Two Hearts and One Braincell: Cassidy Carson & JT Hume Amateur Hour

Elaine Sargent’s writing odyssey began as a college journalism student where she was a reporter for the university newspaper. Her beat was Arts and Entertainment, and she was assigned to interview on-campus artists and review shows in hopes of ultimately becoming a fashion journalist. Her path took a turn when she discovered the University of Nevada costume design program, which allowed her to combine her two professional interests: writing and fashion.

This unique mixture led to her employment behind the stage in Nevada’s famous showrooms, outfitting and costuming showgirls and other performers. Elaine joins the Nevada Authors Network to discuss how she developed and wrote Rhinestone Confidential through her personal experiences and in-depth interviews with past colleagues and friends.

Rhinestone Confidential is available at the Radical Cat Bookstore in Reno, Nevada, and on Amazon.

You can learn more about Elaine on her Instagram and Facebook pages.

You can learn more about the Sierra Arts Foundation at https://sierraarts.org/

You can contact Two Moore Books, LLC via their main website at https://www.carsonhume.com

We are testing Riverside for our podcast.

For Episode 225 of our award-winning podcast⁠ for writers, we set ourselves up for disappointment.

We often say that “writing is a solo project done on the public stage,” meaning we’re alone in our endeavors, but that’s not true. We rely on beta readers, editors, and cover designers to produce the best book possible. We learned this week what happens when success strikes one of our key partners: we had to slip book release dates. Sad for us, but happy for them! We discuss our feelings on the subject and how we adjusted our plans.

Related: 

-Serving Salvation Book Two is out. It’s available on most platforms and our online bookstore.

-The Virginia City Romance is at Red Adept for proofing. The new release date is July 2025
-Serving Salvation Book Three will be released in August 2025.

-The third book of the A Sheriff in Nevada series is with Teri, the awesome creative editor. 

Two Moore Books, LLC is partnered with the Sierra Arts Foundation to highlight a local author and member of the Sierra Arts Literary Community. So far:

-Tia Flores – Program Director, Sierra Arts Foundation

-Author Mariposa Cruz, author of “Man of the House

-Ken Sutherland, creator of the “Heartbreaker” series

-Next up: Elaine Sargent on May 28

You can meet and greet us at these two great book signings:

-Barnes and Noble in south Reno on Saturday, June 28, 2025 at 1:00pm.

-Artown at the Reno Public Market (Virginia and Plumb) on Saturday, July 5, 2025 at 1:00pm.

All this and Moore! Check us out. TIA LYL!

⁠please buy us coffee!⁠

Note: Two Moore Books, LLC does not receive financial compensation for promoting third-party businesses and websites. We are speaking to our specific experiences. Your mileage may vary.

Ken Sutherland learned the art of writing through the radio business. Not blessed with the stereotypical deep voice of the airwaves, he realized he needed to say something interesting to stay employed, and he began to write. As his career and reputation grew, he became the go-to guy for anything that needed to be written: news, sales proposals, and especially commercials. He takes pride in having been the creative force behind more than forty thousand commercials. His passion and professionalism were recognized by his peers when he was inducted in the Nevada Broadcasters Hall of Fame in 2005.

Upon his retirement, Ken finished the first books of his successful and intriguing Heartbreaker series, including Heartbreaker, The Hollywood Diamond Murders, and the soon-to-be-released third book, Unfinished Business.

Ken joins the Nevada Authors Network to talk about how the Heartbreaker series came to life from his experiences in his Hall of Fame career.

You can learn more about Ken and his books at https://kensutherlandauthor.com/

You can learn more about the Sierra Arts Foundation at https://sierraarts.org/

You can contact Two Moore Books, LLC via their main website at https://www.carsonhume.com

For Episode 224 of our award-winning podcast⁠ for writers, we debate whether independent writers deserve more than three-star reviews.

An apology up front: CC and I have a plague. Not the plague, but we’re not feeling great. We are getting better.

CC found this statement on the internet: “Most indy authors don’t deserve more than a three-star review.” This absolute statement triggered a discussion, and we decided to bring that debate to this week’s podcast. CC takes up why this is wrong while I play devil’s advocate on why indy writers shouldn’t get four- or five-star reviews.

Book Notes:

-Serving Salvation Book Two is out. It’s available on most platforms and our online bookstore.

-Serving Salvation Book Three will be released in July.

-The Virginia City Romance is at Red Adept for line editing and will be released next month.
- CC is running a cover design contest at 99Designs.

-The third book of the A Sheriff in Nevada series is with Teri, the awesome creative editor.

