Writer's Voices

This show welcomes back Fairfield, IA based writer, Rudy Wilson. In this interview, Rudy talks about the writing process, his current work, and much more. Wilson’s books include “The Red Truck”, “Sonja’s Blue,” and more. Rudy was honored with the James Michener Fellowship, a CCLM-GE Award for Fiction published in “The Paris Review”. He has also been awarded an NEA Fellowship for Fiction, in 1989.

Social media has become one of the most popular tools for online marketing. Facebook has become a part of our everyday lives. To have an effective marketing campaign in our current culture, it is necessary to learn the tools of social media, especially Facebook. Our guest is Phyllis Khare, co-author of “Facebook Marketing All-in-One For Dummies.” Her book guides the reader through Facebook basics, creating your business Facebook page, monitoring and measuring your campaign, working with apps, and much more. The book is full of examples illustrating the techniques and how to use them.

Phyllis Khare, author and speaker, specializes in social media marketing and helping others become more socially congruent.

Writers’ Voices welcomes world-renowned psychiatrist and author, Dr. Norman Rosenthal, to discuss his most recent book, “Transcendence: Healing and Transformation Through Transcendental Meditation”. This wide-ranging book uses stories, research, and his own clinical experience to show the benefits and value of TM. Interviews with Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Martin Scorsese, Russell Brand, and Laura Dern are also featured.

Dr. Rosenthal is the author of a number of books and has been a leader in describing “Seasonal Affective Disorder” and pioneering the use of light therapy to treat it. He has maintained a private practice in the Washington, DC Metropolitan area for over thirty years.

Don’t miss this inspiring discussion with international best-selling author, Kristine Carlson. Her new book, “Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff For Moms: Simple Ways to Stress Less and Enjoy Your Family More”, is the first new installment in nine years of the “Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff” series (originally started by her late husband, Dr. Richard Carlson). This new book presents tried-and-true advice in finding greater joy, peace, and harmony within themselves and their homes.

Kristine is the previous author of “An Hour To Live, An Hour To Love”, “Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff in Love”, “Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff For Women”, and “Heartbroken Open: A Memoir Through Loss to Self-Discovery” and more. She has also appeared on The Today Show, Oprah, and The View.

On this Writers’ Voices, Cheryl Fusco Johnson visits with children’s book illustrator, Jeni Reeves. Jeni has been illustrating children’s picture books, since 1998, for the Lerner Publishing Group. Her work ranging from American biography and history to world culture and folklore, She recently began illustrating for a new series, ‘History Speaks’ which dramatizes important events

Writers’ Voices host, Monica Hadley, along with “Filmosopher” Bruce Miller, dive into the topic of crop circles with a discussion with filmmaker Suzanne Taylor. Her film, “What On Earth? Inside the Crop Circle Mystery”, speaks with a number of crop circle researchers and aficionados, from visionary artists, philosophers, scientists, educators and farmers, who discuss their thoughts and theories about this phenomena. No theory presented as “correct”. The film invites the viewer to decide for themselves what they think. Suzanne never intended to become a filmmaker, but through witnessing crop circles and finding they filled her with wonder and joy, she was overcome with a desire to share the experience with everyone.

This episode features a conversation with Georgia-based writer, Jonathan Maxwell. Jonathan has written the book “Murderous Intellectuals: German Elites and the Nazi SS”. The book has received several awards and rave reviews. In this book, Jonathan explores the reasons why so many well-educated professionals, from doctors, scientists, lawyers, etc., willingly joined the Nazi SS, the notorious group that spearheaded the Holocaust. Make sure to tune in for this incredible conversation.

Listen in for a very touching conversation with Marianne Dietzel. Marianne has written “Laughing in a Waterfall: A Mother’s Memoir”. The book shows examples of how to create a new culture around the threshold of death and keep a living connection to those on the other side. The memoir tells Marianne’s emotional and spiritual journey following the death of her daughter, Nina. After the accident, with a teenager and young child still at home, and a dying mother 500 miles away, Marianne finds help from her spiritual and community resources.

Since her daughter’s death in 1996, Marianne has become a hospice bereavement coordinator. She plays music for healing on the lyre as a Certified Music Practitioner and educates families in caring for their own deceased.

In 2002, a railcar filled with the bodies of eleven undocumented immigrants, rolled into the farming community of Denison, Iowa. These eleven Central Americans and Mexicans had been locked inside a baking railcar by smugglers and left to die a horrific death. Journalist Colleen Bradford Krantz talks about her new book “Train To Nowhere: Inside an Immigrant Death Investigation”. Her book digs into this tragedy to discover the larger story and issues that surround this event.

Colleen, currently a freelance journalist living in central Iowa, has worked as a reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and The Des Moines Register.

Cheryl Fusco Johnson takes the hosting reins once again. Cheryl will be speaking with author Jan Blazanin of Des Moines. Jan’s newest book, “A & L Do Summer”, follows the adventures of two teenage girls in rural Iowa during the summer before their senior year. A former middle school teacher, Jan currently lives on eleven acres, presents writers workshops, teaches writing to all ages, and fills her free time with “planting wildflowers, moving large rocks, and pulling acres of weeds”.