November 4 – 10: “Imagine you’re giving a two-minute ‘state of industry’ speech to ITW members. What would you say?”

Stage fright aside, let’s imagine for a moment that you are invited to give a two-minute “state of industry” speech to ITW members. What would you say? Follow along by scrolling down to the “comments” section below to see what ITW members David Simms, Nick Kolakowski, Avanti Centrae, Lisa de Nikolits, T. G. Wolf and John Farrow would include in their speech.

Lisa de Nikolits is the international award-winning author of nine novels (Inanna Publications). No Fury Like That was published in Italian as Una furia dell’altro mondo. Her short fiction and poetry have also been published in various international anthologies and journals. She is a member of the Mesdames of Mayhem, the Crime Writers of Canada, Sisters in Crime, The Australian Crime Writers, SMFS and the International Thriller Writers. Originally from South Africa, Lisa de Nikolits lives and writes in Toronto.

Avanti Centrae is the author of the international award-winning VanOps thriller series. The Lost Power took home a genre grand prize ribbon at the Chanticleer International Book Awards, and an Honorable Mention at the 2018 Hollywood Book Festival. Her work has been compared to that of James Rollins, Steve Berry, Dan Brown, and Clive Cussler. She resides in Northern California with her family and German Shepherds.

David Simms lives in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, working as a special education teacher, college English instructor, counselor, music therapist, ghost tour guide, book reviewer, and co-foundeder the Killer Thriller/Slushpile Band. He has sold several horror, mystery, and weird short stories to various anthologies. DARK MUSE is his MG/YA crossover that ventures into musical dark fantasy and celebrates the many students who’ve changed his life. FEAR THE REAPER is a thriller about horrors of the eugenics movement in America in 1933.

Nick Kolakowski is the author of Boise Longpig Hunting Club, the Love & Bullets series of crime novellas, and the short story collection Somebody’s Trying to Kill Me. His short crime fiction has appeared in Thuglit, Shotgun Honey, Plots with Guns, and various anthologies. He lives and writes in New York City.

T. G. Wolff writes thrillers and mysteries that play within the gray area between good and bad, right and wrong. Cause and effect drive the stories, drawing from twenty-plus years’ experience in civil engineering, where “cause” is more often a symptom of a bigger, more challenging problem. Diverse characters mirror the complexities of real life and real people, balanced with a healthy dose of entertainment. T. G. Wolff holds a Master’s Degree in Civil Engineering and is a member of Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime.

John Farrow is the Canadian author of six previous crime thrillers under his pen name, as well as seven literary novels under his real name, Trevor Ferguson. He has also had four plays produced, including Off-Broadway, and a film produced of one of his literary novels, The Timekeeper. As a crime thriller writer he has gained the most attention, being published in twenty countries and on every continent not principally inhabited by penguins. In both genres though, literary and thriller, he has earned an off-the-charts critical reception the envy of any writer. For his work as a novelist, he recently received an Honorary Doctor of Divinity Degree (how about them apples?) from the Vancouver School of Theology and also a Life Membership in the Writers’ Union of Canada in recognition of “extraordinary contributions to the union and the lives of Canadian writers.”