Pressure-Reduced Outlets
Kyle and His Pal Jake: What a Duo These Two Make! follows a young boy into adulthood as he rediscovers the joy of ventriloquism and uses it to reach his students. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
This story is semi-autobiographical. When I was ten, I received a ventriloquist puppet that looked like Paul Winchell’s dummy, Jerry Mahoney (which I still have to this day). It came with an LP record that taught me ventriloquism. And, yes, I put on shows for my friends in my garage with a stage my Papa had made for me.
As an elementary school teacher, I would have the kids make their own puppets based on characters in the stories we had been reading. Then, in groups, they presented the stories to the class. I also taught them ventriloquism.
Kyle’s embarrassment in middle school feels very relatable. Was it important to show how quickly children can hide something they love when they feel judged?
Oh, yes. Young people don’t like to be ridiculed and judged for having unique hobbies or interests. As a teacher, we celebrated our varying interests in my classroom.
What role do you think creativity plays in helping children feel emotionally safe?
It is my belief that creative activities provide relaxed, pressure-reduced outlets where children can process and express their feelings.
If a child reading the book sees something of themselves in Kyle, what do you hope they feel by the last page?
It’s okay to have interests and talents that differ from others, whether it is academically or intellectually, athletically, or theatrically.
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Now a third-grade teacher, Kyle is always looking for ways to reach his students, especially Wendy, a shy, silent girl. An answer arrives in a package from his mom. In it are items from his youth, his baseball glove, his favorite chapter books, a model airplane, and Jake.
As he removes Jake from the box, Kyle comes up with a plan on how he can use Jake in his classroom and help Wendy come out of her shell.
Metaphor for the Good Things
Altamara’s Gift follows a gifted southpaw who finds refuge in baseball as a child and whose adulthood is marred by the Vietnam War. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
I am a Vietnam veteran, and I never really cared for how vets were often depicted in films and on television. I wanted to write something that to me felt true and genuine. Most of the guys I served with were skinny 18- and 19-year-old kids thrown into a war they didn’t fully understand. Many were draftees just out of high school, and seemingly went from being the kid you sat next to in your English class, to young soldiers living like cavemen armed with automatic weapons. They missed their moms, girlfriends, and families. These valiant young men formed an unlikely and unshakeable brotherhood that allowed them to seemingly endure every hardship. However, they carried that war the rest of their lives. Combat is what I attempted to write about. There were long moments of boredom punctuated by seconds of sheer terror. They survived on letters from home, profane humor, their brotherhood, and, in Altamara’s case, memories of baseball.
I enlisted when I was 18 and served in the US Army from 1967-1971, spending most of my tours in combat units in the Central Highlands. Altamara’s Gift is the first part of a trilogy that follows many of the same cast of characters from age 18 and how they navigate life after they survive combat and try to return to normal lives.
Why did baseball feel like the right counterpoint to war — not just as subject matter, but as emotional language?
Baseball is simply a metaphor for the good things in life for Sergeant Lefty Altamara. Despite the fear, chaos, and death around him in Vietnam, Altamara always drifts back to baseball as his safe place.
Altamara is a paratrooper placed in charge of the recon platoon. However, his closest friendship is with the company medic Doc Hood, a former Duke Divinity student who failed to gain “conscientious objector status” and was drafted. They form an unlikely alliance trying to save the men of Delta-Double-Deuce.
Doc’s girlfriend, Kate, back home in North Carolina literally writes to him every day. She is the light and the hope of his life. However, Altamara gets very little mail from home except a weekly edition of the Sporting News (baseball), which he reads religiously. While the other men are resting and trying to stay out of the heat back at base camp after missions, Altamara has 5 worn baseballs that he fires repeatedly into sagging sandbags near their fortress. Baseball and the art of throwing them represent Lefty’s salvation.
I was an anchor, writer, and reporter for close to four decades, covering Major League Baseball for NBC, ESPN, and ABC. Baseball and what it represents to so many people all played an underlying theme in the novel.
Did you think of the book as partly about survivor’s guilt, or was redemption the deeper center?
