Author Spotlight Peter Castrillo

Welcome! Please introduce yourself.

Peter Costello, AKA, Peter Castrillo

1. When did you start writing? I liked to write as a child, no matter what it concerned,

for fun, school, or work. I started writing my story when I retired at age 65. But, had it in my head to do for fifty years. The actual writing took about two years, and I used Friesen Press for my Publisher.

2. What motivates you to write?

I have always had an opinion on most social political ideas, policy topics, and would write for my own understanding of subject, graduating in Political Science.

3. What genre do you write in and what made you chose this particular genre?

I wrote this story In True Crime and Memoirs, because that is the area the story falls within.

4. What is your goal in writing?

My goal is to tell a good story that the reader enjoys. Make the reader not be able to put the book down because they want to see what happens with either the characters, or the plot. I like to write relevant dialogue, that releases emotional feelings. But, my very main goal is to entertain myself with a passionate hobby.
Do you have dreams where your writing should take you? Yes, dreams are everything to a writer, thinker, or ordinary person. Then, you organize those dreams into a plan of action.

 

5. Do you ever suffer from writer’s block and if yes, how do you deal with it?

Yes, I’ve had writer’s block, and stop writing for a while, I need the inspiration and passion to want to write.

6. What advice would you like to give new, hopeful authors?

Sit and write it for yourself. Paint the picture you see and feel, and hope others read and feel it the way you intended.

7. Please, tell us about your work.

Vegas Vendetta is a story about my years from 18 to 25, after growing up in a period at the end of World War II among the Italian immigrants who came through Ellis Island and practiced their lifestyle here in America. The state of the World and especially America after winning World War II was monumental to this 50’s generation. People were beyond proud, deservingly boastful, and confident in living life, knowing it was a new world coming, and it brought in the sixties drug, sex, rock and roll which were formative years for me. Las Vegas was built and controlled by gangsters, thugs, and killers, and that’s who I hustled for a living, and never considered myself one of them. I thought of it as a ‘Huckleberry Finn 1960’ adventure.

Thank you for being my guest. It was such a pleasure to have you here!!


About Peter:

Author Bio

The author grew up in a very narrow time period of social change that was brought on when the war ended. The large influx of immigration that was happening at Ellis Island that allowed the criminal element to enter and flourish with the daily numbers games, parlays, horse racing, and other non-violent crimes was a boon to the economy. Everybody in my neighborhood gambled and betting was a sport that gave hope of winning cash. It was common and accepted to play games of chance, and it was sometimes a relative, neighbor, or trusted family friend who booked the bet for you. It didn’t matter that it was turned in to a fella who gave it to another fella, who drove it to Brooklyn to another fella. We trusted the source all the way up the line and felt they were family, after all they came from Calabria, Naples or Florence….

Website: https://pacostel3.wixsite.com/petercastrillo
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/PeterCastrilloVegasVendetta/


Peter’s Book:

Book Description

IT’S THE 1960S. War is raging in Southeast Asia, and the draft board is looming over every young man’s shoulder, but recent high school graduate Peter Castrillo has a plan; enroll in college for as long as it takes to get a student deferment…and then head to Vegas! And Vegas is everything he dreamed it would be-parties at Sammy Davis’s place, hanging out at the bar with Elvis, and flirting with Mia Farrow in the elevators. It’s all bank-rolled lavishly by the clever cons that Peter and his pals devise, taking the casinos for a bundle in these low-tech security days. The drugs are plentiful, the girls are wild, and the glittery nights seem to go on forever. But when Peter makes the mistake of a romantic entanglement with the gorgeous trophy-wife of a venal Bulgarian mobster, his Vegas dream turns into a nightmare that he just might not survive. Based on true facts and dished out with equal portions of hilarity and horror, Vegas Vendetta tells one young man’s story of his quest to evade the draft, make money, meet women, and find excitement back in the days when Vegas truly was Sin City….

Buy it here

 

Author Spotlight Brenda Scruggs

Welcome!

1. When did you start writing?

I took journalism in high school, which peeked my interest. I wrote my first book in 2009.

2. What motivates you to write?

I believe the written word can transport a person to a different time, place, and where dreams can come true. It brings the imagination alive experiencing diverse emotion.
I write contemporary and historical romance with a hint of suspense. I enjoy keeping the reader on edge wondering what’s next.

