Blog Archives
Who We Are and Who We Become
Two Seasons relives the two years that shaped the narrators life and explores questions of identity and belonging in a quickly changing world. What was the inspiration for the setup to your story?
One thing we all share is the need to belong, a need which is especially acute in childhood. I have uncomfortable memories of trying to fit in, believing I could make that happen through sports accomplishments. The story grew out of the sense of disappointment when my best efforts failed to produce the desired results.
Boone is an intriguing character. What were some driving ideals behind his character’s development?
Boone is not simply a sports-obsessed child, he is an observer. He notices when things aren’t going right but he has no outlet. He is a reader, and as an only child, books are his companions. They open his eyes to a bigger world than the small town where he lives. He is also curious and resourceful. When adults won’t provide answers to his questions, he keeps prodding for and assembling the scraps he receives into a coherent version of “the truth”. This question emerged: would Boone become insightful enough to take the steps that would help him cope with his life-situation?
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
The most important theme was identity. How do we develop our sense of who we are and where we fit in the world? Does our sense of identity shape our choices or do our choices shape our sense of identity? By observing the life of a young boy struggling with a confusing family dynamic, I hoped to consider how family, friends, mentors (in person or in print), along with our own mental processes, help shape who we are and who we become.
What is the next book that you are working on and when will it be available?
I’m working on another novel this time focused on a young adult. I want to examine the idea of character change. My protagonist will be a fault-filled person beginning to recognize his failures and working hit-and-miss on becoming a better person. He will need a great deal of help along the way! It’s still early but I hope to have the first draft finished by summer 2022.
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His father is growing more erratic every day and 11-year-old Boone Martin wants to know – is it true? Like father like son? As his twisted family breaks apart, Boone clings to baseball, his one foothold in life. But it’s winter when his father moves out.
In summer, his best friend Rocky expects him to pitch Omak Little League to a third straight State championship – no pressure there – and former big-leaguer Lou Debrunes shows Boone a way out, the perfect curveball. His mother becomes more friendly with Coach as each game passes – is it Boone’s job to keep her trust issues from messing up a good thing?
Set in the fruit-growing town of Omak, Washington, Two Seasons is narrated by an adult Boone Martin reliving the two years that most shaped his life. More than a baseball story, Two Seasonsexplores the questions of identity and belonging in a shifting world rocked by the assassinations and anti-war movement of 1968.
Build Their Careers to New Levels
The Communications Consultant’s Foundation explains and educates readers on various topics that will help them excel in their personal and professional lives. Why was this an important book for you to write?
I feel very lucky to have found my way onto this career path unintentionally. If I had known about it earlier in life, I think I could have been even more successful sooner – so, I wanted to get the knowledge out to others as quickly as I could. However, I didn’t know what the most important aspects were to focus on, before I started outlining the content. The more I thought about it, the more I added, and I shuffled things around until I felt like I had a pathway that would bring others along constructively. What you’ve read is the first half of the book I originally conceived. The companion “Master Plan” volume will be out by year’s end, and it gets even more specific with proprietary contract language (thanks to the illustrious Michael Terpin, my former boss) and what amounts to a blue-print to operating a successful PR consultancy. I hope a lot of people will follow your lead and use what I’ve written to build their careers to new levels, even if they are starting out from scratch.
What is a common misconception you feel people have about public relations?
There are quite a few colorful and widespread misconceptions. Many years ago at a trade show, I saw an older gentleman in a crowd, shaking everyone’s hands as fast as he could grab them and passing out his business cards like a machine. I think I still have the business card: The logo was two hands shaking, and the headline read “Mister PR.” There’s that classic “Flim-Flam Man” version, and now, you can watch PR aces working magic on TV, like those advising the Roy family on “Succession.” A lot of people don’t understand that much of the work of PR has to do with writing. There is a skill set that can be learned, especially for those willing to exercise their writing abilities and commit to ongoing learning to stay sharp. There is a lot of overlap with “Influencers,” and when a PR person is especially successful, that’s what they become.
What is a recent trend in public relations that you feel has the potential to change things?
Things are always changing. One of the things that is encouraging to me about this field is, I feel there are a lot of layers to it (and everywhere, smart practitioners helping themselves and others be more successful). My book references this article I love, from publicity expert Joan Stewart: “How to Publicize a Garden Walk and Other Local Events.” (http://ow.ly/pOhH30dHOuv) That article teaches people exactly how to use the PR skill set very productively – which is potentially life-changing for those who read it. I mentioned Influencers … they are an immense force at work in marketing communications worldwide. As you know, I am optimistic ; I have a sense of a growing population of smart communicators who are going to unite superpowers for good.
