iUniverse Rising Star author, Stew Cohen, relives The WYEN Experience

The iUniverse author, Stew Cohen, one of the pioneers of request radio in the early seventies, has brought those heady days of radio to life in his book, The WYEN Experience. Des Plaines, Chicago based WYEN radio station initiated the phenomenon, as we now know it today of request radio, interacting with the station’s listeners and creating the radio station you could talk to.

As the station grew it attracted quite a crew of announcers who moved on to be familiar and colorful personalities across radio land. The likes of Bill Elliott, John Zur, Val Stouffer, Bruce Davis, Chris Devine, Dan Diamond, Cindy Bravos, Louie Parrott, Bob Roberts and Garry Meier, to name a few; also last and not least the author himself, Stew Cohen.

Now News Director at Star 105.5 radio out of Crystal Lake, Stew recently reminisced about his time at WYEN and his lifetime in radio with leading local community magazine, McHenry County Living.

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iUniverse Kirkus Reviews award winner, Ejaz Naqvi on what it takes to be a published author

Ejaz Naqvi, MD, the bestselling iUniverse author of, The Quran: With or Against the Bible? is yet another of our authors to be named to Kirkus Reviews’ best books of 2013. When iUniverse Blog contacted him to congratulate him on this achievement, we asked him what it took to become a published author.

Here’s what he said:-

“If you have ever thought about writing a book, my one simple advice is this: do not procrastinate. The time to write a book is now- not next year or when you have “more free time”, because that “more free time” is an illusion. Here is a brief overview of what it takes to be an author.”

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iUniverse Kirkus Reviews Award Winner, Rio Olesky on Writing

iUniverse Blog congratulates Editor’s Choice author, Rio Olesky on his book, A Manual for the Modern Mystic, being accorded the Kirkus Reviews Best Indie Books of 2013 accolade. Now Rio has very kindly provided iUniverse with his insights on the writing process, his writing inspiration, book editing and book publishing. So over to Rio Olesky, another iUniverse Publishing feted author.

iUniverse author Rio Olesky on writing

“I wrote a book. Actually, I’ve written two books. This is quite surprising since I’ve made my living for almost 40 years by using the spoken, not the written word. I am a professional astrologer with a global clientele. I read horoscopes. I have also taught classes in astrology at the beginning as well as the intermediate and advanced levels for over 35 years. I enjoy talking to people. It’s something that has come easy to me.

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iUniverse debut author, Milena Banks, is seduced by history 3

iUniverse award winning author, Milena Banks concludes her excellent series of articles about how she came to write and publish her first novel, Riding the Tiger.So over to Milena to continue her story, laced with a couple of scene setters from the book.

“I wrote the first four chapters in the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge only to be interrupted after six months with a move to the green hills of Surrey, England. Yet again my head was spinning from culture shock, but I had a plan this time. I moved around the UK taking mental notes, listening to the British, thinking about the Chinese, and remembering the Japanese . . . It was only natural that I wrote the novel I did.”

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New Book "The Seasons of Cherokee's Life" Provides Tail-Wagging Wisdom From a Pooch’s Perspective

Boston (PRWEB) January 29, 2014 Have you ever asked yourself, what does my dog of think me?

In her book, “The Seasons of Cherokee’s Life,” Sandra Roberts provides readers with a heartwarming story of the human condition, told through the eyes of Cherokee, a loyal canine. As Cherokee reflects on his life and companionship with his owner, readers will find a sense of hope and consolation in the midst of the bittersweet final hours of Cherokee’s life.

“This is the story of a dog’s deep bond with his mistress as he walks beside her, watching her transform into the courageous and independent woman he has always believed her to be,” Roberts said.

Roberts draws upon her own past experiences with grief, lack of confidence and self- doubt to breathe life into the struggles of Cherokee’s owner, Alicia.

“Alicia is the perfect example of how so many of us get in our own way, and allow fear and self-doubt to prevent us from tapping into our inherent strengths,” Roberts said.

