SAM Magazine

Dangerous Games - Sisters in Crime - Canada West Anthology (Part 1)

E190 - Part 1 of a three-part series, Joanna reads excerpts from two of the short stories featured in the Crime Wave, Dangerous Games anthology. The author's featured in today's reading are Sandra Benson, and her story Do Not Pass Go, and Kim Bannerman's short story, Gifted Girls. Fifteen great short stories are in this collection, involving a seal, a scammer, bakers and a crypto-currency fraudster. 
To learn more about Sandra Benson check out her website at https://sandrabenson.com/index.php/about-sandra/ and Kim Bannerman's website is https://www.kbannerman.com/ 
The anthology can be purchased on Amazon

E189 - Angela Douglas, Every Fall

E189 - In this episode I get to read Chapter 3 of Angela Douglas's psychological thriller novel, Every Fall. Angela's writing is intense. There's a real feeling of suspense and foreboding as we step into the world of beat cop Jake Stone and his wife, Bree. Trigger warning, this episode contains explicit language.
Angela Douglas is a marketing communications professional, writer, and mother. She writes thrillers and creative non-fiction, especially travel stories. When she isn’t working or chasing her children, she is hiding in her studio with her bulldog Frankie at her side, writing her next book. Her debut novel, psychological thriller Every Fall, is being published in January 2025 by Rising Action Publishing Collective. Angela lives in sunny Summerland BC.
Find Angela at angeladouglasbooks.com or @angeladouglasbooks on social media. Pre-orders are happening now for Every Fall at this Amazon link.

E188 - La Blue Luncheonette, Rohini Sunderam

I had the pleasure of reading a second short story written by Rohini Sunderam. This time Rohini writes about the innocence of love in La Blue Luncheonette. In a time of turbulent news being broadcasted from around the world, this short story was a pleasure to read. Thank you so much Rohini. You wrote another beautiful story.
Rohini Sunderam, a Canadian of Indian origin, calls four places home: New Delhi, India, Halifax, NS, Bahrain, and now Port Coquitlam BC. She is a semi-retired advertising copywriter who has published four books: Corpoetry, a collection of light-hearted poems, a romantic story Desert Flower under the pen name Zohra Saeed, a novella: Five Lives One Day in Bahrain, (all previously published by Ex-L-Ence Publishing) and Twelve Roses for Love, a collection of short stories.
Her poems have appeared in Dilliwali (Publisher Busra Alvi Razzak), Quesadilla & Other Adventures (2019), The Society of Classical Poets’ Journals VII, VIII & XII. A short story was shortlisted in The Atlantis Short Story Contest (2013) published by Expanded Horizons, (2018). A CNF entry and Flash Fiction story were long listed in separate WOW Women on Writing contests, Winner: Oapschat, U.K 2014. Her latest success is a short story published by The Missouri Review Fall 2022 issue.
Rohini Sunderam

E187 - The Vengeful Dead, author Kim Bannerman

E187 - Kim Bannerman writes novels and short stories from her home on Vancouver Island, Canada. As K. Bannerman, her work has appeared in anthologies like ParaSpheres (Omnidawn Press, 2006), She's Shameless (Tightrope Books, 2009), Girl at the End of the World (FoxSpirit Press, 2014), In the Company of Animals (Nimbus Press, 2014), and When Birds Are Near (Cornell University Press, 2020). She is the author of nine novels, including the modern fairytale The Tattooed Wolf (Hic Dragones Press, 2014), Bucket of Blood (Fox and Bee Studio, 2010), Aeterna (Fox and Bee Studio, 2021) and The Blackwood Papers (FoxSpirit Press, 2021). For more information about Kim, visit K.Bannerman.
Today, I had the pleasure of reading the prologue from her novel The Vengeful Dead from her Circus Salmagundi Mystery. Trigger warning, there is a graphic description of a dead body in this story.
Thank you Kim.

