Doug Dillon's Blog, page 21
September 14, 2016
Harry Potter Halloween Party – Jacksonville, FL
A Harry Potter Paranormal Halloween event for all ages at Barnes and Noble Claire Lane Center, Jacksonville, Florida – Saturday, October 29, 2016, 5 PM until 8 PM.
Exciting Harry Potter Activities +
Authors of the Paranormal signing their books and chatting with customers (see below for more details).
Actual Ghost Hunters showing off their equipment and sharing their fascinating experiences.
For questions, call the store @ 904-886-9904.
Store address: 11112 San Jose Blvd.
Featured Authors of the Paranormal
Dave Lapham and Doug Dillon
Dave Lapham – Nonfiction
Dave’s books about hauntings in St. Augustine, Florida are the prime sources of information for researchers looking into the paranormal happenings in America’s Oldest City. These books are:
Dave’s book, Ghost Hunting Florida, is an excellent guide for those interested in Sunshine State paranormal investigations.
Dave proudly served his country as a U.S. Marine Corps officer and it is this hard-headed, no nonsense attitude that allows him to write about the paranormal with great balance.
Click here to see Dave’s website.
Doug Dillon – Nonfiction and fiction
Doug has been probing the paranormal for more years than he cares to count. All that effort has resulted in two nonfiction books where he shares the results of his investigations:
Carl Jung, Hauntings, and Paranormal Coincidences
An Explosion of Being: An American Family’s Journey into the Psychic
Doug is a former Central Florida educator who has combined his love of history, appreciation for the city of St. Augustine and his own paranormal experiences, in order to create a novel series for young adults and adults young at heart.
Titled, The St. Augustine Trilogy, these books carry readers into the frightening world of teenagers Jeff Golden and Carla Rodriquez.
Books 1 & 2 are in print and Book 3 will be available in 2017. These novels are being used in some Florida high school reading programs for motivational and skill building purposes.
Sliding Beneath the Surface: The St. Augustine Trilogy, Book 1
Stepping Off a Cliff: The St. Augustine Trilogy, Book 2
Harry Potter Fans @ Barnes & Noble, Jacksonville, FL
A Harry Potter Paranormal Halloween event for all ages at Barnes and Noble Claire Lane Center, Jacksonville, Florida – Saturday, October 29, 2016, 5 PM until 8 PM.
Exciting Harry Potter Activities +
Authors of the Paranormal signing their books and chatting with customers (see below for more details).
Actual Ghost Hunters showing off their equipment and sharing their fascinating experiences.
For questions, call the store @ 904-886-9904.
Store address: 11112 San Jose Blvd.
Featured Authors of the Paranormal
Dave Lapham and Doug Dillon
Dave Lapham – Nonfiction
Dave’s books about hauntings in St. Augustine, Florida are the prime sources of information for researchers looking into the paranormal happenings in America’s Oldest City. These books are:
Dave’s book, Ghost Hunting Florida, is an excellent guide for those interested in Sunshine State paranormal investigations.
Dave proudly served his country as a U.S. Marine Corps officer and it is this hard-headed, no nonsense attitude that allows him to write about the paranormal with great balance.
Click here to see Dave’s website.
Doug Dillon – Nonfiction and fiction
Doug has been probing the paranormal for more years than he cares to count. All that effort has resulted in two nonfiction books where he shares the results of his investigations:
Carl Jung, Hauntings, and Paranormal Coincidences
An Explosion of Being: An American Family’s Journey into the Psychic
Doug is a former Central Florida educator who has combined his love of history, appreciation for the city of St. Augustine and his own paranormal experiences, in order to create a novel series for young adults and adults young at heart.
Titled, The St. Augustine Trilogy, these books carry readers into the frightening world of teenagers Jeff Golden and Carla Rodriquez.
Books 1 & 2 are in print and Book 3 will be available in 2017. These novels are being used in some Florida high school reading programs for motivational and skill building purposes.
Sliding Beneath the Surface: The St. Augustine Trilogy, Book 1
Stepping Off a Cliff: The St. Augustine Trilogy, Book 2
Harry Potter Paranormal Saturday, Jacksonville, FL
A Harry Potter Paranormal Halloween event for all ages at Barnes and Noble Claire Lane Center, Jacksonville, Florida – Saturday, October 29, 2016, 5 PM until 8 PM.
Exciting Harry Potter Activities +
Authors of the Paranormal signing their books and chatting with customers (see below for more details).
Actual Ghost Hunters showing off their equipment and sharing their fascinating experiences.
For questions, call the store @ 904-886-9904.
Store address: 11112 San Jose Blvd.
