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Author Spotlight: David Paul Kuhn

9/24/2015

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David Paul Kuhn is a writer and political analyst living in New York City. He is the author of the political novel What Makes It Worthy—an “absorbing novel” that is “all too real” (political strategist James Carville), “captivating” (novelist Matthew Thomas), “a genuinely tender love story” (Kirkus Reviews).

Kuhn has held senior writing positions across the political-media landscape, from Politico to RealClearPolitics to CBSnews.com. He has also written for The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, The Washington Post Magazine, The Los Angeles Times, The New Republic, among other publications, and regularly appears on networks ranging from BBC to Fox News. As the Macmillan Speakers Bureau described him, “David Paul Kuhn is an expert analyst of presidential and gender politics.” He is also the author of The Neglected Voter, which General Wes Clark called “a brilliantly insightful analysis of American politics.”
 


What Makes It Worthy is David's recent release!

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What Makes It Worthy
Genre: General Fiction, Political Fiction

What Makes It Worthy
is the personal story of Taylor Solomon and Cait Ellis. Taylor is a rising star at America's fastest-growing political media machine. Cait is a young New York Times reporter who wrestles with the shadow of her legendary mother. 

And it is an historic--yet familiar--campaign. The Republican, who hails from one of America's power clans and has long been in the national spotlight, seeks to become the first female president. Her Democratic opponent, a State Department veteran setting the election afire with populism, hopes to make his own history as the first Hispanic president. On the campaign trail, as ethics gray and events envelop politicians, operatives, and reporters--as Cait and Taylor struggle with how much distance must be accepted between their ideals and their choices--the political not only becomes personal, but also threatens to upend their lives, as well as the presidential campaign itself.

Written by well-known political journalist David Paul Kuhn, What Makes It Worthy is "a heartfelt page-turner that proves a good novel can both entertain you and inform you," in the words of former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm.

The novel is also perhaps the most accurate depiction yet written about how the relationship between the media and the modern presidential campaign shapes American politics.


Website: www.DavidPaulKuhn.com

Amazon: http://amzn.to/1Nx3dkX

FB: http://on.fb.me/1LtBQFa 

Goodreads: http://bit.ly/1ERAkrv
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Book Review: The Murderer’s Daughter by Jonathan Kellerman

9/24/2015

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When fellow psychologist and thriller author of thirty Alex Delaware novels introduces a brand new protagonist, it’s got to be worth a look.  And the debut of Dr. Grace Blades leaves me hoping to see more of her.

I’ve always enjoyed Kellerman’s books.  He really gets the psychology right in his psychological thrillers, delivers complex stories, solid dialogue, terrific description, nuanced characters. But I’ve also found Alex Delaware a bit lacking in the quirks that make a protagonist really compelling.  Okay, he’s super smart, intense, has a cool bromance with the gay cop he solves cases with, but…

So enter Grace Blades, brilliant shrink, damaged survivor, loner, risk-taker, and adrenaline junkie.  Now we’re cooking! Kellerman’s well-paced story cuts back and forth between her harrowing childhood and equally chilling search for a psychopathic killer who has already stolen too much from her. You can just sense how much Kellerman is enjoying this break-out character.  And so will you.  I have a feeling this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship – and series.

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Author Spotlight: Bernard S. Otis

9/24/2015

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Bernard S. (Bernie) Otis is a delightful and well known speaker, writer and community leader who has made his 65-year career in the food service facility planning, marketing, management, sales and consulting industries. His life’s work has included service to many hotels and restaurants in Southern California, Santa Clarita, San Diego, Las Vegas and New York City among others. He has been instrumental in serving several top companies such as Hewlett Packard and Disneyland as well as major hospitals, universities and restaurants around the country. His community involvement includes work with the National Indian Gaming Association and the Rotary Club (where he has been a member since 1954 and a Paul Harris Fellow.) After his wife’s death in 2012, Bernie, a trained Hospice care giver, began working with families of terminally-ill patients.

Author’s Blog: http://seniormomentswithbernardotis.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/incorgnito?ref=hl

Twitter:
https://twitter.com/incorgnitobooks 


Check out Bernie's recent release:

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How to Prepare for Old Age
(without taking the fun out of life)

Genre: Nonfiction


In this touching, often humorous and very personal account, Bernie shares his 86 years of life, love, less and laughter as an inspirational guide to what it means to age without growing old. His advice on love after 60, how to talk  with family members about illness what you should be prepared for when confronting tragedy and loss, what it means to be a caregiver to a loved one and many other of life’s challenges are a must for family members young and old.


Mr. Otis’s book is a treasure trove of personal and professional life experiences that will help you prepare for old age and take control of the nature of aging. Be prepared to laugh out loud and quietly shed a tear as Bernie takes you through the voyage of life.

