Learn more at:  www.SimpleStepsRealChange.com

Author’s excerpt reading:

About the book:

When Cheryl Maloney first started blogging in 2009, she was an out-of-work, out-of-shape, over-fifty corporate executive collecting unemployment, questioning her own worth, coping with her husband’s scary health diagnoses and beating herself up for the stupid financial mistakes she had made. Is that enough baggage?

After months of daily writing, Cheryl started posting her thoughts on Facebook. Eventually, she realized that she wasn’t alone in her challenges. There were more people dealing with major life issues than she had thought—and by reading Cheryl’s posts, they knew they weren’t alone, either!

Cheryl is passionate about helping others. She continues to blog, share inspiration on the Simple Steps…Real Change website and Facebook page along with co-hosting a weekly radio show on Empower Radio.

Author interview:

Q. What excites you most about your book’s topic? Why did you choose it?

A. There are simple solutions to every challenge and opportunity in life.  What excites me is helping others to see that while they may not always be easy… they are simple.  By bringing clarity to the issue the answer is simple.  I choose Simple Steps because I believe that people want a way to make their life better and want to do so as simply as possible.  (That’s plenty of “Simples” in here… I deal with the positive so I don’t tend to talk about what people don’t want.)

Q. How long did the book take you from start to finish?

A. Start to finish 1 year.

Q. What aspect of writing the book did you find particularly challenging?

A. My challenge is in editing.  I write as I speak and am grateful for a fabulous editor who kept my voice and made my writing more professional.

Q. What surprised you the most about the book writing process?

A. That it took so long.  Revision, revisions, revision… and yet each one made the book better.

Q. Did you have any favorite experiences when writing your book?

A. Once a week my business partner, Kenny Brixey & editor Nancy Luscombe would get on a conference call and talk through the book.  We discussed everything from organization to assessing the value of a particular Simple Step.  It was their support, their honest and their humor that took my dream to reality.

Q. What do you hope your readers will gain from reading your book?

A. That they are not alone.  While we may not walk in each other’s shoes there are more similarities than differences. These Simple Steps are a culmination of lessons learned from thousands of friends that are part of the Simple Steps… Real Change family on Facebook.

Q. What projects are you currently working on?

A. 6 Mini Workbooks providing Simple Steps on the topics of Relationships, Self Worth, Money/Financial, Body Image, Finding Peace and Taking Risks.

Q. Is writing your sole career? If not, what else do you do?

A. The development of the Simple Steps brand is my career.  It includes writing books, co-hosting Simple Steps… Real Change radio show on Empower Radio, public speaking & coaching.  The later two are in the early stages.

Q. Did you do any research for your books, or did you write from experience?

A. I write from experience, my own and those who are part of the Simple Steps… Real Change Facebook page.

Q. How did you come up with your title?

A. I have always believed that the simpler something is the more likely someone is to do it.  As I was going through the worst times of my life I read every self help book I could get my hands on.  Most contained long programs or complex plans and that didn’t work for me. I wanted Simple and as I realized that I was not alone in what I was going through I wanted to help others find simple ways to change their life.  Thus Simple Steps… Real Change.  As I was writing this book I wanted the audience to know that these Simple Steps deal with Real Life issues.

Q. What books have influenced you the most?

A. Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning… though in reality it is the documentary Viktor & I that had the most impact.  This documentary reflects the lives that Viktor Frankl touched… and that is where I see my future.  Touching lives with positivity.

Q. Who was your publisher and why did you choose them?

A. Balboa Press.  Reasonable programs to accomplish what I need someone else to do.

Suzan Battah has loved writing since her teenage years and completed a Diploma of Professional Romance Writing with the Australian College of Journalism where her first novel Mad About the Born was initially born. Mad About the Boy has won two romance writing competition awards in 2009 and 2010. Suzan also writes Young Adult Fiction.

Learn more at: www.suzanbattah.com

Author’s excerpt reading:

About the book:

Julia Mendoza is driven by the success of her business. Since her husband Carlos passed away at such a young age, her business By Design is her number one priority. In her late twenties she works too hard and doesn’t take time out for fun. Annoyance with a pesky ex-friend has her begging one of the local surfer’s with a cheeky smile in the grocery store to pretend he’s her boyfriend. Suddenly, life takes a sudden detour from her business plan; much to the delight of her boisterous Latin American family.

Christophe Augustine is groomed to take over his father’s successful chain of luxurious hotels. With a wealthy French-American background, Chris has been given privileges that not many have. He works hard, plays harder but seeks approval and recognition above all else. Family is a top priority for him as he fights for custody of his young brother. His parent’s divorce has not diminished his faith in romance. When a gorgeous Latino woman changes one boring morning into an interesting game of role play, though reluctant to help at first, he soon realises she’s not like the string of other women he’s known.

A romantic first date ending dramatically doesn’t stop Chris from wanting to know Julia more. And for Julia, she’s all for a bit of fun but when things get too serious she’s running the other way. Too alike, in some ways and complete opposites, in other ways, Julia and Chris fumble through fun moments, annoying confrontations, passionate times and heartbreaking revelations.

Love has no boundaries when soul-mates meet but when one is ready to love and the other one isn’t…

Author profile:

Q. What excites you most about your book’s topic? Why did you choose it?

A. Romance is something fun and exciting to write about. Relationships, love and the crazy things we do while in love is a great topic to entertain readers with. I love romance and all it’s subgenres and write it because I’m probably the biggest romantic (still waiting on my knight to show up) who loves Happily Ever Afters. I hear about celebrities and in my own experiences hear about couples getting married and divorced within a heartbeat. The romance, the ideals of a couple has dissipated a bit. Relationships aren’t easy, they’re hard work! I love to write romance because it’s not all sunshine and roses, there is heartache as well but with true love nothing beats it and soul mates belong together and deserve the happy ever after. I didn’t choose the romance genre as such but my personality and what’s in my heart flows into words and it’s generally something romantic.

Q. How long did the book take you from start to finish?

A. Mad About the Boy took probably a year to write, and six months to revise and re-edit. However I rewrote this book three times to get it to where it is. The whole process to publication for this particular book – it first began in 1998 and published in 2011.

Q. What aspect of writing the book did you find particularly challenging?

A. Making the decision to independently publish. Promotions and marketing while in a fulltime job is the biggest challenge and that is why I’ve hired AME.

Q. What surprised you the most about the book writing process?

A. The surprise is when readers tell me how much they love my book, that excites me and reaffirms I made the right decision in independently publishing.

Q. Did you have any favorite experiences when writing your book?

A. I love finding new music to write to on youtube. I love writing funny scenes and bringing laughter into intense moments.

Q. What do you hope your readers will gain from reading your book?

A. I hope readers are entertained from reading Mad About the Boy and have a laugh, a giggle or want to grab their lover and give them a big hug. Most of all understand to live life passionately, give love freely and appreciate loved ones more.

Q. What projects are you currently working on?

A. BaSatai: Outside In is (Book 1) available on the 14th of April 2012 in Ebook and Paperback. I’m currently working on the second novel in this series due hopefully in 2013.

Q. Is writing your sole career? If not, what else do you do?

A. I’ve had many experiences in the work force. I’ve worked in retail, childcare, fitness, beauty and currently work fulltime as an Executive Assistant.

Q. Did you do any research for your books, or did you write from experience?

A. Sometimes I do research online for certain aspects of the novel but I’ve mostly got the creative license with fiction and so create my own ideals especially for the YA Urban Fantasy.

Q. How did you come up with your title?

A. Mad About the Boy by Dinah Washington a 1940s singer prompted me to name my novel after this song. It’s a beautiful rendition and I fell in love with this song and Dinah’s voice was just magical. The words in this song reflect my characters struggles in the book.

