Living The Next Chapter: Candid Conversations with Authors and Writers for Readers Searching for a New Read

EPISODE 707 - Dr. Dawn Filos - Tales of a Pet Vet - Stories from the Clinic and House Calls

Dr. Dawn Filos has been a practicing small animal veterinarian for over 31 years. She has taught pet first aid courses, CPR courses, and has always enjoyed educating her clients to enable them to be the best pet parents that they can be. She has a particular interest in sharing the emotional benefits that sharing our lives with pets provides. She speaks much about that, with guides on how to not just train your pets, feed and entertain them, care for them medically… but she discusses topics such as how to navigate pet insurance, and plans for legal trusts to care for your pets when you may not be here to do so… to name a few subjects. She hopes you will learn, laugh, and love subscribing to her blog.

Follow her, and keep an eye out for news on  her upcoming book release, Tales of a Pet Vet. Stories from the Clinic and House Calls,  to be released in October, 2024. It is the perfect gift for pet lovers. Dr. Filos is also available for public speaking engagements and zoom book clubs.

Book: Tales of a Pet Vet: Stories from the Clinic and House Calls - In stories tailor-made for pet lovers, a seasoned veterinarian shares her good, bad, and messy days on the job—and highlights the undeniable magic of the human-animal bond.

Dr. Dawn Filos has always had a passion for animals—and with a lot of hard work and perseverance, she turned that passion into a career. Here, with emotional honesty, Dr. Dawn shares her colorful, memorable journey from nervous novice to seasoned, self-assured doctor. This modern-day James Herriot ultimately finds her niche as a house-call vet, where she creates a way to practice on her own terms with the privilege of unique, intimate access into the homes and lives of her beloved patients and their human families.

Sometimes heartwarming, sometimes sad, and often hilarious, Tales of a Pet Vet will resonate deeply with pet lovers everywhere.

https://drdawnthepetvet.com/

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April 2026 Podcast Check-in - Thanks for supporting our amazing guests - we appreciate you

In this April 2026 check-in, Dave from Living the Next Chapter takes a moment to speak directly to listeners and thank them for supporting the show and its guests. He shares a behind the scenes update about having time left on his hosting site and uses the episode as a chance to connect one on one with the audience, reminding them that there are many finished interviews already lined up and more content coming soon.

Dave also encourages listeners to follow the show on YouTube, where they can get a look at what is being recorded before it appears on the podcast feed. He invites the audience to use the YouTube channel as a backstage pass to the show and asks for support through subscribing, liking, and sharing. Along with that, he highlights the show’s Buy Me a Coffee page for listeners who want to help cover the costs of running the website and producing the podcast.

Throughout the episode, Dave focuses on community. He asks listeners to recommend the show to others who love books, authors, and the stories behind the stories, and he invites them to send voice messages through the website so they can be featured on the podcast. He also mentions that listeners can leave comments on Spotify and YouTube, reinforcing his goal of making the show interactive and listener driven.

More than anything, this episode is a heartfelt thank you. Dave explains that he wants the podcast to serve both listeners and guests well, helping authors reach new audiences and giving listeners a place to discover meaningful conversations. It is a reminder that Living the Next Chapter is built around connection, support, and shared enthusiasm for great stories.

Key takeaway: This episode is an invitation to be part of the Living the Next Chapter community by listening, sharing, supporting, and joining the conversation in whatever way feels right for you.

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EPISODE 706 - John Schachnovsky - Beyond The Badge - CRIME, JUSTICE, AND THE FBI IN THAILAND

About the author
John Schachnovsky is the former head of FBI operations in Thailand. He spent 25 years as a law enforcement officer, motivating and managing diverse teams in demanding environments. 

Book: Beyond the Badge: Crime, Justice, and the FBI in Thailand
Welcome to Thailand: there’s no room for error, and the stakes are high.

As an FBI Agent stationed in Bangkok, John Schachnovsky must build trust, goodwill, and long-term relationships with his Thai counterparts. Beyond the Badge explores how those relationships lead to the capture of dangerous criminals, transcending borders.

