Podcasts about The Donkey Sanctuary

During our Isle of Wight trip this year we went on a boat trip, visited Osbourne house, Shanklin Chine, the Donkey Sanctuary, Quarr Abbey and much more. Please, join me for a look at the island.

Pippa speaks to Jonno Sherwin from the Karoo Donkey Sanctuary which is at risk as it battles eviction from its current premises. Lunch with Pippa Hudson is CapeTalk’s mid-afternoon show. This 2-hour respite from hard news encourages the audience to take the time to explore, taste, read and reflect. The show - presented by former journalist, baker and water sports enthusiast Pippa Hudson - is unashamedly lifestyle driven. Popular features include a daily profile interview #OnTheCouch at 1:10pm. Consumer issues are in the spotlight every Wednesday while the team also unpacks all things related to health, wealth & the environment. Thank you for listening to a podcast from Lunch with Pippa Hudson Listen live on Primedia+ weekdays between 13:00 and 15:00 (SA Time) to Lunch with Pippa Hudson broadcast on CapeTalk https://buff.ly/NnFM3Nk For more from the show go to https://buff.ly/MdSlWEs or find all the catch-up podcasts here https://buff.ly/fDJWe69 Subscribe to the CapeTalk Daily and Weekly Newsletters https://buff.ly/sbvVZD5 Follow us on social media: CapeTalk on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CapeTalk CapeTalk on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@capetalk CapeTalk on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ CapeTalk on X: https://x.com/CapeTalk CapeTalk on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@CapeTalk567 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Two Donkeys to a Lifesaving Mission: The Story of Longhopes Donkey Shelter What started as a simple search for two donkeys turned into a 25-year journey of rescue, rehabilitation, and advocacy. Kathy Dean, founder of Longhopes Donkey Shelter, didn't just open the first accredited donkey shelter in the U.S.—she created a safe haven for donkeys in need, from those at risk of slaughter to elderly donkeys looking for a peaceful retirement. In this heartwarming episode, Kathy shares her incredible journey, the challenges donkeys face, and the deep intelligence, kindness, and loyalty of these often-overlooked animals. Did you know a female donkey is sometimes called a "she-ass" and a male a "jackass"? Or that donkeys weren't even called "donkeys" until the late 1700s? With over 40 million donkeys worldwide, their history is rich, and their role in human life is profound—especially for gold miners, who once relied on them as steadfast companions. Just like the old Hee Haw show, this episode will bring a smile to your face and leave you with a newfound appreciation for these remarkable “beasts of burden.”

Nick and Chris discuss the January transfer window, Stoke's tumultuous Christmas and - of course - some Oldham s***e. —————————————— If you would like to support the podcast, you can do so by subscribing to our offering at anotherslice.com/famousslopingpitch.  For just £5 a month you'll get an ad-free version of the podcast every week PLUS fortnightly bonus episodes where we delve into seasons past and review them.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It's our 2024 Christmas Special and this year our festive offering is a brand new interview with Juliette Hammond who played Natalie in all three series of Secret Army! As well as talking about her memories of the series, in an interview first, she also casts her mind back to playing other roles during her career: the telepath Pella in Blake's 7, the duplicitous Miranda in Only Fools and Horses, and Miss Hawk in the Look and Read series Dark Towers. She also recounts her experiences of growing up with actor parents, why she left acting behind, and her love of teaching drama.  If you enjoy this interview then please consider giving a donation to Juliette's chosen charity: The Donkey Sanctuary, based in Sidmouth. Their website is www.thedonkeysanctuary.org.uk or you can call them on 01395 579128. When making a donation please say that it's in reference to the Secret Army podcast, as this will help the charity to group all the donations together and work out any amount raised. We will be back next month - on the 4 January - with our review of the first episode of Series 2: The Hostage.  If you would like to contact us then please email us on, or send a voicenote to: secretarmypod@gmail.com or send us a message on Bluesky: AJ is on secretarmypod.bsky.social while Andy can be found at andypodding.bsky.social. AJ is also still on Twitter at @secretarmypod We'd love to hear from you. Thank you for coming down the line with us in 2024.  Happy holidays! Andy & AJ xxx  

Helen & Tracy The Isle of Wight Donkey Sanctuary Brighstone Christmas Tree Festival Interview 2024 

