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Explore every episode of the podcast Stark Reflections on Writing and Publishing

Dive into the complete episode list for Stark Reflections on Writing and Publishing. Each episode is cataloged with detailed descriptions, making it easy to find and explore specific topics. Keep track of all episodes from your favorite podcast and never miss a moment of insightful content.

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TitlePub. DateDuration
EP 416 - The Irony of a Woefully Inadequate Imposter Syndrome16 May 202500:31:28

That pervasive feeling of self-doubt and insecurity you believe you are not deserving of your achievements and fear being exposed as a fraud known as imposter syndrome is especially common among writers and other creatives who often grapple with the vulnerability inherent in sharing their work with the world.

But perhaps your imposter syndrome is actually a positive sign about your progression as a writer.

That's the topic of this solo episode in which Mark reflects upon that.

This episode is sponsored by an affiliate link to Manuscript Report. Use code MARK5 at checkout and save $5.00 off your own personalized report.

Links of Interest:

 

The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

EP 415 - April Showers Bring May Reflections09 May 202500:42:37

In this solo episode Mark shares a personal update and some reflections about writing, publishing, and some marketing ideas.

This episode is sponsored by an affiliate link to Manuscript Report. Use code MARK5 at checkout and save $5.00 off your own personalized report.

Links of Interest:

 

The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

EP 406 - How Authors Can Engage With Their Library14 Mar 202500:55:21

In this solo episode Mark shares an excerpt from his forthcoming book A BOOK IN HAND: Strategies for Optimizing Print Book Sales via Signings and Other In Person Events.

Prior to the main content, Mark shares a brief personal update and a word about this episode's sponsor.

Learn more about Toronto Indie Author Conference 2025 here.

The content for this episode is an excerpt from the work in progress: A BOOK IN HAND.

Links of Interest:

 

The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

EP 316 - Free Your Inner Non-Fiction Writer with Johanna Rothman27 Jul 202300:49:29

Mark interviews Johanna Rothman about her latest book FREE YOUR INNER NON-FICTION WRITER.

Prior to the interview, Mark shares a personal update and a word about this episode's sponsor

This episode is sponsored by Mark's new book Yippee Ki-Yay Motherf*cker: A Trivia Guide to Die Hard.

In the interview, Mark and Johanna talk about:

  • Why Johanna is often called The Pragmatic Manager
  • The thirty-years of consulting that Johanna has experience with
  • The fact that she is not a "natural writer"
  • Beginning to write in 1997 because she realized that speaking only wasn't a great way to market her business as a consultant
  • Advice Johanna received from Gerald Weinberg
  • How Johanna began to write short fiction in 2016
  • Being involved in the early days of "Agile" development
  • Why Johanna recommends writing in 15 minute chunks for non-fiction
  • Who the idea reader is for Johanna's book FREE YOUR INNER NONFICTION WRITER
  • How to keep a business-related blog interesting
  • How writing non-fiction includes universal story elements: "a person in a situation with a problem"
  • The "write fast to write well" concept
  • The importance of maintaining your voice
  • Why Johanna writes a question of the week on her blog
  • The book Obliquity by John Kay and how detours might help us better in the long run
  • Advice Johanna would offer to writers for getting better at their own non-fiction writing
  • And more...

After the interview Mark reflects on the importance of your author voice as well as the divergent ways you sometimes find your way to your destination.

Links of Interest:

 

Johanna Rothman, known as the “Pragmatic Manager,” offers frank advice for your complex problems. She helps leaders and teams learn to see practical alternatives that help them achieve more agility in their work. With that knowledge, they can choose what—and how—to adapt their product development.

For almost three decades, Johanna has helped her clients experiment with agile and lean alternatives for every piece of their product development. As a result, her clients create more management agility which translates to better business results.

A prolific writer, Johanna is the author of 18 books and hundreds of articles about many aspects of product development. She uses her trademark practicality and humor to focus on what people can do—and not take herself too seriously.

 

The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

EP 315 - Rambling Reflections from the Road - Part 121 Jul 202300:48:09

In this solo episode Mark reflects on being overly stressed about having too much on his plate, and what seemed to have helped him deal with that.

This episode is sponsored by patrons of the Stark Reflections Podcast.

Links of Interest:

 

The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

EP 314 - Defeating Writer's Block Using Penspyre with David Olive Jr.13 Jul 202300:50:55

Mark interviews David Olive, Jr (AKA David Grimdark) author and one of the engineers behind Penspyre a tool to help writers tackle writer's block and productivity.

Prior to the interview, Mark shares a brief personal update, comments from recent episodes, and word about this episode's sponsor.

You can learn more about how you can get your audiobooks distributed to retailers and library systems around the world at starkreflections.ca/Findaway.

In the interview, Mark and David talk about:

  • David's love of reading as a young child and his love of fantasy novels
  • Begining to read eBooks on a dedicated reader, and reading Webnovels
  • Starting to write when interning in University
  • Putting some of his work up on Wattpad
  • The Systems Design Engineering program David recently graduated from at University of Waterloo
  • The final year project that David and his fellow engineering students put together, which resulted in Penspyre
  • The procedural documentation of identifying problems related to the writing process
  • Reaching out to local writers from the Cambridge Writer's Group as part of their research and investigation
  • Learning the Google Spring method
  • How Pensypre offers up AI-generated writing prompts to help a writer with their productivity
  • The research they'd done with writers leading them to believe they didn't want a tool that would give them something they'd take word for word but that they needed something to help "get the ball rolling."
  • The metrics they looked at for their research with how writers engaged with the tool
  • Their study's results showing that writers typically wrote 15% more in a 20 minute writing sprint using the tool than when not using the tool
  • How Pensyre is a tool David wanted to make as much for himself as for other writers
  • The "Continue the Story" option where you can focus on action, dialogue, or inner thoughts of the characters with various styles or moods
  • The "Link the story" feature for briding two different scenes or moments or actions together
  • The "Describe" function that allows you to draw upon one or more of the five senses
  • Penspyre's availability as a Google Docs extension
  • How writers during the test kept the prompts unedited about 15% of the time
  • The element of the software that suggests the level of "originality" score to the prompt
  • Advice David would offer to beginning writers
  • David's thoughts on why writers shouldn't be afraid of this new technology

 

After the interview Mark shares a few of his own reflections, thanks Patrons for their support and reminds them there'll be a video walk-thru of Penspyre available for them at www.patreon.com/starkreflections.

 

Links of Interest:

 

David Olive Jr is a recent graduate from the University of Waterloo, Canada who has a passion for reading and writing fiction. As an aspiring writer he and some classmates decided to try and tackle writing productivity as their final year design project. The result was Penspyre, a tool that utilizes AI to give the writer contextualized writing prompts and help them be more productive.

 

 

The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

EP 313 - Pioneering In Digital Indie Publishing with Peter M. Ball06 Jul 202301:00:09

Mark interviews author, publisher and RPG gamer Peter M. Ball who has been engaged in experimental and digital publishing since the very beginning of its appearance in the book industry.

Prior to the interview, Mark shares a word about this episode's sponsor.

You can learn more about how you can get your audiobooks distributed to retailers and library systems around the world at starkreflections.ca/Findaway.

In the interview, Mark and Peter talk about:

  • Peter being a night owl who is most comfortable starting to write at about 10 PM at night and working through the night
  • How, through necessity with a regular life schedule, Peter will get the writing done first thing in the morning
  • Peter having wanted to be a writer since he was quite young
  • The way that most of the work he has taken on in his life has been somehow affiliated with the writing world
  • Describing the Gold Coast of Australia as Miami with slightly less charm
  • The undergraduate degree focus which mostly avoided genre fiction
  • How you can never escape poetry once you've done it, even years later being introgued as "Peter the Poet"
  • How in the early 2000s Dungeons and Dragons open-sourced their rules, allowing people to provide material within their realm
  • Getting involved in DriveThruFiction back in 2005
  • The hunger for content that came out in that time period
  • How changes in the RPG industry that happened were later echoed a few years later in the eBook fiction publishing space
  • The issues Peter recognized in 2006 in creating role playing game material where somebody else held the licensce for it
  • Challenges of submitting fiction to markets from a country like Australia
  • Spending six weeks at an Australian branch of the Clarion Writers Workshop and how that dramatically changed the perspective forced on him from his university education
  • Continuing to submit his fiction to the traditional markets but paying attention to what was going on in the self-publishing, digital publishing, and indie publishing space
  • Launching Brain Jar Press in 2017 largely as a vehicle for publishing his backlist
  • Why cutting your teeth in short fiction can be great
  • Having a plan to indie publish his own books for about ten years, make all the mistake on his own books, rather than someone elses, and getting solid learning and experience from it to benefit his press
  • Working with Kathleen Jennings on a poetry collection right at about the time her first book with Tor went huge
  • The idea for a series of short chapbooks with four or five essays per writer in order to bring these remarkable articles the authors had already written back into availability
  • Borrowing the cultural capital of all the people they're publishing so that they can grow and eventually launch new writers
  • How Peter fell in love with print quite accidentally
  • The requirement of having to have an online store for the press
  • The joke that it's cheaper to get things to Narnia than it is to get them to Australia
  • The thought exercise Peter does regarding how many books he has to sell to make it to $100
  • Understanding the market base that you're likely selling to as a small specialized indie press
  • Peter's impatience for just replicating what midlist are publishing is doing in the face of such wonderful, free, and dynamic digital tools when one can be breaking the model, expanding, and forming new ideas and new products
  • ether Peter has been doing much of his own writing since launching Brain Jar Press 2.0
  • The flash fiction writing Peter has been able to do during a few 8 minute breaks at work
  • What Peter is most optimistic about with what's happening in the publishing world now
  • And more...

 

After the interview Mark reflects on Peter working in publishing and writing related realms, the value of connecting with others in the industry, and Peter's thirst for innovation and experimentation within digital publishing.

 

Links of Interest:

 

Peter M. Ball is an author, publisher, and RPG gamer whose love of speculative fiction emerged after exposure to The Hobbit, Star Wars, David Lynch’s Dune, and far too many games of Dungeons and Dragons before the age of 7. He’s spent the bulk of his life working as a creative writing tutor, with brief stints as a performance poet, gaming convention organiser, online content developer, non-profit arts manager, and d20 RPG publisher.

Peter’s three biggest passions are fiction, gaming, and honing the way aspiring writers think about the business and craft of writing, which led to a five-year period working for Queensland Writers Centre as manager of the Australian Writers Marketplace and convenor of the GenreCon writing conference. He is now pursuing a PhD in Writing at the University of Queensland, exploring the poetics of series fiction and their response to emerging publishing technologies.

He’s the author of the Miriam Aster series and the Keith Murphy Urban Fantasy Thrillers, three short story collections, and more stories, articles, poems, and RPG material than he’d care to count. He’s one-half of Brain Jar Press with his partner, Sarah, publishes his own work under the Eclectic Projects imprint, and resides in Brisbane, Australia, with his wife and two very affectionate cats.

 

 

The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

EP 312 - The Dialogue Doctor Will See You Know With Jeff Elkins30 Jun 202301:05:03

Mark interviews Jeff Elkins about his writing, about dialogue and character voice, about his new book The Dialogue Doctor Will See You Now, and more . . .

Prior to the interview, Mark shares the winners of the complimentary tickets to BookMARCon, the surprise winners of complimentary pizza, a personal update, and a word from this episode's sponsor.

You can learn more about how you can get your audiobooks distributed to retailers and library systems around the world at starkreflections.ca/Findaway.

During their conversation Mark and Jeff talk about:

  • Jeff's "nickname" as "The Dialogue Doctor" as well as his background as a writer
  • What Jeff has seen in the past eight years that he has been involved in the indie author space
  • The latest novel Jeff released in March 2023 co-authored with J.P. Rindfleisch called NRDS: National Recently Deceased Services which is described as "Ghostbusters meets The Office"
  • The first collaboration Jeff had done with his best friend years ago
  • Wanting to reengage in and looking for a way to give back to the author community in 2020
  • Adapting what he does professionally, training professionals in difficult conversations, and leveraging that to help authors apply those skills to their writing
  • Doing more than 200 1:1 sessions since 2020 with authors to help them with their dialogue
  • Liking helping writers perhaps more than he even likes writing
  • The Dialogue Doctor community that seems to operate as a problem-solving community
  • Jeff's book The Dialogue Doctor Will See You Now, coming July 1, 2023
  • The structure of the book, which is hear the problem, learn the philosophy and the strategy for fixing it, then do a reading challenge, then a writing challenge
  • The emotional journey a character goes on and the emotional shape of stories
  • How you can have all the right plot points but not have the right emotional journey and the reader will disconnect from it
  • Replacing the words hero, alley, and villain with terms like vehicle (the point of view character), the engines (characters who help move them forward), the anchors (those who weigh the vehicle down or bring out the worst versions of the vehicle)
  • If you need the character to struggle, put them in scenes with their anchor
  • If you want a big emotional moment where the character has to make an emotional choice, have the character enacting upon the influence of the anchor, then introduce the engine into that scene
  • How when we talk about dialogue we're really talking about overall character interaction
  • Building a character voice and ways of building a dynamic cast around a character where they can all build upon one another
  • The difference between segments and scenes
  • Jeff's "Apple a day" style advice for writers
  • And more...

After the interview Mark reflects on dialogue being one important aspect of overall character interaction, the readers emotional journey, and the value in helping other authors.

Links of Interest:

 

Jeff Elkins coaches authors and podcasts as the Dialogue Doctor. Since launching the Dialogue Doctor in 2020, he's held over 200 1-on-1 coaching sessions with authors focused on helping them improved their dialogue. In addition to 12 novels, Jeff is the author of The Dialogue Doctor Will See You Now: How to Write Dialogue and Characters Readers Will Love -- a primer on how to write great dialogue, dynamic character voices, and powerful casts of characters.

 

The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

EP 311 - Being A Career Self-Publishing Author with Lindsay Buroker22 Jun 202300:47:23

Mark interviews Lindsay Buroker, a full-time independent fantasy and science fiction author who has written over a hundred novels, appeared on the USA Today bestseller list, and has been twice nominated for a Goodreads Readers' Choice Award.