How to Prepare For Old Age is available on Amazon: http://amzn.to/1Mso1as 
 



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Guest Post: Why I Write What I Write by Michael J. Bowler

9/17/2015

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As a high school teacher for twenty-five years, I primarily taught kids of color. And yet, in the books and stories we read, almost all of the characters were Caucasian, and most with reasonably stable home lives. I decided as an author to write about the kids I knew best – kids of color, gay kids, marginalized kids, poor kids, kids with disabilities, gang members, and incarcerated kids – because I want all youth to see themselves represented in a positive light within the pages of teen literature.

To that end, I crafted a five-book series called The Children of the Knight Cycle that takes a fantasy concept – King Arthur resurrected in modern-day Los Angeles – and uses it to showcase a laundry list of crimes this society perpetrates against kids who don’t “fit the norm,” or won’t be shoehorned into the “one size fits all” mentality of public education, or don’t want to be a mini-me version of their parents. Virtually all the main characters in my series are teens of color, including Native Americans. Some of them are gay. But all are dynamic, memorable individuals that readers can relate to. Every day in America such kids are kicked to the curb. We don’t want them in our homes or classrooms or in our books. We’d rather they just disappear. In recent decades, we’ve decided we like putting them in prison. A staggering number of states arrest children aged ten (and younger) and charge them as adults for imitating the anti-social examples of adults, or for copying illicit behaviors popular media models every day.

I present these kids as real human beings with the same hopes, fears, needs, and wants as everyone else. My characters benefit from adults who choose to love them no matter what and who show them how to do what’s right, rather than what’s easy. The kids learn that every one of them can make a positive difference in this world, and that’s a message the students in my urban, working-class high school seldom got from the books I was forced to teach them. In those books, only “white” kids succeeded.

In my teen horror thriller, Spinner, I highlight the other forgotten kids I taught for many years – those with disabilities. These kids tend to be the most overlooked of all high schoolers because it is “assumed” by adults that they will never amount to much in life. Kids with physical or learning disabilities are no different from those without them – they can learn and achieve, but maybe not in the same cookie-cutter fashion teachers like to employ. I know what I’m talking about because I have a disability of my own – hearing loss. I’ve lived with a severe sensorineural hearing impairment my whole life, and did not even have access to hearing aids until I was in college.

I also didn’t know a single kid with hearing loss until after graduate school. I was one of a kind growing up, and that can be a very isolating feeling. Even though people don’t always mean to be insensitive, not a single day went by growing up when I wasn’t made to feel “different” because of my disability. On the plus side, my isolated childhood gave me true empathy for every youngster who is “different” in some way, and likely directed me to seek out such kids and work with them. After graduate school, I joined the Big Brothers Big Sisters program, wherein adults mentor kids with no father in the home. I was matched to a 14-year-old boy with hearing loss, and the experience was revelatory. Even as an adult, the relief that I felt to finally know someone who grew up with hearing loss was palpable. Imagine what it’s like for kids like me to see themselves in books they read, to understand that they aren’t alone or broken or crippled, to see hope for their lives because they see others like them achieving greatness. We all need to know that being different is not wrong. In fact, being apart from the norm is most often a net positive.  My disability never defined me, and I want kids to see that theirs don’t define them, either.


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I think publishers are skittish about books like mine that mash up various genres, that don’t fit an established pattern they can “pitch” easily, and can’t be described as “the next Hunger Games” or something of that nature. Children of the Knight was released by an indie publisher that apparently lost faith in the project along the way because there was no visible attempt to promote it. They even label it a romance on some sales sites and it’s not a romance. I made a big push with Spinner to engage the interest of an agent or larger publisher and got nowhere with either. An indie publisher, YoungDudes Publishing, saw potential in the book and chose to release it. As a startup, they have no budget for promotion, but they are awesome people and working with them has been great. But without the marketing arm of a big publisher, without those necessary journal reviews, like School Library Journal, nobody knows the book exists. This is the dilemma every writer must face, especially if, like me, you write outside the box and outside the genre mold.

Having said that, I would not change what I write to fit those molds or to make my books more “white,” assuming that is the goal with publishers. The main character in Spinner is Caucasian, but his friends are kids of color and they all have various disabilities. I took an interesting class last year about cover art on books for teens and children, and even if the main character in those books was a child of color, the cover had been whitewashed in some fashion so the race or ethnicity was obscured. That class opened my eyes to how the publishing industry works and maybe showed me that, just as in life, I might never fit into their predetermined “molds.”

