Every Tuesday, get to know a bit about the stories behind the books you love, and discover your next favourite novel.

Zilla: It’s dark times, and we need stories that remind us of unexpected community and the possibility of resilience. David Giuliano’s literary novel, The Upending of Wendall Forbes, does just that. David, could you introduce us to your book?

David: Set in the remote northern town of Twenty-Six Mile House, The Upending of Wendall Forbes follows Wendall and Ruby Forbes, an aging couple grappling with memory loss, isolation, loneliness and the rapid encroachment of dementia. When a fierce blizzard descends, bringing with it an extended power outage, a group of six eclectic strangers take refuge in their home.

As the storm rages outside, inside, a tender and surprising exploration of intergenerational hope, grief, and the quiet power of human connection.

The cast of strangers, and a talking lynx and a foul-mouthed raven, restore Wendall and Ruby’s hope for the future and for humanity. It’s a novel that is at once funny, wise, and full of heart.

Zilla: What inspired you to write this book?

David: Three things initially inspired The Upending of Wendall Forbes. First, I was sixty-two years old, on the cusp of the fourth quarter of life. I wondered what the next twenty years might be like if I live that long. What does it mean to be an elder?

I am riding on the tail end of the boomer generation, and I am painfully aware of how capitalism, greed and disregard for the natural world have failed the climate and our grandchildren. 

Also, I was reading post-apocalyptic novels, which left me asking if the complete collapse of the world is our only hope. Is there redemption for this world possible? 

I started the novel exploring those ideas and questions. Of course, it took on a life of its own as the story unfolded.

Zilla: If you weren’t a writer, what do you think you’d do instead?

David: For thirty years, I published short essays and poems. I have always been a writer, and like many writers, I did other things.  I was a minister in The United Church of Canada, the Moderator (spiritual leader) of the national church, an expressive arts therapist, a spiritual director, served on the national Indigenous ministries’ council, and am an activist. My writing is inspired and informed by all those experiences. I have been a “full-time” writer for almost a decade.

Zilla: What’s the secret to editing?

David: Editing takes time. For me, for every hour of writing, there are four hours of editing. If there’s a secret, it would be taking pleasure in making what I’ve written better. The “Aha!” when I find a better word, sentence structure, or plot line that polishes what I wrote in a flow of spontaneous creative ecstasy. 

Another “secret” is finding a good editor who understands what I am doing. I take their recommendations very seriously. I accept nearly all of my editor’s changes. A good editor is gold. Be grateful. 

Zilla: What’s your next writing project?

David: I’m working on a third Twenty-Six Mile House novel. I’m no James Joyce, but I identify with him saying, “For myself, I always write about Dublin, because if I can get to the heart of Dublin I can get to the heart of all the cities of the world. In the particular is contained the universal.” Twenty-Six Mile House is a highly fictionalized version of the town where I have lived for forty years. By getting to the heart of it, I hope to get to the heart of universal human experiences. 

Zilla: Thanks for sharing your story and your process. We’re looking forward to reading! Where can the Night Beats community find you and your book?

David: The Upending of Wendall Forbes is available at bookstores, online and from Latitude 46 Publishing. You can find me on my website, Instagram, Facebook, and Youtube.

Every Tuesday, get to know a bit about the stories behind the books you love, and discover your next favourite novel.

Zilla: I’m always here for some fantasy—and romantasy!—so we got Karen Eisenbrey in to talk to us about her works. Karen, can you tell us about your writing?

Karen: I write fantasy, sci-fi, and superhero novels. My current project is Tales from Deep River, which comprises a cozy fantasy adventure trilogy and two cozy romantasy interludes for a total of five books. The trilogy can be read with or without the interludes; the interludes can also be read on their own or in series order.

Zilla: What inspired you to write this book?

Karen: A Quest for Hidden Things (Tales from Deep River Book 1) was inspired by a brief dream featuring two wizards and at least three plot twists in a scene that seemed to occur late in a story. In working out what happened before and after, I accidentally built a world and populated it with characters I wanted to know better. It took me 25 years to get that first book right, which allowed plenty of time to write sequels and spinoffs.

