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

Sabitha: We have Vivianne Knebel here, a woman whose lived an extraordinary life and produced a remarkable memoir, From Rubble To Champagne. Vivianne, can you introduce us to your book and your life?  

Vivianne: My memoir, From Rubble To Champagne, is a story of survival, struggle, and success starting in the ashes of Nazi Germany. The book was turned into a documentary, An Unimportant Girl. 

Sabitha: You describe the importance of your family . How did your mother show her love for you and your sister? How did this love impact you?

Vivianne: My mother was a single mom who kept us alive from falling bombs and Soviet attacks. She worked in the black market to be able to feed us. In her loving arms she made us feel secure, always encouraging us to never let go of a dream that things will get better. A couple wanted to adopt me . Even though it would have made life easier for her to have one less mouth to feed, she would not hear of it. Motherhood was her true calling. She instilled good values in us. This impacted us greatly. To this day my sister and I always looked out for each other. She taught us the importance of love a sense of responsibility and empathy.

Sabitha: You‘ve been an immigrant in more than one country, and even as a child where you were born, you faced struggles to fit in. What does home mean to you and where did you find it?

Vivianne: My values are squarely centered around security, stability, and the value of freedom, which I found in America where so many immigrant dreams are built. This country welcomed me with open arms and it is home to me.

Sabitha: I’m so glad you were welcomed to a happier life. What parallels do you see in your story and other refugees, from Ukraine to Syria and beyond?

Vivianne: Often they arrive in a new country without being in command of the language. Not knowing anyone and no one to fall back on is difficult. Seeing the potential in this country and the hope to build a new life.

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

Vivianne: You can find me on my website, or on Instagram. You can buy my books on Amazon.

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

Sabitha: Today we’ll talk to John Hartley (or maybe to his alter ego, Johny Nocash) about his musical memoir, Capturing the Wry. John, can you introduce us to your book?  

John: Howdo. I’m John; Hartley by birth, Johny Nocash by artistic alter ego since ooh, about 1989. I’ve currently a couple of things for sale in the big wide world: an official biography of the UK indie band BOB (entitled From Banwell to Berlin and Beyond) and, more personally, a memoir of my time in an ultimately unsuccessful indie band the Irony Board, entitled Capturing the Wry. I’ll chat more about the latter, if that’s ok?

Sabitha: Sounds good to me! Let’s start with—what inspired you to write this book?

John: Well, part ego and part fear of longer term memory loss I suppose. Despite our ultimate failure to make it big, I had a whale of a time in the band and remain very proud of the songs we recorded. I wanted to document this for my bandmates and for my family. I kept loads of letters, notebooks, cuttings and flyers during the time, and kept a gig diary too with setlists and a description of each gig, so that certainly helped me along the way. Plus, my old English teacher drummed into me, “write what you know.” 

Sabitha: Do you have a fan-cast?

John: Ha! That’s a great question. Who would play me and my friends in a movie of that time of our lives? I’d like to think Johnny Depp could play me—he’s a guitarist after all, but he’s also way too controversial now. He’s also far too good looking to play me. Being from the northwest of England we could be played by actors from Coronation Street I suppose. Realistically, we’d be played by young up-and-coming actors hoping to break through to the big time.

Sabitha: What book do you tell all your friends to read?

John: I’ve started to write fiction for the Young Adult market, and am currently close to self-publishing a book called The Broken Bottle. With that in mind, I would point people to The Kingdom By The Sea by Robert Westall, a fantastic tale set in wartime England. I’ve bought The Scheme For Full Employment by Magnus Mills for several people. He’s a fantastic writer.

Sabitha: Do you have any suggestions to help people in our community become better writers?

John: I often get to the stage of wrangling with myself over what I want for my books. I’d love to be able to write for a living—being a school leader in special education is what keeps a roof over my head and food on the table—but I think I would hate the publicity that goes with it. With that in mind my suggestion would be to enjoy writing for the sake of writing, and don’t get hung up on the end result. If you write something for pleasure and ten people love it, it will probably be more gratifying on an artistic level than having to write something you don’t gain pleasure from. Also, chat with other writers, let them read your stuff, read theirs, enjoy the constructive criticism that can be mutually offered.

Sabitha: What’s your next writing project?

