Raymond Benson, Author of the James Bond Anthology & Dark Side of the Morgue

June 8, 2009 | Leave a Comment

Dr. Kent: Welcome to Sound Authors. It’s starting to be Spring out here in New York; it’s very pleasant to see. We have 4 guests on the show today; 3 authors and 1 musician as always at the end of the show. We have the Lovell Sisters, who are doing very quite well, in the field of Bluegrass. They have a charming and skill sound about them, virtuosos on their instruments. I’ll be happy to chat with them at the end of the show. I’ve got 3 authors on, Paul Doyle, the author of Hot Shots & Heavy Hits. I’ll talk to him about the undercover drug world. At 3:30, we’re going to chat with Jeremy Robinson, who is the author of Antarktos Rising. The fascinating book he’s put together. At the beginning of the show, my pleasure to have on the show, Raymond Benson. He’s the author of a whole bunch of things including the James Bond Anthology that just came out. We’ve had him on the show before and we’re also going to chat with him on his brand new novel, Dark Side of the Morgue, a Rock ‘n Roll thriller. Welcome to the show Raymond Benson.

Raymond Benson: Hello Dr. Kent, How are you?

Dr. Kent: Very Good. Tell me about this new novel.

Raymond Benson: Well Dark Side of the Morgue is the second book in a series, featuring a Rock ‘n Roll detective named Spike Berenger. He’s a private eye. He works in the Rock ‘n Roll business. He is based in New York. The first book came out last year, took place in New York. The second book Dark Side of the Morgue just came out and this one takes place in Chicago. And lots of humor and music references. And cameo appearances by real rock stars. And sex drugs and Rock ‘n Roll. What more could you ask for?

Dr. Kent: Huh. True, true of that. Well tell me about the process of putting together this series, as well you know we talked about in past putting together the James Bond series. What do you do, when you have a character in your brain and you have to get him out?

Raymond Benson: Well Spike Beringer is really pretty much a lot like me. I’m a big classic rock fan myself and I’m a musician. I put a lot of myself into this guy, although he doesn’t look like me anyway. He plays guitar and I play piano, so there’s those differences.  He comes from Texas and which I do too. I lived in New York City for a long time as well. A lot of his taste in music and food and philosophies in life are very similar of mine. When I first got the idea for the series, it was mainly to come up with something commercial, that hopefully for people like music and like to read might latch onto.

Dr. Kent: And tell me about the first book in the series, and this is the second, and where is it going from here?

Raymond Benson: Hard Day’s Death was Spike’s first adventure. He is investigating the murder of a famous rock star in New York. It seems like he has too many suspects; the guy’s family, a many sons, and all ex-wives, ex-band members. And all this stuff, so he has to investigate that. In the new one I capitalized on the legendary aggressive rock school of music, that came out for the late 60’s, early 70’s. Guys like Sloth Machine and Jethro Tull, Yes, Gentle Giant. There’s like a family tree of these kind of musicians, and I invented a fictional one for the city of Chicago, with all these fans date back to 60’s. And one by one each member is being bumped off by some mysterious killer. So there is some common link between all these people, and Spike has to figure it out. I should add these books my tongue is firmly in cheek. Instead of Table of Contents, I have a track listing. So every chapter, name of a song. Instead of the acknowledgement, I have liner notes. So the book you can play the book

Dr. Kent: Wonderful, and tell me when you write book like this, compared to all the other books you’ve written. Do you have more fun with it, because you can bring in that side of you, the musical side?

Raymond Benson: Yes, its a lot more fun in any of my own original books, are more fun than when I’m writing for a franchise like James Bond for example. Or I’ve done some other tie in work, like last year I wrote the novelization of popular video game, Metal Gear Solid. And I’ll have a sequel coming out later this year. I wrote for Tom Clancy’s. I did a couple of his spin off series, The Splinter Cell 2 of Splinter Cell books. I kind of had my hand in the tie info world, which was for bread and butter money. Then I had my own original thrillers and novels that’s you know more personal.

Dr. Kent: Tell me actually as always, you know I’m very curious how is it to write for these other franchises. What is the whole process? What do they have you do? What kind of feedback do you give them? What’s the whole process like?

Raymond Benson: Well, it really depends on the franchise itself. With James Bond, I was approached in the mid 90’s by the Ian Fleming estates, to take over the original books continuation novels from John Gardner. Who been writing the books before me. I guess I got the job base on a nonfiction book that I wrote in the 80’s, call the James Bond Bedside Compaign. Which is everything you ever wanted to know about 007, type of coffee table book. And with that, I had full freedom basically the original stories that I came up with, they just had to approve them first. I had to write them in an outline. They gave me the green light, afterwards I wrote the rest of the books. Then I would also do novelizations of the movies that were coming out at that time that weren’t based on books. The later Pierce Brosnan films. Those were original screenplays to begin with, so they gave me a screenplay and I had to turn into novels.

And in those cases since I was king of working for the film company, instead of the Fleming estate, I had to stay pretty close to the script. I was able to embellish after a few of the scenes and add to it because you put a screenplay into pros, you’re about 30,000 words short. So I was able to actually invest some things and try to explain some of their complicated plots.

With Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell, that’s based on a video game. I was basically given the characters and was allowed to come up with my own stories featuring the characters that were in that video game. With Metal Gear Solid, they wanted an actual novelization of the actual game story, so I had to stick very, very close to that. So it really depends on who you’re working for, and how much freedom you have, and what you’re allowed to add.

Dr. Kent: And I know I’ve asked you something similar to this in our last interview, but with fascination of most the listeners with writing for James Bond. Did you ever sort of start to dream like James Bond? Did you ever wake up in the morning think I’m James Bond? Did you ever just slip inside that character?

Raymond Benson: *Chuckling* I went to all the locations that I wrote about. I would walk in Bond’s footsteps and stay in the hotels I put him in and order the food I’d give him on a plate. I would it important for a writer, especially with the Bond books; you they are kind of like travel logs in a way. They go to exotic locations and teach the reader about that country and that culture. So, um, yeah, I did that, but I’d never jump out of an airplane with out parachute, or get into fights with scary looking guys, and unfortunately, I didn’t get to bed a lot of women that way either.

*Both Dr. Kent and Raymond Benson have a chuckle. * I’m married. You know Bond was very much a wishful film of Ian Fleming. He was the guy, Ian Fleming, wanted to be. So I just had to basically dig into the characters and try to capture the spirit of Ian Fleming. But no I don’t ever wish to be James Bond. I don’t have a high tolerance for pain.

