Writing and Writers: Guests Scheduled Through Nov. 20

Air time 9 a.m., MST on KFUN/KLVF, Las Vegas, NM

Not from the Las Vegas area? The show streams online at http://www.kfunonline.com

October 30

Gail Rubin has written an amazing book about death. A Good Goodbye is a realistic look at a fact of life. Death comes to everyone. What then? A Good Goodbye was the Best of Show winner in the 2011 New Mexico Book Awards. The book was also a national finalist in the 2010 Book of the Year Award, Family & Relationships category.

About the book: (From the author’s website) Just as talking about sex won’t make you pregnant, talking about funerals won’t make you dead – and your family will benefit from the conversation. A Good Goodbye addresses the Baby Boomer generation with gentle humor on the vital information about funeral arrangements that most people don’t learn about until faced with a death in the family. This easy-to-read book tells how to plan a memorial service and reception, ways to communicate the news, collect vital information before it’s needed, and write obituaries and eulogies. It also presents background on many religious traditions, new funeral trends and creative non-religious rituals, event-planning checklists, information forms for death certificates and obituaries, and cost containment. It even covers ways to honor the death of a pet and remember deceased loved ones annually.

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Did you know that among the state’s centennial project there was a website entitled 200NewMexicoPoems? The editor to the project was Lisa Hase-Jackson, a poet in her own right with work in multiple publications.

About Lisa: (From the 200NewMexicoPoem website) Lisa M. Hase-Jackson holds a Master’s Degree in English with an emphasis in poetry from Kansas State University and is a trained Creativity Coach. She has developed and facilitated poetry writing workshops and circles all over the world, beginning with the Washburn Writers Fellowship Program in Topeka, Kansas, and including the Peyongchon writers group in Anyang, South Korea and, currently, the Friday Poets Group in Albuquerque, NM. Her literary editorial experience includes working on Washburn University’s literary magazine, Inscape; two years with Kansas State University’s literary magazine, Touchstone; faciltating 200NewMexcioPoems.wordpress.com, a New Mexico Centennial endorsed project  celebrating New Mexico’s centennial through poetry; and a variety of trade newsletters. She keeps a blog at ZingaraPoet.net, which features poet interviews, writing exercises, poetry prompts, articles and poetry picks.

November 6

Bruce Halloran Rogers is a fascinating man who has figured out how to make the internet work for his particular skills. He is a prolific writer producing a voluminous amount of work on his website shortshortshort.com. For only $10 a year, three times a month you will receive a brand new original story by Bruce. They must be good, because he continues to grow his subscriber list and he keeps the ones he has.



For six years, Bruce wrote a column about the spiritual and psychological challenges of full-time fiction writing for Speculations magazine. Many of those columns have been collected in a new book, Word Work: Surviving and Thriving as a Writer (an alternate selection of the Writers Digest Book Club). He is a motivational speaker and trains workers and managers in creativity and practical problem solving.

 Myrna Haskell has put her popular syndicated column for parent of teens into, Lions and Tigersand Teens: Expert advice and support for the conscientious parent just like you.

About the book: Don’t throw up your hands and walk away. If your teen isn’t talking to you and acting in ways you don’t understand, maybe it’s time to evaluate the behavior and gain insight into what to do. Myrna Haskell has been writing about the very thing that has you baffled. Her book  is a compilation of the best installments of her column for parents of teens, teachers, siblings, grandparents… or anyone who interacts with today’s youth. Also included are several installments that have never before been published.

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November 13

Poet Luis Alberto Urrea wrote of Centennial Poet Levi Romero:

“Levi Romero is a strange kind of wizard. He can walk up a New Mexico arroyo and come back with a mysterious object full of quotidian magic. Like a rusted tobacco can the grandfathers used to roll their smokes. And when you pry open the lid, you can hear their laughter and gossip coming out. That’s what he does in poem after poem. I read his work and I learn again how to love this life.” 

Romero's first collection of poetry, In the Gathering of Silence, published in 1966, features Woodstove of My Childhood, an epic poem based on personal and communal histories. His latest collection, A Poetry of Remembrance: New and Rejected Works, with UNM Press in December 2008, sold out within a month of its publication.

(Excerpted from “Levi Romero Sows Culture Crops,” by Carolyn Gonzales, UNM Today, August 28, 2009.)
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Tome on the Range will fill the second half of the hour with featured children's books and upcoming events for fall and  and the holiday season. Guests will be children's book buyer Janet Chapman and associate Susan Cole.

November 20

John Murray grew up and was educated in the United Kingdom. He studied theology in Birmingham, England and in Toronto, Canada. His life experience has been in business, in pastoral ministry, in Christian journalism and for the last twenty years before retirement he was the Executive Director of Eurovangelism Canada. Eurovangelism is a British mission which has been working in Eastern Europe for approximately fifty years.

 About the Book: (From the author's website.) “Real Faith” covers the major issues of the Christian Faith. It begins with “Why do we believe?” It moves on to discuss who is God the Father, the Son and Holy Spirit and then asks the question, “What is Christian conversion?” It also covers “Why is it so difficult to live the Christian life?” and finally leads to “What is expected of us as believers?” In other words the book discusses what we believe, why we believe it and what is expected of us because we believe it.
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Jackie Carpenter never intended to become an author. And neither did she ever expect to be a resource for persons facing a crisis in life. But Jackie took the crisis in her life, and subsequent miracle, and wove it into a dramatic and heart-wrenching story – The Bridge: Between Cell Block A and a Miracle is Psalm 91. And the Reluctant Author followed up with still another book, Georgia Justice: A Journey To Faith – a remarkable guide on how to build faith when overcome by doubt, depression and tragic events.

