Bookshelf Banter

JN Supermom (Jessica Nielsen) is a poet, writer, and author born and raised in the British Columbia Kootenay’s.

A trained Healthcare Aide and mother of seven children who have a range of special needs, she creates her works from experiences and the world around her.

Always excelling with the love of writing; she perceives the world in simplistic and unique ways. She believes every person has something inspiring to share.

You also find her randomly writing on her blog and taking on a new project with a fellow mom to support others who support those with special needs.

Autumn Bardot is the author of stories about fearless women and dangerous passions. She writes historical fiction, historical erotica, and contemporary fantasy. Her 4-book urban fantasy series is written under the pen name LZ Marie.

She’s a wife, mom, grandma, and teacher.  Because that doesn’t keep her busy enough, she has a YouTube channel and podcast for new writers with lots of writing tips, author tools, and inspiration.

Autumn writes best at home in her sunny Southern California backyard and while vacationing at the beach. She bakes great chocolate chip cookies, drinks too much coffee, buys too many shoes, and loves to write stories about courageous but flawed women who succeed despite the odds. And she always spices it with a healthy dollop of romance! Find Autumn on FB, IG, and all the usual social media platforms.

ShaunTay (EnrichMom) is dedicated to sharing parenting hacks and solutions for busy moms to help them empower themselves. 

K.M. West loves to write characters who explore their ancient traditions, cultures, and world with “humor-wrapped ruthlessness.”

An insatiable knowledge seeker, she’s likely to be found devouring books on myths and ghosts (both real and perceived) alongside research papers on serial killers, war, and mental illness.

As an IT professional, gym owner, yoga instructor, strength coach, mother, and partner, she spends any spare moment she has writing stories for people who want to believe in magic and love to have their hearts broken.

Natalia Hooker

Natalia has 20 years of writing and publishing experience, specializing in non-fiction. She is the author of LJ Hooker The Man, Flipped and the Misha The Traveling Puppy children's series. Natalia has bachelor's degrees from the Australian National University and the University of London, and a master's degree from New York University. Natalia was born in Sydney and has lived in major cities including New York, London, Milan, and Paris. She is now based in Barcelona.

Jan Kirchner currently lives in Illinois with her husband, daughter, dog, two cats, and a gecko. As a debut author of Holes in Your Umbrella, she is a 2011 graduate of Olivet Nazarene University majoring in English with minors in Literature and Creative Writing.

Sasha Blaine is a mother, lawyer, and life-long learner who loves history, world cultures, found poetry, and journalism. She has been writing, largely unpublished, most of her life. Inspired by the real-life travel adventures of a friend of hers, she started writing non-fiction children's books about the many amazing places he has been.

Lesley Larosse is a private voice instructor who has turned her passion for writing, working with teens, and music into her debut novel, This is How I Live Now.

Michelle Pointis Burns juggles mothering her ten children, homeschooling (the oldest five have now graduated college), living her Catholic faith, and writing. She loves to research topics of all kinds, read British authors (especially Jane Austen and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle), quote movies in regular conversation, and drink hot chocolate from elegant teacups. When asked how she manages it all, she has been known to reply, “Prayer, caffeine, and a sense of humor.”

Michelle has been a devoted member of the NY Chemung Valley Mothers of Twins Club (she has two sets of twins), and the Corning Area Writers’ Group. Born and raised in Queens, NY, Michelle currently lives in Upstate New York on a working goat and sheep farm with her husband and more than half of her children. Say Cheese and Murder is her first novel.

Dana and Chloe grew up in rural Ohio and sparked a close friendship in the summer of 2019. When the Pandemic hit in 2020 they saw it as an opportunity to be adventurous. As two young moms, they spent months finding creative outlets through baking and art, but they were running out of things to do. So, when Dana came to Chloe one Friday over coffee and suggested they write a book — it seemed like the next logical step in their endeavors to use their time at home to pursue something they'd always dreamed of doing. The two discovered quickly that they made a great pair, and the story spun itself together almost overnight. The pair plan to keep up the momentum as Indie Authors, exploring all sub-genres of romance in their coming stories.

Kathleen Aldworth Foster is the author of Doneraile Court: The Story of The Lady Freemason. She is a lover of history, travel and old houses. Listen to my interview with her to find out how the idea for Doneraile Court was born, who she is and isn't related to, and why her memoir will be entitled "Scrappy". 

California Girl Pam was always spontaneous, but then a 3 month trip overseas turns into an epic journey as she backpacked around the world SOLO for 3 years. Her sarcasm and optimism got her into and out of trouble through Africa, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Australia, and New Zealand in the 1990's.

Pre-internet days, Pam would sign her letters home as an homage to Indiana Jones and it stuck. For 25 years she's been told to write about her adventures, and it's finally here. Her debut book is a Comedy Travel Memoir called "When in ROAM" about all of her hilarious and dangerous mishaps.