Two Moore Books, LLC is partnered with the Sierra Arts Foundation to highlight a local author and member of the Sierra Arts Literary Community. So far:

-Tia Flores – Program Director, Sierra Arts Foundation

-Author Mariposa Cruz, author of “Man of the House.

-Next up: Ken Sutherland on May 21

You can meet and greet us at these two great book signings:

-Barnes and Noble in south Reno on Saturday, June 28, 2025 at 1:00pm.

-Artown at the Reno Public Market (Virginia and Plumb) on Saturday, July 5, 2025 at 1:00pm.

All this and Moore! Check us out. TIA LYL!

Note: Two Moore Books, LLC does not receive financial compensation for promoting third-party businesses and websites. We are speaking to our specific experiences. Your mileage may vary.

Mariposa Cruz is the author of Man of the House, the first book in the Knits & Brews series. She joins the Nevada Authors Network to discuss her books and inspirations.

Bonus: Mariposa wrote about her experience with CC and JT from Two Moore Books.

You can learn more about Mariposa at https://createontheside.wordpress.com/

You can learn more about the Sierra Arts Foundation at https://sierraarts.org/

You can contact Two Moore Books, LLC via their main website at https://www.carsonhume.com

For Episode 223 of our award-winning podcast⁠ for writers, we’re a little all over the place. It was a week.

Reminder: Serving Salvation Book Two will be released on May 14. Book One got very nice reviews, and the B1 ebook is available for 99 cents on the major platforms. Check out our Books page.

Happy Mother’s Day not only to mothers, but to those who step up and be a mother in times of need. And to the dads who ran out to the store at the last minute for their kids.

Here’s a story all writers can relate to. We were blessed with a visit from the grandkids on Saturday, and our youngest mentioned they were taking a school field trip to Virginia City, Nevada (they live in Sparks). When CC mentioned she wrote a book about Virginia City, the grandkid said, “But you’re retired.”

Context: they are the child of a New York Times bestselling author, and the grandchild of two full-time authors, so they intuitively understand at ten years old that writing is hard work. We wish everyone was so intelligent (objectively speaking).

Aside from that, we spent most of the week editing, editing, and editing. CC tells of her challenges this week getting her book back to Red Adept under the deadline.

The other significant event was the May 7 kickoff of the Nevada Authors network, our partnership with the Sierra Arts Foundation to highlight a local writer every week. We will interview Mariposa Cruz for the May 14 broadcast. You can check out those podcasts on our main site at Two Moore Books.

Also mentioned in this podcast:

Leo XIV, the Deep Dish Pope, and being Culturally Catholic

Teri Case

Dr. Marissa and The Parent Doctor

Susan at The Garden Answer (Andrews Seed Company)

Being Deaf

Check us out and let us know what you think. TIA LYL!

Our Website: ⁠www.carsonhume.com⁠

Who We are: ⁠https://carsonhume.com/about/⁠

Our Books: ⁠https://carsonhume.com/books-2/⁠

Our bookstore: https://carsonhume.square.site/

Our Business: ⁠https://twomoorebooks.com/⁠

⁠please buy us coffee!⁠

For those who listen on the way to work, we are on these fine podcast platforms: ⁠Spotify⁠ ⁠Apple⁠ ⁠Pocket Casts⁠ ⁠Radio Public⁠

Note: Two Moore Books, LLC does not receive financial compensation for promoting third-party businesses and websites. We are speaking to our specific experiences. Your mileage may vary.

Tia Flores, Sierra Arts Foundation Program Director, joins the Nevada Authors Network to discuss the challenges facing the arts in Reno.

In her current role as a program director for a regional arts organization, Tia enjoys designing and facilitating professional development workshops for artists and educators. Tia views the act of art making as a place ofconnection, discovery, refuge and celebration.

As an artist and a fourth generation Nevadan, Tia is known for her culturally themed pyrographic calabaza sculptures that depict the vast beauty of the Nevada desert and its natural inhabitants. Her artwork has been featured on HGTV’s That’s Cleaver!, Voices of America, PBS ArtEffects, and published in a variety of books and magazines. Tia is one of a handful of female artists featured in the book, Women Artists of the Great Basin by Mary Lee Fulkerson.

As an educator, Tia was an elementary a visual arts teacher and taught high school art which included fine art, digital, graphic design and AP Studio Art. During this time, she created an integrated art curriculum, ArtSciMath to help her students with their spatial reasoning and problem solving skills. Tia has presented at regional and national educational conferences stressing the importance of arts education to stimulate critical and innovative thinking for all students.

Thank you for joining us. This weekly podcast is a partnership between the Sierra Arts Foundation and Two Moore Books, LLC to promote Northern Nevada writers. Join us weekly as we interview local authors about their books.