Zilla: Unfortunately for authors, we know that writing is only half the battle—then we need to edit. What’s your secret to editing?

Karen: I don’t know if this is a secret, but you have to accept that writing the book and editing the book are two different jobs. It helps me to set the work aside for long enough that I can come at editing as if the writer was someone else. It doesn’t pay to be too precious about a beautiful passage that doesn’t fit the tone of the book or the experience of the point-of-view character. (But it’s okay to save the beautiful passage in another document, in case it can be used later.)

Zilla: Who did you imagine reading your book as you wrote it? 

Karen: Although I wasn’t actively writing it as young adult (YA), I imagined writing this series for a bookish 14-year-old girl like I was. In reality, even for my overt YA titles, most of my readers have been adults. That’s okay; there’s no upper age limit on young adult.

Zilla: What’s your next writing project?

Karen: After I wrap up the fifth book in the Tales from Deep River, I plan to work on book 3 of my St. Rage garage rock/superhero series. It is currently a thin, messy draft that I look forward to sorting out and plumping up. After that, I have plans for another fantasy trilogy, this one using teen comedy tropes in a high fantasy setting. We’ll be doing Accidental Roadtrip, Fake Dating, and Save the Rec Center.

Zilla: Thanks for sharing your story and your process. We’re looking forward to reading! Where can the Night Beats community find you and your book?

Karen: Website: https://kareneisenbreywriter.com/my-books/

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7577611.Karen_Eisenbrey

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KarenEisenbreyWriter

X/Twitter: @kareneisenbrey

Bluesky: kareneisenbrey.bsky.social

Every Tuesday, get to know a bit about the stories behind the books you love, and discover your next favourite novel.

Zilla: We’re delighted to have Jeffrey Vernon Matucha here to tell us about the punk scene—starting with the music and going from there! Your latest book stars two punk musicians who meet an unexpected visitor. Can you tell us about it?

Jeffrey: Trieste is the story of power punk couple Miranda and Preston, and how the appearance of a pixie punk upends their world, as their bygone fast lane living days rise up to confront them about past sins. It’s a tale, not just about the punk scene, but also the culture of the working class.

Zilla: What inspired you to write this book?

Jeffrey: This work is based on a true story, something that happened to a friend of mine. When you live a wild club and music life, especially when it’s rife with drugs and booze and lots of fooling around, the past can come back to haunt you, especially in unexpected ways. I would say more, but I don’t want to give away too much before people have a chance to experience the story.

Zilla: What would it be like to meet your characters?

Jeffrey: In a way I have met them. Not them literally, but Preston and Miranda are based on the many punks, musicians, and wild burnouts I’ve known over the years. Miranda is loosely based on my late friend Marian Anderson, the singer of The Insaints. Marian has been the inspiration for many of my hardcore characters throughout my writing career.

Zilla: Who is your favourite fictional character someone else wrote? 

Jeffrey: Dre from Dani Dassler’s PR is my favorite character from the genre of punk fiction. Her book has been a big inspiration for my writing, especially when it comes to the subject of culture clashes. One of my favorite scenes from my novel A Long Slow Aftermath, when Preston takes his blind friend to her first punk show, is based off of a key scene in PR.

Zilla: Why do you write?

Jeffrey: I was a wild clubber back in eighties and nineties San Francisco. I have way too many stories to tell, and not just wild rock and roll stories. I’ve been in the trenches with the working poor, those living in poverty, and I know the struggles of the homeless. There’s so much more to what I’m writing than crazy club and drug stories. I’ve opened the eyes of some of my readers, and I want to continue to do so. I also would like to tell the muggles what it’s like to do a stage dive, or mosh in a circle pit, or collect all your loose change so you can have some Top Ramen for dinner.

Zilla: Who did you imagine reading your book as you wrote it?

Jeffrey: I appeal to a lot of scenesters, old and not-so-old punk, goths, and musicians when I market my books, but my stories just remind them of their own lives. They do get the satisfaction of seeing their world in the written word. But the people I really want to reach, who also happen to be the kind of people who appreciate my writing the most, are the civilians who don’t know what these worlds are like, the realms of crazy punks, of drug addicts, and of the working class. Those are the people I want to reach. I want them to experience these cultures through my works.