John: The Broken Bottle is failing to entice the literary agents, so that’ll be self-published soon. The sequel How Green Are Your Eyes is being read by my mum and my niece before its second draft. I am currently second-drafting a story I wrote for my family entitled Searching for the Sound of Riduna, about a tiny record label on a tiny island in the middle of the English Channel. I’ve written and recorded all their songs too…

Sabitha: 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?

John:  I can be found trading as @JohnyNocash on Twit-X, Instagram and Threads. On Mastodon I am @JohnyNocash@indiepocalypse.social. My books can be found here, or the BOB book can be found here.

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

Sabitha: Nothing better than a queer romance—except a queer romance that’s also a thriller! M. A. Melby’s got the book for us. M. A., can you tell us a bit about Bad Memory?

M.A.: The story is from the point of view of two roommates, Jaimes who is promiscuous and fun and Nik is shy and neurotic. The beginning sets you up for a sweet familiar story about opposites falling in love, you know, a roommate romance with friends to lovers. Even the event that starts the drama, a prank going wrong, seems in line with that type of story, but it spirals down into some pretty dark places…so be warned.

However, it’s not all gloom and doom. Friends come to the rescue. There’s also computer hacking, a sci-fi/fantasy convention, and a spattering of quippy dialog. I even included a couple references that Boy Love fans will get a kick out of.

Sabitha: That sounds like such a fun read. What inspired you to write this book?

M.A.: During the pandemic, I watched a ridiculous number of Thai Y-series (boy love stories). How could I not attempt to write a roommate romance that accidentally became a thriller? 

If you watch Thai Y-series, you’ll notice a few of the common scenes, character types, and plot devices, obviously with my own spin. I took the “wound tending” scene a bit far!

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

M.A.: I’m so sorry.

I grew up watching shows where the characters would get horribly injured or abused but would be perfectly fine before the next episode. I was determined to avoid that and make recovery difficult and meaningful, not, at all, magically going back to “normal”.

Sabitha: I’m sorry for the characters—but not for us readers! How much research did you need to do for your book?

M.A.: One of the main characters is a phlebotomist, so I incorporated language and situations I remembered from being in the hospital, but also looked up several medical procedures and terms.

The plot also involves computer hacking. I’ve been around pretty intense computer folks, but my own knowledge is limited. I tried to avoid getting too technical.

Sabitha: Do you have any suggestions to help people in our community become better writers?

M.A.: Write so that you are proud of your work and enjoy it. Your skills will improve as you write and receive feedback, but find yourself, your own style and voice. Don’t try to be anyone else.

Sabitha: So true. So, M.A., what’s your next writing project?

M.A.: I wrote an epic fantasy novel before this one that’s very close to my heart. I wrote it very quickly, practically in a cathartic fugue state. So currently, it’s a little bit of a mess!

I’m working on revising it to make it beautiful, so that it can be meaningful to my readers and not only to me. I’m very excited about it, and I hope it finds an audience.

The working title is The Epic Threesome. I might be cheeky enough to keep the title, we’ll see.

Sabitha: 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?
M.A.: You can find Bad Memory at most online bookstores, at Amazon, or read reviews on Goodreads. I’m on Facebook, Mastodon, and BlueSky, and I have a website.

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

Sabitha: Ready for adventure? Vanessa Ricci-Thode has what you need, with another installment of her fantasy series. Vanessa, tell us about Firebound! 

Vanessa: For the first time in her life, Spark has friends and has cobbled together something that’s starting to look like a family in her new home under the dragon city. But she’s never felt more alone. Or under more pressure. It’s only a matter of time before Loch and the ice dragons take revenge and attack the dragon city again.

Spark throws herself into spellcraft as the dragons’ only hope. But there’s no way she can do it alone. And then there’s the matter of having mere days to rescue a stolen dragon egg. 

In order to save the dragons, she needs her mother and her grandmother at her side. Spark must delve into the most dangerous kind of magic while learning that rebuilding a family isn’t easy.

While this book is about grief and isolation and loneliness, it’s also about queer joy in the darkness. It’s about being the light that drives away darkness. It’s about family and trust and healing. It’s also the most like How to Train Your Dragon of the entire series.

Sabitha: What inspired you to write this book?