Cherokee and Alicia’s journey reveals the healing powers that animals possess and the life-changing influence they can have on the human experience.

“The Seasons of Cherokee’s Life” By Sandra Roberts
ISBN: 978-1-4917-1103-3
Retail price: 10.95
Available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and iUniverse online bookstores.

About the author

Sandra Roberts wrote “The Seasons of Cherokee’s Life” in honor and commemoration of her beloved dog, Cherokee. A student of personal and spiritual growth, Roberts hopes that her story will teach readers the benefits of human-animal companionship and the importance of self-confidence. She currently resides in Winthrop, Mass., where she works as a communications project coordinator for a health plan.

Source: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2014/01/prweb11525454.htm

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iUniverse author scoops the Florida prizes

iUniverse Publishing back in July published a great series of blog posts from the husband and wife team of authors, Jim and Brenda Hodge. Already award winners with their book, The Legend of Anne Southern, Jim and Brenda have now gone on to win two more coveted awards at the Florida Writers Association Conference.

Wishing every success to iUniverse authors, Jim and Brenda Hodge

iUniverse Blog says well done again to the couple and if you want to know more of what they think about the writing process and self-publishing with iUniverse, please look up their blog series here. And to learn more about their award winning book, The Legend of Anne Southern, visit the iUniverse Bookstore or click on the book cover.

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Dad Publishes with iUniverse to Obtain Justice

iUniverse Blog now takes a look at the man behind these kind words and the heartbreaking cause that lies behind the book.

Parents who fought 8 years for justice for their late daughter tell their story 

“I think Kirsty would have been proud of me”.

Those are the words of Chas Pearce, who has just published a book about his 17-year-old daughter who died at Basildon Hospital after a series of failings.

The devoted father, who lives in Pitsea, has spent eight years fighting for justice for Kirsty, who died in 2003.

The book, from iUniverse Publishing called Kirsty: A Father’s Fight for Justice, goes into depth about Chas and wife Peggy’s battle to get the doctors who looked after Kirsty on that fateful night to admit they did things wrong.

Kirsty, who had learning difficulties, died after doctors failed to realise the seriousness of her condition, and did not send her to the intensive care unit until it was too late.

In November last year an inquest finally took place and concluded failings in the care Kirsty received contributed to her death. Mr Pearce said:

“At first, the book just started as something for family and friends, so everyone would know what we had been through. But the story has got bigger and lots of people have become interested and want to know what happened to Kirsty.

It is a real relief to see the book in published form. Peggy and I are very pleased to have got to this point. We have used our favourite picture of Kirsty on the front cover of the book and I think she would have been really proud. She would have said ‘you kicked butt dad’.”

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iUniverse remembers psychiatrist and author, William Glasser

iUniverse author William Glasser, the world-renowned psychiatrist who employed a nontraditional, somewhat controversial approach, sadly passed way August 23 last. He was 88.

William Glasser was the initiator of two very significant theorem. The Reality Therapy and the Choice Theory. These ideas, which focused on the individual in terms of personal choice, responsibility and personal transformation, were considered controversial by the mainstream profession.

Glasser deviated from conventional psychiatrists by warning the general public about the potential detriments caused by the profession of psychiatry in its traditional form, because of its overriding propensity to diagnose a patient with a mental illness and then prescribe medications to treat that particular illness when, in fact, the patient may have been behaving in that way because they were extremely unhappy,which is not necessarily a psychiatric disorder. Significantly Glasser also applied his theories to much broader social issues, such as education and marriage, to name but two.

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iUniverse author MK Sandoval has some real (estate) fun

iUniverse Blog was recently alerted to a blog post by Karen Randau about a new iUniverse author and her debut comic mystery, Cat House: Adventures of a Real Estate Madam. On reading we thought that it so good that we asked Karen if we could reproduce it on the iUniverse Blog and she very kindly agreed. So here it is:-

iUniverse author MK Sandoval on self-publishing

"Marsha Sandoval released her comedy mystery, Cat House: Adventures of a Real Estate Madam, in July 2013. Her character Niki Brooks is a luxury home real estate agent desperate to survive the Great Recession of 2008. She decides to think “outside the house” and reaches the conclusion that selling sex would offer a more steady income than selling foreclosed homes.

