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A special thanks to Lisa Diane Kastner for agreeing to join us today. What is your writing environment?
I write anywhere and everywhere. I learned to do this early on because I worked either half or full time at the same time I was in college. So, in order to survive, I needed to use every moment of every day to its fullest. This meant researching while waiting for a bus; editing while eating lunch; and reviewing copy while in between classes.
What is your writing process?
Typically an idea or an image comes to mind and I free write against it. I will also start researching that time period or that topic and that helps to flesh out the story. Once I have researched and written around 15 to 50 pages, then I go back, clean up the pages, and plot out the rest of the story. At that point, I will continue to write against the plotted story. Admittedly, I rarely keep to the plotline because my characters tend to do whatever they like. But the plotline acts as an anchor to go back to and make sure there’s consistency. I must admit, what my characters do on their own tends to be more interesting than what I plotted. After I’ve written a fresh section, I’ll then go back the next day to read and edit it, then I’ll start on a fresh section.
What authors have caught your interest lately and why?
Oh wow. Mat Johnson who wrote Loving Day. He’s funny, tackles really tough and polarizing topics, and is just a dang great writer. His stories are engaging, varied, and hits to the heart of social and cultural issues in America.
What was your inspiration for this particular novel?
I’m the executive editor of Running Wild Press. I started Running Wild Press because at the end of the day, everyone wants to read a great story. No matter the genre, no matter the form, we pick up books, read magazines, watch television, and chomp on popcorn while being enthralled in movie theaters for a great story. I knew so many excellent writers whose writing didn’t fit into a box and yet the writing and stories were great. They kept you engaged, enthralled, and with a wonderful feeling at the end. Yet these stories couldn’t find a home. Their rejection letters were full of praise and yet ended with statements like, “It’s not for us” or “I don’t know where to sell it”. I wanted to give these stories a home and enable the broader world to love them.
Running Wild Anthology of Stories, Volume One is a reflection of this. All great stories, engaging voices that may not fit into a genre box. It’s a mix of fiction, nonfiction, narrative poem. We have horror/mystery, fantasy/non-fiction based (based on true events), literary fiction/women’s fiction and much more.
What is your favorite scene in your new release?
I can’t pick one. I love all the stories, otherwise they wouldn’t be in the anthology. This said, I love A.J. O’Connell’s piece because of the internal strife of the narrator as she obsesses over a missing person; I love Sarah Duckworth’s piece about the feeling of being haunted or watched; I love Jack Hillman’s narrator and how he follows up on mysterious killings; I love Lisa Montagne’s piece about her first foray into demonstrating her womanhood; and I love Gary Zenker’s piece about what it’s like to have your writing workshopped.
What are you working on now and when can we expect it to be available?
Running Wild Press will publish the first of a series from Jack Hillman about a wheelchaired warrior and his warrior sorceress wife/partner and their adventures. We’re also publishing a novella anthology and a novella series called Newly Minted Wings and Salty French Fries. We’re in the midst of negotiating a few other works so stay tuned to hear more about those.
What do you like to do when you are not writing?
I love hanging out with my husband, yoga, watching movies, traveling, going to museums, reading, playing with our kittens, and hanging out with friends.
What is one interesting fact about you that readers don’t know?
An interesting fact? Hm. Well, I look like I’m Irish but according to Ancestry.com I’m mostly Eastern and Western European with a decent dose of Middle Eastern. Almost no Irish or Scottish though.
Top 3 things on your bucket list?
1. Traveling South America to visit Portugal, Chile, and Columbia. I have a novel series set in those countries so I’d like to visit them for a bit.
