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Author News & Interviews

Interview: Jeffrey Siger, author of One Last Chance: A Chief Inspector Andreas Kaldis Mystery

Apr 14, 2022

ONE LAST CHANCE is the 12th installment in Jeffrey Siger’s mystery series starring Chief Inspector Andreas Kaldis. It’s set upon the mountainous rugged Greek island of Ikaria, against its storied past of exploitation, exiles and lives spent in hiding from conquerors, slavers and pirates, and its current worldwide reputation for the longevity of its people. In this interview conducted by Michael Barson, Senior Publicity Executive at Melville House, Siger explains why he chose Ikaria as the setting for his latest book, names the one character whose development throughout the course of the series has been the most unexpected for him, and discusses his latest project, which is a huge departure from his Kaldis novels.

Author Talk: Karen White, author of The Shop on Royal Street

Mar 31, 2022

THE SHOP ON ROYAL STREET is the opening installment in a spin-off series of Karen White’s New York Times bestselling Tradd Street novels. It stars Nola Trenholm, who is hopeful for a fresh start in New Orleans. But she must deal with ghosts from her past, as well as new ones. In this interview, White talks about why she decided to tell this story from Nola’s point of view, her “research” trip to the Big Easy (it was a tough job, but someone had to do it!), and some aspects of the new series that she thinks Tradd Street fans will love --- including several cameo appearances and the surprising reappearance of a character brought back into Nola’s life due to reader demand.

Interview: Joel Agee, author of The Stone World

Mar 3, 2022

Joel Agee, the son of acclaimed author James Agee, makes his fiction debut with THE STONE WORLD. This haunting novel depicts an American boy’s childhood in Mexico, ensconced in a world comprised of communist European exiles, local union activists, street children and avant-garde artists like Frida Kahlo. In this interview conducted by Michael Barson, Senior Publicity Executive at Melville House, Agee talks about his six-year-old protagonist, Peter Vogelsang, and how he imagined him; why it took nearly 15 years for the book to get published; and the importance of revising and rewriting to ensure that your work is truly “complete.”

Interview: Patrick Strickland, author of The Marauders: Standing Up to Vigilantes in the American Borderlands

Feb 24, 2022

In this interview conducted by Michael Barson, Senior Publicity Executive at Melville House, author, journalist and editor Patrick Strickland explains why he decided to write THE MARAUDERS, which tells the story of how citizens in a small Arizona border town stood up to anti-immigrant militias and vigilantes. He talks about the major obstacles he had to face during his time in and around Arivaca, Arizona while researching the book and how he tried to overcome them, the benefits and drawbacks of taking on this project as a freelance journalist, and his thoughts on the possibility of peace prevailing in the American borderlands.

Interview: Wil Haygood, author of Colorization: One Hundred Years of Black Films in a White World

Feb 3, 2022

Wil Haygood’s COLORIZATION examines 100 years of Black movies --- from Gone with the Wind to Blaxploitation films to Black Panther --- using the struggles and triumphs of the artists, and the films themselves, as a prism to explore Black culture, civil rights and racism in America. In this interview conducted by Michael Barson, Senior Publicity Executive at Melville House, Haygood explains how the idea for this deeply researched book came about, offers his thoughts on the late, great Sidney Poitier, names the one Black actor who he believes deserved an Oscar nomination but was sadly overlooked, and reveals which classic movie from Hollywood’s golden age he would like to see remade with a primarily Black cast.