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AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT, Cool stuff, Editing, publishing, SNAFU

SNAFU: LEVEL UP AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT – MARK T BARNES

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For the last of Cohesion Press’ Author Spotlight, we’re staying in Oz and ambling over to Mark Barnes’ place for a wee chat. I know he already has the coffee and snacks ready, which totally wrecks my penchant for breaking into people’s houses and raiding their fridge. Seems I’ll have to look for something else to steal… 

So, if you kind people could keep Mark occupied while I scope out his place, that would be grand. I’ve shoved him on stage, shoved a mic into his hand, so welcome him to do the wordage thing!

Mark is a nerd, an author, a professional, an artist, and an athlete, not always in that order though proud of all of it. He’s travelled widely though still calls Australia home. At present, he runs a freelance organisational change and communications company, as well as being a professional author of off-centre fantasy with elements of grimdark, cosmic horror, and magepunk.

Born to modest, working-class beginnings, he is the eldest of five children. He developed an appetite for sports at a young age, and was a competition-level swimmer and waterpolo player until his late teens, as well as playing soccer and volleyball. Curious and creative by nature, he leaned into his studies, as well as the arts. He wrote his first short story at the age of seven, and was painting and drawing early, adding music to the mix when he went to high school, which was where he found his love for Table Top Roleplaying Games (TTORPGs) enduring to today.

He cut his teeth on Original Dungeons and Dragons (then it’s many iterations), Bushido, Traveller, The Fantasy Trip, Tunnels and Trolls, and Runequest. Each weekend saw him saddle up with his friends at gaming clubs and venies to roll the bones and create stories. Game mastering at local conventions and with friends was where his love of storytelling flourished. For decades, he focussed on creating stories in new worlds for his roleplaying campaigns before redirecting his efforts into writing short form and long form fiction.

On acceptance to Clarion South 2005, where he met some incredible writers and tutors who became new friends, he started taking writing seriously. He had short stories published in the same year as Clarion, and started work on a novel.

In 2010, he was fortunate to be signed up to the John Jarrold Literay Agency, earning a three-book deal with 47 North for The Echoes of Empire series. Echoes of Empire books were a ranked multiple times in the Amazon Top 10 Best Sellers in Fantasy, twice having all three books in the Top 10 at the same time. The Garden of Stones was nominated for the Gemmel Legend Award where it made the Top 20, and was a finalist in the final five for the Morningstar Award for Best Debut of the Year.

He continues his consulting work and is writing both fantasy and LitRPG novels and short stories.

For SNAFU: Level Up, Mark travelled deep into the ‘verse with SEED OF DESPAIR: When is a game not a game? When nobody can escape and nobody knows death is forever.

You can find Mark on Insta, as well as Facebook, and Bluesky, and Twitter/X.

Want to delve deeper into Mark’s work (doooo iiiitttt), book one of his LitRPG novel, The Mad Gods is out, as well as his fantasy-LitRPG The Cold Road. Get ‘em in your eyeballs!

AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT, Cool stuff, Editing, publishing, SNAFU

SNAFU: LEVEL UP AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT – LEE FRANKLIN

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After our last quick trip to the UK, we’re heading back home to Australia for Cohesion Press’ latest Author Spotlight, which is shining its light on Lee Franklin. Does she know we’re about to raid her house? Unlikely. Will that stop us? Hells no.

So, while we drag our baggage (and our sorry arses) to her place, we’ve shoved Lee up on stage to do her thang.

After a decade in the Australian Army and two deployments, Lee traded her uniform for the chaos of raising three boys. She and her Argentine husband eventually relocated to the Yorkshire moors, where she finally picked up a pen and began soaking pages in the blood of men and monsters. These days she’s back in her home town of Perth, Western Australia, surviving on coffee, running, and reading rampantly across all genres.

For SNAFU: Level Up, Lee hit all the Aussie roadkill with her tale MURRI BIODOME: Leveling Up Down Under – all for the sugar…

If you want to read more of Lee’s work, you might want to check out her military sci-fi set in the depths of the Vietnam War: Berserker – Green Hell.

AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT, Cool stuff, Editing, publishing, SNAFU

SNAFU: LEVEL UP AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT – RYAN COLLEY

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Continuing our global wayfaring, we’re heading over to the UK to bust open Ryan Colley’s door (with a, ah, delicate hand, of course), and have some words… a chat, we’re gonna chat. Or, rather, encourage Ryan to Cohesion Press’ Author Spotlight stage and have him tell you a little sumpin’ sumpin’ about himself.

So, without further ado, take it away, Ryan!

<taps mic> … <ignores feedback> Off you go!

Ryan Colley always enjoyed reading fictional worlds, but creating his own is his passion. In school, a teacher told him to pursue writing after reading a short story he wrote for homework and, from that day, he never stopped. He doesn’t know where his love of zombies comes from, but it just happened, and it is his life. Things changed, and life moved on, but even while graduating from his Bachelor’s and Master’s in Psychology, he wrote stories every day. Writing is his passion, and everything else he does is to pursue that passion. Ryan loves hearing from his readers and encourages you to let him know what you think!

For SNAFU: Level Up, Randall patched together worlds and threw them at us with PATCH 1.1: Reality has been altered. Humanity has been nerfed. And the apocalypse arrived in a patch note … Good Luck!

You can find Ryan at his website, and on Amazon, as well as Facebook.

Want to read more of Ryan’s work (you know you do), check it out HERE.

AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT, Cool stuff, Editing, publishing, SNAFU

SNAFU: LEVEL UP AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT – RANDALL MADDEN

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Aaaand we’re back in the US on our next leg of Cohesion Press’ Author Spotlight. This time, we’re catching up with Randall Madden. Does he know we’re coming? S’all good, we’re running a distraction and sneaking through the back – that tends to be where most kitchens are, and I need caffeine and snacks.

The Author Spotlight stage is now his – keep him distracted while I raid the fridge.

Randall Madden was born and raised in rural Tennessee. He lives there still with his wife, son, and three dogs. His work has been published in Crimson Quill Quarterly, Chill Mag, and nearly a dozen other publications. When he isn’t writing, he splits his time between his “real job” and amateur work as a part-time woodland wanderer. He received his MFA in Creative Writing at Southern New Hampshire University.

For SNAFU: Level Up, Randall dragged us into PURGATION: The currency of Potential runs the gritty afterlife of the Sprawl, and Headway’s team takes the grittiest of jobs to earn their way to the unknown next arena. The path leads them to a sinister bid for power, and stopping it will require more than the esoteric tech and underhanded cunning that the Sprawl normally demands of its unfortunate denizens…

You can find Randall on Insta.

AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT, Cool stuff, Editing, publishing, SNAFU

SNAFU: LEVEL UP AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT – BENJAMIN SPADA

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Well, well, well, look who’s here! It’s our official-not-so-official honorary Aussie Benjamin Spada, striding to Cohesion Press’ Author Spotlight stage. Are we in the US? Are we in Australia? Are we losing our minds? (Definitely ‘nah, yeah’ on the last one.)

Ben has spent a great deal of time on our shores, so we kinda adopted him. Did he want said adoption? Ummm… Do we adopt as we see fit? Absolutely. Also, we may have stamped him with a weird logo while he was sleeping. Perhaps. Maybe.

But enough about our weird adoption processes, Ben has been tapping his foot upon the stage, so it’s over to him while we raid his duffel bag for snacks.

Born and raised in California, Benjamin Spada has had a lifelong passion for storytelling. His award-winning Black Spear series of military thrillers includes FNG, The Warmaker, and Project: Darkheart. His works have been previously published in SNAFU: Dead or Alive and SNAFU: Contagion. A dedicated taco aficionado and self-described “Professor of Batmanology,” he has made a career in the United States Marine Corps. He has been a martial arts instructor and a section leader in the Wounded Warrior Battalion for our nation’s wounded, ill, and injured. Also, he has served overseas to help train foreign military allies in defense against chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons. Despite these grim assignments, he has carried on with equal amounts of sarcasm and stoicism.

When out of uniform, Benjamin is an avid sci-fi and horror movie fan, tattoo collector, comic enthusiast, and two-time holder of the platinum trophy in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Benjamin currently lives with his wife and their four daughters in Covington, Louisiana.

For SNAFU: Level Up, upon the sacrificial altar, Ben slapped the festeringly humorous corpse of RAGE QUIT: One man. One unbeatable final boss. A thousand ways to lose. It’s time to start cheating…

You can find Ben on Facebook and Twitter.

Want to read more of his work (get it in your eyeballs!)? The most recent Black Spear novel, Project Darkheart, is out now in print and ebook. Audiobook is being recorded and set to release early November!

AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT, Cool stuff, Editing, publishing, SNAFU

SNAFU: LEVEL UP AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT –  DANIEL SKILES

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Jetlag is well and truly kicking our arse as we fly back to the US on our whirlwind tour of Cohesion Press’s Author Spotlight, and have a natter with Daniel Skiles. We need alcohol. And sleep. And food. And definitely alcohol.

While we’re pouring ourselves generous (read: copious) amounts of firewater, we’ll hand the mic over to Daniel and let him talk the talk.

Daniel Skiles lives in the mountains of Pennsylvania. The next phase of his metamorphosis is nigh.

For SNAFU: Level Up, Daniel placed upon the sacrificial altar the short and hard-hitting tale THE WINDING PATH: Two men discover that winning isn’t everything.

AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT, Cool stuff, Editing, publishing, Reading, SNAFU

SNAFU: CONTAGION AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT – ROBERT MAMMONE

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We’re Aussie-ing again with this Author Spotlight for SNAFU: Contagion – we’re like a plague (see what I did there?).  Cohesion Press is stumbling to the end of our Author Spotlight series (okay, I’m stumbling; there’s never enough caffeine), and while this isn’t the last of our authors, Robert Mammone does round out the ToC for SNAFU: Contagion.

And a cracker of a tale it is!

But I’ll let Robert introduce himself, because I think that’s likely to best for all involved… especially Robert…

Not to be confused with the Australian actor of the same name, Rob has been writing since the mid-80s, got serious in the mid-90s and was published in Doctor Who Magazine, then received an absolutely brutal (in hindsight, deserved) rejection letter soon after and went dark until 2009.  Since then, he’s been published in places like Midnight Echo, Pseudopod podcast, No Sleep Podcast, Swords and Sorceries 10, Die by the Sword 2, and had novels published with Candy Jar Books.  When he isn’t chasing his dogs around the neighbourhood, he can be found doing very little else.

As I said earlier in this piece, Robert wrote us a cracker of tale for SNAFU: Contagion –  GÖTTERDÄMMERUNG: Mercenaries bite off more than they can chew in the frontlines of the Ukraine-Russian meat grinder.

You can find Robert on Twitter.