Featured Authors of the Paranormal
Dave Lapham and Doug Dillon
Dave Lapham – Nonfiction
Dave’s books about hauntings in St. Augustine, Florida are the prime sources of information for researchers looking into the paranormal happenings in America’s Oldest City. These books are:
Dave’s book, Ghost Hunting Florida, is an excellent guide for those interested in Sunshine State paranormal investigations.
Dave proudly served his country as a U.S. Marine Corps officer and it is this hard-headed, no nonsense attitude that allows him to write about the paranormal with great balance.
Click here to see Dave’s website.
Doug Dillon – Nonfiction and fiction
Doug has been probing the paranormal for more years than he cares to count. All that effort has resulted in two nonfiction books where he shares the results of his investigations:
Carl Jung, Hauntings, and Paranormal Coincidences
An Explosion of Being: An American Family’s Journey into the Psychic
Doug is a former Central Florida educator who has combined his love of history, appreciation for the city of St. Augustine and his own paranormal experiences, in order to create a novel series for young adults and adults young at heart.
Titled, The St. Augustine Trilogy, these books carry readers into the frightening world of teenagers Jeff Golden and Carla Rodriquez.
Books 1 & 2 are in print and Book 3 will be available in 2017. These novels are being used in some Florida high school reading programs for motivational and skill building purposes.
Sliding Beneath the Surface: The St. Augustine Trilogy, Book 1
Stepping Off a Cliff: The St. Augustine Trilogy, Book 2
September 12, 2016
Fun Florida Activity: Teen, Parents, Grandparents
The St. Augustine Trilogy, an exciting book series leads to fun and bonding in Florida families. Set in current day St. Augustine, these paranormal/historical novels transport teens through time travel into actual past events in America’s Oldest City.
You know, I talk to a lot of parents and grandparents at my book signings. And often they are either buying books to feed a voracious teen reading habit Or they are trying to stimulate a reluctant reader to truly enjoy the written word.
But for families who live in Florida, or nearby, and give books from The St. Augustine Trilogy as gifts, there is a wonderful benefit to this adult attempt to help the next generation regardless if the teen in question likes to read or not. Here it is: Promise that young reader a trip to St. Augustine once one or more of the books in the series has been read. Purpose of the trip? To actually visit the historic places mentioned in the book and have fun.
The Castillo de San Marcos
The St. Augustine Trilogy is increasing being use in Florida secondary schools, so I know the appeal my books have for kids. And what I’ve heard those young people say is that they would love to visit St. Augustine so they could relive the action in those stories. This is even true for readers who have already been to the city because they would now be able to see it with different eyes.
And as a parent or grandparent, you can really make a hit with your teen if you also read the trilogy book(s) before taking that trip to St. Augustine. Why? Because in that way, you are showing your willingness to fully immerse yourself in that child’s world. It is a sign of deep interest in the individual and an indication of great respect. And in that way, the reading of the book(s) and the trip becomes a wonderfully nurturing, bonding and fun joint venture.
That’s it folks. Good luck! Hope you have a great time if and when you proceed to get this project underway. I’m often in St. Augustine, roaming about the city. Maybe I’ll see you there.
Oh, one more thing. Only books 1 and 2 of the trilogy are in publication as of this writing. Book 3 is scheduled to come out in late 2017.
Links for helpful information:
Book Trailer for Sliding Beneath the Surface
Book 1, Sliding Beneath the Surface on Amazon.com with reviews, including those from language arts teachers.
Book Trailer for Stepping Off a Cliff
Book 2, Stepping Off a Cliff on Amazon.com with reviews, including those from language arts teachers.
Reading Motivation that Worked – tells the story about the first Florida teacher to use a trilogy book in a classroom setting.
St.Augustine, 1902
A Multicultural Book Series for the Reading Classroom
The St. Augustine Trilogy and America’s Oldest City The setting for the series in St. Augustine, Florida and how that provides a fascinating backdrop for action.
The St. Augustine Trilogy & Historic Events Specifies the actual historic events that happened in America’s oldest city that are woven into the series.
Musical Coincidences Reveal the Future
Strings of odd coincidences create a fascinating paranormal pattern.
Back in 2009, my wife and I went to a concert at The Hard Rock Cafe here in the Orlando area. David Garrett, the great violinist was playing.
The guy is really terrific. He can shift from classical to rock and then into country in a matter of seconds.
In watching him though, my analytical mind started working overtime. Because the man moves that bow so incredibly fast, I wondered what temperatures his bow strings reached with all that friction. Then I started wondering if he replaced those bow strings before each concert to make sure they wouldn’t break.
Not satisfied with those mental meanderings, I continued to wonder if his bow strings broke very often during a concert and if that affected his performance greatly. Finally, I realized I wasn’t enjoying the show because of all that internal questioning.
