Tag

Books

Career, Creativity, Non Fiction, Personal Development, Professional Development

Jul 26: How Tiny Changes Can Recreate Your Life with Sam Bennett. Dump Your Inner Critic with Mark Coleman

Live a Better, More Fulfilling Life Based on Who You Really Are & Finally Get What You Really Want

Podcast Sam Bennett with How Little Changes Can Make A Big Difference. Mark Coleman with How Mindfulness Can Free You From Your Inner Critic

Our guest experts share timeless advice to help move you towards a better, more authentic life, & accomplish things that are important to you. *

Sam Bennett found herself distressed and depressed 20-some years ago. She’d lost her mojo, and none of the tools or advice shared by well-meaning friends helped her find it – that is until she cherry-picked the best ideas and adapted them to suit her own dreams.

Sam shares 66 of her tools in Start Right Where You Are: How Little Changes Can Make a Big Difference for Overwhelmed Procrastinators, Frustrated Overachievers, and Recovering Perfectionists.

What does your inner critic sound like? What does it say to you? How does it make you feel? And most importantly, how do you allow it to control your life and define who you are?

Mark Coleman offers great practical advice, to help stop the negative chatter that’s holding you back, in Make Peace with Your Mind: How Mindfulness and Compassion Can Free You from Your Inner Critic.

About Sam Bennett & Mark Coleman

Sam Bennett created The Organized Artist Company to help creative people get unstuck and achieve their goals. She is a writer, actor, teacher, and creativity/productivity specialist who has counseled thousands of artists and entrepreneurs on their way to success.

Mark Coleman is the founder of the Mindfulness Institute and has guided students on five continents as a corporate consultant, counselor, meditation teacher, and wilderness guide.

*Note: Events mentioned during this podcast were valid only during dates stated in original broadcast.
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Non Fiction, Personal Development, Psychology, Self-help

May 17: How to Rekindle Your Child’s Motivation with Dr. Ellen Braaten

Bright Kids Who Couldn’t Care Less

Bright Kids with author Dr. Ellen Braaten

If you’re confused by a child in your life who has lost interest in things they once enjoyed and doesn’t seem to care about anything, you’re not alone. In today’s post-pandemic world, we’re seeing children and adults struggle to regain the motivation they once had. This is particularly challenging for anyone with learning differences, as they try to catch up.

From Dr. Ellen Braaten’s new book, Bright Kids Who Couldn’t Care Less: How to Rekindle Your Child’s Motivation, we discuss how stress and anxiety can play into this. Why ADHD is more common than you may think. How a formula that Dr. Braaten terms the Parenting App can help focus recovery. How to meet your child exactly where they are today. And how to find more help if you need it.

About Dr. Ellen Braaten

Ellen Braaten, PhD, is widely recognized for her expertise in pediatric neuropsychological and psychological assessment, particularly in the areas of assessing learning disabilities and attentional disorders. Dr. Braaten is Executive Director of the Learning and Emotional Assessment Program at Massachusetts General Hospital, Associate Professor of Psychology at Harvard Medical School, and Visiting Professor at Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic. She has been affiliated with MGH and HMS since 1998.

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Essays, Memoir, Non Fiction, Writers on Writing

Nov 09: Peter Orner – Still No Word From You: Notes in the Margin

Observations on books, stories, poems, and life by the author of Am I Alone Here?

He’s known as a writer’s writer, a triple threat — novelist, short story master, and prolific essayist. But if you ask Peter Orner what he really wants readers to take away from his work, it’s connection.

Still No Word from You: Notes in the Margin melds intimate stories from the lived life and reading life. We discuss how Peter’s stories are often built around small moments;  how he knows which moments will make a great story. Living the writer’s life. What challenges Peter as a writer, and more.

About Peter Orner

The author of two novels and several story collections, Peter Orner‘s work has appeared in The Best American Short Stories, The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Paris Review, and more. His previous essay collection, Am I Alone Here? Notes on Living to Read and Reading to Live, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism. Peter Orner is a 3-time recipient of the Pushcart Prize and has received numerous awards including a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a Fulbright in Namibia. He is currently the director of creative writing at Dartmouth College.

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Career, Creativity, Personal Development, Self-help

Aug 24: Push Past The Final 8th and Accomplish Your Goals

Tap Into the Most Powerful Resource You Have to Accomplishing Your Goals: Your Inner Selves

Why is it that the final hill to achieving a goal is often the most difficult to climb? Bridgit Dengel Gaspard helps you cross the finish line in The Final 8th: Enlist Your Inner Selves to Accomplish Your Goals.

You’ll learn why our inner selves frequently have competing motives. Why symptoms such as body aches and insomnia could be caused by inner selves that don’t communicate verbally. Bridgit also shres tools and resources to help you stop self-sabotaging.

About Bridgit Dengel Gaspard

Bridgit Dengel Gaspard is a therapist, coach, and master facilitator of voice dialogue. She’s led workshops for the Omega Institue, the National Association of Social Workers, the Actors Fund, and others. A former performer and comic, Bridgit has a private practice in New York where she specializes in helping clients overcome creativity blocks, transitions, and being stuck short of the finish line. The Final 8th: Enlist Your Inner Selves to Accomplish Your Goals is Bridgit’s first book.

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Fiction, Writers on Writing

Jul 27: #1 NYT Bestselling Novelist Susan Wiggs with Sugar and Salt

Everyone has a past. It’s who you are now that matters.

A long-time listener favorite joins us with a great new story just in time for summer. Sugar and Spice takes us back to Perdita Street (introduced in The Lost and Found Bookshop) with a tale of family, friendship, redemption, and love.