Zilla: What’s your next writing project?

Jeffrey: I currently have the manuscripts for books six and seven of my Skye Wright series prepared, and I am writing the manuscript for book eight. I launched a Kickstarter in January 2026 to help fund the launch of these books—funds for professional editors, cover art, and book design. I also set it up so that it can take late donations after it expires, if people want to contribute.

Zilla: Thanks for sharing your story and your process. We’re looking forward to reading! Where can the Night Beats community find you and your book?

Jeffrey: All of my books can be found on my website. The book itself is here: https://needlepictures.com/tbd/book/trieste/

Every Tuesday, get to know a bit about the stories behind the books you love, and discover your next favourite novel.

Zilla: As activists and card-carrying science fiction nerds, we could not be more excited at Night Beats to welcome Helena Trooperman’s novel Power Within to our bookcases—and Helena herself to our interviews. Helena, can you start off by telling us about your book?

Helena: She’s a tech genius. But unless she can invent a daring rescue, her soulmate will die.

Toronto 2032, in a subtly alternate reality. Innovator Athena Cartwright wants to change the world with her self-charging coms device. But her focus shifts when her life-partner and oil company CEO leaves on an emergency trip to a stricken rig off the African coast.  And when she learns the worst has happened, she takes matters into her own hands to save him.

With everyone from the catastrophe presumed dead, Athena is furious the authorities refuse to take further action. But her partner carries one of her prototypes… and he’s just called. Though bringing him back alive will pit her against corrupt governments, greedy conspirators, and deadly high-seas pirates.

Can Athena’s daring strategy outwit global foes who want him dead?

Zilla: What inspired you to write this book?

Helena: In these times of climate change, where the world leaders are participating in the last great grab of land, power, and resources, I chose to embrace the other future that’s on offer, the sustainable future of cooperation, abundant power, and technological revolution. It’s exciting, problematic, fraught with dangers, and has a steep learning curve. Plus, I wanted to empower my growing teenagers that sci-fi is a great way to imagine better friendships, family, embrace diversity, inventiveness, and technology to help communities thrive sustainably.

Zilla: Is there a visual image that inspired you? A picture that sums up your hopes for a better future?

Helena: It felt great to have our say in Toronto. You don’t have to be an activist, and campaigning doesn’t have to be negative. Freedom of speech isn’t just for haters. Ordinary people can make a difference because we have power. Together that power is magnified!

Zilla: If you could meet your characters, what would you say to them?

Helena: To Athena, I’d say, “Thank you. Your small acts of courage and dealing with your fears, helped me be more courageous in my writing.” And to James, I’d say, “I don’t believe being in oil makes you evil. I think it makes you stubborn. Use the cash you donate to governments to help your organization. Are you courageous enough to pioneer transition away from fossil fuels?”

Zilla: And what would they reply?

Helena: “I catch my negative self-talk these days,” Athena would say. “And now, I make things happen, rather than let them happen to me. It takes every scrap of energy and determination I have.”

“Fossil fuel organizations are considered the villains but there was a time when we were heroes,” James would say. “Demand is still there but Athena’s right, the time is fast approaching where alternate energies could meet the world’s energy requirements. It’s time to transition.”

Zilla: Who is your favourite fictional character that you didn’t write?

Helena: El from the El Donasii series by Laurence Dahners. El is an inventor who hates hurting anyone. She’s humble and she’s kind. If she has to she’ll stand her ground, defend herself and those about her.

Zilla: Thanks for sharing your story and your process. We’re looking forward to reading! Where can the Night Beats community find you and your book?

Helena: Power Within is book one in the Age of Unity. Find out more at my website. Check out my (almost) monthly newsletter, Reader Hat On, and how Athena (green power) and James (Mr. Oil) meet, in my free downloadable Origin novella: Always On.

Every Tuesday, get to know a bit about the stories behind the books you love, and discover your next favourite novel.

