Journal, Skylight 47, The Smoking Poet, New Verse News, The Occupy Poetry Project and in anthologies, Asian Short Stories (Kitaab 2017), Flash Fiction International (Norton 2015), Ballads (Dagda 2014), Short & Sweet (Perera Hussein 2014), Poems for Freedom (River Books 2013), Voices Israel Poetry Anthology 2012, Song of Sahel (Plum Tree 2012), Occupy Wall Street Poetry Anthology, World Healing World Peace (Inner City Press 2012 & 2014) and Every Child Is Entitled to Innocence (Plum Tree 2012).
She has a BA in English Literature (University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka) and a MA in International Relations (Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India).
Social Media Links
Book links
Kim Plasket is a Jersey girl at heart relocated to sunny Florida. She enjoys writing mainly horror and paranormal stories and lives with her husband and 2 kids. When she is not slaving away at her day job, she can be found drinking coffee with fellow author Valerie Willis and planning the demise of some poor character. Currently she has several short stories featured in anthologies such as ‘Demonic Wildlife’ and ‘The Hunted’ with more to come.
Social Media Links
Book Links
Robert Rogler is a lifelong admirer of science fiction and fantasy. Trulia and the Bellflower and Tamilee are his creations from a world of magic and make believe. He lives in School Hill Wisconsin with his wife Jennifer, son Logan and daughter Gabrielle. His leisure time is divided among writing fiction, surface collecting Indian arrowheads and spending time with his dogs Jolly and Bindi.
Social Media Links
Amanda Linsmeier is the author of Ditch Flowers and Beach Glass & Other Broken Things, and more. Her writing has been featured in Portage Magazine, Literary Mama, Brain, Child Magazine, and Feminine Collective. Besides writing Women’s Fiction and poetry, she loves reading and writing fables, fairytales, and fantasy, and sometimes she pretends her Hogwarts letter is still coming. She can be found blogging about writing and books at amandalinsmeier.com. When she’s not writing, she works part-time at her local library and brings home more books than she has time to read. Amanda lives in the countryside, surrounded by trees, with her family, two dogs, and two half-wild cats.
For her, writing is the best kind of magic, and her own work is heavily influenced by mysterious women, nature, and beautiful images (just check out her Pinterest for proof) and fueled with lots of iced coffee and background music. She’s the kind of monster who dog-ears book pages, and she has read her favorite book, Beauty by Robin McKinley, probably a hundred times. She loves pizza, tattoos, shopping, and pretty much anything French.
Social Media Links
Book Links
Aisha Mohamed is a recent English Literature and Creative Writing graduate who developed a love for photoshop a few years ago. She just released her ‘black girls as nature’ project and is working on something new.
Social Media Links
Joe Euclide grew up in Green Bay, Wisconsin and graduated from Premontre High School (now Notre Dame Academy).
He graduated from the University of Wisconsin with a BS degree in civil engineering and a BS degree in city planning.
Joe held positions of Village Manager and Director of Public Works, Utilities, Engineering, and Community Development for municipalities in Illinois and Wisconsin ranging in size from 15,000 to 50,000 people.
He also worked in the private sector as a design engineer, planning engineer, report coordinator, manager of engineering and has owned and managed a planning and engineering consulting business as well as working with human services departments with troubled youth.
Joe has received state and national awards for projects that he managed.
He has edited several community newsletters, writes poetry, children’s stories, humor, short stories and “The Solutionist”.
Links
Kennedy Vega is an author from southern California, where she spends most of her days working and dreaming up new story ideas. She enjoys reading all types of YA novels, but has a soft spot for epic fantasy books and fairy tale retellings. To read more of her stories
visit her wattpad account, @KVega3, and if you ever want to chat about books be
sure to follow her instagram account, @januaryrabbit.
Candice Marley Conner lives with her husband and children at the bottom of Alabama where the antebellum lady dips her toes into the Gulf of Mexico. She loves all fairytales and has to take turns with her six and four year olds on who gets to be the villain. Evil cackles have been mastered by all.