The deeper center of the novel is about endurance. The core of the book is about the men and how they endure brutal conditions, the possibility of death, the loss of friends, and the hope and dream of returning home. The combat wears everyone down, but somehow, they still maintain a sense of humor. The expression they all use and say to each other is “WETSU.” An acronym that stands for “We Eat This Shit Up.” The men maintain a gallows sense of humor that they can take anything and everything that is thrown at them; you cannot grind them down.
If Altamara’s Gift leaves readers with one enduring image — whether a baseball, a battlefield, or something quieter — what image do you hope stays with them, and why?
My fondest wish is that the reader will come away with a greater understanding about the soldiers and nurses who served in Vietnam. Hopefully, the reader will cry a little, laugh a little, and gain a bit of understanding about the emotional baggage Vietnam veterans have carried around with them all their lives. The loss, the heartbreak, and the brotherhood. Perhaps Doc and Lefty represent the best of us.
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An Act of Survival
Two Hearts Within One Soul: Volume 1 frames love not as coincidence but as cosmic decree, a bond the gods designed before the characters were born. What drew you to that metaphysical architecture rather than a conventional romance structure?
Conventional romance is about the ego, but I focus on the Return. My architecture is built on the 888 frequency—a mathematical heartbeat that proves love is a cosmic decree. I am exploring the ‘Zeus Theory’: the idea that we were once eight-limbed, invincible beings split into four-limbed fragments. We aren’t looking for a ‘partner’; we are survivors of a divine accident looking for our own missing limbs. It is a biological and spiritual necessity to find the only person who holds the rest of our original symmetry.
Classical music and ballet are woven into the novel’s emotional fabric. Why did those art forms feel like the right language for this love story?
Words are ‘four-limbed’—heavy and limited. Music is the rhythm of the soul captured through thoughts, allowing us to hear beauty in a lyrical tone. If the eyes are the windows to the soul, then the ballerina’s movement is the art that allows us to see that soul’s rhythm move through the physical body. A Mozart aria or a pirouette is an ‘eight-limbed’ reach back toward our lost divinity, allowing the characters to communicate in a frequency where the split hasn’t happened yet.
The idea of becoming “habitable to yourself again” after devastating loss is the emotional core of the book. Was that theme the origin of the novel, or did it emerge through writing these two characters?
It was the origin—an act of survival. When you lose the love that made you whole, you feel unoccupied, like a house with no one inside. Writing this was my way of ‘rebuilding the temple,’ proving that the missing rooms of the soul are still there, held in the vibration of the other half. To be ‘habitable’ means making peace with the four-limbed skin we are trapped in while we wait for a reunion (oneself) that is already written in the stars.
This is Volume 1. What does the series hold that this book is only beginning to reveal about these souls, this bond, and the cost the gods mentioned?
The series is a grand odyssey through the entwining of Heaven, Hell, and Earth. Volume 1 was the ‘Phantom Ache’ of the split. Volume 2 explores the resilience of the caterpillar—the quiet strength required to endure the weight of the human form and the darkness of grief.
Finally, Volume 3: ♾️888, reveals the Source.
We journey to the African Baobab tree of life and the Egyptian Underworld, mirroring Isis’s search for the pieces of Osiris and the Southeast Asian myth of the Sun and Moon to prove that no love is impossible. This journey doesn’t just take a lifetime; it takes eternity after eternity. Across time and space, love that is made of Heaven and Earth belongs to the end of time. It reveals that the circle of life is the Art of the Heart: ‘LOVE.’
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Centuries ago, the gods bound King Marici’O and the ballerina Dahli’a with a single soul, two hearts destined to find one another across lifetimes. Set against the opulent backdrop of eighteenth-century Europe, Marici’O is a grieving king torn by the loss of his queen. Across the continent, Dahli’a, a luminous ballerina, mourns a love she cannot explain—until fate begins to stir.
On the edge of death, their souls meet in a dream, urging one another to fight for life. Neither believes the encounter is real—until a chance performance of Le Papillon in Austria changes everything. Marici’O recognizes the ethereal dancer on stage as the woman from his vision. Dahli’a freezes mid-performance when she sees the man who once pulled her back from the abyss standing before her.