Know a writer or someone who wants to be a writer? Then forward this post to them and invite them to listen to our writers podcast. Thank you!

For Episode 222 of our award-winning podcast⁠, we dive into the dark recesses of some of the most important places for writers of historical fiction and fact-based historical fiction: the archives.

This week, CC attended the annual Conference of Inter-Mountain Archivists (CIMA) in Boise, Idaho, where she networked with the guardians of records in repositories across the western United States. Archivists are librarians on Mountain Dew Plus because each and every one of them is passionate about the records on their shelves and in their files. For writers in particular, archivists are data experts, and they will bend over backwards to help their patrons access the records they need.

Along with our trip to Boise, CC got to fan-girl and swing by Ontario, Oregon, the home of the Garden Answer. She’s been watching Laura for many years and, in truth, served as a partial inspiration for our own podcast. We stopped by her parents’ garden store, Andrews Seed Company, and got to meet Susan, Laura’s mom, who was very patient and polite with two out-of-town rubes who had so many questions. Thank you, Susan!

This week, we debut the Nevada Authors Network, our partnership with Sierra Arts Foundation to promote Northern Nevada writers. Join us weekly as we interview local authors about their books. The podcasts can be found on our main Two Moore Books website.

We are featured on Susan Winters's "Create on the Side!" blog. Thank you for having us, Susan!

Finally, if you want to meet us in person, we’re doing book signings on June 28 at the Reno Barnes and Noble and on July 5 as part of Author’s Day at Reno Art Town. We’re excited about it!

Included: we bring you up to speed on current events and we talk about our current writing projects.

Check us out and let us know what you think. TIA! LYL!

Our Website: ⁠www.carsonhume.com⁠

Who We are: ⁠https://carsonhume.com/about/⁠

Our Books: ⁠https://carsonhume.com/books-2/⁠

Our bookstore: https://carsonhume.square.site/

Our Business: ⁠https://twomoorebooks.com/⁠

⁠please buy us coffee!⁠

For those who listen on the way to work, we are on these fine podcast platforms: ⁠Spotify⁠ ⁠Apple⁠ ⁠Pocket Casts⁠ ⁠Radio Public⁠

Note: Two Moore Books, LLC does not receive financial compensation for promoting third-party businesses and websites. We are speaking to our specific experiences. Your mileage may vary.

Know a writer or someone who wants to be a writer? Then forward this post to them and invite them to listen to our writers podcast. Thank you!

For Episode 221 of our award-winning podcast⁠, we take on Meta and discuss their “fair use” of seven million literary works to train their artificial intelligence system.

For those untouched by the controversy, we referred Keziah Weir’s excellent Vanity Fair article, “This Is How Meta AI Staffers Deemed More Than 7 Million Books to Have No “Economic Value” (link) and cite this paragraph as background:

“Lawyers for Meta are indeed invoking that very “fair use” defense in a copyright suit that’s been wending its way through the Northern District of California legal system for nearly two years. Richard Kadrey et al. v. Meta Platforms—and the reams of confidential Meta communications, newly in the public record as exhibits for the plaintiffs—offers an unprecedented look at the internal maneuverings behind the company’s decision to train its model on a database containing more than 7 million pirated books.”

As writers, CC and I have strong opinions about the subject, and we are in sync about how we came to this point, and we agree that the damage is done, and that “the horse has left the barn and it ain’t coming back.” We have different and, I think, interesting opinions about the outcomes to this controversy.

For our discussion, we pull in:

-The Lord of the Rings,

-Carolyn Keene and Franklin W. Dixon,

-Thomas Edison,

-Covenant (the movie),

-John Steinbeck and Ernest Hemingway,

-CC’s professional and extensive experience on the “fair use” issue, and

-Our short-lived use of Artificial Intelligence (not what you think).

Aside from AI, we bring you up to speed on current events, including CIMA and our book signing on Saturday, and we talk about our current writing projects and how we're abused by our editors (no names mentioned)(kidding!).

And we started a presale on Serving Salvation Book Two.

Check us out and let us know what you think. TIA! LYL!

Our Website: ⁠www.carsonhume.com⁠

Who We are: ⁠https://carsonhume.com/about/⁠

Our Books: ⁠https://carsonhume.com/books-2/⁠

Our bookstore: https://carsonhume.square.site/

Our Business: ⁠https://twomoorebooks.com/⁠

⁠please buy us coffee!⁠

For those who listen on the way to work, we are on these fine podcast platforms: ⁠Spotify⁠ ⁠Apple⁠ ⁠Pocket Casts⁠ ⁠Radio Public⁠

Note: Two Moore Books, LLC does not receive financial compensation for promoting third-party businesses and websites. We are speaking to our specific experiences. Your mileage may vary.