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

Episode 369 - Joan Leegant - Displaced Persons, Israel and the power of stories

Joan Leegant's story collection, DISPLACED PERSONS: STORIES, winner of the New American Fiction Prize, will be out in June 2024.

Her earlier books won the PEN/New England Book Award, the Wallant Award for Jewish Fiction, and finalist citation for the National Jewish Book Award and selection as a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers pick.

From 2007 to 2013, Joan was the visiting writer at Bar-Ilan University outside Tel Aviv where she also gave talks on American literature and culture under the auspices of the U.S. Embassy and was a volunteer ESL teacher for African refugees and asylum seekers, experiences that made their way into her fiction. She lives in Newton, Massachusetts.

Book: DISPLACED PERSONS: STORIES

Coming June 2024 from New American Press

Winner of the New American Fiction Prize

Set half in Israel and half in the States, the stories in this prize-winning collection explore the experience of exile, belonging, and what it means to call a place home. A visiting professor from Boston forms an unlikely bond with an Israeli born in Iraq. Two teenage tourists are startled out of their naiveté in a restaurant in Jerusalem’s Old City. A gifted yeshiva student spiraling into mental illness takes refuge in the poetry of Walt Whitman. An aged widower returns after sixty years to the Bronx neighborhood of his youth to make amends with a first love he abandoned to go to prison. Shimmering with insight and compassion, DISPLACED PERSONS is a profound, exquisite collection that illuminates pivotal moments of transition, longing, and hope.

https://www.joanleegant.com/

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EPISODE 368 - Milton Sithole - Dominate Your Potential - Break Free from Self-Defeating Thinking, Lost Boys

"Dominate Your Potential: Break Free from Self-Defeating Thinking." 

Unpacking how we communicate, empathize, and behave unveiling biases, assumptions, and vulnerabilities. 
This self-awareness elevates communication and empathy, crucial for establishing healthier professional relationships. Introspection fuels self-awareness, enhances decision-making, and catalyzes personal growth. 

It's a journey—be patient, integrate self-reflection into your routine, and foster professional and personal development.

Book: Dominate Your Potential: Break Free From Self-Defeating Thinking

What would your life look like if you finally stopped doubting yourself and started acting on the potential you already have?

In Dominate Your Potential, motivational speaker, writer, and mentor Milton Sithole takes you on an extraordinary journey of self-belief, resilience, and purpose. Drawing from a life shaped by fatherlessness, adversity, faith, and an unwavering desire to rise, Milton reveals how anyone, regardless of background, can break free from the self-defeating thinking that quietly destroys dreams.

Through powerful storytelling, practical strategies, and deeply personal insights, this book helps you:

✔ Challenge limiting beliefs and replace them with a mindset wired for success
✔ Develop hunger, passion, and discipline so you can take meaningful action
✔ Build unshakeable self-confidence rooted in your identity, values, and purpose
✔ Learn the importance of mentorship and how the right guidance can change your entire future
✔ Discover your God-given potential and live a life aligned with who you were created to be
✔ Rise above fear, shame, comparison, and emotional barriers that keep people stuck
✔ Take ownership of your life story and turn your struggles into strength

From overcoming childhood wounds to navigating global fatherlessness, from finding purpose to embracing originality, Milton shows that success begins in the mind, and domination begins with belief.

If you’ve ever felt overlooked, underestimated, or held back by fear, this book will ignite your inner fire. It will push you to stop negotiating with your potential, stop living small, and stop letting circumstances define your identity.

You are loaded with gifts. You are built for greatness. And it’s time the world sees it.

Whether you're an entrepreneur, leader, student, or someone simply tired of standing in your own way, Dominate Your Potential gives you the clarity, courage, and conviction to rise.

Your future is waiting. Your greatness is calling.
It's time to dominate your potential.

https://amzn.to/4pP4GZf
https://www.linkedin.com/in/milton-sithole-52a0b583/
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Published:

May. 20, 2024

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EPISODE 367 - Michael Gross - Spillage is a wickedly fun throwback to a chaotic time in New York

It’s 1976, and the Big Apple is in sorry shape. Besieged on all sides, the city has become a graffiti-coated, garbage-filled, crime-ridden cauldron, teetering on the edge of total collapse. Adding to New York’s towering woes, a revolutionary group called the Satanic Vanguard has kidnapped the mayor, set fire to Coney Island, and threatened further mayhem. All that Gotham has to hope for are its resurgent Yankees, who’ve come back from the dead to reach the World Series by riding the arm of their quirky rookie phenom Nick “The Swan” Spillage. But Satan and his Vanguard plan to snuff that hope out too, they’ve targeted a young couple to help with their diabolical scheme.
The rock and roll-loving pair—Joan and Eliot—came of age in the late 1960s when the counterculture peaked. They’ve lived together in New York’s East Village for eight years, making sweet music on the subways while their beloved city crumbled around them. Then, in shades of the Faustian musical Damn Yankees, Joan develops an obsession with The Swan and makes a deal with the Devil to capture his heart. Meanwhile, Eliot wrestles with what it means to preserve his own soul as he makes a valiant effort to win her back and save the day.