As dream becomes reality, their bond deepens, defying worlds that separate them: royalty and art, tradition and freedom, past pain and present hope. But love forged by gods comes with a cost. Will they surrender the lives they’ve known—or embrace a destiny shaped by divine design?
My Faith in God
The Last Expression follows a passionate, faith-driven journey of identity, heartbreak, purpose, and self-worth as you wrestle with pain and power while claiming your voice. Why was this an important book for you to write?
My book was important for me to write because I had an important message I needed to convey to my audience. I wanted to share my story with my audience that could deeply resonate with my words in poetic form. I wanted to leave a lasting impression, an imprint, and leave a legacy with my readers around the world. I didn’t want to leave the ending to my poetry series on a fall; I needed to return. Also, I wanted to correlate that return to the Return of Jesus. He will one day come back to rule and reign and be reconciled with His followers! I am a Christian, and I believe my writing influences people. Lastly, it was for my own therapy to have a release or outlet to cope with life.
The book often balances confidence with vulnerability. How do you navigate writing from a “kingly” posture while still revealing pain, doubt, and longing?
I truly believe I write with an open heart and want to be authentic in my writing approach. I believe we as humans deal with the duality of opposites, for example, happiness and sadness. You can feel two things simultaneously. You can be confident but may wrestle with some doubts or fears. I believe you can disarm people with your demeanor, but people need to feel like they can identify with you! Every king wasn’t always perfect, especially those who were kings in biblical times. They all faced challenges, battles, or opposition. We all have our moments, but I truly see myself as a king because God is a King of All Kings. I am made in His image. He has crowned me with favor in spite of my struggles.
Faith is central throughout the book. Were there particular life experiences that shaped the spiritual urgency behind these pieces?
Yes, absolutely!! When I went through rough seasons, I had to rely on my faith in God to get through them! I felt like people needed to hear my testimony so they could be inspired and know that God is with us, just like He has always been with me! I remember being in the military, and I was deployed to Iraq back in 2006 and 2007. We had a mortar attack that hit inside the compound I was working at. It was a very close call; my life literally flashed before my eyes. I had to go into combat mode and protect the detainees (the enemy) that I was guarding with my fellow troops. I knew God protected all of us that day from what could have been a disaster!
Which piece in the collection was the most difficult or healing for you to write, and why?
Hmmm, let me see there were a few that were a bit challenging to write like “Therapy,” “Stages,” “Sacrifice,” “Evolve,” and “Letter To My Dad.” There was just a lot to cover and very complex topics to speak about. Stages were very detailed and were quite a process going from start to finish. “Evolve” was scientific and just a different lane into unfamiliar territory than what I am used to writing.”Letter To My Dad” was difficult because you’re trying to embody a whole person and the relationship you have with them into one poem. I made a rough draft of it and recited it to my father. He asked me to rewrite the poem. I was kind of shocked, but he wanted me to elaborate more, and he is a studious kind of person anyway. So, when I wrote it a second time, I put more emphasis on giving the poem more meaning to satisfy his liking and also showcase what type of man and father he is! Overall, this last book has been my most challenging yet, but I enjoy taking on challenges, and it’s really helped me become more efficient in my writing!
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Our Next 250 Years: Representation and Influence
Our Next 250 Years: Representation and Influence by Charles Patton is a wide-ranging civic examination of American democracy, framed around the question of whether the structures built in the eighteenth century still give ordinary citizens meaningful influence in a country of hundreds of millions. Patton begins with representation, especially the fixed size of the House, the diluted population-to-representative ratio, and the distance between citizens and Congress, then moves through lobbying, campaign finance, constitutional history, local and state government, rights, property, privacy, political parties, media distortion, declining population, term limits, the courts, and concentrated wealth. The book is less a partisan argument than a sustained plea for citizens to understand power before they surrender it or try to reform it.
