http://awesomegang.com

Where Awesome Book Readers Meet Awesome Writers

1. Madame Charmaine by David Tish
   

   It is impossible for writers to completely separate their own lives from what they write. Writers, and that includes me, put their stamp on their work whether they want to or not. We all have our own way of looking at things, and even when we try to write from some character’s point of view, our personal prism lets our light shine through. That is true even when the character has a personality and background that is completely different from ours. So, to a greater or lesser degree, all writing is autobiographical. Madame Charmaine, for example, has a heavy autobiographical flavor. Madame Charmaine is set in small-town Nebraska. I was born and grew up in a small town in Nebraska. In fact, I was born in the same house I lived in for the first 17 years of my life. The four main characters in the book, three boys and a girl, are composites of kids I grew up with. And, I confess, there is a bit of the young David Tish in all of those characters, to one extent or another. All of the many and varied townspeople in the book are based on people I knew back then, which was the 1940s and ’50s. Moreover, the description of the Nebraska countryside in Madame Charmaine is real, as is the description of day-to-day life in rural Nebraska all those decades ago. The pancake-eating contest, for example, which is told in great and, I hope, hilarious detail in the book, actually took place. So did the building of the raft that the three boys took out on the Missouri River. All in all, not much has changed in small-town Nebraska since those early years of my life there. Anyway, after I graduated from the University of Missouri in 1965 with a Bachelor of Journalism degree, I went to work as a reporter for the Lincoln, Neb., Journal. About a year later, the Omaha World-Herald offered me a job. I accepted and worked at the World-Herald until 1971, when I made an abrupt, albeit brief, career change and moved to Washington, D.C., and went to work for a U.S. senator. I spent two-and-a-half interesting years in the nation’s capital, but in the end I missed writing so much that I left and went back to The World-Herald. Then, two years after that I got a job as a reporter with The News-Review in Roseburg, Oregon. I stayed at The News-Review until 1990, ultimately becoming managing editor. On Halloween night of 1990, my EFL (Editor For Life), Mary Reynolds and I climbed into a rental truck and drove to Seattle, where we lived for the next 17 years. During that time we both worked for newspapers in the Seattle area. We also were married in 2003. And I spent the final five years of my career as a copy editor at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. I retired in 2007 and Mary and I moved to a place in the country just outside of Tieton, a tiny town in south-central Washington. We have four acres, plenty of room to set up a dog agility course to exercise our four dogs and ourselves, plenty of room for a few chickens, and plenty of room for a large garden. And, most important, plenty of quiet time to devote to writing. During my newspaper career, which spanned 45 years, I won numerous news writing and editing awards. I even stepped outside of the news business and wrote about a dozen plays, four of which were given full stage productions. I loved being a newspaper reporter. I loved the people I worked with. Newspaper people are smart, skeptical, full of good humor and exceedingly dedicated to their profession. And most of all, I loved – and still love – to write. So … when retirement came along, I looked for a new outlet for my passion. As a father of four boys and the grandfather of nine, I quickly decided that writing children’s books fit the bill perfectly. But you, the readers, will ultimately be the judge of whether I made the right decision. hifromdavidtish@gmail.com

   Madame Charmaine by David Tish is a post from Awesome Gang

2. Image of Deceit by Jill Shannon
   

   I've been telling stories for a long time but getting one down on paper is another matter! I entered the professional writing world as a freelance writer covering the people behind some impressive motorcycle builds. In my spare time I worked on The Novel... It takes more time than most would believe possible to get a story to print. I personally found it best to walk away from the project and let it rest awhile. Months and months in fact. Whenever I re-entered the world I'd created for my story, I had a sharper eye for what was a bunch of hogwash and what might be pretty darn good. The right words in the correct order can have a powerful impact and it takes time to fit all of the pieces together. Support is also needed in a big way. Writers need editors and readers that will preview with a critical eye and not be afraid to tell you the truth. Family needs to understand the vacant look that comes with brain overload while figuring out plots. Reading is how I relax. I devoured books as a child and that appetite has not diminished. My favorite genre is mystery, but I also venture away from the top ten list of well known mystery writers and read a broad spectrum of non-fiction. I play a lot during the summer months, not much gets done in the way of work. We are a household of landspeed racers. I race a 1941 Indian Motorcycle and hold records in the 350cc vintage class for both gas and fuel. I'm also proud to be part of history as a Bonneville SCTA starter. The hours are long, the sun is hot, but the reward is inspiring. To witness dreams becoming reality is humbling. I'm currently working on my next novel,another mystery with a strong female protagonist.