She married her high school sweetheart after years apart, and they are parents to loving twins and a puppy.

Jennifer Walker is a teacher and writer from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. She lives with her incredibly smart husband Ian, her hilarious and exceptionally sweet children Everett and Kennedy, and her floppy, impossible-not-to-love Bernedoodle puppy, Leo.  When she's not teaching, writing, or reading, you can most likely find Jennifer in a yoga studio, in the kitchen baking muffins, or running off the calories of the muffins she's just baked. She's also famous for publicly embarrassing her family by singing terrible show-tunes and practicing 90's dance moves, and if this whole writing thing doesn't work out, she's pretty sure she could make it as one of the Wiggles.

Stephanie K Clemens is known for many things: an author, photographer, dog mom, instagrammer, adventurer, teacher, lawyer, and more. When she’s not sitting behind her laptop she can be found on some adventure. Most of the time it’s a road trip with her two doggos, but recently it has been in the pages of a book.

Zee was born and raised in Manila, Philippines. She grew up with her dad, brothers, and grandparents. She currently lives in the North suburbs of Chicagoland, IL with her husband, twin sons, and fluffy dog. She is an engineer by education, a photographer by profession, an artist by practice, and a writer by soul. She drinks good coffee and appreciates fresh sushi. Just not together.

Reverie is her first published work of fiction and the first book in the Woolgathering Series. It is a finalist in the 2021 Soon-To-Be-Famous Illinois Author Project. Revenant is the sequel to Reverie.

Whitney Dineen is a rock star in her own head. While delusional about her singing abilities, there's been a plethora of validation that she's a fairly decent author (AMAZING!!!). After winning many writing awards and selling nearly a kabillion books (math may not be her forte, either), she's decided to just let the voices in her head say whatever they want (sorry, Mom). She also won a fourth-place ribbon in a fifth-grade swim meet in backstroke. So, there's that.

Whitney loves to play with her kids (a.k.a. dazzle them with her amazing flossing abilities), bake stuff, eat stuff, and write books for people who "get" her. She thinks french fries are the perfect food and Mrs. Roper is her spirit animal. She's won a ton of awards and has been a finalist as well, including Gold Medal winner at the International Readers' Favorite Awards, 2017, Silver medal winner at the International Readers' Favorite Awards, 2015, 2016, 2019, Finalist RONE Awards, 2016, 2018, 2019, Finalist at the IRFA 2016, 2017, Finalist at the Book Excellence Awards, 2017, Finalist Top Shelf Indie Book Awards, 2017

If you're a fan of contemporary women's fiction, you have to listen to this episode featuring author Monique McDonell! Find out how Monique comes up with wacky character names, her thoughts on "Wonder", why she doesn't write literary fiction, and that time she predicted Jamie Durie's career would take off on Oprah.

Monique McDonell is a USA Today Bestselling Australian contemporary women’s fiction author, who writes chick-lit, romantic comedies and sweet romance novels. She I lives on the beautiful East Coast of NSW in Australia with her husband as her gorgeous daughter has flown the nest and headed to university.

Telling stories of resilient women, Kathryn R. Biel hails from Upstate New York where her most important role is being mom and wife to an incredibly understanding family who don't mind fetching coffee and living in a dusty house. In addition to being Chief Home Officer and Director of Child Development of the Biel household, she works as a school-based physical therapist. She attended Boston University and received her Doctorate in Physical Therapy from The Sage Colleges. After years of writing countless letters of medical necessity for wheelchairs, finding increasingly creative ways to encourage insurance companies to fund her client's needs, and writing entertaining annual Christmas letters, she decided to take a shot at writing the kind of book she likes to read: those with humor, heart, and happy endings. Kathryn is the author of multiple contemporary women's fiction, romantic comedy, and romance novels, including the award-winning Live for This, Made for Me, and Paradise by the Dashboard Light.

Author Maida Malby cooks up multicultural, foodie, international contemporary romance stories filled with sizzling heat, mouthwatering spice, and a whole lotta love.  When not writing, reading, or reviewing books, Maida consults her husband on word selection, debates with her ten-year-old son regarding the Oxford comma, cooks the dishes she features in her stories, procrastibakes using Baileys as her secret yummy ingredient, and watches golf and food shows on TV.

Welcome to the first episode of Bookshelf Banter! I'm your host, Heather Balog. I'm the author of 13 novels and 3 children's books that I wrote with my teenage daughter. I'm a wife, mom, school nurse, blogger, and audiobook narrator as well. On this podcast we'll be talking to some amazing Indie authors, specifically authors from the Rom-Com, Women's Fiction, and Chick Lit genres.