One reviewer of my Children of the Knight series applauded me for breaking the teen hero mold by presenting a strong teen boy who is conflicted about his sexual orientation: “Lance is the hero around which the action pivots. Not many authors would have given such a character the heartthrob role. But Bowler takes a chance, fashioning something completely different by having such a key figure question his sexuality.”

I suspect a major publisher would have told me to “make him straight” like every other teen boy hero. I never had the chance to make such a choice, but I hope I would have said no. Lance is far more interesting and real for his inner turmoil, and for his desire to “fit in” the way society says he must in order to be a “real boy.”

We spend way too much time in this country focusing on what we perceive to be the weaknesses or differences in others. The teen characters in my books prove that our strengths always outweigh our weaknesses, and our diversity, i.e. our differentness, is to be celebrated, not hidden away. If more adults would focus on the natural talents and gifts of kids instead of always trying to make everyone “fit in,” then all children would have a real chance to soar. As a writer of teen lit, my goal is to empower every kid, not just the ones most Americans “look like” or even “act like.” Hopefully, other authors will do the same.

Michael J. Bowler is an award-winning author of eight novels––A Boy and His Dragon, A Matter of Time (Silver Medalist from Reader’s Favorite), and The Knight Cycle, comprised of five books: Children of the Knight (Gold Award Winner in the Wishing Shelf Book Awards), Running Through A Dark Place, There Is No Fear, And The Children Shall Lead, Once Upon A Time In America, and Spinner.

He grew up in San Rafael, California, and majored in English and Theatre at Santa Clara University. He went on to earn a master’s in film production from Loyola Marymount University, a teaching credential in English from LMU, and another master's in Special Education from Cal State University Dominguez Hills.

He taught high school in Hawthorne, California for twenty-five years, both in general education and to students with learning disabilities, in subjects ranging from English and Strength Training to Algebra, Biology, and Yearbook.

He has also been a volunteer Big Brother to eight different boys with the Catholic Big Brothers Big Sisters program and a thirty-year volunteer within the juvenile justice system in Los Angeles.

He has been honored as Probation Volunteer of the Year, YMCA Volunteer of the Year, California Big Brother of the Year, and 2000 National Big Brother of the Year. The “National” honor allowed him and three of his Little Brothers to visit the White House and meet the president in the Oval Office.

He is currently working on a sequel to Spinner.His goal as a YA author is for teens to experience empowerment and hope; to see themselves in his diverse characters; to read about kids who face real-life challenges; and to see how kids like them can remain decent people in an indecent world.

* Spinner won Honorable Mention in Young Adult Books of 2015 from the San Francisco Book Festival.

Social Media Links:

www.michaeljbowler.com

FB: michaeljbowlerauthor

Twitter: https://twitter.com/BradleyWallaceM

Blog: sirlancesays.wordpress.com

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6938109.Michael_J_Bowler

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Guest Post: The City Provides Roots by Husky Harlequin

9/10/2015

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Philadelphia was the United States’ first national capitol.  But that was a long time ago in a nation closer to its inception.  Nestled between New York City and Washington D.C., the financial and political centers of the country, Philadelphia is a forgotten child, often fighting to get noticed.  It’s a city known for its love of its professional athletic teams, many which do not sport the best pedigree.  Philly is also the home of Rocky Balboa, the fictional boxer, who taught us that you can still achieve by losing and that no task is impossible.  That’s right.  The City of Brotherly Love is a town full of underdogs.  They both embody and embrace this revolutionary reality with flare and believe that they should never be counted out of any fight.  This classic American attitude was adopted by its citizens in 1776 and should never be underestimated.  

Many of the characters in Time’s Alibi or The Quantum of Jazz Between the Sun and the Grave hail from Philadelphia.  In many ways, the city is personified in them as if its DNA has been grafted onto their own. David, a pharmaceutical mogul, is stubborn, persistent to a fault.  Down, but never out, he seeks a cure for the disease that claimed his wife’s life.  His grandson, Andrew, is constantly down on his luck.  With David’s help, he is at the cusp of learning how to express the overriding DNA in all Philadelphians.  But David is gone.  He disappeared a year ago.  When Andrew discovers David stumbled upon the invention of time travel, his world is irreversibly altered.  Could this be the catalyst to the better life he is looking for?  Maybe.  But Andrew probably won’t live long enough to find out.  It’s like Rocky fighting Ivan Drago all over again.  Root for an underdog.  Check out Andrew’s story.


Husky is a lawyer, poet, musician, chemist, and writer from the Philadelphia area.  His high school literature class blew up his brain, exposing a love for story telling.  He's circling back now.  He can't argue in court like Mitch McDeer, drop rhymes like Mother Goose, rock like Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, or leverage his skills in the lab like Walter White, but he can write better than Kilgore Trout.  Husky is a lover of ideas, progressive thoughts, and mankind.