Zilla: From a gorgeous cover art to a thrilling plotline, F. David Schultz’s political fantasy Crown of Horns stands out. We got him here to tell us all about it—so David, take it away!

David: I recently published my first novel: Crown of Horns. It’s a political fantasy-–think 1984 meets The Witcher—about the fight against authoritarianism in a world inspired by the history and culture of Ukraine. 

Zilla: What inspired you to write this book?

David: My partner introduced me to her family’s rich, Ukrainian culture, and I fell in love. Not only with her, but with her traditions and the joy with which she celebrated them. I got to join in those celebrations and learn a lot along the way. 

Growing up, I didn’t have a cultural identity. Canadian was the only meaningful descriptor, offering little beyond national pride. It wasn’t until adulthood that I learned that much had been stripped away in the name of assimilation. 

This became one of the central themes in my book: the celebration of culture versus the forces that strip it away in the name of unity. 

Zilla: I know that you’re creative in a lot of mediums—why do you write?

David: I have a theatre background. Acting offers an opportunity to explore ideas outside my own, and to step into the mind of another person. I adjust my thinking, feeling, and actions based on the playwright. When I’m writing, I can shape the direction of my exploration. 

It’s funny. Sometimes I slip so fully into my characters that I stop thinking about them objectively. I once had a reader call Siranna, a young artist in Crown of Horns, incredibly naïve. I was shocked. Her actions felt so justified and honest. Looking back… yep, she’s very naïve. 

Zilla: And after writing comes the dreaded editing! So what’s the secret to editing well?

David: I took a wild approach while editing my novel. Realizing my early changes had big impacts on the ending, I jumped to the last chapter. Then to the chapter right before that. Before I knew it, I was spinning a wheel to decide what I’d edit next. While a little bonkers on the face of it, the method left me more aware of the sequence of events. 

If someone were looking for advice, I wouldn’t necessarily suggest spinning a wheel. I would say that a good working knowledge of the piece is key, so you are aware of how changes will impact other parts of the work.

Zilla: What’s your next writing project? Is there a next?

David: I didn’t plan to write a sequel… but I fell in love with the world. Since publishing, I’ve written the first draft of a sequel, with ideas for two to three more books after that. 

I’m excited for my next, still unnamed, novel. Crown of Horns was a political fantasy with an underline beneath political. This next one has an underline beneath fantasy. Less political thriller and more magic, monsters, and mystery. I love the change in tone—and the alliteration! 

Zilla: Thanks for sharing your story and your process. We’re looking forward to reading! Where can the Night Beats community find you and your book?

David: Check out my website for more on the book. You can follow me in many places, as @EmpyClaw. I’m most active on Mastodon and would love to connect: 

Every Tuesday, get to know a bit about the stories behind the books you love, and discover your next favourite novel.

Zilla: From Blade Runner to The Expanse, Maltese Falcon to The Brick, noir has delighted audiences—not to mention readers. Lisa de Nikolits offers us her own take on the genre with a modern tale. Lisa, can you tell us about Mad Dog and the Sea Dragon?

Lisa: Mad Dog and the Sea Dragon is a modern-day noir caper with gangster villains of old and a glamorous kick-ass heroine. Murder, drug running, organized crime and danger, this book has it all, in a hard-boiled satirical style laced with dark humor. 

Zilla: Is there a visual image—a painting or a photo—that inspired you? 

Lisa: An exhibit by Arthur Fellig featured a pic of Mad Dog Esposito. I immediately crushed on Mad Dog Esposito; his dishevelled sexiness, his moral anarchy, his casual, oversized trench coat, the torn shirt and ripped jacket revealing a manly chest with the right amount of chest hair, his handsome features completing his poster boy persona for a complete disregard for civilized life. 

Zilla: If your characters met you, what would they say to you? 

Lisa: Fascinating! In 15 years of interviews I’ve never been asked this! 

JESSICA AND DONATELLA: CHAPTER 33

Donatella leads Jessica through a maze of dimly lit, thickly carpeted corridors. Jessica reflects that it wasn’t just the living room that looked like an African safari had taken root in the Swiss Alps, it was the whole house. The corridor smelled musty and odd, like cloves mixed with rotting carpets and mildew. Lisa rounds the corner and bumps into them. 