Q. What books have influenced you the most?

A. I love to read romance the most and have many author inspirations. Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is a favorite romance of mine and her road to be a published writer also inspired me and influenced me to make the decision to independently publish. And books by Stephanie Laurens and Johanna Lindsey are great influences on me.

Q. Who was your publisher and why did you choose them?

A.  I am currently independently published through Createspace, Kindle and Smashwords. These publishers offer great options for independently published authors.

Lear more at: http://talesofabroadwayflack.com/

Author’s excerpt reading:

About the book:

All the excitement of Broadway during the glory days of the Great White Way comes to life in “Tales of a Broadway Flack,” David A Long’s engrossing new biography about Sol Jacobson, press agent for some of Broadway’s most memorable shows and legendary performers, from Desi Arnaz, and Eddie Bracken (Too Many Girls, 1939), Boris Karloff (Arsenic and Old Lace, 1941), Tallulah Bankhead (The Skin of Our Teeth, 1942),  to Zero Mostel (Fiddler on the Roof, 1964) with a plethora of shows in between.

If you love the theater and enjoy a good story, you’ll want to read this book.

Author Interview:

Q. What excites you most about your book’s topic? Why did you choose it?

A. It’s all about Broadway and acting and producing/directing exciting plays.

Q. How long did the book take you from start to finish?

A. Three wonderful years.

Q. What aspect of writing the book did you find particularly challenging?

A. Making sure Sol’s dates of his experiences and of the plays he represented were sequential and correct.

Q. What surprised you the most about the book writing process?

A. That is would be such fun.

Q. Did you have any favorite experiences when writing your book?

A. By far, our interview with Hal Prince in his office when he gave me permission to use Sol’s pictures of him and when he agreed to write the introduction to my book.

Q. What do you hope your readers will gain from reading your book?

A. The knowledge of what a press agent does and a better understanding of what goes on behind the scenes in the theater.

Q. What projects are you currently working on?

A. Tales of a Broadway Flack is taking all my time right now.

Q. Is writing your sole career? If not, what else do you do?

A. I only began writing after my retirement as CEO of the LLB group. My new occupation is acting as a clown (Mr Sunshine) for RSVP (Retired Senior Volunteer Program). Card tricks and rope tricks are my specialties.

Q. Did you do any research for your books, or did you write from experience?

A. Mainly interviews with Sol and his vast writings. To check dates I used the internet, Wickipedia specifically.

Q. How did you come up with your title?

A. Sol’s daughter, Babs

Q. What books have influenced you the most?

A. David McCullough’s and James A. Michener’s.

Q. Who was your publisher and why did you choose them?

A. Infinity. They had the kind of service that I wanted and they lived up to my expectations in publishing the book the way I wanted it, even letting me use 14 point type, so people my age can read it.

Learn more at: http://boblivingstone.com/

About the book:

For years we’ve learned we can only figure out what makes us tick by seeking help from teachers, politicians, therapists, or celebrities. Bob Livingstone’s Inquire Within Program shows we all have the power to heal ourselves and the wisdom to find answers to our most overwhelming questions. And yes, we can learn to tolerate the often-tumultuous process of discovering answers to the hard questions.

Inquire Within is a new model for self-discovery and recovery from psychological wounds. Therapist Bob Livingstone presents this material to readers for the first time in Unchain the Pain: How to be your own Therapist. This is the first book that teaches how self-questioning can resolve internal conflicts and help readers discover joy in their lives.

The Inquire Within Program can transform dysfunctional states to elation. Unchain the Pain is a breakthrough book; a tool all readers can use to teach themselves the benefits of self-analysis and come away happier and filled with a new perspective on their lives.

Author interview:

Q. What excites you most about your book’s topic? Why did you choose it?

A.  I feel that this is a unique book and that teaching folks how to ask emotional pain questions has never been done before.  It is that reason that I chose to write this book

Q. How long did the book take you from start to finish?

A. Three years

Q. What aspect of writing the book did you find particularly challenging?

A.  I had a serious health issue in the middle of writing the book.  One day when I was on my usual five mile run, I passed out.  Later, I found myself in the hospital emergency room where the nurse couldn’t get a blood pressure reading(she thought the equipment was faulty) and I had a heart rate of 24(normal heart rate is 80-100 beats per minute).  Over that weekend, I had a heart pacemaker installed and I am living a normal, but blessed life.  I spend a lot of time reflecting on that period of my life and wondering what it all means.

Q. What surprised you the most about the book writing process?

A.  I did believe that this book was pretty good, but when I actually went back and read it, I thought it was wonderful.

Q. Did you have any favorite experiences when writing your book?

A.  Connecting with the case study participants was amazing.  Their willingness to share the most difficult periods of their lives and share with the world how they worked through their traumas was truly heartwarming.

Q. What do you hope your readers will gain from reading your book?

A.  I hope that they will gain the ability to use Unchain the Pain:  How to be Your Own Therapist as a guide to heal their emotional pain.  I hope this book will help readers understand themselves better and feel better about who they are.

Q. What projects are you currently working on?

A.  I am always writing articles for my blog and other online sites.  I am pondering my next book and it may have something do to with the healing aspects of listening to music.

Q. Is writing your sole career? If not, what else do you do?

A. I have been a practicing psychotherapist in San Francisco for the past twenty five years.  I work with children, adolescents and adults.  I work with children from high conflict divorces, grief and loss, anger management with adults and working through trauma with all populations.

Q. Did you do any research for your books, or did you write from experience?

A.  I wrote from my experience as a therapist.   I really believed that I could create techniques that would help folks ask their own emotional pain questions in order to face, work through and heal their emotional pain.  I firmly believe that we all hold the answers to resolving our problems and that was the foundation I utilized in this book.

Q. How did you come up with your title?

A.  I was looking for a title that was catchy and indicated transformation simultaneously.  My agent Krista Goering felt that the title needed to clearly state what the book was about.  Hence the title Unchain the Pain:  How to be Your Own Therapist.

Q. Who was your publisher and why did you choose them?

A. Norlights Press.  They have been professional, very communicative, and clear in their goals. They were unbelievable fast in getting the book into print and digital format.

writes about her life with dogs has spawned dozens of imitators. Lee’s short stories and essays have been widely anthologized, most recently in the Bark best-sellers Dog is My Co-Pilot and Howl. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from Emerson College, and has taught creative writing at Columbia University and New York University. She is famous for her wit, her ability to tell a story, and for the elegance of her prose.

Lee is currently working on several books: a literary novel, “Nothing Keeps A Frenchman From His Lunch;” a second volume of Rex and the City; a young-adult fantasy fiction series called The Star Sisters, and a memoir about living at a Buddhist Retreat center called “In Tents.”

She is a former editor of Zoetrope: All Story (Francis Ford Coppola’s award-winning literary magazine) and is currently the lead singer of the rock band “With Love and Squalor.”

Visit her website:  www.rexandthecity.net

Below is the author’s excerpt reading:

About the book:

Lee and Ted were a young, hip New York City couple coasting non-commitally into their thirties, who didn’t yet quite feel equipped for love or life. When, on a whim, they visited an animal shelter and meet Wallace, a lively, irresistible dog of mysterious origins, they impulsively adopted him, hoping he’d bring responsibility, meaning, and some unconditional doggie-love into their lives. But Wallace was unlike any dog the couple had ever known. He showed no attachment to his hapless owners, and took them through a series of riotous, maddening adventures, escaping multiple times, and terrorizing everyone he encountered.