3. What genre do you write in and what made you chose this particular genre?

I write muit-genre’s. But lately, I started a Historical Romance Sage, “Ladies of Entrepreneurship.”
I grew up riding horses, even barrel raced when I was younger, and I love the western era.

4. What is your goal in writing? Do you have dreams where your writing should take you?

With my latest series, I hope to adhere to the want to be Business Woman and inspire them to follow their dreams.

5. Do you ever suffer from writer’s block and if yes, how do you deal with it?

I do sometimes. When that happens, I set my book aside for a few days thinking and pondering on what I’ve written, then thoughts and scenario’s start again.

6. What advice would you like to give new, hopeful authors?

NEVER, NEVER give up. Read, study, and work your craft. Knowledge is something that is never ending.

7. Please, tell us about your work.

I have released the second book of, Ladies of Entrepreneurship, called Sadie’s Mustangs. (Third book out soon).
The Ladies of this saga are Proverbs Thirty-One women. They are women who are business orientated, strong-willed and determined to live the dream that God has placed inside of them. You can follow these women of free enterprise and see how their story unfolds as God secretly works behind the scenes fashioning love together, healing wounds and bringing dreams to life.
Each novel can be read as a standalone book or as a historical saga.

Thank you for being my guest. It was such a pleasure to have you here!!


Connect with Brenda:

https://brendascruggs.wordpress.com
https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B06Y22VDYT
https://www.facebook.com/Brenda-Scruggs-Author-981454718586806/


Brenda’s books:

http://amzn.to/2Cguw4w Many Hats of a Lady

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://amzn.to/2BXC2NE Sadie’s Mustangs

 

 

 

 

 

http://amzn.to/2DAYcWl The Chocolatier

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://amzn.to/2Cs7wfS Michaela’s Justice

 

Author Spotlight? BlogTour? GuestPost? New Book? Use Writer’s Treasure Chest!


I would like to remind fellow authors and followers to please use ‘Writer’s Treasure Chest’ as a promotional platform.

To new readers, followers and friends of ‘Writer’s Treasure Chest’:

• Do you plan to organize a Blog Tour?
• Would you like to introduce your new book?
• Do you feel like introducing yourself to my nearly 1,000 followers?
• Do you have an idea for a blog post and no blog yet?

Then use ‘Writer’s Treasure Chest.’ On the right side, below the ‘WordPress’ follow-symbol, there is the promotion contact form, looking like this:

 

Check it out and contact me, I’ll be delighted to work with you on your plans, your guest post, your blog tour or send you the sheet with the interview questions!

Let’s get a little more writer’s color into this blog!

I look forward to hearing from you soon!

Author Spotlight – Carole McEntee-Taylor

Welcome!

1. When did you start writing?

I wrote a couple of spiritual books with my husband in 2005 and 2006, The Re-Enlightenment and The Holiday from Hell but I did not start writing seriously until 2008.

 

2. What motivates you to write?

The inspiration behind my writing was my father in law, Ted Taylor.
Ted was conscripted into the Rifle Brigade in September 1939 at the beginning of WW2 and fought in the Defence of Calais in May 1940 after which he spent five years as a POW in Poland. Although he’d never spoken about it we finally managed to persuade him to talk on tape and received a very sanitised version of the fighting and his subsequent years in a POW camp. In 2008 Ted suffered a crippling stroke and ended up in a nursing home. To cheer him up I suggested writing up his war experiences as a book.
This was quite daunting as although I was fascinated by WW2 I had no background in military history. So I began the long process of reading everything I could about the Defence of Calais, which wasn’t much. The battle was totally eclipsed by the evacuation from Dunkirk and was rarely mentioned, even on the most recent documentaries. I knew even less about the treatment of the ordinary POW at the hands of their captors or their lives, having grown up on a diet of sanitised POW camp films, none of which bore any reality to the truth. Ted had been made to work in the salt mines and had even spent time in Majdanek concentration camp. Like most authors I struggled to find a publisher but eventually, Ted’s story, Surviving the Nazi Onslaught, was published by Pen & Sword Books Ltd.