DONATELLA

What you doing here, bitch? You gotta lotta nerve.

JESSICA

Yeah Lisa, what are you doing here? 

LISA

Talk about a warm welcome. I wanted to know if you guys were happy with the way I wrote you.

DONATELLA

(laughs sarcastically)

You want our blessing? Bad timing, honey. But in general yeah, you did an okay job. But you coulda been kinda about the nose candy. I think you fell into a bucket of hyperbole. 

JESSICA

Ignore her, Lisa. I’m happy too. I started out a bit spineless but I got my groove on. But couldn’t you have figured out something else for Daisy? 

LISA

(chagrined)

I tried. I really did. I’m sorry.

DONATELLA

Yeah hug it out bitches, then Lisa, make like a magician and vanish. 

Zilla:Is your work more plot-driven or character-driven? Or a secret, third thing?

Lisa: It’s a secret third thing! Imagine a kaleidoscope made up of a thousand different puzzle pieces, and those puzzle pieces are scenes from aquariums, movies, books, people I see on the subway, art galleries, overheard conversations, dreams (nightmares) of my own, late-night TV true crime documentaries at 2 am when I can’t sleep. And then I reach down into my heart and pull out a wish list of a book I’d love to have written. And then I set out to write it, and I spin the kaleidoscope until it makes sense – sense to me anyway, and then I pretend I’m on one of those reality TV shows where only one person makes it to the top of Mount Everest and I tell myself that I’m that person and then I write the book and nothing else exists until it’s finished. 

Zilla: What’s your next writing project?

Lisa: In the Interests of Transparency, a novella, That Time I Killed You (coming in May 2026). “A story of iced cakes and malice, this compulsively readable novel about ordinary people doing very bad things will captivate you from the first page to the last.”

Zilla: Thanks for sharing your story and your process. We’re looking forward to reading! Where can the Night Beats community find you and your book?

Lisa: You can find me on Facebook and Instagram, or on my website. You can get my book on Amazon.

Every Tuesday, get to know a bit about the stories behind the books you love, and discover your next favourite novel.

Rachel: With us today to talk about his latest book is Michael Mirolla! Michael, how about telling us about How About This…?

Michael: It’s a little after the middle of the 21^st century. Loving couple Elspeth and Marybeth are both shocked and excited when a stroller with identical twins is left on their back deck with a recorded message that warns them not to try to return the babies or they could face arrest for kidnapping. Using false starts, footnotes, direct approaches to the reader, lists, questions about who the author(s) might be, and even a dose of self-criticism, the story unwinds from that point as El and Mar work hard to create a family under the circumstances. This becomes even more difficult when they discover the babies come with unusual features that perhaps might explain why they were left in the first place. And it all takes place in a disintegrating world that may leave humans incapable of telling their own stories.

Rachel: What inspired you to write this book?

Michael: I have an overriding theme that runs through most of my writing – and that’s the fluid, shapeshifting and very difficult to nail down nature of human identity. Another interest that runs through the majority of my work is the metafictional aspect of writing, the connection between the word and the outside world, the ability of fiction to create its own worlds. There is a good deal of this in How About This …? – as described in the blurb for the novel. In places, the authors (supposedly a collective of some kind) speak directly to the reader; in others, they explain situations through footnotes; at the end of the novel, a critic lashes out at the authors for what he feels are lacunae in their writing.

Rachel: In metafiction and experimental writing, characters often have direct interaction with their writers. What would yours say to you?

Michael: If my characters met me, they would at first have trouble recognizing me as the author who put them down on paper. That’s because my own life (bland and undramatic) has been nothing like that I’ve laid out for my characters. What would they say to me: “Aren’t you supposed to write what you know? You know love, marriage, children, grandchildren, family gatherings and even a touch of farm life. So what are you doing writing about characters who cut off their leg in order to replace a one-legged news vendor? How can you describe a character who spends his time recreating a Mussolini clone in order to shoot him? Who gave you the right to write about an institutionalized janitor who is found with computer files describing a philosophy professor’s surreal trip to Berlin?”

