October 31, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Interview with Richard Singer [9:34m]:
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Richard Singer, author, is planning a million dollar run for charity. We spoke with him about his books, and about his upcoming run. From his website:
Author and therapist Richard Singer has signed an agreement with the Guiness Book of World Records to attempt breaking the current 27 year old record by crossing the United States in 46 days on foot. He will be benefiting several charities representing different aspects of life. In addition, 50% of his book sales profit will also be donated to charity. Rick hopes to raise $1 million dollars and show the world what one person can do to make lasting changes.
Join Rick as he sets out on February 20, 2009 to run from Los Angeles to NYC to raise a money for charity which includesElton John’s Aids Foundation, American Cancer Society, Damon and Stella Foundation for Mental Health, Indra Loka Animal Sanctuary, and the Choice Drug and Alcohol Rehabilitation Center.
October 31, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Dr. Kent: Welcome back to Sound Authors. Today is June 6, 2008 and we’re talking all about books. My next guest is the author of Memoirs of an Immigrant. It’s a hard cover book. His name is Olof A. Ericksen. Welcome to the show.
Olof Ericksen: Thank you very much; it’s nice to be here.
Dr. Kent: Tell me a little bit about your book Memoirs of an Immigrant.
Olof Ericksen: Well, this book is about my life going all the way back to 1740 and there’s a reason for its going back there because of trouble with my mom and dad when they had a very ugly divorce and had you read part of my book you will find out that my dad is a bastard. And in order to prove that wrong I researched my dad all the way back to the Norwegian mountains in 1740. At that time I’m asking my mom well, where’s that bastard part? That’s the reason why I’m going back that far. Apparently of course I was born in Norway in 1936 and the book is just about from then until now.
Dr. Kent: What happened to you around the world war and all of that? What did it look like to you?
Olof Ericksen: I was terribly hurt in 1942 during the war but what really bashed my life up where it became a total mystery was that with the heavy bombing in Bergen, Norway at the time and we were evacuated to Oslo and meanwhile my mother had gotten special permission from Gestapo to go free with my little baby brother. When we came back three months later from Oslo to Bergen my dad was standing there on the platform and no mom. Of course I wanted her to forget that I asked him, “where’s mommy?” Mommies gone.
In fact, my mother abandoned me in 1944. My dad was an alcoholic and when the war was over I was what you call unspeakably poor. The Norwegian government paid for school or whoever did it, I do not know but one day two people came to the house where we lived and before you know it we were forced away from my drunken father and we were forced into a boy’s home and that’s where I grew up. 7-1/2 years in Norway and it was very unpleasant, very brutal what they did to me and it goes on and on from there.
Dr. Kent: Now you grew up in that home; how did you end up here?
Olof Ericksen: My mom came to Norway in 1952 and invited me and my little brother Erik. I was in college at the time; my little brother was still in the boy’s home and that poor boy went into the fire when he went to Sweden. It was terrible for him in Sweden because my dad was a drunkard and her new husband, my stepfather, was a drunkard also and was extremely unpleasant. Anyway, a beautiful thing happened to me when my brother who was in the American army in Frankfurt Germany was allowed in Christmas 1944 to come to Sweden and one of my Christmas presents was the invitation to come to this country.
Well, here I am. In 1956 I immigrated to the United States. It was tough, extremely tough. I could not speak English, I had no money, I had a trade as an engineer from Sweden that was given back to me by the United States government in 1960 just about. When I was drafted into the American army they saw the papers I had in Norway and Sweden and said, “Mr. Ericksen, you are in fact by our standards and our schooling an engineer.” So they bestowed me that degree in the United States.
I was lucky, very fortunate to hold some nice, responsible jobs but I felt that I was always short changed in what I was doing. I ventured out on my own in 1973. Yeah I struggled but I was lucky and yes today I own a worldwide company and I’m comfortable thanks to this country. I assume you saw my book.
Dr. Kent: One of the great impetuses for you to write this book was not just to tell your own story but to show people that pretty much people can overcome any kind of odds. Tell us a little bit about what is your message to people that are poor and abused and left behind?