Dr. Kent: And when you talked about when you wrote about like when you wrote about the jumping out of airplanes, this and that, and what was your research for like that stuff? Where did you find your information?

Raymond Benson: Well as writers, we always cultivate a notebook full of resources of people in various professions, that we can contract when we have a question. For instance, I have a military guy I always go to about hardware and weaponry and military stuff. I have contacts in different government agencies. I have contacts in the medical profession. So its pretty easy to find someone when you’re a writer, put their name in the acknowledgement, not hard to find someone to talk to you and give you information like that.

Dr. Kent: Hmmm, and what’s your next project, are you writing a third book in the music trilogy here?

Raymond Benson: Well, I would like to, but the publisher is on a wait and see basis. To see how this one does. If it goes ok, I’m sure I’ll do a third one. If not, I’ll just move onto something else. This is what we writers do; we’re constantly trying to turn stuff out. My next published book, will be the sequel to Solid Metal Gear. It comes out in the Fall, it’s Solid Metal Gear 2: Sons of Liberty. And the next Spring, the late Spring, I got another Anthology of my James Bond work coming out. The one that you mentioned, the union trilogy, its contained 3 of my novels and a short story that was out right before Christmas. The next anthology will have the other 3 novels and some more short stories. I’m also working on with publisher, Hard Case Crime, on a series of Hope Adventures, featuring a character named Gabrielle Hunt. Kind of an Indiana Jones type guy, and there is going to be six books in the series. Different authors writing each book, and I’ve done the sixth book and final one. My issue will probably come out in 2010.

Dr. Kent: You’re a hard working writer. How do you wake up each morning? Say, ok what’s the number one priority book I’m working on or what’s your process with that?

Raymond Benson: Its juggling a lot of things at once. Its, we authors also have to do their own promotion and everything else. We keep websites, facebook, myspace up. I spend certain amount of time morning, kind of maintaining all my various promotional sites. I spend afternoon usually working on the books themselves, and it kind of depends on what phase of the book I’m in, whether outline writing or conceptual phase dictates what I do that particular day. If I got more than one book going at once, then sure the one I have to finish first is the one I work on with the priority sometimes. I worked on three books at once

Dr. Kent: Now as a kid, would you have a thought you’d be a authoring these James Bond books and all these other thrillers and so on?

Raymond Benson: Never, in fact I was a huge James Bond fan as a child growing up. I grew up with Sean Connery movies. So you know, I never in a million years even thought, I was even allowed to even dream of doing that. In many ways, it fell into my lap. Wasn’t that I even thought it out, it just came to me. Which was a miracle in itself. As far as when I was a kid, I never thought I’d be a writer. I always thought I was going to be in theatre. I studied in college; I was a theatre major. I did spend over a decade in New York City, in the off Off-Broadway scene, as face director and as music director. I’m a film historian, as well, I teach film history at one of the local colleges outside Chicago. So the writing thing just happened, but I’m glad it did.

Dr. Kent: Well its been real pleasure chatting with you again, and I hope I’ll chat with you next time down the road when another one of these comes out. And we can find out more about Raymond Benson, on his website at raymondbenson.com. You can sign up for anyone of those social networking things he was talking about, and a list of all the books are there, and where to buy them and all that stuff. Anything else I’m forgetting?

Raymond Benson: No, you pretty much covered it all. I really appreciate you having me on your program.

Dr. Kent: Alright, well you be well and can’t wait to see the next books come out.

Raymond Benson: Ok. Thanks a lot.

Dr. Kent: We’ve been chatting with Raymond Benson, his website is raymondbenson.com. The author of a ton of James Bond stuff, and his newest book is called Dark Side of the Morgue and a Rock ‘n Roll thriller. Lets all go out and buy that, so he’ll write the third book in that series.

Ok, the next guest on my show is going to be Paul Doyle. He’s got a book called Hot Shots and Heavy Hits, talking about the undercover drug world come on back for that.

Posted by admin | Filed Under History, TRANSCRIPTS, Fiction, AUTHOR INTERVIEW, PODCAST 

Paul Doyle, Author of Hot Shots and Heavy Hits, Special Agent in Bureau of Narcotics

June 7, 2009 | Leave a Comment

Dr. Kent: Welcome back to Sound Authors. My next guest on the show is Paul E Doyle. He served as a Special Agent, in the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs and also in the Drug Enforcement Administration. His book is called Hot Shots and Heavy Hit. Tales of an undercover drug agent. Can’t wait to chat about this book. Welcome to the show Paul E Doyle.

Paul Doyle: Hi, Good Afternoon Dr Kent. It’s a pleasure for me to be here a chance to talk with people who like writing and reading its good. So Thank You for having me on your show and letting me talk to your audience.

Dr Kent: Absolutely, so tell me about this book and your life in crime.

Paul Doyle: Well basically in a nutshell my book Hot Shots and Heavy Hits is my memoirs about my experiences as an undercover agent in the DEA in the 1970’s and that kind of sums it up. Its my particular story, I tell in first person its more of a worms eye view of a the everyday life of an undercover agent. And although its my story and my book it runs with every cop in the world who works undercover I get so much feedback one of the first promotions we did was in the DEA has an exhibit in Times Square and I spoke about the book, sold book over number months. And I get feedback from police officers all over the world actually who told me I hit it right on the head and of course speaking to audiences I also very happy to hear from people in recovery people in 12 grams have been addicted tell me you’ve hit this right you’ve nailed it Paul described it the heroin overdose and heroin highs being in these drug dens. You’ve told it like we’ve never seen it before so realistic, so I feel very good about that. It think its one story needed to be told. People often would ask me about my fears because I never talked about it. What I did I never couldn’t do a lot of things but basically I worked undercover in the Irish law of Boston. Familiar names with people like Whitey Bulger. I worked undercover with Italian Mob the Cosa Nostra, the Chinese Mob which is tong young tongs. Outlaw motorcycle gang and South American drug cartels. So I got wide range of experience in all these areas kind of begging to be told especially with people with whats going on and I got a chance to do this in I feel very good since the book been published. I’m working on a novel now based on a lot of these things.

Dr. Kent: What is the world you know you dropped all these things about the mobs and this world and that world. I most of us what we seen on CSI New York or on these television shows we seen about it. Tell us how realistic is this stuff. What was the real world like doing this work?