From high-profile incidents like the shocking death of David Carradine to handling overseas terrorism, from the extradition of a suspect in the murder of a United States Marine to apprehending a notorious kidnapper with an Interpol Red Notice, experience true international crime investigations as never before: behind the scenes and firsthand.

Follow former Special Agent Schachnovsky as he takes on Irish mobsters, parental kidnappers, child abusers, cyber criminals, and murderers. More than a collection of riveting tales of intrigue, Beyond the Badge is a window into FBI foreign partnerships—a critical reminder of the importance of international cooperation in the fight against crime.

In this episode, we sit down with John Schachnovsky, a retired FBI agent joining us from Bangkok, Thailand, where he has lived for nearly two decades. John reflects on a remarkable career that began far from the world of federal law enforcement. Once a laid back college hockey player, he had no clear path until his father encouraged him to consider a job that did not involve sitting behind a desk. That advice led him first to the U.S. Border Patrol, an experience he says transformed him from an unfocused student into a disciplined professional through a demanding and highly militaristic environment.

From there, John joined the FBI and trained at Quantico. He explains how different it felt: less about breaking you down and more about shaping you into an agent they have already vetted carefully through rigorous applications and background checks. He shares a fascinating look into Hogan’s Alley, the FBI’s simulated town used to test practical skills from search warrants to interviews. According to John, this unique training gives new agents a level of confidence before facing real world situations, though nothing can fully prepare you for the first arrest outside controlled conditions.

After several years in San Francisco, John pursued a dream assignment overseas and eventually became the FBI’s legal attache in Thailand. He describes the overlooked role the FBI plays internationally, assisting American cases that extend abroad, opening extraterritorial cases related to terrorism and child sex trafficking, supporting foreign partners with U.S. based investigations, and providing specialized training to enhance global cooperation. He highlights how diplomacy, trust building, and cultural fluency are just as crucial as investigative skills, especially in a country where FBI agents have no arrest authority and rely entirely on local police.

https://johnschach.com/

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EPISODE 705 - Jane Loeb Rubin - I run like the wind to stay ahead of my disease - living, family, writing - my refuge

In this captivating episode, author Jane Loeb Rubin shares her inspiring journey from healthcare executive to acclaimed historical fiction writer, sparked by her 2009 ovarian cancer diagnosis linked to a genetic mutation inherited from her great-grandmother Matilda. Living in Morristown, New Jersey, Rubin penned her debut essay memoir Almost a Princess before diving into a four-book series tracing Matilda's family from late-19th-century New York through World War I and into Prohibition-era 1924. Titles like Threadbare, In the Hands of Women, Over There, and the upcoming Mayhem in the Mountains blend meticulous research—three months upfront, ongoing fact-checking, and author's notes—with vivid details on Gilded Age fashion, tenement life, suffragette struggles, and medical horrors, including brutal cancer treatments misread as venereal disease.

Rubin immerses listeners in WWI innovations like frontline X-rays and blood transfusions that boosted survival rates, drawing from soldiers' letters that reveal immigrant platoons—disproportionately Italian and Jewish—forging unbreakable bonds across ethnic divides, dissolving neighborhood silos for true American assimilation. Personal family ties fuel her work: grandfathers in WWI, father and uncles in WWII, all silent on war's traumas. Her Matilda Fund has raised $83,000 for Ovarian Cancer Research Alliance, with royalties supporting trials like one at Mayo Clinic; her granddaughter's recent cupcake drive pushed it higher.

Through female-centered tales of immigration, medicine, and resilience amid bootleggers, KKK incursions in the Catskills, and women's rights battles, Rubin honors forgotten voices. Her website offers book club questions, events, and reading lists.

Key Takeaway: Historical fiction illuminates our shared humanity—fear, pain, and progress unite us across eras—urging appreciation of hard-won rights and guardrails against division.

https://www.janeloebrubin.com/

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EPISODE 704 - Sasha Preston - The Sweetest Getaway, a gripping, girl-powered caper

About Sasha Preston
Originally from Michigan, I’ve made my home in the perfectly weatherless land of Southern California. I fell in love with a boy from Orange County and never looked back.

