Meet Our Authors

Amy Knapp is a great dodger of conventional living. She works from her dining room table, writing articles for large Australian corporations, and has never had a real job. She holds a BFA from Concordia University and once spent three misguided years at law school.

A fierce advocate for alternative lifestyles and creative life paths, she travels the world like a gypsy – sometimes for love, occasionally for business, but mostly because life is so short and the world is so big.

Amy lives wild and free in Ontario, Canada, by the creed of meditation and mindfulness, which she blogs about at AmyKnapp.ca.

After the death of her husband, Leo Zakuta, Annette found that one way of living without him was to put together a memoir of Leo. He wanted to be cremated and did not want a gravestone, so she decided that a memorial book could be a place to visit instead. Leo had written autobiographical essays as well as letters to the editor, eulogies and tributes to his friends and relatives. Along with eulogies that had been read at Leo’s memorial service and speeches read during the unveiling of a Leo Zakuta memorial plaque installed at the Rosedale Tennis Club, Annette compiled all of Leo’s material into a book. Since Leo kept everything (and she did too), the project, which at first seemed daunting, was both possible and worthwhile.

The book that came from this labour of love is titled Leo Zakuta: Reminiscences, Rants and Raves.

This book is a compilation of written work, personal and professional, by and about Leo Zakuta. Leo was a sociology professor at the University of Toronto for 33 years, and his main interests were sociology, writing, family and friends, and tennis. This book reflects all of these subjects.

We hope that you will enjoy this book, available now from Iguana Books.

Annie English went to the University of Toronto on full scholarship and graduated with a Bachelors of Science degree,    majoring in Computer Science with a minor in Commerce. She worked for over 26 years for a major, multinational technology and consulting corporation. She has led large-scale development projects for government, insurance and financial institutions, and acted as senior information specialist and consultant. Annie and her husband have been successfully managing their own investments for over 8 years.

This winter Iguana Books is proud to release Annie’s Retired at 48: One Couple’s Journey to a Pensionless Retirement. Read Annie’s financial planning guide as an ePub, Kindle or Print edition.

Keep checking our blog or like us on Facebook to find out what Annie is up to next. Visit Annie’s blogs to follow her adventures in travel, culture, dining and tips on retirement living.

VISIT ANNIE ENGLISH’S AUTHOR SITE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THIS AUTHOR.

In good seasons and bad, Bob Weintraub’s passion for baseball has never waned. At historic Fenway Park, he has rooted for many of his greatest heroes, from Ted Williams to Dustin Pedroia. His stories have appeared in, among others, Spitball; NINE: A Journal of Baseball History and Culture; Fenway Fiction; and The Sun, a Magazine of Ideas.

Bob lives in Newtonville, Massachusetts with his wife, Sandra.

Bob’s book, Painting the Corners: A Collection of Off-Center Baseball Stories, Volume 1, is available now from Iguana Books.

Follow our blog to hear about our authors and upcoming releases. And visit Bob’s author site to learn more about this author.

Carolyn’s greatest satisfaction lies in helping people communicate well in written English. Whether she is writing, editing, or transcribing, Carolyn loves to reflect others’ ideas or messages accurately while recognizing and resolving problems quickly and constructively.

Visit her Editors’ Association of Canada webpage, and her business website to learn more about Carolyn’s professional services.

Carolyn was born in Fort William, (now Thunder Bay), Ontario in 1949 to a pretty nurse from Manitoba who wore a fox fur on nights out with her father, a handsome RCAF pilot. Carolyn’s mother was hard-working and upright and practical, whereas her father liked nothing better than to act like the third child.

The first time Carolyn ever heard a pun was from his lips, and he kept effortlessly uttering them almost until his last breath in 1978. And Carolyn had a brother, David. He was six years her senior and grew to be 6’ 9” tall. It wasn’t until Parkinson’s took him in 2010 that Carolyn fully realized, as did her father, what is sometimes the true value and joy to be found in even temporarily escaping the ruins of fragile human hopes and dreams and mortal limitations. Carolyn hopes people can find this precious piece of joy as they read her book Meaningless Platter Dudes: Language Transformed on a Platter of Fun.

Meaningless Platter Dudes is now available from Iguana Books. Follow our blog to to hear it’s praise so far.

Visit Carolyn’s author site and follow Carolyn’s blog to learn more about Carolyn and the fantastic world of pun fun.

Read more about Meaningless Platter Dudes.

Cathi Bond is a writer, broadcaster and new media pioneer who ardently believes that the future of fiction lies on the digital frontier. She has written for television, print, is an established CBC radio personality, created one the first arts blogs in Canada and co-founded “thesniffer” one of the earliest podcasts about technology and trends.