As a result, I made a very concerted effort to focus just on the music. Didn’t happen. My obsession with the guy’s bowstring’s wouldn’t leave me and, in fact, they strengthened. That really irritated me because I can usually let my thoughts go when I tried but no this time. The compulsion was really getting to me.
In tremendous frustration, I immediately started working diligently to refocus my mind. The thing is, less than two minutes after launching into that effort, Garrett actually broke several bow strings. I couldn’t believe it but there they were just flailing away in the air as they guy continued to play. People all around me pointed and took pictures as Garrett courageously went on playing and ended that set with a flourish.
As soon as the music ended, he studied his broken bow-string, fondled them a bit, looked at the audience, grinned, shrugged, and then went on playing.
With all of my questions somewhat answered, I enjoyed the rest of the show and ignored the bow strings still flopping in the air.
My son, Greg Dillon, graciously allowed me to use the picture he took of a violin for this blog. It pays to have a professional photographer in the family. Thanks Greg. It fit perfectly.
If you are truly interested in paranormal phenomena, you might be interested in read my book, Carl Jung, Hauntings, and Paranormal Coincidences. You can find it in most online bookstores. Listed below, however, are direct book links to some of the larger retail outlets in the English speaking world:
Amazon.com, Amazon Canada, Amazon UK, Amazon India, Amazon Australia, Barnes and Noble, Kobo (Canada)
Coincidences As Warning Signs From the Future?
Should you pay attention when a coincidence, or coincidences, seems to point to a possible danger? And if you pay attention, what action(s) should you take, if any, to avert that danger?
My wife Barb and I are serious believers in the idea that everything in existence is connected and also linked to unseen worlds, dimensions, universes, etc., etc. This boils down to the understanding that no event is fully random even though we may not understand how this comes about. For us, it’s just something we accept as a demonstration of such connectivity and we don’t have to prove causation to ourselves or anybody else. Nor do we question why something happened very much. Once in a great while, however, we are forced to look more closely.
Such a time came a couple of years ago when we got a letter from our electrician warning all his customers about the possibility of fire if they had a particular circuit breaker box made in the 1970’s.
Since our house was built in 1976, we paid close attention.
Sure enough, we were the proud owners of one of the breaker boxes in question. That kind of shook me up because during the previous week I had two experiences with electrical fires: one at my chiropractor’s office and one in a nursing home where I visit Hospice patients. Those fires were small and did little damage but the fact that they both happened with me present now made me sit up and take notice. Besides, the stink of burning wires from each fire was still fresh in my memory and the warning letter seemed to glare at me from its place on my desk.
When I called the electrician, he said that during all those years since the ’70s, the company did make some faulty breakers but all-in-all, not too many fires occurred, and there had not been a general recall. His assessment was that a slight danger did exist but probably not much to worry about. He told me he felt obligated to send out the notice he himself had received but since a new box would cost right around $1,000, it was highly questionable whether the minimal danger warranted such a high expense.
I liked what he had to say because I sure didn’t want to shell out that kind of money if I could help it. Still, I went on the Internet to research the situation myself. I came up with a mixed bag of results. The search verified much of what my electrician told me but I also read reports by other electricians who said the breaker boxes in question were crap, they wouldn’t have them in their homes and and they wouldn’t install one. Not so good but I still didn’t want to pay $1,000 if I could help it.
Just as I had that thought about not paying the money, the power in the entire house flickered on and off. Woops. A power shift when I’m researching electrical problems and almost deciding to not get a new breaker box? Uh, that was a little too coincidental for comfort. As a result, I did another Google search and came up with a newsletter published by a civic association for the the Village of Westover. Location? Very near Harrisburg, PA.
The entire front page was about my breaker box and how many of the homes in the community were originally constructed in the 1970’s using identical equipment. Evidently, enough fires had begun because of those boxes that quite a few families in the Village of Westover purchased new equipment. One woman talked about how fire started in her home built in 1976–the same year mine was constructed.
After reading that woman’s story, I happened to glance at the list of officers for the civic association. The last name for the immediate past president? Dillon, my last name. Not an overly common name. Yes, I did a double-take on that one. Click here to see that newsletter.
In discussing this all with Barb, we decided there were just too many linkages to ignore. As much as we hated to do it, we reluctantly agreed to get a new breaker box installed. It didn’t happen right away. I think it was a combination of my not wanting to part with all that money and just being overly busy.
A couple of weeks later while doing my usual walk around the neighborhood for exercise, I passed what was left of a house just up the street from us. For whatever reason, I had forgotten the thing burned up a year or two before. Since no repairs were made for so long, I guess I just accepted its looks as normal until that moment when the word fire suddenly sprang to mind. My neighborhood. 1970’s. Oh my God!