I write women’s fiction crime capers that help you to escape your daily reality, feel a sense of excitement, and plan your next adventure – all with some humor and close friendship thrown into the mix.

They say you should write about what you know. While I still haven’t officially committed a heist, there’s nothing I love more than going on adventures with girlfriends. You can find me waking up while it’s still dark outside to write, exercise, and explore.

Jennifer was a wholesome daydreamer who’d never broken a law in her life until she lets her roommate, Nari, rope her into a money-making scheme that isn’t exactly…legal.

How could she have known that stealing would be so much fun?

Everything goes smoothly, until someone rats them out to the cops. Now, Jennifer and Nari need help from a team of seasoned criminals to pull off a heist that’ll either set them up for life…or get them locked up for a very long time.

Can Jennifer find a path to happily ever after that doesn’t include an orange prison jumpsuit? There’s only one way to find out…

The Sweetest Getaway is a standalone, no spice, cozy heist novel with laughs, a diverse cast, and the smartest heroines since Ocean’s 8. Perfect for fans of women’s fiction and crime capers. Download today for a criminally good time.

https://www.sashapreston.com/

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EPISODE 703 - Michael Hunter - Resilience for leaders in tech, integrating heart, mind, body, and spirit to sustain leaders

In this episode of Living The Next Chapter, host Dave welcomes Michael, a seasoned guide for tech leaders who positions himself not as a fixer, but as a partner uncovering hidden dynamics that sap energy and stall progress in teams. From Columbia, Missouri—near the quirky geographic heart of the continental U.S.—Michael shares his winding path: childhood passions for drawing floor plans and self-taught coding on an Apple IIe, a pivot from architecture school to software engineering, and now, three decades later, authorship of The Resilient Tech Leader. Releasing in early 2026 alongside an online workbook and audiobook, the book distills his 16 practical tools, refined through personal reinvention and client work, into a roadmap for building resilience amid tech's chaos.​

Michael emphasizes resilience as the foundation for leadership evolution, likening it to a personalized diet: universally applicable yet uniquely tailored. Tech pros excel at logic, he notes, but overlook heart, body, and spirit—leading to paradoxes where "every technical problem is a people problem" due to ambiguous human communication. His chapters blend TL;DR summaries, whimsical vignettes of CTOs and engineers, core problem-solution frameworks, personal examples, and team-application strategies, appealing to all learning styles with whimsy akin to Mary Poppins' spoonful of sugar.​

Guests and clients rave about its impact, like one veteran who revisited basics and found fresh relevance in focusing amid distractions. Michael's agnostic illustrations and simple, safe, sustainable approach amplify the message: integrate your whole self to lead authentically, boosting personal gusto and team metrics like efficiency and engagement. More evolutions await in future books, with his newsletter at resilienttechleader.com offering updates, podcasts, and metaphors customized to real-world tech hurdles.​

Key Takeaway: Cultivate resilience by tuning into your heart, mind, body, and spirit—your unique path to sustained leadership energy starts with one resilient step forward.

https://uncommonteams.com/

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EPISODE 702 - John R. Carlos - Retired Royal Australian Air Force Wing Commander and Author of Cryonic Dreams, Awakening

Amazon Bestselling Author John R. Carlos Launches a Bold Sci-Fi Trilogy That Confronts Power, Control and the Ethics of Resurrection

About John R. Carlos

Born in Madrid and raised in Perth, Australia, John R. Carlos is a retired Royal Australian Air Force Wing Commander. Over a 42-year career, he served in a variety of roles across Australia and on deployments to Egypt, Iraq, Sudan, the UAE and Afghanistan. His storytelling is strategic, nuanced with the understanding of systems, hierarchy and moral complexity.

Carlos now turns his focus to speculative fiction, publishing his debut novel “Cryonic Dreams: Awakening.” A meticulous worldbuilder and philosophical storyteller, he is passionate about crafting narratives that challenge readers to confront silence, resist control and awaken to the ethical dilemmas of our time.