 

3. What genre do you write in and what made you chose this particular genre?

After writing Ted’s story I was hooked on writing military history and have written several other books, but I also wanted to write fiction because I love reading and was struggling to find books I wanted to read.
I grew up surrounded by books. My parents both loved reading, my father was into murder, detective, adventure and espionage stories while my mother read historical fiction and romance so I grew up with a passion for reading most genres and this is reflected in my novels which, although set in the first half of the 20th Century, are a mixture of all these. I have always been a voracious reader. I’d spend hours in the library as a child and spent all my pocket money on books, progressing quickly from Enid Blyton to Agatha Christie amongst others. I’d rush home with my latest books, disappear up into my bedroom and not come down again until they were finished. My Dad always used to say they were a waste of money because I could get through two or three books in a weekend, but they weren’t. They were my escape from reality and the more I read the more it fuelled my imagination. As I grew older I read anything I could get my hands on, crime, thrillers, historical fiction, occasionally romance and science fiction and of course chic lit! The library was my second home and I would always come out with the maximum number of books I could borrow and they were always returned well before the due date.
I liked big books I could lose myself in, probably to escape my disastrous relationships. Prams, pushchairs and my arms groaned under the weight, but it was worth it to stay sane.
Having finally extradited myself from the last bad relationship I spent two years on my own finding myself again and then I met David, my husband. I no longer needed to escape my reality so I stopped reading. I found books by authors I’d always loved no longer held my attention so I decided to write something I wanted to read and I had the perfect idea.
Whist writing Ted’s story I learnt that Brenda, my mother in law, had been a nurse throughout the London Blitz, and she and Ted were engaged when he went to war. Five long years later he came home and they were married. Their story fascinated me. They did not have the benefit of hindsight. Brenda waited even though she had no idea how long it would be or even if Ted would ever come home. Ted had somehow held onto the belief that he would come home even though he had no idea how long that might be. I decided to write up Ted and Brenda’s story including an element of fiction to cover something Ted did in France.
I soon realised it was impossible to fictionalise my in-laws because they were real people. I couldn’t have them doing things that weren’t in character, nor did I want to alienate the family and have my husband not talking to me because I had made his mum do something she wouldn’t have! So I changed their names and although Lives Apart: A WW2 Chronicle is inspired by them and based on something that really did happen, all the characters are now 100% fiction.

I love writing about WW2 and so this 5 book series was followed by Betrayed, a stand-alone novel about a serial killer in Berlin in the 1930s and 40s. My most recent 5 book series is Obsession which was inspired by the rumoured fate of tens of thousands of missing Allied POWs from Eastern Europe at the end of WW2. All the novels are published by GWL Publishing.

 

4. What is your goal in writing? Do you have dreams where your writing should take you?

Like most authors I would like to earn a living from writing, but I do have a secret dream of seeing my books made into films or TV series…….or perhaps not so secret now😊

 

5. Do you ever suffer from writer’s block and if yes, how do you deal with it?

Yes and no. If I can’t think of anything to write I read over what I’ve written and edit it and then I usually find it begins to flow again. Because I am writing several stories at the same time I can normally find something to write. The secret is not to stress over it. Some days I only write 1500 words, others I will write more than 5,000.

 

6. What advice would you like to give new, hopeful authors?

Persevere. Write something every day, even if its only a few lines and doesn’t make much sense. Just write what’s in your head and edit it afterwards.

I started off by self-publishing Ted’s story and the original version of Lives Apart because I couldn’t get a publisher. When I started writing Herbert Columbine VC I saw a tweet from Pen & Sword asking for manuscripts. I tweeted them back and they were interested. Once they’d published that I gave them another biography I’d written, A Battle Too Far, which they also published. I then rewrote Ted’s story (The Weekend Trippers) under the title Surviving the Nazi Onslaught, which they also took. Publishers are looking at the bottom line. They want to make money so you have to show them how your book will do that.

Having self-published the original version of Lives Apart I decided to start looking for a fiction publisher again. My writing style had changed considerably by them so I wanted to the chance to rewrite it and by then I could show that I had sold several hundred copies and had good reviews. If you believe in the story keep going and don’t take no for an answer.

 

7. Please, tell us about your work.

I think I’ve managed to plug most of my published books in the other questions lol😊 but I’m currently working on a new fiction series called Secret Lives which should be out next year. I also have a new military history book coming out in May 2018 called The History of Coalhouse Fort. Apart from its military history the fort has been used in a couple of Batman films!