Paul Doyle: Its actually care, I’m glad you asked that it’s a lot of these programs very interesting very realistic to a point, but you never look down the barrel of a gun. AS I have many other officers and undercover agents have you really can’t get a get understand. I think that’s where I had the benefit of writing a book first hand. Other words I can tell you exactly what I was feeling thinking and what the other guy looked like and how a deal proceeded. And now what happened to very action packed story lot of fights, lot shooting, a lot of action, lot of drug undercover buys, and not all these actions. One of the others things people commented on my book for example Anita Shreve, she’s on the cover of my book, she writes the tight rope walk bet good and evil confronting violence from without and within and having to make spontaneous life or death decisions that seem light years away from that beautiful wife and baby nights called home. I’m proud I was able to convey that to someone like Anita Shreve, who writes in a totally in his mind but yet enjoyed the book and turn on tell audiences about it. So that’s one plain, Frank McCord initially I was tell about you and I known Frank and Penelope for number of years been. I feel like they’ve been more less very kind to me and adopted me into their family. I enjoyed it like to get with them on a regular basis, but basically my writing is to be as to be expected hot and direct except love and good humor and deep feelings unfortunate of the world and in my writing from my point of view as an agent. I’m not just a cop with search warrant locking these people up I’m literal with these people. I understand their feelings I understand whats good and bad about them what went wrong I look at addicts and junkies I saw the sorrow and sadness in the eyes in the mothers and fathers who lost their kids to drugs. I saw things first hand and as result I’m able to tell the big picture in a way most authors could never do. Unfortunate a lot of cops can’t because they’ve haven’t they didn’t sit down and write their stories in times not able to put into words I’m fortunate since I did this I discover I did have a gift for words in a way that some people don’t have so.

Dr. Kent: What I’m most fascinated about what you just talked about where Anita Shreve where she talks about where you being out in the middle of this violent world doing these crazy things from what we see in from what we see in reality this crazy stuff and then you come home to your children and your wife. For a lot of cops it is kind of the same thing kind of dangerous profession and after dealing with all this aggression you come home and you’re with your family. Talk about that for a minute.

Paul Doyle: Well most people don’t realize in today’s world of the undercover agent not only men but women working undercover. So I you stars in family your doing this kind of work they play such a great role its very very difficult from their other half going off to a completely different world and maybe not hearing from them for weeks or months at a time. Assuming different identities and facing the kind of danger they feel that they face while their sitting at home, not knowing exactly what’s going on. It’s quite strenuous on the family. I’m very fortunate I had I’ve been back to the same girl I met in High School and we’ve been married for 40 years I have 4 children that have grown up. One just going off to college. One married to a marine fighter pilot, she has 6 children. My other daughter married Christian, she has 1 child and then I have to thank my wife for what she’s done and sacrifices she faced and my children’s made. Growing up they didn’t know what I did and that’s part of the reason I wrote the book. That’s why I wrote the book not that I go off on tangent if I may. People always ask me How did you, What made you write why did you write this book? And if I can say it this was ground zero right after the attacks with NYPD on the search and rescue team. I cam home my wife asked me what it was like I couldn’t even explain what it was like so I said let me sit down and write some of my thoughts and I did. She read them and she started to cry and each of my daughters read same thing. Eventually what I wrote was made into an article and was in four national magazines that I get high praise for that depiction of what I saw and what I witnessed death and destruction. That point I decided after all these years undercover that I got to write something about that because at the on the pile with all the fires raging around in dark I think of only days prior to thousands of people alive and their dead now it dawned on me for the first time in my entire life that I had been a paratrooper or I’d been a drug agent and survived all these incidents this could happen to me. I could be dead in a minute then what would happen my kids; my wife would have no idea what I did. That’s when I thought about maybe putting that on paper some day and eventually I did and that’s what happened with the book.

Dr. Kent: And Tell

Paul Doyle: I hope I didn’t go to far.

Dr. Kent: No No I could talk to you for days about all these things but tell us a store out of this book kind of briefly like what’s a small world into this Hot Shots and Heavy Hits?

Paul Doyle: You know its starts off a young agent coming out of the narcotics academy and going to an office. And how it begins my first pot day on street. How we go on a raid and how they have me kick the door in because I’m the young new guy. I go on a heroin raid later on in night. Eventually the first experience I had was a textbook case with as federal agent you want to go up the ladder. What I did was I get these University of Boston by small amounts of cocaine ounce for like $2,000 I eventually with this case I brought it up to the level where first federal case first time crime figure Mafia figure. I was involved in this so I write it all in the book. Hand to hand sale bought sold so many chills cocaine that was big for a number of reasons. Number 1 I remember walking to the federal building in handcuffs and I said to him listen to Joe your our help yourself in drug school they teach to that to get people to cooperate and get information how police survive. He stop looked at me said kid let me tell you something I made the biggest mistake of my life today he said don’t ask me no questions I can’t tell you anything. He says I’m in enough trouble as it is. I tried that because he was the first guy who ever said that to me. He was the only guy in my entire career who never cooperated. He didn’t’ tell me a thing. In those days it was omit code of silence they wouldn’t talk. This particular fellow looked like someone’s uncle that turns out he had a reputation they called him the man who got away with murder because the last time he went on trial. He had one witness against him. Days before the trial a witness disappeared and they found the witness in the trunk of his own car with his hands tied behind his back, hog tied, his private parts in his mouth and pins in his eyes and that’s omerita that the code of silence in the work it out don’t mess with this guy. The young narcotic agent and I locked him up so that’s one of the one of the quick stories. My I guess time for another quick one?

Dr. Kent: What’s that?

Paul Doyle: Hello? Do I have time for another quick story?

Dr. Kent: Yes Please.

Paul Doyle: Ok there purest white heroin was coming into Washington early 70’s from Hong Kong Shanghai, it was called China White. WE couldn’t do anything about it. They was spreading it all over the country they were distributing it to all over out to Portland Maine. We couldn’t break it because we couldn’t understand the code. We had wire taps but so many different dialects the Chinese wouldn’t deal with anybody and then got a call from a Boston Police Officer who had arrested a hooker a young hooker from HighO housing project one of the projects that I’d grown up in. She was not only a heroin addict but she was in the house one of the Chinese geos. She offered to bring someone in. I was elected the guy; my new assignment for the next 6 months was nighttime in Boston’s combat zone China town area as a pimp. I established myself in eventually hand to hand by heroin from the heroin geos and we brought them down that’s another quick stories kind of things we did on a regular basis. You know assuming different things and story talks cases my book talks about cases all over from Boston to quite a few New York City and up to San Francisco. From most my expertise was from heroin and cocaine. I also brought down a LSD laboratory in San Francisco big in 70’s.

Dr. Kent: And now your own, we only have couple minutes left but your own background.

Paul Doyle: Ok.

Dr. Kent: I want to talk about that for a second because your story growing up in a tough part of Boston. Talk about that for a minute.