Lee and Ted questioned whether they could handle having a dog, especially in New York City. They began to argue constantly—about whether they should keep Rex, how they should train him, and how best to cope with their new lifestyle—to the point where Lee felt the relationship was in jeopardy. But they became determined to help Rex, and soon took delight in his every antic and sign of progress : his first doggie girlfriend, his first non-violent dog run experience, and his first Halloween costume contest. And, as they witnessed Wallace’s transformation from a wounded, fearful puppy into a free-spirited dog, Lee and Ted’s relationship also transformed, as their lives revolved increasingly around Rex and thus around each other.

Author interview:

Q. What excites you most about your book’s topic? Why did you choose it?

A. Dogs? What is exciting about dogs? Why, everything, thank you very much.

Dogs are love-on-four-legs. They embody all the qualities of the Enlightened Masters: unconditional and unlimited love, patience, forgiveness, joy, and that have that childlike sense of wonder. Dogs basically teach us how to become better humans. I think many of us spend our entire lives trying to figure out ways to become better humans. Dogs, I feel, speed up that process. It’s like: you can go through seventeen years of therapy, trying to dissect your childhood, or you can adopt a dog, and co-exist with a creature who reminds you, every day, that there is so much to love about life and about yourself.  We need that. Humans need help. Dogs are here to help us.

I think that is why so many of us are writing about dogs and so many of us are reading about them. When my book Rex and the City first came out in print in 2006, there weren’t that many joys-of-dog love books in circulation. I am so excited to see that there are so many similar books out there now, and that there is even a new genre: the  dogoir.

So I hope my book will encourage many, many readers to rush out and adopt a loving, needy dog (or two. Or three!)

I also want to say that I am donating at least 10% of all proceeds from sales of Rex and the City to animal rescue causes. I believe it’s essential to tithe; to give back. We’re choosing a different dog-related charity each month. I’ll also sponsor a different rescue dog each month, and hopefully find him/her a home. You can get details on my website.

Rex and the City: TRUE TALES OF A RESCUE DOG WHO RESCUED A RELATIONSHIP started as a series in The Bark magazine in 2000. The column’s tag line then was: “the ongoing saga of a big dog in the Big Apple” and the idea was to present a column in which a “Sex and the City”-type woman (me, as I was back then) adopts a shelter dog with her boyfriend and is overwhelmed by the consequences. I was pretty selfish back then, and definitely self-absorbed (as all aspiring writers are) and I saw myself as a woman “without a nurturing bone in her body.) So anyway, Ed and I decided one day, on impulse, to adopt this dog and I rather cluelessly assumed that the new dog would adapt to my busy city lifestyle; that he would work hard to satisfy my wants and needs. But the opposite happened.  Wallace was not merely a dog; he was a force of nature.  He was bossy, petulant, distrustful, and emotionally damaged.  And I, deep inside, was all those things too.  By learning to live with Wallace (and with my boyfriend, who later became my husband), and by finding ways in which to help and heal Wallace, I learned how to be more alive in the world—more caring and present.  All my “Sex and the City”-type aspirations were slowly dissolved.  Before I met Wallace, I was one of those women who thought she could find Eternal Happiness through material means (clothes, apartments, handsome men, and things); but much to my surprise I found true happiness through loving a dog. Because of Wallace I was able to discover that I am actually a nurturing person, one who wants to devote the rest of her life to helping dogs.

So why did I decide to write about my dog? I was just so fascinated by my new dog (whom I adopted in 1997) and all that he brought into our lives. I was fascinated by new dynamics his presence created (and unraveled, and challenged) in our household. And by “household” I mean my then-boyfriend and myself, who lived in a 300-square foot tenement apartment in New York City.

I think that, as writers, we should always pay attention to what fascinates us. To what obsesses us; to what we cannot stop thinking about. That is the material that is “calling us” to be written. We are the messengers, after all, so we have to follow those callings. So anyway, as soon as we brought the dog home from the shelter, I began to take constant notes—journal notes.  I have always been a note-taker and journal keeper, and I also practice Julia Cameron’s “morning pages.”  But when we adopted the dog, my journal writing exploded. You writers know what I am talking about. Those great rushes of inspiration. I think any new experiences does that to us—new experiences bring up new observations, thoughts, feelings and reactions.

And if you’re a writer, you write it down.

Plus, dogs seem to touch a real and deep emotional core in most humans. I think that is why we are seeing so many dog memoirs—or dogoirs—being written these days.  Soon I had hundreds of pages of notes about Wallace.

I was inspired to write about Wallace because he had such a poignant, instructive and ultimately triumphant life. There was, as we writers always say “a story in it.” He had rough beginnings, which may have included abuse and neglect, and certainly abandonment. We found him in the shelter, without really realizing that we were going to take him home. Nothing was planned—all that we experienced with Wallace happened unexpectedly.  And I happen to think it was a fascinating story. I was trained as a fiction writer and was teaching creative writing by the time I got this dog.  So the way I looked at (and still look at) the world was very “writerly.” People are, to me, characters on a journey. I like to watch them and study them. I am always fascinated by the choices people make as we navigate our ways through this absurd, forgiving and comic world.

So in that sense, you could say that Wallace comes across as a classic literary character. This dog had just as much of a journey as any human does (that is, any human who has had an unhappy childhood).  He had issues of character that he had to overcome in order to become a “complete” dog.  He had to learn how to trust people, and love us. He also had to learn how to figure out New York City, which is an impossible quest that can drive a lesser being mad. But he made it.  And being there for his journey, watching him change and grow, taught us a lot about life and love and trust.

REX AND THE CITY is the story of our dog’s evolution. But it is actually about our evolution too. I had a very unhappy childhood. Ed had his moments of challenge too, too.  Anyone who has taken Psych 101 can see that we were projecting our own hurts and wants and needs onto this hurt and needy dog.  So as we rehabilitated him, he rehabilitated us. If you are a dog lover, you totally know what I mean. If you’re not, you should go adopt a dog right now!

But anyway, back in 2000, I started writing a column about Wallace for The Bark magazine. It was enormously popular from the get-go, because it was so comic. I was writing about things like Wallace’s first doggie Halloween party (how I forced that poor dog to put on a humiliating J-Lo Versace dress), or his first visit to the dog run (a disaster, because he was afraid of other dogs, unbeknownst to us), or how we totally lost our social lives because we spent all our time with the dog (plus, people stopped coming to our apartment because it smelled like dog drool). I was always poking fun at myself in these columns, because I knew I was acting really dotty about my dog. Yet I was supposed to be this hip New York writer.  I started winning all sorts of awards for the column – I have a trophy from the Dog Writers’ Association of America naming me the Best Humor Writer! It’s shaped like a dog’s head. I’m prouder of that than I am of my college diploma. 

Q. How did REX AND THE CITY evolve from a column in Bark magazine to your memoir?

As the column became more and more popular I was approached by an editor who encouraged me to turn the columns into a book. So for the book I wanted to add more of the human story—because that was interesting to me as well. I think it’s interesting how Ed and I changed—as individuals and as a couple—as we rehabilitated this dog. I hear this from a lot of dog people—that the dog changes them, and almost forces them to become better people. That certainly happened with me. I was a really mixed-up person when I brought that dog into my life. My values were all skewed.  I thought that things like money and material success was going to make me happy. The dog taught me that—and this sounds so cliché—that happiness has to come from within. That just by giving love, you can be happy. That eating is joyful, that eating is joyful, that walking is orgasmic….That’s why I feel so lucky to have gotten a book contract, because that meant I could take the existing Bark columns and expand on them. I thought that by telling the story of the humans behind the dog, that I would be able to tell a richer story. I am writing about my evolution as much as the dog’s evolution. That’s what usually happens when you rescue a dog – you rescue yourself.