Cathi was the host of the podcast “Prosecast” which focused on Canadian authors and themes and was sponsored by Harper Collins Canada. On CBC Radio she was a frequent film and cultural critic on Definitely Not the Opera and is currently a regular contributor to Spark, discussing significant shifts in new technology.

Several years ago Cathi became interested in telling the story of downtown Toronto in the 1970s. As a very young woman, the author knew the mean streets all too well, and she decided to create a fictional account of Toronto during this time. Toronto the Good was really a dangerous city full of street drugs, body rub parlours and menacing bikers. It was also the epicenter of the early heady days of Canada’s gay revolution.

Cathi’s upcoming novel Night Town is the result of this journey. The novel has been optioned by Back Alley Pictures for a feature film release.

Night Town is now available from Iguana Books! Listen to Nora Young’s interview of Cathi and her inspiration to write Night Town.

Visit Cathi’s author site to learn more. Cathi also writes a very funny weekly blog called Adventures on the eBook Frontier.

Photo by Carol Barclay

Christopher Angus comes from a literary family consisting of seven published writers. His father and mother, both professors of English Literature and authors of numerous works of fiction, were the best-selling collaborators of a series of anthologies published by Random House.

For ten years, Book Review Editor for Adirondac magazine, he has also been a newspaper columnist and has published more than 400 essays, articles, book introductions, columns and reviews in a wide variety of publications, including The New York Times, Albany Times-Union, Adirondack Life, American Forests, Wordsworth American Classics, Adirondack Explorer and many more.

He is the award-winning author of several works of nonfiction, including Oswegatchie: A North Country River (North Country Books–2006), The Extraordinary Adirondack Journey of Clarence Petty: Wilderness Guide, Pilot and Conservationist (Syracuse University Press—2002), Images of America: St. Lawrence County (Arcadia Press—2001), and Reflections From Canoe Country (Syracuse University Press—1997).

He has been active in efforts to reopen Adirondack rivers to the public.

Chris recently released The Last Titanic Story  with Iguana Books and Flypaper  from Cool Well Press.

His third novel, London Underground, is now available  from Iguana Books!

Visit Chris’ author site or view the related products pages below to learn more.

Daniel Robert Sullivan has been a “small-time” professional actor his entire adult life.  He received a Master’s Degree in Acting and Directing from the University of Missouri/Kansas City, and three Bachelor’s degrees (Comparative Literature, Secondary Education, and Acting) from the University of Rhode Island.

He appeared as Tommy DeVito in the Toronto production of Jersey Boys a total of 479 times, then in a promotional tour of the show that brought him to Berlin, Morocco, Paris, the Bahamas, and other places he never dreamed he would be paid to see.  Earlier appearances include tours of Jesus Christ Superstar and Pirates of Penzance, and years darting around regional theatres across America.  Two favorite screen appearances: winning a pile of CBS money on Hollywood Squares, and singing ‘Amazing Grace’ in Spielberg’s Amistad.

The New York Times referred to Daniel as having “the seductive magnetism of a snake-oil salesman” and his wife agrees.  The two live in Manhattan with their kids.  Together, they piece together an artistic and sporadically stable life.

Visit Daniel’s author site to learn more about the author and Places, Please! Becoming a Jersey Boy.

Donald E. Schwarz was a native New Yorker. Due to being a bit antisocial in school, most of his best friends were books. As with many bookish folk he became rather fiercely opinionated and over the course of his academic career he managed to get kicked out of some of the most prestigious halls of higher learning on the east coast. As Donald put it:

The one thing I knew I had mastered in grad school was the willing suspension of disbelief:  They told me I had mastered mathematics, I believed them. 

After graduating Don went to Israel and worked at Technion designing an irrigation project for Mexico.  In NYC he created computer models for an ad agency.  It was fun while it lasted. His volatile personality led him from the Madison Avenue advertising market, to driving a cab out of Hell’s Kitchen.

The one common denominator throughout was his passion for storytelling. Writing was a passion but Don had trouble thinking up plots so he decided to research historical incidents. Interrogation Tango is the result of more than a decade of research.

Don’s co-author Victoria wasn’t a fare – she was an apparition at the opposite end of a bar.  They argued creatively ever since they met in 1994. Just like every oyster needs an irritating grain of sand in order to form a pearl, Donald and and Victoria irritated the hell out of each other for 17 years to produce an incredible story, Interrogation Tango.  Is this book a pearl?  Well, you decide…

Donald E. Schwarz passed away in 2012, shortly before the publication of Interrogation Tango.

Released October 2012 from Iguana Books, subscribe to our blog to read about the launch of Interrogation Tango.

Visit Victoria or Don’s author sites to learn more about the authors.