Prior to the interview, Mark shares an extremely short personal update, and a word from this episode's sponsor.

You can learn more about how you can get your audiobooks distributed to retailers and library systems around the world at starkreflections.ca/Findaway.

During their conversation Mark and Lindsay talk about:

  • Lindsay's first appearance on the Stark Reflections Podcast, back in December 2018
  • The last time they saw one another in person, back in Vegas at 20BooksVegas a few months prior to the global pandemic
  • Lindsay's start in self-publishing, which started just prior to Christmas in 2010
  • How she had been about to hit the publishing button for her first book when she received an offer back from an agent - and she decided to just go ahead and hit that "publish" button
  • Using Podiobooks to release the first three books in audio for free
  • Doing a Kickstarter to pay for the audiobook production back in 2012
  • What it was like self-publishing back in 2010 through 2013
  • Writing in different genres, the various experiences of doing that, and the surprising number of readers who willingly follow her on this journey
  • Listening to her fans, but actually responding more to sales than to requests from her readers
  • The writing, editing, proofreading, betareading, publishing process Lindsay loops through
  • Always being aware of the possibility that the sales and consistent income might not always be there
  • Launching books to her fans "direct" via Patreon prior to pushing them into KDP Select
  • How an introvert like Lindsay can deal with being in such high demand from the author community and the reader community
  • Pseudo-retiring the weekly schedule of The Six Figure Author Podcast and considering doing an episode once every quarter
  • Books that Lindsay would recommend new readers might want to start with
  • Advice Lindsay has for authors who prefer to "follow the muse"
  • And more...

After the interview Mark reflects on a few things about Lindsay's unique journey as well as how much he enjoyed returning to her books as a reader.

Links of Interest:

 

Lindsay Buroker is a full-time independent fantasy and science fiction author who loves travel, hiking, tennis, and vizslas. She's written over a hundred novels, appeared on the USA Today bestseller list, and has been twice nominated for a Goodreads Readers' Choice Award.

 

The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

EP 310 - Book Marketing and BookMARCon with Dana Claire15 Jun 202300:57:08

Mark interviews Dana Claire, an award-winning author and the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Book Brush about her writing, about Book Brush, and about the virtual BookMARCon conference.

Prior to the interview, Mark shares comments from recent episodes and a word from this episode's sponsor.

 

You can find out more about BookMARCon at https://bookbrush.com/bookmarcon/

During their conversation, Mark and Dana talk about:

  • Dana's background as a creative person as a writer, including the influence of her mother, an English teacher, and her college experience
  • Joining forces with her mother who wanted to write a children's book, and Dana who wanted to write an adult book - and the resulting young adult book they decided upon
  • Losing her mother unexpectedly, and then honoring her mother's memory by releasing the book the had planned on
  • Some of the issues and errors Dana made when publishing her first book (The Connection)
  • Dana's experience and background doing marketing and promotions for major companies
  • Being an author who has both traditionally published and self-published
  • Dana's belief in conferences and how important that has been to her author career
  • Pitching her novel to fourteen different publishers at a conference, and how it got picked up because of this
  • What Book Brush is - online software to make promotional images for books, including 3D versions of the books, within thousands of images that place it in specific settings and environments
  • How Book Brush is updated weekly and there's always something new available for writers to take advantage of
  • The way Book Brush can be very community driven so that authors don't feel so lonely
  • What BookMARCon is (a three day virtual event - August 11 through 13, 2023), the origin of it, and how that MAR stands for MARKETING. (Book Marketing Con)
  • The agent pitches that will be a part of this virtual conference
  • The importance of the "personality fit" that can happen between authors and agents
  • Self-publishing a book that her agent didn't want to pick up, and how that led to it winning an award and also being involved in a few things Dana isn't yet able to publicly talk about
  • Her novel Sideliners being optioned for TV because Hunterland was optioned for television
  • How self-published titles can help sell more of an author's traditionally published titles and vice versa
  • More about the various topics that'll be covered during BookMARCon
  • Heart-felt advice that Dana received from an agent during a meeting where the book she'd pitched was rejected and how that stayed with her and kept her motivated
  • The $199 USD registration fee for this conference
  • The Early Bird special registrants can get at the price of $149 until the end of July
  • How you can get $50 off the conference registration using code MARK50
  • Advice that Dana would offer to other writers
  • And more...

 

After the interview Mark reflects on the importance of conferences to a writer's career, particularly from the networking and connections made there, Dana's great advice for writers, and the unique way that Dana signs her emails to authors as the company's COO.

 

Links of Interest:

 

 

Dana Claire is an award-winning author and also serves as the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Book Brush, overseeing the company's daily operations, spearheading strategic initiatives, and expanding the platform's offerings. With her experience as an author, Dana brings a unique perspective to Book Brush, enabling her to empathize with the needs of the community and provide tailored solutions. With nearly two decades of experience in marketing and sales, she is well-equipped to bridge the gap between traditional marketing and the literary world. Dana currently resides in sunny Los Angeles, California with her biggest fan, her husband.

 

The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 

EP 309 - From Zero to Four Figures with Paul Austin Ardoin08 Jun 202300:57:03

Mark interviews Paul Austin Ardoin about his new book From Zero to Four Figures: Making $1,000 a Month Self-Publishing Fiction.

Prior to the interview, Mark welcomes new patrons, shares comments from recent episodes and a word from this episode's sponsor.

You can learn more about how you can get your audiobooks distributed to retailers and library systems around the world at starkreflections.ca/Findaway.

During their conversation Mark and Paul talk about:

  • How Paul has wanted to be a novelist since he was six years old
  • University being all about literary fiction, and never finishing that "great American novel" he kept trying to write
  • The way that writing a genre he was passionate about (mystery) was what made the major difference for Paul
  • Paul's wife giving him a great idea for a main character, a former nurse who becomes a county coroner
  • The fact that there are distinct seasons in Milwaukee
  • Paul being a pantser, or discovery writer
  • How literary fiction didn't gell with Paul's writing style
  • What is really meant by the "write what you know" advice from writing
  • Some mistakes that can be made related to missing some of the important tropes in one's writing
  • How Paul always approaches writing mysteries as a "pantser" or "discovery writer"
  • One of the pitfalls of "pantsing" a mystery novel
  • Making a lot of mistakes in the past five years, and being sure to include that in his new book for writers
  • The definite plan that Paul believes that many authors can put into place to get to $1000 a month
  • How Paul approached writing this book as something that just didn't seem to exist for writers, offering them a way they could approach it, including an important mindset shift
  • The value of series to a reader not having to go through the process of "finding something to read next"
  • The importance of setting a more reachable goal such as $1000 a month rather than the commonly shared much higher revenue goals often pushed on writers
  • Reader expectations and why it's such an important element for writers to pay attention to
  • The marketing pitfall authors can fall into when they believe their book is unique and "defies" genre
  • Sharing the many mistakes Paul has made as an author in this book
  • The important question about how readers are going to find your books
  • Paul's "Costco" analogy of book marketing
  • Focusing on the entry point novel
  • How the "freebee seekers" are a part of the business
  • The timeline that Paul lays out for this author journey
  • Thinking about your first book as an advertisement rather than as your baby
  • A few of the elements that are a part of this book that are mostly lacking in many of the books out there for writers
  • The power of being able to make changes
  • Advice Paul wish he'd had when he was first starting out
  • And more . . .

After the interview Mark shares a few reflections about things that came up in the conversation.

 

Links of Interest:

 

 

Paul Austin Ardoin is the USA TODAY bestselling indie author of The Fenway Stevenson Mysteries and The Woodhead & Becker Mysteries. He holds a B.A. in creative writing from the University of California, Santa Barbara and an M.B.A. in marketing from the University of Phoenix. His book Zero to Four Figures: Making $1,000 a Month Self-Publishing Fiction was published in June 2023.

 

The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 

EP 308 - Historical Fiction Inspired by Real People with C. C. Humphreys06 Jun 202300:53:51

Mark interviews, actor and writer C. C. Humphreys about his new novel Some Day I'll Find You.

Prior to the interview, Mark shares a word from this episode's sponsor.

You can learn more about how you can get your audiobooks distributed to retailers and library systems around the world at starkreflections.ca/Findaway.

During the interview Mark and Chris talk about:

  • Chris's new epic romance saga novel Some Day I'll Find You and how it's partly based on his own parents
  • Having to imagine his parents in their early 20s in the precarious situations they found themselves in
  • How this novel related to Chris's previous historical novel from the same era, Chasing the Wind
  • The common theme of "characters in peril" in Chris's novels
  • The consistent question of "what would I have done" during this significant era of history as well as in situations taking place around the world even today
  • How the spark for a novel always begins with story and characters
  • The various ways that Chris conducts research for different historical periods that he writes about
  • The book All the Fine Young Eagles: In the Cockpit with Canada's Second World War Fighter Pilots by David L Bashow which contained beautiful details about Canadian fighter pilots
  • The playlist Chris compiled related to songs that were a part of the research he did into that era
  • The book launches Chris will be doing when in Toronto (June 7th at Noonan's Pub) and Perth (June 9th at 7 PM at The Book Nook), then at Book Warehouse (Vancouver) on the 14th, as well as the free stage show in Toronto
  • Tips Chris would provide for authors who are preparing to do a reading of their work
  • How Chris enjoys doing launches at pubs and the live reading Chris did from the 5th oldest pub in England in the summer of 2022
  • A potential additional novel idea set in this same universe that Chris has been noodling over
  • Chris's fascination with the ambiguity of war
  • Advice that Chris would offer to beginning writers
  • And more...

After the interview Mark reflects on those historic moments when people had to take a stand, as well as the idea of hosting a book-related event at a pub or other typically non-bookish locale.

Links of Interest:

 

 

Chris (C.C.) Humphreys - born in Toronto, raised in London - has played Hamlet in Calgary, a gladiator in Tunisia, waltzed in London’s West End, conned the landlord of the Rovers Return in Coronation Street, patrolled the Sun Hill beat in The Bill, commanded a starfleet in Andromeda, voiced Salem the cat in the original Sabrina, and is a dead immortal in Highlander. He is also a playwright, audiobook narrator, creative writing teacher and award-winning author of historical fiction and fantasy. He has written twenty two novels including The French Executioner, The Jack Absolute Trilogy, Vlad-The Last Confession, A Place Called Armageddon, Shakespeare’s Rebel, Chasing the Wind and his recent modern thriller, One London Day. Plague won the Arthur Ellis Award for Best Crime Novel. He has been translated into thirteen languages. His fantasy work includes The Runestone Saga and the recently published high epic series Immortals’ Blood beginning with Smoke in the Glass. His other fantasy series, The Tapestry Trilogy, has just been re-launched beginning with The Hunt of the Unicorn. This Summer sees the publication of his WW2 thriller, Someday I’ll Find You. He lives on Salt Spring Island, BC. Visit him at: https://www.authorchrishumphreys.com/

 

The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 

EP 307 - Autism, ADHD, Neurodiversity, and Divergent Realms with Ridley Odell02 Jun 202300:47:40

Mark interviews Riley Odell, an autistic writer of horror, humor, and bizarro stories. As an autism/neurodiversity advocate, Riley is working on a speculative fiction anthology about neurodiverse characters written by neurodiverse writers called Divergent Realms: Speculative Stories About Neurodiversity.

Prior to the interview, Mark shares a personal update and a word from this episode's sponsor.

You can learn more about how you can get your audiobooks distributed to retailers and library systems around the world at starkreflections.ca/Findaway.

During their conversation, Mark and Riley talk about:

  • How Riley first started off writing by creating silly comic strips back in the third grade, moving to prose fiction by the time he was about twelve years old, and has pretty much been writing ever since
  • Years of working on various unfinished projects, but having found a groove just a few years ago
  • The ways in which his wife has helped Riley with his writing
  • Riley's two short story collections (Vile Visions and Odd Ordeals) and his novella entitled My Weird Nightmare Baby
  • How landing on the title Vile Visions felt perfect
  • Being drawing to writing speculative fiction because Riley has long been a reader of those genres
  • Inspiration from the world for writing horror and the types of horror that appear in Vile Visions
  • How comedy and horror work on two different sides of the same coin
  • The anthology Riley is reading for and publishing, Divergent Realms, and how it was inspired
  • Why a call for neuro-divergent writers only is important
  • The honor system for submissions that include a cover letter explaining how neurodiversion applies to them
  • The types of stories Riley is hoping to receive for the anthology
  • The submission window (June 1, 2023 until the last day of August 2023), the story length requested (2000 to 5000 words)
  • Where, online more can be found out about this anthology (horrortree.com) and the email to send submissions to (divergentrealmsanthology@gmail.com) and what payment will be offered for submissions
  • Riley's connection to the Odell Brewery in Fort Collins, CO (which Mark nerds out on)
  • How Riley will be doing a bit of work with Melissa Dalton-Martinez of The Book Break
  • The expected timeline for the release of the anthology, which is spring 2024
  • How writing with Autism and ADHD is never made easier, but can sometimes be made easier, including strategies like taking a lot of basic writing advice with a grain of salt
  • How forcing yourself to write when you're not ready to write can create a negative association with writing which makes things worse
  • Advice Riley would offer to other writers
  • And more...

 

After the interview Mark reflects on Riley taking a solid DIY ethic to fix a hole in the publishing world, as well as the importance of adapting advice into something that works best for YOU in your particular situation.

 

Links of Interest:

 

 

RIley Odell is an autistic writer of horror, humor, bizarro and stories about autism. He is the author of the books Vile Visions, Odd Ordeals and My Weird Nightmare Baby. As an autism/neurodiversity advocate, Riley is working on a speculative fiction anthology about neurodiverse characters written by neurodiverse writers called Divergent Realms: Speculative Stories About Neurodiversity.

 

The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 

 

 

EP 405 - Ask Not What Your Bookstore Can Do For You07 Mar 202500:35:31

In this solo episode Mark shares an excerpt from his forthcoming book A BOOK IN HAND: Strategies for Optimizing Print Book Sales via Signings and Other In Person Events.

This episode is sponsored by Superstars Writing Seminars: Teaching you the business of being a writer which takes place in early Feb 2026 in Colorado Springs, CO.

Use code: STARK100 to get $100 off your registration.

Links of Interest:

 

The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

EP 306 - Finding Markets for Short Fiction with Angelique Fawns25 May 202300:56:42

Mark interviews Angelique Fawns about her writing as well as the intel she provides on short fiction markets for other writers.

Prior to the interview, Mark shares a word about this episode's sponsor.

You can learn more about how you can get your audiobooks distributed to retailers and library systems around the world at starkreflections.ca/Findaway.

During their discussion, Mark and Angelique talk about:

  • Angelique's background in freelance writing, journalism and her 25 years working in corporate television
  • What Global TV is, for the benefit of non-Canadians
  • Her preference for not having to be constrained by the truth, which led to her passion for fiction over non-fiction/journalism
  • Some of the logistics of doing promotional short videos for Global TV
  • The silver lining of shattering her ankle and how it led to finally sitting down and writing fiction
  • Entering the fiction world in 2018 and not being able to find markets for selling short fiction
  • Writing in active present tense because of her background in broadcast
  • The work Angelique does finding and sharing information about markets for short fiction for other writers
  • The Guide of All Guides market listing that Angelique has published based on the research she has done
  • "Re-printing" her short fiction via her "Read me a Nightmare" podcast
  • How working with an editor (Scott from DreamForge) helped Angelique revise a good story into a great story
  • Balancing working a full time job, managing a farm, and having an active family life along with writing
  • Not buying the idea that there's no money in short fiction
  • The fickleness of luck in a writer's life and how the harder you work and the more lightning rods you plant, the more likely the right luck will happen
  • The consistent message of "I think I'm successful because I didn't give up" from many of the world's most known and successful writers
  • How what looks like success often doesn't show the numerous rejections and failures behind the scenes
  • What Angelqique would advise to writers who are frightened of rejection
  • A true and very cautionary tale about a writer who had impressed a series of editors and quit just when he was at the verge of that "breakthrough" submission
  • And more...

After the interview Mark reflects on a few of the things Angelique spoke about, as well as the way she has adapted her "day job" skills into her writing.

 

Links of Interest:

 

 

Angelique Fawns is a journalist and speculative fiction writer. She began her career writing articles about naked cave dwellers in Tenerife, Canary Islands, and hosting a radio show in Mooloolaba, Australia. Now she works full-time making television commercials for Global TV in Toronto. She writes fiction for fun and uses her journalism skills to promote editors, publishers and authors. She has her own podcast, Read Me A NIghtmare where she features short, dark stories and interviews creators in the industry. She lives on a farm north of the city with her husband, daughter, horses, cows, far too many cats, and a Potcake rescue dog. Her very first sale was to Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. You can find her work in DreamForge, Allegory, The School Magazine, and two Third Flatiron anthologies. “The Last of the Gen Xers” is a 2022 Tangent Online Recommended Read. Her writing groups include the Wulf Pack and The Dreamcasters.

 

The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 

EP 305 - Rising Action Publishing with Alexandria Brown18 May 202300:59:38

Mark interviews Alexandria Brown from Rising Action Publishing about her role in acquisitions and works with sub-agents on subsidiary rights.

Prior to the interview, Mark shares a word about this episode's sponsor.

You can learn more about how you can get your audiobooks distributed to retailers and library systems around the world at starkreflections.ca/Findaway.

During their discussion, Mark and Alex talk about:

  • Alexandria starting off doing lifestyle and other non-fiction publications such as Thought Catalog from New York
  • Her first two books that focus on dating and romance, and mental health and traveling the world
  • Getting her PhD at the University of Gloucestershire
  • The focus on how to write trauma in fiction in Alex's PhD (How cross-cultural characters and trauma can impact fiction and bind people together)
  • How Alex got involved in starting up Rising Action Publishing with a co-owner she met in Humber College
  • The tremendous value, uniqueness, and diversity that independent publishers can bring to the market that traditional publishes often aren't able to
  • Their partnership with Black Bird Books from South Africa
  • Why it's really important for independent publishers to be part of a supportive and collaborative community
  • How Alex and Tina did a lot of freelance editing in order to generate enough capital to get their publishing business started
  • Leveraging subsidiary rights for things like audio rights to help bring in money for publishing expenses
  • How the publishing partnership between Alex and Tina is very much like a marriage
  • The types of fiction and non-fiction that Rising Action Publishing is looking to acquire
  • The difference between domestic suspense and thrillers
  • The wonderful challenge and problem of getting so many great submissions as a publisher
  • Some of the errors that some writers have made when making submissions
  • A few of the books that Rising Action will be releasing
  • Advice that Alexandria would offer to writers near the beginning of their journey
  • And more...

 

After the interview, Mark reflects on a few of the things that Alexandria talked about and goes into detail explaining how the big traditional publishers of today have a lot more in common with indie authors than at first meets the eye.

 

Links of Interest:

 

 

Alex Brown has over ten years of experience in marketing and creative writing. Alex has a Bachelor’s in Communications with a major in Public Relations, a Master of Fine Arts - Creative Writing from the University of Gloucestershire, and is a Creative Writing Ph.D. Candidate currently at the University of Gloucestershire. She has two traditionally published nonfiction books. She’s a member of the Women’s Fiction Writers Association. Alex’s primary role is acquisitions and marketing as well as working with sub-agents on subsidiary rights.

 

The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 

EP 304 - Narrative Transportation with Denise Baden12 May 202300:57:10

Mark interviews Denise Baden, Professor of Sustainable Practice at the University of Southampton, UK, about her eco-themed writing, and the Green Writing Project which she initially set up in 2018.

Prior to the interview, Mark shares comments from recent episodes and a word about this episode's sponsor.

You can learn more about how you can get your audiobooks distributed to retailers and library systems around the world at starkreflections.ca/Findaway.

During their conversation, Mark and Denise talk about:

  • Denise's varied background in a number of different areas, including being a sales rep for cookbooks
  • How a work of fiction (the satirical thriller STARK by Ben Elton) was what inspired Denise to become a "Greeny"
  • Teaching in the area of sustainability and how Denise's nature is not necessarily suited to academia
  • How "narrative transporation" allows a reader, when immersed in a story to take on the thoughts and feelings of a character
  • The way that talking about catasotrophy and spreading fear doesn't necessarily inspire people into positive behaviors
  • Studies of how people react to negative/distopian fiction pieces as opposed to ones that focus on positive action or behavior
  • Denise's worry about eco-anxiety
  • The books that Denise has written that include elements of climate solutions
  • How almost 90% of readers adopted at least one of the solutions that were presented through character behavior in the stories
  • The Green Stories Project that Denise first set up in 2018 and the various prizes associated with the free contest
  • Being approached by Herculean Climate Solutions to produce an anthology collaboratively (No More Fairy Tales: Stories to Save the Planet)
  • Natural Burial, why it's important and a bit about how it works
  • Looking at existing properties, such as comparing James Bond to Jack Reacher, and the way the two characters behave in significantly different ways in relation to sustainability and high or low carbon behavior
  • How it's not policy or govertment mandates that will get us out of this ecological mess, but that it's the culture and behavior of the average person that will
  • And more...

After the interview, Mark reflects on the power of fiction to change the world, and shares a personal story of how reading two different novels dramatically changed and impacted his own life.

 

Links of Interest:

 

 

Denise Baden is a Professor of Sustainable Practice at the University of Southampton, UK. She has published widely in the academic realm and also in fiction. Her eco-themed rom-com ‘Habitat Man’ was published in 2021, followed by ‘the Assassin’ and ‘No More Fairy Tales: Stories to Save the Planet’ in 2022. Her most recent research explores the use of storytelling to promote green behaviours, looking at how readers respond to eco-themed stories. In 2018, Denise set up the Green Stories Writing project that challenges writers to embed green solutions in their stories via a series of free writing competitions. These are open to all, and 17 competitions have been run so far, which have resulted in several publications. Denise is listed on the Forbes list of Climate Leaders Changing the Film and TV industry and speaks regularly on how to write for a cause.

 

The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 

EP 303 - Writing as a Second Career with Lisa M. Lilly05 May 202301:01:44

Mark interviews Lisa M. Lilly, writer, attorney, and podcaster about story structure and the idea that writers don't need to make full time writing a priority or goal.

Prior to the interview, Mark shares comments from recent episodes and a thank you to those who support this podcast at patreon.com/starkreflections

https://www.patreon.com/starkreflections

During their conversation, Mark and Lisa talk about:

  • The mysteries and supernatural thrillers that Lisa writes, the non-fiction books for authors, and the podcast that she hosts
  • How Lisa continues to practice Law, but is no longer doing it full time
  • Writing not having to be a full-time thing, and Lisa's latest book "Fiction Writing as Your Second Career"
  • The kind of Law that Lisa practices
  • The "floating around" that Lisa did when she had too much free time when completely away from the responsibilities of the "day job"
  • Lisa's "Awakening" series which is described as a cross between Rosemary's Baby and The Davinci Code
  • How sometimes a small plot or story idea might be inspired by a real-life case Lisa has worked on or heard about
  • Lisa's book "Super Simple Story Structure" and how it related to her passion and knowledge of Buffy The Vampire Slayer and that led to the basis for her podcast
  • Things Lisa learned about doing the podcast weekly the first year, then every second week during the second year
  • The decision of whether to quit doing a thing or to try doing it a different way
  • Considering your writing as a 2nd career rather than as a "hobby"
  • The powerful impact of allowing yourself to "daydream"
  • Advice that Lisa would offer to authors who is balancing their full time work, a busy personal life and their writing
  • If you can't set a habit by day or time, then add some other sort of habit to help trigger your brain that it's "time to write"
  • What's next for Lisa
  • And more...

After the interview, Mark reflects on the important perspective that not all writers need to aspire to writing full time, as well as the passion behind creative projects (which seems to be a recent common theme in his world).

Links of Interest:

 

 

An author, attorney, and podcaster, Lisa M. Lilly is the author of the Q.C. Davis mysteries and the bestselling four-book Awakening supernatural thriller series. Writing as L. M. Lilly, her books on writing include The One-Year Novelist: A Week-By-Week Guide To Writing Your Novel In One Year, Super Simple Story Structure: A Quick Guide To Plotting & Writing Your Novel; and Fiction Writing As Your Second Career. She also hosts the podcast Buffy and the Art of Story.

 

The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 

 

EP 302 - Fat Vampires, Storytelling, and Empathy with Johnny B. Truant03 May 202300:57:21

Mark interviews Johnny B. Truant, the author of the Fat Vampire novels adapted by SyFy as "Reginald the Vampire" starring Spider-Man's Jacob Batalon.

Prior to the interview, Mark shares a word about this episode's sponsor.

You can learn more about how you can get your audiobooks distributed to retailers and library systems around the world at starkreflections.ca/Findaway.

During the interview Mark and Johnny talk about:

  • How Mark and Johnny have known one another for more than 10 years
  • Young Johnny who had always wanted to be a writer and convinced his high school newspaper to allow him to write a column for them
  • Orbiting the same circles as Sean Platt and how the two met via working via places like Copyblogger and the Blog World Conference
  • How The Self Publishing Podcast came from Johnny wanting to interview (and talk and learn from) Sean Platt and David Wright about the co-authoring and self-publishing they were doing
  • Where the spark for the idea of "Fat Vampire" came from (the old "after-show" podcast they did called "Better Off Undead" for horror fans
  • Johnny wanting to explore the "sameness taken to the extreme" in Reginald, the fat vampire
  • How not being exclusive to Amazon actually led to Johnny selling the option and license for FAT VAMPIRE to become the TV show "Reginald the Vampire"
  • The expression "enthusiasm is free"
  • What it was like watching the TV show "Reginald the Vampire" based on Johnny's novels
  • Prepping for releasing a companion podcast to the TV series
  • Spending three days on the set of the recording of the television program
  • Johnny's views on the power of story and how they can help break through those psychological walls and the blocks that someone might put up to a different perspective by introducing readers to a "maybe they're just like me" train of thought
  • And more...

After the interview Mark reflects on the importance of storytelling in creating connections between people and empathy, sharing a few quotes from an articile in Discovery magazine, as well as the reality of when an author's work is adapated for media.

Links of Interest:

 

 

Johnny B. Truant is the bestselling author of Fat Vampire, adapted by SyFy as "Reginald the Vampire" starring Spider-Man's Jacob Batalon. His other books include Pretty Killer, Pattern Black, Invasion, The Beam, Dead City, and over 100 other titles across many genres.

 

The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 

EP 301 - Procrastinating Partners Collaborating with Liz Anderson27 Apr 202301:10:54

Mark interviews his partner Liz Anderson about her work as a Principal within education, as the better half of a writer, and also as a fellow procrastinator and creative collaborator.

This episode is sponsored by the awesome Patrons of the Stark Reflections Podcast who support this podcast and receive additional audio, video, and text content.

 

https://www.patreon.com/starkreflections

During the interview, Mark and Liz talk about:

  • The elements of procrastination that bond the two of them together
  • How Liz has learned to embrace procastination as a way to get the creativity flowing
  • Liz's long-time practice of producing videos and short movies
  • The "Last Minute Productions" Liz makes, leveraging the "L" and "A" of her initials into the branding
  • The "show" (Isolation Station) that Liz started for the staff at her school during the pandemic and how that evolved into "Distance Daily"
  • How these virtual shows allowed the staff to connect in a way that they never had been able to do before
  • Mark's participation in Liz's "Distance Daily" show for a while during the time when she was without a Vice Principal
  • The ongoing daily "Flair Fun" video announcements segment that initiated during the pandemic but continue to this day at Liz's school
  • The value of the particupation from the entire school community in these daily videos that allows for a deeper sense of connection and being seen and heard and part of something bigger
  • The way Liz practices the role of being an elementary school Principal
  • The important revelation during a Grade 8 graduation that was an eye-opening moment for Liz
  • The difference between being an auditory learner and a visual learner
  • What it's like for Liz living with Mark the writer
  • The "spies" Liz has watching for Mark to not engage in particular activities on social media
  • How while Liz had long been creative and producing vidoes, it was a long time before she felt comfortable getting in front of a camera
  • Mark and Liz's first creative collaboration, doing the "Stuck in This House Here with You" parody of the Steelers Wheel song "Stuck in the Middle with You"
  • The way that we "paint" and fill spaces with things that tell a story or prompt people to see a space differently
  • The decision fatigue that can happen for a reader and how Liz appreciates being able to just keep reading the next book in a series
  • Liz's love of Joanna Penn's J.F. Penn thrillers and Kevin J. Anderson's "Dan Shamble" zombie P.I. novels
  • Some of the creative endeavors Liz is interested in exploring this coming summer

Then Liz turns the tables on Mark and asks him some reflective questions.

 

Links of Interest:

 

The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 

EP 300 - Celebrating 300 Episodes with Guest Reflections20 Apr 202300:58:50

Mark celebrates the 300th episode by sharing reflections from listeners, past guests, and other podcast hosts.

The guest reflections, in order and with links:

 

Links of Interest:

 

The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 

EP 299 - Marketing and Promo Stacking with CraveBooks13 Apr 202300:46:15

Mark interviews Kerrie Flanagan and Cary Bergeron from CraveBooks.

Prior to the interview, Mark shares a brief personal update and a word about this episode's sponsor.

You can learn more about how you can get your audiobooks distributed to retailers and library systems around the world at starkreflections.ca/Findaway.

During the interview, Mark, Kerrie and Cary talk about:

  • A bit of a background about Kerrie's writing, publishing, and industry experience, including her multiple previous appearances on the Stark Reflections podcast
  • Cary's experience running a marketing agency and how CraveBooks was initially a side project that grew into something bigger
  • The challenge with many of the promo sites and the fact they don't "save" or "keep" the details from an author of previous promotions
  • What CraveBooks.com is and how it works as a marketing platform tool for authors
  • How CraveBooks owns and operates about eight of those sites, but also has connections via third party promotion sites
  • How Kerrie and Cary met and started working together
  • Where Mark and Kerrie first met
  • The "Version 2" of CraveBooks, AKA, CraveBooks 2.0 and the bells and whistles that will be included in that
  • How you have a free author profile on CraveBooks
  • vice about marketing in general
  • And more...

After the interview Mark reflects on a couple of different things from the conversation.

Links of Interest:

 

Crave Books is a full-service eBook site and daily email service that gives readers free and bargain eBooks and connects readers and writers. The site also offers a variety of book promotional opportunities and service for authors to raise their profiles and reach new readers.

 

The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 

EP 298 - Honesty, Humor, Poetry, Essays, and Disability with Matthew Del Papa and Vera Constantineau06 Apr 202301:05:00

Mark interviews Sudbury area writers Matthew Del Papa and Vera Constantineau.


Prior to the interview, Mark shares a few listener comments reminds listeners about sending THEIR reflections for forthcoming Episode 300, provides a personal update and shares a word about this episode's sponsor.

You can learn more about how you can get your audiobooks distributed to retailers and library systems around the world at starkreflections.ca/Findaway.

During the interview, Mark, Mat and Vera talk about:

  • Vera and Mat's backgrounds as writers
  • How humor is always going to show up in almost anything that Vera writes
  • Haibun Poetry, which is a form that combines haiku and with prose poem
  • Mat's very first book of "railroad stories" and how a lot of his work is focused on his home town of Capreol, Ontario
  • What's funny about disability?
  • How humor can be a coping mechanism for dealing with frustration
  • Vera's love of poetry and fascination with Japanese forms of writing
  • How poetry is a way of giving the shortest word picture imaginable
  • The uniqueness of Latitude 46 Publishing, the publisher releasing both of these books in the spring of 2023
  • The way large publishers commonly make "we just published a book like that" restrictions
  • Mat and Vera billing themselves as the "Rolling Writers" when promoting these books
  • How small presses can be a really great resource for writers
  • A focus on what is unique about writers from Northern Ontario and the mutual respect and understanding in the local writing community
  • The benefits and drawbacks of being a writer in a northern community as opposed to a larger city
  • A bit about Sudbury Wordstock, a fantastic literary festival that is celebrating its 10th year in 2023
  • A look at the geography and physical breadth of Canada and how one has to really hustle and really "want it" in order to be successful as a performer in Canada
  • The term "criplit," the divisiveness in the use of the term among disabled writers and why that writing is important
  • How the use of Zoom during the pandemic has been a boon for folks who have mobility issues and difficulty getting out and about
  • Dealing with the inability to travel for book promotions
  • Vera becoming a Poet Laureate of Greater Sudbury the day the pandemic started, but how that helped her bring Sudbury to the world
  • How the pandemic taught a lot of able bodied people the concept of "not being able to do something you want to be able to do"
  • And more...

After the interview Mark reflects on the important of community, the uniqueness of the Sudbury writing community, and an element from Mat's email signature that he finds inspiring.

 

Links of Interest:

 

Matthew Del Papa lives in Capreol. He joined the Sudbury Writers’ Guild in 2009 and served two years as president. A voracious reader, Matthew has written for local newspapers and websites, contributed to magazines, and together with Lisa Coleman-Brown co-authored a fund-raising novella entitled Nightmare at the North Pole for the Northern Ontario Railroad Museum & Heritage Centre (Greater Sudbury’s #3 tourist attraction).

Having self-published ten titles, either as author or editor (and sometimes both), Matthew always has a project or two on the go. The majority of his work is humorous and focused on Northern Ontario, specifically his home town.

His titles include: The Legend of Capreol Red: And Other Stories From a Railroad Town; Nursing Doubts: The Miss Hattie Mysteries; Green Eyes Through Capreol: More Stories From a Railroad Town; Creepy Capreol: Chilling Tales From a Railroad Town; Captivating Capreol: Thoughts From a Railroad Town; Creepy Capreol, Jr.: Chilling Tales From—and For—Young Minds; Capreol At Bat: The Fastball Years; Creepy Capreol, Jr. 2: Too Many Zombies; and Merry Capreol: Christmas Stories From a Railroad Town.

Matthew’s first essay collection, Jerry Lewis Told Me I Was Going to Die, is being released May 6th, 2023 by Latitude 46 Publishing.

 

Vera Constantineau lives in Copper Cliff, ON. She served a two-year term (2020-2022) as poet laureate of Greater Sudbury. The pandemic arrived on the scene the day her appointment was affirmed forcing her to rethink the role, which was very community oriented. She spent a good part of her two years on zoom and travelled around the world to workshops and poetry events. Her podcast, The PL Pod, gathered a following that included regular listeners in the UK, Ireland, Japan, Sweden and Australia as well as the US and Canada. Her poetic focus is the Japanese forms of haiku, senryu, tanka and haibun.

In addition to her interest in poetry, Vera writes both fiction and nonfiction. In 2019 her essay Options was included in an anthology, Against Death—35 Essays on Living, published by Anvil Press of Vancouver. In 2020 her haiku placed third in the Martin Lucas Award for Haiku in England. Vera’s early writing coered a ten year span as a humour columnist. Her weekly column appeared in several Northern Ontario Community newspapers.

Vera is the author of Daisy Chained, a collection of short fiction, three lines at a time, a chapbook of haiku that has gotten excellent reviews.

Vera is the Haiku Canada Regional Representative for Ontario and a member of the Haiku Society of America, a member and past president of the Sudbury Writers’ Guild as well as a member of NOWW Thunder Bay.

Her poetry collection, Enlightened By Defilement was published in April of 2023 through Latitude46 Publishing of Greater Sudbury.

The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 

EP 297 - Enthusiasm, Encouragement and Alchemy for Authors with Jo Buer30 Mar 202300:55:42

Mark interviews Jo Buer, a gothic suspense and literary fiction author from New Zealand who describes herself as a sucker for the supernatural, time travel, and all things woo-woo. 

Prior to the interview, Mark reminds listeners about sending THEIR reflections for forthcoming Episode 300, provides a personal update and shares a word about this episode's sponsor.

 

You can learn more about how you can get your audiobooks distributed to retailers and library systems around the world at starkreflections.ca/Findaway.

 

In their conversation, Mark and Jo talk about:

  • The many different ways that Jo is "bookish"
  • Being able to go back all the way to when she was five years old, and how Jo fell in love with her school's library
  • Writing about a gift she was given when she was six years old and the belief she had, even then, that her writing was stellar and would capture the attention and praise of her teacher
  • The devastation and determination that early experience left her with as an author
  • Publishing her first book, a collection of short stories in 2020
  • Finding herself in a really dark place with a significantly negative impact on her self esteem, and how that determined voice of herself at 6 years old kicked in
  • Being too hard on herself by trying to measure up to the productivity of a full time author while being a part-time author with another full time job
  • Jo's podcast Alchemy for Authors
  • Her role as a teacher and how that might tie back to her own experience having her enthusiasm squashed as a six year old
  • The challenge of hosting a podcast while being such an introverted person
  • How overthinking and looking for the "perfect" solution can often get in an author's way
  • Jo's experience working at Chapters and Indigo when she lived in Canada
  • One of the most heart-breaking and frustrating things about seeing how bookstores deal with mass market paperback returns
  • Her experience working in a library, including speaking to the various people who came in there
  • How, if you're an introvert, for example, you've sometimes got to "fake it"
  • Advice that Jo would give to her younger self
  • And more...

After the interview, Mark reflects on the "fake it" approach as well as Jo's advice about leveraging a photo of your younger self.

Links of Interest:

 

Joe Buer is a gothic suspense and literary fiction author living in New Zealand. She is a sucker for the supernatural, time travel, and all things woo-woo. From an early age she came to realize that sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.

She lives in an ordinary house in an ordinary town with her husband and feline familiars, Atlas, Gaia, Zeus, and Hades. When not doting on her cats, devouring self-help books or gorging on chocolate, she writes slightly dark, sometimes scary, often ghostly stories with a smattering of romance.

Jo is also the host of the Alchemy for Authors podcast - a podcast to transform and supercharge your writing life.

 

The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 

EP 404 - Elbows Up, Canada!05 Mar 202500:28:28

In this special additional solo episode, Mark reflects on the term "Elbows up!" and recent events in Canada/US relations and the tariffs being needlessly opposed based on completely fabricated issues. He also discusses the disease of division that is so prominent today, and shares a clip of Canadian Prime Minster Justin Trudeau from a press conference held on March 4, 2025.

 

Links of Interest:

 

The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

EP 296 - Powerful in Person Print Book Marketing with Richard H. Stephens23 Mar 202300:59:08

Mark interviews Canadian Epic Fantasy author Richard H. Stephens about finally realizing a life-long dream of writing, about how his fourteen book fantasy series was inspired by hearing an Iron Maiden song in 1982, and about selling print books at in person events.

Prior to the interview, Mark reminds listeners about sending THEIR reflections for forthcoming Episode 300, provides a personal update and shares a word about this episode's sponsor.

 

You can learn more about how you can get your audiobooks distributed to retailers and library systems around the world at starkreflections.ca/Findaway.

 

In their conversation, Mark and Richard talk about:

  • Richard's epic fantasy writing, which is told in trilogy batches, all within the same universe
  • How the song "Run to the Hills" from Iron Maiden in the early 1980s put the story that became his first trilogy into his head, but also how Richard's serious start in writing didn't start until 2017
  • How his first novel was called "The River Styx" for the first 33 years that he kept it kicking around in his head
  • Pitching his first novel to an agent, and then realizing this was something he could do for himself
  • Publishing 14 books in the "Soul Forge" universe since 2018
  • A bit of a background on the reasoning behind retiring from Waterloo Police Service, and how that allowed him to be able to write
  • Richard's analogy of being the race car driver with a fantastic pit crew (his wife, family, and the professionals he works with) that helps him look good
  • Why Richard invests so much into in person and print selling
  • Meeting David M. Kelly at GraphicCon in Sudbury, ON and how Richard learned a lot from David in that type of environment
  • How 2020 was supposed to be their "breakthrough" year
  • The value of what happens when a person browsing at Richard's table realizing they're actually talking to an author
  • The epic-fantasy themed costumes that Richard will sometimes wear when doing an event in person
  • The trilogy discount promotional pricing that Richard can offer
  • Ordering print copies from a local printer (in Toronto) rather than having them shipped from Amazon
  • The trailer Richard has for doing in person events with the book covers on it
  • Richard's advice on not being afraid to engage with people, and don't be shy about sharing the fact that you are the author
  • How, even with a sign that has your photo on them and a "meet the author today" people still don't "get it" that the author is right there
  • The importance of trying different ways and approaches to see what works best for you
  • Making someone's day by offering a woman who was having a bad day the opportunity to name a dragon in one of his books
  • How Richard decides which in person book events are worth it and which ones aren't
  • Advice Richard would give to his younger 1982 self
  • And more...

 

After the interview, Mark reflects on the importance of making it clear, despite when things seem like they're already overtly obvious, as well as how we all tend to focus on our "one star" elements rather than our "five star" ones.

 

Links of Interest:

 

Richard H. Stephens began writing circa 1974; a bored child looking for something to do. A trip to a local bookstore saw the proprietor introduce him to the works of Terry Brooks and Stephen R. Donaldson and his writing life was forever changed.

Richard worked in a warehouse for 22 years, before going back to school. Graduating with honours, he joined the local Police Service.
In 2017, Richard resigned from the Police Service to pursue writing full-time. With the support of his family, he has finally realized his boyhood dream.

 

The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 

EP 295 - Body Brokers, Vital Organs, and Selling Direct with Dharma Kelleher16 Mar 202301:03:14

Mark chats with Dharma Kelleher who writes action-driven thrillers that explore the complexities of social and criminal justice in a world that favors the privileged. She is one of the only openly transgender authors in the crime fiction genre. They talk about that and a lot more.

Prior to the interview, Mark reminds listeners about sending THEIR reflections for forthcoming Episode 300, provides a personal update and shares a word about this episode's sponsor.

 

You can learn more about how you can get your audiobooks distributed to retailers and library systems around the world at starkreflections.ca/Findaway.

 

In their conversation, Mark and Dharma talk about

  • Dharma's "long, torrid" life-long affair with writing, and beginning to write on a manual typewriter in their teenage years
  • What happened in the intervening years, including getting a degree in journalism
  • Coming out as transgender, initially to self in college, and then later on. And the challenges of doing that in the deep south of the US
  • Celebrating 25 years of marriage in 2023
  • Falling back in love with writing in 2007 thanks to NaNoWriMo
  • Spending eight years focusing mostly on the craft of writing
  • Pitching to 90 agents and then landing a deal with a New York publisher
  • Coming to the realization that the trad pub model wasn't going to work (due to the publisher requiring print book rights even though they weren't planning on publishing beyond eBook)
  • Getting tired of hearing the "we already had a transgender author book this year" from publishers
  • Red Market's release in February 2023 and how Dharma is selling it directly before doing a wide publishing release
  • How you get it early and get more when you buy it direct from the author
  • Switching from a WooCommerce to a Shopify website for direct sales
  • Doing the best they can to deliver their books to any customer wherever they are on the planet
  • Being the first person in Arizona to donate a kidney to a stranger and how that was part of the inspiration for Red Market
  • The Jinx Ballou Crime Thriller series and how crime thrillers, mysteries, etc are often about "justice"
  • Some of the things writers can get wrong when they include transgender characters in their fiction
  • Disclosure (Netflix) - that takes a deep dive into those tropes
  • The importance of giving transgender characters agency in fiction
  • How the tropes can cause real harm, not just hurt feelings
  • Dharma's love of numbers and love of writing being among their biggest passions
  • And more...

After the interview Mark reflects on two of the things that came up in their discussion.

 

Links of Interest:

 

Dharma Kelleher writes action-driven thrillers that explore the complexities of social and criminal justice in a world that favors the privileged. She is one of the only openly transgender authors in the crime fiction genre. Dharma lives in Arizona with her wife and a black cat named Mouse. 

Learn more about Dharma and her work at https://dharmakelleher.com.

 

The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 

EP 294 - Content for Everyone with Jeff Adams and Michele Lucchini09 Mar 202300:59:30

Mark interviews Jeff Adams and Michele Lucchini about their new book, CONTENT FOR EVERYONE: A Practical Guide for Creative Entrepreneurs to Produce Accessible and Usable Web Content.

Prior to the interview, Mark shares comments from recent episodes, reminds listeners about sending THEIR reflections for forthcoming Episode 300, a personal update and a word about this episode's sponsor.

 

You can learn more about how you can get your audiobooks distributed to retailers and library systems around the world at starkreflections.ca/Findaway.

 

In their conversation, Mark, Jeff, and Michele talk about:

  • Their new book, released March 1, 2023 entitled CONTENT FOR EVERYONE and who the book is for
  • Their backgrounds working at Useablenet and how it relates to this new release
  • Jeff's Big Gay Fiction Podcast, which has been going on for eight years now
  • Pioneering digital accessibility with UseableNet
  • Thinking about accessibility as an opportunity or a basic expectation
  • It being hard for Jeff and Michele to not notice accessibility issues out there on the net
  • The genesis of the book and how it became a collaborative effort between the two of them
  • Conveying a message in the widest way possible so that the widest number of people can consume it
  • The importance of color contrast for people with low vision
  • Considering the different ways different users interact with a web page
  • A good rule is "do not rely on a single sense when you communicate"
  • A theme running through the entire book: Being true believers in that if you know WHY you have to do something, you'll be a lot more committed in doing it
  • An approach to consider if it feels too overwhelming to take on the task of making one's work more accessible
  • Accessibility is about reaching as many potential customers as possible
  • All of the conditions that might be creating a temporary disability
  • How the only wrong thing to do is to do nothing
  • The oddness of the situation where someone who requests something in a more accessible format is asking a favor rather than just laying out a fundamental expectation
  • The idea of thinking of an accessible format as an "extra task" rather than a basic and fundamental task
  • The importance of progress over perfection
  • And more...

After the interview Mark reflects on a few specific learnings he took away from it and ways he can grow and improve/expand upon his mindset related to accessibility.

 

Links of Interest:

 

Jeff Adams is a Certified Professional in Accessibility Core Competencies by the International Association of Accessibility Professionals. As the Accessibility Operations Director for UsableNet, a company focused on making the digital world more accessible and usable, he consults with clients around the world about digital accessibility. In addition, Jeff’s a creative entrepreneur as an author of queer romance and queer young adult fiction and co-host of the Big Gay Fiction Podcast.


Michele Lucchini is the Vice President of Delivery and Accessibility Operations for UsableNet and oversees the teams responsible for ensuring client’s success in their digital accessibility program. Michele’s background is rooted in software development first and moving to team and operation management later. Thanks to experience gathered in over two decades, Michele is an expert and helping companies, from the largest to the smallest, making their digital experiences accessible.

 

The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 

EP 293 - The Capacity to Unlearn and Relearn with Diane Devenyi02 Mar 202300:54:13

In this episode Mark interviews Diane Devenyi, a former tax lawyer who shifted her focus to education reform, and her new book Dear Genius, Harness the Hidden Power in your ABCs.

Prior to the main segment, Mark reads comments from recent episodes, invites listeners to submit reflections for forthcoming episode 300 welcomes new patrons and shares a few words about this episode's sponsor.

You can learn more about how you can get your audiobooks distributed to retailers and library systems around the world at starkreflections.ca/Findaway.

During their chat, Mark and Diane talk about:

  • Diane's start in a non-creative realm, with the belief she was going to be a tax lawyer
  • Publicly announcing at an educational meeting that she was there to re-vamp education on the planet back in 1999
  • Universal design: AKA "Learning for everyone"
  • How the current education system was built to support an earlier century of humans -- ie, creating workers rather than thinkers
  • The Alvin Toffler Quote: "The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn."
  • Working on ways to shift things when it comes to education
  • How easy it is to resolve some issues when you know what underlying element you're looking for
  • The way Diane's book "Dear Genius" helps
  • How to make Diane's method work in larger sized classroom settings, including doing it with 80 campers at one time in a summer camp setting
  • Going to get her Masters of Education and how that led to having to put the summer camp on hold
  • The concept of having families experience this together in an immersive setting
  • Part of the process of actually learning/relearning the letters of the alphabet using clay
  • Deciding to take on partner dancing later in life and how that completely changed her life
  • A Grade 4 experience that taught Diane that they don't want to know what her best is, but they wanted her to be the best at what they wanted her to do
  • Why, even if a person uses a typewriter and never hand-writes letters, how going back to the foundation of properly printing letters can make a significant difference
  • From your hand, through your heart, and into your head
  • Gaining a sense of resilience from unlearning and relearning something
  • The March 2023 2-Day Boot Camps Diane is running online
  • When your curiosity in life gets a kickstart
  • And more...

After the episode Mark reflects on the importance of unlearning and relearning regardless of your age or how much you believe you might already have learned, and how he is planning on doing that to continue to grow as a writer and a person.

 

Links of Interest:

 

Diane Devenyi, LLB, MEd, is a former tax lawyer who shifted her focus to education reform when she became deeply troubled by learning struggles she observed in her children’s classrooms. This has become her life-long passion. With more than 20 years in the field, she is sharing her observations about literacy and learning in a "Dear Genius" series of books, with "Harness the Hidden Power in Your ABCs!" being the first. Her hope is that children and adults everywhere can finally find relief and the freedom to soar in their own zone of genius.

 

The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 

EP 292 - Learning by Doing and Baptism by Pyromancy with Oskar Söderberg24 Feb 202300:57:13

Mark interviews Oskar Söderberg, a thirty-five year old husband, father of two, and full-time IT employee about his writing life and the process leading up to publishing his debut novel, The Broken Pyromancer, coming in March 2023.

Prior to the main segment, Mark reads comments from recent episodes, shares a personal update, and a few words about this episode's sponsor.

You can learn more about how you can get your audiobooks distributed to retailers and library systems around the world at starkreflections.ca/Findaway.

During their chat, Mark and Oskar talk about:

  • Oksar's long-held perspective of how cool writers were, with the romanticized images he always had
  • Writing and self-publishing a book back in 2017, which did not work out well, and which he ended up taking down
  • His main takeaway from that experience
  • His first novel, which is with an editor as the interview was being conducted and is coming out in 2023
  • What the Sweden Amazon site is like
  • How Kindle Unlimited is not available in Sweden
  • What platforms are not available to authors in Sweden
  • The different genre Oskar is writing in for this new book
  • Teaching himself programming in order to build a game for IOS and Android that is like a "choose your own adventure" interactive horror adventure (Gray Sojourn: Wandering Souls)
  • Learning more about the world of self-publishing from listening to a number of podcasts (especially The 6 Figure Author Podcast)
  • The expected/planned release date of the new novel, entitled The Broken Pyromancer
  • Why Oskar decided to publish his books wide, and his understanding that the process can take a lot of time
  • A look at the similarities and differences of advice for an author from Sweden versus an author in the US
  • How eBooks aren't really a thing for readers in Sweden
  • Oksar being the only person he knows who owns an eBook reader
  • The popularity of audiobook apps and platforms like Storytel
  • Oskar's learning about the reader magnet process and how it helped him go through the process and learning all the pieces of it, including testing the waters
  • The proliferation of rookie mistakes that are so easy to find, despite all the great content, information, and resources for writers

After the interview, Mark reflects on a few things Oskar mentioned and thanks Patrons of the podcast.

 

 

Links of Interest:

 

Working full time in IT, Oksar Söderberg is a 35 year old father of two tiny terrorizing girls trying to squeeze enough time in to become an author by any means necessary’s. He is a reader, writer, and lover of fantasy (and some horror), with debut novel, The Broken Pyromancer, coming early 2023. Stay tuned!

 

The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 

EP 291 - The Importance of A Hero Who Looks Like You With Alicia McCalla17 Feb 202301:02:32

Mark interviews writer, narrator, and creative Alicia McCalla about her work creating thrilling stories of courage, bravery and strength featuring kick-ass Black women leads in SciFi, Fantasy & Romance.

Prior to the main segment, Mark reads comments from recent episodes, thanks new Patrons, shares a personal update, and a few words about this episode's sponsor.

You can learn more about how you can get your audiobooks distributed to retailers and library systems around the world at starkreflections.ca/Findaway.

During their chat, Mark and Alicia talk about:

  • How Alicia is two different versions of a superwoman and the way her brand is quite powerful
  • Courage, bravery, and strength
  • The strong women in Alicia's life, and her legacy
  • Sharing badass, strong, and powerful black women who use their spunkiness, brains, and abilities
  • Recognizing the power of a black Star Trek captain
  • Dressing up in cosplay as a Starfleet captain when going to get a Covid booster shot
  • How ground-breaking Nichelle Nichols' role in the original Star Trek was, and what happened when she wanted to quit
  • The importance of having a superhero who looks like you, and Alicia's husband's experience with wanting to go to school for Halloween as Spider-Man, but being told by another child he couldn't be Spider-Man because he was black
  • How the Civil Rights Movement could really be understood as a Women's movement
  • Some of the differences between White Feminism and the approach to feminism taken by Black women
  • The difference between Feminism and Female Empowerment
  • The Miles Morales Into the Spiderverse movie
  • The toxicity and racism that exists within science-fiction fandom
  • Alicia's experience sitting on a panel at Dragon Con with a white male participant who claimed they didn't "see" the differences between white and black people and that "race" doesn't matter
  • Crying unabashedly when seeing the Black Futurism in the movie Black Panther
  • The experience of Alicia and her husband giving away their Black Panther and Wonder Woman watches to children in Ghana
  • How selling direct can be both empowering and terrifying
  • The exclusive audio available only via Alicia's website for those dedicated fans who really want it
  • Having an international audience of readers all over the world and how the public library of South Africa is a place that many readers seem to be consumed her books
  • Not being able to finish a book project because of a character who was deeply based on her grandfather who Alicia lost
  • Narrating under the pen name Alicia Speaks

 

After the interview, Mark reflects on the importance of understanding how something that seems normal or just "fits" for one person, might not be experienced in the same way for another. Case in point: Both Mark and Alicia's husband dressed up as Spider-Man when they were children, but Mark wasn't told that he couldn't because of the color of his skin.

 

Links of Interest:

 

Alicia McCalla is a creative entrepreneur who writes, narrates and creates merchandise for readers and customers who love thrilling stories of courage, bravery and strength featuring badass, spunky and smart Black women main characters. If you are a Blerd or Nerd who loves talking about strong Black women and female empowerment in  SciFi, Fantasy, Romance and sometimes Horror then join in on Alicia's blog discussions or follow her on social media.

Alicia began writing and self-publishing professionally in 2012. In the beginning, she wrote part-time while she worked full-time as a School Media Specialist. Tragedy struck and her only child, an officer in the US Navy was lost at sea. This single event changed everything. With the overwhelming intensity of her grief brain, she had to re-learn how to live fully while honoring her son’s legacy (he was one of her largest supporters and champions. He even produced a theme song for her work). She often takes the time to acknowledge her grief journey in her blog posts.

Now, Alicia is a full-time writer, audiobook narrator & merchandiser sharing stories and products of courageous, brave and strong Black women warriors.  She enjoys writing kick-ass sistas with skills, swords & superpowers. Alicia is Black Girl Nerd and regularly Cosplays strong female superheroes, warriors and maybe even a fairy. Because of her love of fan merchandise and desire to see Black women represented in SciFi and Fantasy Merchandise, she launched her shop  Alicia McCalla’s Emporium featuring superheroines, vigilantes, huntresses and much more. 

Alicia's influences include Octavia Butler, LA Banks, Faith Hunter, Sherrilyn Kenyon and Patricia Briggs.

She is an activist in the movement towards diversifying Science fiction and Fantasy (#diversityinSFF). She created the first "State of Black Science Fiction 2012" blog tour, is an active member in the State of Black Science Fiction FaceBook group and has a Pinterest account where she actively curates topics related to Black Warrior Women, Black Science Fiction, Fantasy and more.

Alicia writes for adults with her brand of Black superheroes, dark fantasy, Urban Fantasy, paranormal, and horror.  She is a former Women Marine-Reservist and a decorated war veteran. Alicia is a native Detroiter who currently resides in metro Atlanta with her loving husband and many nieces and nephews. Sign-up  on www.aliciamccalla.com for free reads, updates, sneak peeks, and merchandise coupons.

 

The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 

 

EP 290 - Thanks for the Inspiration, Jim Turcott09 Feb 202300:47:01

In this solo episode, Mark reflects on how continues to be inspired by teacher, mentor, and friend Jim Turcott.

Prior to the main segment, Mark shares a word about this episode's sponsor segment.

You can learn more about how you can get your audiobooks distributed to retailers and library systems around the world at starkreflections.ca/Findaway.

 

 

 

The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 

EP 289 - Accountable Author Journey with Malcolm Coon - Part I02 Feb 202300:52:06

Mark interviews Malcolm Coon about his plans for overcoming the "back-burner" state of his writing projects, why he doesn't plan on giving up should his writing income ever get to "that" level, his goal of completing a short story every month this year, and more.

Prior to the interview, Mark shares a brief personal update inside of the word about this episode's sponsor segment.

You can learn more about how you can get your audiobooks distributed to retailers and library systems around the world at starkreflections.ca/Findaway.

In their conversation, Mark and Malcolm talk about:

  • Malcolm's full time work in tech while simultaneously having wanted to write since 1997
  • A falling out Malcolm had with a partner in his tech business and how that led to working on a tech thriller that he worked on, but abandoned after about a month
  • His long-time love of reading fantasy, which led to deciding to write fantasy
  • Getting serious about his writing in about 2011, discovering various writing podcasts, and realizing that this was something he could do
  • How the writing would regularly go on hold because of the fluctuations of the work-life
  • Changing his tact a little and deciding to write a short story every month in order to create a story collection that would act like a prelude to the unfinished trilogy he'd been working on
  • The challenge of being an entrepreneur in tech while also balancing being an authorpreneur
  • The strategy of doing the writing first thing early in the morning for about thirty minutes BEFORE opening the email browser, which usually leads to getting sucked into work for the entire day
  • Attempting to do a little bit, no matter how small, every day, because once he misses a day it's easy to miss a second day
  • How the process of just trying to cram a large word count out with inserted notes about research to do for later insertion can often lead to a section of bad writing with additional work to do on it
  • The way his current writing are based upon a world that Malcolm and his brother created when they were teenagers playing Dungeons & Dragons
  • The parable storybook Malcolm created called The Greatest Writer in the World (in the style of "The Greatest Salesman in the World) that he published to Amazon, but then took down after a year upon realizing he hadn't invested the proper time in polishing and editing it
  • Malcolm's goal of ultimately wanting to make a living of his writing, but to never give up the entrepreneurial tech business work that he loves
  • Becoming less concerned with words per minute than with creating quality
  • How Malcolm has found it far more difficult to manage himself in the writing roadmap plan compared to the way he very effectively manages developers for his entrepreneurial work
  • The idea of that breakthrough moment of what it will take to get over that hurdle of getting the books done and published
  • The importance of figuring out what works for us as writers, which is always going to be unique
  • How the 25 words a day goal can be like a "just one more potato chip" methodology
  • Malcolm's overall plan for getting this writing project back on track
  • Mark's threat of holding Malcolm accountable for his stated goals by having him return to the podcast to share an update

After the interview, Mark reflects on false starts in writing, the importance of reasonable goals, and adapting the advice offered into one's own unique circumstances and preferences.

Links of Interest:

 

 

Malcolm Coon is an author who works in tech full time as an entrepreneur. He doesn't yet have a website, and Malcolm will be returning to future episodes.

 

The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 

EP 288 - Edo van Belkom on Re-Adapting and Re-Inventing Your Writer Self26 Jan 202301:04:43

Mark interviews Canadian author Edo van Belkom about his life in writing, and the January 2023 the Paramount+ TV series adaptation of his Silver Birch Award-Winning Novel WOLF PACK by Jeff Davis and starring Sarah Michelle Gellar.

Prior to the interview, Mark shares comments from recent episodes, a brief personal update, welcomes new Patron Dharma Kelleher, and a word about this episode's sponsor.

You can learn more about how you can get your audiobooks distributed to retailers and library systems around the world at starkreflections.ca/Findaway.

In their conversation, Mark and Edo talk about:

  • An old picture of the two of them at a "Sci-Fi Saturday" multi-author event from the late 90s where Mark was one of the managers (Attendees were David Shrogryn, Edo van Belkom, Carolyn Clink, Robert J. Sawyer, Douglas Smith, Andrew Weiner, Mark Leslie, Sally Tomasevic, Marcel Gagne)
  • Edo's journey as a writer, beginning with his first published short story being published in an annual "Year's Best" anthology
  • Writing about six or seven novels before his first one sold, and writing books that weren't published until more than twenty-five years later
  • Working on gaming-tie-in related novels
  • Landing his agent after having a short story appear in one of Jeff Gelb's "Hot Blood" anthologies
  • Following his wife's advice to write a YA novel, which became the award-winning novel Wolf Pack and how that book was sold over a telephone pitch/proposal
  • Having a couple of his mass market paperback novels (Scream Queen and Blood Road) be optioned for films
  • Some of the silly things that writers hear when speaking to non-writers at parties such as "why don't you write a bestseller?"
  • What being nominated for the Silver Birch Award did for that book
  • Winning the Silverbirch Award
  • Going from selling 10,000 copies of the first book in the series to only about 1,000 or so copies of the 2nd and 3rd books in that series
  • How the greatest part of winning the Silver Biirch Award was the live event at a small stadium in downtown Toronto, Ontario
  • Winning the Bram Stoker Award for a short story ("Rat Food") that he co-authored with David Nickle
  • What it was like co-authoring a story well before the days of the internet
  • Edo's short story collection Death Drives a Semi and how, when looking for places to market it, he found a trucker magazine that he ended up writing a series of stories in for fifteen years
  • The "Mark Dalton: Owner, Operator" series of stories
  • Converting a one-day workshop for truckers about fuel efficient driving practices into a novel
  • Details and experiences related to the ice roads in Canada's Northwest Territories. (Ice roads are seasonal winter roads built over frozen bodies of water. The ice roads in Canada are about 400 KM (250 miles) long and are built over 64 frozen lakes
  • The story behind how Wolf Pack got turned into a new Paramount+ television series
  • What it was like seeing a teaser trailer for "Wolf Pack" after a year of hearing nothing about the option deal that had been signed
  • How the book "Wolf Pack" got into the hands of Jeff Davis
  • What it was like to be in Los Angeles for the premiere of the series, including walking the red carpet
  • Seeing his name in the show's opening credits "Based on the novels by Edo van Belkom"
  • Some of what's planned for the home-town showing of the first episode in the series in Brampton, Ontario
  • Why, if he can help it, Edo plans on not doing any more soul-crushing in store book signings any longer
  • And more...

After the interview, Mark reflects on three different things.

 

Links of Interest:

 

 

 

Edo van Belkom, a former reporter on the sports and police beats for newspapers in and around Toronto, arrived on the horror scene in 1990. His first short story sale, Baseball Memories, was selected for the prestigious Year’s Best Horror Stories edited by Karl Edward Wagner. The story was also nominated for Canada’s prestigious Aurora Award and appeared side-by-side with work by authors such as Mordecai Richler and W. P. Kinsella in The Grand Slam Book of Canadian Baseball Writing.

Van Belkom hasn’t looked back since. Some 150 short stories have sold to a variety of top magazines and anthologies in the sf, fantasy, horror and mystery genres. He has twice won the Aurora Award, taken home the Bram Stoker Award and his YA novel WOLF PACK won Ontario’s prestigious Silver Birch Award.

In January 2023, that same 2004 novel and the other three books in the series was adapted into an American supernatural teen drama on Paramount+ starring Sarah Michelle Gellar and produced by Jeff Davis, known for creating the drama series Criminal Minds and the TV series "Teen Wolf."

 

 

The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 

 

 

EP 287 - Vulnerability in Writing, Performance Art, and Tarot Readings with Liz Worth19 Jan 202300:59:01

Mark interviews Liz Worth, a professional tarot reader, a poet and author.

Prior to the interview, Mark shares a brief personal update and a word about this episode's sponsor.

You can learn more about how you can get your audiobooks distributed to retailers and library systems around the world at starkreflections.ca/Findaway.

In their chat, Mark and Liz talk about:

  • The many things that Liz "slings"
  • Satisfying that craving Liz and her husband have to be surrounded by "vintage things" via owning an antique shop
  • The importance of helping take something inherited off someone's hands in a meaningful way and to someone that will find use in it
  • How Tarot, the occult, and writing have always been a part of Liz's life, and her mother's influence in this area
  • Growing up going to psychic fairs, learning astrology and card reading
  • Being draw to punk and goth culture in the 90s in high school
  • Making her own goth zine (Last Breath Escapes), photocopying it, and making it available through a local record store
  • Doing something similar for her poetry
  • How zines were a precursor to the niche market ability of eBook digital publishing nowadays
  • The first book projects Liz worked on
  • How "Punk" is an entire ecosystem of creativity and not just a style of music and dress
  • Liz's work not only doing Tarot readings but teaching others how to do a Tarot reading
  • The things Liz would do during her performance poetry that she would never do in other professional aspects of her life
  • How, logically, Tarot is a thing that shouldn't work
  • The vulnerability and expectations that a person has going into a Tarot reading
  • How you're always going out on a limb when you're interpreting and giving a Tarot reading
  • Looking for narratives and story in the images and how do things make sense
  • Some of the intangible things about Tarot that are difficult to explain
  • Things that Hollywood, Television, and writers often get wrong about Tarot readings
  • The importance of running with something in a creative way rather than feeling like everything had to be so "tamped down"
  • Liz's latest vampire novel, The Mouth is a Coven
  • And more...

 

After the interview, Mark reflects on that importance of letting one's creative license work its magic.

 

Links of Interest:

 

 

 

Liz Worth is the author of eight books. Her newest novel is called The Mouth is a Coven, published through Manta Press. She has been nominated twice for the ReLit Award for Poetry, and her writing has also appeared in FLARE Magazine, Chatelaine, and the Globe and Mail. She works as a professional tarot reader by day.

 

The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 

EP 403 - The Magic of Combining Poetry and Playwriting with Richard Marsh28 Feb 202500:57:53

Mark interviews writer, actor and poet, Richard Marsh, the genius behind YIPPEE KI YAY the one-man poetry stage parody of Die Hard.

Prior to the interview, Mark shares comments from recent episodes, a brief personal update, and a word from this episode's sponsor.

This episode is sponsored by the Show, Don't Tell Writing Podcast with Suzy Vadori. In this weekly show, Suzy brings you writing techniques, best practices, motivation, inspirational stories from real live authors out there making it in the world, and actionable advice that can help you turn that book you’re writing into the bestseller you know deep down that it can be.

Mark also mentions a free podcast event he'll be on with Suzie on March 7th called NAVIGATING TODAY'S PUBLISHING.

In the interview, Mark and Richard talk about:

  • How, ever since Richard started poetry, he ended up using it to tell the types of stories that one wouldn't normally think could be told via poems
  • The poetry rom-com stage show Richard worked on with a good friend
  • How the procrastination project of writing a Die Hard play told in poetry became a priority when Richard wasn't interested in the play he'd been intending to roll out that had a heavy themes of grief and loss. The Die Hard play was fun and silly and funny and warm, and was more of what the world could use at the time
  • How focusing on a few elements of what would make Richard himself laugh was a great place to start
  • The themes in the play of how love and life change through parenthood
  • The importance to Richard of not just retelling or parodying Die Hard, but to do so much more
  • How the personal story that Richard weaved into his Die Hard stage show ties in quite nicely to the relationship between John and Holly
  • Art impacting us differently through various stages in our life
  • The first time that Richard ever performed the play, which was an active reading in the middle of a crowded bar
  • The initial public performance of the stage show at The Omnibus theatre in London in March of 2022
  • Taking the show on the road beyond the UK by touring the US during Christmas 2023
  • Additionally touring in Australia and Canada
  • A little bit about the play Richard DIRTY GREAT LOVE STORY that Richard co-wrote and performed with Katie Bonna was created and launched
  • How the people who go to poetry events are some of the most loveable weirdos in the world
  • The various plays that Richard has published
  • Working with producer James Seabright to produce Yippee Ki-Yay
  • The numerous complex elements of staging Yippee Ki-Yay, including movement and physicality, puppet show aspects, props, finger guns, and more - and the importance of the collaborators that helped with this
  • The two-hander stage show WINGMAN which is a type of romantic comedy between a father and son, which has been optioned for both US and UK television
  • The numerous things Richard has written that ultimately end up as an "elaborate PDF" on his PC
  • The moment when Stephen E. de Sousa co-writer of Die Hard, went to see Richard's play at the London Action Festival
  • The musical Richard is working on which is based on the movie SON OF RAMBOW
  • And more . . .

After the interview Mark reflects on a few things that came up in the conversation.

 

Links of Interest:

 

Richard Marsh is a writer (film, TV, theatre, to-do lists). Actor (stage, radio, social events). CEO of the MCU (Marsh Connected Universe). He will rhyme for money (write poems on commission). You can find him online at: https://www.richmarsh.com/

 

The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

EP 286 - Investment, Compromise, and Evolution with Juliette N. Banks12 Jan 202301:09:19

Mark interviews Juliette N. Banks, a bestselling, wide author who writes steamy contemporary and paranormal page-turning romances.

Prior to the interview, Mark shares recent comments, welcomes new patron Dharma Kelleher, and shares a personal update and a word about this episode's sponsor.

You can learn more about how you can get your audiobooks distributed to retailers and library systems around the world at starkreflections.ca/Findaway.

 

In their conversation, Mark and Juliette talk about:

  • Juliette always believing that some day she would be a published author, but it was something she never chased
  • Juliette's marketing background at a book she wrote in 2012 that was published by Random House in 2013
  • The significant and tight Covid related lock-downs in New Zealand
  • Juliette's adaptation to reading a lot of eBooks during the pandemic
  • The incredibly expensive cost of print books in New Zealand
  • Writing an archangel series and a vampire series
  • Launching her books and reader magnet in Jan and March of 2021
  • Working a full time job squeezed into 4 work days per week while writing all these novels
  • The roughly 200 people Juliette was sharing her works with for free before she even published her first book (and how they've maintained their loyalty as readers to this day)
  • Launching a new contemporary billionaire romance series at the beginning of 2022
  • The parallel between the vampire characters and the billionaire characters
  • Training herself to think very American in terms of her largest readership base
  • Calculating the value of going to book signings, particular in the cost of flying from New Zealand to somewhere in the US
  • The process Juliette works on with editing and publishing
  • Having had five BookBubs in 2022
  • The steady stream of releases and the stress that comes from that, particularly when illness like Covid occurs to throw a monkey wrench into it
  • Where Juliette has been focusing in her initial goal to get to the 5 figures she needed in order to quit her corporate job
  • Spending time on learning what she has to do to make her books "BookBub Worthy"
  • Why she doesn't separate "indie" and "traditional" - you're competing in a store with suppliers of all sizes
  • The pricing strategy that Juliette uses
  • How only 10 of her books are creating income right now. The other 10 are things like reader magnets
  • The way Juliette plans and maps out her writing business
  • The importance of knowing what your skills and abilities and weaknesses are
  • The value of professional coaches and taking some action upon those meetings/sessions
  • And more...

After the interview, Mark reflects on the investment Juliette made by engaging for a long period and in detail with a group of 200 readers.

 

Links of Interest:

 

 

 

Juliette N. Banks is a bestselling, wide author who writes steamy contemporary and paranormal page-turning romances with alpha heroes who fall for sassy heroines and a healthy dose of action and suspense.

Juliette has a vast background in consumer marketing and previously published with Random House. She lives in Auckland, New Zealand with Tilly, her Maine Coon kitty, and is now a full-time author.

 

The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 

EP 285 - Written Word Media's Top 10 Publishing Trends for 202305 Jan 202300:39:40

To kick off the new year, Mark shares a Jan 3, 2023 article from the Written Word Media blog on the Top 10 Publishing Trends for 2023.

Prior to the main content, Mark share a personal update and a word about this episode's sponsor.

You can learn more about how you can get your audiobooks distributed to retailers and library systems around the world at starkreflections.ca/Findaway.

Links of Interest:

 

 

The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 

EP 284 - Collaborations in AI with Elizabeth Ann West30 Dec 202201:10:40

Mark talks with Elizabeth Ann West about her writing and using AI tools such as Sudowrite for intriguing new types of collaborations.

Prior to the interview, Mark shares a comments from recent episodes, a personal update, and a word about this episode's sponsor.

You can learn more about how you can get your audiobooks distributed to retailers and library systems around the world at starkreflections.ca/Findaway.

During their conversation Mark and Elizabeth talk about:

  • Elizabeth's start in indie publishing back in the "early days" of self-publishing
  • The Jane Austin Fan Fiction that Elizabeth writes for a living
  • The panic in the writing community with the dropping of chatGPT (GPT = Generative Pre-trained Transformer)
  • What Public Domain content is and a look at the grey area of AI generated content and copyright
  • Changes to Public Domain and copyright law related to Disney and Mickey Mouse
  • How Public Domain is really important to culture
  • Some of the areas where AI has already been integrated into the tools we use as writers and just in general
  • AI as a robotic co-writer that you can lean on as an author
  • Sudowrite and how it's based on a UNIX command called "Super Do" and not "pseudo" making you the super user
  • How as the human in this equation, you are the "creative director" still responsible for all of the final writing, the research, the voice, etc
  • How prompts work within Sudowrite and the way authors can be very specific with them
  • The importance of authors being unique and creative when creating their prompts
  • How the AI works within the context of the most recent segment of the document an author is working within
  • The idea that's in development of performing something like a "fine tune"
  • A bit of the tech about how "tokens" work within the technology
  • Playing within "Open AI Playground"
  • How much time a tool like Sudowrite can help writers with outlining and summarizing a chapter
  • Simulating readers reacting to a piece of writing
  • The process of interviewing an AI character
  • The cost structure for using Sudowrite
  • How Elizabeth has written and released three books since Nov 2021 with the assistance of AI
  • The re-write function in Sudowrite that performs a "show, don't tell" on a sentence
  • Feeling like a writer with super-powers by having access to these types of tools
  • How Elizabeth teachers her online classes for learning how to collaborate with AI
  • The $99 fee that gives people access to all of Elizabeth's "Learning AI" classes and recorded live sessions past, present, and future
  • Elizabeth's thoughts for writers who are nervous, anxious, or worried about the disruption that AI will bring to writing
  • And more...

After the interview, Mark reflects on a few things Elizabeth said. He then shares his own recent experiment with creating a book description using chatGBT.

Links of Interest:

 

 

A Jane-of-all-trades, mistress to none! Elizabeth Ann West is the author of 12 novels and 11 novellas, 22 of which are story variations of Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice. Her books have won reader conference awards and hit the Historical Bestseller lists on Amazon, Kobo, and the iBooks stores multiple times. A lover of all things geeky, Elizabeth codes websites, dabbles in graphic design, and is always looking for new technology to learn and master. She teaches authors at conferences like 20Booksto50KVegas, RWA Nationals, on topics of technology and business in the digital publishing world.

 

The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 

EP 283 - Doing LSB (Laughter, Stretch, and Breathe) with Amy S. Peele23 Dec 202200:59:32

Mark has a chat with Amy S. Peele, an Amazon best-selling and award-winning author. They discuss her medical mystery series, her healthcare background, comedy, laughing yoga, and so much more.

Prior to the interview, Mark shares a question from recent a episodes, an update regarding looking for guests (especially newer writers) for the podcast, and a word about this episode's sponsor.

You can learn more about how you can get your audiobooks distributed to retailers and library systems around the world at starkreflections.ca/Findaway.

In their conversation, Mark and Amy talk about:

  • Having been an RN since 1974 and the life-long friends she has maintained her entire life
  • Leveraging the "two best friends" theme in her mystery series as the two main protagonists
  • Spending thirty-five years in organ transplants
  • Deciding to kill people she didn't like in real life as fictional characters in her novels
  • Writing the three murder mysteries after she retired in 2014 because she still had "transplants" that she needed to get out of her system
  • The next book she is working on, a romantic comedy
  • Amy's training with Second City Player's Workshop in Chicago because of her need to have some levity outside her day job work
  • How Amy got started with where and how to publish her first mystery novel and how she found her agent
  • The importance of relationships in the publishing world
  • Why Amy values local independent bookstores, including her local bookstore, Book Passage
  • The process of getting her books made into audio
  • Self-care for writers and why it's important
  • Laughter yoga and hand yoga
  • How, especially lately, we've been in fight or flight mode and the fact that people are not breathing
  • L.S.B. (Laughter, Stretch, and Breath)
  • Why deep breathing and laughter is so valuable
  • Advice Amy would offer to beginning writers
  • And more...

After the interview Mark shares a reflection.

He then welcomes new patrons Lizbeth Meredith, Stephanie Tallent, and Angela Grit Landau and thanks all patrons.

Links of Interest:

 

 

Amy S. Peele was born and raised in the Chicago area. Having graduated from South Chicago School of Nursing (SCCH) in 1974, Amy discovered her passion for organ donation and transplantation when she started as a transplant coordinator at the University of Chicago in 1976. She enjoyed a 35-year career in Transplantation retiring from University of California San Francisco in 2014. As President of the North American Transplant Coordinators Organization (NATCO), she was a guest on the Phil Donahue talk show as well as national and local radio stations, discussing the National Organ Transplant Act, which was passed in 1984.

Amy has a love for comedy and improv and graduated from Second City Players Workshop in 1985 in Chicago. She has also studied Improv at BATS (Bay Area Theatre Sports) in San Francisco. Amy’s sense of humor comes through in all her writing.

Amy met her architect husband, Mark Schatz, through his mother who was her student at a transplant coordinator course. They were married in 1987 and have two children. Gracie is a butcher, fishmonger, and chef living in Eugene Oregon. Bennett works in the digital sound industry in San Francisco, enjoys building bikes, and playing music.

Amy now lives in Marin County where she has been writing creatively since 1988. With CUT, Amy infuses her passion for transplantation into her murder mysteries and brings a fresh, knowledgeable, and humorous new voice into the world of mystery novels.

 

The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 

EP 282 - Random Reflections16 Dec 202200:34:43

In this solo episode Mark reflections on a couple of topics: AI in creativity and writing to market with passion.

Prior to the main segment, Mark shares a brief personal update, comments from recent episodes and patreon, and a word about this episode's sponsor.

You can learn more about how you can get your audiobooks distributed to retailers and library systems around the world at starkreflections.ca/Findaway.

Links of Interest:

 

 

The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 

EP 281 - Reflection on Other Podcasts: Stop Making Yourself Miserable13 Dec 202200:21:15

In this extra, slightly shorter episode sponsored by the patrons of the Stark Reflections Podcast, Mark reflects on an episode of David Richman's Stop Making Yourself Miserable podcast where he discusses the power of crowds.

David's Podcast, Stop Making Yourself Miserable is a series of short (usually 15 minute) episodes where David shares an insight and reflects on what we can learn from it, or how we can grow.

Links of Interest:

 

 

The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 

EP 280 - J.C. McKenzie and Jo-Ann Carson on the 2023 JoZie Planner for Authors08 Dec 202201:08:57

Mark interviews J.C. McKenzie and Jo-Ann Carson, a mother and daughter team of Vancouver Island authors who share a strong desire to organize their hectic writing lives and have created the JoZie Planner for Authors by Authors.

Prior to the main segment, Mark shares a brief personal update, comments from recent episodes and patreon, and a word about this episode's sponsor.

You can learn more about how you can get your audiobooks distributed to retailers and library systems around the world at starkreflections.ca/Findaway.

In their conversation, Mark, J.C. and Jo-Ann talk about:

  • How J.C. was indoctinated into the writing world via her mother, Jo-Ann being a creative person and writer
  • Returning to Canada from New Zealand and how a combination of reading a lot and some vivid dreams led to the first book she wrote
  • Looking at the first two books she wrote which she considers were a "hot mess"
  • SHIFT HAPPENS, J.C.'s third book, and first published book, and the other 6 books that were published by The Wild Rose Press
  • Jo-Ann's initiation into the world of writing, how she didn't start taking writing seriously until she retired, and the long-term view she has taken for her writing career
  • How storytelling has always been important to Jo-Ann her entire life.
  • J.C. writing locations that she doesn't often see represented, as well as the way she likes to drift back to urban fantasy with her writing
  • Jo-Ann also enjoying writing about witches and vampires, and having a good time injecting more humor into her fiction
  • Despite writing in similar genres, and critiquing one anothers' work, the fact they have not collaborated on any fiction projects yet
  • The JoZie 2023 Planner, and how the name was created from a combination of their two names
  • About the planner itself, and the binding (spiral bound) which allows it to lay flat
  • Where this idea came from and why they feel this planner is important to writers and a writer's needs
  • Their desire for more feedback to continue to improve the planner for 2024
  • The option of hole-punching the pages from the binder each year and keeping previous year pages in a binder
  • The current floral pattern of the planner, and their interest in looking at different styles for future years
  • Tips for writers who have never actually used a planner before
  • And more...

After the interview, Mark shares a couple of reflections, Mark welcomes new patrons and reminds them of their chance to indicate their interest in winning one of four copies of the 2023 JoZie Planner for Authors.

 

Links of Interest:

 

 

J.C. McKenzie and Jo-Ann Carson are a mother and daughter team of Vancouver Island authors who share a strong desire to organize their hectic writing lives. Some would call it an obsession. Together they’ve created the JoZie Planner for Authors by Authors.

J.C. McKenzie is a book loving, gumboot-wearing, unapologetic science geek. She predominantly writes urban fantasy and post-apocalyptic dystopian fantasy with strong romantic elements. When she’s not spinning tales, she’s in the classroom sharing her passion for science and mathematics while secretly warping the young impressionable minds of our future to carry out her evil plans for world domination. She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her family.

Jo-Ann Carson is an award-winning Fantasy author of 31 books who loves the magic of storytelling. She places unique characters, in fast-paced plots, to tell tales about love, friendship, and family. Recently a critic likened one of her main characters to, “… Stephanie Plum with magic.”Jo-Ann’s last four series are the Dial Witch trilogy, Perfect Brew trilogy, Ghost & Abby Mysteries, and Gambling Ghosts novellas. Buy links for all her books can be found on her website.

A firm believer in the magic of our everyday lives, Jo-Ann loves watching sunrises, walking beaches near her home in the Pacific Northwest and reading by a crackling wood fire.

 

The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 

 

EP 279 - The Writer's Manifesto With Michael La Ronn01 Dec 202200:46:27

Mark interviews Michael La Ronn, the author of over 80 science fiction & fantasy books and self-help books for writers.

Prior to the main segment, Mark shares a personal update and a word about this episode's sponsor.

You can learn more about how you can get your audiobooks distributed to retailers and library systems around the world at starkreflections.ca/Findaway.

During their conversation, Mark and Michael talk about:

  • How long it has been since Mark and Michael saw one another
  • Michael getting back on the travel circuit and being one of the guest speakers for Superstars Writing Seminars in Feb 2023
  • How Michael got extremely ill in 2012 with an extreme case of food poisoning combined with a hospital infection he acquired, and how that laid him up for a full month
  • Taking the time to realize, while he was stuck in the hospital how he'd been working in a dead-end job and not being the writer he wanted to be
  • Having a beautiful vision of being a successful published writer, and the feeling of happiness that came from that
  • Learning about self-publishing from the Alliance of Independent Authors and The Creative Penn
  • The more than 80 books Michael has written while working full-time, raising a family, and going to law school at night
  • The "secret weapons" that Michael relies on for his writing goals
  • Writing using Scrivener on the MAC and the Scrivener app on his iPhone as well as using dictation
  • Getting writing done using dictation while walking the dog
  • Being a pantser (or "discovery writer")
  • Michael's writer manifesto
  • The different pseudonyms Michael uses for fiction VS his books for writers
  • Michael's role as ALLI's outreach manager
  • The two estate planning books Michael has. One for writers and the other for a writer's heirs
  • Loving his day job and not wanting to give it up despite how successful and prolific his writing career has been
  • The enjoyment of challenging himself
  • And more...

After the interview Mark reflects on the prioritizing of finding every available small moment for getting just a few extra words in and how that all adds up. He also considers Michael's thoughts on "balance."

Links of Interest:

 

 

Michael La Ronn is the author of over 80 science fiction & fantasy books and self-help books for writers. He writes from the great plains of Iowa and has managed to write while raising a family, working a full-time job, and even attending law school classes in the evenings. You can find his fiction at www.michaellaronn.com and his videos and books for writers at www.authorlevelup.com.

 

 

The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 

EP 278 - So I Married a Thrill-Seeker with Danielle Kaplan24 Nov 202200:48:39

Mark interviews Danielle Kaplan about her new book I Married a Thrill-Seeker.

Prior to the main segment, Mark shares a personal update and a word about this episode's sponsor.

You can learn more about how you can get your audiobooks distributed to retailers and library systems around the world at starkreflections.ca/Findaway.

During their conversation, Mark and Danielle talk about:

  • Danielle's background before she decided to write her new book
  • The irony of doing a thesis in brain-injury, with most of them involving motorcycle accidents
  • How Danielle, who was considered a moderate who "followed the rules" first met her "wild and crazy" husband Steve back in university
  • Moving to Toronto, Canada to start her life with him and continuing her career in the medical field
  • Having written for medical publications prior to this first book
  • Steve's life as an adventure rider on his Harley Davidson motorcycle when on a trip in the Yukon
  • Keeping all her correspondence and personal journals during the tragic events following her husband's accident
  • Showing the original manuscript to a good friend who is a script/screen-play writer who asked her if this was going to be a personal document for her family, or for public consumption and how that question changed everything
  • The dramatic lows and highs that Steve went through since the accident
  • The various audiences that the book is likely to appeal to
  • Where Danielle found support through this entire journey
  • Working with Rebecca at re:books on the release of the book in Nov 2022
  • And more...

After the interview Mark reflects on how Danielle was able to use all the details she recorded and stored, not because she was going to write a book about it, but for other reasons.

Links of Interest:

 

 

Danielle Kaplan is a speech-language pathologist and movement specialist. She grew up in Johannesburg, South Africa and holds a master’s degree in Speech Pathology.

She and her husband Steve emigrated to Canada, where she spent twenty years working in acute teaching hospitals, in Neurology, Neurosurgery, and spinal injury.

Danielle gained a certification in Pilates and then went on to train further in movement while achieving her Personal Training certification (CanfitPro), Ballet Barre for fitness training and then received her Rehab Exercise Specialization Certification.

The mother of two, she lives with her husband Steve and their two fur babies in Toronto, Ontario. I Married A Thrill-Seeker is her first book.

 

The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 

EP 277 - Live Chat with Ask The Authors 202217 Nov 202201:12:03

Mark has a chat with several authors from the ASK THE AUTHORS 2022 book edited by Kaye Booth.

Prior to the main segment, Mark shares a word about this episode's sponsor.

You can learn more about how you can get your audiobooks distributed to retailers and library systems around the world at starkreflections.ca/Findaway.

Links of Interest:

 

 

The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 

EP 402 - The Visible Author Method of Marketing with Laurie Cooper21 Feb 202500:43:50

Mark interviews Laurie Cooper, an award-winning speaker, and an author coach and marketing expert, who helps fiction authors go from struggling, feeling invisible and not knowing what to do next, to finding and connecting with their ideal readers.

Prior to the interview, Mark shares a word about this episode's sponsor.

Learn more about Toronto Indie Author Conference 2025 here.

In their conversation, Mark and Laurie talk about:

  • The round-about way that Laurie got into the role of becoming a marketing coach for authors
  • Starting off as a virtual assistant, then moving on to more marketing-related and coaching for authors
  • It being 11 years since Laurie started working with authors
  • Some of the ways the marketing landscape and promotion strategies have changed over the years
  • Laurie's "The Visible Author Method" that authors can enroll in, but only after a discovery call with Laurie and an invitation
  • The idea that coaches need coaches and therapists need therapists
  • The most important aspect of what writers want, which is ways to connect with their readers, and having their books read
  • How "Niching Down and Branding" is at the core of everything Laurie offers to authors
  • How positioning, or establishing a positioning statement is one of the most taxing endeavors for an author
  • The way that working with a coach can help an author with being able to see themselves and their writing in a new light/different way is important
  • The tiny roadblocks that can stop us from moving forward, and the importance of getting over them
  • The concept of personalized repeatable systems
  • Navigating the road map of best practices, and the importance of trial and error and measurable metrics
  • Some of the differences related to marketing for traditionally published authors versus self-published authors
  • An example of working with a traditionally published author that took some extra effort but worked nicely in the end
  • Some resources that Laurie recommends
  • The three questions that you should always be answering for your readers
      1) What can they expect
      2) Why should they care? (What makes it special)
      3) What they can/should do next
  • The importance of the idea of "my brand equals my promise to my readers"
  • And more...

After the interview Mark reflects on how the the same process/procedure might work differently for different authors, as well as the importance of being able to pivot when unexpected elements clash with your plans and goals.

 

Links of Interest:

 

Award-winning speaker, Laurie Cooper, launched her online business, Pub-Craft: Marketing for Books and Brands, in October 2013. She helps fiction authors go from struggling, feeling invisible and not knowing what to do next, to finding and connecting with their ideal readers. In her first year of business, Laurie went from 1 to over 200 clients and helped 100+ authors hit the New York Times & USA Today Bestselling Lists. While she works as a marketing coach with authors from around the world, Laurie calls Ottawa, Canada her home. Learn more about Laurie and her course,The Visible Author Method. Connect at www.Pub-Craft.com.

 

The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

EP 276 - Embracing Imagination with Diane Floyd Boehm11 Nov 202200:58:45

Mark interviews Diann Floyd Boehm, an award-winning author of children’s books who writes stories to inspire readers to be kind, like themselves, and Embrace Imagination!

Prior to the main segment, Mark shares a personal update, recent comments and a word about this episode's sponsor.

You can learn more about how you can get your audiobooks distributed to retailers and library systems around the world at starkreflections.ca/Findaway.

During their conversation, Mark and Diann talk about:

  • How Diane started off as a teacher - from 4 year olds all the way up to 8th grade
  • Becoming one of the self-taught tech-knowledgable teachers in the system early on, falling in love with computers, and realizing how much she could help students
  • Enjoying and preferring writing long-hand despite being comfortable with and adept at using a computer
  • The process of developing and writing children's books and the parallel inspiration for both children and adults that can exist within them
  • The beauty of what can happen when people open their minds, expand their horizons and learn and work together
  • The power of stories in sharing ideas and preventing people from putting up walls
  • The hybrid publisher (OC Publishing) that Diane uses
  • Diane's new book CHARLIE AND THE TIRE SWING
  • Recognizing that we're all storytellers, even if we've never written anything, and exercises Diane likes to share to help people realize this
  • The online story garden that Diane created on YouTube, creating safe, clean-cut and wholesome stories for families
  • What Diann wish she'd known when she first started out
  • Diann's publicist, Mickey Mikkelson of The Creative Edge
  • And more...

After the interview Mark reflects on the innate creativity we all have, and then talks in detail about the idea of "hybrid" publishing companies, and his default suspicion about them. He then goes to explain why OC Publishing is a legitimate business with very transparent and clear business practices and why a company like that which is honest and demonstrates integrity might be a good fit for some authors.

Links of Interest:

 

Diann Floyd Boehm is an award-winning international author of children’s books and has published a young adult historical fiction. In addition, Diann writes books to inspire readers to be kind, like themselves, and Embrace Imagination! You can find all her books on Amazon.

Diann’s Story Garden YouTube Channel lets children hear different children’s authors read their stories.

Diann continues to be involved in various humanitarian projects with multiple organizations.

Diann was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, to the parents of George M. Floyd and Mabel Adella Harris Floyd. She moved to Texas at about 18 months and her two brothers. Over time the Floyd family grew, and Diann had five brothers, Chris, Danny, Mike, Larry, and Bryan. Diann is a wife and mother of three grown children and one grandson. She has traveled extensively to many parts of the world and has lived in the Philippines and Dubai. She and her husband now reside in Austin, Texas.

 

The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 

EP 275 - Samantha M. Bailey on Unreliable Narrators and Unrelenting Authorship04 Nov 202201:01:58

Mark interviews Samantha M. Bailey, the author of WOMAN ON THE EDGE, a USA TODAY and #1 national bestseller, and WATCH OUT FOR HER, an instant #1 national bestseller about her twenty-year writing journey.

Prior to the main segment, Mark shares a personal update and a word about this episode's sponsor.

You can learn more about how you can get your audiobooks distributed to retailers and library systems around the world at starkreflections.ca/Findaway.

During their conversation, Mark and Samantha talk about:

  • How long Mark and Samantha have known one another and how long it has been since they've chatted, and Samantha's previous guest spot on this podcast
  • Samantha's latest thriller WATCH OUT FOR HER and the 13 weeks it spent on the Globe and Mail bestseller list in Canada
  • The book's presence on numerous indie and chain bookstores as well as non-bookstore locations across Canada including Shoppers Drug Mart, Walmart, and Costco, where it was a buyer's pick
  • How everyone in the retail space was so good to Samantha
  • The twenty years Samantha worked at writing before this huge wave of success
  • Her previous book (Woman on the Edge) being released just prior to the pandemic starting
  • Samantha's rock star agent, Jenny Bent of The Bent Agency and how Samantha found her twenty years earlier
  • Nita Prose, author of The Maid, a New York Times bestseller, who is the editor of both Samantha's novels
  • Getting her first rejection for a story that she wrote and submitted to a publisher at the age of ten
  • Being able to wallpaper her house with the amount of rejections she has received for her books over the years
  • Why Samantha never gave up after collecting enough rejection slips to wallpaper her entire neighborhood
  • The common "yellow raincoat" motif that appears on both of her books despite them being stand-alone novels completely unrelated by anything except the genre and the author
  • Why Samantha loves the concept of an unreliable narrator
  • How, when reading a thriller, Samantha never trusts anyone at all, ever
  • The two performers who read the audiobook version of WATCH OUT FOR HER
  • Being a very visual person, particularly as a reader
  • What Samantha tries to do with every book she writes, and a little bit about the book she is working on now
  • Advice Samantha would have given to her younger self
  • The various genres and types of book she has loved reading and writing over the years
  • Taking all the risks in writing while taking very few risks in life
  • And more...

 

After the interview Mark reflects on the concept of unreliable narrators and the idea of letting fear hold you back.

 

Links of Interest:

 

Samantha M. Bailey is the author of WOMAN ON THE EDGE, a USA TODAY and #1 national bestseller; her second novel, WATCH OUT FOR HER, was an instant #1 national bestseller. Her books have sold in eleven countries to date. Samantha is a journalist and freelance editor; her writing has appeared in NOW MAGAZINE, THE VILLAGE POST, THE THRILL BEGINS, and THE CRIME HUB, among other publications. She lives in Toronto, where she can usually be found tapping away at her computer or curled up on her couch with a book.

 

 

The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 

EP 274 - The 42 Minute Hour with Michelle Oucharek-Deo28 Oct 202200:53:55

Mark interviews Michelle Oucharek-Deo, a writer, speaker and art therapist about her fiction writing journey, creative therapy, and her time management philosophy of the 42 Minute Hour.

Prior to the main segment, Mark shares a personal update and a word about this episode's sponsor.

You can learn more about how you can get your audiobooks distributed to retailers and library systems around the world at starkreflections.ca/Findaway.

During their conversation, Mark and Michelle talk about:

  • How Michelle became an art therapist 28 years ago, working with people from 3 to 103 years old
  • Using art and the process of art-making as a process for healing
  • A memory from Grade One involving being in the library and dreaming of one day being a writer
  • Being a creative writing major in university and how that didn't align with Michelle's vision
  • Sitting down to do some writing in her mid-30s and then again in her 40s; then diving in to engage in fiction writing
  • Michelle's first fiction and how it relates back to her life as a therapist
  • The journey towards self-discovery and being accountable for one's past and one's trauma
  • Her "Wine, Love, and Friendship" trilogy
  • Michelle's belief that there should be a "men's fiction" genre
  • The benefit of writing about important and sensitive subjects within a fictional setting
  • The colleague of Michelle's who read her first book and had it hit so close to home that she had to put the book aside for a while to process it in her mind
  • All the different types of creative and nature therapies that exist and which can cross-over
  • Michelle's thumbnail version of what art therapy is, as well as what it isn't
  • Using the ceremony of the art-making and the experience as a way of allowing someone the opportunity to effectively "say goodbye" to a cherished family pet
  • The 42 minute hour and how it relates to the tremendous amount of time so many of us seem to be "losing" lately
  • Finding and leveraging the time that exists as opposed to letting it sift away
  • Michelle's 42 Minute Club on Facebook
  • How we all have different and unique tools in our own baskets.
  • Advice Michelle has for dealing with writer's block or being stuck
  • And much more...

After the interview Mark reflects on the idea of lost time as well as the concept of the different tools that we all possess and the way they work for us at different times.

 

Links of Interest:

 

Michelle Oucharek-Deo is a writer, speaker and art therapist who has dedicated herself to living her life on the sparkly side of the street. She spent 28 years with a paintbrush in her hand walking with people through their emotional journeys.

Several years ago she stepped outside of the counseling office to create her first fictional series about a woman pushing past her fear and looking at who she really wants to become. During the process of Michelle's emerging writing career, managing her counseling business and motherhood, she created a new and exciting way to manage her time.

Michelle looks forward to sharing stories about her fiction writing journey and how her time management philosophy of the 42 Minute Hour allowed her to lay the foundation to running two parallel careers, baking muffins for her son, planting her garden and still staying sane.

 

The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 

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