Being asked to turn the columns into a book was an honor.  I feel so lucky to be able to write about what I love, and to love writing.

Q. How long did the book “Rex and the City: True Tales of a Rescue Dog Who Rescued a Relationship”  take you from start to finish?

A. Ah, the “how long” question! I love this one. When we writers read other author interviews (and I read many, because I find them so instructive) this is the answer we always seek first. I think we want to hear the authors say: it took seventeen years of struggle, heartbreak and failure to finish this book, but it was worth it in the end because I found eternal happiness, wealth, and fame.

Then  you read an interview with Stephen King or someone, who zips out his extraordinary novels in like six weeks.

When my students ask me how long they should spend on their stories or novels, and/or how long these stories should be, I say: they should be as long as it takes for you to tell your story. There is no “set length.”

So, for me, because this book came from a series of existing columns that appeared in a magazine, that’s hard to say. It took me a year to assemble those columns into a book, because I was required to string the stand-alone columns into a chronological narrative. And in memoir, readers want to see some evolution and change in the people subject/s of the memoir. (I happen to think the best memoirs contain the essential story elements of fiction: conflict, climax and resolution).  So I spent a year shaping the individual columns into the larger story of my life as it was during the year 1997.

Eventually I had to cut out what I had just put in. That’s a long story. My editor suggested I remove most of the material related to myself. She really wanted the focus of the book to remain and the dog and for the tone to remain light and comic.  Left to my own devices, I can write some pretty dark stuff.  So my editor reigned me in, thank goodness. But I did have to take a lot of the “me” out of the memoir in that very long year.

But I am, by nature, a slow and careful writer. As I have said in many a previous interviews, I revise a lot. Probably too much. I see prose as poetry, with its own innate pace and rhythm.  So when I revise, it’s almost to make the words more musical and more visual.  I think my first drafts are very “writerly” and then the visual artist and the musician come in and try make things, as I said, more layered. But who is to say that is best in the end?

It ends up taking me years to complete a book. This novel I’ve been working on has gone through five drafts over five years. (Another long story, involving the flight of many wonderful editors from their publishing houses). I think, in this age of rush-rush, or immediate gratification, a lot of us writers are being intensely self-critical about the amount of time we spend on our books. My friends who have written best-sellers are actually being pressured to “churn” out the next book. Yes, churn is the word that is tossed about

SO those of us who cannot churn feel left behind. Recently I was at a dinner party that was full of writers in the Hudson Valley. There are loads of us up here, tucked away in the hills and hollows, and many of those writers in attendance at that party are very well known. We’re talking iconic. Anyway, I was stunned and actually quite pleased to discover how many of them were behind their deadlines and were completely neurotic about it. This made me feel less neurotic.  During dessert, I was whining about the fact that my (current) novel was two years behind deadline, and then another writer (who wrote one of the seminal books of the Seventies) announced that his novel was three years late. Ah, I felt so much better. Then another man (who won the Pulitzer) confessed he was TEN years late with his manuscript. All of us broke out into hearty applause.

So what is time when it comes to writing? We complete our books in the amount of time it takes to tell our story.

Q. What aspect of writing the book did you find particularly challenging?

A. I think writing a memoir can be challenging because it’s about, well, yourself. But before I elaborate, let me say that, when I was writing my first novel (my unpublished graduate school thesis, entitled Secrets in Motion), I used to moan about how hard, how beastly, how impossible it was to create characters and plot. I believed that writing memoir would be so much easier, because the plot is already there. (Note that I never write autobiographical fiction, and creating entire lives out of thin air is a lot of work). So I bitched and moaned.

But then, when I wrote this memoir, I moaned about how hard that  was, and how writing fiction was so much easier because you didn’t have these “limitations” of having to stick to an actual plot (my real life) or character (the real me.).  Dare I say writing memoir did not have the same sort of creative freedom….that “fictional dream” the eloquent writing instructor John Gardner often spoke about?

So long story short: writing can be hard. There are always challenging aspects. And because writers by nature love to complain, our lists of complaints can be quite long

With writing this memoir, my main complaint was: holy moly, people are going to know all about my life! My inner thoughts! What if I sound like a jerk, a nincompoop? (I love that word).

It’s that fear of being judged that posed the biggest challenge (and this fear is the essence of writer’s block actually).

I think it helps as a writer, when facing any challenge in one’s writing process, to focus on the audience. Who are you writing for? Who do you want to help?  It goes back to that Rumi quote I mentioned above…..as writers, we sometimes need to stand out of our own ways and let the story be pulled forward. Each time, as I was writing this memoir,  I started to panic and go into freeze response, I would remind myself that ultimately I wanted my book to help dogs. To spread the message about the unlimited love supplied by rescued dogs. To encourage people to share the love and thus bring more happiness into this world.

On another  note, what I also found challenging about writing this memoir is the fact that I am no longer the person I was in 1997. So I was bringing forth a memoir in which I describe a less, well, conscious person than I am now. I was a totally shallow and selfish New York City gal back then.

I do believe all memoirs are about “how-my-life-was-then-and-how-I-changed.” But a lot of people who read this book might not realized I have changed and think: wow, that woman is a ninny. I was a ninny—I admit it.  But who in their right mind wants to admit their faults? It was  a risk I took and I hope it pays off.

In the eBook edition of the memoir, I have included a preface which pretty much says the above. I tell the ready not to worry, that I have changed.  All in all I hope the book comes across as humorous….a humorous approach to our natural human foibles. I hope I can be forgiven for my past mistakes. We all want that.

I feel so lucky that this eBook gives me a second chance to explain myself.

But still, as a memoirist, it can be terrifying to reveal so much.  In the “Rex and the City” columns, as I said, I focused more on the dog—all his little dramas and conflicts.  It was easy to hide myself behind that. But once we decided to focus more on the human drama in the memoir, the spotlight turned on me. And on poor  Ed. It was fun for a while, to tell my story—for isn’t that what we all want: to be known, and understood? But then, the enormity, and seeming stupidity, of what I had committed to astounded me.

The thing is, I am an incredibly private person. I used to be cripplingly insecure. I used to have an irrational fear of being judged. Sometimes I still do. So why on earth I chose to write a memoir I cannot explain. I mean, there were times when I was writing this book that I got so frightened about the prospect about people actually reading up that I would seize up with fear. I couldn’t get out of bed. For like months.  I had to extend my deadline.  I never told my agent or editor, but there were many times when I wished I wasn’t a writer at all. I wished I was a dog, just sleeping and eating and being taken care of by a nice guy like  Ed.

But, as with any fear (which can translate into writer’s block), I always brought myself back to what was important: why I wanted to write about this book. I wanted to write about dogs, and turn more people on to these amazing, loving, transformative creatures.  I wanted to write about the transformation that took place in me and in Ed because this dog gave us what we had never known before—unconditional love.  That kind of love transforms you—it changes the rest of your life.  And I wanted to write about how astonishing it was a dog that brought us there—not other humans.  This is the heart of my memoir, and this is what I hope will come across. Can I go so far as to say I wanted to change peoples’ lives? That may sound corny, but I bet there are a lot of fucked-up people out there who could really use a dog.

Q. Was it difficult for you to talk about your relationship with  Ed?  How does he feel about it, now that the book is complete?

My former husband has been perfectly wonderful about this book.  From the beginning, he has been nothing but supportive. The columns were in circulation for six years, and not once has he raised any objection to anything I have written about us.  Perhaps because I am just telling it like it is, as they say.  But he really is fantastic about this.

