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Books & Brews: the place where beer & literature meet

Bill McCormick is an award-winning and critically acclaimed author of several novels, graphic novels, and comic book series, and has appeared in numerous anthologies. He began writing professionally in 1986 for the Chicago Rocker Magazine in conjunction with his radio show on Z-95 (ABC-FM) and went on to write for several other magazines and blogs. He wrote a twisted news & science blog at WorldNewsCenter.org. It provided source material for his weekly radio show on WBIG 1280 AM, FOX!, which aired for 12 years.

We talked about domestic scenes in sci-fi, PTSD, creating chimeras (in fiction and in reality!) and much more. Check out the cocktails Chris created to go with Bill’s readings.

00:00 START
05:32 Drink 1: Blighter Bob
7:41 Reading 1: Opening Up About War
15:05 Creating Chimeras
18:58 Talking about PTSD
22:31 Drink 2: The Lone Tree
25:48 Reading 2: Goptri of the Mists
31:08 Choosing Names in Sci-Fi
37:13 Living with No Regrets
42:32 Drink 3: The Bosom Caresser
45:19 Reading 3: The Writer’s Stuff: Let’s Get the Writer!
50:36 An exception to allow PG-13

Visit our PATREON for our extended AFTER HOURS with Bill McSciFi McCormick

LINKS

sww.billmcscifi.com
www.lauravosika.com
www.gabrielshornpress.com
www.booksandbrews.net
~ ~

Help us stay online

If you enjoy our interviews or have benefitted from them, we invite you to help us continue our work. It takes a great deal of time and money to produce Books and Brews. We’ve been doing interviews since January 2017 as a free service to authors. We continue to promote those authors on our social media for years after their interviews. Subscribing, following, liking, commenting and sharing all help us to keep doing what we do.
A $5 tip helps us pay for our many expenses: Libsyn hosting, web hosting, Google meets, providing the drinks for the interview and the many hours of preparation and editing that go into each episode.
Patreon: patreon.com/BooksandBrewswithLauraVosika
Tip Jar: paypal.me/booksandbrewsMN * Books and Brews products:
https://www.zazzle.com/store/books_an… (more to come)
Sponsor an episode to promote your product or service: contact us booksandbrewslive@gmail.com

COMING NEXT MONTH?

Dona Masi, fiction on UFO abduction

UPCOMING EVENTS:

Gabriel’s Horn is accepting submissions for its anthology NEW THEMES: CHILDREN
See Laura’s interviews at Central Valley Talk, Sonhood Coaching

Our theme music is from www.bensound.com.

If you liked this episode, you might also like these Books and Brews episodes:

• PTL Perrin’s Futuristic YA Novels
• Sci-fi & AI with Michael Colon
• Alien Abduction & Family Secrets with Stephanie Sanders-Jacob

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Books and Brews: the place where beer and literature meet!
Michael Modzelewski (Mojo-less-key) grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, the son of a famous NFL football player with the Cleveland Browns, Ed “Big Mo” Modzelewski. Michael graduated from Indiana University with a degree in English Literature. He is the author of five books, including INSIDE PASSAGE, about a two year stay on a wilderness island in the Inside Passage to Alaska. After living “date-less” on the wild island, Michael was chosen a “Bachelor of the Month” by Cosmopolitan Magazine. Mr. November received 5,000 letters from women around the world, dated many, and that’s how he met an amazing wife. His resultant book: WILD LIFE: THE MISS—ADVENTURES OF A COSMO BACHELOR twice landed him as a featured guest on The Oprah Winfrey Show. “Mojo’s” latest book, his first novel, A LONG WAY HOME, set in Namibia, southern Africa, is about a famous, lost Hollywood actor who learns the meaning of life from a native African girl.