Vanessa: Dealing with a lot of complicated emotional trauma, mostly from a crappy relationship with my mom. I wanted to write a book that teen me needed to help adult me heal, but also to help anyone else who wishes their family had been more accepting.

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

Vanessa: I would (once again) apologize a lot!

Sabitha: What book do you tell all your friends to read?

Vanessa: Listen, if you really need a warm hug in book form I highly recommend The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune. So gentle! So nurturing!

Sabitha: Have you ever killed off a character your readers loved?

Vanessa: Oh yes. One of the family members Spark lost in Fireborn (Book 3) was a sweet

cinnamon bun and I’ve had some very cranky readers over that one.

Sabitha: Do you have any suggestions to help people in our community become a better

writers?

Vanessa: Attend writers’ conferences. See if there are any good ones local to you. If not, there are some terrific free/cheap online ones like WriteHive.

Sabitha:  What’s your next writing project?

Vanessa: I’ve started working on the fifth and final book in the series for NaNoWriMo. It’s going to be very queer and full of complicated messy women. Complicated, messy, and deeply powerful women in an epic team up! Also, there will be more dragons.

Sabitha: 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?

Vanessa: They can go to my website, or subscribe to my newsletter—(subscribers get a free short story from the dragon’s point of view). I use the handle vriccithode on all the social media platforms I use (currently mostly Discord and Bluesky with some Instagram and Mastodon—wandering.shop on Mastodon). And they can buy Firebound here.

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

Sabitha: Today we’ll talk to T. Emiller about their fantasy series, starting with In Shadows Lie. T., can you introduce us to your books?  

T.: Living the dream? More like a nightmare! When Liana’s dreams start blending with reality, she isn’t sure what to trust or even who! Ripped from her average life and thrown into the realm of her past, Liana must figure out which way is up or risk losing herself and an entire Kingdom to the darkness unleashed.

Sabitha: That’s an exciting premise! What inspired you to write these books?

T.: I have sleep paralysis. When I first started having episodes, I would keep myself up for days to avoid them. After some time, my mother said that wasn’t good for my health and suggested journaling. My brother read the journal and suggested I turn it into a book. I started the book, but life interrupted numerous times, and I lost countless copies. Later in life, after being baptized and praying for the purpose of my life, I felt led to write again. I was drawn back to this story and finally finished the first book. When my partner learned about it, they were adamant that I publish.

Sabitha: Writing is so important, both for authors and readers. On that note, what book do you tell all your friends to read?

T.: It’s hard to think of just one, but The Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis had a huge impact on my mindset when writing this story and in general.

Sabitha: Have you ever killed off a character your readers loved?

T.: I haven’t received feedback from my readers on the characters that have hit the chopping block. Personally, it was quite traumatic killing off at least two of them and one wasn’t human. I don’t want to spoil it so you’ll just have to read for yourself!

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

T.: When it came to research that needed to be done for my series, I did quite an extensive amount. The series contains quite a bit of supernatural entities. I spent countless hours researching tales and myths across cultures to find commonalities in the creatures encountered in my stories. I also researched the way these creatures were usually depicted in other stories and tried to give a twist so they weren’t the typical creatures the reader would expect.

Sabitha: Do you have any suggestions to help people in our community become better writers?

T.: I would suggest writing and reading more! Education and practice are key to honing any technique. The writing community is also extremely supportive. Find the group of writers that match your style, then learn and grow! Don’t waste time worrying if you’re good enough.

Sabitha: That’s such good advice. Who did you imagine reading your book as you wrote it?

T.: As I wrote the book, I imagined my target audience would be a young adult, primarily female crowd. I was beyond amazed to find my books have been embraced across gender, age, and geographical demographics. I even have a huge fan that’s in their 90s.

Sabitha: What’s your next writing project?

T.: I am currently working on a poetry collection and hope to release it soon. Don’t worry, I’ll be back to the fantasy books after!

Sabitha: 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?

T.: All of the links to my socials and each book are listed here.

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

Sabitha: Happy Halloween! This spooky Tuesday brings us an unconventional kind of ghost. Ghost Signs: A London Story tells history through photography. Sam Roberts, can you tell us about your fascinating project?