I know it must be weird for him to have his former wife writing about his life. I mean, think about how hard it must be to be written about—to appear in someone else’s memoir. That means you have no control over how you are being presented to the world. It must be terrifying.  You are being presented through someone else’s eyes.  You don’t get to tell your own story.  Plus, it’s highly likely that I see Ed differently than he sees himself.  I mean, isn’t that one of the main problems in a relationship? We want our partners to see us as we see ourselves, and when they don’t, we feel misunderstood.  Thousands of couples’ therapists across the country are paid zillions to reconcile these misunderstandings.  And here you are asking me how Ed feels, and expecting me to answer that.

So I am concerned about  Ed, even though he says he doesn’t have a problem with the book.  He has already hinted to me that some of the things I describe didn’t happen the way he remembers them. And this is always an issue with memoir, and with memory in general.  We all have different ways of processing events. We choose what we want to remember, what we need to remember, and discard the rest. Some people retain visual memories and others retain sounds (I, for instance, always remember conversations, word for word. My stepmother always remember what she wore on any occasion; my father remembers what he ate).

So which of two peoples’ memory of the same moment is “right?” Kirosawa attempted to answer this question years ago, in his movie Rashoman, and he didn’t come up with an answer.

So I stand by my version of the stories.  And I am fine with Ed standing by his.  He said (teasingly) if he needed to he would write his own book.

I also want to stress that I have a lot of gratitude and respect for his decision to step away and let me do what I needed to do. I guess he knew at some level how much I needed to tell this story.  I told it for Wallace, but also for me, and us.  Did I tell it for him?  I can’t really say. Frankly, I am stunned at how magnanimous he is being. He has always supported the columns and has withheld comments or criticism about them. (Which is actually quite out of character for him, because he is very opinionated, and a good critic of writing). But his silence has always said, to me, that he wanted me to be free to say what I wanted to and stay out of my way. He was a wonderful partner and husband in that way—he supported my “art.”

Also, there is much about me, Ed, and our relationship, that does not appear in this book. We loved each other madly but we also argued a lot.  We were always on the verge of breaking up. We almost broke up right before we got the dog.  Also, Wallace literally got sick every time we fought—he got mange, and eye infections and all sorts of stress-related ailments. But I was not allowed to tell that story.  My editor made me cut it all out. She told me people wouldn’t want to read such a negative story. She told me people would not want to stick with me, as a narrator, if I told them so many truths.  So I had to cut all that out.  What is there in the pages of REX AND THE CITY is still the truth—it all happened—but it is not the whole truth. So to me, my own memoir feels like a superficial story. I have not told any untruths.  I just hope that enough of the “untold story” is there between the lines. I think it is, for anyone who reads carefully.  Because sometimes I feel that I wasn’t allowed to write a memoir at all.  Just a fake funny story about a dog.

Plus, I imagine that “ Ed” is certainly happy that not much of his dirty laundry has been aired. And I must say I am happy about that too. In hindsight, I am glad I cut all the ugly stuff.  The world does not need to know about that. The world does not need any more anger or sorrow. We all have enough as it is. So let them have the happy bits, and the cutesy stories about dogs.

Q. What surprised you the most about the book writing process?

A. How long it takes to write a book as opposed to an essay for Salon—ha ha.

And how challenging that can be to one’s emotional state.

As most authors can attest, it can be a frustrating experience because books take so long to finish. Some authors spend four years working on books, right?  I have one of those personalities in which it is important for me to finish something daily, so I can get my praise, my A, and my pat on the head.  And as a book-length memoirist, I wasn’t getting that kind of reward. So I always advise students to find ways to trick yourself into thinking that you’re not writing a book per se. This might sound silly, but for some writers, it helps.

As for myself, I started to focus on each chapter one-by-one.  I reminded myself I was writing fun short pieces about my dog. Writing about Wallace  gave me great satisfaction on many levels.  A) I had fun doing it (and the novel was often not fun to write), and B) I could finish the pieces and be done with them and move on. So I could get my A for the day.  And thus, I finished the book.

Writing this book also really taught me what to do and what not to do in terms of cutting original material. Again, this is about not over-revising your work. There is often a real freshness and authenticity in our first drafts—the material that comes straight from the Inner Writer. It’s uncensored writing, which one could say is more pure and divine.

When I had to revisit the first drafts of all my RATC columns, in order to reshape them as book chapters, I realized that those first drafts were always 3700 words.  (So, as an aside that’s one thing I have learned—I cannot say anything in less than 3700 words. Look at the length of these interview answers, for instance!)

So I had these first drafts of the RATC columns, which were 3700 words. I then had to

cut those 3700 word stories into 2200 word columns for the Bark.  I didn’t realize at the time how much I lost by making those cuts.  I lost rhythm; I lost flow. I lost my original points—the messages I had been trying to convey. This was shocking to me.  I’d go so far to say that my published book is not as good as my original unpublished drafts, but that might be the hyper-critical me talking. Don’t we all want to believe that our books could be a thousand times better if only ________________ (fill in blank).

What I tell my creative writing students is: don’t cut too much. Your job as writers is to protect the flow—the rhythm, the prose; the poetry of the prose. I also say: pay attention to your revision and editorial process. Learn to distinguish between what comes from the Inner Artist, and what comes from the Inner Critic. Your Inner Artist is always wisest.

Take note if your best writing exists in the first draft—because that’s where the Inner Writer is doing most of the work.  My second and third drafts of my book were governed by the Inner Editor. And remember that I said above that my Inner Editor she can be rather stern and hyper-critical and not very fun. We writers have to watch out for that.

I am not sure I am making sense, but consider the legend of  Jack Kerouac, who wrote “On the Road” on one continuous roll of paper. He said didn’t want to break the flow of his prose and his story—the mania, by having to consistently pull and reload sheets of paper from his typewriter. (Can you imagine? Physical labor?). Kerouac also refused to let his editor change a single word of “On the Road” because, as Kerouac said, the book “came from God and no one can tamper with that.” Jung, by the way, would replace the word “God” with “the collective unconscious.”

Now it sounds as if I am saying: “Don’t let anyone edit your work!” I’m not saying that at all. But here’s another important and essential point for we writers to keep in mind: Find an editor who connects with your work—who gets it—and stick with that editor. It’s a true gift. Working with the right editor can be so magical.

You also have to learn how to trust yourself. Trust you Inner Writer and your Inner Editor. You have to practice the art of discernment.  By the fourth draft of my second novel, I finally mastered this. And it has changed my life in so many ways. It’s about intuition, I guess.  I have a mild brain injury, which resulted for a time in some cognitive impairment. But, because the brain and the mind are marvelous things, what I lost in cognition I gained in intuition. The right brain and left brain, always supporting one another.

So I’ll close this question by saying: Writing this book helped me realize how much of a perfectionist I can be, and how that was often working against me. I started to follow the Carver principle.  I learned how to accept what I had written as good enough—not perfect—and  move on. There’s no such thing as perfect. You just do your best and know your best is enough.

Q. Did you have any favorite experiences when writing your book?

A. I just love those moments when I am in the flow and ideas and sentences and beautiful metaphors are flowing through me. There’s nothing like it. I feel so alive and connected to my work and to myself. It’s like a drug. It is a drug—the drug of bliss, of creative life-force.

Writing fiction can be fantastic fun. I love it when my characters surprise me. I love it when they make me laugh out loud.

Recently I started taking acting classes, to help me 1) take my public readings and musical performances to a new level and 2) help me get deeper into my characters. This lead to me really taking on the moods and emotions of my characters to the point where I’d be affected by them for days. I now have a problem creating mean and angry characters, actually, because it means I have to spend a few days afterward feeling mean and angry. I worry that plots will become quite dull Because every story needs a villain.