Paul Doyle: Sorry. I was an orphan at birth. I was adopted when I was 5 by the time I was 12 I’d lived in a dozen different places mostly housing projects and changed schools many times sometimes twice in one year, so its not hard to figure out why I gravitated to boxing. I was an amateur boxer I became the 1967 I was Heavyweight Champ. I got scholarship to Rockford Watkins University. I was about a graduate and was going to turn pro and the biggest tragedy of my life; my younger brother was killed in Vietnam. I put a stop to that sent me off in a new direction I joined the military. I served with second infantry division ten Special Forces. Then eventually I took an interview and started with the DEA this was a time when this was the 60’s and 70’s. Drugs, sex, Rock ‘n Roll time we were inundated with drugs and its what happening at the time so I wanted to be a part of it it. I wanted to do some good I was altruistic and that why I did what I did. So that’s basically it.

Dr. Kent: This been a real honor chatting with Paul Doyle and we’ll have to have you on again. This is a fun conversation I could talk to you along time about this stuff.

Paul Doyle: The honor was mine. Thank You.

Dr. Kent: The book is called Hot Shots & Heavy Hits tales of an undercover drug agent by Paul E Doyle. You can visit his website.

Paul Doyle: Thank You.

Dr. Kent: Website at pauledoyle.com. Thank You so much we’ll chat with you again soon.

Paul Doyle: Thank You very much Doc.

Dr. Kent: Alright we’ll be back after a little break with the third guest on the show his name is Jeremy Robinson. Come on back for that.

Posted by admin | Filed Under History, TRANSCRIPTS, AUTHOR INTERVIEW, PODCAST 

Mark K. Updegrove, Author of Baptism by Fire: Eight Presidents Who Took Office in Times of Crisis

June 3, 2009 | Leave a Comment

Dr. Kent: Welcome back to Sound Authors.  My next guest on the show is Mark K. Updegrove, and his book came out on St. Martin’s Press in January, and it’s called Baptism by Fire: Eight Presidents Who Took Office In Times of Crisis.  And that really couldn’t be a better title for right now, Baptism by Fire. So hopefully we’ll talk a little bit about our current president.  Welcome to the show, Mark Updegrove.

Mark K. Updegrove:  Well, thanks so much for having me.

Dr. Kent:  So tell me about this, I was just watching in the news Obama meeting the foreign heads of state, and it’s a great place to start talking about your book Baptism by Fire. Has he been baptized?

Mark K. Updegrove:  Well, yeah, I think on day one. Yeah, he came in, like the presidents I covered, into a time of unprecedented crisis, and I think he’s been immersed in the task at hand ever since. This is not a quiet time. But the good news for Obama is that times like this require great leadership, and he has an opportunity to make for himself a great place in history if he succeeds in combating the formidable challenge that he faces.

Dr. Kent:  Tell me about your book.  Eight presidents – which eight presidents took office in times of crisis?

Mark K. Updegrove:  Well, it’s George Washington, number one, Washington was of course our first president and had to contend with, really the presidency itself had never been filled by any man.  He had to sort of define what that role meant and preside over a very fragile, fledgling nation.  I think he did an admirable job of it.  The second was Thomas Jefferson, who was the first president to sit in the white house, went when there was a two-party split, a two-party schism in the country. It was probably the most contentious election, between him and the candidate for the Republicans, and John Adams, the candidate for the Federalist Party, in the history of this country, far worse than any election we’ve seen since, in my opinion.  The third is John Tyler, who was the first Vice President to assume the presidency upon the death of an incumbent, which he did 30 days into the tenure of William Henry Harrison, who died of pneumonia.  So the constitution was relatively ambiguous on what that meant. Was Tyler the actual President, or sort of the acting President, or a surrogate?  And he had to sort of define what that meant.  Abraham Lincoln for obvious reasons, presiding over the country at the outbreak of civil war. Franklin Roosevelt for other reasons that are, I think, pretty obvious.  He took office during the depths of the Great Depression.  Harry Truman, who assumed office after the death of Roosevelt in the end of the second World War. John F. Kennedy, who took office at the height of the Cold War, and Gerald Ford, who was the first President not to be elected by the national electorate, but rather to be appointed by the 25th amendment to the constitution.  So those are the eight.

Dr. Kent:  What propelled you towards thinking about the Presidents in this way? It’s fascinating, how did you get started with this notion?

Mark K. Updegrove:  You know, I assumed that our 44th President, I didn’t know that it would be Barrack Obama at the time, would be himself faced, or herself faced, because Hillary Clinton was running at the time as well, faced with unprecedented crises.  We were in unfinished wars, almost quagmires in Iraq and Afghanistan.  The economy was starting to founder a bit, and our stature abroad was at a low point during the George W. Bush years.  So those were definitely going to be crises that the 44th President would have to address.  I didn’t anticipate that the economic crisis would become as heightened as it’s been, so that’s clearly the number one thing, the number one challenge on the plate of Barrack Obama.

Dr. Kent:  Talk for a second about your personal interest in presidents. Fun facts about presidents can kind of be the life of any party, there’s no question.  But how did you start with your research on presidents?

Mark K. Updegrove:  I’ve always been fascinated in the presidency. When I was at Time Magazine I got to know a couple of them.  I got to know Gerald Ford pretty well, and the elder George Bush. I’d met Clinton, met Carter, and I wrote my first book based on a story which I don’t think has been told until my book, which is the notion of what a President does after he leaves office.  I don’t think that those stories have been told, and they’re fascinating human dramas, about what you do after you leave the most powerful position in the world.  Where you go from there? So I began to write Second Acts, based on that premise.  And Second Acts covered the lives of nine presidents after they left office, from Harry Truman through Bill Clinton. And each of those stories is really different, and I think is as revealing of the character of those men, as anything that they did in office, in many respects.  So again, I think that they’re sort of inherently interesting human dramas as well.  It’s something that we can all relate to when we’re going through transitions in our own life.

Dr. Kent:  Actually, can you speak as the author of Second Acts: Presidential Lives and Legacies after the White House, you know I have to ask you about George Bush and his legacy right now. People are talking about ok, now he’s writing his book, but his wife is the one who got the big contract for books.  What’s your take on his legacy?

Mark K. Updegrove:  Well, it’s a good question, and one that I don’t think can be answered until we see the forest for the trees.  We need a little perspective on the George W. Bush years.  I can say this, I don’t think it looks particularly good, regardless of whether we get some objectivity in looking at the George W. Bush years.  I think a lot of his legacy stakes on what happens in Iraq and Afghanistan to a lesser extent, and the culpability that we can assign to him around the financial crisis.  Again, I think we’re going to need a little objectivity on all those things. But even if it comes out better than we think at this point, I still don’t think that history is going to look favorably upon him. It might mitigate what we think of Bush right now, but I don’t think his will be looked at favorably.  I don’t think there are many listeners who would probably disagree with that.

