Nicolas Sansone - A Peak Inside

Spawned in the cornfields of rural Illinois in 1984, he grew up with a wholesome face and an uncouth mind. A love of physical challenges and lush landscapes inspired him to join a volunteer wildfire squad in 2003, and it was here that he was put on the search and rescue team for the Columbia Space Shuttle, which had broken up over Texas on re-entry that February. During his month working on the Columbia mission, Nick was perplexed by the daily absurdities that came of working for a secretive, hierarchical government organization under adverse conditions in the middle of nowhere. This brought about paranoia, which in turn brought about his first novel, Shooting Angels, now available from All Things That Matter Press.

Shooting Angels is the heavily fictionalized story of a team of wildland firefighters who go to east Texas to investigate a fallen Space Shuttle. As the crew endures physical and emotional hardship, however, they soon realize that the crash was no accident: it was the result of a cosmic conspiracy, involving NASA, Mr. and Mrs. God, and a foul-mouthed, disembodied head which has taken up its residence in the cellar of an elderly rancher. Shooting Angels races from the jungles of Texas to the dark corners of undiscovered space to the smoggy streets of Central Heaven, where people, no longer cowed by the threat of mortality, are free to give in to their most detestable urges. Part science fiction, part adventure, part humor, and part philosophy, Shooting Angels is an action-driven exploration of the relationship between science, religion, and the human imagination.

 Currently, Nick lives in Northampton, Massachusetts, where he is a writing instructor at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. When not writing or selling his time to the halls of academia for a pitiable wage, he is going for long-distance runs, traveling internationally, catching up on the news, or looking for dates. (He prefers the strong, silent, immensely wealthy type.) His next novel, The Calamari Kleptocracy, is forthcoming from All Things That Matter Press.

For more information about Nick’s fiction, please visit his website: http://nicksansone.yolasite.com/

To purchase a print copy of Shooting Angels, go here: Amazon

And for a Kindle edition, go here: Kindle

Just Who Is Wendy Joseph Anyway?

Wendy Joseph vies with her characters for a life of romance and adventure.

A deckhand on merchant ships, she has outrun pirates off Somalia, steered ships large and small through hurricanes and the Bering Sea, and helped rescue seals on the Pacific coast.

Believing history must be lived, she has crewed the 18^th century square-rigger Lady Washington and the WWII freighter SS Lane Victory. She has shared her food with starving cats and Third World workers.

An accomplished musician, Wendy has sung sea shanties, her own songs, and with classical and medieval choirs.

Her passion is for works of the imagination, for telling a really good story and for connecting with the minds and souls of readers and taking them to a magnificent and finer place. . Researching The Witch’s Hand In France, she traced the paths of her characters over the terrain they covered to get the description right, and dug up old documents for historical accuracy.

Wendy Joseph holds two Master’s in English and can splice a twelve strand line. Ashore, she holds court with her cats Jean Lafitte and Bijou on the wild coast of Washington State.

The Witches Hand, soon to be released by allthingsthatmatterpress