What do you hope is one thing readers take away from your book?
There are a few – all are addressed in your review. I’m hoping people will see a new way to work, pursue it, and own it. As those sparks fly, a new communications consultant will start shaping their own success, then another, and another. I will be celebrating each one like a proud papa.
Author Links: GoodReads | Twitter | Facebook | Website
After establishing a foundation for solid professional communications on a personal level, it quickly opens doors to business insights and opportunities that are exciting, inspiring, and highly sustainable. Immersing readers into the key realms of business success and exploring the full spectrum of essential communications practices, they gain knowledge and trade skills of immense value, including:
• The basics of positive, proactive, strategic communications for individuals and organizations
• What it means to be a PR expert in the creative industry and to do great work
• An introduction to essential business imperatives, with high-level instruction on creativity, strategy, leadership, management, marketing, and much more
• Customer service and all it entails
• Extensive exploration of the PR toolset and its application in real-world marketing scenarios
This book brings home all instruction with sophisticated questions and challenges, ensuring readers have every opportunity to comprehend and grow, step by step.
Its Beautiful Chaos
The Reindeer Ranch follows a woman who unexpectedly finds love during the holiday season but finds that love comes with new challenges. What inspired the setup to this story?
The story developed as I was creating a book of short stories for Christmastime last year, I wanted the feel of the season with all of its beautiful chaos.
Your characters go on a deeply emotional and transformative journey in your novel. Is this intentional or incidental to the story you want to tell?
I believe that all relationships are transformative. I wanted the characters to learn to trust again, which is often the hardest emotion to learn after a heartbreak. Some people will completely miss the opportunity to find love because the fear of losing it is far too great.
I find that, while writing, you sometimes ask questions and have the characters answer them. Do you find that to be true?
What questions did you ask yourself while writing this story? I find that humorous! For me, I think the characters ask me the questions and I’m left with having to answer them in story form.
What is the next book that you are working on and when will it be available?
I’m already receiving nudges to do a sequel of this book to find out what happens in Darci and Brian’s life next. I believe the book will center around the town of Hope Falls with other characters coming into vision and perhaps giving them their own stories. I’m not sure of the release date, depending on how it matures, certainly by Fall of 2022 but I’m hoping for a book much sooner.
Author Links: Amazon | GoodReads
When We Are Ready For Them
Light Among the Shadows follows a woman who is running from her grief and finds work on a secluded property where she meets a man with an equally dark past. What was the inspiration for the setup to your story?
There’s actually a little story behind my inspiration for this book. Two years ago, I was going through some old poetry and journals I had stored in a box. As I was flipping through a notebook, a piece of paper fell out. On it was a very brief outline of an idea, and the first few paragraphs written down of a woman driving alone in the dark, running from something.
It took me 20 years to find this piece of paper, and I was immediately drawn into discovering who this woman was. It was a story that I would not have been able to pull off at the tender age of 18. Things always come to us when we are ready for them.
Your characters are emotionally stirring and well developed. What were some driving ideals behind your character’s development?
All my characters are inherently flawed and wounded, carrying baggage, and hiding behind their walls. I wanted to address what happens when two people come together and learn how to honor the broken pieces inside. There is a beauty that can be found there, a space that opens up inside allowing healing to take root.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
I wanted to address the themes of loss, of guilt, the process of grief and how it can destroy a marriage, and how people navigate their disabilities.
How do you live with the kind of pain that rips you apart? How do you communicate the subtitles of emotion with someone who cannot see you? How do you learn to let go of guilt, and give yourself permission to find happiness again?
Grief and loss are such an integral part of the human experience, but how many of us run from it? The moment we can sit with it, that is when the healing begins.
What is the next book that you are working on and when will it be available?
My current WIP is much different than this one. More of a woman’s literary fiction, with a dash of romance thrown in. It is about a woman who has been diagnosed with terminal cancer, the changes she is forced to make in her life and the journey back to herself. The overlying theme of this heavy subject matter being… it’s not how much time you have that really matters in the end, it’s what you do with that time.
Author Links: GoodReads | Twitter | Facebook | Website
Lara is running from a fractured marriage, and an unfathomable loss that consumes her.
Drawn to the beautiful, open expanse of sky and the possibility of a new life, Lara finds herself working on a secluded property in Montana caring for horses. There she meets Peter, a man trapped in the darkness of his disability and closed off from the world around him.
Together, they forge a connection that is tender and fervent as the walls they have built around themselves begin to crack. But can two broken people truly find healing in each other? Or will the wounds they carry be too deep to repair?
Light Among the Shadows is a journey of love and redemption, of choices that define us, and the delicate dance between the past that holds us back and the future that beckons us forward.