E186 - Rohini Sunderam, Your Birth, My Death (short story)

E186 - I had the pleasure of reading Rohini Sunderam's moving short story, Your Birth, My Death. (Warning, suicide is mentioned in this short story).
Rohini Sunderam, a Canadian of Indian origin, calls four places home: New Delhi, India, Halifax, NS, Bahrain, and now Port Coquitlam BC. She is a semi-retired advertising copywriter who has published four books: Corpoetry, a collection of light-hearted poems, a romantic story Desert Flower under the pen name Zohra Saeed, a novella: Five Lives One Day in Bahrain, (all previously published by Ex-L-Ence Publishing) and Twelve Roses for Love, a collection of short stories.
Her poems have appeared in Dilliwali (Publisher Busra Alvi Razzak), Quesadilla & Other Adventures (2019), The Society of Classical Poets’ Journals VII, VIII & XII. A short story was shortlisted in The Atlantis Short Story Contest (2013) published by Expanded Horizons, (2018). A CNF entry and Flash Fiction story were long listed in separate WOW Women on Writing contests, Winner: Oapschat, U.K 2014. Her latest success is a short story published by The Missouri Review Fall 2022 issue.
Rohini Sunderam

E185 - Bad Boy, A Jason Davey Mystery written by Winona Kent

E185 - Today, I have the pleasure of reading the first chapter from Winona's Kent just released novel, Bad Boy, A Jason Davey Mystery, which is book five in her series.
Winona Kent’s writing breakthrough came many years ago when she won First Prize in the Flare Magazine Fiction Contest with her short story about an all-night radio newsman, “Tower of Power”.
Her debut novel Skywatcher was a finalist in the Seal Books First Novel Award and was published by Bantam Books in 1989. This was followed by a sequel, The Cilla Rose Affair, and her first mystery, Cold Play, set aboard a cruise ship in Alaska.
After three time-travel romances, Winona returned to mysteries with Disturbing the Peace, a novella, in 2017 and the novel Notes on a Missing G-String in 2019, both featuring the character she first introduced in Cold Play, professional jazz musician/amateur sleuth Jason Davey.
The third and fourth books in Winona’s Jason Davey Mystery series, Lost Time and Ticket to Ride, were published in 2020 and 2022.
Winona also writes short fiction. Her story “Salty Dog Blues” appeared in Sisters in Crime-Canada West’s anthology Crime Wave in October 2020 and was nominated as a finalist in Crime Writers of Canada’s Awards of Excellence for Best Crime Novella in April 2021. “Blue Devil Blues” was one of the four entries in the anthology Last Shot, published in June 2021, and “Terminal Lucidity” appeared in the Sisters in Crime-Canada West anthology, Women of a Certain Age (October 2022). “On the Internet, Nobody Knows You’re a Dog”, will appear in the upcoming Sisters in Crime-Canada West anthology, Dangerous Games (October 2024). A collection of Winona’s short stories, Ten Stories That Worried My Mother, was published in 2023.
https://www.winonakent.com/

E184 - C.J. Papoutsis, They Didn't Come With Instructions

E184 - Joanna explains why she's been absent for the last three months. She thanks her listeners for still tuning in. Today, Joanna reads a personal essay of C.J. Papoutsis, titled, "They Didn't Come With Instructions". A personal essay which was originally published in the anthology, Dropped Threads: What We Aren’t Told. This short story/personal essay was written in 2002 and it's still relevant today. Thank you very much C.J., for your honest portrayal of motherhood and raising children. 
More short stories are one the way. 

E183 - Joanna Vander Vlugt, No Beatles Reunion (non-fiction short story)

E183 - Joanna Vander Vlugt reads her personal essay, No Beatles Reunion, written under her then pseudonym J.C. Szasz, which was published in the Dropped Threads 3: Beyond the Small Circle anthology. This anthology includes stories from legendary award-winning author Margaret Atwood; Lorna Crozier, Chantal Kreviazuk, Silken Laumann and so many more talented and accomplished writers.
To quote Chatelaine magazine with respect to the anthology, "...As it turns out, there are many dropped threads in our lives. Weave them together and you've got a tapestry."
What Joanna didn't expect reading her story were the flashbacks to that other time of her life, working in the Crown Counsel (prosecutor's) office, and how the experiences from those days still affect her. 
This podcast is dedicated to Rick and Gordon. RIP.