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SOME THINGS THAT MATTER TO AUTHOR STEVE LINDAHL

Why should I read your book?

When I wrote Motherless Soul I tried to create a page turner with interesting characters.  I thought people would read it to enjoy the story.  But at the same time I wanted to stimulate thought about possibilities for what happens to us after we die.  In the end I think I’ve achieved both those goals plus one that I consider the most important of all.  My book has been a comfort to people experiencing tragedy.  I don’t know exactly why, but I know it’s true.

What do you like about writing?

I like acting and writing because both art forms give me the chance to lead fictional lives that, at their best, have as much emotion as our real lives.  And that emotion is completely under my control.
Do you listen to music while you write, or do you require total and utter silence?

I listen to new age most of the time, but I switch to hard rock when I’m writing scenes that require tension.

How did you become involved with the subject or theme of your book?
My book has multiple themes.  The ones that stick out the most are The American Civil War, Mother and Daughter relationships, and reincarnation.
The Civil War is particularly interesting to me because I have a great grandfather who fought on the union side and won the National Medal of Honor.  He wrote an autobiography that has been inspirational to me.
The interest in mother and daughter relationships comes from two people I love – my wife and my daughter.  I spent most of my life watching their relationship.
Reincarnation is a concept I’ve always been interested in.  I’m a Christian, but I don’t believe there is a conflict between the concepts.  It just takes a little longer to get to heaven if you come back a few times.

Where did your love of books/storytelling/reading/writing/etc. come from?

I’ve always loved reading, but the first time I remember trying to write seriously happened in eighth grade.  A friend of mine and I wrote a play together.  His writing was much more polished than mine was.  I remember wishing I could write better and thinking that this was something I was willing to work at long enough to become good.

What was the hardest part of writing this book?

Portions of Motherless Soul take place during the American Civil War.  I worked very hard to get my facts straight about that time period and about the two battles in the book – Gettysburg and The Battle of the Wilderness.

What did you enjoy most about writing this book?

I loved developing the relationship between Stephie and Michael.  It is both awkward and improper at times.  I think that makes it real and exciting.  It also drives home the concept that we are influenced by what has happened to us in previous lives.

Are there misconceptions that people have about your book?  If so, explain.

There are people who won’t read a book with any paranormal concepts.  I don’t think they understand how real the characters in those books can be when they are written with care.

Are you a full-time or part-time writer?  How does that affect your writing?

Technically I’m a part-time writer because I have a day job as a computer programmer.  But I’m constantly thinking about my stories as I’m experiencing the rest of my life.  So I guess by that more liberal definition, I’m a full-time writer.

How do you feel about ebooks vs. print books and alternative vs. conventional publishing?

The content of the books I read are much more important to me than the medium.  My home is filled with book shelves, so it is clear that I like the feel of traditional books.  But that doesn’t keep me from enjoying audio books or reading on my laptop.

What do you think is the future of reading/writing?

People need fiction and good books provide involvement for readers that TV and film can’t.  So the mediums m

No Key      -a short story by Harris Tobias

My name is Francis Scott but people have been calling me Noki since I was in the fourth grade. It was an old joke. Because there’s “no Key” at the end of my name like the guy who wrote the Star Spangled Banner, get it? Anyway, it’s been a cross I’ve had to bear since I was ten. I’m thirty six now, a recovering junkie and convicted felon. Convicted for breaking and entering. Maybe “no key” had more of an influence on my life than I realized.

All that’s behind me now. I have a regular job and a regular boring life. I have a girlfriend named Jenna and a buddy named James. Me and James rent an apartment together in the low rent part of town. I work at the community re-cycling center. My parole officer got me the job. It isn’t half bad. People sort out their trash, dump it into huge bins and we sell it to various re-processors. Depending upon supply and demand, sometimes there’s a market for aluminum or newsprint other times we can’t give the stuff away. Sometimes it has to go to the landfill because no one wants our glass or card board that week. Dumping the stuff in the landfill not only defeats the entire concept, it puts my boss, Dan Rogers, in such a rotten mood, he makes my life miserable.

When I was on junk, I would rob houses to get money. Quick in and quick out was my style. I had a way with locks and understood security systems enough to defeat most of them. I’d slip in, grab jewels or coins or silver when I could find them and slip out. Somehow taking that stuff made me feel like a classier thief than my fellow low lifes who went for the televisions and computers. I guess in another age I would have been a cat burglar. But like I said, all that was behind me now, in those days I was a different person. I had an expensive habit to support so break-ins were a regular part of my routine. I’d gotten away with so many I guess I got sloppy and tripped an alarm somewhere. Next thing I knew I was in the slammer for four years. It wasn’t any fun but I got cleaned up and swore off the whole lifestyle. I guess you could say I was rehabilitated.

