Wednesday, June 8, 2016

Evansville Local Authors: Part II - Doug Knight & Donna G. Hendricks

It's very exciting to share the second episode in my Evansville Local Authors radio show series, which features the talents of authors in the Tri-State area. Two lovely souls: Doug Knight and Donna G. Hendricks will chat with me about their books. Take a peak below at their bios and book descriptions. You are cordially invited to tune in to the show live this Thursday, June 9, 2016, at 11:30 a.m. CST. I will be giving away copies of "Little Dog in the Sun" to listeners that call in to the show. 
The radio show link is below--"see" you soon!



BARNES & NOBLE EVENT-THIS WEEKEND!

Evansville's Barnes & Noble Booksellers is hosting it's first "B-Fest Teen Book Festival" which is this weekend. Three days packed with fantastic events for teens such as: writing workshops, trivia, games, author events, yoga, art, jewelry making, music, Star Wars, giveaways & more. Our B&N friend, Mariana Mudd, will answer any questions you have at 812-475-1054. This is a terrific event for teens - spread the word! 
*Evansville Local Author members, Jean Pace and Cindy Moore will be there Saturday, June 11 at 11:00 a.m. 

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/h/b-fest-teen-book-festival?sourceId=L000021086&st=EML


Doug Knight:
Doug Knight & Lanea at Barnes & Noble booksigning
I believe my desire to be an author came shortly after I learned to read. My dad was an English teacher and he encouraged me to read. He would bring home books for me to read, mostly novels. I especially remember enjoying To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee, The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers, Alexander Dumas,Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson. I read books by Charles Dickens, Edgar Allan Poe, Walter Scott and Nathaniel Hawthorne. I remember begging my mom and forcing my younger brother to play a card game of "Authors" when we lived in Bloomington one summer while Dad earned his master’s degree.
You can’t become an author if you don’t write something.  I remember drawing cartoons, comic strips, actually in the third grade. It got me lots of attention and mostly positive strokes.
Our fourth grade teacher, Mrs. McPherson, who smelled like coffee and I loved the smell of coffee, asked us to write a short story.  There were lots of wonderful stories written by the class, all but a few were very similar and usually about a paragraph long. We also had to read them in front of the class. I remember my story was “The Dog Who Was Afraid of Cats” and it was four or five pages long. I don’t remember what grade I received, but I remember my teacher saying she wanted me to send her my first published novel.  She moved away the following year (that was fifty years or so ago) and I haven’t been able to find her. But I have one of my novels saved back for Mrs. McPherson if I ever find her.
I write all of the time. Sometimes I post on my blog at kingservant.com. The blog is my definition of a full, rich life.  I have experienced loss in the death of two wives and share what I’ve learned of grieving and moving on after loss. I write about the differences between living a life and not just existing.
Since I retired in January, I spend many hours writing my second novel, Through the Valley of the Shadow, and learning how to market my current novel, A River Bend.  I also try to hone my craft by reading other peoples’ works.
I want to finish and publish not only Through the Valley of the Shadow, but I have several other novels started – a detective adventure about a cop and a taxi driver, a historical novel about a circuit rider and I’m toying with an idea based on one of my ancestors who fought in the Revolutionary War, was later captured by Indians on his way to Vincennes and was one of the earliest settlers in Wayne County, Indiana. This is something I learned just recently on Ancestry.com. 

A River Bend is about Josh Crockett, a thirty-three year old psychologist and author who travels back to his childhood home of Melo, Indiana. Melo is on the bend of the Aboideux River and, of course, it mirrors life around Evansville, Indiana and the Ohio River. 
Josh involves himself in the lives of several people in Melo, including an attractive thirty-ish entrepreneur, Marcy James. Their chance meeting and subsequent meetings grow into a very strong bond of friendship.  
Josh's purpose for returning to Melo is to instruct a church teen group on the concepts of his book. One of the deacons, Desmond Niemeier, finds Josh a little too good to be true and devotes his time to expose Josh for the fraud Desmond believes him to be. Desmond's efforts uncover a dark secret from Josh's past which eventually thwarts Josh's plans with the youth group. 
Josh questions why God allows this to happen to him. He also struggles with whether his feelings for Marcy James are love or lust, whether his motives for returning to Melo are purpose or pride and whether his future is in Melo or Corona, Florida, where he had been residing. 
A River Bend - by Doug Knight
My next novel, Through the Valley of the Shadow is a follow-up on the lives of the main characters in A River Bend, especially Marcy James and Paul Palato. 
Marcy is torn between two lovers, Josh Crockett, who returned to Corona but promised to join her soon in Melo, and a close family friend, Geoff Westin, a very married lawyer. In the midst of this struggle, Marcy is attacked and nearly raped and then stalked by one of her attackers. Josh shows up just in time to thwart an attempt on Marcy's life by her stalker.
Paul, also a lawyer, is given a great opportunity in his profession to help the city as a public defense attorney. He is encouraged by the Mayor of Melo to accept this opportunity in order to launch bigger and better career opportunities.
The lives of Marcy and Paul cross when Paul is asked to defend one of Marcy's attackers. Paul must choose upholding his duty to strongly defend the attacker or risk his lifelong friendship with Josh. Paul is also discouraged by public opinion and even the Mayor to do due diligence in defending strongly this obviously guilty predator.  
Will Paul be able to determine what the right thing to do is? Will he lose the Mayor's support of his promising career? Will he be able to live with himself if he makes a wrong decision?