After she arrived home from work that evening, I reminded Barb about the burned out house near us and my new reaction to it. Like me, she had put it out of her mind but she immediately got on the Internet. After an extensive search, she found our city’s report giving details about the house fire in question. In the document she read, it cited the cause as faulty circuit breakers. Within a week, we had a new breaker panel, the one pictured above. Sometime you just gotta stop fighting the problem and go with the flow.
Update: May 23, 2012
A couple of months after having the new breaker box installed, our clothes dryer stopped working. So naturally, I called in repair guy. Turns out he had nothing to repair. He said I must have a faulty circuit breaker. What? No way. Sure enough, he had me feel it and damn if the thing wasn’t warm–a sure indication that a problem existed.
I immediately got the electrician back who installed our brand new breaker panel worth $1000. “Yup,” he said, “that’s weird. Shouldn’t happen.” He aslso said he didn’t think it really put us in any danger but he replaced the breaker for no charge.
SO – what does this say about interpreting a series of coincidences and acting on them? All the indicators pointed to danger so we acted, right? But what if our interpretation was wrong? If there was indeed a message in all those coincidental events, it is conceivable this was it: By All Means, Do Not Buy A New Breaker Panel. It will contain a Faulty Breaker and This Will Put You in Danger.
I bring this up to remind myself and everyone else how difficult it is to tease specific meaning out of coincidental events. This is one area where humanity has tripped itself up over the eons by assigning way too much meaning through the use of seers, oracles and psychics. If the Multiple Universes Theory of quantum physics is correct, perhaps the strong indicators we see in a series of coincidental events may have a probable meaning but it may have stronger or weaker shades of probability according to the universe in which you live. A huge caution sign.
Am I now second guessing our decision to install a new breaker box? I did for a few seconds but as I weighed the two interpretations, I realized I would do the same thing again. Choices. It’s all about choices but based upon as much cool analysis as possible.
If you are truly interested in all kinds of strange phenomena, you might be like to take a look at my book, Carl Jung, Hauntings, and Paranormal Coincidences. You can find it in most online bookstores. Listed below, however, are direct book links to some of the larger retail outlets in the English speaking world:
Amazon.com, Amazon Canada, Amazon UK, Amazon India, Amazon Australia, Barnes and Noble, The Book Depository
A Protective Ghost?
An investigation into paranormal events involving a family with a child as told by my friend, Peaches Veach. Peaches is the Director and Lead Investigator for California Paranormal Private Investigations (CPPI).
Being an almost full time paranormal investigator for the past 5 years, I have been able to understand spirits a little more. Mostly they’re like us…they have feelings and when something upsets or startles them, I can sometimes feel that emotion when I’m near them. I’ve felt their anger, hurt, confusion, and joy.
During an investigation at a rather upscale home a few years ago, another investigator had an “image” in her head of what the spirit looked like. When we went into the owner’s study, we noticed some pictures and the investigator said, “That’s him! That’s the guy I’ve been seeing!” When we spoke to the homeowner, he indicated that was his father, and that he had passed away nearly 30 years ago.
The activity in this home had started up about two and a half years ago and their nearly three year old daughter was seeing something in her bedroom which frightened her. She now would not sleep in her room.
We were told about the activity that happened in the nearly 5000 square foot home. I emphasize that the home was only four years old because many people believe a property needs to be very old or historic for anything ghostly to happen. This home was near native land, but after some research, we were told it was not an ancient Indian burial ground, as nearly all property is jokingly believed to be in California.
Once the investigator who recognized the man from a photo as the deceased grandfather, he was able to actually speak to him. The spirit relayed information that there was a dark presence outside of the home, and he, the grandfather, was there to protect his new granddaughter. We’ve found that spirits can appear when something notable happens in a person’s life—such as a crisis or a birth—and this spirit came calling when his granddaughter was born.
We told the spirit that he was actually scaring his granddaughter, because she didn’t know how to verbalize what she was seeing. The emotion I felt afterwards was so intense. My heart sank and I could almost feel the room become so pressurized I couldn’t breathe. Tears ran down my face. I told the grandfather spirit that he could stay, but he needed to keep his distance from the family since the granddaughter didn’t exactly understand why he was there.
The family was extremely grateful that we were able to find the reason for the haunting and talk a little sense into the spirit. Even though we knew why he was there, being able to make the daughter understand was going to be a different task for the family. They were okay with that, as long as they knew who or what was in their house.
This is the reason I’m a paranormal investigator. When I experienced paranormal happenings in my life while growing up, I didn’t have someone to contact in order to help me understand. To have situations like this, to actually feel what the spirit feels is something unique for me. Yeah, and this what keeps me searching for answers as to why spirits stay here and how we can learn to live in harmony with them.