So that’s my biography. I’m on the straight and narrow track these days or at least I’m trying to be. I’ve been working at the re-cycling center for almost a year now. I see jenna on weekends and meet James at The Dive, a bar in the neighborhood, a few evenings a week. James is an ex-con too. He did a heavier sentence than me. He did ten years for armed robbery. You bring a gun to a job and the law takes a very dim view of the matter. James never talked much about his crime or his time inside but I’d heard from the prison grapevine that he and a couple of buddies tried to knock over a jewelry store. Things got messed up and people got hurt. James still has anger management issues and spends all his money on drink but he’s my friend. What are you going to do?

My story begins a few weeks ago. I was at work. Dan, my supervisor, was in one of his moods. “God damned glass processors. Can’t give the stuff away. Hey Noki, get your finger out of your ass and sort out the paper bin. We’re bailing it in twenty minutes.”

Sorting out the paper bin meant getting inside the big container and picking through the tons of scrap paper and junk mail looking for any plastic or non-paper items that might have gotten dumped there inadvertently, a skuzzy job but necessary. A plastic bag or stay soda can could screw up the reprocessing machinery. Word gets out that our paper’s no good and we don’t get a good price. Paper’s something that always sells and we pride ourselves on good clean bales.

The paper bin is as big as a semi trailer with a hydraulic compacter built in to one end. Every week or so we squash all the paper into a big bale. The Bales are huge and weigh a ton. I was inside the container looking for plastic and glass, anything that wasn’t paper. I dumped out a few plastic trash bags and collected the plastic. I dumped out this bag and spot

SOME THINGS THAT MATTER TO AUTHOR KENNETH WEENE

1) Why should I read your book?

Since your children or grandchildren will undoubtedly be reading Memoirs From the Asylum in school in years to come, don’t you want to be ahead of the curve? How can you pass on the chance to read a book that has repeatedly been called one of the best books of the year – and not just by the author and his relatives?

2) Are you a cat or a dog person?
Although we had many dogs when we were younger, I have never thought of myself as a dog person. My totem animal has always been the moose, but my friends and family usually refer to me as a friendly bear – except when around salmon, when I can get quite greedy.
3) Do you listen to music while you write, or do you require total and utter silence?

It truly varies. When I listen to music, I like classical, country-western, and some cross-cultural music – interestingly much of it from India and Pakistan. Sometimes I like to have the TV in the background; it’s the equivalent of white noise – totally meaningless.

4) How did you become involved with the subject or theme of your book?
Memoirs From the Asylum is at one level about mental health, which has been my life’s work. At another level it is about fear, freedom and existential choice: that is some of the basic substance of my life. My previous novel, Widow’s Walk, is about faith and the conflict between religion and spirituality and between love and responsibility: again basic strata of  my and most readers’ lives.

5) What do you think most characterizes your writing?
I am passionate about my characters. I want to understand them, to listen to them, and to recreate their voices with fidelity. Most of them I like, and I become quite upset when bad things happen to them. Of course there are others whom I dislike and wish had never come into the lovely worlds of my books.

6) What was the hardest part of writing this book?
I had a difficult time getting the denouement of Memoirs From the Asylum underway. I knew how the book ended, but I needed an event to make things change., a tipping point. Then a friend of mine, playwright Jon Tuttle, mentioned an event about which he wanted to write a play. A circus elephant had gone berserk and killed somebody. The town in which this happened tried and executed the elephant. The image of the berserk elephant was what I needed.

7) What projects are you working on at the present?
I have one book ready to go – written and first edit done. It is a conspiracy novel that takes place in New York just before 9/11. It is also a book about life goals.

Currently I’m writing a novel that is very different. It is primarily a simple story written in a poetic voice; however it is also partly a work of science fiction. At the bigger level that book is about sex, procreation, and the worth of life.

List the three questions you’d ask your favorite author over lunch.

I’d ask Kurt Vonnegut: What does writing mean to you? Do you care if people read your books? Who’s paying for lunch?
My answers if I were asked those questions:

I write to make people think and feel; therefore I need them to read what I have written. Let’s split the bill.

9) What’s your most memorable (not necessarily your favorite) childhood memory?