I also love those moments when life imitates art.  I met a man named Steve Sharkey a few months after I had created a character named Steve Sharkey. The real Steve was my tai-ch sword instruction; the fictional Steve was a deck hand on a megayachit in Antibes, France. He’s the cad in my upcoming novel Nothing Keeps a Frenchman From His Lunch. There are no similarities between the real and fake Steve whatsoever. But the coincidence was astonishing.

I also enjoy what I have learned from my characters, and how they have encouraged me to try new things in my real life. One of the characters in my upcoming novel, Muriel, is a fencing instructor. She hates men and runs a self-defense and sword academy in New York. In order to understand her better, I took up fencing, and absolutely loved it. Fencing changed my life—I learned how to become more aggressive—in a good way. I learned how to not-be-so-passive, in other words. It’s actually the fictional Muriel who led me to the real Steve—another sword master.

I could go on and on about what I enjoy about creating fictional characters (I also learned about things like French cooking, astral projection, herb craft), but as for my favorite experiences writing and publishing Rex and the City.

I must say what I love most is hearing from my readers. I am moved to tears but what they have shared with me, and the compliments they have blessed me with. They send pictures of their dogs and tell me their stories. One woman even adopted a dog after reading REX AND THE CITY and named the new dog Wallace! I still get choked up when I think about that.

Q. What do you hope your readers will gain from reading your book?

A. I hope they gain a new understanding of dogs, and of humans, and how we can all work together to better ourselves.  That sounds Miss America, but I mean it.  I also acknowledge that my book is very Lite (sic).  My editors wanted it that way. So in that sense, my book is meant to entertain. It’s a fun read.

I think sometimes we writers feel that our books have to be serious and somehow morally profound in a Melville sort of way. I remember right after September 11th I, like so many artists, felt that my work was meaningless, because it was not saving lives.  That was the week where everyone in New York who wasn’t a firefighter or a nurse or a sanitation worker felt that we were absolutely useless. I felt as insignificant as a used cotton ball.

But anyway, I remember crying on the phone about this to my kind father, and he said to me:   “You write books and you make people laugh. A lot of people love to read and they love to laugh. You help them escape. That’s not useless.”

But here I am in this interview still trying to justify my book somehow

So, I hope my readers gain a few hours of reading pleasure, and the lingering reward of feeling happy—happy that they have dogs in their lives. I hope readers can recognize that, as humans we often make mistakes with our dogs, but that in the long run it’s okay, because our dogs forgive us. Dogs basically teach us how to become better humans.

Again, that is why I am donating a percentage of all proceeds from sales of Rex and the City to animal rescue groups. I want to give back. I want dogs to gain.

Isn’t the experience of reading and enjoying a book itself a gain? We readers are so lucky to have that time and that leisure. The other day I was lying in a hammock reading Wharton (rereading actually). The sun was shining, the birds were chirping, and my hammock was swaying. When I was a child, this was my idea of a perfect life-reading in a hammock. Or reading period.

Q. What projects are you currently working on?

A. My novel, Nothing Keeps a Frenchman From His Lunch, will be coming out next year. I love that title but it might be changed. The title is not that thematic anymore, because the chapter from which the title came was cut.

I am also putting out a memoir about leaving my husband and living at a Buddhist retreat center (called “In Tents”) and a screenplay based on two Edith Wharton short stories. I have combined the two stories and two scenarios and added a twist: which is that the male cad gets shot at the end.  Usually, in Wharton stories, those spunky rule-breaking heroines get ruined and live unhappily ever after. I decided to change all that

I am also working on a young adult fantasy series. (Who isn’t?) I started channeling—yes channeling—mine in September of 2009. I just came out of nowhere and I take notes. I don’t say I am writing it—it’s writing me. What fun that is!  I am always and delighted and surprised by what I write down, and I am not even rereading the material at this point. I don’t want my Inner Editor to start imposing her ideas on this wonderful and magical story.

But the darned thing is I have not had time to work on it full time yet.  I’ll start on that after the novel is in production. Hopefully this coming spring.

Q. Is writing your sole career? If not, what else do you do?

A. I was a full time writer for seven years (such a blessing); then, two years ago I started transitioning into music. I am a lead-singer in a rock band and a kirtan walli (a form of Hindu call-and-response chant music). I love singing.  I feel completely and totally and fantastically alive when I am singing. More so than when I am writing, actually. Singing is more physical, I guess. You’re channeling the energy through your vocal chords, rather than your mind, if that makes sense. Plus, writing is so private and introverted and music (rock music at least) is so extroverted and in-your-face. It’s another aspect of my personality I don’t get to express much in my writing.

So now I am combining the two: I am writing and recording twelve songs for a companion CD to be included with my upcoming novel. There were a couple of chapters and scenes from the novel (600 pages) that I had to cut because my editor wanted a 400 page book (those darn editors, always wanting something shorter). I am taking those cut segments and turning them into songs. Pretty cool.

There are actually a lot of writings putting out CDs now and we are getting a lot of attention. Remember the Bridges of Madison County companion CD? Jodi Picoult just released a CD with her book as well.

People always assume we writers make good lyricists, I guess.

Getting back to other careers: I was an illustration/studio art major as an undergrad, and am happy to say I am finally putting that degree to use (hear that, Dad?). I designed my most recent book cover, and am designing my own website. Doing illustrations and stuff. That has been really fun. Again, I think it is important for writers to not-write. That is just as much a part of the process as writing itself. We have to exercise all parts of our minds/brains/emotions. Otherwise you get stale and bitter.

And….I am also a creative writing professor at NYU. I teach fiction writing. I am so, so happy to have this position. NYU is fantastic.

Q. Did you do any research for your books, or did you write from experience?

A. The memoir was obviously from experience, so the research was reading my journals.

My upcoming novel Nothing Keeps a Frenchman From His Lunch is total fiction—no autobiography whatsoever—and thus required a lot of research.  My main character is a Plato scholar and an Ironman triathlete.  Another character is a saucy English woman from the Midlands who lies her way into a job aboard a mega-yacht as a chef. Another character is a sexy Scottish diving instructor who works on that yacht. I have Danish counts who design perfume bottles, an ageing French actress who makes sport of stealing other women’s (and men’s) boyfriends, and pervy British aristocrat who writes books about UFOs and practices astral projections. And then I have a Mr. Right, who is so perfect I found I had a hard time creating him (because, as I said, this is fiction).

Even the minor characters include white witches, gay bodybuilders, fencing instructors, and perfume makers. I have been none of those things. So there was a lot of research.  The good news is, my book is set in Southern France, so I got to travel there frequently to do my research. For my chef character, I read a lot of cookbooks and dined at lots of French restaurants and sampled hundreds of amazing wines.  Don’t tell the IRS.

Q. How did you come up with your title: “Rex and the City: True Tales of a Rescue Dog Who Rescued a Relationship”?

A. It’s an obvious homage to “Sex and the City” and thus the title unfortunately dates my book. But that’s fine, because I am writing about that era anyway—the late 90s.  Those of you who remember the original columns of Candace Bushnell, (which appeared in the The New York Observer from (the mid-late 90s) ) will recognize my homage to both her writing style and her subject matter. I always thought Candace’s columns were hilarious, because she wrote about how fun it could be to be shallow—especially in New York. She is an amazing writer, by the way. I think a lot of people assume she writes fluff, but I do consider her the modern-day Wharton. Her book “One Fifth Avenue” is dynamite.