Spillage is a wickedly fun throwback to a chaotic time. At its heart, the novel is a love story and a search for identity in a world that’s gone off the rails.

Michael Gross began Spillage in 1976, the year the story takes place, while working as managing editor of Fiction magazine, teaching and earning his MfA at New York’s City College. He also has a BA from Trinity College and an MBA from NYU, and was the recipient of a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship. In 1978, he embarked on a forty-five-year career in crisis communications, culminating in his serving as CEO of Finsbury (now FGS Global). He is married, has three children and three grandchildren, and divides his time between Brooklyn and Fire Island.

https://www.spillagebook.com/
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Episode 366 - Tamzin Hall - Co-Author of The Power of Coaching - Nurturing Leadership and Personal Development

Coaching is a leadership and personal development buzzword : but what is it? and how does it help people?

In this book you'll hear from 10 qualified coaches who share their experience and case studies demonstrating the impact of coaching personally and professionally.

Simply put you'll recognise how impactful coaching can be as an intervention.

If you've been considering using a coaching approach in your professional life, getting a coach or training as a coach (or you're already in the field) you'll find inspiration and real world examples.

The chapters traverse coaching in a range of environments with both individuals and teams, different approaches and the huge impact that coaching can have on underrepresented groups supporting the creation of a more equitable society.

The book is a collaboration with 10 strong voices who all bring their own experience and expertise to life.

The authors are:

James Eder

Metra Rowe

Tamzin Hall

Anna Badcock

Helen Schoeb

Adam Ceney

Dr Adnan Ali

Kasey L. Petrowski

Dr Mary Phillips (DC)

Dr Morten Isnes (DC)

Purchase on Amazon
https://amzn.to/3TUSmt5

https://www.tamzinhallcoaching.co.uk/
My Neurodiversity Acadamy Website; https://www.theneurodiversityacademy.com/

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Episode 365 - Elisa Di Napoli - Dare To Be Seen - Stop Stage Fright and Perform with Confidence

Do you shrink under the spotlight? Discover a powerful method to banish nerves and help you stand out from the crowd.

Does public speaking terrify you? Are business presentations enough to make your knees knock? Is fear crippling your performance? As a clinical hypnotherapist and singer-songwriter for twenty years, Elisa Di Napoli has played in front of thousands and knows what it is like to suffer at the center of attention. Now she’s here to share two decades of experience helping people like you express themselves with conviction.

Dare to Be Seen: From Stage Fright to Stage Presence - Command the Stage and Magnify your Presence is a complete manual for turning your paralysis into poise. Using coaching exercises, hypnotic techniques, and inspiring examples, Di Napoli’s comprehensive approach takes you by the hand every step of the way. Whether your job requires presenting to colleagues or if you’re a creative artist battling immobilizing stress, you’ll soon become adept at dealing with the limelight.

In Dare to Be Seen, you’ll discover:

• The ten key elements of turning paralysis into unstoppable assertion
• Six fundamental mind hacks to become self-assured
• A uniquely designed, professional approach to lock in the new confident you
• Step-by-step sessions to build up your showmanship mindset
• How to overcome the fear of rejection, quiet the negative voices, let go of performance anxiety and stage fright and much, much more!

Dare to Be Seen is your groundbreaking resource to go from camera-shy to shining light. If you like expert advice about how to defeat anxiety, jargon-free solutions on how to improve your speaking skills, and practical tactics on how to be authentically confident, then you’ll love Elisa Di Napoli’s life-changing strategies.