Read Memoirs From the Asylum and you will find some of my childhood projected onto the narrator. His mother is modeled on mine. I would particularly direct the reader to the dance classes; they are right out of my childhood. 

10) Here is a really weird, but fun one…what trash item did you see that inspired you to write a story. In one of my stories I found a whole character when I saw a manikin head on a dumpster.

Did you create this question just for me? Memoirs From the Asylum is about life in a dumpster. What is a psych

SOME THINGS THAT MATTER TO AUTHOR KENNETH WEENE

1) Why should I read your book?

Since your children or grandchildren will undoubtedly be reading Memoirs From the Asylum in school in years to come, don’t you want to be ahead of the curve? How can you pass on the chance to read a book that has repeatedly been called one of the best books of the year – and not just by the author and his relatives?

2) Are you a cat or a dog person?

Although we had many dogs when we were younger, I have never thought of myself as a dog person. My totem animal has always been the moose, but my friends and family usually refer to me as a friendly bear – except when around salmon, when I can get quite greedy.
3) Do you listen to music while you write, or do you require total and utter silence?

It truly varies. When I listen to music, I like classical, country-western, and some cross-cultural music – interestingly much of it from India and Pakistan. Sometimes I like to have the TV in the background; it’s the equivalent of white noise – totally meaningless.

4) How did you become involved with the subject or theme of your book?

Memoirs From the Asylum is at one level about mental health, which has been my life’s work. At another level it is about fear, freedom and existential choice: that is some of the basic substance of my life. My previous novel, Widow’s Walk, is about faith and the conflict between religion and spirituality and between love and responsibility: again basic strata of  my and most readers’ lives.

5) What do you think most characterizes your writing?

I am passionate about my characters. I want to understand them, to listen to them, and to recreate their voices with fidelity. Most of them I like, and I become quite upset when bad things happen to them. Of course there are others whom I dislike and wish had never come into the lovely worlds of my books.

6) What was the hardest part of writing this book?

I had a difficult time getting the denouement of Memoirs From the Asylum underway. I knew how the book ended, but I needed an event to make things change., a tipping point. Then a friend of mine, playwright Jon Tuttle, mentioned an event about which he wanted to write a play. A circus elephant had gone berserk and killed somebody. The town in which this happened tried and executed the elephant. The image of the berserk elephant was what I needed.

7) What projects are you working on at the present?

I have one book ready to go – written and first edit done. It is a conspiracy novel that takes place in New York just before 9/11. It is also a book about life goals.

Currently I’m writing a novel that is very different. It is primarily a simple story written in a poetic voice; however it is also partly a work of science fiction. At the bigger level that book is about sex, procreation, and the worth of life.
List the three questions you’d ask your favorite author over lunch.

I’d ask Kurt Vonnegut: What does writing mean to you? Do you care if people read your books? Who’s paying for lunch?

My answers if I were asked those questions:

I write to make people think and feel; therefore I need them to read what I have written. Let’s split the bill.

9) What’s your most memorable (not necessarily your favorite) childhood memory?

Read Memoirs From the Asylum and you will find some of my childhood projected onto the narrator. His mother is modeled on mine. I would particularly direct the reader to the dance classes; they are right out of my childhood.

10) Here is a really weird, but fun one…what trash item did you see that inspired you to write a story. In one of my stories I found a whole character when I saw a manikin head on a dumpster.

Did you create this question just for me? Memoirs From the Asylum is about life in a

“The Swindler” by Michelle Kaye Malsbury
Publisher: All Things That Matter Press
ISBN 978-0-9844219-4-7
Genre: suspense, thriller, mystery, fiction
Description
How easy is it for an investment broker to deceive clients? Very, particularly if his personal hero is Bernie Madoff. Skip Horowitz, along with his old pal A.J., has created what they believe is a foolproof scheme using commodities trading, bookmaking, and various other businesses as covers. Their plan has served them well for decades, surviving the scrutiny of government agencies lacking solid proof to support any allegations of wrongdoing. But luck can’t hold forever…or can it? Catherine O’Reilley, newly sponsored in the high-risk world of investment strategy by Skip Horowitz, is about to find out.
About the Author
Michelle Malsbury was born and raised in Champaign, Illinois. Currently she resides in Florida. She holds a Bachelors of Science in Business Management and a Masters Degree in Business Management. She has just completed her first year of doctoral studies in the discipline of Conflict Resolution and Peace Studies with high hopes of helping to build nations and sustain peaceful interactions around the globe.