What I found most effective is the book’s insistence that democracy isn’t kept alive by sentiment alone. Patton repeatedly brings the reader back to structure: who has access, who benefits, who pays, and what limits prevent abuse. His discussion of the 435-member House cap gives the argument a concrete center, turning an abstract complaint about feeling unheard into a measurable problem of scale. The proposed regional representation model, with smaller citizen-connected bodies feeding public concerns upward, is interesting because it doesn’t treat reform as spectacle. It imagines democracy as a system of channels that must be maintained, cleaned, and made visible. The same grounded quality appears in the sections on lobbyists, Super PACs, dark money, and the revolving door, where the emotional force comes not from outrage but from accumulation. The reader feels the imbalance because the details keep pressing in.
The writing is plainspoken and earnest, with the cadence of a citizen’s notebook expanded into a constitutional primer. Patton is strongest when he lets moral unease meet practical explanation, as in the chapters on power, liberty, and government control of behavior. There’s a sincere discomfort in the way he asks what government means when it taxes harmful industries while claiming to protect public welfare, or when it invokes security while expanding surveillance and control. Some sections move quickly from historical context to policy recommendation without lingering over counterarguments as deeply as they might. Still, that expansiveness is also part of its character. Patton is trying to map a whole civic weather system, not isolate a single storm.
Our Next 250 Years: Representation and Influence is a reflective and practical-minded book about the fragility of self-government and the responsibility citizenship demands. It argues that reform should preserve the constitutional foundation while confronting the modern pressures that have bent representation toward money, access, party machinery, and institutional inertia. Its best audience is readers who are worried about American democracy but want more than slogans, especially citizens, students, discussion groups, and politically engaged readers looking for a broad, accessible framework for thinking about representation, rights, and power. It’s a serious book for readers who still believe the system can be repaired, but who don’t want repair confused with complacency.
Pages: 234 | ASIN : B0GSQ687M5
An Imprint of Evil and Other Hauntings
Stephen Tallevi’s An Imprint of Evil and Other Hauntings is a compact collection of ten horror stories built around cursed objects, old sins, hungry gods, occult bargains, and people who make one terrible choice too many. The book has the feel of classic ghost and weird fiction, with each story rooted in a specific time and place, from Manchester in 1831 to the Florida Keys in 1964, Chicago in 1905, and Muskoka Lakes in 1929. That historical spread gives the collection a pleasing variety, while the tone stays consistent: polished, eerie, and quietly wicked.
I enjoyed how often the horror grows out of desire. Mary’s longing in “Love is Blind,” George’s greed in “Pearly Whites,” Cathers’s ambition in “The Death God,” and the community’s bargain in “The Barn” all lead characters into darkness with their eyes wide open. These aren’t random hauntings so much as moral traps. Tallevi has a knack for letting people talk themselves into the unforgivable, then watching the supernatural world meet them halfway.
The stories also move at a brisk, readable pace. Most begin with a familiar situation, such as a reunion, an expedition, a country visit, a carnival, or a marriage under strain, and then tighten the screws until the final turn lands. “Idol of the Deep” is especially effective as an adventure story that slowly becomes something stranger and more fatal, while “Hands of Fate” adds a detective-story rhythm to the collection. The line “There is no death god in this cave, only death” captures the book’s taste for irony, where the supernatural and human cruelty often blur into one another.
Tallevi’s best moments come when he lets a simple image do the work: a wax doll, a black idol, stained hands, a scarecrow in a storm, a barn door that won’t open. The prose is clear and atmospheric without getting bogged down, and the collection has a campfire-story quality that makes it easy to keep turning pages. Even the brief “Summer Blood” has a playful bite. That story’s mix of menace and dark humor showcases the author’s personality.
An Imprint of Evil and Other Hauntings is an entertaining horror collection with a strong affection for old-school supernatural storytelling. It’s full of cursed inheritances, cruel bargains, and endings that snap shut like a trap. Readers who enjoy concise, atmospheric tales with a macabre sense of justice will find a lot to enjoy here, especially in the way Tallevi turns ordinary human weakness into something ghostly, grotesque, and strangely satisfying.
