Category: Interview

Q&A with Chanette Paul

We’re re-posting some of our author interviews that we’ve featured in our newsletter. Consider these just a little taste of all of the great things we send straight to your inbox every month. Keep up-to-date with all of the Catalyst Press goings-on by subscribing to our newsletter! We’re fun and our authors are amazing. It’s a win-win.

This Q&A is with author Chanette Paul. Her North American and English-language debut thriller Sacrificed was released in October 2017. The New York Journal of Books praised the novel and Chanette calling it “a page-turner that will keep you reading long past the moment the midnight oil burns out,” and hailing Chanette as “among the classiest thriller writers of our day.” We chatted with Chanette back in October right before the release of Sacrificed, a thriller fusing politics, race, and family drama. Read an excerpt here (PDF), and you can order the novel via our website or IndieBound. Continue reading “Q&A with Chanette Paul”

Q&A with Ahmed Ismail Yusuf

Earlier this month, we did a Q&A with The Lion’s Binding Oath author Ahmed Ismail Yusuf in our newsletter (What?! You don’t subscribe? Let us help: Subscribe here).

In advance of his upcoming Midwest book tour, we’re posting it here, too! Read on to learn more about Ahmed, his writing, and how books changed his life. Continue reading “Q&A with Ahmed Ismail Yusuf”

Jessica Powers Interviewed by Literary Ashland

Check out this great interview with the awesome publisher/editor/writer/teacher/have we missed anything? Jessica Powers over at Literary Ashland! Some highlights:

On choosing the name Catalyst:

Books are my friends, my mentors, my spiritual advisors and my spiritual practice, my intellectual stimulation, my downtime. I believe strongly in the power of books to change individuals and, by changing individuals, to change communities and institutions and perhaps even nations. So I do see my books as a “catalyst for change,” specifically, change in mindset, values, and understandings of North Americans & Europeans towards Africa and Africans.

On leaving academia:

When you have a real passion for research and writing academic articles and books, then those expectations don’t feel like a burden—but for me, they were a burden. I was grateful for my time there and very grateful for the mentors I had, but I felt freed upon leaving—freed to do what I am really called to do in life, which is to write, and also to help others write.

On what she looks for as a publisher:

I want to publish and read books that are fast reads, on the one hand, but layered with multiple and complex meanings.

Check out the complete interview at Literary Ashland.

Interview with Catalyst Founder Jessica Powers

While at the recent ALA Conference, our superhero founder Jessica Powers took some time out to speak with Lisa Degliantoni from the podcast The Lisa D Show.

Their conversation covers Jessica’s road from African Studies PhD student to independent publisher (with a few stops along the way for teaching, motherhood, novel-writing and publishing, a long-time career as an editor, and, well, all the life that happened in between). Have a listen!