Chris Redding's Blog, page 37
February 11, 2013
Trish Jackson Interview
February 10, 2013
And The Whippoorwill Sang
February 9, 2013
February 7, 2013
February 3, 2013
It's Gametime Somewhere
Tim Forbes was like many Americans: painfully unsatisfied in his corporate job but making too much money to walk away. But then, one momentous day, he and his wife struck the Deal, leading to a career in the one field he loved more than anything: sports.
Years later, having carved out his place in the sports business, he was surprised when a friend asked, "Do you still love sports?"...And stunned when he didn't know how to reply. Of course he still loved sports! Didn't he? Was it possible that walking away from a perk-filled Corporate American life had all been for nothing?
His year-long quest to find that answer started with a single game. But what he discovered there soon led to an unlikely coast-to-coast “sports walkabout” involving 100 more games and 50 different sports—from major-market events to the smallest of the small. Poignant, irreverent, and ultimately inspiring, It’s Game Time Somewhere chronicles one man’s search for the love of the game.
Bio:
Alternately blessed and cursed by the notion that everyone should do what they love for a living, Tim Forbes creates and writes about the games that people play.
Tim grew up in the farmlands of northern Connecticut, and went on to earn a bachelor’s degree from Ithaca College—where he played Division III basketball in front of literally tens of people. He received an MBA from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and an Associate’s Degree at the Professional Golfers Career College in Temecula, CA. Yes, in that order.
After 15 years spent meandering about in Corporate America, Tim went on to work for three professional golf tours: the Symetra Futures Tour, the LPGA Tour, and the PGA Tour. He also served as general manager for golf clubs in Nashville, Tennessee and Orlando, Florida. In 2009, he founded Outside the Mode, a sports marketing and production company based in his adopted home of Los Angeles.
Tim lives in Redondo Beach, California with a perennially underachieving fish named Halo, a cat, and a wife he fondly calls Bird.
Format/Price: $15.95 paperback
Pages: 304
ISBN: 9781938008122
Publisher: Bascom Hill
Release: February 12, 2013
Barnes and Noble buy link ($15.95): http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/its-game-time-somewhere-tim-forbes/1113793386?ean=9781938008122
MyBookOrders.com buy link ($15.95): https://secure.mybookorders.com/Orderpage/945
Cards on the table – yours truly is not quite right.
How else could you explain the fact that I spent a year of my life attending and writing about 100 uniquely different sporting events involving 50 separate sports? But that’s what I did, and literally thousands of readers helped me keep score. And when it was done, we all knew more about sports in America than it was thought to be humanly possible. Or at least I did, anyway.
“But why?” you ask. Well here’s my story and I’m sticking to it…
As Bill Cosby once said, I started out as a child. A child inexorably drawn to sports – the organized kind and especially the disorganized kind favored by my circle of friends. Consequently I grew up chasing a ball. It didn’t matter what size or shape, I chased them all. I was fortunate enough to have come of age in a time when kids themselves scheduled their own games and “officiated” them via the kid’s code of sports ethics – an arcane collection of arguments, declarations, and insults that inevitably led to the Do Over. Or somebody taking their ball and going home.
On those occasions when a quorum wasn’t available for even the most streamlined of games, I played them solo. Some might call it “practicing”, but I knew it as “having fun”. And as is the case with many things one repeats endlessly, I managed to develop some level of skill. So it came to be that I went to college on a basketball scholarship.
Annoyingly enough, they don’t let you just major in Basketball – well, not in 1977 anyway, and not in any conference that, like mine, did not start with the word “Big”. So I chose to pursue a degree in Psychology. Don’t ask me why. And when my undergraduate days ended, I decided to obtain an MBA, because, well…because.
The ironic thing was that neither Psychology nor Business Administration would have even been in the race had Sports Management been an academic option. Ubiquitous now, at the time that I entered college there was no such degree program. And so, a career match made in heaven went by the boards…for the time being, anyway.
In my mid-30’s, having acquired over a decade of experience in Corporate America, I became vaguely aware of the fact that people were getting paid to work in sports! Having thus discovered the existence of what was rightfully MY chosen field of work, I spent the next several years alternating between a state of agitation over having been born a decade too early, and thoughtful rumination on how I could still pull off a second half rally and transition to my natural calling.
At the age of 40, the confluence of a certain set of circumstances, not the least of which is the most understanding wife in the cosmos, enabled me to take the plunge. I enrolled in an accredited four semester program that rewarded me upon completion with an Associate’s Degree in Professional Golf Management. I was on my way – a little late out of the gate, but with a full head of steam and ready to use my transferrable skills to claw my way to the top of the sports business.