Pages: 132 | ASIN : B0G5LVNKF6
Let’s Go Backer and Backer! The Empty and Still Beautiful but a Bit Broken Shell
Let’s Go Backer and Backer! The Empty and Still Beautiful but a Bit Broken Shell, by Maureen Devlin, is a warm and imaginative picture book that invites children to see the natural world with fresh curiosity. What begins as a quiet moment on the beach becomes a thoughtful adventure through the hidden history of a seashell. Rather than simply presenting facts, the story encourages young readers to wonder where things come from and how every part of nature is connected.
The relationship between grandson and grandfather gives the book much of its heart. Their shared discovery feels tender and familiar, capturing the special way grandparents can turn everyday moments into lasting memories. Through their conversation, children are gently encouraged to ask questions, observe closely, and think beyond what they can see.
The book also does a lovely job introducing early science concepts in a way that feels playful and easy to understand. Ideas about ocean life, growth, energy, and the food chain are woven into the story without ever overwhelming the reader. The repeated “backer and backer” structure gives the book a comforting rhythm that works especially well for young children.
The illustrations are beautiful and help bring the story to life. They add warmth, color, and movement to the journey, making each stage of the shell’s history feel vivid and engaging. Young readers will enjoy lingering over the artwork as much as listening to the story.
With its gentle message about beauty, imperfection, and the unseen stories carried by ordinary things, Let’s Go Backer and Backer! The Empty and Still Beautiful but a Bit Broken Shell is a meaningful addition to the series. It is a sweet choice for families, classrooms, and story times, especially for children who love nature, beach discoveries, and asking big questions about the world around them.
Pages: 26 | ASIN : B0GV3P5MHX
How To Think and Succeed by Empowering Your Mind
How to Think and Succeed by Empowering Your Mind, by Lori Gradley, is a practical self-help guide built around the belief that lasting change begins in the disciplined inner life. Gradley leads readers through self-discovery, purpose, self-image, limiting beliefs, gratitude, goal setting, visualization, the mind-body connection, stress reduction, and decisive action, using quizzes, journal prompts, affirmations, and personal stories to keep the material grounded. Her account of recovering from a serious car accident gives the book its emotional center, while later stories, including her work around Tiny Talent Time, her encounter with Bob Proctor, and the transformation of her client Marsha, show how deeply she connects mindset with direction, resilience, and renewal.
I appreciated the sincerity of Gradley’s voice. She writes with the tone of someone who has lived with the questions she’s asking, not merely arranged them into tidy chapters. The book is most persuasive when it becomes personal: the hospital bed after the collision, the hard decision to leave a career and stay home with her children, the almost electric recognition she describes while watching children perform with joy, and then seeing that same purposeful energy in Bob Proctor. Those moments give warmth to ideas that might otherwise feel familiar. I also liked the book’s insistence on participation. The self-assessment questions, life-purpose exercises, attitude quiz, vision board guidance, and action checklist make the reading experience less passive. Gradley isn’t asking readers to admire growth from a distance. She’s asking them to sit quietly, tell the truth, and begin.
Gradley’s ideas about positivity, visualization, cybernetic programming, and the subconscious mind are presented with confidence, and for many readers, that confidence will be encouraging. For me, the strongest passages were the ones that allowed pain, failure, and complexity to breathe a little. Her acknowledgment that people dealing with depression, trauma, or mental illness may need smaller goals or professional help gives the book a more compassionate register. The writing is direct, encouraging, and highly accessible. There’s a steadiness in the structure. Each chapter builds like a hand placed gently at the reader’s back, urging forward movement without pretending the work is effortless.
How to Think and Succeed by Empowering Your Mind is an earnest, usable, and emotionally generous guide for readers who are ready to examine their habits of thought and take deliberate action toward a clearer life. Its best quality is conviction: Gradley believes deeply in the possibility of personal change, and that belief gives the book its uniqueness. I’d recommend it to readers who enjoy reflective self-help with exercises, especially those feeling stalled, discouraged, or in need of a structured reset around purpose, self-image, attitude, and goal setting. It’s a thoughtful companion for anyone willing to do the inner work rather than simply read about it.
Pages: 150 | ASIN : B0CWFMNV4T