The Truth Is More Sinister
Ain’t Nothin’ Personal follows a suspended police chief who is pulled into an old unsolved case that turns into a murder investigation with ties to powerful people. What was the inspiration for the setup to your story?
In a somewhat oblique way, the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre inspired this one. I grew up in Oklahoma in the 1970s, a time when explicit racism in the south (and I consider Oklahoma part of the deep south) was a way of life. I was in my 40s before I ever heard of the Tulsa massacre. Can you imagine something like that being covered up for so long? The coverup in Ain’t Nothin’ Personal is similar. The only African-American family in town has their house burned down. They disappear and people think they just moved away. No one talks about if for years, until an old racist makes a death bed confession and everyone realizes the truth is more sinister.
Emmett Hardy is an interesting and well developed character. What were some driving ideals behind his character’s development?
Emmett’s a mixture of crime fiction/film archetypes: the plain-spoken dispenser of frontier justice in the tradition of Will Kane in High Noon or the title character in Shane; the enigmatic, emotionally tortured detective in Phillip Kerr’s Bernie Gunther novels; the socially conscious righter of wrongs that you find on Per Wahloo and Maj Sjowell’s Beck mysteries. I should also mention Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn in Tony and Anne Hillerman’s books, Craig Johnson’s Walt Longmire, as well as all the classic hard drinkers in noir literature, from Sam Spade to Phillip Marlowe to the twisted misfits found in every Jim Thompson story. What they all have in common (with the exception of Thompson’s creations), is their drive to do what they think is the right thing, regardless of the consequences to themselves.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
Do the right thing. Love each other, love yourself. Greed is not good. Power corrupts. Be kind; we’re all in this together.
What is the next book that you are working on and when will it be available?
My next one is the fourth Emmett Hardy mystery, Junker Blues. It’s in the hands of my beta readers as we speak. It fast-forwards from where Ain’t Nothin’ Personal ends in the late ‘60s to the day Richard Nixon resigns the presidency in 1974. The OPEC oil embargo has rejuvenated the oil industry. Emmett’s Burr, Oklahoma is now a boom town. With the boom come ingredients for the inevitable bust, however—not least, an illegal drug problem and attendant violence the small rural community is ill-equipped to deal with. It’s scheduled to be released in June 2022 by Black Rose Writing.
Author Links: GoodReads | Twitter | Facebook | Website
Soon he becomes a target of violence himself, as his investigation becomes a murder probe implicating the most powerful men in town. Hardy is forced to relive one of the most traumatic events of his childhood, and faces the possibility that members of his own family may have been involved in the crime.
Ultimately, with Emmett’s tenuous grasp on sobriety slipping and his moral foundation shifting beneath his feet, the answer to the question, “Who do I trust?” becomes a matter of life and death.
That SOB Deserved That!
The Light Reapers follows an elite team on a mission to rescue a scientist while battling hordes of zombies. What was the inspiration for the setup to your story?
I initially wrote the story during COVID and I was thinking about how the zombies were created. As I thought through different options, the media kept saying CORONA Virus and that stuck with me. For my first book, I wanted to write something that I was familiar with but also wanted to have fun with it. I have always loved zombies since I first saw Dawn of the Dead (the original). Zombies and the military seemed like a good combination. I mean, plenty of people had done it before successfully, so why not me? There are actually quite a few events in the book that were based on real life. The fighting, the tactics used, the interactions between some of the characters all had a significant influence on what I wrote. There are a few of the characters who are based on real people I served with. I obviously removed the enemies and put in the infected, changed the names and locations due to counterintelligence reasons, but most were still based on truth.
This seemed like a fun book to write. What scene in the story did you have the most fun writing?
Chapter 19, the scene with Randy. I didn’t like writing the situation so much, but the end result I had quite a bit of pleasure writing. Something in most books that aggrivates me is the vilan causes all this pain and suffering only to be shot dead to fall off a building. I wanted there to be some moments in the book where people said, “Yeah!”, that SOB deserved that!
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
Brotherhood of the soldiers. Acceptance of the others whowere not originally part of the team. Retribution on those who chose to do evil, even though the apocalypse was on them. Just shows some people’s true character. I wanted to show that even though there lies no obligation to people, they stucktogetherand made a life as best they could.
What is the next book that you are working on and when will it be available?
I am working on the sequel to The Light Reapers, this one is “The Light Reapers: Fight for a New Beginning”. The book is about 80% complete as far as writing. Then comes the editing. I could have done much better on the editing of the first book, so I am hiring a professional to edit the second book.