“I’ve been a real estate agent for 36 years,” Marsha said. “When the real estate industry imploded, things were scary and difficult. I heard about a real estate agent who had just served six months in a country club type jail for having a call girl business. I thought, ‘That’s how I can survive the recession.’”

Just to be clear, instead of starting a call girl business, Marsha wrote about starting one."

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iUniverse focus on our children’s story giant, Robert Quackenbush

Andersen, Germany the Brothers Grimm, UK Roald Dahl with illustrator, Sir Quentin Blake – all true giants of children’s literature; but what about the USA you may ask? Well we have one, the great Robert Quackenbush, who has written and illustrated over 200 books for children and now some of this octogenarian’s classics are available through iUniverse Publishing, including Detective Mole and the Piet Potter stories; which were inspired by his son when he was a boy. Not just an author, this extremely talented man, Robert Quackenbush is also an outstanding artist and educator.

He is a frequent visiting author at schools and libraries presenting programs designed to instill the love of books and reading into the youth of today. These trips have taken him across the US, the South Americas, the Middle East and Europe. Not forgetting his art which is on permanent display at the Smithonian, the Whitney Museum and the U.S. Air Force Museum to name but a few.

iUniverse Piet Potter Strikes Again Featured His books have won many awards including an Edgar Allen Poe Special Award for Best Juvenile Mystery, a gold medal from the Holland Society of New York for distinction in art and literature and a Gradiva Award. On top of his many accomplishments, his popular Miss Mallard Mysteries have been made into animated films for children’s worldwide television programming that are showing in 70 countries.

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iUniverse Publishing’s real Hollywood Housewife

iUniverse Publishing recently contacted author, Betty Marvin, the first wife of movie star Lee Marvin, to ask if she knew why the sales of her memoir, Tales of a Hollywood Housewife, have suddenly leapt in the last month. This is a very, very enjoyable memoir packed with firsthand experiences of living and mixing with the big movie stars of the era juxtaposed with the author’s personal difficulties and subsequent triumphs; nonetheless, why the sales jump? This is what Betty replied:

iUniverse hears from Betty Marvin

“My memoir, Tales of a Hollywood Housewife, came out about two years ago and I’m stunned, not to mention pleased, that people are still interested in my story. This was confirmed when iUniverse contacted me to ask why I thought sales have recently increased dramatically.

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iUniverse author John C. Woodcock’s insights on writing: Part 12

In this concluding article, iUniverse author John C. Woodcock brings all of his thought processes together that led him to the writing genre of his new book.

iUniverse UR-image“UR-image, thus belongs to the “genre” of writing that springs from, and expresses, the burrowing spirit as it makes its way into actuality through the psychological “wounds” of individual human beings. Where I had once been terrified in writing this way, I am now more curious, and thus, it seems, the demand has become gentler, less invasive, but still insistent.

The logical structure of the story is that of four possible futures intersecting and informing the Present, shaping it and, finally, becoming the actual future of four young adventurers, but in ways that none of them could have predicted.

Finally, before we enter the story, I must offer some evidence of congruence between the content of the story that will soon unfold for you, the reader, and the way it came into being. This is not a story about such breakdowns in fundamental categories, as endured by other people. It is a story that emerged from my own participation in a possible future, i.e., the burrowing spirit. So, its completion has become my actual future, although as I say, I could not predict or plan this outcome.

This is how it came about.”

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iUniverse author John C. Woodcock’s insights on writing: Part 11

In his previous article, iUniverse author John C. Woodcock mentioned his notion of the “burrowing spirit”, today he puts that into the context of his latest book, UR-image.

iUniverse The Imperative“The impersonal nature of the burrowing spirit was brought home to me by a dream I had many years ago. In this dream:

I am on a winding road in the country. I see a young woman throwing a boomerang in a field and it comes my way. I pick it up and throw it. This attracts her and she comes my way and joins me. We go by some animals and see a calf split off from the herd, alone and bleating for its mother. It is near a snake. The cobra rears up and it is golden and climbs easily onto the calf’s back. The calf can barely take the weight and can do no more than try not to collapse.

