IRDA Winning Author Patrick Finegan: “The financial crisis of 2008 set me adrift but also set me free. I am a great fan of new beginnings.”

Things go horribly wrong when the world’s most successful online teaching company replaces staff with artificial intelligence so adroitly that its cast of cartoon educators begins thinking on its own.

Continue ReadingIRDA Winning Author Patrick Finegan: “The financial crisis of 2008 set me adrift but also set me free. I am a great fan of new beginnings.”

IRDA Winner Heather Joy on her motivation: “…readers finding a connection.” 

MMMM: and the music that made me can make a reader cry, laugh, and yell at the author for being an idiot - all in one chapter! The essays range from motherhood to men, media to motorized vehicles, and more. Perhaps there is something for everyone. 

Continue ReadingIRDA Winner Heather Joy on her motivation: “…readers finding a connection.” 

IRDA Winner Colleen Mitchell: “Independent stories like this one don’t have big marketing teams—they thrive because of readers who crave something real, raw, and different.”

Passion and peril collide when Rowan narrowly escapes execution for a crime she didn’t commit, with the help of Casimir—a vampire knight seeking redemption.

Continue ReadingIRDA Winner Colleen Mitchell: “Independent stories like this one don’t have big marketing teams—they thrive because of readers who crave something real, raw, and different.”

Author Karl Sebastian Tells All About His IRDA Winning Book

Although most might want to boil down the book to a seemingly impossible story of overcoming extreme obesity. At it's base value, the book is a story of my life. Destroying it until it was nothing but one person in isolation weighing over 750 pounds. Then, what it took to fight back from that.

Continue ReadingAuthor Karl Sebastian Tells All About His IRDA Winning Book

First Place IRDA Winner Ana Hebra Flaster: “I think if you’re born to write, you can’t not write. I think I’ve always had this story in me, and I’ve been telling it all my life.”

Property of the Revolution is about losing your home, family, and identity in the span of 24 hours and recreating yourself again out of cold, foreign earth.

Continue ReadingFirst Place IRDA Winner Ana Hebra Flaster: “I think if you’re born to write, you can’t not write. I think I’ve always had this story in me, and I’ve been telling it all my life.”

First Place IRDA Winner Cynthia Reeves: “When I was very young…I used to hunt and peck these tales on my mother’s old manual Remington typewriter, imagining that I was a writer.”

Set against the haunting beauty and brutal extremes of the Arctic, The Last Whaler is a gripping tale of survival, love, and loss. The novel follows Tor Handeland, a beluga whaler, and his wife, Astrid, a botanist specializing in Arctic flora, who are stranded during the dark season of 1937-38 at his remote whaling station on Svalbard.

Continue ReadingFirst Place IRDA Winner Cynthia Reeves: “When I was very young…I used to hunt and peck these tales on my mother’s old manual Remington typewriter, imagining that I was a writer.”

IRDA Winners Lisa Peachey and Carol Elizabeth Long Tell All About Their Book

When Lisa’s beloved dog Miley passed, the world became a cold and dark place overnight - not just for her, but for her husband Dene and their dog Sprout. That all changed when animal communicator Carol Elizabeth Long entered their lives and opened the door to something extraordinary.

Continue ReadingIRDA Winners Lisa Peachey and Carol Elizabeth Long Tell All About Their Book

IRDA Winning Author Danila Botha Tells All About Her Book(s)

It’s a collection of thirty- two short stories about women and identity, artistic, cultural, and where they fit into the world. There are lots of stories about Jewish identity, intergenerational trauma, relationships, friendships, community expectations, what it means to be an artist. It runs the gamut. I would say the stories are intimate, honest and hopefully relatable.

Continue ReadingIRDA Winning Author Danila Botha Tells All About Her Book(s)

IRDA Winning Author + Photographer Geir Jordahl: “My dream since childhood has been to be an explorer. Books represent this journey.”

“The Endless Sphere of Time” is about the stories we make in our passing—images of moments in the sphere of time that connect to everything. Our world is round. Eyes, earth, sun, moon—all round, all connected.

Continue ReadingIRDA Winning Author + Photographer Geir Jordahl: “My dream since childhood has been to be an explorer. Books represent this journey.”

IRDA Winners Susan Rogers and John Roosen on Going Traditional: “They’d have to have a pretty good reason and plan of what they would do for our works. Why? We have spent 3 years learning how to do all the tasks and have been very successful.”

Ric Peters and Elaina Williams escape to the breathtaking wilderness of Tasmania, Australia seeking tranquility in its breathtaking landscape. But their dream of an idyllic retreat is shattered on the notorious Devil’s Island, where a dark underbelly of corruption lurks. As they stumble upon a chilling operation—trafficking in innocent lives—they are thrust into a deadly game of cat and mouse.

Continue ReadingIRDA Winners Susan Rogers and John Roosen on Going Traditional: “They’d have to have a pretty good reason and plan of what they would do for our works. Why? We have spent 3 years learning how to do all the tasks and have been very successful.”

IRDA Winning Author Melissa K. Magner on her Motivation: “Love of the craft. I started writing because I loved it, and I still write because I love it.”

Of the Sun and Sea follows a grieving young woman who comes into possession of an otherworldly power and finds herself implicated in the plight of another realm—one which forces her to overcome darkness both around and within her.

Continue ReadingIRDA Winning Author Melissa K. Magner on her Motivation: “Love of the craft. I started writing because I loved it, and I still write because I love it.”

IRDA Winning Author John Blossom: “I write for the excitement of experiencing playful creative ideas that turn into obsession over contributing something worthwhile to the American canon.”

The shamanistic dreams of Mahina Moemoea, a native Hawaiian teenager living on a ranch in Waimea, were passed down to her on the maternal side of her influential family. Her dreams are compelling but so are the risks of harnessing their energy

Continue ReadingIRDA Winning Author John Blossom: “I write for the excitement of experiencing playful creative ideas that turn into obsession over contributing something worthwhile to the American canon.”

IRDA Winning Author David Griffiths: “The best part is knowing it’s cool to be “indie” (like most of the best rock bands).

In search for answers after his mother’s tragic death, a grieving teenage boy discovers his gift of communing with the dead – or so he believes. But as he starts to hear voices in his head and uncovers the ulterior motives of his uncle, a celebrity medium, he must confront the possibility that they are no more than a spiral into hereditary madness.

Continue ReadingIRDA Winning Author David Griffiths: “The best part is knowing it’s cool to be “indie” (like most of the best rock bands).