You can also find Doug at these social media outlets:




DONNA G. HENDRICKS:


Donna G. Hendricks
When I was a little girl, I loved to look through gravel and find little beads that we called "Indian Beads." They looked like they were made of stone and each one had a hole in the middle. Later I visited a rock show and discovered that what I had been finding was a crinoid stem fossil. A crinoid grew in the water, having a root, a stem, and arms coming out the top of the stem. It looked like a plant, but it was an animal. When it became fossilized, it turned to stone. I later discovered that crinoid stem fossils could be found along the edge of a creek. I found a lot of them, stringing them on a thread to make a necklace. This was my first experience with beach combing. 
When I met my husband, John, he had a big silver canoe draped over his tiny brown Toyota. It looked like a silver fish eating a bug. Later he invited me to canoe seven miles with him and friends at the Blue River. It was my first time in a canoe, but it was fun! We stopped on a gravel bar for a picnic lunch of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and iced tea. As I walked around on the beach, I found two fossils--a brown rock with a small backbone down the middle and something that looked like the end of a bone that had turned to stone. I kept them as memories of a wonderful day. I also had the experience of stepping in some nettles and having to stand in the river to try to sooth the stinging. We made it to the end of our canoe outing right at dark where someone was waiting to take us back to our vehicle. What a great experience! 
After we married, we visited Big Creek, Wakulla River, The Adirondacks, Okefenokee Swamp, Isle Royale, The Atlantic Ocean, The Pacific Ocean, Lake Erie, and the Sea of Cortez to name a few. I especially liked looking for American Indian artifacts on the beaches wherever we went. Each time we returned home I made things from shells, fossils, driftwood, and rocks I found and was inspired by the scenery we enjoyed. I kept a journal, John shot photos.
 
We’re Combing the Beaches
And Doing Projects

By Donna G. Hendricks

I began jotting down ideas and writing stories about our experiences. At first I wrote a memoir but with the photos and the projects it eventually developed into a children’s project book. 
Most people think beaches are only by the ocean, but beaches are any place where rocks and sand meets water: rivers, creeks, lakes, wetlands, and oceans. So these five places became the names of the chapters of my book, Rivers, Creeks, Lakes, Wetlands, and Oceans. John and I had been to all of these places, canoeing, snorkeling, fishing, wading, riding on a ferry, and flying in a seaplane, and we had experienced all the places mentioned in my book. There are instructions, photos, and sketches for 60 projects of all types.
 

Donna G. Hendricks & Husband, John
Excerpt from We’re Combing the Beaches And Doing Projects:
“I love adventure. I love rivers and swamps and creeks. I love to walk on beaches, finding shells, rocks, and driftwood. Come with me into this book, and I will be your tour guide. I want you to see, hear, and feel everything! Together we’ll visit all sorts of places. We’ll canoe down a river and see the animals; we’ll swim with the fishes in a creek; we’ll take a ferry to an island and drink tea by a big lake. We’ll make things, and paint and sew, and maybe we’ll be archaeologists. We’ll draw a treasure map and write a poem. Some of the projects are easy; some are harder. You pick one you can do. We’ll have a grand time together, you and I.


Link to Donna’s Amazon author page: http://www.amazon.com/Donna-G.-Hendricks/e/B00UGP3T2U
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/were-combing-the-beaches-donna-g-hendricks/1120172601?ean=9781632687661



Donna's website: http://donnaghendricks.tateauthor.com/



RADIO SHOW LINK:

Tune in live and have chance to win a copy of "Little Dog in the Sun" by Lanea Stagg and illustrated by Jon Fuchs.

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/recipe-records-cookbook/2016/06/09/doug-knight-donna-g-hendricks-finding-treasures-in-the-rivers-bend

If you can't listen live, click on the same link shortly after the show cuts and hear the archived episode.




UPCOMING GIGS:

Schnitzel
Jon Fuchs, Lanea and Ava and Schnitzel will be at Barnes & Noble Saturday, June 18 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.

It is Schnitzel's first appearance at B&N ... Woof!

You can get any of the Little Dog books or Recipe Records cookbooks at my website:
www.reciperecordscookbook.com




PEACE, LOVE and ROCK & ROLL,
Lanea Stagg
www.reciperecordscookbook.com
blog:  www.rockblocks3.blogspot.com
radio:  www.blogtalkradio.com/reciperecords
reciperecordsml@aol.com
www.amazon.com/laneastagg

1 comment:

M Dianne Grotius Berry said...

I was looking for the radio interview link for Doug and Donna!