TJ: Welcome to Author Spotlight, where I interview new and veteran authors. This week we have The Tapestry Group headed by Arthur David. Tell me a little about your upcoming anthology and what inspired it?
AD: The first anthology, Cracks in the Tapestry started as a post looking for interested indie authors in an authors group. It kind of snowballed from there into The Tapestry Group. After Cracks was released, we all took a break and then came back and decided to do a second anthology. Keeping with the Tapestry name we decided on a general Science Fiction anthology to be named Warps in the Tapestry.
TJ: I love the name of the group and the anthology. How many authors are participating?
AD: There are 11 authors participating in Warps in the Tapestry. They are:
Jason Allard
Deneen Ansley
Joel Byers
Leslie Conzatti
J.D. Cunegan
Arthur David
C. Scott Davis
Kirsten Ireland
Amanda Lane
Liz Rosales
and Lorna Wolf
TJ: Could everyone tell readers a little about themselves?
Jason Allard grew up as an Army brat but can trace his family roots in New Hampshire as far back as the 1690’s, on the Isles of Shoals. He studied English at the University of New Hampshire and has honed his writing at the Odyssey Writers’ Workshop. His first published story, “Love in the Time of Zombies”, appeared in Live Free or Undead, and he has released a few more into the wild since. In addition to writing, Jason has begun teaching himself the art of bladesmithing with the help of his great-great grandfather’s anvil. Jason currently resides in Rochester with his fiancée and three rats.
As for what inspired me to submit for the anthology? I’m always looking for places to submit, but finding an anthology being put together by the authors themselves seemed like a project I had to support.
Deneen Ansley, author of “The Union”, grew up in the foothills of Northeast Georgia. Her first work was a love poem to an overall-clad boy five-year old. She’s rarely put her pencil down since. The author’s safe-space was found in the pages of every science fiction book in her rural library, and her most fervent dream was to get her own characters out of her head and onto the page.
Deneen has been published in several other anthologies, newspapers, and with her fellow writer-peeps at sharedwords.net. This anthology contained ideas and stories that interested her, many of the authors participating therein being people whose talent she admired. Why not join the fun? Inspiration for “The Union” came from her thoughts about the origin and interconnectedness of all that is, was, and forevermore shall be.
Amazon Author: https://www.amazon.com/~/e/B00PK28LMM
Shared Words: http://sharedwords.net/deneen/
Joel Byers, the God of History Twistage. I’ve been in a couple of other anthologies, those being ‘Critical Mass and Other Stories’ and ‘Shared Words: Volume One”. Hobbies? Oooooooh, I help run a web page and Youtube Channel with C. Scott Davis (Let’s name him Minion #1) called Twisted-History.com and HistoryBTwisted on YouTube where we find odd historical facts and make them hysterical. What piqued my interest about this anthology? I had two friends, C. Scott Davis, excuse me, Minion #1 and R. Eric Smith, Lackey Second Class, who had stories included in the first anthology, ‘Cracks in the Tapestry’ and their stories, and the anthology were excellent. I had to try and beat them both. I believe I have with my story.
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/~/e/B08YMZ1PTT
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/joelbyers
Website: http://twisted-history.com/
Leslie Conzatti is a prolific writer and an avid reader from the Pacific Northwest. She recently self-published a fairy tale retelling, Princess of Undersea, launching a 4-book series called The Undersea Saga. When she’s not writing or reading, Leslie works full-time as a teaching assistant/paraeducator for an elementary school.
Leslie writes mostly fantasy stories, running a blog called The Upstream Writer for the last eight years, and she’s been featured in anthologies such as Dreamtime Dragons and its second volume, Dreamtime Damsels and Fatal Femmes, as well as a few other limited-run anthologies that are no longer available. Most notably, her siren story “Heartsong” appeared in the anthology that launched The Tapestry Group, Cracks in The Tapestry.
Submitting to this second anthology, Warping The Tapestry, presented a unique challenge, in that I didn’t readily have a sci-fi story on hand, the way I had a prime supply of fantasy stories for other submissions. What I did have was a quick flash-fiction piece I’d written in response to a prompt, which outlined the story of a “normal” child in a family of superheroes. I added an elaborate fight scene, buffed it out with more details, threw in a few catchy acronyms, and kept the twist ending (my favorite part), and thus “Finding Her Niche” became a reality. It’s not your ordinary superhero story, that’s for sure!
Amazon — https://www.amazon.com/Leslie-Conzatti/e/B08C1G68S3
Facebook—https://www.facebook.com/leslieconzattiwriter
Blog— https://upstreamwriter.blogspot.com
J.D. Cunegan writes fast-paced, comic book-inspired tales of action and heroism, and he focuses on the ordinary people who do extraordinary things for the sake of doing extraordinary things. He is a self-published author best known for the Jill Andersen series (Bounty, Blood Ties, Behind the Badge, Behind the Mask, Betrayal), though he had also written the fantasy Notna, the short story collection Legends of the Gem, and the non-fiction The Art of Reading. Warps in the Tapestry features his second contribution to a Tapestry Group anthology.