Her work can be found in Babybug Magazine, Chicken Soup for the Soul, and online at The Scarlet Leaf Review, Mothers Always Write, Mamalode, and The Good Mother Project. A PAL member of SCBWI, she blogs at candicemarleyconner.wordpress.com, tweets @candice_marleyc, and her Facebook author page is facebook.com/CMarleyConnerAuthor.
Mandy Eve-Barnett resides in Alberta, Canada but is originally from England. She is a multi-genre author and freelance writer and lives and breathes the written word and creativity in all its forms. As Secretary of her local writing group the Writers Foundation of Strathcona County, she encourages others to discover their literary craft; helps organize events, and sets a weekly prompt. Mandy is also the Vice President of the Arts and Culture Council of Strathcona County and is committed to encouraging other creative arts.
With such a diverse writing interests, you can find Mandy’s words in the Never Been Better, a page for the 55+ demographic, and e-zine, Strathcona Connect and numerous posts and content for her clients. Mandy also publishes regularly on her blog – www.mandyevebarnett.com – where she has built a writing community, sharing tips, news, interviews, and excerpts.
In September 2011, Mandy launched her first children’s book, Rumble’s First Scare – a story of a young monster discovering All Hallows Eve for the first time.
www.dreamwritepublishing.ca/retail/books/rumbles-first-scare
In August 2013, she published an adult fantasy set in medieval England, The Rython Kingdom. The story follows a storyteller to the King’s court, where he encounters a mysterious servant, a beautiful maid and is embroiled in saving the kingdom. You can opt for the e-book version from Smashwords, Amazon.com, co.uk or .ca, Barnes & Noble Nook or print from these same links or from www.dreamwritepublishing.ca
October 2014, saw the publication of Mandy’s second children’s book, Ockleberries to the Rescue for older children. It is the story of two magical sprites and their adventures helping their forest friends.
www.dreamwritepublishing.ca/products/ockleberries-rescue
A new YA book is pending for 1st October 2016 – Clickety Click. A tale of a young orphaned girl unaware, at first, of the significance of the clicking noise she keeps hearing. Watch this space for updates.
Mandy has collaborated on a couple of books too. Writing Prompt Journey – The Road to Your Creativity. Writing prompts to inspire.
** Mandy is also the President of the Arts and Culture Council of Strathcona County and is committed to encouraging other creative arts.
Also book updates:
Published – 1st October 2016 – Clickety Click. A tale of a young orphaned girl unaware, at first, of the significance of the clicking noise she keeps hearing. http://www.dreamwritepublishing.ca/retail/books/clickety-click and ebook on Smashwords and Amazon.
Published TheTwesome Loop September 29th September 2017 http://www.dreamwritepublishing.ca/retail/books/twesome-loop nd ebook on Smashwords and Amazon.
Your Lifetime of Stories – a guide book to start your memoirs
http://www.dreamwritepublishing.ca/retail/books/your-lifetime-stories
Bianca M Schwarz was born in Germany, spent her formative years in London, has a US passport and considers herself a world citizen. She lives in Los Angeles because that’s where they make movies and she used to work on them. She writes novels because that’s kind of like making a movie in people’s heads and because she just loves books. Ms Schwarz has one son, because that’s all she can handle and she tolerates her husband because, well, she loves him and there is no help for that.
After publishing A Thing Of Beauty with Penner Publishing in October of 2015, she spent some time figuring out how to promote a book. She made some friends and sold some books, but mostly waisted a lot of time on social media. Eventually she threw up her hands in despair and went back to her writing desk.
Since then, Ms Schwarz has completed the second Sir Henry mystery, She Walks In Beauty, and is currently working on a related novella and the third big mystery in the series. She also wrote a short story for the anthology Déjà You, published by Emerald Lily Publishing in May, 2017. Wicked House is her first attempt at self publishing, and she has recently submitted several of her poems for publication.
Links
Norma Bishop is an author of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction. She has written throughout her careers as an attorney and museum executive director.
