Author: Brooks White

What’s your genre?
Horror/Sci-Fi

Are you Published?
Self published

What inspired you to become a writer?
I had an experience in my teens that I later decided would make an interesting story if I spruced up a few of the details and added a little pizzazz. A few months later, I had the first draft of my debut novel, The Collins House. I had started with the goal of self-publishing one novel, just for fun. The feeling I got from finishing that book was something I couldn’t leave behind, though. I started The Warning Woods podcast as a means of publishing short, fictional stories and continue to work on novels in the meantime.

What author do you admire and how have they inspired your writing?
I could try to skate around the obvious, but Stephen King’s work has had a profound impact on me and my writing. I was introduced to horror and sci-fi by Poe and Bradbury, but once I started reading King my perspective on writing changed. I realized the power of great dialogue, uncomfortably relatable characters, and raw language while reading Bag of Bones. The way he can translate outlandish ideas into believable narratives that draw the reader in encourages me to explore even my most absurd ideas.

Name three of your favorite books and their authors
Salem’s Lot by Stephen King
The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

What’s on thing readers should know about you?
I’ve been a fan of horror far longer than I’ve been creating it. I see myself first and foremost as a fan of the genre and wish nothing more than to be a part of its future.

What one piece of advice would you give a budding writer?
Read as much as possible from as many authors as you can. However, if you start reading something that feels poorly written put it down and get it out of your head. What you read will inevitably affect what you write. This can be both a blessing and a curse to an author trying to find their voice.

Author Bio
Miles Tritle lives in Ames, IA with his wife and daughter. He has released over one hundred short horror stories on his podcast, The Warning Woods. In 2021, he released his debut novel The Collins House. Visit him here.

What’s your genre?
Poetry, research, and books

Are you published?
Traditional Publisher

What inspired you to become a writer?
What inspires me to write? Questions. Poetry, particularly Haikus, have been a part of my writing for decades. I have published articles including my research focused on the syndrome I call Corporate Prisoner(TM). My first book for young readers is My Name is Dixie: Designer of the Iowa Flag, a creative non-fiction and journal. Other books coming. Interesting to note: adults have enjoyed the reflective questions as well as the history of the flag and Iowa. The art in my books are by noted artists including Jess Waldmann and Cindy Gordon. I am inspired to write because I know all change begins with new questions. I want to encourage everyone who reads my articles and books to consider where they are in their life’s journey and reconsider how they want that journey to continue and end because questions help me on my life’s journey too.

What author do you admire and how have they inspired your writing?
As an author, I admire Taylor Caldwell’s work. She inspires me because every sentence is meaningful and her books are impactful. I not only enjoy reading her books, I find them inspiring. She doesn’t seem to sacrifice her writing competency in favor of selling her books.

Name three of your favorite books and their authors
Prologue to Love by Taylor Caldwell
Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis
Keys of the Kingdom by A.J. Cronin

What’s one thing readers should know about you?
I enjoy writings to reflect and lighter readings including, but not limited to, novelists, prose, poems, verse of Twain, Shakespeare, Rowling, Hemingway, Chekhov, Garcia Marquez, Young, Melville, D. Owens, Hugo, Dostoevsky, Plato, Socrates, Tolkien, Austen, Mann, Suckow, Loyola, Greenleaf, Whitman, Augustine, Dickens, Dumas, Camus, Barren, Hosseini, Tolstoy, etc. Other writings include Bible, U.S.A Constitution, and Federalist Papers. I love art in general as we need those who can lift us up.

What’s one piece of advice you would give to a budding writer?
Start, review, restart, review, restart, continue, and not get discouraged.

Author Bio
T. Waldmann-Williams, PhD believes that service to God, self, family, and others is of utmost importance. If you serve all of these than you serve your community, state, country, and world, which is why she joined Rotary. She was raised in Council Bluffs, graduating from St. Albert HS, College of St. Mary in Omaha, masters from University of Nebraska, and doctorate from Union Institute and University. She worked for AT&T, established TWW Consulting LLC in 1998, and was an undergraduate and masters adjunct. She’s lived in Iowa (three times), New York, New Jersey (twice), Nebraska, and now resides with her husband, Merrill Williams, in Knoxville (Marion County), Iowa, Sprint Car Capital of the World and home to Dixie Cornell Gebhardt. Visit her here.

What’s your genre?
Memoir

Are you published?
Indie press publisher

What inspired you to become a writer?
I consider myself a free spirit and a healer, and writing is one way I can share my joy and healing with others. Until recently, writing has been a hobby and a college elective because I knew I would lose my love of writing by turning it into a demanding job. In 2020, a book came pouring through me. I finally had a story to tell—my own. I may or may not write another book but I am proud and happy to offer this one to the world.

What author do you admire and how have they inspired your writing?
Diane Glass co-facilitated my spiritual direction training. Friends had taken her writing workshop, “Tending to Your Inner Garden”, and published essays in her book compilation series by the same name. I was impressed that she shared the limelight by showcasing her students’ writings. Then I was mesmerized by Diane’s memoir, This Need To Dance, as she told her personal story of living with spina bifida with unflinching honesty while sharing the painstaking heartbreak it took to create a beautiful life. When my story began to emerge, I thought of Diane. If she could honestly tell the world about her life struggles and be the hero of her own story, so could I. Diane agreed to mentor my completed rough draft and connected me with her publisher.

Name three of your favorite books and their authors
Peace Is Every Step, by Thich Nhat Hanh
An Interrupted Life, by Etty Hillesum
Why I Wake Early, by Mary Oliver

What’s one thing readers should know about you?
While I love to play with words and sounds, by composing guitar and piano music and lyrics, poems, blogs, or books, I also enjoy a space beyond words. In my energy healing work, I reside in a liminal vastness, a place of no thought, and relish the silence. As a spiritual director, holding space and deep listening are essential without my mind noise getting in the way. My favorite moments are the pauses—there are no words.

What’s one piece of advice you would give to a budding writer?
Never let the fact that you have no idea what you are doing stop you. Find those who have done what you want to do in the way that you want to do it and ask for help. Honor those who say no, or do not respond, and go with the yes people. What kept me going was knowing that I was not writing my story for me, but for the one person whose life would be touched for the better.

Author Bio
Deb Kline started Wellspring Wellness, LLC, in 2006, and continues offering energy healing and spiritual direction out of her home office in Ames, Iowa. Through her business, art, music, poetry, and now her book, Forgetting to Remember, she hopes to inspire others to find their own internal healing gifts and zest for life. Deb cherishes downtime with her husband, Kendal, and enjoys perennial flower gardening, feeding the songbirds, and walking the family dogs. Visit her here. On September 13, Deb will read at the Author Spotlight Series from 7 to 8 PM at KHOI Community Radio. Check our calendar for further details.

What’s your genre?
Nonfiction

Are you published?
Traditional publisher

What inspired you to become a writer?
As an academic it’s part of my job. Early on, however, I found that it could change the world—one of my papers got hearings held in Congress. Being able to change lives for the better with one’s writing is highly motivating.

What author do you admire and how have they inspired your writing?
Malcolm Gladwell, as he has a great way of explaining complicated science such that people can see how it relates to their lives.

Name three of your favorite books and their authors
Portrait of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Winnie the Pooh by A.A. Milne
Any book by Neil Gaiman. It’s so hard to choose a favorite

What’s one thing readers should know about you?
It’s not about me.

What’s one piece of advice you would give to a budding writer?
Great writing is not about writing—it’s about rewriting. And more rewriting. And yet more…

Author Bio
Dr. Douglas Gentile is an award-winning research scientist, educator, author, and is Distinguished Professor of psychology at Iowa State University. He has authored over 140 peer-reviewed scientific journal articles, including studies on the positive and negative effects of mass media on children in several countries, video game addiction, and mindfulness practices for reducing anxiety and increasing happiness. He has written several books on similar topics.

In addition, he is a Zen Buddhist monk and meditation teacher who wrote and narrated the best-selling audiobook “Buddhism 101: How to Walk Easily over Rough Ground” and the book “Finding the Freedom to Get Unstuck and Be Happier.” Visit Douglas here.

What’s your genre?
Essays

Are you published?
Traditional publisher

What inspired you to become a writer?
I spent many summers working as a lifeguard. To pass the time, I would watch the stories unfold on the pool deck and in the water. Being focused on a mundane locale—a public pool in a park—brought the dramas of life around me into sharp focus. To understand what I saw, I wrote my way toward a richer sense of meaning.

What author do you admire and how have they inspired your writing?
I find myself returning again and again to writing from Thoreau, and each time, finding out something new about him and about myself. Our writing styles have nothing in common, but I respect his sensibility as an essayist.

Name three of your favorite books and their authors
Devotions by Mary Oliver
Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders
Maus I and II by Art Spiegelman

What’s one thing readers should know about you?
I view myself primarily as a teacher of writing and then as a writer.

What one piece of advice would you give to a budding writer?
Write the first draft with your heart and the second with your mind. By embracing the mess and frustration of revision, your will craft a piece of writing others may be interested in reading.

To quote Cheryl Strayed, “I write to find out what I have to say. I edit to figure out how to say it right.”

Author Bio
Karen Downing was a high school English teacher in West Des Moines for 34 years. She received an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from the University of Iowa. She is the Special Projects Coordinator for CultureALL.

What’s your genre?
Historical mystery

Are you published?
Traditional publisher

What inspired you to become a writer?
I’ve been writing, be it poetry, short stories, greeting cards, plays, or novels, since I can remember. Driven by an active imagination, and finding inspiration everywhere, (talking toothbrushes, wind with personality, books that moved by themselves), I created stories in my head. By the time I was five or six, I was writing them down.

What author do you admire and how have they inspired your writing?
Agatha Christie. Need I say more?

Name three of your favorite books and their authors
Medicus by Ruth Downie
Face of a Stranger by Anne Perry
Pocket Full of Rye by Agatha Christie
(Do you see a pattern here? British historical mysteries are the best!)

What’s one thing readers should know about you?
I have a passion for details. As reading historical fiction is as close to time travel as we’ll get, colorful, factual details are what draws a reader in and lets them experience both a time and a place. As a former biologist and librarian, I take research seriously and diligently apply my skills to lend that level of authenticity to my historical mysteries.

What’s one piece of advice you would give a budding writer?
My advice to any budding writer comes down to one word—persistence, persistence, persistence. Don’t give up! It was advice I was once given. Taking it to heart, I’ve since published nine books and working on number ten!

Author Bio
Clara McKenna writes the acclaimed Stella & Lyndy Mystery series, about an unlikely couple who mix love, murder and horse racing in Edwardian England. Her MURDER AT KEYHAVEN CASTLE was a Historical Novel Society’s Editor’s Choice and voted one of a Suspense Magazine’s Best of 2021. MURDER AT THE MAJESTIC HOTEL (book #4) releases in October 2022.
Clara is the founding member of Sleuths in Time, a cooperative group of mystery writers who encourage and promote each other’s work, as well as a member of Sisters in Crime. With an incurable case of wanderlust, she travels every chance she gets, England being a favorite destination. When she can’t get to the UK, she’s happy to write about it about it from her Victorian farmhouse outside Ames, IA. Visit her here.

What’s your genre?
Biography, fiction, non-fiction, poetry and design

Are you published?
I’m an indie press publisher

What inspired you to become a writer?
Fundamentally writing is about the sharing of compelling, riveting, awesome stories that captivate readers and transport them into an imaginary space full of (sensory) reality. Writing is always also an attempt at immortality, an attempt to transcend time (and space), to leave something behind when the writer is no longer there/here.

At the same time I, as an author/reader, am inspired to write by the writing of others about events that they share through their publications (books, ebooks, audio books). Listening and reading inspire me to become better at communicating ideas that I care about. Editing the books of other writers—a process that links writing with publishing—inspires me as a writer, too.

What author(s) do you admire and how have they inspired your writing?
John McPhee—observing the environment, research, journalistic story-telling
Gustave Flaubert—acerbic writing, humorous, grand scale and personal
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe—relationships, science
J.K. Huysmans—details
Jane Jacobs—society, culture
Indra Kakis McEwen—mythology, details
Robert Harbison—history
Diana Brantley—poetry
Carol Polsgrove—biography, culture
Marian Mathews Clark—society, culture

Name three of your favorite books and their authors
The Control of Nature and Uncommon Carriers by John McPhee
Wahlverwandtschaften/Elective Affinities by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Dark Age Ahead by Jane Jacobs

What’s one thing readers should know about you?
I’m curious about the world, at all scales.

What’s one piece of advice you would give to a budding writer?
What about what you know.

Author Bio
Mikesch Muecke, aka polytekton, teaches architecture and interdisciplinary design courses at Iowa State University, and holds two degrees from the University of Florida (BDesign in 1989, MArch in 1991), and a Ph.D. in Architectural History and Theory from Princeton University (1999). When not teaching, he edits, designs, and publishes books for Culicidae Press (peer-reviewed since 2014) and for the non-profit publishing houses Hog Press, Musca Press, and Zanzara Press, all located in Ames, Iowa.