Thank you for being my guest. It was such a pleasure to have you here!!


 

Connect with Carole:

Website: http://www.carolemctbooks.info/ 
Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/carolemctbooks.info/
Twitter https://twitter.com/CaroleMcT

 


Carole’s Books:

U.K: https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_10?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=carole+mcentee-taylor+books&sprefix=carole+mce%2Caps%2C182&crid=30F9Q7O4JEZ00

U.S.: https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_10?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=carole+mcentee-taylor+books&sprefix=carole+mce%2Caps%2C182&crid=30F9Q7O4JEZ00

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3rd Halloween-Poem Contest

Picture courtesy of: http://preventioncdnndg.org/eco-quartier/eco-tips-for-halloween/

 

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It is a great pleasure for me to announce the

3rd Halloween-Poem Contest

on ‘Writer’s Treasure Chest’.
************************************************

 

Every author and poet are invited to participate and deliver a “Halloween-Poem” to my email address: aurorajean.alexander@aol.com, together with their picture.

There are a few rules to follow:

  1. Your poem needs a Halloween theme.
  2. Your poem needs a minimum of 99 words.
  3. Your poem has to be delivered to my email address until Halloween, October 31, 2017, 9 pm Central Standard Time.
  4. Please avoid violence, bad language, and sexual content within the poems. It would be disqualified.

 

Every poem that meets the rules and is delivered within the deadline will be published here on “Writer’s Treasure Chest” together with the provided picture.

 

End of this month I will introduce this years jury members to you. I am very proud that these authors agreed to be part of our contest.

 

The contest starts October 10, 2017 06.00 am and ends October 31, 2017 09.00 pm Central Standard Time!!

 

Please, deliver your poem and your picture to my email address within this time frame, neither earlier, nor later. Poems arriving outside these 3 weeks will be disqualified.

 

aurorajean.alexander@aol.com

 

We’re looking forward to your poems!

 

A. J. Alexander

What Happens To My Characters I introduced?

So far I introduced three of my characters to the public.

November 13, 2015, a short article on ‘Writer’s Treasure Chest’ was published. It looked like an entry of a demon called ‘Ethel.’ Ethel is hard to describe, very hard. I think it might be a good idea to refresh the memory here.

December 4, 2015, I was introduced to the followers of The Story Reading Ape, and the introduction is still in his “Hall of Fame.” Thank you, Furry Friend. Since I’m not yet published, I decided to interview one of my characters instead: Simin Arnatt, a woman guarding many secrets. If you like, please re-read the interview here.

December 15, 2016, I published an interview with one more of my characters, a shadow named Rapha Golden. It seemed that interview was quite successful. Rapha can charm a woman into ecstasy, I know. Just in case you don’t believe me, check it out here.

I ensure you, none of these characters are wasted or created only for P.R. purposes. They are in fact characters showing up in on of my books. (In my case, novellas).

When I published the interview with Simin Arnatt, I knew she would be one of my protagonists. I did not whatsoever know that the shadow Rapha Golden would become a bigger character than I had expected him to be. They both are currently woven into a story of passion, jealousy, and cruelness and I’m not sure yet how this will end. But I’m soon going to find out.

The big secret is Ethel. I’m currently working on the fourth, the fifth and the sixth novella in the series – and Ethel still hasn’t shown up. I regret this very much, and I hope this character, which I somehow got a liking of, will fit in somewhere soon.

I know, Ethel is my character, my creature, my possession and I could build more strength, but then it wouldn’t be Ethel anymore. Ethel is weak, a bit helpless, a bit evil, a bit of everything – but just “a bit.” Ethel isn’t a protagonist, not the main character. I figure I’ll wait and find out where to create a spot for Ethel.

Have you ever created a character you liked and then found out that you don’t know what to do with this character? Or that the character you created is the worst opponent you could have made and you hate him? Please, let us hear it.

 

 

 

Picture courtesy of: http://weknowyourdreams.com/single/book/book-03

Author Spotlight – Wendy Unsworth

Welcome! 

Please introduce yourself. 

Hello and thank you so much for inviting me here today.