Sam: Ghost Signs: A London Story explores London through its ‘ghost’ signs, fading painted signs on brick walls. Imposing yet hidden in plain sight, they are London’s history written on to the contemporary cityscape. They reveal fascinating stories of everyday life in the capital and each sign has its own tale to tell – not just of the business it represents and the people behind it, but of its own improbable survival.

The book was a collaboration with Roy Reed, who took the vast majority of the photographs inside, and is a feast of history, typography and the urban environment. It showcases London’s most impressive and historically significant faded painted signs, located, photographed and presented with archival and other contextual images. It is split across the two sections: the first shares insights into topics such as production techniques, economics and preservation. This is then followed by themed chapters that take on subjects including building, clothing, entertaining, branding and, ultimately, burying the city.

Sabitha: What inspired you to create this book?

Sam: Since 2006, I have been documenting and researching the phenomenon of ‘ghost’ signs, those fading painted signs on brick walls. I always felt there was a book in me, and the pandemic gave me the necessary time and space to create something that would do justice to the topic.

Sabitha: Do you have a playlist for your book? 

Sam: While writing the book I discovered The War on Drugs from Philadelphia. Many of the songs from their albums A Deeper Understanding (2017) and Lost in the Dream (2014) made it onto a playlist, which was more or less on rotation. Their album Live Drugs (2020) then came out while working on the book, with lots of my favourites on it.

I especially like An Ocean In Between the Waves (the bass when it comes in!) and You Don’t Have to Go, which is much more mellow. Overall the music struck a chord at that particular moment in my life and work, and somehow enabled me to escape the ravages of the pandemic and focus on researching and writing the book.

Sabitha: What books do you tell all your friends to read?

Sam: I tend to read more non-fiction, and some books that have influenced me include: Working Identity by Herminia Ibarra, which helped me navigate a career change; How to Be Free by Tom Hodgkinson which made me reappraise my material consumption; and Doughnut Economics by Kate Raworth which chimed with my understanding of global climate change and what we should do about it. As for fiction, I most recently read Carter Beats the Devil by Glen David Gold, and thoroughly enjoyed the intrigue and twists that fill its pages.

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

Sam: Research probably made up about 75% of the work on the book. Each of the 250 featured signs has their story told, and then there were another 50 or so that were researched but not included in the final edit. Research involved many different approaches, from historical documents and picture archives, to google streetview and the wisdom of crowds on social media, especially Twitter (RIP).

Sabitha: Do you have any suggestions to help people in our community become better writers? If so, what are they?

Sam: I think that the main thing is to write, whether that’s by hand in a journal, on your desktop, or via a blog. Getting your work in front of people is important. So is analysing writing that you enjoy, to see what you can learn from it and bring into your own work.

Sabitha: What’s your next writing project?

Sam: I am currently developing my latest initiative which is a magazine, BLAG, serving the international sign painting community. In addition to writing content myself for publication in print and online, I am also gaining experience of editing the work of others. In particular, I enjoy helping to shape the texts without losing the writer’s voice, a new stage in my own personal and professional development as a writer and editor.

Sabitha: 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?

Sam: You can find Ghost Signs: A London Story here. You can also read me in BLAG (Better Letters Magazine).

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

Sabitha: We are delighted to be joined by Dawn Vogel, a prolific author and editor who shares our love for creative timelines. Dawn, can you tell us about your latest work?  

Dawn: My background is in history, which means a lot of my fiction winds up being fantastical history, which is similar to alternate history, but instead of asking, “What if history was different?” I ask, “What if history included speculative elements?” My latest book is Unfixed Timelines 3, where I collect several fantastical-history short stories and poems, and write an accompanying essay that looks at the real history I’ve twisted. I’m also releasing the Unfixed Timelines Omnibus, which collects the first three volumes of this series for a print version.

Sabitha: What inspired you to write this book?

Dawn: In all honesty, it was short story rejections. Editors rejected some of my fantastical history stories because they thought the historical setting was unrealistic or the language was too modern. As a historian, I do research when I’m writing fantastical history to make sure I’m getting the real part of the story right. There are always bits of that research that don’t make it into the story, of course, so I concocted the idea of writing essays to both explain the history and let me geek out about the facts I’d left out.

Sabitha: So, how much research do you do for your books? It sounds like a lot!