Olof Ericksen: Well let me say this. Some of the professional reviewers out there, you probably know who they are, many of them anyway like Mr. Sam Hutchinson. He is in fact saying this book is about hope, that you can make anything of yourself if you give it a whack. That’s a gratifying thing now; beautiful words are coming from everywhere and like he said overcoming an obstacle is perhaps the theme of the book. And that’s what he says.
Yesterday somebody logged in on the Barnes & Noble and quite honestly I can’t recite it because it was beautiful. So I recognize, yes I did my thing. Where I came from you have to read what happened to me in the boys home, all of the brutality, and in fact I made it, and of course I made it because of this country. The opportunities are here and if you take advantage of it, be fair and square and work and learn, you’ll make it. In my opinion, there’s no reason for anyone in this country to walk around with their hands out. I’m sorry, I do not agree with that.
Dr. Kent: How about in this economic situation right now, it’s interesting, it’s certainly nothing like the situation you were in where you lost both parents and you’re in this horrible situation and you fought your way out. In the economy right now there’s a lot of people losing their homes, there’s people that can’t drive to work because of the gas prices. What do you think is in store for us here in this country?
Olof Ericksen: I don’t quite understand. Let me ask you a question. I assume you saw my book.
Dr. Kent: Yes.
Olof Ericksen: I drive a Rolls Royce. You must understand what this car stands for in my opinion. I’m not driving the Rolls Royce to flaunt it, to show off; it’s not that. If you read my book you will see right after World War II you see this car in 1950 on the highway in Norway. I just never forgot that sight and I realized if you want something like this, you just have to earn it. In this country, it’s a beautiful country to do anything you want.
Like I said in my paper to you, in my opinion, because I see the kids today and I try to help the kids around. I’m a certified teacher for machining tool and die making at my company and I taught a lot of people how to become something. But people dropping out of school is not going to help and walking around crying about what’s bad is not going to help because the opportunities are there.
Dr. Kent: How did all of that come about for you? I know you found the United States and you found your success, but back at the very beginning you read Robinson Crusoe and that’s of course a favorite book of many of ours, mine as well. The way that he could build things out of nothing; how did that encourage you?
Olof Ericksen: You have to go back a step or two. Take me 10, 11, 12 years old and the brutality of the boy’s home. You try to hide away from it but you can’t. So I was lucky. One day I found a book, its name was Robinson Crusoe. And I read it and I said, “Ay-ay-ay, if I could only get out of the boys home, get on a ship some place and let it sail away and jump overboard when it comes to anywhere to get away from the boys home.”
That was the thing that I wanted but if you go beyond that I also read the book The Count of Monte Cristo. If you can live with it and understand what I’ve done what happened to me, when you are in dire need that I was in as a boy you cannot but help dreaming. Reading a book like this, and that’s where there’s nothing there to put your hand on until Christmas when my brother invited me to this country. That’s why I’m a realist, what will be will be; providence. That’s when in effect, if you read the book The Count of Monte Cristo, he was in a dungeon for 14 years. I was in a dungeon too for 7-1/2 years; in the boy’s home.
My brother handed me a map to the treasure; a map to the island of America. Some place in America there is a treasure to be found. I found it by having the skills, my engineering degree from Europe. And there’s one thing if you look into my book when I graduated engineering I did not go into engineering. I wanted to learn what engineering was all about and became a tool and die maker if you read my book. So I learned my skill so that when I started my company I was very fortunate. I worked with jet engines and in flying hardware up above and the critical nature of these things.
I was terribly fortunate to meet this buyer, his name was Jim Albright. He was a rear gunner in World War II and flew over my head. I saw him up there fighting the Germans and everything else. I don’t know his name but after the war I found him by chance. I think you read about that. Okay? So there’s lots of luck also but I found a treasure in means of working and doing the work for this company called the ### Company, then buying a division of theirs. You saw how they stole it away from me and how I fought them back and I lost everything.
And how on an Easter day, true story, we went to dinner, my wife and my boy, and here in these plastic bags of garbage is the plans of a company that shut down and this is what I need. There is everything there. If you understand a machine shop there’s all the drawings, customer names, everything is right in front of me. The treasure of the world is right there in these plastic bags in forms of written documents and catalogs telling me what I have to do to recover. And that’s what I did. If you read my book I signed someplace there towards the end that due to what people did to me I am not afraid to having brought them out because there is no lies, there is only fact there.