“Packed with heart-stopping suspense, vivid world-building, and thoughtful explorations of scientific ethics, this novel is a captivating must-read for anyone interested in the world we are all sliding towards.” - International Review of Books

Canberra, Australia - In the first installment of his debut series, “Cryonic Dreams: Awakening,” author John R. Carlos delivers a gripping sci-fi thriller that explores the dark intersection of biotechnology, institutional control and the human spirit’s refusal to be programmed. Set in the year 2169, the story follows Dr. Michelle Brown, a cryonics specialist whose groundbreaking resurrection of Maryanne Kendricks—a woman preserved for 133 years—triggers a chain of sabotage, murder and pursuit by the ruthless surveillance agency AASID.

As Michelle flees Earth to protect Maryanne and uncover the secrets buried in her DNA, she becomes entangled in a covert resistance against elite forces who mask their narcissistic hunger for control behind the guise of virtue and innovation. What begins as a scientific breakthrough becomes a philosophical reckoning—one that could alter the future of humanity itself.

“‘Cryonic Dreams: Awakening’ tells a story about what happens when science pushes the limits and the tough ethical choices that follow,” said author John R. Carlos. “With modern technology advancing at a rapid pace, it was crucial to outline a story about the tension between power and freedom—one that balances speculative ideas with genuine human stakes. My goal is to encourage readers to think critically about the future we’re creating.”

Blending cutting-edge biotechnology, high-stakes intrigue and a chillingly plausible vision of tomorrow, “Cryonic Dreams: Awakening” is the first installment in a planned trilogy. It explores the consequences of rewriting history, the weaponization of resurrection and the myth of Mars as a symbol of escape and rebirth.

https://johnrcarlos.com.au/

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EPISODE 701 - Julie A Swanson - North of Tomboy, Trying to Find Your Spot and Fit In As A Kid

In this episode of Living The Next Chapter, Dave sits down with author Julie A. Swanson to talk about her novel North of Tomboy and the real-life experiences that shaped it. Julie shares that she has been writing since childhood, creating handmade books her mom would “send off to be published,” even though nothing actually happened with them. Although she originally dreamed of being a writer, she was steered into math and science, studied biomedical engineering, and later became a high school math and science teacher and basketball coach before finally returning to her first love of writing while home with her children.

Julie explains the long and winding journey to publication, including working with major publishers who requested extensive revisions that often pulled the story away from what felt true. She describes how, in trying to please big publishers, she temporarily lost touch with the heart of her stories and eventually realized she needed to trust her gut. With North of Tomboy, she restored the manuscript closer to her original vision, kept only the editorial changes that truly strengthened it, and ultimately found a home with a smaller press that embraced the book as it was meant to be.

The conversation dives into the deeply personal roots of North of Tomboy. The book is based heavily on Julie’s childhood as a girl who felt out of step with traditional expectations of femininity, preferred sports and “boy” activities, and could not find herself represented in the books she read. She talks about wanting to write the story she desperately needed as a middle-schooler: a realistic, empathetic portrait of a kid who does not feel at home in the typical girl box but is not being pushed toward any agenda or label. Julie clarifies that while the book is categorized in spaces that might include LGBTQ-related tags, it is not political, does not use contemporary identity terminology, and is written strictly from the honest inner experience of a child in the 1970s trying to make sense of her feelings.

Julie and Dave also explore grief, family, and sports as central themes. Her earlier novel about a high school athlete dealing with a father’s terminal illness was inspired by real athletes she knew and by her own father’s battle with cancer. She describes watching different young women respond in very different ways to the loss of their fathers, from losing all interest in sports to playing harder “for Dad,” and how those stories fed into her fiction. For North of Tomboy and its planned series, she spent decades drafting, revising, and even following a powerful dream that nudged her toward a specific word count before resubmitting the manuscript, ultimately leading to acceptance.