• Turn your Performance Anxiety into Authentic Power in Ten Easy Steps: Use Transformational Hypnotherapy to overcome your fear and boost your confidence 
• Make Stage Presence a Reality: Quiet the negative voices in your head that prevent you from standing out. Share your message in a larger way

About the author

Elisa Di Napoli has been a full time integrative clinical hypnotherapist and life coach since 2001, her practice expanding across New Zealand and Scotland. She is an accomplished singer-songwriter with 20 years of performance experience and eleven albums under her belt. Her background includes philosophy, art, comparative religion, music performance, and acting. 

https://elisadinapoli.com/

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Episode 364 - Michelle Glogovac - How To Get on Podcasts, What you know and what you are known for

Book: How to Get On Podcasts: Cultivate Your Following, Strengthen Your Message, and Grow as a Thought Leader Through Podcast Guesting

The explosion of social media, AI-enabled online advertising, and the overall cacophony of the internet has made it harder than ever to connect a message with an audience. One of the most powerful emerging tools for cutting through that noise is being a guest on podcasts, or "podcast guesting."

Michelle Glogovac, AKA The Podcast Matchmaker, knows the impact podcast guesting has on business and brand growth. She helps entrepreneurs, nonprofit leaders, activists, experts, and authors promote themselves, their businesses, organizations, stories, and expertise via podcast interviews. In How to Get on Podcasts, she teaches you how to create unique speaking topics without being generic; define your ideal audience; design branded media kits; establish your expertise and knowledge; share yourself freely without resorting to sales tactics; tell compelling stories; repurpose your interviews into evergreen marketing content; and turn every interview into a valuable business opportunity.

There are more than two-million podcasts, out of which 500,000 host expert guests—a huge opportunity for leveraging a free and robust marketing tool—if you have the know-how. With How to Get on Podcasts, you have everything you need to increase business, boost your career and brand, and elevate your thought leadership potential.

This audiobook includes a bonus chapter written by the author exclusively for this edition.

The Podcast - My Simplified Life with Michelle Glogovac
About the podcast

Are you letting your past define your future? Are you feeling stuck in the present and worrying about how you can make a switch in your life? Do you want to pivot in your career or launch a new business? The My Simplified Life Podcast is tackling all of these questions and more! Each episode is filled with life lessons, stories and experiences filled with humor, reality, and inspiring takeaways. We are covering career switches, motherhood, work life balance, starting your own business and what it means to simply be a good human being. Michelle Glogovac is a former corporate aviation executive who made a career switch and is now the CEO and Founder of The MLG Collective, a Podcast PR Agency and award-winning author of HOW TO GET ON PODCASTS (2024, McGraw Hill).

Known as THE Podcast Matchmaker, Michelle specializes in working with entrepreneurs, authors & experts to be podcast guests and expand their stories. Grab your coffee or even better, your wine, and get ready to be inspired to start changing your future while getting all of the tips and tools to make it happen!
To learn more about Michelle, visit https://michelleglogovac.com or to learn more about The MLG Collective, visit https://themlgcollective.com.

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EPISODE 363 - Richard Sparks - Rowan Atkinson, Operas and a New Rock, New Role - Words Matter

Richard Sparks
One morning in 1979 I got a call from an understandably excited Rowan Atkinson.

“John Cleese just called. He’s asked me to be in his new charity show – and can I do The Schoolmaster?”

Er, yes.

I’d written The Schoolmaster for Rowan the previous year, for a revue at the Hampstead Theatre (Rowan with Elspeth Walker and Peter Wilson). John and his co-producer, Martin Lewis, had seen it; and a year later, Rowan and I were backstage at Her Majesty’s Theatre, meeting John and other members of the cast of The Secret Policeman’s Ball.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiWJWLCoH2M

Rowan went on stage an unknown, with his gown and clipboard and pen, and came off a star. The Schoolmaster became his signature piece, the encore of his live shows. Eventually, he got tired of doing the same old routine and wrote another (ruder) version, generously giving me half the royalties.

By that time, I’d cut my teeth on various TV shows, from HTV (Wales) to ITV (Southern and Central) to the BBC. I’d also written some stage shows (reviews, original plays, and adaptations of Goldoni comedies), and done a lot of freelance script editing. In 1992, I was hired by Columbia Picture Television to work with Blake Hunter and Marty Cohan, the creators of Who’s the Boss?. My wife and I moved with our young daughter to her parents (converted) garage and we’ve lived in Los Angeles since.

I’ve written a number of libretti for operas, almost all for the LA Opera – some original pieces, some translations from German or Italian. My writing partner, the composer, Lee Holdridge, was – in a way – once G.R.R. Martin’s ‘writing partner’ in that he composed the scores for the TV series Beauty and the Beast, for which Martin was a script writer.

I’d been a hard-core RPG gamer for years when the idea for these books just fell out of the sky one morning, and I started writing. I have hardly had a moment to log on to any game — I’m too busy exploring the New Rock stories as they unfold.

My publisher, Caezik SF & Fantasy, is a company of enthusiasts who love these genres. I am delighted to join their family of authors, and to be working with their executive editor, Lezli, Robyn.