Thanks so much Peaches. Great work and wonderful story.
Click here to see the CPPI website.
###
If you would like to read more great stories about paranormal phenomena, you might be interested in checking out my book, Carl Jung, Hauntings, and Paranormal Coincidences. You can find it in most online bookstores. Listed below, however, are direct book links to some of the larger retail outlets in the English-speaking world:
Amazon.com, Amazon Canada, Amazon UK, Amazon India, Amazon Australia, Barnes and Noble, Books-A-Million.
YA Book Stimulates Struggling Readers
Intensive Reading grades 8-12 – a YA novel that brought classes to life. A reading strategy that truly motivated and built skills.
The book – Sliding Beneath the Surface, Book I of The St. Augustine Trilogy – paranormal & historical.
Motivating some teens to read is a tough job, to say the least.
The kids I’m talking about here are often the ones who fail statewide assessment tests and end up in reading classes. Exasperated parents and teachers everywhere live with this situation on a continuous basis.
Having taught for many years in grades 7 – 12, I experienced the frustration of trying to get certain students to read anything.
These days though, I come at the problem from a writer’s viewpoint—a writer of teen fiction. And I’m sending out this post because I recently participated in a very rewarding experiment that showed how it is definitely possible to interest even the most reluctant teens to read.
In fact, I’m still basking in the warm glow of what happened.
Teacher Kathy Snyder early in her well earned retirement
It all started near the end of the 2012-2013 school year with one very smart and extremely dedicated teacher by the name of Kathy Snyder. At the time, Kathy taught intensive reading to 11th and 12th graders at a high school near where I live in Central Florida.
After reading and reviewing the first book in my young adult series titled, The St. Augustine Trilogy, she contacted me. Kathy felt very confident that the book, Sliding Beneath the Surface, would interest her students and she hoped to use it in all of her classes.
This was her final year in teaching and she wanted to make one more big push to motivate her kids before retiring.Well, she did that and a lot more.
Once we got a class set of books ordered, Kathy and I decided to make her classroom use of my work a full-blown teacher/author project.
I would donate my time and book resources to help her and she would write-up a study guide as well a detailed report about the project’s results.
We were both excited about the possibilities and couldn’t wait to get started.
The Castillo de San Marcos
At this point in my post, I think I need to give you a little background information on my book series. In that way, you can get a better feel for what attracted Kathy to it:
1. It’s called The St. Augustine Trilogy because St. Augustine, Florida is the physical location for the plot.
2. I created the trilogy with at-risk youth in mind because I spent the last 10 years of my career as an educator working full time helping such kids and their families.
So many of those young people had huge “victim” mentalities and blamed others for their problems that I wanted to do what I could as a writer to counteract those thought processes. That’s why the trilogy premise is this: You Create Your Own Reality.
Jeff
Fifteen-year-old Jeff Golden, the main character, is a composite of the many at-risk kids I worked with over the years. And it is his growth over time in taking responsibility for himself and others that is a primary thread throughout the trilogy.
3. Each character, Jeff, his girlfriend Carla and old Lobo represent the three main cultures that built the city of St. Augustine: Jeff is white, Carla is African American and Hispanic, and Lobo is Native American.
4. I use the paranormal as a hook to pull kids into the plot. My real life experiences with such things as described in my nonfiction book, An Explosion of Being: An American Family’s Journey into the Psychic, are the prime material for developing the more exciting, unusual and spooky events in the book.
Now back to the project itself.
The Bridge of Lions in St. Augustine. Photo courtesy of Greg Dillon, Greg;s Gallery.net
Photo courtesy of Greg Dillon – Photography by Greg
Kathy did a fantastic job of introducing her students to St. Augustine and its history way ahead of time. In doing so, she really paved the way for those kids to feel comfortable as they encountered things that might be unfamiliar.
As part of this process, I sent her a CD packed full of photos—St. Augustine locations, historical reenactments, the cover for each book of the trilogy, my picture, etc. Then using the book trailer (see below) to introduce the project, Kathy launched into a full schedule of students rotating the reading of Sliding Beneath the Surface aloud in class.
The details of what she did will be forthcoming. If you wish to be on a mailing list to receive that information when it is ready in September, just email me by using the contact button on this website.
Here’s the book trailer created by Cheri Crump, a fan.
Day-by-day, Kathy explained to me via email how increasingly interested her students were becoming in the book and how many of them even wanted to read ahead. Students who rarely paid attention, or rarely spoke at all, did the opposite as their readings continued. Other teachers reported how those same kids were talking about their literary adventure outside of the reading classroom.
Needless to say, Kathy was thrilled. Her hard work was really paying off. Then in an email about halfway into the project, she asked if I could come visit her students once they finished the book.