This Hot Cares Christmas, we're highlighting the incredible work of Rest Your Ass, a sanctuary that has been providing a safe haven for abused and neglected donkeys since 2017. From rescuing dumped donkeys to offering therapeutic experiences for individuals with special needs, their commitment to making a difference is truly inspiring. Today, we celebrate their dedication to animal welfare and community outreach. Let's shine a light on the extraordinary impact they're making, one life at a time. Hot Cares

St Georges School - timmy donkey sanctuary podcast

Lucinda Rouse travels to the Donkey Sanctuary in Sidmouth, Devon, to meet the charity's senior statistician, Stuart Norris, and find out about his pathway to a career in data science.Stuart describes how he combined a background in ecology with his long-standing interest in computers to find his niche in the voluntary sector. He explains how his team combines open source data with internal information to create platforms that are used to inform the charity's strategic decision-making.He suggests ways in which applicants to data roles can stand out, and stresses the importance of soft skills on top of technical know-how.Lucinda is joined by Third Sector's editor, Emily Burt, to reflect on the visit. And senior reporter Emily Harle shares snippets from her recent interview with Dan Corry, outgoing chief executive of the think tank NPC.Do you have stories of people whose lives have been transformed for the better thanks to your charity? If so, we'd like to hear them! All it takes is a short voice message to be featured on this podcast. Email lucinda.rouse@haymarket.com for further information.Tell us what you think of the Third Sector Podcast! Please take five minutes to let us know how we can bring you the most relevant, useful content. To fill in the survey, click here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The charity sector is a sector which has always been valued highly here in Ireland in particular, with hundreds of charities all around Ireland doing fantastic work across a wide range of goals, for a wide range of reasons, and thankfully with a wide range of employees and volunteers to make the good work happen. But, of course, work in the charity sector is not without it's challenges. And for HR teams, HR leaders and employers, supporting the people who do all of this great work, is of paramount importance. So to give us some insight in to HR in the charity sector, and sharing some advice on what we can learn from this sector, we're delighted to be joined by Johanne Nevin, People Team Operations Manager at The Donkey Sanctuary.    About The HR Room Podcast The HR Room Podcast is a series from Insight HR where we talk to business leaders from around Ireland and share advice on how to create the HR systems and workplace culture that's right for your business. If you need any HR support in Ireland, get in touch with us at Insight HR. Whether it's conducting a complex workplace investigation, filling a gap by providing you with a virtual or an onsite HR resource, or providing advice via our HR support line, as an expert HR consultancy in Ireland, we'll help you resolve whatever Human Resources challenge your business is facing.

In this episode, we attempt an imitation of a baby raccoon, but it kinda ends up sounding probably more like the fungus in The Last Of Us TV show. This episode also includes lots of enthusiastic but also very calm discussion about meeting donkeys for the first time, at Oregon Donkey Sanctuary. oregondonkeys.org It was our first meeting with donkeys of any size. And did you know, there are three? https://sienaandtoast.com/podcast/donkeys https://instagram.com/sienaandtoast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Donkey Sanctuary-interview

Cathy Griffin Head Of Donkey Welfare, The Donkey Sanctuary tells PJ they won best tourist attraction in Cork for free entry Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

(2/12/2024-2/19/2024) True crime and some cute asses. Tune in. patreon.com/isaiahnews #applepodcasts #spotifypodcasts #youtube #patreon --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/isaiah-m-edwards/support

On today's show, Ian Cawsey discusses the passing of Labour giant and former Chancellor Alistair Darling. We reflect on the Old Guard and why we don't have giants in UK politics anymore. Later, Andrew Allison discusses The Freedom Association's launch of the 'Freedom in Crisis' campaign. Also, Andrew Montford discusses COP28, which is already turning into a cop-out. Andrew will explain why. GUEST 1 OVERVIEW: Ian Cawsey was elected to UK Parliament from 1991-2023. He is also a member of the world's only Parliamentary rock band - MP4. He's now Director of Advocacy and Campaigns for the world's largest equine charity, The Donkey Sanctuary, working across the world for thes animals and the communities that rely on them.  GUEST 2 OVERVIEW: Live, on TNT Radio, Andrew Allison is launching the 'Freedom in Crisis' campaign, inviting like-minded freedom fighters everywhere to join the stand for free speech and liberty. GUEST 3 OVERVIEW: Andrew Montford  founded of a climate emergency sceptical blog, and now oversees the production of reports on the true science of climate change. He's also directly involved in strategic planning in combating bad climate science. He also wrote the book "The Hockey Stick Illusion.'