A feature contributor to the Santa Barbara News-Press and Manitowoc Herald Times Reporter, she has also served as a feature contributing editor, under the pen name Jean Sinclair, for Coastal Woman Magazine, a Santa Barbara publication.
In 2009, she attended the University of Michigan Bear River Writers Conference on submission scholarship. She also attended in 2010 and 2013, working with writers Laura Kasischke, author of The Life Before Her Eyes, and Peter Ho Davies, author of The Welsh Girl, long-listed for the Man Booker Prize.
Her work has appeared in the Bear River Review in 2009, 2010, and 2013, and she has read her short fiction on Milwaukee Public Radio (Lake Effects, 2011). She recently settled in the Victorian seaport town of Port Townsend, Washington. You can follow her work at normabishop.com and her Facebook page.
Autumn Lindsey lives with her family in a deep, dark woods. Fueled by caffeine, she write
novels about vampires, runs a support group for moms who write (called Writer
Moms Inc), and sometimes writes poems if her dreams are weird enough.
Facebook: Facebook
Cara Masset has penned award-winning articles about scientists, art collectors, farmers, and globetrotters. She holds an MFA in nonfiction writing from the University of Pittsburgh and serves as a contributing editor for the university’s Pitt Med magazine. Motherhood has inspired her to write tales for the littlest listeners, and she’s grateful to Fireflies & Fairydust for publishing her kid lit debut.
Twitter: @CaraMasset
Marya Layth is a writer and an artist hailing from New Jersey. Layth’s work is driven by the desire to fill empty spaces with meaning—an obsession that leads her to the blank page and canvas time and time again. Marya has found refuge and strength in creativity since childhood; using it as a means to combat chaos and a tool to express the power of love.
More than Bread, an illustrated tale of poetry, prose, and art, is Marya’s first address to the very world she commentates on. More than Bread was published on August 16, 2017 and is available to purchase on Amazon.
Social Media Links:
Leslie Wibberley loves the written word almost as much as she loves her amazing family. Her short stories and narrative non-fiction pieces are published in online and print literary journals, magazines, and anthologies, as well as Chicken Soup for the Soul. She’s received a 6th and 8th place, an Honorable Mention, and this year a 1st place in the genre category in Writers Digest’s Annual Competitions.
Email: lawibberley@gmail.com
A. N. Moore is a 27 year old Colorado Native currently writing her first poetry book while also completing a Master’s degree in Licensed Professional Counseling. As a hopeless romantic, feminist, mental health warrior and LGBT advocate she has found her voice and her passion in writing. She currently resides in Montana with her partner and three fur babies.
Social Media:
Instagram- @anmooreword
Twitter- @anmooreword
Facebook – A. N. Moore Word
Haley Pritzl is a Concordia University student that has always been a fan of fantasy, science fiction, and supernatural stories. She is excited to say that this will be her first experience with publishing her artwork. When not writing essays and studying physiology, she can be found singing, drawing, and spending time with friends or family.
Alicia Gaile is a self-taught traditional artist and the author of YA contemporary fantasy and fairy tale retellings. After receiving a Creative Writing degree from Georgia College and State University she began writing early versions of her debut novel, Trial by Song, while living abroad in southeast Asia. She currently resides in El Paso, Texas with her family and two dogs.
Twitter: @alicia_gaile
Facebook: www.facebook.com/authoraliciagaile
Blog: aliciagaile.wordpress.com
Instagram: authoraliciagaile
Kerry E.B. Black lives along the fog-enshrouded Allegheny River where dreams are forged in steel and fought for with Yankee ingenuity. This mother of 5 would-be changelings and their menagerie of furred friend adores the wisdom of fairy tales, folk lore, and legends. Please follow Kerry’s social media sites: www.facebook.com/authorKerryE.B.Black , https://kerrylizblack.wordpress.com/ , https://twitter.com/BlackKerryblick , https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7874880.Kerry_E_B_Black
Jewel Eliese runs on lukewarm coffee and baby kisses. She is a fiction writer, editor, mother, the founder of Write away, Mommy and co-creator of the Medium publication Writer Mom. She believes every mother can write.