And since her school isn’t very far from where I live, and it would be fascinating to participate in the project firsthand, I agreed to spend the day at her school.
Annual reenactment of the Dade Battle that began the Second Seminole War in Florida-1835
What a great time I had! And Kathy did too.
Those kids—those non readers—were so attentive and knowledgeable about the book I found it hard to believe I was in an intensive reading classroom. When I asked them questions about the plot and characters, they had the answers—things even Kathy didn’t know they had absorbed.
Lots of kids greeted me as they came into the room at change of class, some even giving me a hug—including a few of the guys! In high school? I was stunned.
And around the room, Kathy had attached 100 pictures to the walls, one from each of the students. Their assignment was to pick a chapter in the book they liked and a line or two from that chapter.
They were then instructed to write that information on a piece of paper and illustrate the meaning of the chapter/sentences by drawing some kind of picture. And they did beautiful work. I’ve included some of those drawings here because I think they are so important.
When I got home that evening, I had an email from Kathy, thanking me for working with her students. But it was her final comment that really got to me.
This is what she said, “This day was the best one of my entire teaching career.” Those words really hit me because as an educator and a writer, I too felt that day with Kathy’s kids was the best one of both my careers. How tremendously rewarding.
At the end of the school year, Kathy packaged all of those pictures and sent them to me. What a treasure.
Along with the pictures, Kathy sent me thank you notes from some of the kids. Here are some excerpts from those priceless, and often telling, messages:
I really enjoyed your book and can’t wait for the others.
I love your book. Write more.
I hope you continue to write your stories. I love how many details you include. They made me picture my old house.
I hope we meet again someday.
Thank you for being the first author I’ve ever met and the most
interesting too.Yesterday that you were here the period went by fast.
I was really pleased how your book turned out.
Your book was full of suspense that made me want to keep reading.
I wanna get back in touch. Email me at . . .
I have to say that the book was very entertaining. It felt like I was really in the story . . . it sent chills down my spine.
You have a very interesting book and I think that St. Augustine would be a very nice place to live . . . or the Keys. (Don’t you love it?)
And finally, I close out this unusually long posting with a message to the teacher who made all this possible:
Kathy, I want to thank you publicly for giving your students and me so much in so very many ways. Yes, your students seemed to like my book, but it was you who made it all fit together in a truly viable package.
Your obvious love for those kids, your unrelenting drive to get them resources and your professional skills were so apparent during all the time we worked together. It was a pleasure being your colleague even if it was for a short time.
I know you will enjoy your retirement greatly but I sure wish you were still out there doing such great things with young people.
UPDATE! After writing this post, Kathy and I got together and created a teacher guide for using Sliding Beneath the Surface in the classroom. Click here for the new Teacher Resources section of my website that allows you to download a free copy and gives other useful information.
Further Links for Reading and Language Arts Teachers About Using This Book in the ClassroomReading Teacher Sparks Student Interest An article from teacher Kathy Snyder about her experience.
Quotes From Sliding Beneath the Surface Book Reviews
Book reviews for Sliding Beneath the Surface on Amazon.com Includes reviews from reading and language arts teachers.
A Book Series for the Reading Classroom The multiple themes and threads that make the series of value.
St. Augustine’s Constitution Plaza at Christmas
The St. Augustine Trilogy and America’s Oldest City The setting for the series in St. Augustine, Florida and how that provides a fascinating backdrop for action.
The St. Augustine Trilogy & Historic Events Specifies the actual historic events that happened in America’s oldest city that are woven into the series.
Description for The St. Augustine Trilogy
Teaching History Through Young Adult Novels
Teaching Resilience Through Young Adult Novels
The St. Augustine Cathedral Basilica
Sample Photo Galleries – Historic St. Augustine, Florida
The Castillo de San Marcos (The old Spanish fort)
The St. Augustine Cathedral Basilica
Spanish Soldiers of the 18th Century
St. Augustine Lighthouse & Museum
The Dade Battle Reenactment, Part II (The trigger event that started the Second Seminole War)
Nurturing Teen Reading and Resilience
At-risk kids, life skills and reading.
The St. Augustine Trilogy – aiming for at-risk young people, using the paranormal, the historical and science fiction:
Book I Sliding Beneath the Surface
Book III Targeting Orion’s Children
My young adult series attracts a variety of readers, a lot of teens of course, and many adults in their twenties and thirties. And in that overall group, as I had hoped, are often a lot young people who live troubled lives.
You see, I’m a former secondary school educator who spent the last ten years of my educational career working full-time with at-risk kids. I worked for Orange County Public Schools which covers the Orlando area of Central Florida.
In that capacity, if I wasn’t setting up and monitoring programs from the district level, I was actually in schools working directly with students and their families.
