Most readers know of the power of the phoenix, its ability to re-create itself out of flame in a dire situation. 
Lizzy Ford’s life has been filled with such darkness but her unerring strength is her ability to be reborn, to struggle on, to reinvent… better and stronger ever time. Lizzy is one of my fellow Indie chicks and I leave her to tell you her story.
I first met Jennifer Stevenson
in a Bookclub online… she’s always made me smile with some of her witty comment and when I asked if she’d jump in the Red Chair for interrogation, she agreed. Her early life in swamp country in the USA brings archtypical images to mind and I needed to know more.
In the beginning Katharine Eliska Kimbriel was nominated for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New SF/Fantasy Writer. Katharine’s work has long straddled the line: “too literary to be commercial, too commercial to be literary” — she has a list of itinerant occupations to prove it. What urged me to invite her to Red chair was that she had a pet gargoyle! Yes, really!
My latest guest was born of academia, wanted to be a cat burglar, got high through the seventies (one is desperate to ask was it good?) hates diets but has never ever had a surfeit of life and in addition writes killingly observant blogs on the world of writing. Not only that, her latest book, Food Of Love, is amongst other things an homage to chocolate.
The Twilight Saga has just been read. Yes, I know I’m very late to the party but I seemed to subconsciously want the hype to go away so that I could draw my own conclusions.
My opinion of the books is of little matter to anyone but myself. But what I will say is how much I preferred the other male protagonist, Jacob Black, 
the Quileute werewolf. This prompted me to think on Finnian of the Færan, the male protagonist in A Thousand Glass Flowers and I felt the need to compare him with Edward Cullen (blasphemy) and with Jacob Black (secondary blasphemy).
Shéa MacLeod once told her mother she wished life was more exciting. It was only later she realized you should be careful what you wish for. Her adventures have led her from the Scottish Highlands to the shores of Maui. She’s tried belly dancing and samba. She’s been a soap maker and candy seller. She even tried her hand at massage therapy. And she knows how to milk a goat. Shéa is the author of urban fantasy post-apocalyptic scifi paranormal romances with a twist of steampunk. I was thinking today (I do that sometimes) what would have happened if I had never ever taken up the offer of publication in 2008, when YWO.com set up their print publishing scheme for new writers.
Taking advice from the indie faerie!
Greg Johnston
is one of those writers I envy… a writer of unique and uncluttered prose. He manages to punch huge weight with minimal wordage. Greg has profound messages in his recently published book Consumption. He says its about our consumptive society, as you will see. I see a story about the use and abuse of friendship. It’s an elucidating, haunting book and one I recommend without hesitation. Which is why I have asked Greg to sit in the big Red Chair for a grilling.
I met Barbara Silkstone through the effervescent (and suddenly very quiet) Mark Williams. She bravely (some would say foolishly perhaps) agreed to interrogation in my 
Red Chair which is working overtime with some high-end ‘Indie’ authors right now.
I’ve been formatting for Kindle, preparing for print, writing a new story, researching… so much work and the thing is, at the same time, I have been aching. In the neck, shoulder, up over the back of the head. I have been kayaking recently and I thought I had torn a muscle. I’ve not kayaked for ages and am desperately unfit in all the required places.