Susan Wiggs is known for weaving women’s issues into her storylines, and Sugar and Spice is no exception — including abortion, sexual abuse, and racism. Today we find out how Susan gets in the right headspace to write those challenging scenes. How she approaches writing multiple timelines. And how has she learned to draw readers into her books from page one.

About Susan Wiggs

Susan Wiggs is a #1 New York Times bestselling author. She’s authored more than 50 novels including the Lakeshore Chronicles series and the New York Times bestsellers The Lost and Found Bookshop, The Oysterville Sewing Circle, and Family Tree. Her award-winning books have been translated into two dozen languages.  Susan lives with her family on an island in Washington State’s Puget Sound.

 

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Fiction, History, Writers on Writing

May 05: NYT Bestselling Author Jenny Lecoat

Based on a true story of a courageous young Jewish woman trapped under Nazi occupation on the Isle of Jersey in WWII

Considering her background, fate may have decreed Jenny Lecoat’s first novel would spark a bidding war between two major publishers and become a New York Times Bestseller.

The Girl From the Channel Islands is based on the true story of Hedy Bercu. We discuss why Jenny told Bercu’s story via fiction versus nonfiction; where she took creative license and why. How Jenny’s background informed those decisions and shaped the story.  Jenny also shares some of the true anecdotes she encountered during her research. And what it took to go from successful screenplay writer to successful novelist.

About Jenny Lecoat

Born in the Channel Islands, Jenny Lecoat was raised among family who passed down their own stories of life in German occupied Jersey. Jenny dove into screenwriting following early career turns as a stand-up comic and writing features for periodicals.  Her feature film, Another Mother’s Son, was released in 2017.

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Journalism, Non Fiction, Social Issues

Apr 27: Why We Fall For Hype with Gabrielle Bluestone

How Con Artists, Grifters and Scammers are Taking Over the Internet – & Why We’re Following

Gabrielle Bluestone shares her insights into why scammers do what they do, and why – despite overwhelming evidence calling them out – we blindly believe what we’re told without researching the source.  She says we are at the natural end of a society primed to trust their own emotions over objective, verifiable facts.” 

From celebrities to politicians, to the little-known, we discuss why we get sucked into their spiel. Where social media and influencers factor in. The rise of cancel culture, where seemingly harmless messaging and soundbites create images that can make or break reputations and campaigns. Why Fyre was the greatest festival that never happened. Where greed plays a role. And why you shouldn’t trust cosmetic surgery photos because even they are often digitally altered.

About Gabrielle Bluestone

A journalist and licensed attorney from New York, Gabrielle Bluestone’s writing has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, New York Observer, Sunday Times Magazine, and more. She’s the Emmy-nominated producer of Netflix’s  documentary Fyre. And the associate producer of Different Flowers, winner of the 2017 Kansas City FilmFest Festival Prize.

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Fiction, Suspense, Writers on Writing

Mar 30: Heather Gudenkauf with Overnight Guest

“Fully realized, wholly absorbing & almost painfully suspenseful…” ~ The New York Times

Thrilled to talk again with Heather Gudenkauf about her latest page turner, The Overnight Guest.

Heather shares the true story that sparked an idea for The Overnight Guest. Why she chose a true-crime writer as her protagonist. How she managed different timelines and multiple points of view – and how she did all that while setting a pace that fully engages readers and brings the stories together. Heather also reveals how she takes an ugly first draft and polishes it to become a riveting story and New York Times bestseller.

About Heather Gudenkauf

Heather Gudenkauf is an Edgar Award nominated, New York Times & USA Today bestselling author, and The Overnight Guest is her ninth novel. Heather lives in Iowa and in her free time enjoys having fun with family, reading, swimming, and hiking (with her very spoiled German Shorthaired Pointer, Lolo).

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Fiction, Writers on Writing

Mar 16: Dinitia Smith with The Prince

A modern retelling of The Golden Bowl by Henry James

Inspired by Henry James’ story from 1904, England, The Prince is set in contemporary pre-pandemic times, from a grand mansion on the Upper East Side of Manhattan to a magical private island in Long Island Sound. Everything suggests that the wealthy Woodford family lives an idyllic life. But the reality is quite different.

How did author Dinitia Smith recreate James’ classic novel to make the story and characters her own? She shares what inspired her to reimagine The Golden Bowl, interesting facts  about the golden bowl itself; and why she writes about relationships.

About Dinitia Smith

For 11 years, Dinitia Smith was a reporter at the New York Times where she wrote on literary topics and intellectual trends. She is the author of four previous novels, including The Illusionist, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year.  Dinitia’s won  numerous awards for her writing, including fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts. She’s also written many short stories published in a wide range of magazines. Dinitia Smith’s Emmy Award winning film, Passing Quietly Through, was chosen for the New York Film Festival, and shown at the Whitney Museum and the Museum of Modern Art.

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Fiction, Thriller, Writers on Writing

Feb 09: Brad Taylor with End of Days

Book 16  in the NYT Bestselling Pike Logan Series

Listener favorite Brad Taylor returns with his latest Pike Logan thriller, End of Days. While working to solve a brutal murder, taskforce operators Pike Logan and Jennifer Cahill stumble upon the trail of a serial killer loose on the streets of Rome, and follow evidence leading to the exalted Knights of Malta.

We discuss Brad’s biggest challenge in writing End of Days. How – known for his active boots on the ground approach to research – Brad gathered details for End of Days during a pandemic. Why he included Covid. Where and why he took creative license. How Brad’s daughter inspired one of the scenes … and more.

About Brad Taylor

Brad Taylor retired as a Special Forces Lieutenant Colonel after serving 21 years, including including eight years in 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment – popularly known as Delta Force. He’s the author of 16 New York Times bestselling books including American Traitor, Hunter Killer, and his latest, End of Days.

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