It’s all the truth. I am saying that for as long as my company and this company exists they shall forever pay me back and they admitted in the courtroom that they stole $14 million from me. I got it back. Its an unbelievable story, a lot of people are reading it now and the reviewers professional and otherwise, the readers, that’s coming in now is awesome. There’s five star reviews, you can look it up on Barnes & Noble. Anybody who reads this and sees this book; Memoirs of an Immigrant can see this for themselves.
Dr. Kent: It’s been a real pleasure speaking with Olof Ericksen, author of Memoirs of an Immigrant. It is clearly a book that we all have to pick up and read about overcoming suffering, overcoming all odds. It’s been a real honor and I wish you the best success.
Olof Ericksen: It is very kind of you sir, thank you very much.
October 30, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Dr. Kent: Welcome back to Sound Authors. It’s my great pleasure to welcome Nikki Grimes to the show. She’s authored many, many children’s books. Her latest book is Barack Obama: Son of Promise, Child of Hope. She is the winner of the Corretta Scott King Literary Award; she’s been on the New York Times Bestseller List with this book. Welcome to the show.
Nikki Grimes: Thank you so much.
Dr. Kent: Tell me about what this book means to you.
Nikki Grimes: Well I was happy to have the opportunity to write it. As often happens when writing a book and researching it, I made lots of discoveries in the process. I knew very little about Senator Obama when I began but I got very excited about his candidacy the more I learned about him so that was a great thing.
Dr. Kent: The book itself is so beautiful. Illustrated by Brian Collier and the two of you are both award winning children’s author and illustrators. What does it mean to write a book about a political character in political season?
Nikki Grimes: Well that’s been a bit of a challenge. I hadn’t realized it never having done this before, chosen a political person to write a biography of and certainly not during the political season. It’s been really crazy because the book has been positive as some sort of primer on the electoral process for the young set, which it is not and dealt with as a political football which has been a bit disheartening and I can say, “No, no, no, this is a biography.” Because that’s what it is, it’s a biography and so yeah it’s been a bit crazy actually.
Dr. Kent: He’s such a fascinating character. His life story and then lets talk about you focus on his name, which has been such again like under scrutiny, it’s been in focus in the media. His name was Barry growing up. Talk about his change of name from Barry to Barack.
Nikki Grimes: It was a very personal decision. I mean, Barry was sort of just a nickname and when he went through a long period of time really of asking himself who he was and trying to deal with his own personal identity and realized he needed to just stake a claim for himself. He took that name as part of that process of becoming his own person of stepping away from anybody’s expectations or ideas of who he was and just claiming, well this is who I am, Barack is my name and I’m going to make it mean what I want it to. I think that was a big part of that. This is his way of naming himself and claiming who he was.
Dr. Kent: What I love about this book is at the bottom there’s this little dialogue going on about the book itself and this is not a very frequent thing used in children’s book. You’ve framed his story with a character who’s reading the story, a character who’s following along with you; David, right?
Nikki Grimes: Yes. It’s a story within a story and I chose that format because we’re writing about someone who is an adult and usually in children’s books the main character is a child. I wanted to make sure the young readers would be able to resonate with his story. So in addition to pulling out those aspects of his own childhood. I wanted to have that young perspective throughout the book. What this all must look like from a child’s eye view. That is my job as a children’s author, to always be thinking about the child’s eye view and this allowed me to do that.
Dr. Kent: So tell me the book itself is gorgeous of course and really stunning but now politically as a children’s author you are as my first guest on the show talked about, you’re a member of this national children’s book and literacy alliance. You are an African American woman; what does it feel like to be writing a book that is in the middle of this political fray and honestly its beautiful and does have impact on children in that way.
Nikki Grimes: Well thank you. I was honored just from the point of view of this is history making. I grew up at a time prior to the voting rights act and so the very possibility of an African American running for presidency on a major party ticket was not even thinkable in my generation. So to not only witness it but to be even in a small way attached to it is pretty phenomenal. I feel definitely graced to be involved with that whole process.
Dr. Kent: You’ve written so many books. What books are you working on now?