Dr. Kent:  How about, for example, Bill Clinton, who kind of left office in a hailstorm, but now is still beloved in a lot of ways.  Do presidents sort of change personality and change tactics once they get out of office?

Mark K. Updegrove:  Not that they chance necessarily, but I think our appreciation for them normally gets greater.  I’ll give you an example of that. Harry Truman was a president who left with a very unfavorable rating among the public.  I think his approval rating was about 31%.  He was thought to be, by and large, a failed president by many Americans. But about ten years later, when historians were assessing his legacy, they realized that he was a near great president, or maybe some might consider him a great president.  There are very few historians who would have rendered that same assessment a week or two after he left office. So again, with objectivity we began to appreciate the trials that Harry Truman went through and the character it took to make some of the tough decisions of his presidency.  Now, Richard Nixon is another is another story.  Nixon left (inaudible), with the state of Watergate on his hands and went into exile for a period of about four years, but after that time he realized I want to get out there in the world, I want to do something for my country in the area that I’ve most been inspired by as a public servant.  And that is foreign policy. And despite this virulent opinion that folks had of him at that time, he got back into the arena and remarkably made a difference in the area of foreign policy. So like Nixon or not, you have to respect the fact that he went out there and really tried to do something for his country.  And when he was buried 20 years after leaving the White House in disgrace, in 1994, he was remembered as much as an elder statesman, or a respected statesman, as he was a former president.

Dr. Kent:  That’s very true.  Ok, let’s get back to your book, Baptism by Fire.  I’m so intrigued by this, because never until now have I sort of observed how, you step into the office on January 20th, and everyone was on Obama’s side this year. I heard people left and right and everywhere supporting him, and all of a sudden it was just everything hit the fan, and he was off to the races.  And of course people are saying oh, he’s doing too much, speak to how Obama’s done this past couple months.

Mark K. Updegrove:  I think he’s done pretty well on balance.  I just read an Op Ed tease on this, but I think the one thing I like about Obama is, you hear the nickname No Drama Obama in his campaign, and his equanimity, that utter coolness that he showed in the campaign is going to help him enormously in his role as president, particularly given the times he faces.  So I think on balance he struck the right message. We saw him do that sort of marathon race through the media, the very fragmented media world, sounding his message, which I think struck the right balance between pragmatism and hope.  He is not the ebullient cheerleader that FDR was, but I do think he’s staved off panic at a time when people are deeply concerned about the economy and our future. So I think he’s done a really admirable job, and I think the other thing you have to look at is, how has he done in translating the popularity that you talked about into and acting in his agenda? And he’s gotten this gargantuan stimulus package through Congress.  And that’s no mean feat given its proportions and its implications.  He’s also slipped health care reform in there, something no president has even tried since Clinton attempted it back in 1993 in his rookie year in the presidency, and that was something that failed miserably.  I think if you look at how he did in the G20 summit this week, I think he plays very well on the foreign stage.  You could see foreign leaders trying to cozy up to Obama for photo ops, given his enormous popularity, and I think he can help to darn the holes in America’s tattered reputation abroad in the wake of the device of George W. Bush years.  At the same time, many foreign countries aren’t stepping up to the plate as far as stimulus goes, something the President very much wanted.  So it remains to be seen if he can translate his influence abroad into getting their buy-in on what we can do together to solve this global financial crisis.

Dr. Kent:  Well, it’s been such a pleasure chatting with you.  Tell us what your next project is.

Mark K. Updegrove:  You know, I don’t know yet, I’m still thinking about some things. I started a novel, which I’ve been toying with in the last couple of years.  But I would like to continue to focus on the presidency, and in particular I’d like to continue this conversation in book form, in the sense that I’d like to cover Obama’s years in the presidency, because as we both know he has these formidable challenges, and I think that’ll make a fascinating book.

Dr. Kent:  Absolutely.  Here’s a good question for you, as someone who works with authors all the time, and this and that, I can’t read a book in the same way, I see all the flaws, and this and that.  And musicians, once they do a ton of music, they can’t listen to music in the same way. Are you the same way with the presidency?

Mark K. Updegrove:  You know, it’s such a vast subject that I find it continually fascinating.  To your point, I see the flaws in certain books, and what I’m very conscious of as a historian is getting it right, because I know that other historians will be looking at my book, formulating their own opinions based on it and others.  So I think you put pressure on yourself of being accurate, and for being fair in your assessments of the presidencies and the men you’re covering.  But I think I’ll continue to be interested in reading what other people say about the presidency, and I think the balanced historians do a pretty good job.

Dr. Kent:  Did you put your hat in the ring to be an advisor to the new president?

Mark K. Updegrove:  I would be honored to serve at the pleasure of the President if the phone rang. I did send him a copy of my book, and I know that George W. Bush read my last book, Second Acts, and was kind enough to send me a hand-written letter, but I have not heard from Obama, but assuredly if he asked me for my advice, I will do anything I can to help him succeed, I know we all would.

Dr. Kent:  And I think he would appreciate the title of the book and the premise.  I guarantee that he feels the concept the Baptism by Fire going on.

Mark K. Updegrove:  No question about it.

Dr. Kent:  Well, it’s been such a pleasure chatting with Mark K. Updegrove, and he’s the author of Baptism by Fire. Thank you so much.

Mark K. Updegrove:  Thank you so much for having me.

Dr. Kent:  My next guest on the show will be Mark David Gerson, and we’ll talk to him in just a minute.

Posted by admin | Filed Under History, TRANSCRIPTS, Politics, AUTHOR INTERVIEW, PODCAST 

Kathryn Lasky, Author of One Beetle Too Many: The Extraordinary Adventures of Charles Darwin

June 2, 2009 | Leave a Comment

Dr. Kent:  Welcome to Sound Authors!  Today is a stormy day in New York, there’s thunder and lightening all around.  It’s a great day for being on the radio.  I have four guests on the show today, three authors and one musician, as always. At the end of the show will be musician Janet Paschal, and she’s got a new album out called Treasure.  Before that I’ve got three authors, I’ve got Mark David Gerson, and he’s got a book that’s in the fantasy fiction category, and I’d love to talk to him about that.  Mark Updegrove is a former Newsweek editor, and I’ll be talking with him about Baptism by Fire: Eight Presidents Who Took Office in Times of Crisis, and of course that applies today.  And my first guest on the show is Kathryn Lasky, and she’s a children’s author.  And without further ado, I’d love to chat with her, she’s on the line right now.  Welcome to the show, Kathryn.