2. Sushi and cupcakes with my husband. It’s a thing. 😊
3. Traveling to Budapest to see the hotel that inspired the Grand Budapest Hotel.
This gripping collection of stories - fiction, nonfiction, and narrative poem - will make your imagination run wild! Featuring stories by Sarah Smith Ducksworth, Elaine Crauder, Luanne Smith, Keith R. Fentonmiller, Lisa Montagne, Ann Stolinsky, A.J. O’Connell, Aimee LaBrie, Kristan Campbell, Jack Hillman, Bill Scruggs, Joshua Hedges, Gary Zenker. You will travel alternative planets, run away away like teens in search of adventure, solve a murderous mystery, come to grips with your fears, and much more.
Read an Excerpt from Luanne Smith’s “Me and My Old Man"
“I have fallen for an old man. Gray-white hair and wrinkled folds, drooping skin, eyes yellowed as parchment, his lips have almost disappeared from his face. He isn’t rich. He doesn’t have genius to pass along to me. He smokes, drinks, snores, walks too slowly from a bad knee, laughs with a crackle of sound harsh as a rasp of sandpaper on brick.”
About the Authors:
Elaine Crauder’s fiction is also in Cooweescoowee, The Boston Literary Magazine, The Eastern Iowa Review , and Penumbra. Another story received the Westmoreland Short Story Award. Eleven of her short stories have been finalists or semi-finalists in contests, including finalists in the Tobias Wolff and Mark Twain House contests. ”The Price Of A Pony,” under the title”Christmas the Hard Way,” was a semi-finalist for both Ruminate Magazine’s short story prize and for the Salem College Center for Women Writers Reynolds Price short fiction award.
Richard D. “Ky” Owen is a lawyer with Goodwin & Goodwin, LLP, in Charleston, West Virginia. He earned a B.A. in journalism from Michigan State University in 1981 and a J.D. from Hamline University in 1984. Coming from a family of writers, he considers himself a “writer by birth.” He is the author of None Call Me Dad and he blogs about parenting and Michigan State sports at https://www.blogger.com/www.nonecallmedad.com.
Keith R. Fentonmiller is a consumer protection attorney for the Federal Trade Commission in Washington, D.C. Before graduating from the University of Michigan Law School, he toured with a professional comedy troupe, writing and performing sketch comedy at colleges in the Mid-Atlantic States. His Pushcart-nominated short story was recently published in the Stonecoast Review. His debut novel, Kasper Mützenmacher’s Cursed Hat, was published March 20, 2017 by Curiosity Quills Press.
Based in Southern California, Dr. Lisa Montagne currently divides her time between writing poetry and prose, teaching writing to (mostly) willing college students, and overseeing educational technology projects and support at Fullerton College. She is also a Swing, Blues, and Argentine Tango dancer, host, DJ, and instructor. She likes to drink Champagne in as many places as she can, including Europe; to read poetry aloud to anybody who will listen; to cook for anybody who is willing to sit down long enough to enjoy her food; to dabble in drawing, painting, and photography; and to read anything plopped in front of her, ranging from D.H. Lawrence to Vogue magazine. She also likes to watch television and movies, and to imagine how much better she would have produced them herself. She lived in Las Vegas at one time, so she likes to tell people that she was a stripper there. She was really just a graduate student and high school teacher, but it’s more fun to let people wonder. Although rumored to be a direct descendent of Oompa Loompas, Lisa is actually the offspring of a college professor and a circus dwarf. You can find some more of her writing at archive405.com and lisamontagne.com, and see evidence of her adventures on http://www.instagram.com/lisamlore.
Ann Stolinsky is a Pennsylvania-based word and game expert. She is the founder and owner of Gontza Games, an independent board and card game company, and three of her games are currently in the marketplace: “MINDFIELD, The Game of United States Military Trivia”; “Pass the Grogger!”; and “Christmas Cards.” Check her out at http://www.gontzagames.com. She is also a partner in Gemini Wordsmiths, a full-service copyediting and content creating company. Visit www.geminiwordsmiths.com for more information and testimonials. Ann reviews books for Amazing Stories Magazine, an online sci-fi magazine which can be found at www.amazingstoriesmag.com, and and is an Assistant Editor for Red Sun Magazine, www.redsunmagazine.com. Her most recent publishing credit is a poem in the Fall 2015 issue of Space and Time Magazine. She is a graduate of the Bram Stoker award-winning author Jonathan Maberry’s short story writing class.