Pippa speaks to the founder of Karoo Donkey Sanctuary, Jonno Sherwin.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This podcast covers three topics within the interest of dentistry in horses. EOTRH (Equine Odontoplastic Tooth Resorption and Hypercementosis), dentistry in donkeys at The Donkey Sanctuary in the UK, and the problems that can occur with cheek tooth extractions in horses. Dentistry in horses is what I have done since 1983 and exclusively since 1998. I have drawn my own conclusions by studying the correlations of diet, age, surgery, and other factors on the teeth of horses. But in an era where we want evidence-based studies to prove causation, no randomized, controlled, double-blinded studies have come about in the field of oral health for horses. The section on EOTRH comes from finding an osteopath on Facebook who questioned the validity of removing all incisors affected by this disease. The other two sections are good-looking papers discussing the titled subjects but raise more questions while avoiding other reasonable points. As usual, I discuss the ideas and observations honed from experience and question some of the authors' and FB posters' conclusions. This rebuttal is needed because well-done articles published in prestigious journals by sincere and experienced authors may erroneously persuade readers to accept the findings without question. Facebook posts often receive unwarranted validation just based on their online existence. Worse, this information may cause acts on horses (extraction of incisors, extraction of cheek teeth, not feeding enough protein) based on this information without a rebuttal argument to the conclusions stated, which is not in the horse's best interest. More data is needed, which will never happen because of the cost of studying these problems with no return on the investment. All we have is experience and observations. We need an open conversation without fear of challenging rebuttal to find what is valid.

Hometown Radio 07/06/23 3p: Spotlight on the Rancho Burro Donkey Sanctuary then we visit with Tom Madsen

Nik hears about the world record attempt from the IW Donkey Sanctuary  

Escape the demonic corpse of Gavin the Rabbit! We're joined by Mairi, Ash and Al from The Escape Roomer and Escaping The Closet in an Easter-iffic escape to ensure the demonic bunny Gavin stays down. You don't need to have heard the previous Gavin appearance, but if you want to understand the full suite of references, check it out. This episode was brought to you by The Bullets for Broncos campaign - the militant sub-division of The Donkey Sanctuary, as well as our patrons J Cameron Cooper, Ryann Sparrow, Richard Leggett, Colin Walker, Tonje Beate Halvorsen and Maggie B. We also now have MERCH! You can get a sweet The Infinite Escape Room enamel pin and puzzle postcard to impress your friends and shame your enemies. Check it out! Please let us know what you think of the new format on Facebook and Twitter  This week's solvers were Mike, Mairi, Ash and Al. Your Games Maestro and puzzle creator was Jamie Gibbs.

On CorkToday with Patricia Messinger ----- Ireland set to become a cashless society in 5 years – we discuss with The Money Doctor John Lowe Space runs out at the Donkey Sanctuary in Lisscarroll Why one West Cork farmer is leaving dairy farming due to Long Covid Discussing apprenticeships and why are they not promoted enough and the issues people face if they are colour blind to apply for certain apprenticeships Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Whether you're traveling for work or pleasure, finding abundance and sustenance while on the road is easy once you know where to look and if you plan ahead (which I argue should be done even when you're NOT traveling). With loads of general tips for finding vegan food in airports, preparing for airplanes, choosing veg-friendly hotels, and traveling internationally, I flesh out this episode with details of my recent travels to Ireland, interpersing food tales with some of our favorite things to do — related to literature (Yeats and more), history (particularly in Dublin and Kilkenny), nature (hikes in Connemara), and animal protection (Donkey Sanctuary and Ballynahinch Castle). ENJOY! —————— Support this podcast today at JoyfulVegan.com/Donate Visit my website: JoyfulVegan.com Join me on an all-inclusive vegan trip: JoyfulVeganTrips.com AFFILIATE PARTNERS: Nama Juicer — Use this link and coupon code COLLEEN10 and get 10% off my favorite juicer. Plaine Products — Use this link and coupon code "compassion" for 15% off my favorite zero waste bath and body products. Complement — Use this link and coupon code "joyfulvegan" and get 10% off my favorite supplements. Thank you for listening.  