00:00 START
11:55 Drink 1: Killer Whale
13:33 Reading 1: Encounter with an Orca
18:29 Senses in nature and blackberries with a black bear
25:52 We attract what we are
26:34 Drink 2: Cosmopolitan
30:00 Reading 2: Mr. November
36:40 Oprah and picking Paula out of thousands
39:26 The impact of a very successful father on kids
35:03 Philosophy and Sci-fi
46:24 Drink 3: Savannah Sunset
50:25 Reading 3: A Long Way Home
52:32 Africa and the Baobab tree
55:28 Why Alaska and Africa: using our instincts

Visit our PATREON for our extended AFTER HOURS with Michael Modzewelski
Https://www.michaelmodzelewski.com
www.lauravosika.com
www.gabrielshornpress.com
www.booksandbrews.net

~ ~

If you enjoy our interviews or have benefited from them, we invite you to help us continue our work. It takes a great deal of time and money to produce Books and Brews. We’ve been doing interviews since January 2017 as a free service to authors. We continue to promote those authors on our social media for years after their interviews. Subscribing, following, liking, commenting and sharing all help us to keep doing what we do.
A $5 tip helps us pay for our many expenses: Libsyn hosting, web hosting, Google meets, providing the drinks for the interview and the many hours of preparation and editing that go into each episode.
Patreon: patreon.com/BooksandBrewswithLauraVosika
Tip Jar: paypal.me/booksandbrewsMN * Books and Brews products:
https://www.zazzle.com/store/books_an… (more to come)
Sponsor an episode to promote your product or service: contact us booksandbrewslive@gmail.com
COMING NEXT MONTH:
Clay Gilbert, sci-fi and more
UPCOMING EVENTS:
Gabriel’s Horn is accepting submissions for its anthology NEW THEMES: CHILDREN
See Laura’s interview at Central Valley Talk
See Laura’s interview with Rob & Joan Carter at INDIE NOVEL SOURCE
Our theme music is from www.bensound.com.

BLURBS
In our full podcast, Laura and Chris had a great talk with Michael Modzeweski about the wilds of Alaska and Africa, his life in the wilderness, becoming Mr. November and more.

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Books and Brews: where beer and literature meet!

John Graham shipped out on a freighter when he was 16, hitchhiked through the Algerian Revolution at 19 and was on the team that made the first ascent of Denali’s North Wall at 20, a climb so dangerous it’s never been repeated. He hitchhiked around the world at 22, working as a correspondent in every war he came across. A US Foreign Service Officer for 15 years, he was in the middle of the 1969 revolution in Libya and the war in Vietnam. As a global peace builder, post Foreign Service, he contributed to peace efforts in Israel and Palestine.

For the last 42 years he’s been a leader of the Giraffe Heroes Project, a global movement inspiring people to stick their necks out to solve public problems and giving them tools to succeed (giraffe.org). His speeches, blogs, podcasts and interviews have a global audience. 

In our interview, we talked about John’s adventures around the globe, being a thrill seeker, his realization of his need to change, and more.

00:00 START
03:43 Drink 1: The Shipwreck
05:13 Reading 1: Cruise Ship Down!
11:25 The Coast Guard’s most important rescue ever–and John was there!
14:35 From selfish to selfless
19:15 Helping to end apartheid
22:46 Castro’s man and plans on a napkin
33:20 Drink 3: Honey Lemon Spritz
36:19 Reading 3: A Healing Miracle
48:22 “Most significant risks challenge the soul.”
49:52 Seeking meaning in our lives
 
Visit our PATREON for our extended AFTER HOURS with John Graham

www.johngraham.org

www.lauravosika.com

www.gabrielshornpress.com

www.booksandbrews.net

SEE OUR YOUTUBE CHANNEL FOR BOOKS AND BREWS LIGHT: 

www.youtube.com/@booksandbrews 

 ~ ~

If you enjoy our interviews or have benefitted from them, we invite you to help us continue our work. It takes a great deal of time and money to produce Books and Brews. We’ve been doing interviews since January 2017 as a free service to authors. We continue to promote those authors on our social media for years after their interviews. Subscribing, following, liking, commenting and sharing all help us to keep doing what we do.
A $5 tip helps us pay for our many expenses: Libsyn hosting, web hosting, Google meets, providing the drinks for the interview and the many hours of preparation and editing that go into each episode.
Patreon: www.patreon.com/BooksandBrewswithLauraVosika
 Tip Jar: paypal.me/booksandbrewsMN *

Books and Brews products:
https://www.zazzle.com/store/books_an… (more to come)
Sponsor an episode to promote your product or service: contact us booksandbrewslive@gmail.com

COMING NEXT MONTH: 
We have a surprise gest for January 2025

UPCOMING EVENTS:
Gabriel’s Horn is accepting submissions for its anthology NEW THEME: CHILDREN.
See Laura’s interview at Central Valley Talk: https://youtu.be/ZKdeLPPgdys?si=wqPHZsAxYqgzjKcV

Our theme music is from www.bensound.com.