   Image of Deceit by Jill Shannon is a post from Awesome Gang

3. Kai’s Journey
   

   Charles Siefken (1992-present) is a recent graduate of high school. This is his first book of many to be published. He currently resides in rural central Iowa where he enjoys reading sci/fi books and playing video games among other things. He is currently enrolled in our local college for automotive technician as well as working part time at a local garage as a mechanic. We have found a publisher, MasterKoda Select Publishing! Christopher Paolini was his inspiration to become a writer. Wendy Siefken (1966-Present)Currently working full time as a tier one tech at a local call center. Wendy lives on a farm with her family and enjoys reading, gardening and other activities with her family and friends. This all started as a school project for her youngest son and business partner, Charles Siefken, which has grown into a desire to be published.

   Kai’s Journey is a post from Awesome Gang

4. The House on Persimmon Road by Jackie Weger
   

   I’ve been writing romance novels off and on for thirty years. In between books, I’ve had the good fortune to travel to many interesting and exotic locales from London and Paris to Panama, Cuba and Costa Rica. I’ve sailed on a twenty-nine foot sloop in the Pacific, volunteered at a Sisters of Mercy Mission in Colon, canoed on the Big East River in the wilds of Canada and lived part of a winter with trappers in the Louisiana swamps—collecting memories, friends and experiences—which oft times make appearances in my novels. I once was married, but now I’m not. I began a university career at the age of sixty-two and was utterly fortunate to get accepted into a Study Abroad program my senior year—at Queens’ College, London University. The best thing about travelling this good earth by air, truck, boat, mule and foot is all of the wonderful people I've met along the way--from docents in St. Paul's Cathedral in London to trappers in the Louisiana swamps. All of whom who were decent, hard-working folk and more than kind to a curious and weary traveler. I love living near water--oceans, lakes, rivers, ponds, estuaries and canals. In a pinch--a water-clogged ditch will do! At the moment I'm anchored in a small community in Hockley, Texas with a man, a dog and seven feral cats.

   The House on Persimmon Road by Jackie Weger is a post from Awesome Gang

5. Prophecy Of The Female Warrior
   

   K.A. Young is a paranormal/fantasy romance author that lives with her family in the South. She began writing because her mind was swimming with incredible stories that were begging to be told. Her love for reading began as a small child when she realized that a good book was an instant escape to a mystical land that could be reached anytime and from anyplace.