Kathryn Lasky:  Oh, thank you.  Happy to be on the line!

Dr. Kent:  You’re the author of One Beetle Too Many.  Tell us about this book.

Kathryn Lasky:  Well, the full title is One Beetle Too Many: The Extraordinary Adventures of Charles Darwin.  So it’s basically what we call, in the children’s publishing world, a picture biography, which means it’s illustrated, and it’s 48 pages.  But it looks like a big picture book.  It is about the life of Charles Darwin.

Dr. Kent:  Just to get the fun stuff out of the way, first of all, are you running into anybody saying, “How could you do a biography of Charles Darwin?”

Kathryn Lasky:  No, everybody’s saying, “That’s a good idea! It’s the anniversary of his birthday, 300 years.

Dr. Kent:  That’s wonderful.  I think there’s so much talk in the media about creationism versus all of that stuff.  It’s neat to get to know Charles Darwin for what he really was, which is pretty extraordinary.  Now tell us about Mr. Darwin.

Kathryn Lasky:  Well, I decided to especially focus on the aspects of him, his personality, and his career that I thought would really appeal to children.  So first let’s begin with the title, One Beetle Too Many.  When Charles Darwin was a young boy, he wasn’t a very good student, actually.  But he did love observing nature, and going out and collecting things, like beetles. One expedition, this is just in the countryside around his home in England, he found one, he loved beetles, and he found one that was gorgeous.  And he had it in his left hand, and it was even more beautiful, and he had it in his right hand.  And then he saw a third, and he didn’t have a third hand.  So he popped the one from his right hand into his mouth and held it there, and then got the third one and went running home to put them in jars.  So that’s the title, and it’s sort of very indicative of his personality, and his enthusiasm.  He did try a few careers, but he did not succeed, well, studying for a few careers.  He studied to be a doctor, and couldn’t stand the sight of blood.  His father thought well, he should be a clergyman, but he didn’t like that much, but he was a fantastic observer of nature, and then he got his big break, which was to go as the naturalist on The Voyage of the Beagle.

Dr. Kent:  How cool is that.  Now, have you held two beetles in hand, and one in your mouth, just as part of your research?

Kathryn Lasky:  No, I don’t think I have to go quite that far.  I didn’t feel compelled.  (laughter) But I did do a lot of research.

Dr. Kent:  And what is, with a character like Charles Darwin, what was it about these creatures? I remember as a boy picking up a turtle and being so amazed, or catching my first firefly ad being so amazed at this little creature.  What was that that Darwin felt inside, and how do you transfer that into a children’s book?

Kathryn Lasky:  Well I think he was such a good observer, and he just started to feel, wonder how things are connected on earth.  Somebody said recently, and I can’t remember the guy’s name, but he’s an evolutionary biologist from the University of Florida, and he said 99% of what we know today Charles Darwin didn’t know.  But the 1% that he did know was really good.  Darwin had this capacity to kind of glance over, peek over the horizon and start to wonder about these connections, and wonder about time and change. So my challenge in the book was, how do you explain evolution to young readers?  So I tried to do it in kind of almost a visual and metaphoric way.  And I just kept my thoughts trained on three basic things: the notion of continuing change, the pressures that can bring about that change in living organisms, and the scale of time.  And you have to realize that when Darwin was born, people only thought the earth was something like, I don’t know, 6,000 years old.  At the time he reached maturity, they were thinking in terms of millions of years. Somewhere when he was in his 30’s or so, they were thinking in hundreds of thousands of years.  It’s only been in the 1920’s, maybe, that we started thinking in terms of billions of years.  So you just kind of, I tried to capture the moments in his travels, in his observations, I guess you’d call those eureka moments, and how he wove all this stuff together.

Dr. Kent:  Yeah, and he’s such a fascinating character from so many perspectives. So what made you start to think about writing this book?  You’ve done a lot of things, and what made you write this one?

Kathryn Lasky:  Well, first of all I have to tell you this story.  It took Darwin 20 years to write Origin of Species.  It took me four years to write this book.  I started this book years ago. I wrote, obviously, many in between. But I was in Cambridge, Massachusetts, very close to Harvard College, and when my daughter was about two I thought, “I’ve just got to get out of the house, I’m being driven crazy with diapers, and little kids running around.” So I hired a babysitter and what I did was, I walked over to Harvard.  It was only about a five minute walk from my house to the Science Center Lecture Hall, and I sat in and I audited the course of Stephen Jay Gould, who was the great evolutionary biologist. So that’s how it began.  And I started just educating myself.  From that course I went on and I audited another one that David Taube gave, who’s a paleoanthropologist on human evolution. So I just started putting all this together.  I just think, I know some people look at the stars and they wonder about the origins of the universe, they’re looking out into space. And I just started looking right on earth.  As a matter of fact, that was the name of the Stephen Jay Gould course, it was called Life on Earth.  So that’s when I started, but it was a bumpy road to getting the book out, that’s all I can say.  I won’t even bore you with the details.  But I’m very pleased.  I just want to say, the illustrations, which I did not do, but the wonderful Matthew Trueman did, are just fabulous.  I mean, they’re just beyond belief, and the critics have just raved about these illustrations. He just went and broke new ground with the illustrations as a medium.

Dr. Kent:  The most fun thing about being a children’s author is that you get some wonderful illustrations in all your books, right?

Kathryn Lasky:  Yeah, you do.  And this is certainly among the finest that I’ve ever had, and I’ve done a lot of picture books for kids.

Dr. Kent:  This book is called One Beetle Too Many: The Extraordinary Adventures of Charles Darwin.  Have you had a chance to read this for kids?

Kathryn Lasky:  I’ve read parts of it for kids, but I’ve been really pretty busy. So I haven’t sat down and read it with a group of kids yet.  All my kids are grown up and out of the house.  But I have a granddaughter now, but she’s just 8 months old, so she might be a little too young.

Dr. Kent:  You’ll have to wait a couple years to bring your whole shelf of books over.  So tell us about your career a little bit, where you’ve come from and where you plan to go with what you’re writing now.