Author Links: GoodReads | Twitter | Facebook | Website
Under a shroud of darkness and maliciousness, a viral weapon was being produced by an alliance of terrorists bent on the destruction of their respective enemies. When double-crossed by an ISIS faction, the viral weapon is stolen and prematurely unleashed on the planet.
Now facing a worldwide epidemic, The Light Reapers are deployed to rescue a scientist who may be able to develop an antidote. If that wasn’t difficult enough, they also must track down the ISIS faction and eliminate them. All while battling hordes of the infected.
Different Than I Imagined
Winterset Hollow follows a group of friends who discover the truth behind their favorite story is darker and more dangerous than they imagined. What was the inspiration for the setup to your story?
I’m always interested in telling stories that are based in reality but twist on genre conventions…stories that begin in a normal, recognizable world, but end up somewhere completely different. I wish there was some blinding moment of clarity that sparked this particular story, but there really wasn’t…I was just sitting around one day and wondered how I would feel if I went to The Hundred Acre wood and found that the animals from Winnie the Pooh were actually real…and then I wondered what would happen if they were actually completely different that I imagined them to be…and then I basically just began branching that idea off into darker and darker directions until I felt I had something interesting enough to develop. My process is utterly mechanical, so the answer to the inspiration question is always disappointingly unromantic lol.
Your characters are intriguing and well developed. What were some driving ideals behind your character’s development?
Well, I wanted them to feel familiar but also fresh, but they also needed to be complex and scarred and duplicitous in a way…they needed to present themselves as one thing but be another completely different thing in reality for the story to function correctly. One of the things that helped me shape them though is that initially I wanted each of them to represent a different mental health issue that I sometimes struggle with—depression, anxiety, imposter syndrome, and OCD—and though that turned out ot be more of a seed than a rule to follow as they developed, you can still see the footprint of that idea in their makeup.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
This book is in large part about the gray of the world—the double edges that most things have. In that respect, I wanted to explore the dangers as well as the wonderful parts of nostalgia, the ups and downs of family history, and accordingly, both the pros and the cons of having a family in the first place lol. Apart from that, I always find the dynamic between power and perversion interesting as well as the lasting impact of those that have passed on…and of course, it’s no secret that this book deals a lot with the scars of our upbringings and how they shape us throughout our lives.
What is the next book that you are working on and when will it be available?
Well, I’m still in the development process for a few different stories, so it’s a bit early on in the game to say… but it’s either going to be a dark thriller with the framing of historical fiction, or another contemporary dark fantasy set in the world of moviemaking…either way it should be ready to roll late next year, so keep an eye out!
Author Links: GoodReads | Twitter | Facebook | Website
Winterset Hollow follows a group of friends to the place that inspired their favorite book—a timeless tale about a tribe of animals preparing for their yearly end-of-summer festival. But after a series of shocking discoveries, they find that much of what the world believes to be fiction is actually fact, and that the truth behind their beloved story is darker and more dangerous than they ever imagined. It’s Barley Day . . . and you’re invited to the hunt.
Winterset Hollow is as thrilling as it is terrifying and as smart as it is surprising. A uniquely original story filled with properly unexpected twists and turns, Winterset Hollow delivers complex, indelible characters and pulse- pounding action as it storms toward an unforgettable climax that will leave you reeling. How do you celebrate Barley Day? You run, friend. You run.
More Realistic
Unwitting follows Dr. Rosen who discovers an autistic man with information on a terrorist who is bombing public places. What was the inspiration for the setup to your story?
I wanted to write a story about an autistic individual—not the high-functioning type usually portrayed in movies and TV. I wanted my character to be more realistic, representative of those who are severely impaired in terms of communication and social interactions.
Dr. Rosen is an intriguing and well developed character. What were some driving ideals behind your character’s development?
Being a physician myself, I think she represents the ideals most physicians hold to be important. The large majority of those who go into the field have a strong moral compass and want to help others, so her behaviour wasn’t a stretch.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
I wanted to show a realistic view of the difficulties faced by autistic individuals, and those who care for them.
What is the next book that you are working on and when will it be available?
I am working on the third book in the Erica Rosen MD Trilogy. This book will be called Unforeseen and deals with the pharmaceutical industry. I’m hoping it will be available mid-2022.
Author Links: GoodReads | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Website
Erica becomes involved after a teacher of young autistic men calls her. The teacher believes her students are involved in the bombing but is afraid to contact law enforcement. She reaches out to Erica, who has experience with special needs children.
Erica arrives at the school but finds the police already there and a young autistic man doing a jigsaw puzzle, oblivious to his murdered teacher on the floor. The young man has information about the mastermind behind the bombing but has limited ability to speak. Erica is determined to protect him, prevent further bombings, and find his missing classmates.
LITERARY TITAN 