Nearly a decade later, having come to know quite well the good, the bad and the ugly about pursuing a second career within the sports industry, I was innocently confronted one day with the following question: ”After working in the industry for ten years, do you still love sports?”
Hmmmm…great question. One I honestly didn’t have an answer for. As you can imagine though, it became critically important for me to find one. And thus began germinating the idea of a “sports walkabout” – an effort to reconnect with my ball-chasing, sports-loving roots.
I went to a game. And then another. And another. Big games, little games. Tournaments, matches, meets and bouts. Men’s games, women’s games. Professional. Amateur. High School. College. Games that I was intimately familiar with. Games that I didn’t have the faintest idea as to their rules.
To those that virtually accompanied me I offered to share everything that I found – both positive and…not so positive. I promised to keep it light-hearted, and they in turn agreed to laugh, learn and share the link with others. This blog, this portrait of Americans at play, became a love letter to sports, warts and all. My friends at Google Analytics tell me that it has been read by thousands of people all over the world.
I hope it brings a smile of pleasure and recognition to your face as well. Because it’s always game time somewhere.
To read more of my stories, please visit: http://itsgametimesomewhere.com/the-i...
Web Site:http://itsgametimesomewhere.com/Blog:http://feeds.feedburner.com/itsgametimesomewhere/smXM
Twitter:http://www.twitter.com/sports_quest
Flickr:http://www.flickr.com/photos/itsgametimesomewhere
YouTube:http://www.youtube.com/itsgametimesomewhere
Goodreads:http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6584252.Tim_Forbes
It's Game Time Somewhere Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16161464-it-s-game-time-somewhere
Tribute Books Blog Tours Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/pages/Tribute-Books-Blog-Tours/242431245775186
It's Game Time Somewhere blog tour site:http://itsgametimesomewhere.blogspot.com/
January 28, 2013
ExcerpTuesday: Melinda Leigh
SHE CAN TELL
#1 Bestselling Romantic Suspense
An Amazon editors’ pick for December romance
Praise for SHE CAN TELL
“Relentless tension builds to a riveting crescendo in Leigh’s romantic thriller… Leigh (She Can Run) easily juggles multiple story lines, romance, and suspense.” ~Publisher’s Weekly
“The highly suspenseful plot spans decades, pulling secrets from the past and melding them with the present, and is paired with a steamy romance that explores vulnerability, passion and trust.” ~ RT Book Reviews (4 Stars)
““Leigh has created a nail-bitingly suspenseful romance novel that’s sure to put your manicure in danger.” ~ Booklist/
Blurb
A horse trainer’s homecoming turns deadly when a vicious stalker, a cold murder case, and a hot police chief threaten to expose family secrets that a killer wants to keep buried.
After a terrible accident ends her riding career, horse trainer Rachel Parker returns to her hometown to a hostile welcome. Her efforts to rebuild the family farm are hampered by her sister’s domestic crisis and a violent vandal who threatens Rachel’s new business and her life. She is also blindsided by the undeniable and unwanted attraction she feels for hot police chief handling her case. Someone is systematically trying to destroy her. Someone who knows private things about her. Someone who’s been watching her…
As his investigation uncovers the turbulent past Rachel keeps carefully hidden, Police Chief Mike O’Connell finds himself with too many suspects and too many feelings for his fiercely independent victim. His desire for Rachel is a conflict of interest that jeopardizes everything he stands for. Long buried family secrets, a skeleton, and a corrupt local official with a grudge against Mike complicate the case, but the escalating violence against Rachel convinces him he doesn’t have much time. Whoever is watching Rachel wants her dead. Mike and Rachel race to untangle a web of deceit and lies that stretches twenty-five years into the past—before her stalker strikes again.
Excerpt
Twenty-five years ago
He liked to watch.
To see the secret, private things people did when they thought they were alone.
From the moonshadow of an evergreen, he stared across the weedy backyard at the dilapidated rancher. Harry was inside. The Watcher’s breath steamed out into the crisp winter air. Twenty yards of crabgrass was all that separated him from retribution.
Harry had to die.
It was the only way to make things right.
Impulsive responses, while satisfying, were rarely successful in the long term. Discipline was the key. He’d buried his rage and weighed all the options. Harry’s life against his actions. His future against the impact of what he’d done. Ultimately, it was what Harry intended to do that made the difference.
Don’t worry. Just come with me. I’ll take care of you. I promise.