Collagen is getting celebrity endorsements as a hair and skincare product — but the billion-dollar industry has been linked to deforestation in the Amazon, and the large-scale slaughter of donkeys and other livestock in Africa. We talk to Andrew Wasley, food and agriculture reporter for the Bureau of Investigative Journalism; Sian Edwards, campaigns manager at The Donkey Sanctuary in the U.K.; and Michael White, a pharmacist and distinguished professor at the University of Connecticut School of Pharmacy.

From Orwell and Shakespeare back to Greek myth, Aesop, and early Christianity: Matthew Sweet and guests look at a cultural history of the donkey. EO, a film out in UK cinemas this month, follows the life of a donkey born in a Polish circus. New Generation Thinker Lisa Mullen is an expert on George Orwell and lecturer in film at the University of Cambridge Lucy Grig is Senior Lecturer in Roman History at the University of Edinburgh Faith Burden is Executive Director of Equine Operations at the Donkey Sanctuary in Devon Directed by Jerzy Skolimowski EO is inspired by Robert Bresson's 1966 film Au Hasard Balthazar and is showing at venues across the UK organised by the BFI. Producer: Luke Mulhall

On CorkToday with Patricia Messinger ---- Patricia speaks to a Cork based Doctor on why Older people are urged not to look after sick children as the country sees a spike in respiratory illnesses We discuss the growing up in Ireland report showing that half of 9-year-olds now own a smartphone The Donkey Sanctuary join Patricia ahead of what they say is a Winter Crisis when it comes to animal care in IrelandDo you remember the Green Shield Stamps - listeners recall memories Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When you visit the city of Cork, don't miss the hidden gems: the butter, the bells and burros.  That's right there is a museum there dedicted to butter, you can ring the Shandon bells if you are willing to climb the tower, and not far from Cork the Donkey Sanctuary houses and cares for hundreds of donkeys turned out on their own when agriculture in Ireland was motorized with tractors. Hear all about it in this episode of Erin's Isle. 

A person on WOM is looking for a Donkey Sanctuary in Colorado. 

This week host Raquel Cid interviews Ron King a former Fashion & Media Executive previously at InStyle, People StyleWatch, People en Español + more. He shares why he started Oscar's Place, a donkey adoption and sanctuary in Hopland California.   Listen out for : From fashion shows to Donkey Rescue How joy is out there for all of us Why he left his luxurious lifestyle to live in a ranchWhy you should not care about what people think and whose opinion you should care aboutFrom craigslist to movie stars! Reality tv show coming soon How authenticity leads to success Why you need to differentiate from the things you enjoy vs what brings you joy LINKSFollow Oscar's Place on IG hereFollow Paws and Perros on IG hereHost: Raquel Cid a Latinx Career Coach and Animal Foster on a mission to inspire animal lovers to take action.Are you enjoying the Podcast? Share this episode with a friend. It would mean the world to me if you could leave us a review : https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/paws-and-perros/id1596399493Thank you for the gift of your time.Sending you much love and light!Your Host,Raquel 

Cabin Radio NWT has been flagged as an impersonation account on Facebook. Looks like the past 5 years of impersonating a legit news media organization have finally caught up with us. Ah well, it was fun while it lasted!

In this podcast , Kitty chats with Anne Middleton in the very busy shop at the Isle of Wight Donkey Sanctuary on the open day on Sunday 1st May 

Ben Hart is one of the UK's leading equine trainers, with a background in agriculture and a family history working with heavy horses. Ben has worked with horses, mules and donkeys all over the world: from mustangs and race horses in California, stock horses in Australia, and working equines in Cambodia and Ethiopia. Ben's use of the science of equine behaviour rather than a one method approach has been successful with traumatised animals at the UK's leading equine charities, and his ability to work with Human behaviour has been utilised by world leading animal welfare organisations such as WSPA, The Brooke and The Donkey Sanctuary. Ben's delivery of training is unique, ensuring an outstanding training experience that is enjoyable and life changing. Join us on this episode as he shares with us the experiences that have led him down the path to where he is today. Want more of Ben? You can check out his courses here: https://harts-horsemanship.thinkific.com/ And check out more about Ben and what he does over on his website here: http://www.hartshorsemanship.com/