Q. What books have influenced you the most?

A. If we’re talking dog books, I love Farley Mowat and Jon Katz. And Susan Richards and Abby Thomas. Julie Klam is great. Alison Pace (she writes novels featuring dog characters). Bruce Cameron.

For literary fiction: John Cheever, Scott Fitzgerald, Edith Wharton, Jane Austen, and the incomparable J.K Rowling. The Harry Potter series is my desert-island book/s, hands-down.

Q. Who was your publisher and why did you choose them?

A. My publisher was Random House—the prestigious Villard imprint. I had the honor of being acquired by none other than Dan Menaker—one of the greatest literary editors of our time. I bow to him. He is the William Maxwell of our time. And so eloquent and wise and gentle….I could go on and on.

I am, however, self-publishing the new enhanced eBook edition of Rex and the City. I think it deserves a second chance.

My book was marketed by Random House as chic-lit, which was fine, but I completely missed my intended audience: dog lovers.  I am not complaining—I love Random House. It’s just that the dogoirs are peaking right now, and I am apparently seen as the forerunner of this dogoir genre. I’m flattered to have that title….so I’d like my book to get more exposure.

We live in an amazing era—authors can self-publish so easily now. I feel so so lucky to have a second chance, and to have the support of people like you. Thank you.

Find out more at: http://theswordofhope.com/

The author’s excerpt reading:

About the book:

This is the story of two boys, one who is destined by the stars to walk a path laid out by destiny. The other, who is simply the help, will step out from the shadows and prove he’s more than just the help.

The Sword of Hope is a growing up tale for the two boys, Christian and Tiberius.

The boys set out to the Forest of Lost Emotion to face Gmonkis, but find that their enemy is not quite what they expected. The real enemy, their mission, is beyond the borders of their small town surrounded by trees.

Author interview:

Q. Why did you decide to write this book?

A. It has always been a passion of mine to write, but I had never tried to write anything of this length or depth until The Sword of Hope.  I believe it’s mostly because I didn’t have the proper knowledge of how to fully describe what I saw in my head on paper.  Also, it has been a dream of mine to get one of my stories out there, published, and shared with the world.

Q. Do you have any secret writing tips you’d like to share?

A. Sure, although I’m certain it’s nothing that another writer won’t suggest.  Be creative in everything written.  My secret is trying to relate the experience of the character with something a person has actually been through.  Ex:  They’re walking through the forest.  Its hard to breathe.  The air is thick.  So, I describe the difficulty of breathing like trying to breathe through a wet washcloth, which I’m sure people have tried.  This gives the audience a sense of what the characters are experiencing.

Q. Tell us a quirky or funny story about you!

A. I find inspiration everywhere I go.  I could be driving around or sitting still looking at the trees or people or just watching the surrounding area wherever I may be and some small part will stick out, inspiring an idea for something new.

Q. Have you ever battled writer’s block? How do you deal with it?

A. Battled writer’s block?  Sure, we fight sometimes.  I usually beat it back with a pen.  Sometimes, it gets a little extreme and I have to pick up a notebook, but I usually come out on top, couple scrapes and bruises here and there. Haha  Seriously though, yes, I deal with writer’s block just as anyone else does.  I just wait patiently until something sparks my curiosity or relates to the subject I’m currently working on and then I jump back in.

Q. What’s your favorite quote?

A. I actually created a quote I’m particularly fond of:  The positive in me will always outweigh the negative around me.

Q. Who inspires you the most?

A. I can’t say there’s any one person who truly inspires me.  It’s more of a collected group.  Anyone and everyone inspires me in different ways.  Some more than others, but regardless, all are equally important.

Learn more at: www.eugenebull.com

Below is the author’s excerpt reading:

About the book:

Mid-level State Department analyst, Peter Graser, is in a world of trouble. Nothing or no one is as it seems. He’s been set up as the fall guy, and he’s in way over his head. Graser is on the run through Europe and the Middle East for answers that will prove his innocence. But what he eventually finds is shocking. It will cause him to rethink basic truths about his friends and family. It will provide him the means to alter the geopolitical landscape of the Middle East. And it will force him to confront an evil so terrible that it could result in the deaths of thousands.

Author interview:

Q. Why did you decide to write this book?

A. Started out as a bucket list item. I’ve wanted to write a thriller since I was 15.

Q. Do you have any secret writing tips you’d like to share?

A. Keep writing until the inspiration hits!

Q. Tell us a quirky or funny story about you!

A. I was a pasanger on a converted Russian cargo plane that flew into the Liberian civil war.

Q. Have you ever battled writer’s block? How do you deal with it?

A. All the time. Just keep writing something until the inspiration hits!

Q. What’s your favorite quote?

A. Whatever works at the moment.

Q. Who inspires you the most?

A. As cliché as it sounds, my mother.

Find out more at: http://www.danielmcneet.com

Below is the author’s excerpt reading:

About the book:

Operation Downfall is based on a quote by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1908. “No man is above the law and no man is below it: nor do we ask any man’s permission when we ask him to obey it.”

Mariah O’Leary grew up in the worst slum in New York and became an orphan as a teenager. She became a stunning beauty and brilliant. She received scholarships to undergraduate and graduate school, but it was not enough so she worked. When she graduated she joined the military for five years and served in a full black unit; it was off the books. Even the president was not aware of the unit.

She moved to Los Angeles after her discharge. Because of her relationships when she was in college, she received information regarding the treason of the president, vice president and a billionaire. She decided to organize their downfall. She set up Operation Downfall and recruited former CIA officers and agents, Special Forces personnel and other former clandestine operatives who were interested in getting back into the “great game” as Rudyard Kipling would put it. She was successful.

Author interview:

Q. What excites you most about your book’s topic? Why did you choose it?

A. Operation Downfall in two words describes the book perfectly. I did not, Mariah O’Leary, the protagonist did, because she knew I wanted to try and make a contribution to the betterment of society by making the reader aware of the corruption in the highest levels of government.

Q. How long did the book take you from start to finish?

A. Six months

Q. What aspect of writing the book did you find particularly challenging?

A. To quote Harold Robbins when I asked him this question he said, “Keeping your ass in the chair.”

Q. What surprised you the most about the book writing process?

A. The research necessary to make the book credible.

Q. Did you have any favorite experiences when writing your book?

A. Yes, when I finished it.

Q. What do you hope your readers will gain from reading your book?

A. To discover good characters who are heroes and heroines who break the rules in order to perform oblique public service.

Q. What projects are you currently working on?

A. The name of my new book is Retribution. It will be available in June 2012.

Q. Is writing your sole career? If not, what else do you do?

A. Yes.

Q. Did you do any research for your books, or did you write from experience?

A. Both.

Q. How did you come up with your title?

A. Mariah O’Leary the protagonist in Operation Downfall gave it to me.

Q. What books have influenced you the most?

A. For this novel the following: Naomi Wolf who wrote “The End of America Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot”, Frank Rich’s “The Greatest Story Ever Sold”, “Hubris” by Michael Isikoff and David Corn, Thomas E. Ricks’ “Fiasco” and Justin A. Frank’s, M.D. “Bush On the Couch.”

Q. Who was your publisher and why did you choose them?

A. Intrepid Publishing Company because the company liked the book and I liked them.

Find out more at: http://www.krissedersten.com/

Below is the author’s excerpt reading:

About the book:

For six small-town teenagers, it begins with a senior class video project and the sudden disappearance of two of their own.  Researching urban legends in their hometown leads them to an isolated farmhouse—haunted by its dark secrets, the discovery of unmarked graves, and more paranormal activity than they ever could have imagined.