Twitter:  @HuskyHarlequin
Facebook: http://on.fb.me/1Hjspq9
Amazon:  http://amzn.to/1KyiZe3
Goodreads:  http://bit.ly/1HCB7D7
Website:  www.HuskyHarlequin.com
Blog:  http://blog.huskyharlequin.com

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Ready to join the Pickleball craze?

9/4/2015

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Q: What do you get when you cross tennis, ping pong and badminton?

A: The most fun you can have while sweating.

One of the most delightful discoveries I’ve made since moving to the South Carolina Lowcountry is Pickleball, the fastest growing sport in America.  Best described as being “like ping pong played on the table,” Pickleball uses a badminton-sized court with a net slightly lower than in tennis.  The paddle is much smaller than a tennis racquet and made of high-tech plastics, and the ball is similar to a wiffle ball.  Although popular among all ages, Pickleball has particular appeal for active older adults, since the ball is not as fast as a tennis ball.  Strategy is more important than power, and fun is more important than anything.

As the story goes, Pickleball was invented in 1965 on Bainbridge Island, outside Seattle Washington, by a couple of dads trying to amuse their bored kids with whatever equipment they had on hand.  Legend has it that one of the founders had a dog named Pickles that liked to chase the balls.  I don’t know if that’s true, but players do indeed shout “Pickle!” if one of them hits the ball out onto another court.

Google Pickleball and you will get hits galore – articles, videos, ads for equipment, training tips, etc.  Chances are Pickleball will make its way to your community.  The US Pickleball Association, whose membership has increased a whopping 84% in the past three years, sends out volunteers to teach the game to new players. Down here in SC, I checked out a makeshift Pickleball clinic in a Hilton Head Island rec center, where tennis courts were modified to accommodate more than twenty prospective Pickleball recruits.  If this sport were listed, I’d tell you to buy stock.

What I will suggest is that you get out there and play it.  Pickleball is a lively, frisky, sociable 

way to get your cardio workout.  I’ve lost ten pounds since I’ve been playing.  Who needs the 

treadmill?  To learn more about what Pickleball can add to your life, check out the following 

link: https://www.healthwaysfit.com/article/5-ways-pickleball-makes-you-better-at-life

Oh, and by the way:  Look for a future novel from me about murder and Pickleball!

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Author Spotlight: H.M. Jones

9/3/2015

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H.M. Jones is the B.R.A.G. Medallion honoree of Monochrome, now published by Booktrope’s Gravity Imprint.

She has also written the Attempting to Define poetry collection, and is a contributing author to Masters of Time: A Sci-Fi and Fantasy Time Travel Anthology. A best seller only in her mind, Jones pay the electric bill by teaching English courses at Northwest Indian College. She moderates Elite Indie Reads, is the tired mother of two preschoolers, and in her “spare” time weaves, pulls with the Port Gamble S’Klallam Canoe Family, and attempts to deserve her handsome husband, whose lawyering helps pay the rest of the bills.


Now is a perfect time to check out Monochrome because it is on SALE for $2.99 ... more info below:

Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/odbf48m



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Monochrome
Genre: Dark Fantasy, Postpartum Depression, Contemporary women

What would you do to save your most precious memories?

That’s the question that Abigail Bennet, a new mother, must answer in this dark fantasy.

The cries of her new baby throw Abigail into rage and desperation. Frightened by foreign anger and overwhelming depression, the first-time mother decides to end her life to spare the life of her only child. But before she acts on her dark intuition, she is overcome by a panic attack and 

When she awakes, everything is blue: the trees, the grass, the rocks and still, scentless sky above her. Everything except the face of the man who stands over her. He is Ishmael Dubois and claims to be her Guide through the dangerous world of Monochrome, a physical manifestation of the depressed mind. But in a place where good memories are currency, nightmares walk, and hopeless people are hired to bring down those who still have the will to live, Abigail starts to wonder if she’ll ever make it back to her family. Despite her growing feelings for her handsome, mysterious Guide, Abigail must fight for the life she once wished to take or fade into the blue.

Learn more about H.M. Jones:



Website: http://www.hmjones.net

https://www.facebook.com/hmjoneswrites

https://twitter.com/HMJonesWrites @HMJoneswrites

https://www.goodreads.com/HMJonesWrites





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    Author

    Freda Hansburg is a psychologist and co-author of two 
    self-help books, PeopleSmart - which h​as sold more than 75,000 copies and has been translated into ten languages - and 
    Working PeopleSmart, 
    as well as numerous professional publications.  Her first novel Shrink Rapt, 
    is a psychological thriller with a dash of romance. She lives in the South Carolina Low Country.

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