Drug/alcohol use, suicide attempts, child abuse and even murder were some of the issues I dealt with over years.
I tell you all this because, as a writer, I decided to make a main thread in my book series relate to personal development, decision-making, responsibility and overcoming overwhelming challenges.
The premise of The St. Augustine Trilogy then becomes this: You Create Your Own Reality.
So many of the kids I worked with felt they were stuck in the quicksands of life and had no capacity for self change to make thing better that I had to make one last attempt at reaching others like them.
Jeff
To do that, I created the character of fifteen-year-old Jeff Golden who is a composite of all those young people I dealt with for so long. Jeff comes from a deeply dysfunctional home.
He is angry at the world and it is always somebody else’s fault for whatever happens to him.Using the first person, I have Jeff speak directly to the reader as if he is speaking with a friend.
And to make life even worse for Jeff, I inundate him with wild paranormal/science fiction-type occurrences.
Young adult readers eat that kind of stuff up and it gives me a chance to really put the pressure on the main character. For Jeff, it becomes change or be destroyed.
But to the rescue comes Lobo, the tough, mysterious, Native American Shaman. Oh, and Carla, Jeff’s girlfriend, who is smart, strong and has her head on straight.
It is through this joint guidance and modeling that Jeff learns to use the natural inner strengths that he never realized he possessed.
And at-risk kids who read my books GET IT! Whether reading my stories truly helps them or not, of course, I don’t know. But after visiting classrooms filled with such young people who read one of my books as a class project, I know the possibility exists.
They see Jeff’s gradual maturation and what he had to do to get to those stages of development. And for that I am extremely happy. If I have helped just one kid in this process it will have been well worth the effort.
As a side light, I put the trilogy’s location in America’s oldest and most haunted city, St. Augustine, Florida. This gives me the perfect setting for the spooky aspects of the series and allows the old history teacher in me to come out and play. What great fun to sneak in some lessons about the past and not meet resistance.
The Trilogy Used as Motivation and Skill Building in High School Reading Classes
What has been most interesting and gratifying is seeing high school reading teachers successfully use the trilogy books with those at-risk kids in their classrooms. Here are a couple of links to other post that will tell you all about that.
At-Risk Students and Reading (A full overview of the reading project)
Reading Motivation that Worked (The original high school reading project post)
Rewarding Reading Excellence in Schools (The trilogy used as a reward)
So there you have it. Below are the trailers for the two trilogy books already in print. And below that are some more links in order for you to fill in in any of the blanks:
Sliding Beneath the Surface
Stepping Off a Cliff
Trilogy Locations in St. Augustine, FL
The Main Characters in The St. Augustine Trilogy
Teaching History Through Young Adult Novels
Race and Ethnicity in YA Trilogy for At-Risk Kids
Florida teacher pens diverse, paranormal/historical novels now being used in high school classrooms.
The St. Augustine Trilogy
Book 1: Sliding Beneath the Surface 154 reviews on Amazon.com and reviewed by the St. Augustine Herald.
Book 3: Targeting Orion’s Children
After retiring from teaching in Florida schools, I decided to start writing novels in addition to publishing nonfiction books and articles. And since I had spent so many years working with teens, YA fiction was a very natural and fun path to take.
The Castillo de San Marcos
In the selection of a setting, I immediately chose nearby St. Augustine, America’s oldest city, one of my favorite places to visit. Having been a history teacher, I couldn’t resist inserting my characters into an environment with such a rich past.
And, of course, that would also allow me to once again slip a little history education into the minds of my young adult readers. The characters would exist in the present day but would then be thrown back in time to actual historical events.
St. Augustine, 1902
But in thinking about the bygone days of St. Augustine, and who my characters should be, the issues of race and diversity popped into the forefront of my mind. I very consciously wanted to write for a diverse population, and also address the multicultural aspects of the Oldest City’s past. But how to effectively combine those two goals was the question.
Plains Indians jailed at the Castillo de San Marcos in 1879.
To come up with a solution, I looked carefully at St. Augustine’s background and decided that I should do my best to have characters who represented the city’s main founding groups. Not only that, but to really make it work, those characters should also have roots going way back into the history of that region of Florida.
So, the three main groups in the founding and building of St. Augustine were as follows:
Native Americans, who lived in that location before the arrival of Europeans and who were brought to the city to work on the building of the Castillo de San Marcos (the stone Spanish fort, completed in 1695 and still part of the city), bring to the city needed supplies, work for the local population, or who were imprisoned by the U.S. Government there at the Castillo.
African Slaves and Free Blacks, who were brought to that location to serve the local population, work on the building of the Castillo de San Marcos, or to protect the city.
The Europeans. Specifically, the Spanish, but later the English and then the white Americans.