Website: https://jdcuneganbooks.com
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/J.D.-Cunegan/e/B00YNTP4S2…
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JDCunegan
Twitter: @JD_Cunegan
Instagram: @jdcuneganbooks
Arthur David is the author of the “Agents of the Third Party” series. He has previously released the first book in the series “The Beginning”, as well as the short stories “Rooks Game” and “Ghosts of the Past” which was featured in “Cracks in the Tapestry”. A third short story “Red Hand Day” is featured in the new “Warps in the Tapestry” anthology.
I was inspired to first look for other authors for an anthology after reading one that had featured one of my favorite authors and wanted to see if other indie authors would be interested in doing one as well. I was very surprised by the response I got and from how many interested authors. Thus the Tapestry Group was born and I have felt honored to work along so many other talented authors.
When I’m not writing I am spending time with my family, reading, playing video games (badly) or staring out into space: both figuratively and literally with my telescope and occasionally camera. Links to all of Arthur Davids work can be found at https://linktr.ee/ArthurDavid
C. Scott Davis is a writer, game designer, computer programmer, humorist (of dubious quality), musician (even more dubious) and generally interested in almost everything. He is also an Olympic-class waffler and has two silver medals in procrastination. His stories have been published in “404 Ink”, “The Nassau Review”, and several anthologies, including “Cracks in the Tapestry”. His first novel, “Critical Mass and other stories”, is available now.
As far as what inspired me to participate in this anthology, I always enjoy the opportunity to work with really great writers and The Tapestry Group gives me that chance. I also enjoy the process of going from a collection of stories to a finished, cohesive book, such as the two (so far) “Tapestry” anthologies. All in all, it’s just an enjoyable, rewarding experience that I will happily do as often as they want me to.
Amazon Author: https://www.amazon.com/author/cscottdavis
Goodreads Author: https://www.goodreads.com/cscottdavis
Shared Words: http://sharedwords.net/cscott/
Kirsten Ireland is a writer, mother, singer/songwriter and visual artist living with her wife and daughter in the Midwest.
I was inspired to participate in this anthology by the wonderful opportunity to be a part of a collection of stories, both put together and written by some incredibly talented writers. I was also drawn in by the challenge of writing a science fiction story, as this is not a typical genre of mine.
Amanda Lane is a mother and high school teacher from Salt Lake City, Utah. Most of her free time is currently spent chasing her two kids (Emma 2 and Cade 38 –okay, he’s her husband, but acts like a big kid), but also enjoys crafting and sewing. She can’t remember a time when she wasn’t writing or making up some little fantasy. She was an editor for the first Tapestries anthology, but never had the right story (read: didn’t have the confidence) to submit writing. She is very excited that this is her first piece of published writing.
This story is one I started as a model for my students in May of 2019. I have always been a writer, but as I said in my bio, I don’t really have a lot of confidence in my writing, it never feels truly complete. In March of 2020, just like so many people, my life was thrown into chaos, but… maybe a little differently. Two days after schools pushed to virtual learning, Utah experienced a 5.7 earthquake and it really shook me. Time passed, summer came, and it was time to edit this anthology. While reading through some of the great works in this piece, I remembered that little story I had written for my students and went back to it. I decided it really was extremely timely and the perfect fit for this anthology. I decided… well, if the world is ending anyway, what better time to try this thing? And since we still had time in production, decided it was time to actually publish something.
Liz Rosales is the author of The Spirit of Flying (2014); a few short stories; Andino Andina – choices we make (Seeds to the wind, book 1, 2021).
Interested in history, genealogy, crafts, and cats, all of which are running themes in my writing. Favorite ways to unwind include bookbinding and restoring furniture.
I remember the exact moment the seed-idea of what was to become The InBetweens lodged itself in my heart; where I was, even what I was wearing. I carried it for over 30 years before it was ready to be written, and therefore it is very special to me.
The story was “born” around the same time Cracks in the Tapestry came out, and was initially intended for another anthology that never came together. When I heard the Tapestry group was considering a second volume, I knew I had found a good fit; all I had to do was cut it down by a third…so I did.
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/gatotepress/
Twitter: @catpawscafe
Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Liz-Rosales/
Blog: https://catpawscafe.com/
I’m Lisa Wooley and I write under Lorna Woulfe. Lorna was my maternal grandmother, and Woulfe is the Irish clan Wooley descends from. I was also in Cracks in the Tapestry, where I was honored to also be on the back cover.
I have been published in numerous places, and have other anthologies in the process of being finished.
I was also an editor for Pride Park, also a co-head of getting the anthology published.
I also write poetry and non-fiction (which I publish as L. Anne Wooley).
I’m from Central Ohio and also work in a warehouse.
I’ve lived in such exotic locales as Denver Colorado, Los Angeles California, Nashville Tennessee with shorter terms in Syracuse, NY and Lexington KY.
I have a FB page, and Twitter.
My inspiration for my story in this anthology game from the title just popping up in my head. I looked it up, and the only mention was a blog for helping job searchers. I know it didn’t come from there though. I also thought of the 50s style diner in Spaceballs. It has evolved over time, to what you read today.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/velvetdelenn
4. Where can readers find this anthology? (Please provide a link to where readers can purchase the anthology.)
Warps in the Tapestry will be available as an ebook and paperback on Amazon.
It is currently available for Pre-Order on Amazon and will officially release on April 15th