Rachel: Who is your favourite fictional character someone else wrote? And why?

Michael: Josef K. (Franz Kafka’s Der Prozess – The Trial). The story of a man who suddenly finds himself on trial, accused of some vague crime that could very well end up being the criminal act of being alive and conscious. Simply the guilt of being human. For me, it comes across as the finest, truest representation of the 20^th century’s existential dilemma ever put on paper. And combining absurdism with dystopia in a way that foresaw many of the horrors of what took place later in the 20^th century and continuing into the 21st.

Rachel: It’s hard to top Kafka for anything. But who is your favourite character you’ve written, and why?

Michael: I have a character named Giulio who has appeared in a string of my writings, starting with The Formal Logic of Emotion short story collection, the novel Berlin, and still going strong in my as-yet-to-be published magnum opus The Second Law of Thermodynamics. In The Giulio Metaphysics III, the character appears in each of the stories while at the same time not being recognizable as the same character other than his name. A protean character, in other words, lacking any form of so-called essential identity. As well, in The Giulio Metaphysics, the relationship between writer (creator) and character is explored. In the first half, Giulio is forced to do his creator’s bidding; in the second half, Giulio breaks away from his creator – only to find himself completely lost and unable to even remember his name, let alone where he is or why he does what he does.

Rachel: How much research did you need to do for your book?

Michael: For How About This …? the majority of my research had to do with the nature of intersex persons (twins) and their relationships both between themselves and with the world around them.

Rachel: Well, this sounds up our alley. Tell us where the Night Beats community can find you and find your work!

• Website
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• Goodreads
• Book link

Every Tuesday, get to know a bit about the stories behind the books you love, and discover your next favourite novel.

Rachel: With us today to talk about his latest novel is Brad Smith. Brad, tell us a little about your book!

Brad: Billy Crawford’s Double Play is a comedic look at the world of baseball, politics and that confounding thing called life. 

Rachel: What inspired you to write this book?

Brad: As an avid baseball fan I’ve always intended to write a book about the game. And, as a political junkie, I have always enjoyed writing about that fascinating, maddening, complicated world. With the Greenbelt issue being so contentious in Ontario these days – I thought, why not combine the two?

Rachel: You may have landed on the blog of two authors with very strong Greenbelt opinions! If you could meet your characters, what would you say to them?

Brad: I would tell Billy Crawford to stay back on the ball and drive it to the opposite field and I would ask Carroll Miller to stop being a deceitful weasel!

Rachel: If your characters met you, what would they say?

Brad: They would both advise me to mind my own damn business.

Rachel: Who is your favourite fictional character someone else wrote? And why?

Brad: It varies from day to day but right now it’s Mack from Steinbeck’s very funny novella Cannery Row. Mack is a vagrant – sly, charming, manipulative, big-hearted – a real character who manages to be at once as honest as the day is long, and as crooked as a dog’s hind leg. 

Rachel: What about from the characters you’ve written?

Brad: Nate Cooper from The Return Of Kid Cooper. Nate is a man of contradictions – not entirely law-abiding, yet not a criminal. He has humour, integrity and loyalty.  He’s a man of the old west, trying to find his way in the “modern” world, circa 1910, while at the same time balking at what he is constantly being told is “progress”.

Rachel: Is your work more plot-driven or character-driven?

Brad: Tricky question. I would have to say a combination of both. A good plot doesn’t travel far without well-drawn characters and visa versa. What begins in Billy Crawford as a tale about a standard city mayoral election is turned on its ear by the introduction of a cast of characters, all of whom have very different motivations.

Rachel: What’s your next writing project?

Brad: I’m working on a book set in Moose Jaw in the 1920’s, when that small prairie city was known as “Little Chicago”. It deals – in part – with the decades-old rumours that the notorious Al Capone spent time there during that period. 

Rachel: Sounds very cool! Tell us where the Night Beats community can find you and find your work!

www.bradsmithbooks.com

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