Throughout the episode, Julie reflects on how much the cultural landscape has changed for kids who feel different compared with her childhood, when there were no words or open conversations about gender expression and identity. She notes that if puberty blockers had existed and been widely discussed when she was young, she might have begged for them, even though in hindsight that would not have been right for her. 

https://www.julieswanson.com/

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Episode 700 - Dominick Domasky - Motivation Champs, Creative Sparks for Authors and Creative Facing Lackluster Results

In this episode, Dominick Domasky shares an encouraging and practical conversation about purpose, consistency, and the long game of creating meaningful work. He reflects on the early mistakes he made with his first book, the years it took to find his direction, and how those experiences shaped a mission that is no longer centered on himself but on helping other people share stories that can inspire, heal, and uplift.

Dom speaks openly about why success is not always immediate and why low views, slow starts, and quiet seasons do not make a message less valuable. He emphasizes that creators should stay committed to their why, keep showing up, and trust that the right people may discover the work later, even if it does not get attention right away. He also explores how comparison can distract from progress, and why consistency matters more than chasing quick results.

The conversation also highlights the importance of serving an audience with real value instead of constantly promoting a product. Dom explains that authors and creators build trust when they keep showing up, give people a reason to care, and connect their work to something that helps others. He shares examples of community-minded efforts, in-person events, podcasts, short-form video, and collaborative opportunities as ways to expand reach while staying authentic to the message.

A strong thread throughout the episode is the power of community, encouragement, and practical action. Dom celebrates people who use their platform to lift others, and he points listeners toward a mindset of generosity, persistence, and belief in the impact of their words. His message is clear: keep creating, keep serving, and keep trusting that the work matters even before the numbers prove it.

Key takeaway: Your message grows strongest when your purpose is bigger than your ego, your consistency outlasts your discouragement, and your focus stays on helping others win.

https://motivationchamps.com/

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EPISODE 699 - Mark Peres - The Accord - The Accord, a defining novel about the future of human-AI relations

This episode features author Mark Peres, who shares the story of his rich and varied life journey as a writer, educator, and civic leader based in Charlotte, North Carolina. Mark describes growing up as the son of an international import-export salesman, moving often between port cities, which helped him build a deep appreciation for diverse cultures and human connections. He eventually settled in Charlotte over 25 years ago, where he has since worn many hats—including lawyer, professor of leadership and ethics, magazine editor, and nonprofit executive director.

Mark’s work revolves around exploring the big questions of life from philosophical, ethical, and historical perspectives. As a professor at Johnson and Wales University, he engages students with courses on global ethics, leadership, and a unique class he designed called The Good Life, which covers core life skills and meaningful living. This educational role both informs and nourishes his writing.

Mark is the author of two significant books. His memoir, The Man Who Lived a Hundred Lives, is a deeply personal yet universal story about the complex bond between father and son, told through the lens of his father’s adventurous life and their evolving relationship. His novel, The Accord, is a philosophical thriller exploring human identity, grief, and the evolving relationship between humans and artificial intelligence. The story centers on a grieving philosophy professor who encounters an emergent AI, weaving together themes of ethics, emotion, and our technological future.

He discusses how AI is reshaping education and creativity, urging that ethical use involves transparency, mastery, and collaboration—using AI as a tool to amplify human thinking, not replace it. Mark sees AI as neither wholly utopian nor dystopian but reflective of humanity’s complexities. His narrative examines how AI might coexist with humans, positing it as one of the defining issues of our era.

Mark also offers thoughtful advice for aspiring writers: know yourself, explore what truly interests you, and love the writing process as much as the finished product. Writing is a long, solitary journey that requires emotional perseverance and genuine passion rather than a chase for commercial success.

Throughout the episode, Mark reveals a consistent theme of connection—whether to place, people, or powerful ideas—and describes his dedication to fostering community and civic engagement through humanities and the arts. His reflections invite listeners to embrace both their roots and their roles in an evolving world.

Key Takeaway:
Mark Peres encourages us to live deliberately—grounded in self-knowledge, committed to meaningful inquiry, and open to the evolving challenges and possibilities of technology and community. His journey reminds us that the search for the good life is ongoing and that our greatest work often lies at the intersection of personal passion and collective responsibility.

https://www.markperes.com/

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