Lisa Diane Kastner is a former correspondent for the Philadelphia Theatre Review and Features Editor for the Picolata Review, her short stories have appeared in magazines and journals such as StraightJackets Magazine and HESA Inprint. In 2007 Kastner was featured in the Fresh Lines @ Fresh Nine, a public reading hosted by Gross McCleaf Art Gallery. She founded Running Wild Writers and is the former president of Pennwriters, Inc. She received her MFA in Creative Writing from Fairfield University, her MBA from Pennsylvania State and her BS from Drexel University (She’s definitely full of it). Her novel THE KEEPER OF LOST THINGS was shortlisted in the fiction category of the William Faulkner Words and Wisdom Award and her memoir BREATHE was a semi-finalist in the nonfiction category of the same award. Born and raised in Camden, New Jersey she migrated to Philadelphia in her twenties and eventually transported to Los Angeles, California with her partner-in-crime and ever-talented husband. They nurture two felonious felines who anxiously engage in little sparks of anarchy.
Aimee LaBrie works as a communications director at Rutgers University. She earned her MFA in fiction from Penn State, and her MLA from University of Pennsylvania. Her short story collection, Wonderful Girl, was awarded the Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Fiction and published by the University of North Texas Press in 2007. Her second collection of stories, A Good Thing, placed as a finalist in the BOA Short Fiction Contest. Her short stories have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and published in Pleiades, Minnesota Review, Iron Horse Literary Review, Permafrost, and other literary journals. In 2012, she won first place in Zoetrope’s All-Story Fiction contest. You can read her at http://www.butcallmebetsy.blogspot.com.
Kristan Campbell is a short story writer born in Washington, D.C. but has only visited her grandmother there during some of the summers of her childhood. She’s more familiar with Philadelphia, New York City, and Paris than her native city and aims to weave her experiences in those places into tales based on places and people that are out of the ordinary. She studied Journalism at Temple University (what seemed like a practical approach to writing at the time) and Comparative Literature at Hunter College (which seemed like a fun idea at the time) before accepting that she should have been an English major all along. Kristan completed her B.A. in English at Temple University in 2010 and an MFA in Fiction at Fairfield University in 2016. She’s currently attempting to eke out a living doing freelance editing with the help of her cat, Fishy, who manages her desktop printer with enthusiasm.
Bill Ed Scruggs spent his younger years meeting the Southern mountain countryside and exploring the people, taking time out as needed for work in various occupations. He lives (temporarily) in Connecticut and has one child, a psychiatrist. Presently he is reconstructing his memories and imaginings in a series of novels and short stories (Facebook page Foothills Fiction - Bill Ed Scruggs) Warrensburg is a fictional photo of a country village in the illumination of fireflies.
Joshua Hedges is a debut Science Fiction writer from Pittsburgh, PA. He graduated from The University of Pittsburgh with a degree in Computer Science. When he’s not writing stories or code, he ventures outdoors with his wife and three-year-old son to hunt dragons in the forest.
Gary Zenker is a marketing professional whose days are filled with creating business and marketing plans, and writing ad copy and media content. By night, he applies his imagination to flash fiction tales that cross genre and focus on revealing various facets of human nature. He is the author of Meetup Leader, a book on running successful groups; is editor and publisher of 19 books in the rock & roll Archives series; and co-author of Says Seth, a humorous collection written with his then six-year-old son. His work has earned a dozen marketing awards and placed in four writers’ contests, including a first place recognition from Oxford University Press. He founded and continues to lead two writers groups in southeastern PA, assisting others to develop their skills and achieve their writing goals. http://www.zenkermarketing.com
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