This dream frightened me.

The snake, as the burrowing spirit, when it enters the world, must rest on a foundation (serpent wrapped around the world, or egg, on a turtle’s back, tree etc.). But these animal aspects, as psychological realities, are today the most undeveloped aspects of the consciousness that gives rise to our modern Western culture. D. H. Lawrence is one modern writer who saw this issue but could offer only a literalized solution to it. He was not able to see it as a psychological problem involving the deepest levels of our modern consciousness.

It appears that our species depends on a certain development taking place quickly and this fact shows up as images of the young, weak, and immature. A huge transformation in consciousness is taking place, supported on a relatively weak base. Such a structure generates a feeling, on the human level, of being too young, bearing too much responsibility, being abandoned or let down by parents, left to assume responsibilities that one is not prepared for. All this appears in my dream, as it does in Dick’s Valis where the hero, Horselover Fat, is paired with feminine figures who are dying, ill, frail, and in need of “rescuing”, unable to cope.

In my case, although the situation was dire, there was also the possibility of the calf making it and growing into a mighty bull which can thus easily support the serpent. I held onto that possibility for many years as I slowly learned to assume the burden of the cobra. The impersonal nature of the burrowing spirit can easily be seen in the fact that the calf was not special in any way. It simply met the criteria needed for the burrowing spirit to “get in” i.e., alienation, isolation, neediness, and therefore, availability.”

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iUniverse author John C. Woodcock’s insights on writing: Part 10

In the previous post in this very interesting blog series from iUniverse author, John C. Woodcock, we were discussing the total reversal of our understanding of our consciousness status quo, in that dreams are reality, sane is, in fact, insane and so on. Let’s explore more:-

“What this means for us is this: Where we feel most sane is where we are in fact insane. Our modern consciousness has so far isolated itself from everything else (the private self) that it is now psychotic—yet, of course, it thinks of itself as totally sane. Furthermore those aspects of our psychological being, now persona non grata—dreams, visions, “accidents”, etc.—are the harbors of the very sanity that can cure us of the insanity of psychological isolation.

This is also my conclusion, based on many years of immersion in “madness”, and taking them every bit as seriously as Philip K. Dick does, until they restored me to sanity.

This kind of writing demands both reflection and doing, i.e., what I earlier called participation! The ability of the author to engage this way probably determines the extent to which he could legitimately be called mad. The doing is a needing to act without knowing the outcome in the sense that modern consciousness knows (subject-object knowing). If we know the outcome then obviously we are merely repeating the past in some way, since present-day consciousness knows only in terms of the past (memory). This “doing” can at first be frightening to those who feel the “demand” to act in this way. Yet one can get used to it and even become curious.

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iUniverse author John C. Woodcock’s insights on writing: Part 9

In the previous post from iUniverse author John C. Woodcock, we were exploring a new form of consciousness that effected the works of sci-fi great, Philip K. Dick and how that compares to John’s thinking and writing form for his new book UR-image. Let John explain:-

“For thousands of years we have slowly stabilized a form of consciousness that has a structure of order/disorder. Consciousness is order and outside, beyond the boundary is disorder, chaos, evil, etc. Consciousness at first had to be periodically consumed by disorder and then renewed. It could not, for many generations, be relied upon to last forever. The dark irrational powers were a constant threat to the order of daylight consciousness and had to be held at bay by ritual acts of warding off. They also periodically had to be given their day—a day ritualized, for example, by the ancient Saturnalia or the Celtic Day of the Dead.