Kathryn Lasky:  I am one of these children’s book authors who does a lot of different things, a lot of different genres.  Perhaps, like I did a lot of historical fiction, but perhaps right now my most popular books are a series called the Guardians of Ga’Hoole, which is a middle grade fantasy series, no humans in it, and only owls and other animals.  And it’s being made into a movie.  And actually the director of the movie is Zack Snyder, who just did The Watchmen.  So that is being made, as we speak. That fantasy series of owl books, Guardians of Ga’Hoole, has been enormously popular amongst kids.  I’m starting up another series, another two series.  I’m also doing a non-fiction book about spiders, and I call her Spider Woman, but she’s an arachnologist, and a professor of Biology at Lewis and Clark University. My husband, with the non-fiction books, he’s a former National Geographic Photographer, but he illustrates a lot of the non-fiction with photographs.  So we are just back from following Greta Binford, the arachnologist, around in the Dominican Republic.

Dr. Kent:  Did you have to actually get in touch with some spiders?

Kathryn Lasky:  Yeah.  Up close and personal with spiders, with tarantulas and the (inaudible) spiders, which their more common name is brown recluse, but there’s a lot of different kinds of brown recluse, so these were the ones in the Caribbean.

Dr. Kent: You are a brave human being.

Kathryn Lasky:  I thought I was going to be scared.  I really wasn’t that scared at all. What scared me more was driving on the roads in the Dominican Republic.  I realized there was a lot better chance that I was going to get killed on a road than bitten by a spider.

Dr. Kent:  I think it’s the same thing in New York here.

Kathryn Lasky:  Yeah, so anyhow, that’s what I do.

Dr. Kent:  It’s been such a pleasure speaking with the author of One Beetle Too Many: The Extraordinary Adventures of Charles Darwin.  It’s written by Kathryn Lasky and illustrated by Matthew Trueman. Or True-man? How does he say it?

Kathryn Lasky:  Trueman.  Not spelled like Harry Truman, but pronounced the same way.

Dr. Kent:  Well, and he has truly beautiful artwork in this book, there’s no question.  What a neat topic to have for a kid’s book, and thank you so much for chatting with me about it. Hopefully we talk to you again sometime.

Kathryn Lasky:  Oh, thank you. Have a nice day.

Dr. Kent:  You, too.  My next guest on the show is the author of Baptism by Fire: Eight Presidents Who Took Office In Times of Crisis.  Come on back in one second, and we’ll chat with him.

Posted by admin | Filed Under History, Science, Childrens, TRANSCRIPTS, AUTHOR INTERVIEW, PODCAST 

Terry Healey, Author of At Face Value: My Triumph Over a Disfiguring Cancer

May 31, 2009 | Leave a Comment

Dr. Kent: Welcome back to Sound Authors!  It’s Friday again and we’re all psyched to be going home for the weekend. This is Dr. Kent, and my next guest on the show has an extraordinary tale.  The book is called At Face Value.  It’s written by Terry Healey.  At Face Value: My Triumph Over a Disfiguring Cancer.  Welcome to the show.

Terry Healey: Hey, thanks for having me.

Dr. Kent: Give me a nutshell about this book.

Terry Healey: Well, I’d like to say it’s an inspirational memoir that’s really about my experience overcoming a facially disfiguring cancer, but also probably more importantly, how I was able to eventually, over the course of several years, come to terms with that, accept myself, and ultimately in the end be grateful for the experience.  It was something that really other people encouraged me to do.  There was a lot of people from the support group that I was attending that just thought that it was a message that could help a lot of other people and so that’s why I ultimately wrote the book.

Dr. Kent: And what a story it is that you have to tell.  How did you, there’s so many people that have gone through awful events in their life, and they kind of give up.  Talk to us about how you kept going through all of this and have come out the other side.

Terry Healey: I would say that I was very lucky, actually, that I had a great support system, I had great family and friends who provided not just good solid support, but were full of positive energy.  I had a medical team that I believed in from day one, who I felt could do what they had to do, that believed in me, in getting through this.  So I trusted a lot of people around me and I think that helped a lot.  When I spend a lot of time with cancer patients who are newly diagnosed I often hear that they’re not very keen on their doctor, or they don’t feel very good about the treatment plan that’s ahead of them.  I was really lucky to have that, so it just kind of fell into place for me. But I definitely would pass that on to anybody that that support system that you have that’s around every day, if it is a medical team that you need, you owe it to yourself to go out and find the people that you connect with and that you trust.

Dr Kent: This happened to you as a young man.  It’s a time in life when we don’t anticipate anything happening to us.  The world is on a string, and it’s always so difficult for young people to deal with difficulties like this.  Talk about the beginning of this struggle for you.

Terry Healey: I think it’s a great question.  I was not unlike a lot of 20 year olds that think they’re invincible, you know, nothing serious is going to happen.  I think when I was initially diagnosed with the cancer and was told I had a rare form of cancer, I still felt that way, I felt that I’ll be able to lick this thing, this is no big deal. And fortunately I was able to beat it initially and really wasn’t left with any form of disfigurement, but it was 6 months later when I had this recurrence that it really hit me, hit me hard, and made me realize that I was in for a long road to hell.  This was something that was going to be life threatening, potentially and most likely was going to be very disfiguring, and so at 20 years old when you think about your life, appearances matte a lot.  We’re all kind of in that mode, especially here in the United States where that’s a very important fact. So kind of grappling with those issues.  Believe it or not, I think the disfigurement part became a greater challenge for me, especially given that it lasted quite a long time in terms of having to deal with that, have surgical treatments for years and years to recover from the disfigurement.

Dr Kent: I can’t even imagine what this was like, going through, as can most, I would say, a good portion of your audience is amazed that you were able to get through it at all, but then there’s another portion of your audience whom you give courage to. Talk about that part of your audience.

Terry Healey: First off, I think a lot of people on the surface will make comments like, “God, I don’t know how you got through that, I could never get through something like that.” Well, I think oftentimes we underestimate what we can get through, and you hear these stories on TV all the time about different types of adverse situations, adversities that people have to confront and deal with, and all different types of things that happen to us in life.  And so, I think people underestimate, I think we all have some human instincts that help us get through that stuff, but you know, I guess I do have messages for people in that I think it’s important for people to think about what if I was faced with something? What kind of survival kit would I need to get through it.  I won’t go through all those points, but when I public speak, I talk a lot about my survival kit, and some of those elements that can help other people, and I mentioned some of it before, but I think the first thing is you’ve got to make sure you’ve got a good support structure around you.  You’ve got to make sure you surround yourself with positive people.  But you also have to make sure that you have a purpose in life beyond whatever it is that’s hit you, and that’s probably the hardest thing, but I think making sure that there are other things that you’re always striving for, trying to look beyond the illness, beyond the condition, beyond the situation.  As hard as that is, I think that’s what helped me to try to look forward and believe that there was going to be something.  I didn’t know when it was going to happen, but down the road my life was going to be better.  And you know, I think it’s also important, especially for males to hear this, is to talk to a counselor, to go to a support group. A lot of men resist that more so than women, obviously, and so those are things I resisted as well, but when I actually opened my eyes and opened the door to it, I found that it was incredibly beneficial and really instrumental.

