A Book and a Chat

Joan Bird is the author of "Tumbleweed Heights" a contemporary romance novel.

She has been telling stories for years. In her first incarnation she was a singer/song writer with a rock band, then she started writing books, mostly for herself. He story telling is  legendary amongst her family and friends. For years she’s been including short stories with her holiday greetings each December and for years her friends and family have been encouraging her to write a book. Little did they know she had a storehouse of novels just waiting to be read by more than just her mailing list.

Jill is my guest on today's "A Book and a Chat", she  is a multi-published author and former RWA President, as a child some of Jill’s tales got her in trouble, but now she gets paid for them. Residing in San Diego with her husband and a trio of dogs and one very ancient cat, Jill’s favorite pastime is to gather friends and family for good food, conversation and plenty of laughter.

 

We will be chatting about her writing and her latest historical novel "A Heart That Dares"

K. T. Wells has been telling stories since before she could read. She used to narrate books for her baby brother, concocting a plotline from the pictures. Not much has changed. One of her husband’s favorite pastimes is to listen to her tales after asking her to tell the story of people they observe in restaurants, airports or the subway. 

Fascinated by the human condition, K. T.’s writing captures the emotions that drive the engines of our hearts. She is captivated by the rituals of love and believes everyone is entitled to a happily ever after.

She will join me as we chat about her and her first book "Nobody’s Angel"

J. Anderson Coats has dug for crystals, held Lewis and Clark’s original hand-written journal and been a mile underground. She has a cool surgery scar unrelated to childbirth, she reads Latin, and she’s been given the curse of Cromwell on a back-road in Connemara. On a clear day, she can see the Olympic mountains from her front window. On the foggy ones, she can smell the Puget Sound.

She writes historical fiction set in the middle ages that routinely includes too much violence, name-calling and petty vandalism perpetrated by badly-behaved young people.

Her latest book "THE WICKED AND THE JUST" is an historical fiction novel set in North Wales in 1293.

James R. Bottino is a self-admitted computer geek and a creative writing teacher rolled into one.  He earned a BS in English Education from Illinois State University and taught high school English in a suburb of Chicago for several years.  After teaching all day, he studied creative writing in graduate school at Northern Illinois University.  All the while, though, in the deep corners of the night, when no one was looking, he led a double life hacking and building computers and networks.

After years of struggle, he survived, but only after enduring systemic nerve damage from the treatments that left him permanently photophobic, phonophobic and with frequent difficulty in using his hands.  These events focused his efforts and helped him to prevail in his dual goals: being a father to his daughter and completing his first novel, The Canker Death

It’s an adventure story about a reclusive, cynical computer geek who finds that one of his own servers has been cracked late one night and gets far more than he bargained for when he decides to track down the perpetrator.  What his search uncovers thrusts him, unaware, into a mad shifting between worlds, time and alien minds.

Lucas R. Baker is a truck driver with stories playing in his head as he drives the many, lonely miles. He had to write the stories down. No Malice Towards Humanity" is his fourth novel.

"Among Lucas's other books are "Jess and Zoey" with its sequal "Ssiter" and "Running from the Mafia". A fellow CT author I'm looking forward to chatting to Lucas.

Previously on the show to talk about her wonderful book "Letters from Home" , Kristina makes a welcone return to chat about her new book "Bridge of Scarlet Leaves".

"A young woman secretly elopes with her Japanese American boyfriend the night before Pearl Harbor is bombed, forever changing two families torn between sides."

The book which  also includes a "Discussion Guide and Asian-fusion recipes" looks like being another hit for Kristina

Will Robertson is my guest on today's "A Book and a Chat" .

Will is the author of the comic Casey and Kyle: I’m Saving Up for a Big Brother!!!  Will started drawing comics on a road trip when he was twelve. Fueled by Bloom County, Garfield, Calvin and Hobbes and Peanuts, he began creating characters that would carry his own comic strip all the way through college. Along the way, his work was feature in The Statesman Journal (Salem, OR) and The News Register (McMinnville, OR) as well as being published nationally in a compilation of the best 100 Editorial cartoons by students across the US.

Mary Jane (MJ) Paris, Author, Founder and President of Positive Impact Consulting Services, LLC in Shelton, CT, brings a broad base of experience to her practice gained from more than 25 years in people management, sales, retail banking, training, recruiting, coaching, project management, event planning and community leadership.

With a focus on "The Positive Workplace," MJ and Positive Impact specialize in leadership and professional development programs, motivational speaking engagements, and small business coaching that bring "Positive Energy" to your workplace. Engage employees, boost morale, maximize productivity, improve customer service, teamwork, results...and grow your business!

 

Interestingly she wrote The Effects of a Power Outage - Light-En Up, Power-Up and Be Nice! before we were hit woth the week long outage here in CT, so it will be interesting to chat to her about that and her other books.

Is Glenn Beck a liberal?

Perhaps not, but my guest on today's show Michael Charney decides to plant that idea out in the “Twitterverse,” some interesting conversations begin. People shout at him (MORON!), block him (SCUMSUCKER!), and belittle him (WAKE UP, IDIOT!). Eventually, though, some people start to listen…

Today’s political dialogue has been stolen, hijacked from us by those with the loudest voices.  Until we begin to take that conversation back for ourselves, we remain at the mercy of those with the most radical agendas, the most extreme visions for our country. The risk is great: a country run by a vociferous minority that just happens to scream louder than the rest of us is NOT what democracy is supposed to be about…