My name is Wendy Unsworth. I am originally from Lincolnshire in the north east of England but I haven’t lived there since my twenties. A lifelong love and curiosity about travel has taken me and my family to many places and for thirteen years we lived in Central and East  Africa. We returned to England and spent some years in Cornwall and made our home in a cottage that was built in 1750. There are good and bad points in living in such an old property, but mostly good! These days I spend my time between Scotland  and the wilds of Portugal as we have family in both of those countries.

 

  1. When did you start writing?

Reading interviews such as these, it’s interesting to note that most authors tend to say that they have dabbled with writing  for as long as they can remember and I’m no different. I always kept diaries and journals as a child and in my early teens wrote a story several notebooks long about a man accused of robbery in eighteenth century  England. He’s forced to flee the country to avoid the hangman’s noose and has several adventures before proving his innocence.

I don’t know what finally happened to those notebooks but suffice to say the historical accuracy was based on old films about pirates and highwaymen and therefore wildly inaccurate! I do so love a well crafted and well researched historical book and admire those who research and capture a particular period so well that they can transport their readers. Mine was not in any way like that,  but it was good writing practice!

 

  1. What motivates you to write?

Oh! Tricky. I suppose it’s creativity that needs to find some kind of form. I love to knit and sew, make home furnishings and create lovely and dramatic gardens. Writing books is at the heart of that love, creating with words. The best part of writing though is that you can actually do it in your head, while you’re washing up or driving or knitting or sewing – creative multi-tasking!

 

  1. What genre do you write in and what made you choose this particular genre?

I choose to write in the genres I most love to read, for my own pleasure and for reading aloud to children.

The stories I write are about testing my characters, about what they can come up with when the chips are down. They’re about murder and family secrets, good and bad people. They probably cross some lines between murder mystery and psychological thriller and although I know genres are supposed to be a little more fixed than that, my characters don’t seem to be able to comply.

As a complete change, I also have a series of chapter books for children which are both magical and mad cap. 

 

  1. What is your goal in writing? Do you have dreams where your writing should take you?

My goal is my next book. My W.I.P. is always my big dream and I can’t wait to finish it. As far as longer term dreams, to write books that can give real pleasure. I hope that others can find genuine enjoyment in the stories I tell. To have someone say, Wow! That is such a good story, I really connected with it; that means a lot.

 

  1. Do you ever suffer from writer’s block and if yes, how do you deal with it?

Oh every day! Seriously though, my daily writing sessions seem to stop-start, that is, I find flow and then get stuck, find it again for a while and then get stuck again. It’s just that way with me.

Since discovering Scrivener that problem has been a little easier to overcome. I split my latest project (manuscript) into documents on a cork board.  For my WIP at the moment, Dirty Work, the action is split into days (Day one, Day Two…) and those days are split into action and POV changes.

When I get stuck I try to unstick myself but if some point is really holding me back I just flip to another document and pick up the action elsewhere in the book. It means I can give myself a break from the sticking point and also that I am still getting some words on the page which is good for morale. 

 

  1. What advice would you like to give new, hopeful authors?

I would say, keep your chin up!

Do not listen to naysayers who quote impossible odds at you. If you want to write, write.

If you want to sell the books you write, inform yourself. Read the many blog posts and articles out there; authors are generous in sharing what does and does not work for them.

As far as social media is concerned be okay with the fact that you can’t do everything.

Love books and read them. 

 

  1. Please, tell us about your work.

Thank you. I would love to tell you a little bit about my work so far.

My Berriwood books are a series based around the fictional community of Berriwood. It’s a small Cornish village where people tend to know one another and nothing much ever happens. It’s ordinary people living ordinary lives, until…

There is always an until’!

 

Here they are with a little bit of blurb about each:

 

The Palaver Tree. (Book 1)

 

Gabriel Cole is a brilliant man. He’s clever; a tireless campaigner for his own charitable foundation. He’s good looking and charming and he takes care of everyone he meets. Ask anyone.

Ask Ellie who travels all the way to Africa to work for him.

Ask Tiffany who plans to marry him.

Ask Promise who loves him or Diane who admires him.

But don’t ask Pax… she knows something.

 

From a quaint Cornish village to the dust and heat of Africa. If good people would talk to one another, the truth could be told.

 

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Beneathwood  (Book 2)

This time the action stays close to home:-

 

Beryl Carroll has lived in the Cornish village of Berriwood for so long that it’s easy to forget she wasn’t born there.

