empowerment

Interview with Author – Cheryl Ilov

Interview with Author – Cheryl Ilov

Please allow me to introduce myself. I am a dancer, martial artist, and a recovering physical therapist turned Amazon #1 best-selling and award-winning author. I never planned on becoming an author, nor did I even consider myself a writer. However, I have always had a passion for storytelling, and I suppose my writing career began by chronicling medical documents and progress reports for thousands of patients as a medical professional in the fields of both respiratory and physical therapy. Along the way, I discovered that weaving stories along with treatment modalities helped educate my patients and was a powerful tool in their recovery and ongoing progress.

I started a blog in 2011, when a marketing “expert” I was working with set one up for me, even though I had no idea what a blog was or why I would possibly want one. But once I was able to figure it out, I began writing about health, fitness, and life in general, integrating my knack for storytelling and fine tuning my writing skills at the same time.

After a few years of writing blogs and attracting many followers, I had a mental head smacking moment when I realized that those blogs could be organized to create an outline for a manuscript and subsequent book. And that is when my new career as an author was launched, at the tender young age of sixty-one.

When I am not writing, you can find me in a ballet class dancing with my barre buddies, hanging out in a martial arts dojo beating up bad guys, hiking in the glorious Rocky Mountains, or relaxing at home with my handsome husband and our two adorable Italian Greyhounds. Life is good!

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Interview with Author – T. L. Cooper

Interview with Author – T. L. Cooper

T. L. Cooper began weaving storytelling and social justice at a very young age when she attempted to save a groundhog’s life by creating an adventurous and full life for him in her stories while sitting on her grandpa’s knees.

Throughout her childhood, she wrote stories casting her classmates and herself as heroes and villains. Sharing her stories taught her words hold power as she watched the reactions of those around her.

She often explored teenage angst, friendship, and the choices she and her peers faced as she maneuvered high school.

By the time she started college at Eastern Kentucky University she’d developed a keen interest in human behavior and motivation, so she studied Corrections and Juvenile Services and Psychology. Her written work continued to explore human interaction and motivation.

After college she worked as a counselor with troubled teenagers, a project coordinator, a registrar assistant, and a temp before becoming a full-time author.

She has traveled extensively throughout the world feeding her passion for meeting new people and discovering both the similarities and the differences in the way people live.

Her work has been published in magazines, anthologies, books, and online. She has authored books of poetry, books of short stories, and a novel. She also writes three blogs, Write with TLC, Reviews with TLC, and Vegan Cooking with TLC.

She has served as Master of Ceremonies of a writer’s conference, taught classes and workshops, and moderated panels. In addition, she has participated in poetry readings and media interviews.

Her work continues to explore both the strength and the vulnerability that are interwoven into relationships large and small.

When she steps away from the keyboard, she enjoys yoga, meditation, hiking, golf, cooking, and interesting conversation.

Currently, she resides with her husband and three cats in Albany, Oregon.

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