Jeff
And now, let me introduce you to the trilogy’s four main characters who represent the above groups in various ways:
Jeff Golden: (Leading character). Jeff is fifteen and white with an American/English heritage. His five times great-grandfather fought in the initial battle that began the Second Seminole War in Florida. Even though he is smart, Jeff is also an angry, rebellious, at-risk kid from a very dysfunctional family. He attends St. Augustine High School. Jeff hates school and teachers, reads very little and takes pride in manipulating adults.
Carla
Carla Rodriquez: Carla, Jeff’s girlfriend is also fifteen. She is a Black Hispanic whose ancestor was Luis Pacheco, an African Slave. Pacheco was forced to serve the U.S. Army as a scout and interpreter for the very military unit Jeff’s five times great-grandfather served in at the start of the Second Seminole War (Pacheco’s story is true). Carla is very smart, takes only AP classes and is very level-headed.
Lobo
Lobo: This gentleman is a mysterious and powerful Native American shaman who guides Jeff and Carla through their dangerous paranormal journeys. He is big, old, brilliant, tough and doesn’t put up with nonsense.
Lobo’s linkages to St. Augustine’s past go back in time in ways that astound Jeff and Carla. His part in the diversity picture expands book by book in the trilogy until it explodes in the most unexpected way at its end.
Lyle
Lyle the Homeless Guy: Lyle is a contemporary of Lobo’s. But at some point in the very distant past, he had a terrible accident that left him somewhat mentally unstable, an alcoholic and often afraid of his own shadow. Lyle is white, his original heritage is English, and his St. Augustine background almost rivals that of Lobo.
Now, to be honest, I toyed with the idea of making the lead character African-American, but then I backed away from that idea. Why? Well, as an old white guy, I just didn’t know if I was up to it in first person, to be blunt. On the other hand, I thought I had a much better chance of making the secondary character, Carla, a Black Hispanic and doing justice to her as an individual and to the role she pays in the books.
At this point, I hope you can see the blending I mentioned before of the characters’ backgrounds with the history of St. Augustine. BUT, embarking on such a journey can be perilous because if you don’t do it properly, the writing comes across as heavy-handed and didactic. And if young people feel they are being set up and preached to, the result often isn’t pretty.
So with that caution in mind, I have tried diligently to gently insert multicultural aspects into these novels simply as a natural flow from who these characters are and how their backgrounds add to the stories. Put another way, my intention has been to build organically from the needs of the plot and through the interpersonal communications between the characters.
Apparently, from the input I’ve gotten, my approached has worked. So what is that input? First of all, the reviews I’ve gotten is my initial feedback and second of all, the reactions I’ve gotten in speaking to very diverse groups of high school students who have read the book tell me what I need to know.
In fact, while visiting students at the first school to use Book 1 of the trilogy, I got hugs, smiles and handshakes from students entering that classroom all day, well before we had any interaction. Very gratifying, especially when I never thought my novels would be used in schools. My original intent was just to write some good books, have fun doing it, sell them online and hopefully make a difference in at least a few lives.
And at this point, I am so delighted to see my work being used, or soon will be used, by fellow educators that I have made the following no cost commitments to them as follows:
Consultations about the books and their use by simply using by communications with me through the Contact Form on this website. From that point on by email and phone.
Sending out a detailed online Teacher Guide via email.
Sending out a Photo Disk via snail mail with a ton of pictures showing St. Augustine, the characters, historical reenactments, trilogy graphics and more. Oh, and a printed contents guide for the disk.
Click here to see more information on teacher resources.
Well, there you have it. If you’re interested in any more details, below you will find a bunch of links that offer further insights into the trilogy:
Reading Help for At-Risk Kids. An overview of the trilogy’s use in reading classrooms.
Reading Motivation That Worked. The original article published about the author’s efforts with the original teacher who used Book 1 of the trilogy with all of her students.
Katy Snyder – the first reading teacher in Florida to use the trilogy in her reading classes.
Reading Teacher Sparks Student Interest. An article from the first teacher to use the trilogy in her classes.
A book Series for the Reading Classroom. The multiple themes and threads woven into the series.
Main Characters in the St. Augustine Trilogy. A brief introduction.
The St. Augustine Trilogy and America’s Oldest City. The setting for the series in St. Augustine, Florida and how that provides a fascinating backdrop for action.
Pirates parade in the streets of old St. Augustine
The St. Augustine Trilogy & Historic Events. Specifies the actual historic events that happened in America’s oldest city that integral parts of the series.
Teaching History Through Young Adult Novels. An analysis.
Teaching Resilience Through Young Adult Novels. Targeting at-risk kids and the teachers who work with them.
Click the following in order to see the two trilogy novels presently in print, and their reviews, as currently listed on amazon.com:
