An Interview with Shirley Melis: Author of Banged-Up Heart: Dancing with Love and Loss
Shirley Melis, a graduate of Vassar College, is a longtime business writer, travel writer and newspaper columnist who traveled the world interviewing everyone from busboys to heads of international organizations before launching a career in public relations in Washington, D.C.
Tell us about your book.
Widowed two years, I found myself swept up into a whirlwind courtship by a younger man, a rocket scientist. Falling deeply in love, we married and started traveling as if there were no tomorrow — realizing our dreams of photography (his) and writing (mine). But little more than a year later, we were fighting for […]
I’ve been chased by moose, river otters, and mad mother partridges. And that’s recent. My seriously unsupervised childhood exploring clam flats, deep forests, and secret streams grew into the marrow that became my novel, 
A Burning in the Darkness by A P McGrath is a compelling thriller about the dynamic Father Michael Kieh, who hears people’s confessions at a busy English airport, including the confession of a murderer. When a murder happens at the airport, and Kieh recognizes one of the victims, accusations fly his way, and he must prove his innocence, as well as reconcile his dark past.
Poor David Tan. Things have not gone well for the harried protagonist of Chandra Shekhar’s novel Mock My Words. His position at Steinbeck University, one he thought of as a dream job, leaves him unfulfilled and struggling to connect with students who don’t take him seriously due to his accented English. His colleagues are brusque and cold. His wife, Laura, doesn’t give him enough attention or affection. Melissa, a brilliant student with whom he shares a cultural and emotional connection, suddenly ignores him as well.
I was born in Athens, Greece, at a time when progressive rock music still got radio play. After finishing high school, I studied Biochemistry and Neurochemistry at Imperial College, University of London, obtaining my BSc and PhD degrees. Following my studies, I completed my National Service duties in the Greek Army. 
Harry Brown was a farmer, chauffeur, Boy Scout leader, storyteller and dowser. Born in 1907, he lived to be 102 years old. He lived in Halifax , Massachusetts for 98 years, making him almost a “townie.” The author owned Kemah Farm in Alexandria, NH. He was married to Mildred Blackman and had two children, Stephen and Deborah.
Meet the Unimaginables by Paul Slutsky is a science fiction novel about the most fascinating of topics: interacting with life on other planets. A scientist named Alan Norton gets the chance of a lifetime to explore the universe as part of the Search for Life program, with each new life form and environment more unimaginable than the last, and he’s soon thrust into a role that could change the fate of the entire universe.
Julie Elise Landry grew up in New Orleans, Louisiana, and became something resembling an adult in Monroe, Louisiana. She wrote her first book in the fourth grade, stealing heavily from The Hobbit and “Ella Enchanted,” but learned not to steal when her mother grinned knowingly at the draft.