Three sequels – New Rock New Realm, New Rock New Rules, and New Rock New Roads, have been completed and will be published in due course. I’m currently working on the fifth book.

https://richardsparks.com/
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Episode 362 - Gerald Everett Jones - mystery-thrillers and literary fiction for adult readers who seek insight, fascination, and delight in the adventures of their own lives

Gerald Everett Jones lives in Santa Monica. He is a member of the Dramatists Guild and Women’s National Book Association, as well as a board member of the Independent Writers of Southern California (IWOSC). He is a Film Independent (FILM) Fellow. He holds a Bachelor of Arts with Honors from the College of Letters, Wesleyan University, where he studied under novelists Peter Boynton (Stone Island), F.D. Reeve (The Red Machines), and Jerzy Kosinski (The Painted Bird, Being There).”

I write mystery-thrillers and literary fiction for adult readers who seek insight, fascination, and delight in the adventures of their own lives.

I’ve been a professional writer all my working life. I host GetPublished! Radio and I’ve been a regular book reviewer on KRLA-AM in Los Angeles. My book reviews have been syndicated by Splash Magazines Worldwide (splashmagazines.com), and I’m a top reviewer at Goodreads.com.

I studied screenwriting with John Truby and Lew Hunter (UCLA), and my screenplay Christmas Karma was honored by the WGAW Diversity Program in 2016.

In 2020 I won six book awards, and then another six in 2021, in categories Mystery and Literary Fiction, and one in Business.

The third novel in my Evan Wycliff series will be Preacher Raises the Dead, which will deal with issues of euthanasia and near-death experience.

https://geraldeverettjones.com/

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Episode 361 - Risa August - The Road Unpaved - Border to Border with a Brain Tumor and a Bike 

A Life Without Limits...

Following a life-altering diagnosis, I have made it my mission to draw attention to rare Pituitary diseases by sharing my own personal journey. Little did I know, this diagnosis would teach me to live. Along with my mission, I continue to explore ways of experiencing life more fully by challenging my limiting beliefs and refocusing my perspective. This has further led me to guide others through their own limiting beliefs and toward their biggest and best life. 

After a shocking diagnosis for a rare pituitary disease and with her eighteen-year marriage in shambles, Risa’s life has fallen far from picture-perfect. Recovering from brain surgery and desperate to get back to her former self, she signs up for the bike tour of a lifetime—six weeks from Canada to Mexico on the Pacific Coast Highway.

The old Risa could have done the ride in her sleep, but for the new Risa, trapped in a body that no longer feels like her own and stuck in the company of her brain tumor, Bubba, the ride becomes a challenge unlike anything she’s ever faced.

As Risa pedals through rain, pain, and the ghosts of her memories, she wonders if the woman she once was will ever return or whether the new woman rising up in her place might just be the person she was meant to be all along.

A remarkable story of transformation and resilience, The Road Unpaved speaks to shifting gears to navigate life’s roadblocks and live a life without limits—a life fully unleashed.

https://www.risaaugust.com/
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Episode 359 - Michelle Mintz - All Done Binky, Pacifiers and their impact on proper speech and language skills

Book: All Done Binky - It is important for a child to stop using their pacifier at a very young age in order to help develop proper speech and language skills. Parents have reported an increase in verbal language when their child completely stopped using their pacifier. This book helps parents and children learn how to wean off the pacifier. The story shows the steps involved beginning with removing it from outside the house, then not using inside the house during activities and finally eliminating it from the bed. The bright colors and simple words are exciting and relatable to young children who will want you to read it to them over and over again!

The Author: Everyone has a special gift. You may know what yours is or perhaps you have not yet discovered it. I am fortunate to know that my special gift is having the key that is needed to help children unlock the doors of communication. I have this wonderful ability to relate to children in such a way that they feel comfortable and have fun at the same time that they are blooming.

For over 25 years, my passion has been connecting and communicating with parents, grandparents, nannies, siblings and their babies from birth through five years old. Guiding both the children and adults during my sessions provides me with great joy and pride. To be present for the beautiful moment when a mom hears her child speak a word they have never spoken before is an inspiring and exhilarating shared experience.

Watching the looks of pure awe and joy from the families when they see their baby making those connections is what continues to drive my passion for helping other babies bloom.

As babies bloom…families blossom.

Through my years of experience, I have discovered that coaching those who spend the most time with a baby such as parents, grandparents, and nannies to integrate my proactive strategies into their natural daily activities is the most impactful way to help a baby bloom.

https://babybloomingmoments.com/

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