An hour of standing on the frozen ground, waiting for the house to go quiet and dark, had left the Watcher’s toes with a numb ache. Fiery tingles shot through the balls of his feet as he crept toward a dark window cracked an inch for ventilation. The ground was too frozen for his boots to leave prints, but the crunch of dead grass echoed in the otherwise silent night. He crouched under the window, then peered over the sill. No sound. No light. No movement. He raised the sash and climbed through into the living room. Lacquer fumes and sawdust stung his nostrils. Heat rattled from a baseboard register as the aged furnace tried to raise the temperature above meat locker.
The Watcher had never been in Harry’s house, though the carpenter had invited him over a few times to watch hockey games. They were both Flyers fans. They had other things in common, too, but they wouldn’t be friends. Not ever. Not after what the Watcher had seen—and what he’d heard—the other night.
Don’t worry. Just come with me. I’ll take care of you. I promise.
Betrayal sliced into him like the drop point of his knife through a deer’s belly.
Silver moonlight gleamed through bare windows. In the far corner, a drop cloth shrouded a battered recliner. The gutted house had a hollow, unfinished feel that matched the empty space in the middle of his chest.
From the Creator of Jak and Daxter: Untimed
Ignored
Philadelphia, Autumn, 2010 and Winter, 2011
My mother loves me and all, it’s just that she can’t remember my name.
“Call him Charlie,” is written on yellow Post-its all over our house.
“Just a family joke,” Mom tells the rare friend who drops by and bothers to inquire.
But it isn’t funny. And those house guests are more likely to notice the neon paper squares than they are me.
“He’s getting so tall. What was his name again?”
I always remind them. Not that it helps.
Only Dad remembers, and Aunt Sophie, but they’re gone more often than not — months at a stretch.
This time, when my dad returns he brings a ginormous stack of history books.
“Read these.” The muted bulbs in the living room sharpen the shadows on his pale face, making him stand out like a cartoon in a live-action film. “You have to keep your facts straight.”
I peruse the titles: Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Asprey’s The Rise of Napoleon Bonaparte, Ben Franklin’s Autobiography. Just three among many.
“Listen to him, Charlie,” Aunt Sophie says. “You’ll be glad you did.” She brushes out her shining tresses. Dad’s sister always has a glow about her.
“Where’d you go this time?” I say.
Dad’s supposed to be this hotshot political historian. He reads and writes a lot, but I’ve never seen his name in print.
“The Middle East.” Aunt Sophie’s more specific than usual.
Dad frowns. “We dropped in on someone important.”
When he says dropped in, I imagine Sophie dressed like Lara Croft, parachuting into Baghdad.
“Is that where you got the new scar?” A pink welt snakes from the bridge of her nose to the corner of her mouth. She looks older than I remember — they both do.
“An argument with a rival… researcher.” My aunt winds the old mantel clock, the one that belonged to her mom, my grandmother. Then tosses the key to my dad, who fumbles and drops it.
“You need to tell him soon,” she says.
Tell me what? I hate this.
Dad looks away. “We’ll come back for his birthday.”
BLURB:
Charlie’s the kind of boy that no one notices. Hell, even his own mother can’t remember his name. And girls? The invisible man gets more dates.
As if that weren’t enough, when a mysterious clockwork man tries to kill him in modern day Philadelphia, and they tumble through a hole into 1725 London, Charlie realizes even the laws of time don’t take him seriously.
Still, this isn’t all bad. In fact, there’s this girl, another time traveler, who not only remembers his name, but might even like him! Unfortunately, Yvaine carries more than her share of baggage: like a baby boy and at least two ex-boyfriends! One’s famous, the other’s murderous, and Charlie doesn’t know who is the bigger problem.
When one kills the other — and the other is nineteen year-old Ben Franklin — things get really crazy. Can their relationship survive? Can the future? Charlie and Yvaine are time travelers, they can fix this — theoretically — but the rules are complicated and the stakes are history as we know it.
And there's one more wrinkle: he can only travel into the past, and she can only travel into the future!
BIO:
Andy Gavin is a serial creative, polymath, novelist, entrepreneur, computer programmer, author, foodie, and video game creator. He co-founded video game developer Naughty Dog and co-created Crash Bandicoot and Jak & Daxter. He started numerous companies, has been lead programmer on video games that have sold more than forty million copies, and has written two novels including The Darkening Dream, a dark historical fantasy that puts the bite back in vampires.
ONLINE LINKS:
website: http://all-things-andy-gavin.com/
FB: https://www.facebook.com/andygavin
Twitter: https://www.facebook.com/andygavin
GR: http://www.goodreads.com/asgavin
Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/andrewgavin/
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Gavin
BUY NOW LINK: • Amazon paper book
• Amazon Kindle copy
Giveaway: $25 Amazon GC signed copies of his video games Crash Bandicoot and Jak & Daxter.