Nikki Grimes: I have a new young adult novel which I just completed, I have a new chapter book series which will launch next year and I have some work with historical novels which I’m going to research on Harriett Tubbman and Susan B. Anthony so lots of irons in the fire.
Dr. Kent: At the beginning of writing; it’s really a gift to write for children. When people pick up the book they think oh, there’s not many words here but it’s a real gift to be able to speak to children especially about a topic that’s not easy to read about, like politics. What started you out as a writer? What kind of advice did you get?
Nikki Grimes: Oh lots of advice. From my father just to develop a writer’s eye and ear at a very early age to just really take in everything that goes on around me. I’m just constantly editing; I don’t even think about it anymore. From picking up dialogue heard at a restaurant at another table to really just honing in on conversations when I have them so I can be truly in the moment and just filing those things away; dialects and dialogues in the environment in which I stand sort of things so that when I come to the page those things come forward as I need them to when I’m creating a scene or creating dialogue or fleshing out characters.
And it’s a question of practice. I mean the two things I say to young people who want to know what it takes to be a writer and you have to read, read, read and write, write, write. You can’t be a writer without first of all being a good reader and taking from all of the beautiful works of literature of the past in terms of lessons. And of course in order to write you have to practice because writing is a muscle that has to be exercised and there’s no way to just suddenly be there you have to work to get to that place and that takes a lot of practice. So read, read, read and write, write, write.
Dr. Kent: It’s been a wonderful show today because my last guest David Mendell is a biographer of Obama; he’s got a great biography. He said when he spoke with Barack Obama about his speaking ability he said practice, practice, practice. So I guess its read, read, read, write, write, write and practice, practice, practice.
Nikki Grimes: That’s right.
Dr. Kent: I’m running out of time here so I want to go back to Barack Obama. What do you feel like in this silly season? This back and forth bordering on hysterics in some of the campaign meetings. What do you feel like the American people are going through right now?
Nikki Grimes: It’s difficult and I think we’re all just one out from the campaign, the length of it and we’re on so much turmoil in terms of our financial situation. It’s not the best place in America on the whole. The drama just sort of adds to it. I think we all just want to focus on the important issues, the issues that are going to touch our lives, that are touching our lives now and will be the issues after Election Day. If we can just stay focused on that we’ll be okay.
Dr. Kent: It’s been a real honor speaking with Nikki Grimes. Her website is nikkigrimes.com. There’s some great stuff on there and if I had children I’d certainly buy all 50 books that you’ve written. The latest book is called Barack Obama: Son of Promise, Child of Hope. Its gorgeous and the story inside will surprise children and adults. When I read the book I was surprised how personal and how wonderfully soulful the story itself is. It’s not just a political posturing book, this is a book about the story of a person and it’s beautiful.
Nikki Grimes: Thank you so much.
Dr. Kent: It’s been an honor speaking with Nikki Grimes and on the show earlier today, the biographer David Mendell and of course Mary Brigid Barrett talking to us about Our White House: Looking In, Looking Out. Have a safe week; we’ll see you the next time.
October 30, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Interview with Old School Freight Train [21:20m]:
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Jesse Harper from Old School Freight Train was on the show today. About Old School Freight Train:Old School Freight Train, from Charlottesville, VA combines thought provoking lyrics with captivating melodies, soulful vocals, virtuosic instrumentals and imaginative arrangements. Blending folk, jazz, soul, pop, bluegrass, latin and celtic, OSFT offers a unique musical experience the BOSTON GLOBE claims is “the Next Big Thing” and the CHICAGO TRIBUNE claims is “accessible but uncompromising in creativity.” DAVID GRISMAN says, “After forty years of recording acoustic music, it’s not very often that a new band catches, and keeps, my attention. Old School Freight Train has done that and more.” “Shades of Jack Johnson, Ben Harper… even a kiss of Van Morrison… Old School Freight Train is off on a timeless new track blending roots and rock to create a sound that’s all their own.” - Tim Dickinson, National Affairs Correspondent, Rolling Stone
October 30, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Dr. Kent: Welcome to the show today. It’s June 6, 2008 and it’s actually been 40 years since Senator Robert Kennedy died in Los Angeles. The day after he was shot tragically. A lot of us I are thinking about Robert Kennedy now that Barack Obama is the democratic candidate. I sure hope that he stays safe because it was a real tragedy 40 years ago. It’s also just starting to feel like summer out here in New York. It’s rainy and cold today but it’s getting there. I have four guests on the show today, actually I have three guests. I’m doing something unprecedented here at sound authors and I’m going to be the fourth guest and talk about my other life as a musician and play some songs. My three guests today are Cindy Myers, Olof Ericksen, and Steven Wax. My first guest is a romance novelist. She’s going to come and clarify what romance novels are and her newest book is called A Soldier Comes Home. Welcome to the show Cindy Myers.