It’s easy… and it’s better.

She fled to the village, a young girl, in search of Gordon, her lost love and in an attempt to escape her sister and her mother and the terrible thing they had all done.

She should have told Gordon what happened, he had a right to know. But what if he couldn’t forgive her? What if he sent her away?

Time has healed, it has banished the past to a few, secret memories but when the couple move into to Beneathwood, the rambling old house on the edge of the village, strange things begin to happen and Beryl has the feeling that the truth is back, welcome or not..

 

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Dirty Work (Book 3)

 

Appearances can be deceptive.

Take the Duke twins. Pete lost his IT job almost two years ago; he is best known in his native village of Berriwood for his tendency to be found propped up against a bar somewhere… or under it. It has been a tough time for Caroline, Pete’s wife,  but at last, it seems he is turning things around.

Nathan is the success story of the family, the darling of the local amateur dramatic society who gave it all up for his high flying directorship based in London. But his wife, Marcie hates the lonely days while he works  away  and forgetting her birthday is the last straw.

 

When Nathan invites Caroline and Pete to a surprise birthday dinner for Marcie, to make amends, Caroline has her reservations. She knows  if anyone is going to spoil the party it would be Pete; he has done it plenty of times before.  What she doesn’t  anticipate is that her husband  won’t even be there and that one of the four will very soon be dead…

 

This is my newest work in the series, available on Amazon for pre-order from May 17th 2017 and due to be published on June 16th 2017. 

 

Thank you for being my guest. It was such a pleasure to have you here!!

 

I am so grateful to have been invited to your lovely blog. Thank you for having me

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Connect with Wendy:

 

Website – http://wendyunsworth.wordpress.com

Twitter – https://twitter.com/WendyUnsworth

Facebook – www.facebook.com/WendyUnsworthAuthor

 

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Wendy’s Books:

 

The Palaver Tree.   http://getBook.at/Palaver

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Beneathwood.       http://getBook.at/Beneathwood

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dirty work:             AVAILABLE ON PRE-ORDER MAY 15 2017!!

 

Author Spotlight – Bob Van Laerhoven

Welcome!

 

Please introduce yourself.

I am a Belgian/Flemish professional author – and have been for 23 years – who has published more than 35 books in Holland and in Belgium, and who has been translated in English, French, Italian, and Russian. I specialize in the cross-over between literature and the suspense novel. With “Baudelaire’s Revenge,” (Pegasus Books) I won the Hercule Poirot Prize for best suspense novel of the year in the LowLands in 2007 and the USA Best Book Award 2014 in the category mystery/suspense. My short story collection “Dangerous Obsessions” was voted “best short story collection of 2015” by the San Diego Book Review.

 

  1. When did you start writing?

I published my first book in 1971, at the tender age of eighteen. In retrospect, I realize that it was way too early, but, bubbling with youthful bravado, I took the first chance I got. Because I was so young, reviewers were lenient with me, and the novel became a modest success in Belgium. I plunged head-on in writing and tried to accomplish an oeuvre with a consistent theme: the bottomless pit of aggression in humans, and the consequences of war. Also in real life, I did what I could to understand the shadows in the human soul. From 1990 to 2003, I visited, as a travel writer, conflict zones all over the world (Somalia, Bosnia, Liberia, Iraq, Iran, Burma(Myanmar),Burundi, Sudan, and so on). I was in the Bosnian town of Tuzla when the first survivors of the mass-murder in the Muslim-enclave of Srebrenica  arrived, and the sight of these wretched, exhausted, malnourished, and hopeless people made a lasting impact on me. I wrote a book about the massacre – more than 7000 Muslims killed – that the Serbian General Mladic’s troops inflicted upon the local population: “Srebrenica. A Testimony Of Mass Murder.”

 

 

 

  1. What motivates you to write?

Up till now, my motivation was the desire to understand who we are, and why we are such strange creatures, capable to create so much beauty, but also to commit such horrendous acts.  I would have liked to write about the light in our soul, but Fate chose me to pursue the nature of darkness. I consoled myself with the fact that there is no light without darkness. Still, after more than 35 books, traditionally published, I feel that I have reached a cross-road. I’m currently working on “The Feuerhand Files,” a novel set in Berlin in 1921, and I feel in the marrow of my bones that it will be my last cross-over novel between literature and the suspense genre. It will be my final attempt to dissect the nature of our innate violence.