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January 27, 2013
Authorsday on another blog
January 25, 2013
Discovering Hidden Gems
I like to think of myself as a very passive version of Indiana Jones, the globetrotting archaeologist and adventurer played so brilliantly by Harrison Ford in the film series. In real life, a writer's life isn’t nearly as thrilling as Dr. Henry Jones fighting Nazis and rescuing priceless treasures. In fact it’s pretty boring on the thrill-o-meter, but when it comes to unearthing awesome historical details, writers are in a league of their own.
The key to writing a credible novel filled with fascinating tidbits—both true and nearly true—is research. And it’s amazing what I’ve learned while researching my books. MATANZAS BAY, my first Quint Mitchell Mystery, was set in St. Augustine. I thought I knew the nation’s oldest city fairly well since I live nearby and have visited dozens of times. But while researching this story in which Quint, a private detective with an anguished past and an interest in archaeology, digs up the vice mayor’s body, I learned that the settlement of St. Augustine was literally birthed in blood. It seems the Spanish settlers were a vengeful sort and when they located several hundred shipwrecked Frenchmen who were caught in a hurricane near present day St. Augustine, they ferried them ashore from the sandbar where they found them and proceeded to put them all to the sword. Hence the name Matanzas, which is Spanish for “place of slaughter.”
I had to do even more research for my recently released mystery, BRING DOWN THE FURIES, since it wouldn’t be located in Florida. I wanted find a setting where archaeology might play a small part in a larger mystery, as it did in the first offering. Searching the Internet, I found the Topper site outside Allendale, South Carolina where they’ve discovered artifacts made by the pre-Clovis people dating back thousands of years. Claxons began ringing in my head, and I asked myself what if a Creationist minister feuded with the archaeologist and it boiled over into a tension-packed media circus. Now I felt I was onto something that could explode from a single idea into a longer, more compelling narrative.
With more research I learned that General Sherman’s troops had burned down the original town of Allendale during the Civil War. This bit of historical news tripped another set of creative neurons and I decided fire would play a major role in the story. That led to the idea of a serial arsonist at work in Allendale.
But a writer can get lost in the research if he’s not careful, and there’s always much more fascinating trivia then we can use. For example, in researching General Sherman, I discovered he was actually living in the South when the Civil War broke out acting as superintendent of the Louisiana Seminary and Military Academy, which later became LSU. The Allendale Courthouse plays a major role in the climactic scene of FURIES, and my research told me that an arsonist tried to burn down the courthouse in 1998. Of course, I used that in the book.
With a serial arsonist at work in the book, I dug deeply into that subject and learned that nationally, only 16% of arsons are ever solved. And that only 12% of serial arsonist are female.
While I may think of myself as a desk-riding Indiana Jones because of the research I’d done, the real excitement came in the story. BRING DOWN THE FURIES is a fast-paced romp through the old south complete with arson, murder and compelling characters. Some of my early readers have been very kind. Bestselling thriller author Steve Berry had this to say, "Another terrific outing for Parker Francis, who definitely delivers what readers want. He's a powerhouse storyteller and a welcome addition to the thriller genre. Hang on tight and remember to breathe."
BRING DOWN THE FURIES BlurbSherman’s troops burned it the first time. Now a serial arsonist threatens a small South Carolina town and private investigator Quint Mitchell is caught in the backdraft. When Quint follows the “Heartthrob Bandit” to the hamlet of Allendale, he finds himself in the crossfire of an ugly cultural war between an ultraconservative minister and the scientist who may have discovered proof of the oldest humans ever found in North America.
As the heat grows more intense, arson turns to murder, and Quint is embroiled in a growing firestorm that threatens to destroy Allendale for the second time. A media frenzy surrounding the clash of faith and science whips emotions to a fiery crescendo. With time running out, Quint is the only man standing between a vicious killer with nothing to lose and his plan to bring down the furies on Allendale and Quint.
AUTHOR BIO
Parker Francis writes gritty, fast-paced mysteries filled with murder and violence, but laced with humor and emotion. Parker’s career was in broadcasting and special events where he his diverse duties included public affairs producer, director, reporter, fundraiser and producer of the Jacksonville Jazz Festival. He wrote an award-winning trilogy of adventure/fantasies with a feline protagonist under his given name, Victor DiGenti, prior to taking on the mantle of mystery writer and the Parker Francis pen name. The WINDRUSHER trilogy won multiple awards and attracted readers of all ages. Parker (aka Vic) lives in Florida with his wife and their rescued cats who tolerate them as long as their bowls are filled and litter boxes emptied.