The Review:  “The Swindler”  – an incredibly fast-paced roller-coaster ride through the world of illegal commodities trading with enough sun and sin to heat up every reader’s day (and night.)  Michelle Malsbury at her finest!  A definite must read!
Marilou Trask-Curtin, Author of “In My Grandfather’s House:
A Catskill Journal”

Purchase Information:
http://www.amazon.com/Swindler-Michalle-Kaye-Malsbury/dp/0984421947/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1272463500&sr=1-1

Author Links:

http://www.michellemalsbury.com

http://www.facebook.com/michellekayemalsbury

By Julie Achterhoff 

A team of metaphysical scientists is dedicated to finding out why the Earth is in crisis. The rate, size, and destructive power of hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions is out of control. All of these acts of nature have become more devastating to human life than ever before in history, but why? Is the Earth cleansing itself of humanity? Or could it be that human thought is the true cause? This is what the team is asking; the hardest question of all: Do we create our own reality?

Review by Danni Milliken:
It’s not an easy thing to offer to review the work of an author you don’t know very well. If it’s a good friend that’s one thing, because you can say something honestly if you find that you don’t like it. But, if it is someone who you don’t know very well, it is a scary thing to offer to do, because the thought screams loudly in your mind, “What if I don’t like it?” But, one day I know that it will be me out there pimping my work. So, with that knowledge in mind I found I had to put my hand up. Because, one day I hope someone will put their hand up for me. 

Still, it was with trepidation that I opened the ebook and began reading the prologue. By the end of the first two paragraphs I made a very happy discovery. This is a good book. From two paragraphs I could tell that Julie Achterhoff is a quality author. Her writing style is extremely easy to read and the scenes are painted so that you can envision their detail easily without the over the top page wasting some lesser quality authors are prone to spend setting the scene. I could have written a review based only on the first few chapters, but this book was so good that I wanted to finish all of it for the sake of my own enjoyment. An exceptional achievement on the part of Julie Achterhoff there, as I rarely read novels to the end anymore.

Quantum Earth is a unique story where a group of scientists use new age beliefs to examine whether or not humanity creates its own tragedies. As natural disasters escalate, this team of researchers use a number of methods to collate data including trance, hypnosis, and  HYPERLINK “http://www.associatedcontent.com/theme/872/dreams.html”dreams prior to the event. 

This is a fantastically unique story and it is incredibly well written. At the current price of $15.99, you are getting a real bargain. I have no doubt at all that Julie is a future bestseller, and you won’t regret the short time it takes to enjoy either Quantum Earth, or her new book “Deadly Lucidity” which has just recently been released to amazon.com

Available from:
amazon:  http://tinyurl.com/y87mahs
All Things That Matter Press https://www.createspace.com/3376306
http://earthwalkr.wordpress.com

0 Comments on Quantum Earth as of 1/1/1990

A Hitch in Twilight is a compilation of stories of The Twilight Zone-Alfred Hitchcock variety. Most involve ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. Lucifer appears in two. Most are set in New York, particularly Brooklyn. They are designed to make entertain and to foster thought. They are 20 tales of Warped Imagination.

Excerpt

Beneath the Boardwalk, somewhere along the Brighton Beach side, leeward of a dune formed by the bitter winter winds, lay a long, narrow cardboard box around which rats were scurrying. There was a restless, troubled murmuring within it. Suddenly the flaps flew aside and a man inside sprang to a sitting position like a jack-in-the-box, casting pages of a newspaper, his blankets, aside in his wake. He fought to regain his breath, muttering angrily, fearfully.
His attention was snared by a click. His paroxysm had been vanquished. His senses had never seemed so alive. He peered beyond the dune, past the small gap between its peak and the underside of the Boardwalk. A cigarette lighter flickered briefly, illuminating a hard though handsome face that featured a thick, neatly-trimmed black beard.

Review

Vic Fortezza writes about the trials and tribulations of life. Be it fiction or reality he captivates his audience with hard-boiled characterizations that catapult readers through drama and intrigue, at times with a touch of humor. Vic’s words flow with strength – he tells it like it is – through the eyes of a powerful, seasoned writer. By the time you’ve read the last page of A Hitch in Twilight, you’ll feel like you’ve lived each story.
Victoria Valentine, Editor Skyline Review.

To purchase A Hitch in Twilight, go here:

Learn all about Vic at his website, read his mainstream stories, free:
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