Over time our daylight consciousness became stabilized enough for these rituals to lose their power and necessity. Today they have degenerated into Halloween, etc. They have no psychological value. So now, we live in a stable world of rationality which is occasionally threatened by events evaluated as irrational (emotions, visions, delusions, the psychoses, etc.), all of which are dealt with primarily by medications, thus “warded off” (literalized by psychotic patients being put in the “back wards”). The content of irrational outbursts (or more accurately, inbursts) are not listened to or trusted in any way by the “healing profession”.

With this context we can more easily gain access to Dick’s discovery. He shows us that if we take madness seriously and in a sustained way; if we take it on its own terms, as it presents itself to us, then the fundamental polarity that has driven our Western culture for thousands of years, giving rise, finally to our modern structure of consciousness—the rational-irrational polarity—reverses itself!

Astounding!”

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iUniverse author John C. Woodcock’s insights on writing: Part 8

iUniverse Blog continues the excellent series of posts from prolific author John C. Woodcock as he explores the raison d’être for the style and form of writing of his latest book UR-image.

“A key methodological approach in producing this kind of “mad” writing is that the author takes seriously whatever phenomenon presents itself, in its own terms. The author must be able to remain “within” the phenomenon long enough so that it can teach her what it means in terms of its own logic, no matter how crazy it may sound when appraised from the categories of our current form of consciousness. The author is thus compelled to think self-presentational thoughts that defy rationality. I’ll give one example here from Dick’s book, Valis, which I also read, subsequent to writing UR-image, with enormous enthusiasm..

Dick tells us of a dream he had in which he is living with this wife:

Pre WWII Car“I have had dreams of another place myself, a lake up north and the cottages and small rural houses north and the cottages and small rural houses around its south shore. In my dream I arrive there from Southern California, where I live; this is a vacation spot, but it is very old-fashioned. All the houses are wooden, made of the brown shingles so popular in California before World War Two. The roads are dusty. The cars are older, too.”

Following the dream, which Dick accepts completely in its own terms, he begins to compare its reality with his outer reality which does not include many of the elements in the dream. He then gets a memory of his father and realizes that in his dream he is living his father’s life. From this achievement, Dick argues further that the individual contains the history not only of her personal life but of our entire race, back to its origins, back to the stars: “This is gene pool memory, the memory of the DNA.”

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iUniverse author John C. Woodcock’s insights on writing: Part 7

In iUniverse’s John C. Woodcock’s latest blog post, he uses the illustrious sci-fi author Philip K. Dick to demonstrate and further explain his form of writing.

“There are many such instances of art forms now that are “speaking” this way and seem to be engaging the contemporary artistic mind. One book is the compelling example of The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick, which is a partial collection of the “mad” writings of science-fiction writer, Phillip K. Dick, (Blade Runner, The Minority Report).  This book gives us a glimpse of his eight year-long immersion into the background of consciousness as long-held categories break down.

In 1974, Dick had a revelation which ignited a superhuman feat of writing constantly over a long series of nights, running to eight thousand pages, a “sudden, discorporating slippage into vast and total knowledge that he would spend the rest of his life explicating, or exegeting.” The posthumous publication of some of these texts highlights Dick’s long and arduous attempt to understand what exactly was happening to him, in a similar manner to C. G. Jung’s efforts, as recorded in his Red Book. I can choose any page at random to get a feel for sheer movement taking place, on-rushing fervor, a furor, gathering rapids, as punctuation breaks down, or ceases really to matter, as an onrushing life begins to prevail. It’s like navigating a maelstrom at times, with little islands emerging only to be Philip K. Dickswept away again. The structure of that book is described as “a freewheeling voice that ranges through personal confession, esoteric scholarship, dream accounts, and fictional figures… one of the most improbable and mind-altering manuscripts ever brought to light.”

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iUniverse on the Value of Seeking Feedback for Self-Published Authors

Great iUniverse self-published authors rely on feedback at every stage of the book production process. Perhaps the proverbial wisdom of the many applies to this situation; constructive external feedback helps refine a book and informs the author's creative vision. Feedback also aids the author in coming up with distinctive work with a fresh perspective. To be sure, no author will find it easy to receive negative feedback on his or her work. But being open and objective about feedback can truly help an author transform his or her book into a masterpiece.