   Prophecy Of The Female Warrior is a post from Awesome Gang

6. Bouncing Back: The Life of Bill Bartmann
   

   I was one of eight children. My father was janitor and mother cleaned houses for a living. I dropped out of school to join a traveling carnival at 14, and later upgraded to a street gang. While homeless I lived under bridge viaducts and in haylofts, and ate out of dumpsters. I became alcoholic by age 17. The Marine Corps rejected me due to poor hearing. One night while drunk I fell down a flight of stairs, crushing parts of my spine. I became paraplegic and my doctor told me in no uncertain terms that I would never walk again. It's a long story but I ended up walking out of the hospital on my own two feet. I soon got a job on the "kill floor" at a hog slaughterhouse. While there I organized a wildcat strike to demand benefits for us part-timers, and was successful. Also while working at the slaughterhouse, I ran into the principal who earlier had kicked me out of high school. He inspired me to get my GED, which I did. It's another long story, but I graduated from college with a bachelor's degree, and eventually got my law degree. I immediately went into private practice, specializing in consumer bankruptcy. Later I got involved in real estate investing, and became quite successful, whereupon I got involved in oil drilling and lost my shirt. While broke, I was asked to take over an oil pipe company and I again became a millionaire--until Saudi Arabia flooded the market with oil and the price crashed. While $1 million in debt from the collapse of the oil business and my pipe company, I bought the first portfolio of defaulted loans ever auctioned to the public by the FDIC. My intimate knowledge (being bankrupt myself) of the shady practices of debt collectors led me to try a different approach--I treated borrowers with dignity and respect. That first portfolio of loans yielded a relatively substantial return, and I began to pay off my $1 million debt. I bought more loan portfolios and shortly thereafter I was able to pay off the debt. I could see a tidal wave of these portfolios becoming available first from the FDIC, and later from the Resolution Trust Corporation after the savings & loan crisis. At the same time, our ethical collection practices were yielding substantial profit margins. As a result, I focused on three things in order to gain market share as quickly as possible. The following is a summary of our results: People--An industry trade journal called us the "largest, best-trained, and most profitable collection operation in the world." Systems--The Smithsonian Institution's Museum of American History has a permanent display on the technology we pioneered. Financing--My company became the very first company ever to do an investment-grade securitization of non-performing debt on Wall Street. Harvard Business School published a case study on our techniques. In fact, we went on to raise more than $3.1 billion from 120 different lenders for more than 180 separate transactions. We were acknowledged by Business Week as "one of the top 30 family-friendly companies in the United States." We made it to the "Inc. Magazine 500 Fastest-Growing Private Companies" list four years in a row. "Working Woman Magazine" recognized us as "One of the top 100 Best Companies for Working Mothers". (We were not a yoga school but instead a debt-collection company.) Then came the crash: Without my knowledge my business partner engaged in several transactions with our company for his own personal benefit. An employee noticed these transactions and rather than take them to me or to the auditors, he chose to send an anonymous letter to one of the investment rating agencies. When the rating agency called me about the letter, I commenced an energetic investigation and soon determined that my business partner had in fact executed the transactions. I held a press conference to explain exactly what we knew of the transactions, how my business partner admitted that he had acted alone, and how the former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency would conduct an even more thorough investigation. Even so, I immediately became the subject of suspicion: "How could Bartmann not have known? He was a hands-on executive who built the company from the ground up." Wall Street backed away and our financing sources instantly dried up. The SEC and FBI conducted separate investigations and found no wrongdoing by my company or by me. They concluded that the unauthorized transactions were limited to my business partner. Not one but two grand juries concluded there was no basis for charges after investigating the facts. Nevertheless, in the post-Enron atmosphere, the federal government decided to take the case out of the state's hands, and indict me on 57 felony counts representing 600 years in prison if convicted. Attorney General John Ashcroft personally held a news conference, assuring the public that the government's case was rock-solid against me. The lead prosecution attorney had been taken off his prior case--to prosecute Slobodan Milošević, the Serbian mass murderer--so that he could now prosecute me. The government presented its case against me, calling 53 witnesses and lasting 89 days. I chose not to call a single witness and not to present any case for the defense. The jury found me not guilty on all counts. Later the bankruptcy trustee for my former company publicly admitted "There was no fraud at CFS." Nevertheless, even though my name was cleared I was bankrupt. My assets had been seized and disposed of through an involuntary bankruptcy proceeding, and my motions had been denied to stay those proceedings until the criminal trial was over. My long and interesting business career has given me a unique perspective: I'm aware of no other slaughterhouse worker or street-gang member ever to have become a billionaire. I'm also something of an authority on surviving bankruptcy and other forms of failure. I therefore channeled that knowledge and my energies into helping other entrepreneurs to overcome whatever barriers they're up against. I created Bill Bartmann Enterprises, through which I've offered courses, materials, and live events on entrepreneurship and achieving goals. When the 2008 banking crisis resulted in the federal government bailout of banks, I recognized the same pattern of events that had made me a billionaire the first time around: The government was requiring banks to dispose of assets deemed "toxic" to banks but those assets had residual value to others knowledgeable enough to extract it. I wrote a book, Bailout Riches, which was published by Wiley in June 2009 and which became a #1 world-wide bestseller on Amazon. It described the current opportunity to capitalize on the enormous wave of defaulted debt available today. Then after seeing all the deceit and immoral practices in my industry, I wrote the Out of Control, an insiders view of debt collector abuse in America. Today my work continues as a strive every day to reform the debt collection industry and help raise up those in our society who, through no fault of their own, are struggling with debt.

   Bouncing Back: The Life of Bill Bartmann is a post from Awesome Gang

7. Natural cures – Home Remedies for Natural Relief
   

   I decided to write this book after spending 26 years as a Social Worker in what I would call the "Sickness Industry" It became evident to me that people had lost the "How To" of treating common ailments the natural way and were struggling daily because they never felt their best because of a lack of wellness. In this "Natural Cures, Home Remedies for Natural Relief" book, there are many recipes and tips using essential oils as essential oil uses are vast and many to help one achieve wellness on all levels and treat many ailments and ultimately take back control of their overall well-being. Where-ever I go I always have my blends at the ready, a couple in small 5ml bottles in my handbag for things such as headaches and sinuses. I never buy over the counter preparations for such things! I have easily and effectively, incorporated into my daily life, "Natures Gifts" and also have tuaght my family how to do the same. I know that this book, will help you to do the same also. My wish for you and your family is good health for without that, we cannot achieve all we are supposed to be. "Health is the greatest of human blessings" ... Hippocrates

   Natural cures – Home Remedies for Natural Relief is a post from Awesome Gang