Blog Archives
Troubled By How Divided Our Nation Had Become
We the Presidents: How American Presidents Shaped the Last Century talks about how policies and actions from past administrations have led the country to where it is today. Why was this an important book for you to write?
Starting around 2015, I became troubled by how divided our nation had become. Politicians and the media have divided us making it difficult to discuss even life-threatening issues such as COVID and vaccines objectively. History and economic books have taken on a partisan bias catering to their respective audiences. It was this growing political tribalism that motivated me to write a non-partisan presidential issue that ignored politics and rather focused on the issues which actually affect individuals and the nation from personal income to national security.
While researching facts for this book, what was one thing that you discovered that shocked you?
During World War II, Ho Chi Minh was a loyal ally of the United States fighting a guerilla war against the Japanese in IndoChina alongside the American OSS. After the war, Ming repeatedly asked President Truman to support Vietnam’s independence from the French. His requests were ignored. Thirty years of war resulted with Vietnam ultimately gaining its independence after 58,000 American soldiers, and millions of Vietnamese, lost their lives.
What is one event in history that you feel had the greatest impact on how we live today?
Today, it is certainly Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, NATO chose to expand eastward threatening Russia’s borders. America’s most experienced Cold War diplomat, George Kennan, predicted: “…it is the beginning of a new cold war. I think the Russians will gradually react quite adversely and it will affect their policies. I think it is a tragic mistake.” (pages 340 – 347) Kennan was, unfortunately, right.
What is the next book that you are working on and when will it be available?
I have several ideas, but nothing firm, yet.
Author Links: GoodReads | Amazon | Website
Rather than politics, WE THE PRESIDENTS focuses on the issues which affect Americans today. Soaring inflation, resurgent nativism, income inequality, budget deficits, the Ukraine crisis and other critical issues, all have their roots in presidential administrations over the past century. For example:
President Harding’s treasury secretary, Andrew Mellon, promoted radical, new tax policies which later provided the rationale for deep tax cuts under Reagan, GW Bush and Trump — and ballooning deficits.
President Clinton’s encouragement of NATO’s eastward expansion after the end of the Cold War contributed to Russia’s evolution into a dangerous adversary rather than an ally as are Germany and Japan.
Presidents Reagan, Clinton and GW Bush promoted the deregulation of the financial industry which eventually led to the 2008 Financial Crisis..
WE THE PRESIDENTS is more than an absorbing read; it is a great education about how our country works. The author’s engaging and straightforward writing brings alive a century of presidencies and how their actions have led to what America is today.
My Quest For Freedom
This or Something Better: A Memoir of Resilience shares how your life has been impacted by your connection with nature and helped you heal. Why was this an important book for you to write?
My quest for freedom and safety seemed no different than many others efforts to reconcile the belief systems they crafted from what was close at hand in early childhood. By sharing how I reacted, and sometimes overreacted, to long ago incidents, I hoped to reassure, warn and enlighten others who also carried invisible hand made armor that made connecting on a human level more difficult. The counsel and companionship of nature was my saving grace, but relying on it solely had unintended consequences.
I appreciated the candid nature with which you told your story. What was the hardest thing for you to write about?
Business failure and drug use were very hard for me to write about. The first few drafts I left out those difficult years completely. And the arc of 70 years was not what I planned originally, I wanted to write about my career as a colorist and pattern designer, and how by being curious and courageous I made my way as a young single mother, a high school drop out, and ended up working all over the world. But the story of learning, inch by inch, to trust, and to forgive, had to be written first.
What was one of the happiest times you remember about being in nature?
My first memory, when I greeted the trees and the sky, before i was old enough to speak. And every time I hike or look out my window to see what i call “feral” oaks on the hillside, leading to more than thirty miles of hiking and running trails on the mountain where I live. I am renewed through and through by the essence of the natural world.
What do you hope is one thing readers take away from your story?
Forgiveness, of others and of ourselves, will connect us to the deep well of joy within us. Fear not!
Author Links: Facebook | Website | StancilStudios.com
In This or Something Better, Elisa revisits her past and the one force in which she has always found true kinship: the wild river. Nature, her lifelong ally, gave solace when she faced secret abuse as a toddler. Through teen pregnancy, her baby’s stillbirth, and a mystical near-death experience at eighteen, nature shaped her character, and it later informed her wildly successful career. But was there an unintended consequence?
The fresh trauma of the firestorm sparked a quest: what treasure awaited if Elisa learned to trust human nature? Vivid, poetic, and intimate, This or Something Better reveals how true healing of deep wounds happens one exquisite layer at a time—and invites us each to consider and embrace our own path toward wholeness and authenticity.