If you liked this episode you might also like:

• The Life of a Spy Hunter with Alani Bankhead
• Vampires and Haunts with Peter Andrew Sacco
• Fitness and World Travel with Kathy Murray

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Books and Brews: where beer and literature meet.

J.P. Reedman lives in Wiltshire near to Stonehenge. Born in Canada, she has had a lifelong interest in ancient and medieval history, and is often found lurking around prehistoric sites, ruined castles and abbeys, and interesting churches with camera in hand. She became a full-time writer in 2018.

Series include: I, Richard Plantagenet, 5 books chronicling Richard’s life from childhood to Bosworth, and Medieval Babes, a set of standalone novels about lesser-known medieval queens and noblewomen. Her most recent release is Princess in the Police Station, the tale of little Anne Mowbray, wife of the younger ‘Prince in the Tower’ whose grave was unexpectedly found in the 1960’s. The next book to be released will be The Melancholy of Winter, which is about Edmund of Rutland, Richard’s tragic elder brother.
In our interview, we talked about JP reading Beowulf as a young child, historical foods and records of the menus of great feasts, whether being a noble is over-romanticized, and more.

In our interview, we talked about JP reading Beowulf as a young child, historical foods and records of the menus of great feasts, whether being a noble is over-romanticized, and more.

00:00 START
05:54 Drink 1: Medicine for Melancholy
08:51 Reading 1: The Young Nobles Want to Skate
14:01 Using obscure historical terms
15:37 From fantasy to historical fiction
19:43 Drink 2: Dilly Bean Dirty Martini
22:55 Reading 2: Finding the Bean on Twelfth Night
25:41 The hideous Henry Holland of history
31:15 England and Canada: the story of a war bride
38:39 Drink 3: The Blackberry Raven
42:59 Reading 3: Fighting with Fish
45:53 Boys and mischief!
51:55 Most interesting and important things learned from history

Visit our PATREON for our extended AFTER HOURS with JP Reedman

www.x.com/@stonehenge2500
www.lauravosika.com
www.gabrielshornpress.com
http://www.booksandbrews.net

For many more great authors, see Books and Brews Light at our YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/@booksandbrews

~ ~

If you enjoy our interviews or have benefitted from them, we invite you to help us continue our work. It takes a great deal of time and money to produce Books and Brews. We’ve been doing interviews since January 2017 as a free service to authors. We continue to promote those authors on our social media for years after their interviews. Subscribing, following, liking, commenting and sharing all help us to keep doing what we do.
A $5 tip helps us pay for our many expenses: Libsyn hosting, web hosting, Google meets, providing the drinks for the interview and the many hours of preparation and editing that go into each episode.
Patreon: patreon.com/BooksandBrewswithLauraVosika
Tip Jar: paypal.me/booksandbrewsMN * Books and Brews products:
https://www.zazzle.com/store/books_an… (more to come)
Sponsor an episode to promote your product or service: contact us booksandbrewslive@gmail.com

COMING NEXT MONTH:
John Graham, adventurer extraordinaire!

UPCOMING EVENTS:
Gabriel’s Horn is accepting submissions for its anthology NEW THEMES: MUSIC; FAITH.

See Laura’s interview at Central Valley Talk: https://youtu.be/ZKdeLPPgdys?si=wqPHZsAxYqgzjKcV

Our theme music is from www.bensound.com.

If you liked this episode you might also like:

• Queens and Empresses with Sharon Bennett Connolly
• Meeting Kleopatra with Karen Essex
• Viking Time Travel with Christina Courtenay

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Michael C. Keith is the author of an acclaimed memoir––The Next Better Place–a young adult novel––Life is Falling Sideways––and 20 story collections, including, Of Night and Light, Everything is Epic, Sad Boy, And Through the Trembling Air, Hoag’s Object, The Collector of Tears, If Things Were Made To Last Forever, Caricatures, The Near Enough, Bits, Specks, Crumbs, Flecks, Slow Transit, Perspective Drifts Like a Log on a River, Let Us Now Speak of Extinction, Stories in the Key of Me, Insomnia 11, Pieces of Bones and Rags, Quiet Geography, The Late Epiphany of a Low-Key Oracle, and Bodies in Recline, Euphony, The Loneliness Channel, and Pings.”