One problem that authors experience is that they grow too familiar with their work. Writing is a solitary pursuit. It takes hours of work to churn out the necessary pages to create a book. After creating the first draft, an author must struggle through many rewrites. This repeated exposure can keep authors from seeing the flaws in their books. Feedback from others teachers, editors, peers and readers will help authors gain new perspective. The language may be stilted. The description may drag on too long. The story may seem incomplete with missing necessary details. Feedback can open an author’s eyes.

Authors may also struggle with both content and structure if they lack the technical aptitude or the clarity of vision their work requires. Sometimes they may find their book plagued with repetitive terms, passive verbs and vague nouns creative. They may end up turning readers away instead of drawing them in. Perhaps, an author's compulsive tendency for creating characters may end up muddling things up the narrative. Settings may come across as nondescript and indistinctive. Hence, authors' receptiveness to editorial feedback will help them sharpen their prose.

Being receptive to feedback also add credibility to your work. Listening to the comments and constructive remarks of publishing experts allows you to connect and engage with industry professionals and widen your professional network. Further, working with book publishing pros may lead to future endorsements and reviews from other book industry professionals. Your work may benefit from the positive association readers confer on their favorite editors and their associates. So do your best to create this association and leverage this on your book.

There is little doubt as to how feedback can enhance your writing. Like any product, your book can benefit from a "focus group" of creative peers and from your audience. Feedback can help expand your book's appeal to a wider audience, across various markets. If you keep an adversarial position towards feedback, you might end up publishing a book with little popular appeal, much less any literary significance. When you keep an open mind towards feedback, constructive or otherwise, you may yet achieve the acclaim and the book royalties you have always wanted.

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iUniverse author John C. Woodcock’s insights on writing: Part 6

In this next installment of the iUniverse author, John C. Woodcock’s blog series he starts to describe the emerging writing form or genre of his latest book, UR-image.

“One of the significant category breakdowns that is relevant to my articulating the “genre” of writing that this book is concerned with is that of the pair of opposites: doing and reflection. Within our modern structure of consciousness we consider these a pair of opposites. We can do something in life or reflect on something in life but not both at the same time.

In the kind of writing I am suggesting it seems that both happen simultaneously or something else happens that subsumes both within itself. I call this “happening” participation.

Participation with the background process of category breakdown is reflection and doing, yet neither. Thus, participation can be sharply distinguished from automatic writing where the writer’s consciousness plays no part. It is also different from having an experience and subsequently writing about that experience from memory. The writing that emerges from this participatory process therefore is a form (it’s probably too early to call it a genre) that embodies such category break downs (inner-outer, past-present-future, action-reflection, etc.)”

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iUniverse author John C. Woodcock’s insights on writing: Part 5

In Part 4 of this iUniverse blog series, author John C. Woodcock started to explain how the esteemed psychoanalyst and thinker, Carl Gustav Jung, has influenced his thinking and consequently his writing. Now we let John explain more about Jung and his influence.

“His written record of this journey is now published as The Red Book. Jung’s understanding of what he went through is complex and beyond the scope of this book, but we can touch on two aspects that are relevant here. On the one hand, after Jung emerged from his immersion in the “breakdown”, he returned to the categories of inner and outer and took up the question of how one could have anything to do with the other. For example, his theory of synchronicity is a sustained attempt to find a theoretical connection between inner events, say a dream, and a “coincidental” event in the outer world. On the other hand Jung seemed to accept the breakdown of categories (e. g. spatial and temporal categories that form the structure of modern consciousness) and to change accordingly in his self-definition. He thus became initiated by the experiences themselves into a new reality. This initiation gave Jung the power to form new conceptions appropriate to this reality and thus perceive new aspects of the real world. These new conceptions gave rise to his unique notion of soul as absolute interiority—a conception subsequently fully developed by Wolfgang Giegerich.

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