Dawn: A bunch! This volume has seven stories and one poem, which meant first I researched the various historical periods, settings, and other such details as I was writing the stories and the poem. Then, when I put together the book, I needed to write eight historical essays. For some of them, I still had an email with links I collected when I was writing the stories. For others, I had to reconstruct my research. Most of the essays are fairly brief, but they frequently were based on me reading a bunch of Wikipedia articles and tracking down the sources for those articles, plus searching my local library for relevant books. I had a stack of library books on my dining room table for several weeks and took dozens of pages of notes just for the essays.

Sabitha: You seem unstoppable—what’s your next writing project?

Dawn: I’m always working on more short fiction and poetry, but my next big project is going to be a non-fiction book about novel writing. It will be extremely tongue in cheek, but I also hope it will be useful to people who want to write a novel but would prefer a humorous look at the process. It’s also ironic for me to be writing this book because I don’t like writing novels! But maybe in the process of writing this non-fiction book, I’ll figure out some novel writing tips that work for me, too!

Sabitha: 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?

Dawn: Unfixed Timelines 3 is on Amazon and the Unfixed Timelines Omnibus is here. My website is https://historythatneverwas.com, where you can also subscribe to my monthly newsletter. I’m on Mastodon and BlueSky as @historyneverwas, and I’m on Instagram (mostly my cats and other animals) as @scarywhitegirl12.

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

Sabitha: If there’s one thing we love here at Night Beats, it’s a shared universe. The Metacosm Chronicles caught our fancy as soon as we heard about then! N.A. Soleil, can you tell us a bit about yourself and your stories?

N.: Hi! We’re N.A. Soleil, pronouns ‘they’ (because we’re two people, though one of us is nonbinary and does use ‘they’ pronouns). I’m N. and my partner is A.

We have spent over a decade and a half creating an in-depth science fantasy universe from its foundation upward. We write novels from that universe, which we’ve dubbed the Metacosm Chronicles, and we just released our debut chronicle, Everdark. The short blurb: a psionic teenager becomes entangled in an interplanetary war … while also battling her own mind.

Sabitha: What inspired you to write this book?

N.: A. and I both had … troubled childhoods. A. was abused, and I had undiagnosed AuDHD and was chronically ill. We had both separately created universes in our heads to escape. When we met and started dating in our 20s, we found that our universes were creepily similar. (A 100% true fact: we both had a space military called the Rangers headed by an eccentric female Commander. Hi, Chani.) Over the next fifteen years, we merged our universes and started creating an overarching storyline for them. Everdark is the first step of many, and pulls a lot from our experiences of being mentally ill/autistic: being tethered to a reality that everyone else understands and we don’t, what ‘identity’ is when nothing is real, the actual toll that having to constantly fight your own mind takes, and how people bond while in hell.

Sabitha: Do you have a “fan-cast” – do you have actors you’d cast as your main characters?

N.: Not a full cast, but Jackson Wang would make a perfect Tyyrulriathula (snarky but soulful elven Bladesinger), Gwendoline Christie would make a great Chani (the aforementioned Commander—buff mommy, mostly cybernetics, knows far more than she lets on), and only Tilda Swinton could ever be Ichiryu (a tyrannical Elysian with too many minds and not enough mental real estate.)

Ty from Metacosm

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

N.: All the research! A. has ADHD and has always hyperfocused on intellectual pursuits, so the Metacosm was very much built on real and emerging science, theology, anthropology, metaphysics and quantum theory, and good ol’ ‘what if.’

Sabitha:  What’s your next writing project?

N.: We have two other books fully written and ready to be polished up for publishing, and a fourth half-written. All a part of the overarching storyline, scheduled to be released one per year in March. ‘Codename: Book 2’ will be released March 2024. While not a sequel to Everdark, it’s the next step. We are also planning a novella as a sort of prequel to Everdark, into which a Night Beats cameo would fit rather well

Sabitha: We love Night Beats cameos—please tell us if it happens because it will be an absolute joy. 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?

N.: You can find us on any of your friendly neighborhood social media as MetacosmChronicles (except for … *sigh* … X … which is MetacosmSeries) or at our website. Everdark and a snazzy bookmark are available from our shop! We’re currently most active on Facebook.

Redd from Metacosm