He was nominated for a Pushcart Prize several times, a PEN/O’Henry Award, a PEN/Faulkner Award, an IPPY Award and was a finalist for the National Indie Excellence Award for short fiction anthology and a finalist for the 2013 International Book Award in the “Fiction Visionary” category.

In our interview, we talked about how Michael came to be on the road with his father from the age of 8, the places he saw, the kindnesses he remembers, how he got from no school on the road to a Ph.D. and much more!

00:00 START

05:59 Drink 1: On the Road Again

08:45 Reading 1: On the Road

20:15 From years without school to a Ph.D.

24:05 Growing up Nomad: How much of the country did you see?

29:34 Drink 2: Tick of the Clock

34:10 Reading 2: Insomnia

36:34 All about insomnia, causes and cures 

44:01 Tales of Larry King 

44:48 Drink 3: Love and Fear

48:49 Reading 3: 11:11

51:28 Seeing the same number over and over again

54:33 Pings and the reasons for shorter fiction

Visit our PATREON for our extended AFTER HOURS with Michael C. Keith

• https://michaelckeith.com
• www.lauravosika.com
• www.gabrielshornpress.com
• www.booksandbrews.net

 ~ ~

If you enjoy our interviews or have benefitted from them, we invite you to help us continue our work. It takes a great deal of time and money to produce Books and Brews. We’ve been doing interviews since January 2017 as a free service to authors. We continue to promote those authors on our social media for years after their interviews. Subscribing, following, liking, commenting and sharing all help us to keep doing what we do.

A $5 tip helps us pay for our many expenses: Libsyn hosting, web hosting, Google meets, providing the drinks for the interview and the many hours of preparation and editing that go into each episode.

• Patreon: patreon.com/BooksandBrewswithLauraVosika
•  Tip Jar: paypal.me/booksandbrewsMN * Books and Brews products:
• https://www.zazzle.com/store/books_an… (more to come)
• Sponsor an episode to promote your product or service: contact us booksandbrewslive@gmail.com

COMING NEXT MONTH: 

• JP Reedman, historical novelist

UPCOMING EVENTS:

• Gabriel’s Horn is accepting submissions for its anthology NEW THEMES: MUSIC; FAITH.
• Laura will be at the Southern Festival of Books in Nashville, TN on October 26 and 27
•  See Laura’s interview at Central Valley Talk
• See Laura’s interview with Rob & Joan Carter at INDIE NOVEL SOURCE

Our theme music is from www.bensound.com.

If you liked this episode you might also like:

JS Absher’s Poetry

Growing Up Military with Connie Kinsey

Sandy Hanna Sees a Military Coup as a Child

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In September, Books & Brews headed to Ireland to meet Steve Downes. Steve is a contemporary Irish poet and novelist, currently living and working in Ireland. Educated in N.U.I. Maynooth, he holds a Degree in Classical History and a Masters in Cultural Anthropology.

Steve has published poetry; science fiction, including Cosmogonic Marbles, Temporal Tome, Gadzooks Armageddon  and Botolf Tales (the Botolf Chronicles), Warworld: Shadows & Dominions (part 1), Murder on the Alpha Centauri Express and The Deaths of Guner Zoon; and four children’s Books: The Upstairs Cat Series (3 books) & An Apprenticeship to Doctor Vantastic. 

Steve continues to write and publish work in many genres.

In 2017 & 2018 Steve exhibited from his collections of historical photographs, Lost Graveyards of Ireland (2017) and A Landscape For Yourself (2018).

Among other things, we talked about his painting, the IRA, angsty poetry, and…the world’s oldest maternity hospital!

00:00 START

05:26 Drink 1: Irish Coffee

12:28 Reading 1: chase & fight in Dublin

17:53 The Rotunda, world’s oldest maternity hospital

23:55 Why the Irish give Dublin’s statues…interesting…names

25:52 Tales of the IRA

33:01 Drink 2: The Love and Murder

38:21 Reading 2: Murder on the Alpha Centauri Express

42:07 On marketing

43:07 From high school dropout to a masters in classical history to sci-fi!

48:28 Drink 3: The Mission Impossible

51:57 Reading 3: Dr. Vantastic

55:43 Steve’s many genres

Want more Books & Brews?