Freedom to Explore
HERE WITH THE WINTER follows a mom and her two children that return to her hometown in hopes of starting life over after the death of her husband. What was the inspiration for the setup to your story?
I grew up in a village similar to the story’s town of West Emmette, Ohio. Looking back upon that setting now, having raised our daughters elsewhere in a large city suburb, I understand what my hometown provided. As children we were able to safely roam independently by foot and by bicycle, and experts today are talking about the value of that freedom to explore and to figure out direction on our own. (I enjoyed a 2020 book titled FROM HERE TO THERE by Michael Bond, which discusses that topic.)
The setting of West Emmette also features the importance of friendships with neighbors and the support of community, including school and church, the local physicians and piano teacher. Of course the foundation for this new home also includes a puppy and a kitten.
You might notice subtle, quiet ‘blankets’ through the pages. One is water. Another is the sky. Another, music.
What character in this story do you most relate to and why?
Walter is a minor character in the book, but he is most interesting to me. I think the reader has the freedom to fill in the blanks for this young character. Life around him is changing, and he must cope.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
In the story, a newspaper editor helps the main character Jessie begin a new career as a local correspondent. This is interesting because the editor extends the thoughtful gesture to give Jessie a chance and teaches her how to begin. Learning how to begin any task or job is exciting, and many people around town and around the world quietly teach another person something new, with little fanfare but with great importance.
Also, this is not a theme, but it was important for me to provide a tale that is relatively short in length but rich in structure. Women of every age can relate to HERE WITH THE WINTER, but it was important for me to attract young people and, in particular, boys. They will find marbles, baseball, sledding, construction, dogs, tools, and a nurturing school. And a plain book cover.
What is the next book that you are working on and when will it be available?
I am working on a sequel to HERE WITH THE WINTER, and I am brushing up a novelette I wrote long ago – about a pilot. Of course, I suppose all of us have that box of poems we would love to see illustrated for children.
Author Links: Website | GoodReads | Instagram
Henry, however, is suddenly under the watch of the confused and jealous son of one of his long-time friends, a young man who is obsessed with acquiring one of Henry’s most prized possessions.
A well-crafted, lyrical novel set in a bustling township, Here with the Winter threads together – through letters, music, seasons and the land itself – a charming story of building in the early Sixties
The Limitations of Existing
Fancy Shop is a collection of imaginative and thought-provoking short stories. Did you write these stories over time or did you write these stories specifically for this collection?
The stories are written at different times and occasions. What unites them is the unusual view of reality. Their common theme is the desire to overcome the limitations of existing and creating a new world of dreams comes true.
Your characters are intriguing and well developed in so few pages. Who was your favorite character to create?
I tend to Waste who stands against his predestined destiny to save the one who should be himself.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
Some of the themes in my book are: change as a path to salvation or destruction, the clash between being and mind, dream as a path to one’s own unknown worlds.
What is the next book that you are working on and when will it be available?
It would be a weird story collection about new challenges such as virtual reality, artificial intelligence, loss of identity and their collision with a human mind.
Author Links: Twitter | Play Books
The short stories presented here take place at different times (past, present, future) with different fantasy levels – from stories that are nearly real to phantasmagorias and new Gothic. The characters are also different: knights, anonymous people, dreamers, outsiders, crazy ones, technocrats, cockroaches, holders of secret knowledge.
What unites them is the urge (gradual or sudden) to leave the orderly system of their lives, attracted by the alluring hope that they can find or create another world of dreams come true, inexpressible truths and oases of redemption of past guilt.
On the way to their new identities, they move freely between reality and fantasy. They are in constant conflict with themselves, and the front line is the line dividing the two hemispheres of their brains. The stories are very short but each has a complex plot, provocative suggestions and a surprising end. Without in any way denying the traditional concepts of good-evil, simple-profound, they lead the reader into worlds in which paradox is a synonym of universal meaning.
His Father’s Pervasive Shadow
Moss follows the son of a famous writer as he tries to live up to his father’s reputation, and discovers all is not as it appeared. What was the inspiration for the setup to your story?
The original manuscript began with the character of Isaiah Moss, an aging literary legend trying to create one more masterpiece. As much as I enjoyed writing that character, I felt it needed a more unique lens to tell his story. I thought about my relationship with my own father (a much, much, better father than Isaiah!) and how he was (and is) such a big man. People I met would tell me stories about him and his outsized persona. From there, Oscar’s sense of his father’s pervasive shadow began to develop as a frame for Isaiah’s story.
Oscar goes through a lot of changes in this novel. What were some driving ideals behind your character’s development?