About the Books: In The Bridge, the author tells her story. After her son, Richard Jason Veitch, was falsely accused of felony murder, Jackie Carpenter found the odds seemingly stacked against her: there was no hope, money was of no value, and she was rendered helpless before a jury of 12. But by simply waiting on a miracle from God, she was able to experience deliverance from her troubles—all in His perfect timing. In Georgia Justice she tells a story of faith-building – a how to guide of what it takes to escape from the tightening grips of doubt and depression and begin the journey to renewed and strengthened faith, hope, and ultimate victory. It is a book everyone should read, believers and non-believers alike, those facing a tragedy now and those who have no idea a tragedy lies ahead in their tomorrows.

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That’s the line up through Nov. 20. The schedule is subject to change and while I hope to update the information I may miss from time to time. Thanks for listening to Writer's Block, and if you missed a show, be sure to check out the podcasts, which are generally posted within two days of air time.

Writers and Writing: Tom McDonald

Writer’s Block airs every Tuesday, at 9 a.m. MST on KFUN/KLVF, streaming live at www.kfunonline.com 

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McDonald

A journalist first and foremost, 

and a little fiction on the side

Tom McDonald has a passion for what he does. It is evident – aside from saying it – that he truly loves the newspaper business. During his May 29 interview on Writer’s Block he talked about his creative writing as well as his position as editor and publisher of the Las Vegas Optic, a small town paper in a community of about 13,500 people.

Although he didn’t get knee-deep into writing until he went to work in the newspaper business, he began writing from an early age. He started out with poetry, and then short stories. Now he’s into writing novels. “I had no discipline with writing until I got into journalism,” he said. 

Like many writers Tom uses words as a means of self-expression. Growing up he admired John Steinbeck and Ken Kesey, among others. “To learn how to write I read.” After reading the greats and trying his hand at different styles, Tom said he developed his own voice.

He talked about the differences between journalistic and creative writing. From the journalism perspective Tom enjoys taking on the challenges of making complex stories accessible to the average person. Stepping outside one’s own perspective isn’t easy but it is necessary for journalists. “Taking an issue you have an opinion about and being able to articulate the other side is a good mental exercise,” he said. And it’s responsible, objective reporting.

Tom quoted a line from another writer about fiction sometimes being more accurate than fact. “That’s why I like writing fiction. You can get inside another person’s head. The magic is that I can be or think from another perspective and I’m not limited by facts.”

Tom’s manuscript (one of several) is what he calls straightforward fiction. Resurrection is about a reporter covering a story about a cult located on the outskirts of Las Vegas, NM. The main character has personal and professional struggles that surface during the course of meeting with the cult leader, who is not what he appears to be.

“The character is not based on me,” Tom said, “but he is a reporter, which is what I know, and I have had similar struggles.”

Another manuscript he’s working on is entitled, Superpowers, about two girls who are feuding and who don’t always get along. He points out that if it gets picked up by a publisher he’ll have to change the names of the characters, currently named for his two daughters.

Tom started writing fiction with more intention after he got his new laptop. “I had the story about the cult leader in my head for a long time.” He’s working in familiar territory with the story line by making the protagonist a reporter and setting it in Las Vegas, NM.

Tom’s other recreational writing is rhyming poetry. In his view, poetry is painting a picture with words. “I can tap into feelings I have a hard time expressing elsewhere. Even though I’ve played with free verse, I like rhyme. It’s like I get a tune in my head, and since I’m not a musician, I put it on paper with words.”

His career as a journalist has spanned 20 years and counting, and he loves every minute of it.

“Simply put we generate news and put out views,” he said of the Optic. “I’m very proud of what I do. Newspapers are a cornerstone of democracy. Government functions better when citizens are well-informed. We put out what people need to know and what people want to know.”

Community conversation and debate are important to Tom, which is why the rich content on the opinions pages of the paper has grown since he became publisher. Differing views inform the public as much as front page news.

Tom said that while it’s important to highlight problems, the paper should also present possible solutions. “Criticism of newspapers in justified when all you do editorially is beat up on everybody else but never offer solutions. On our best days we make a difference. Not every day, but our job is to push the community, hopefully in the right direction. If we have one single agenda it’s to be transparent. Open and honest discussion is more important than whether you agree with me or not.”

Tom is encouraged that for the most part people understand and appreciate that the newspaper is an independent entity. “We think for ourselves and make our news judgment based on an independent line of thinking. It’s not unusual for us to express support for someone and then run a story that makes them look bad. It’s not personal; it’s the news.”

Tom McDonald is a native of Arkansas, where he grew up as one of seven sons to a teacher and a preacher, In his 20s he dropped out of college and held a variety of blue-collar and community oriented jobs throughout the South, then returned to college in his 30s to earn a bachelor’s degree, majoring in history and minoring in journalism. Tom has more than two decades of experience in the newspaper business, and has spent the past seven-plus years as editor and publisher of the Las Vegas Optic. In 2010-2011 he served as president of the New Mexico Press Association. Even though he’s yet to be published outside the world of journalism, he also writes fiction and poetry on the side, just for fun — or, he dreams, someday, just for the profit of it all. In the meantime, he says he’ll keep his day job, which he calls “the best job in town.”

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