Visit our PATREON for our extended AFTER HOURS with Stephen Downes

• https://writerstevedownes.wordpress.com
• www.lauravosika.com
• www.gabrielshornpress.com
• www.booksandbrews.net

 ~ ~

If you enjoy our interviews, we invite you to help us continue our work. It takes a great deal of time and money to produce Books and Brews. We’ve been doing interviews since January 2017 as a free service to authors. We continue to promote those authors on our social media for years after their interviews. Subscribing, following, liking, commenting and sharing all help us to keep doing what we do.

A $5 tip helps us pay for our many expenses: Libsyn hosting, web hosting, Google meets, providing the drinks for the interview and the many hours of preparation and editing that go into each episode.

• Patreon: www.patreon.com/BooksandBrewswithLauraVosika
•  Tip Jar: paypal.me/booksandbrewsMN * Books and Brews products:
• https://www.zazzle.com/store/books_an… (more to come)
• Sponsor an episode to promote your product or service: contact us booksandbrewslive@gmail.com

COMING NEXT MONTH: 

• Michael C. Keith, author of poetry, memoir, short stories, and novels

UPCOMING EVENTS:

• Gabriel’s Horn is accepting submissions for its anthology NEW THEMES: MUSIC; FAITH.
• Laura will be at the Southern Festival of Books in Nashville, TN on October 26 and 27
•  See Laura’s interview at Central Valley Talk
• See Laura’s interview with Rob & Joan Carter at INDIE NOVEL SOURCE

Our theme music is from www.bensound.com.

If you liked our interview with Stephen, you might also like:

• Scottish children’s author Margaret Anderson
• Alien abduction and family secrets with Stephanie Sanders-Jacob
• Time travel with Christina Courtenay

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Robert Heath grew up in different places around the world, beginning in Japan in the late ‘40s. Robert and his eight siblings followed the assignments of their father, a sergeant in the U.S. Army.  He ultimately became an educator for 37 years, serving all grade levels from Pre-K through doctoral programs in South and North Carolina.  He now lives in the mountains of NC, where he loves writing and hiking. You can find him at face book at BratBob3of9

We talk about Bob’s adventures growing up in Taiwan, Japan, Germany and the United States, with one sister and seven brothers, life as a military brat, the fun of large families and lots of boys and the antics kids get up to behind mom’s back, U.S. history, bullying…and the day Bob was captured by Chiang Kai-Shek’s soldiers and brought face with the military leader himself!

Tune in for a fun conversation and great beer!

Bob’s Readings:

00:00 Start

08:56 How About a Date?

25:54 Swinging

43:03 Captured by Enemy Soldiers!

Chris’s Beer Pairings: 

07:52 Bell’s Smitten

23:29 Masthead’s Tire Swing

39:54 Great Leap’s The Hidden General

Interview Highlights: 

12:36 How Bob’s mother asked out his future mother-in-law

14:47 The stories mom never knew about–and how they led to a book

18:49 US history through personal experience

33:27 Americans in Japan two years after Hiroshima

36:26 Culture shock on returning to your own country

48:40 Do military parents make a point of not talking politics with brats?

51:16 Wild and free: military life or the times?

COMING NEXT MONTH: 

• Sharon Bennett Connolly has been fascinated by history for over 40 years and was recently elected as a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, ‘in recognition of your contribution to historical scholarship.’ She’s studied history academically and just for fun and even worked as a tour guide at historical sites. One Christmas her husband gave her…a blog – and she hasn’t looked back. The blog has given her the chance to share the history she loves – the stories themselves, and the places they happened.
  And in 2017 she completed her first non-fiction book, Heroines of the Medieval World.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

·        Gabriel’s Horn is accepting submissions for its anthology NEW THEMES: MUSIC; FAITH

·       Laura will be selling her books, premium rabbit fertilizer & more at the Morristown Farmer’s Market, 130 W Morris Boulevar, Morristown, TN on May 10, June 7, and July 5.

·       See Laura’s interview at Central Valley Talk

·       See Laura’s interview with Rob & Joan Carter at INDIE NOVEL SOURCE

Our theme music is from www.bensound.com.

If you liked this interview, you might also like:

• An American Kid in Saigon: Sandy Hanna’s front row seat to a coup
• Forty Thieves on Saipan
• Tea with Dad