Cindy Myers: I’m very happy to be here today.
Dr. Kent: Tell me a little bit about A Soldier Comes Home.
Cindy Myers: A Soldier Comes Home is about a solder who gets a Dear John letter while serving in Iraq. He comes home to an empty house and a two year old son he doesn’t really know. He needs to get his life back together and he meets a young widow who’s husband was killed earlier in the war. So we have two people who are sort of casualties of the war at home who are trying to overcome that and of course being romance they fall in love and do find a way to overcome it.
Dr. Kent: Well it’s good to get into right away. Romance novels often carry the stigma of oh, you’re reading a romance novel, it’s a bit of trash; clarify that for me.
Cindy Myers: I think the people that say that haven’t really read romance novels. Romance writers tend to explore the relationships. Writers as a whole I think explore the things that interest them. So maybe a thriller writer will want to explore the mind of a killer or the psychology of fear; and maybe a mystery writer is interested in solving puzzles. So romance writers, the thing we want to delve into relationships.
Love is one of the most powerful emotions. What is it that’s so compelling about love and the experience of falling in love? Romance novels just look at that and all the different types of people fall in love and the different obstacles that might come to people who fall in love. So I think that’s the attraction of romance novels and maybe its why some people don’t understand it, maybe they’re leery of delving into that or it’s too touchy feely for them. Obviously they’re not for everyone but for me the big attraction is what is it that makes people fall in love and why is it so strong and compelling?
Dr. Kent: What was your first romance novel that you read?
Cindy Myers: My first romance that I read was A Knight in Shining Armour by Jude Deveraux. I had never read one before and a friend gave it to me to read and I was just blown away. I was intrigued by the story, I couldn’t put it down and I thought wow, I want to read more stories like that. I found it very satisfying.
Dr. Kent: Were you immediately in love with that genre?
Cindy Myers: I was. I really was. Like I said it was brand new to me, I wanted to go out and find more books that gave me that same feeling.
Dr. Kent: So how about you grew up in was it really a town called Cut and Shoot?
Cindy Myers: Yes it is; Cut and Shoot Texas.
Dr. Kent: Can you tell us more about that?
Cindy Myers: Well it’s a little small town in east Texas. It has a fire station, a post office, six churches and about six bars. It’s a real wide spot in the road but it’s a neat little town. It claims to be the same as the hometown of Roy Harris who was a doctor, who was a former Miss America.
Dr. Kent: What do folks down there in cut n shoot think about your romance novels?
Cindy Myers: Well my brother still lives there and I went to school there so I still know a lot of people there and they seem really pleased. I had a book signing there very early in my career and had a really good turn out. I think I wrote one novella that was actually set in Cut and Shoot and they seemed to get a kick out of that.
Dr. Kent: So tell me a little bit about now specifically you’ve now written a romance novel that’s not I guess its not what I’m expecting when I’m going to pick up a romance novel. Not that I actually to pick up romance novels but were I to read them and there’s many, many people that read them, why A Soldier Comes Home?
Cindy Myers: Well, the idea came to me when the Rocky Mountain News did a series of articles about soldiers in Iraq and one of the articles was about soldiers who get Dear John letters while they’re over there and I thought it was just so sad and one of the guarantees of the romance novel is a happy ending. I can’t give happy endings to all those soldiers in real life but I could do it in the pages of a book so it was sort of cathartic I guess to make things come out better than they perhaps do in real life. So that’s what really attracted me to the story.
Dr. Kent: What in the story, how do you develop a character as opposed to I guess a non-romance novel. How do you develop a character, build conflict and then of course like you said romance novels always end well because that’s something that your readers actually entrust in you to do. Tell me a little about the form.