For Clay County Sheriff, Drew Connor, Tony Morgan, and the mysterious Ranier brothers, it began decades earlier when missing persons and violent murder first tainted the quiet countryside.  The evil still lives…hidden…waiting.

Their fates entwine in an epic Halloween clash of good versus evil as the dark energy returns to bring demonic forces to life through ritualistic sacrifice.

Author interview:

Q. What excites you most about your book’s topic? Why did you choose it?

A. I have always been fascinated with the paranormal and the idea that a part of the human personality survives physical death.  I am a paranormal researcher in my spare time and as the founder of Synergy Paranormal Investigations, Harvard, NE. I spend nearly every weekend out searching haunted locations for evidence of the paranormal. .I love ghost stories!  We all tend to write about what we know and have passion for. I can’t imagine writing about anything else. I also enjoy sharing my faith so my books give me an opportunity to do that as well.

Q. How long did the book take you from start to finish?

A. I have spent another eight months working on this book in addition to the original three months it took to put it together in the first place.  Altogether, it took nearly one year to complete.

Q. What aspect of writing the book did you find particularly challenging?

A. The hardest part of writing is the editing.  When you go back through the manuscript and decide what to leave in and what to take out.  Every paragraph should move the story along when you are trying to build dramatic tension.  Once in awhile you find a great piece of prose that you really like but it isn’t really necessary to the story line.  Thus, the dilemma; do you keep it or throw it out?  Generally, it has to go!  Sometimes I will write it down and save it for another day.

Q. What surprised you the most about the book writing process?

A.  I was most surprised by the excitement of the creative process.  When the creative juices are flowing and everything is falling into place it is an exhilarating experience.  It can have its ups and downs but the highs are amazing.

Q. Did you have any favorite experiences when writing your book?

A. When I was writing this book, my favorite thing was sharing it with my friends one section at a time.  I would write a few chapters, try to leave them with a cliffhanger chapter, then; make them wait until I wrote a few more chapters.  They drove me crazy wanting the next piece of the manuscript.  It was so fun.  That was incredibly motivating for me; like a supply and demand writing spree.

Q. What do you hope your readers will gain from reading your book?

A. I hope they will think about the power of faith in their lives.  Prayer and trust in God can help us straighten out the unexpected curves life throws at us.  We may not ever run into horrific demonic entities in the flesh but we all have our metaphoric demons to contend with.  Faith can help us tackle those as well.  I must admit though; I love a good scare.  I hope my book makes the reader have a few chills up and down their spines along the way too.

Q. What projects are you currently working on?

A. I am working on the third installment of the Mojo Series.  I originally planned to write a trilogy; publishing one book per year.  However, the third book will not be completed by next summer.  I am changing it up quite a bit from its original outline. The muse is definitely not satisfied thus far!  I am also working on a Non-Fiction paranormal research book that will be based on Synergy’s case files.  I’m incredibly excited about the prospect of sharing my experiences and regaling real-world ghost hunting adventures.

Q. Is writing your sole career? If not, what else do you do?

A. No. I work full time as a Nursing Home Administrator and RN Consultant.  I am also the founder of Synergy Paranormal Investigations, Harvard,NE.   I have always wanted to be a part of the paranormal research community.  In January of 2011 I made the decision to form the group and jump in with both feet.  It has been an amazing ride!  I have also had the opportunity to become a producer for Nebraska’s longest running Paranormal radio program, Exploring Unexplained Phenomena, with host, Scott Colborn, at KZUM in Lincoln, NE.  Scott has amazing guests on the program and it has been so educational for me.  Exposure to some of the experts in the field has given me additional information and insight into the realm of paranormal exploration.

Q. Did you do any research for your books, or did you write from experience?

A.  I did do some research about demons, and ghost hunting but mostly I wrote from experience.  The next installment of the series should have the latest tools in paranormal investigation such as the “ghost box” and lasers to help the characters in their work.

Q. How did you come up with your title?

A. The first book, Mojo, was all about finding the mojo—with a few twists along the way.  It only seemed right, in the prequel, to address how the mojo was lost.  It was very difficult to find the right title but in the end Lost Mojo fit the bill.

Q. What books have influenced you the most?

A.  My favorite author of all time is now and will always be Stephen King.  All of his early books probably influenced me the most.  I especially loved The Stand, It, Tommyknockers, and Pet Cemetary.

Q. Who was your publisher and why did you choose them?

A. I chose Infinity publishers.  When I was researching self publishing options, Infinity was listed as being one of the most author friendly publishers.  I decided to try them.

Learn more at: www.drmanshadi.com

About the book:

Dr. Ramin Manshadi brings his extensive knowledge of cardiovascular health direct to you. In his book, The Wisdom of Heart Health: Attaining a Healthy and Robust Heart in Today’s Modern World, Dr. Manshadi covers a wide range of important topics related to heart health that should be mandatory reading for everyone concerned about cardiovascular disease.

Dr. Manshadi’s good work is not limited to the words of wisdom espoused in his book. In a partnership with St. Joseph’s Hospital, Dr. Manshadi has generously pledged proceeds from the book to help purchase automated external defibrillators (AEDs) for placement in schools throughout California.

Author interview:

Q. What excites you most about your book’s topic? Why did you choose it?

A. I truly enjoy science, medicine, and Cardiology. I touched upon all of the topics that I truly enjoy. I chose most of them from the results of my questionnaires from my patients. Cardiology is a vast subject, so I have only touched upon subjects of great interest to me and my patients.

Q. How long did the book take you from start to finish?

A. Four years. I could have done it sooner, but I am a very busy Cardiologist.

Q. What aspect of writing the book did you find particularly challenging?

A. The logistics of the book. Writing was easy.

Q. What surprised you the most about the book writing process?

A. The business aspect of it.

Q. Did you have any favorite experiences when writing your book?

A. I enjoyed writing it, but the most satisfaction was the positive response from my readers and patients.

Q. What do you hope your readers will gain from reading your book?

A .Heart Health

Q. What projects are you currently working on?

A. Ultimately I would like to write a book to tie in all fields of science together and relate to life and death and after life.

Q. Is writing your sole career? If not, what else do you do?

A. I a full time interventional Cardiologist in private practice and also an Associate Clinical professor of Medicine at UC Davis Medical Center.

Q. Did you do any research for your books, or did you write from experience?

A. I would say 90 % my own experience. I had to research the statistics.

Q. How did you come up with your title?

A. For years I would walk throughout bookstroes and think, but I just could not come up with one. After I wrote the book, It suddenly came to me.

Q. What books have influenced you the most?

A. I do not read fiction. I would like to enhance my knowledge at all times; thus, I do not have time to read fiction. The Promulgation of Universal Peace, I like to read biographies on most notable people in history to understand and learn from them.

Q. Who was your publisher and why did you choose them?

A. Invisible Wealth; I was pretty much done with my book and by chance I found them.

Q. Tell us a little bit about your book.

A: It is written intelligently but in such language that all can comprehend. It is very personable, and most readers can not put it down when they start reading it.

Q. What inspired you to create a work of non-fiction?

A: I do not like fiction.

Q. What did you do to prepare for writing your book?

A: As mentioned, I did a questionnaire and asked a significant number of patients as to what would interest them if I were to write a book.

Q. How did you develop your idea for this book?

A: I put all the subjects and topics that I was interested in writing in my head then tried to interconnect them all together. This translated a great number of editing.

Q. What can we look forward to in your next book?

A: I am sure that this book needs to be updated in 5 years and my ultimate book would be a book to interconnect all fields of science and try to make sense of life and death.

Q. Is there anything we haven’t covered that you would like to include?

A: I am donating the proceeds of this book to place AEDs to all High Schools in Calif.