Dr Kent: What a neat, on the back side of things, what a neat way to take disfiguring events in your life, not just you, but this throws everything on its head, and you’ve been able to turn it into sort of a lifetime of devoting it to people.  How is that a blessing for you?

Terry Healey: It’s a blessing in so many ways.  I mean, to your point, I think it is kind of my little ministry, if you will, to make sure that I’m able to get out there and talk to other people and help them, but it’s a constant reminder for me of the fact that I appreciate every day now.  But it’s also taught me a lot about relationships, and I think we can take things for granted.  When you’re faced with something like this, it forces you to get that fresh perspective.  I’m the more forgiving person and I’m certainly more accepting of other people, and I think more tolerance.  All those kinds of things are really important, but primarily the blessing for me is what you just said, that I’m able to actually get out there and have that reward of being able to help other people in different ways, and my story isn’t just about cancer and disfigurement.  It’s the things that I learned and the things that I can share with other people. That’s really the greatest blessing through this whole thing.

Dr Kent: My father has been in a wheelchair for a while, and he’s completely fine, but after a car accident that he and I were in many years ago, he lost his ability to be the same human being that he was beforehand.  He can’t be the runner that he always was through his life, and that puts him into the disability crowd.  What I find interesting is I spoke to someone else about this very recently, is that this country sort of goes in stages.  Right now there’s the Prop 8 and homosexuality, the big issue right now.  There was different times when women’s rights was a big thing.  Do you think disability rights is ever going to come to the forefront?

Terry Healey: You know, you hope it does.  I think for any group that is not the majority, for any minority group, that’s always the greatest challenge, is how do you get the same rights as everybody else.  Unfortunately, the smaller that minority group it is, the more difficult it is, the less champions there are for it and so as horrible as any of those things are until somebody becoming disabled in some way during the course of their life, the people that have the ability to reach the masses, people like Christopher Reeves, for example, they can do so much, and bring so much to the forefront and help elevate a lot of those things that are important.  And just because you’re a small minority doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t receive the same benefits and be treated the same way as everybody else. So I’m certainly hopeful of that.  An aside is, I think about the cancer that I had, and the fact that I try to support it, I try to provide dollars to it, I try to help fundraise for it.  The problem is, it’s such a small percentage, that it’s really tough to get any mindshare, any research dollars to go toward it. So it tends to be this ignored type of cancer.  And unfortunately, it’s something that affects young people, so not to say that young people are more important than old people, but if you have a disease for example, that’s hitting people that are in their teens, even though it’s a small percentage, that to me is also an important thing to focus on.

Dr Kent: In talking about disabilities, what’s interesting is that you don’t really have a disability.  But your sort of experienced the same thing, probably, when you were young, and probably the most difficult thing to deal with is if you’d been in a wheelchair, people stare at you.  Right?  If you have a disfigurement, people stare at you.  Talk about that.  You’re the same guy you were, and now all of a sudden people stare at you, and they don’t quite understand.

Terry Healey: Yeah, that’s a great point.  It is, if people are different, they get treated differently.  If they look different, or if they act different, no matter what they get treated differently. That was the hardest thing for me, because when I was 20 years old my life was smooth sailing, and I never had issues of dealing with struggles with the opposite sex or anything like that, it was easy.  And then suddenly I was this monster, if you will, and kids pointed and stared and laughed, and even adults asked a lot of questions, which made me uncomfortable.  But what I think is amazing about the whole transformation, and we have to give ourselves time to transform, but over the course of many years I tried to work on the internal, as opposed to the external part of me.  At a certain point I cut off and ignored this, trying to reconstruct myself back to the way I was, and instead said I’ve become really insecure, I’ve got to focus on the inside.  What I found was, when I’d walk down the street in 1986 people would ask me questions.  But why, several years later, in the 90’s and beyond do I never get questioned anymore, do kids never come up to me and ask me questions.  It’s a rare thing now for somebody to notice that I’m different, and all I can think of is that, and granted I don’t have something that may be as noticeable as being in a wheelchair, but I think it’s how we carry ourselves, and the confidence that we have, and I think if we don’t make a big deal about being different, nobody else will.  Or people are less inclined to. That’s the only thing I can think of. I look the same as I did in 1986, or 1991, let’s say.  Why was I getting so many questions back then and so many difficult situations, and now it’s just so rare to have those.  To me, that was a real life transforming experience, and I was lucky that it’s worked out that way.

Dr Kent: Well, it’s been such a pleasure chatting with you, I could talk all day about this book, and about your life story.  Terry Healey’s website is terryhealey.com.  Tell us in just about a minute about your speaking business and what projects are you working on now, and of course, how is this book doing for you.

Terry Healey: I’m doing a fair amount of speaking.  I have a full time job as a marketing strategy consultant, so I have to pick these things and pick and choose a little bit, but I speak to a lot of corporations, sales and marketing organizations within those.  I speak to a lot of schools, and that’s something that I find probably the most powerful in terms of impact.  So, young kids in high school or even middle school, sometimes in college, who are dealing with issues of insecurity, dealing with appearance-related challenges.  So those are great ones for me, and right now I’m doing a lot around these Relay for Life’s and stuff with the American Cancer Society, so supporting events with other cancer patients that are dealing with things today.  So I’m trying to focus and pick those things that I think I can have an impact on and where my story will resonate.  The book just kind of comes secondary, and as much as people can read and not be distracted by all the other things around them, great, if they can pick up the book, it’s an easy read.  But it’s a nice complement to the book to have the ability to speak to people in groups.

Dr Kent: Well what a pleasure it’s been.  The book is called At Face Value: My Triumph Over a Disfiguring Cancer.  We’ve speaking with Terry Healey, and I can’t wait to talk to you the next time.

Terry Healey: Hey, thank you so much for having me.

Dr Kent: Now, my next guest on the show, as always, is a musician, and I’m going to start out playing a track from her album, and Susan Oetgen, and the group is called Likeness to Lily, and I’m going to play a track from their record.  It’s called False Hopes, a beautiful track.  Listen to this, and after we listen to the track we’re going to talk to her live, so come on back for that.

Posted by admin | Filed Under Motivation, History, Health, Medicine, TRANSCRIPTS, AUTHOR INTERVIEW, Inspiration, PODCAST 

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