 

 

  1. What genre do you write in and what made you chose this particular genre?

I write in the cross-over genre between literature and the suspense novels. In other words: I write literature with a certain degree of suspense. I didn’t choose that particular genre. It chose me. My first ten novels in Flanders and Holland were literary, but even then reviewers noticed a tendency to incorporate “thriller-effects” in them. When I was 42, I felt that my literary pen had become blunt, and, in order to satisfy my ongoing need to write, I decided to write a hard-boiled thriller series. The series, with the South-African/Flemish half-breed commissioner Peter Declerq and the Brussels inspector Samantha “Sammy” Duchène, started as a pure thriller series, but, along the way, the old elements of style and elegance that I tried to portray in my literary work, sneaked also in this “new direction.” Gradually, the Declerq-Duchène series evolved again in the direction of literature, but it still retained a healthy dose of suspense via a thrilling plot and a polished style. Afterwards came the even more literary mystery-novels like “Baudelaire’s Revenge,” and “Return to Hiroshima, “Black Water,” “The Woman Who Loved Dante,” “Alejandro’s Lie,” “The Shadow Of The Mole,”etc…

 

  1. What is your goal in writing? Do you have dreams where your writing should take you?

Coming from a working class family, I dreamed of becoming a famous writer. I’m glad that, rather soon in my, eh, “career,” I understood that a famous writer isn’t necessarily a good writer. So, I changed my goal and wanted to become the best writer that I can be. Instead of trying to be better than other authors, I tried to be the best “me.” I’m still trying, and I still find it a goal very much worth fighting for. I should like to end my writing years with my memoires, having lived a rather unusual life for a novelist.  I don’t know if I have the skills to do that, but I do know that the string of cross-over novels, wherein the individual is set against societies in uproar and unrest, has now dried up in me. When “The Firehand Files” is finished, I’ll start making notes for my memoires. It may take years, it may take forever, Fate will have its will.

 

  1. Do you ever suffer from writer’s block and if yes, how do you deal with it?

No, I never experienced a complete writer’s block, but some books were harder to write than others, and sometimes I stopped after hundred, or more, pages, feeling that the soul of the novel just wasn’t there. But even then, I “recycled” some of the chapters of these unfinished novels to short stories that did well over here, and even international. For instance, I published the short story “Checkmate in Chimbote” in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, and that was originally a part of an unfinished novel…

 

  1. What advice would you like to give new, hopeful authors?

Write write write…Edit edit edit….Edit again Edit again Edit again. Don’t sell your soul for profit; try to find it in your themes, your style, and your passion.

 

  1. Please, tell us about your work.

I haven’t fulfilled my dreams (yet), and, like every artist, I suppose, I had hoped for more and better. But I covered a long distance from the working class boy of eighteen without a formal education to the author I have become, who still tries to hone his craft, and who had some nice successes along the way. Nearing 64, I look back more often than I used to, and when I count my successes and my failures, I realize that I have been a lucky man. Now comes the time to end all these years of writing in beauty, in acceptance, and with grace….

 

Thank you for being my guest. It was such a pleasure to have you here!!

________________________________________________________________________

Contact Bob:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=NMz1poUVmUw 

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/baudelaires-revenge-bob-van-laerhoven/1116879856?ean=9781605987002 

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/baudelaires-revenge-bob-van-laerhoven/1116879856?ean=9781605985893 (Nook)

https://niume.com/profile/45450#!/posts (Niume)

https://www.facebook.com/bob.vanlaerhoven (FB)

http://www.thebingbing.com/bobvanlaerhoven  (BingBing) 

https://twitter.com/bobvanlaerhoven  (Twitter)

________________________________________________________________________

Some Bob’s Books:

https://www.amazon.com/Baudelaires-Revenge-Bob-Van-Laerhoven/dp/160598700X/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1389641492&sr=1-1