Oscar is an arrested adolescent in many ways. It’s not uncommon among my generational cohort. With Boomers refusing to yield up their political or cultural or economic authority, men of my age have been relegated to this extended childhood. In some ways, it’s great – superhero movies, right? But I think many of us feel this sense that we’re not living up to our own potential, that our scribbled notebooks are in the basement. This novel isn’t an allegorical treatment of generational conflict, at least not expressly. But Oscar needs to both embrace and escape his father’s legacy, and the only way for him to do that is to grow up and start accepting responsibility for who he is and what he can bring to the world. Moss is, among other things, a coming-of-age tale for a mid-life man.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
The tale grew in the telling, as they say. The overt themes include the lasting price of war, the cost of art and celebrity, and the inherent tension of fathers and sons. But it’s also about the courage required to chase our dreams. Another theme that is a little more subtle has to do with Oscar’s treatment of women. From his students, lovers, and mother to all the other women he encounters. One conceit of the novel is that virtually all of Oscar’s encounters in the book are with women. The only men that appear are in the form of written artifacts. Part of what Oscar realizes through his relationship with May is that his father’s approach to intimacy and male-female relationships is just one flaw in the man’s dated world view.
What is the next book that you are working on and when will it be available?
I’m currently working on a novel that will explore the mid-life death of a spouse, the impact on the family, and how moving on from the love of your life can even be possible. I’m hoping to have it available before the end of 2022.
Author Links: GoodReads | Twitter | Facebook | Website
But as Oscar wrestles with his own twisted inspirations, he meets the women in Isaiah’s life and begins to learn the depths of his father’s secrets…and the costs that come with unresolved trauma and romantic delusion.
We All Have EPIC Dreams
EPIC Begins With 1 Step Forward outlines the steps for developing and achieving your goals in life. Why was this an important book for you to write?
We all have EPIC dreams, and I realized that I was so lucky to have achieved so many in my life so far, and I want to help others to step into their EPIC too. The best way was to help them create the structure and develop a plan to achieve their goals.
What is one piece of advice someone gave you that changed your life?
Work with your strengths as much as possible. I am a talker, not a typer, so I spoke my book to start the creation process. Speaking is a strength, so I am a speaker and presenter.
What do you hope is one thing readers take away from your book?
I hope that they embrace these two words. NOT YET. It is so empowering.
What is the next book that you are working on and when will it be available?
My book is Why Don’t They Cry?: Understanding Your Living Childs’ Grief. I do not have a definitive date, but I am shooting for a late 2022 release date.
Author Links: GoodReads | Twitter | Facebook | Website
This book will reshape the way you think about success and progress. It gives you the practical steps you need to take to create EPIC results whether you want to run a marathon, lose weight, write a book, get promoted, start a business, or achieve any other goal.
You have the power to realize your dreams and live an EPIC life. This book will help you:
· clarify your dream
· set goals
· develop a plan
· enjoy your journey
No matter your journey, EPIC Begins With 1 Step Forward. TODAY is the day to start!
EPIC Choices, EPIC Life!
Supernaturals Coming Together
The Younglings Shadows & Magic follows a teenage boy as he comes to terms with his supernatural powers and hunts a killer. What was the inspiration for the setup to your story?
I’ve always been a lover of fantasy & the supernatural. The concept of a diverse range of supernaturals coming together to fight for good, has been an idea of mine for quite a long time. I wanted this concept to be a coming of age type story—teenagers dealing with teenage life, and being thrown into a supernatural world, whilst discovering who they are, forming the bonds of friendship, and falling in love, as well as all the usual teen-angst.
Quinn has a few shocking revelations in this novel on top of being a teenager figuring out who they are. What were some driving ideals behind your character’s development?
As a mother, I have, in the not too distant past, had a house full of teenagers. The joie de vivre that they have is inspiring. But most teens can experience all sorts of difficulties in their day to day lives—from bullying, to gossip, to drugs, to deep depression, isolation, and so on. Subsequently, overly polished plots and people won’t resonate. They want to see themselves in your characters—they want the messy, real deal.
The characters in my series are real teenagers, from the decisions they make, to their reactions to certain situations, and the confusion of falling in love—like real teens. Their heightened sense of emotion (and hormones) can cause immaturity and self-doubt issues. We see The Younglings grow and mature throughout the series. For Quinn, though, it was a matter of integrity—finding out your father is not human but a demon king—would it break him or make him stronger?
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
As a writer, I wanted to be edgy, to write like young adults would think and speak, and really get into their mindset. The theme of self-belief, family bonds and friendship are important to me—but all in all, I felt that my characters needed to be portrayed honestly.
Another thing I needed to remember, was that my book would need to exclude any insight a typical teen would not yet have—for the characters integrity. As teenagers, The Younglings wouldn’t have the wisdom of a forty-year-old, would they? And we have to remember, teens don’t want to be treated like kids. Teens read to understand friends, frenemies, but mostly themselves. I feel the goal should be to empower teen readers.
