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Saturday, 23 January 2010 |
An Interview with Judy L. Mandel, author of Replacement Child
 Replacement Child
A: I started writing Replacement Child to try to piece together my own history and discover how the plane crash before I was born shaped my life. In the process, I found out a great many things about myself and my family that I never would have known, or understood any other way.
2. Q: How long did the book take you from start to finish?
A: Four years, plus the 40 or so thinking about it.
3. Q: What aspect of writing the book did you find particularly challenging?
A: Looking at my parents as people, objectively. Being honest with myself about some of my own resentment toward my parents and even my sister. Understanding my role in their lives, and mine in theirs.
4. Q: What surprised you the most about the book writing process?
A: How it was a journey in self-discovery. I never thought I would be finding out more about myself by writing about my childhood—but I certainly did.
5. Q: What do you hope your readers will gain from reading your book?
A: I hope readers will get a sense of the complexity of recovery—and the far-reaching tentacles of the tragedies they read about in the newspaper every day. And, I hope they might gain an insight into their own recovery from whatever has been thrown at them during their life. I hope the book gives people a way to accept and forgive. Especially finding that there is a way to forgive your parents for things that were beyond their control. To realize most parents do the best they can. |
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Last Updated ( Saturday, 23 January 2010 )
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Monday, 28 December 2009 |
An Author Profile with Richard Jarzynka, author of Blessed with Bipolar
 Blessed with Biploar
Letting yourself go wild in your writing. A relentless unwillingness to settle for anything less than brutal emotional honesty – with yourself. Driving into the pain, bleeding a little, and winking at it with a knowing grin. Favorite quote from a book? “. . . it’s the truth even if it didn’t happen.” – One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
When and why did you begin writing?
I was 18 and had just given up a football scholarship to Georgia Tech. Without that dream, I was clueless about what to do next, so, naturally . . . I proceeded aimlessly to another college. My head was already filled with everything that I did not yet know to be bipolar. I was lost. I started listening to Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan because I loved their story-telling, passion, and what seemed to be honesty. I tried to write like them to get the bipolar out of my head. It helped, but I still ended up on a psych ward.
If you had to choose, which writer would you consider a mentor? Natalie Goldberg. She is the author of “Wild Mind: Living the Writer’s Life.” In it she offers these seven simple rules for writing: Keep your hand moving; Lose control; Be specific; Don’t think; Don’t worry about punctuation, spelling, or grammar; You are free to write the worst junk in America; Go for the jugular. It works for me.
What would you say is your interesting writing quirk? I do most of my writing in the food court of a shopping mall. Something about that environment stimulates my brain. I think it has something to do with being surrounded by people that I don’t have to talk to.
Find out more about BLESSED WITH BIPOLAR |
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 29 December 2009 )
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Wednesday, 30 April 2008 |
The Virtual Book Review Network is pleased to interview Steven Vannoy and Craig Ross, authors of Stomp the Elephant in the Office
If the atmosphere in your office is so toxic it feels like a 1,000 pound elephant has taken up residence, know this: you can evict that elephant, get more accomplished and be excited about your job once more. All the steps and strategies to permanently banish the elephant in the workplace – the poor behaviors, attitudes and dysfunctional actions that stop people from getting things done – are outlined in Stomp the Elephant in the Office.
 Stomp the Elephant in the Office
Craig Ross is President of Pathways to Leadership, Inc. and leads the development of Pathways programs and facilitates internationally. His background in education and coaching lends itself to his responsibilities in program development and facilitator training.
LAUREN SMITH: What inspired you to take what you do at Pathways to Leadership and turn it into a book?
The inspiration for the title came from our client-partners. There’s a myth, Lauren, that work has to be a drag; that we have to continuously search for methods to motivate uninspired employees; that results can only improve incrementally. It doesn’t have to be that way! Yet people, leaders at every level, have accepted it as the norm. That’s the elephant: toxic attitudes, poor behaviors – in other words, culture – that everyone is aware of but no one is doing anything about.
Proof that few people are doing anything about it: 66% of corporate strategies are never executed (Ernst and Young); 72% of the work force is disengaged (Gallup). In nearly 85 percent of companies, employees’ morale sharply declines after their first six months, and continues to deteriorate in the years that follow (Sirota, Mischkind and Meltzer). We could go on. There’s a growing band of leaders who are not buying into the myth anymore. They’re using the tools we talk about in the book to stomp the elephant and change how work is getting done. And in the process, they’re changing the lives of those around them.
LAUREN SMITH: Are dysfunctional workplace cultures a bigger problem now as compared to past decades? If so, why?
You could say they are a bigger problem now – and it’s primarily because we as a society are so much more “aware” than we used to be. One person shared, “My father said he used to go to work and he had to ‘hang up his human-ness’ as he went into the office. And then he’d put his ‘human-ness’ back on when he left.”
Many people weren’t even aware that they should, could – and were entitled to – enjoy their job.
So dysfunctional workplaces are a bigger problem now because people want more. They want better. And the few organizations that figure out how to stomp the elephant and deliver that are winning. |
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 30 April 2008 )
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Friday, 01 February 2008 |
Interviewing author Erik Quisling...brought to you by the Virtual Book Review Network  Fables from the Mud Erik Quisling: I initially came up with the idea for Fables from the Mud shortly after I graduated college. In the course of my soul searching and trying to figure out my place in the world, I was struck with the idea of a clam who was trying to do the exact same thing. For some reason it struck me as extremely amusing. This is how The Angry Clam, the first fable in my book, was born. Lauren Smith: Do you see Fables From the Mud as a satire, cultural commentary or something more? Erik Quisling: Fables From The Mud is about three little creatures – a clam, an ant, and a worm – all of whom are struggling with very human problems. The stories are satirical but in many ways are simply a cultural commentary on the human obsession with finding meaning in the world. All in all, they are designed to be amusing and to get you to see somewhat the absurdity of taking life too seriously. Lauren Smith: How did you develop each of the fables? Erik Quisling: Each fable was born from its own separate bout of inspiration. In each case, it was a single line of text that came to me that was like lighting a fuse that set the story on its course. Once the fuse was lit, the stories pretty much wrote themselves – I simply had to go back and edit them a little bit. |
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Last Updated ( Monday, 14 April 2008 )
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