Magnificent and Mysterious: The Spellbinding Stories in Friends and Foes of Zenobia Will Captivate You

Can you, for those who don’t know you already, tell something about yourself and how you became an author?

I have always enjoyed reading and I liked my English classes in Junior High and High school.  As a teenager, during the summer months, I used to get insomnia so I would write little stories in my journal until I fell asleep.  I didn’t consider myself as an author until I was much older.  As an actress I would taking workshops from Casting Directors, and I would go to movie and television screenings presented by the Screen Actors Guild.  The last workshop I took, the casting director told us to bring in a commercial currently on air that I would be cast in.  At that time, the most popular commercials with Black women were for Pine-sol and Popeye’s Fried Chicken, which bummed me out.  I wanted to have more options!  The Casting Director encouraged us as actors to “create your own content”.   At the time it didn’t sit well with me. I spent lots of time, money and energy to be an actress. I didn’t want to throw all of that away to learn set design or lighting.  Despite being discouraged about my acting career, I went to a SAG screening of “The Fighter” with a discussion after the movie with Mark Wahlberg, Amy Adams, and Christian Bale. I was shocked to hear them talk about how studios didn’t want to make the movie because Mark Wahlberg wasn’t an A-list actor at the time. When asked about their acting careers, both Amy Adams and Christian Bale had imposter syndrome.  No matter how many projects they had been a part of, they still questioned their abilities, and I think they are amazing actors! Then I felt as though a spotlight was shone directly on me when Mark said, “Create your own content.  Make what you want to be in.  If you don’t know how to do more than just act, take classes, connect with people who know how to do what you need to make your project a reality. Create what moves you.” Then the message was crystal clear. Forget focusing on how much money I spent on my acting. I had the burning desire to write stories that I wanted to be in. I needed to create what I wanted to see in movies or on TV.  So, I started writing, taking classes and seminars on writing and here I am today. I had fun acting different roles, but my focus is now on writing, especially horror.  I love being an author!

If you knew you’d die tomorrow, how would you spend your last day?

I do my best to live every day to the fullest, so if I knew I’d die tomorrow, it wouldn’t be too crazy or over the top. I’d sit on a warm beach somewhere for a few hours, feeling the sun on my face, then my best friends, family, and I would have a really nice meal at my favorite Italian restaurant with several bottles of red wine.  My last meal would probably be arancini rice balls as an appetizer followed by spinach ravioli with chicken.  Then I would it under a starry sky and look for shooting stars until sunrise.

Who is your hero and why?

My Dad is definitely my hero. My sister and I joke that he is like “the most interesting man in the world”.  He has lots of stories about when he grew up in the south and his time in the Air Force.  When my sister and I were little, my mom would make us sandwiches and as a family we’d pile into my dad’s van. Then he’d just drive. A lot of times we’d drive up the coast in the San Francisco Bay area to places like Half Moon Bay or Stinson Beach.  We’d park, eat, play outside for a bit and then drive home.   When I asked my mom how she knew he was “the one”, she told me that she knew that life with my dad would always be an adventure. Also, to this day, he always looks for ways to help people. Not just family members, but people in need. For example, years ago an older gentleman came into a small electronic store where my dad worked, and the man clearly needed help with getting around town and doing things around his home.  My dad would make sure that my mom, my sister and I were fine and then at least once or twice a week he would check up on the older gentleman and run errands for him.  When the older man eventually passed away, my dad didn’t ask for anything in return from the caretakers of the estate.  He simply helped someone that needed assistance. There’s a lady in her late 90’s who collects plastic bottles for recycling in the neighborhood, so my dad makes sure he puts his plastic water bottles aside for her.  When my mom was diagnosed with dementia and later Alzheimer’s, he was at her side day and night and never complained, no matter how rough times would get.  Even now he checks up on other family members across the United States, simply because it’s in his heart to do so.  I can only hope to be as interesting, and as giving as he, is in my lifetime.

What do you do to unwind and relax?

Depending on the weather, I like to sit in my backyard and tend to my flowers or go to the beach at Marina Del Rey and sit on the sand and admire the ocean.  Sometimes I’ll spot dolphins playing in the horizon, which I think always brings me an extra bit of luck.  If my characters for my stories are chatty in my head, I’ll bring a notebook and make notes.

Describe yourself in five words or less!

This is a fun one! I took a workshop with Sam Christensen to see how others perceive you, in comparison to how you see yourself. People find me “Enchanting” (which I love) “Sweetest apple on the tree” as well as “Fireflies in the August Night”. 

Do you have a favorite movie? 

I have several. My most favorite movie that I could watch over and over again is Clue. I am a big fan of Cary Grant, so Notorious and Suspicion are in my top 10 list as well as Sinners, Empire Strikes Back, Raising Arizona, Psycho, Rosemary’s Baby, Poltergeist and Back to the Future (in no particular order).

Which of your novels can you imagine made into a movie?

 I imagine all of my novels made into movies or shows on a streaming service like Netflix or Amazon.

What inspired you to write this book?

People who read my first novel Gypsy Kisses and Voodoo Wishes liked Grandmother Zenobia so much that I wanted them to see other aspects of her.  So, I wrote a few short stories with her and invited some of my favorite authors to write something about her also, or characters she might come in contact with.  At first I was really nervous, because I created her; how could I trust others to write about her? Each of my authors did a phenomenal job.  I am absolutely blown away with what they came up with. I will be forever grateful for my contributing authors Linda D. Addison (www.lindaaddisonwriter.com), Kirk A.  Johnson (www.farafieldpress.com), Robin Reed (Her books can be found on Amazon), John Palisano (https://johnpalisano.wordpress.com/)  , Marc L Abbott (www.whoismarclabbott.com) and Steven Van Patten (www.laughingblackvampire.com).  The Friends and Foes of Zenobia would not have been possible without my editor and amazing author, Candace Nola (www.uncomfortablydark.com). I will thank all of these amazing authors forever.

What can we expect from you in the future?

There will definitely be at least two more novels, and there might be another friends and foes of Zenobia.  She has a lot more enemies and new friends that my readers will meet soon enough.

Where did you come up with the name for this character in this collection?

Originally I wanted a good name for an old southern grandma.  I looked up different baby names and names from the south.  I was tired of looking at the beginning of the alphabet, so on my last search I started with the letter Z.  That’s when I came across Zenobia.  I research all the names of most of my characters; either they mean something in a certain language or the name has to reflect a personality trait of the character.  I found that Zenobia was once queen of Palmyra (present day Syria) and she was loved by her people.  She beat the roman empire for a handful of years, but eventually they caught up to her.  History isn’t quite sure of what happened to her once she was captured.  Some say she was paraded around her home town before being executed, some say she was taken as hostage back to Rome, and some say that she simply disappeared.  That’s when I had the idea…what if she were immortal, living in New Orleans?

Who designed my book covers?

My first book, Gypsy Kisses and Voodoo Wishes was designed by an unknown artist through the company Book Fuel.  The company is gone, so I designed the cover for my second novel Enlightening of the Damned.  As for The Friends and Foes of Zenobia?  I was lucky to work with the amazing artist Lynne Hansen.  She worked some magic and made my vision come to life!  The future will tell what I do with the next two covers for the next two novels.