 

https://www.amazon.com/Baudelaires-Revenge-%D0%9C%D0%B5%D1%81%D1%82%D1%8C-%D0%91%D0%BE%D0%B4%D0%BB%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%B0-Russian/dp/1681143089/ref=sr_1_cc_2?s=aps&ie=UTF8&qid=1489524243&sr=1-2-catcorr&keywords=Bob+Van+Laerhoven

https://www.amazon.com/Dangerous-Obsessions-Bob-Van-Laerhoven-ebook/dp/B00VU96036  (Kindle edition)

 

https://www.amazon.com/Dangerous-Obsessions-Bob-Van-Laerhoven/dp/168114087X/ref=sr_1_cc_3?s=aps&ie=UTF8&qid=1489524243&sr=1-3-catcorr&keywords=Bob+Van+Laerhoven (paperback)

Author Spotlight – Austin Crawley

AOCrawleyWelcome!

Please introduce yourself.

I’m Austin Crawley and I write supernatural Horror stories.

 

  1. When did you start writing?

In school. I was always writing stories when I should have been listening to what the teacher was lecturing about.

 

  1. What motivates you to write?

Anything and everything. It’s like a release valve for me. I have to write a little every day, even if it’s just a shopping list.

 

  1. What genre do you write in and what made you chose this particular genre?

Specifically supernatural Horror. I have a fascination with worlds we can’t see and have grew up on Twilight Zone, Lovecraft and Stephen King. I like to look behind the curtain of reality and see what strangeness can be teased out of the human imagination.

 

  1. What is your goal in writing? Do you have dreams where your writing should take you?

The short term goal is to get 25 reviews on my current WIP, just to see if it’s true that Amazon starts recommending it after that. The longer term plan is to make a minor mark on history as a writer with some original ideas.

 

  1. Do you ever suffer from writer’s block and if yes, how do you deal with it?

Never happens. Sometimes I have to stop and think about where I’m going with a chapter, but I’ve never had a block.

 

  1. What advice would you like to give new, hopeful authors?

Get someone to edit for you. Putting out work with mistakes you just can’t see is embarrassing.

 

  1. Please, tell us about your work.

My current work is about an American man who just lost his wife visiting a small English village because of a tabloid story about a black post box that the locals use to send letters to their dead relatives. It’s called Letters To The Damned. I have one other book in print called A Christmas Tale. This one is about three young women who think it would be fun to have a séance and invoke the Christmas ghosts from Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. What could go wrong? It’s currently being recorded for audiobook release. I also have a Dystopian series in the works, but it will be a while for that one.

Thank you for being my guest. It was such a pleasure to have you here!!

 


Contact Austin:

 

Blog: https://austincrawleyblog.wordpress.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Austin-Crawley-687952104674224

Twitter: https://twitter.com/austinocrawley

 


Austin Crawley Books:

Front300_A_Christmas_Tale

https://www.amazon.com/Christmas-Tale-Austin-Crawley/dp/1522753516

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Release, October 1, 2016Letters_to_the_damned

 

 

2nd Halloween-Poem Contest

Picture courtesy of: http://preventioncdnndg.org/eco-quartier/eco-tips-for-halloween/
Picture courtesy of: http://preventioncdnndg.org/eco-quartier/eco-tips-for-halloween/

 

 

 

 


It is a great pleasure for me to announce the

2nd Halloween-Poem Contest

on ‘Writer’s Treasure Chest’.

************************************************

Every author and poet are invited to participate and deliver a “Halloween-Poem” to my email address: aurorajean.alexander@aol.com, together with their picture.

There are a few rules to follow:

  1. Your poem needs a Halloween theme.
  2. Your poem needs a minimum of 99 words.
  3. Your poem has to be delivered to my email address until Halloween, October 31, 2015, 9 pm Central Standard Time.
  4. Please avoid violence, bad language, and sexual content within the poems. It would be disqualified.

Every poem that meets the rules and is delivered within the deadline will be published here on “Writer’s Treasure Chest” together with the provided picture.

At this time I am unable to introduce you to the jury since not all authors have yet replied. I will do so as soon as they all agreed to be part of the jury this year.

The contest starts October 10, 2016 06.00 am and ends October 31, 2016 09.00 pm Central Standard Time!!

Please, deliver your poem and your picture to my email address within this time frame, neither earlier, nor later. Poems arriving outside these 3 weeks will be disqualified.

aurorajean.alexander@aol.com.

We’re looking forward to your poems!

A. J. Alexander