Cindy Myers: The focus of the romance novel is on relationships. So you look at the characters as how the relationship affects them. You develop a character just like you would in any other genre. They have problems that they need to overcome, but the focus is on how is love or their love interest helping them to overcome those problems. You have to avoid having someone fix them or an outside character come in and fix the problem.
The character still has to resolve their conflict themselves but the love interest helps them to see the conflict in a different way or gives them a different perspective or having this other person love them, giving them the confidence to say something. So it’s all about how the romantic relationship impacts them as a person.
Dr. Kent: Also in your biography you said you met your husband on a blind date and you were engaged after six weeks.
Cindy Myers: Yes.
Dr. Kent: Do you live a romance novel?
Cindy Myers: That’s very true; yes I have my own romance novel. I can say that I believe in love at first sight because it was pretty much that way for us. We have been married 29 years in December so it definitely took.
Dr. Kent: Through those 29 years of marriage was there ever a point when you said no, this isn’t really exactly like a romance novel?
Cindy Myers: Well of course real life isn’t like a romance novel in that it’s much longer and so you have lots of ups and downs but the basic love is there I mean, we’ve been very lucky. And I do think luck plays a certain point in it. I can say that my own relationship has inspired me to write about love.
Dr. Kent: So when you connect to your readers, there’s a lot of different readers that pick these books up because we’re talking about books that are in CVS Pharmacy, they’re in Wal-Mart, they’re in anywhere anyone goes. People pick them up and read them on vacation or they read them after a breakup or when they’re in a good relationship, so what kind of responses do you get from your readers?
Cindy Myers: It’s really interesting. I get lots of responses from readers and its amazing how many people will write and say oh this story is just like my relationship with my husband. Or, we had the same kind of problem and it’s really good to see people overcoming them. I’m really surprised by that and I love to get letters from people who aren’t in a romantic relationship who say I really enjoy reading this because I’m hoping to find that kind of relationship one day. I get people who are in relationships and people who aren’t.
Dr. Kent: What I find fascinating is your books have been translated into gosh, how many languages? Ten languages? Let’s say there’s someone in Japan or Korea or Holland who has a relationship and they read this book. How do they connect to the story?
Cindy Myers: I’m not sure. I don’t get very many foreign reader letters possibly because of the language barrier but they must be very popular because the books sell overseas in all kinds of countries. So I’m thinking that love is one of those universal emotions.
Dr. Kent: Have you ever thought of writing a Greek or Japanese romance?
Cindy Myers: I did write a series that had Greek characters in it. It was actually set on a cruise ship so it was very international and the two main characters were Greek. I haven’t written any Japanese characters but I might one day.
Dr. Kent: What projects are you working on? You’ve obviously been well published; you can do many different things if you want. What are you working on?
Cindy Myers: I have another three more books coming out this year and I’m writing books for next year. More romances; I’m working on one right now; actually I just finished it up. Sarah is a 40 year old single mom who’s pregnant for the first time and the dad is a single dad who’s trying to get custody of his daughter. He lost it and is trying to get it back so they’re dealing with those issues and that was really interesting to explore.
Dr. Kent: Very interesting. And you have a background in not just novel writing but you’ve also done all sorts of freelance work, correct? Newspapers?
Cindy Myers: Right, I wrote for a newspaper and magazine for a number of years. I did a lot of medical articles, travel articles, history articles.
Dr. Kent: Do you like romance the best?
Cindy Myers: I do, because you get to create your own world and I think that’s a real attraction of fiction. You have control over the characters, creating that world and going where it interests you whereas a freelancer you’re really bound by what topics your magazine is looking for and also it’s a constantly looking for work. At least a book lasts a little bit longer.
Dr. Kent: Tell us where we can find all of your books. I know your website cindymyers.com and in stores. But give us some more information.
Cindy Myers: You can also go to e-harlequin.com. They’re actually running a free novella that’s connected to A Soldier Comes Home and you can download that and read it for free to kind of get a taste of what the book is like. I have a MySpace page, so I’m all over the web.
Dr. Kent: We’ll keep in touch with you and we’ll see what your next project is. Three books this year; keep up the work and I wish you all the best.
Cindy Myers: Thank you for having me on the show today.
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