What is the next book that you are working on and when will it be available?
The sequel—The Younglings: Fire & Magic is out early June 2022. I’m hoping the third in the series—The Younglings: Starlight & Magic will be out December 2022, or early 2023.
Author Links: GoodReads | Twitter | Facebook | Website
“This is such a hilarious and well-paced YA read that introduces us beautifully into a new series. It is absolutely packed with demons, angels, ghosts, witches, and more, all wrapped up in teen angst, misfits and unwitting heroes.”
Supernaturals are fantasy, right?
Wrong … so very wrong.
When Quinn Carter finds out his dad is a demon king, his life spirals to Crazyville.
As if being secretly in love with his best friend, Eve, isn’t bad enough, he also starts to develop freaky powers, then finds out Eve and his grandma aren’t all they seem.
His new friends have secrets too. Apparently, demons aren’t the only paranormals out there.
Throw in a few spirits, stab-worthy demons and black witchcraft, and life becomes messy for Quinn and his team of supernaturals.
On top of it all, the vampire ministry covet Eve’s angelic blood. Will the team rescue her before it’s too late for Quinn to admit his feelings?
“If you’re a Twilight or City of Bones fan, this is for you.”
“I also loved the grannies! What a fabulous team of guardians they had watching over them!”
“If you are a fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel and Supernatural this is perfect reading material to satisfy your paranormal obsession.”
“Quinn is so well written, funny, frustrating and loveable.”
“I simply loved the world building, the characters that are diverse in their supernatural abilities, gender and sexuality which is fantastic to see.”
Women Drive The Story
A Wife for the Devil follows the illegitimate daughter of an English family that gets caught up in a love triangle. What was the inspiration for the setup to your story?
Victorian and Regency romances are quite beloved to me. They were part of some of my earliest reading experiences. In the small southern Indian town where I grew up, the library was barely stocked, but almost always could lend you Georgette Heyer and Barbara Cartland. As I planned my first novel, a romance seemed like a natural option given how familiar I am with the genre. And if I were to write a historical romance, why not bring in the oft-ignored denizens of the British Empire: children begat by cross-racial encounters? History books tell us they were pretty commonplace, and yet we have seen little of them in mainstream romances. This is being changed these days by many bold and fresh romance writers, and I wished to proceed in their wake by making my heroine someone unlikely.
The triangle came in naturally too. All stories need a few good villains and vamps. And Miranda, with her strong will and strange whims, seemed like a good foil for the two main characters.
Elizabeth starts out as a shy and timid woman in the beginning and grows into a strong independent one throughout the book. What were some driving ideals behind your character’s development?
I am of the belief that your material conditions play a strong role in forming your psyche. I never thought of Elizabeth as shy or timid in the story, but she does behave within the confines of her circumstances. Her assertiveness in the second-half of the book is more the logical result of her falling in love than any designs on my part. Love, if I may be a bit trite, strengthens and vitalises us. In a romance, the author is always saying, whether explicitly or not, “Love is a momentous thing. It changes and enriches us.” I think that was largely my ideal.
Another aspect is the self-actualisation Elizabeth begins to embrace. This too is the result of her changing circumstances; she finally could be the woman she has always been.
Being set in Victorian-era England, what were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
Women drive the story. And this was a conscious decision. Readers rightfully do not like romances where the women are resigned to their fates, or are so divorced from their own wishes that they do not know what to do. When they recognise they want something, it is a lightning strike. So, in my novel, both the heroine and her antagonist are clear in their minds about what they want and usually act in their own interests. This I think is the main theme. In this era, women weren’t granted much in the way of an inner life and little in the way of an outer one. I hoped to invert those expectations.
What is the next book that you are working on and when will it be available?
Currently I am working on a fantasy romance. Details of the plot are yet to be nailed down properly, so much of what I could say would be speculation. I am not sure when it will be released, but sometime in 2023 seems like a good guess.
Author Links: GoodReads | Twitter | Facebook | Website
The illegitimate daughter of an Indian soldier and an Englishwoman, Elizabeth Lavoisier has never known true happiness or freedom. She survives only at the whims of her scheming cousin and is resigned to her fate until she meets the notorious industrialist Hugh Atwood.
Their attraction is immediate and scorching, their connection deep and visceral. But Hugh is driven by demons neither he nor Elizabeth completely understand, and Elizabeth could lose everything, even her pallid life with a family which does not want her. Soon they are plunged into the perilous world of the English aristocracy where they can trust no one, not even each other.
Is their love strong enough to overcome Elizabeth’s low station and the tragic binds that hold Hugh?
LITERARY TITAN 