New York Times best-selling author, Susy Flory, talks about experiencing the safety of sanctuary. https://livesteadyon.com/Email Angie at: steadyonpodcast@gmail.comFacebook: @livesteadyonInstagram: @angiebaughman421Grab freebies and subscribe to the weekly Steady On newsletter at: https://livesteadyon.com/live-steady-on-newsletter/ Looking for something not listed? It's probably here: https://linktr.ee/livesteadyon http://www.susyflory.com/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/everythingmemoirIG: https://www.instagram.com/everythingmemoir/  Free first two chapters of Sanctuary: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zsP7KdhAMTYYe5D4rm6tryLKTakjUE8r/view?usp=sharing Free audio excerpt of Sanctuary: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dg3GIiTZDCMiZBwi0JeXlq3EDH1P1i_V/view?usp=sharing Enter for a chance to win a copy of “Sanctuary” by emailing steadyonpodcat@gmail.com. Contest runs May 3 - May12, 2022 Susy mentioned:Prayers and Poetry works of John O'Donohue Theme music:Heartwarming by Kevin MacLeodLink: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3864-heartwarmingLicense: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Carole Baskin from Big Cat Rescue, famous for appearing in Tiger King, talks to the team about exotic animals being kept in captivity and what it's like to get close to big cats. Mel from The Donkey Sanctuary gives Anne-Marie and Rob an insight into what makes donkeys tick and why they love having a companion. Specialist vet Rob helps explain what exactly a ‘fatty lump' is!

On CorkToday with Patricia Messinger -----Pepper Spray should be introduced in Ireland so people can defend themselves according to one Cork City Councillor We hear calls to restore the West Cork Railway Line How people with rare genetic blood conditions in Ireland are experiencing difficulties in accessing treatment Sad news from the Donkey Sanctuary in Liscarroll as one of their long term residents Lorcan the Donkey passes away – we chat with the man who spent the most time with him See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Donkeys are equines that have been used as working animals for at least 5000 years. And with more than 40 million donkeys in the world today, there is a tremendous need to offer them protection in sanctuaries, in legislation, and through education. In this episode, Helena is joined by Maxine Carter of the Donkey Sanctuary. Maxine shares with us the plight of the donkey today, how their sanctuary can help, and why it's important for horse owners to pay closer attention to these incredibly smart and willing equines. Listen in!Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/user?u=87421)

Donkeys are equines that have been used as working animals for at least 5000 years. And with more than 40 million donkeys in the world today, there is a tremendous need to offer them protection in sanctuaries, in legislation, and through education.  In this episode, Helena is joined by Maxine Carter of the Donkey Sanctuary. Maxine shares with us the plight of the donkey today, how their sanctuary can help, and why it's important for horse owners to pay closer attention to these incredibly smart and willing equines. Listen in!

This week's Unstoppable Mindset episode is especially exciting not only because of our guest, Keri Wyatt Kent and her story of writing and author endeavors, but Keri also brings us a special announcement. Keri has been an author for many years writing a number of Christian oriented books. While she will discuss her work in the writing world she also announces a special new project. If you listen to this week's episode you will be the first to learn about a new project Keri has begun, a project in which you may want to directly participate. Listen in to hear all the news. Some directories do not show full show notes. For the complete transcription please visit https://michaelhingson.com/podcast About our Guest: Keri Wyatt Kent has been writing since childhood, and made a living at it since she graduated from college. She began her career as a newspaper reporter, then started her own writing and editing business at age 30. She had her first book published five years later. She's since had 11 books traditionally published, has self-published several of her own books, and has co-written more than a dozen titles as well. She recently self-published an Advent devotional, The Gift of Christmas Present. She and her husband Scot have been married for 30 years and have two grown children. About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog. Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards. https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/ accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/ Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below! Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can also subscribe in your favorite podcast app. Leave us an Apple Podcasts review Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts. Transcription Notes Michael Hingson  00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i  capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.   Michael Hingson  01:24 Well, hello again, this is Mike Hingson. Welcome to another Unstoppable Mindset episode. Thanks for dropping in and being with us, and we hope that you will enjoy this one. I have an interesting guest today. I think she's interesting. I'm a little bit prejudiced. And you will learn why as we go through the episode. But let's just say at the outset, it has a little bit to do with a new book that we're beginning to write. Keri Wyatt Kent has been an author for a long time, she has a very interesting career. I met her earlier this year, and felt that she would be a very interesting person to have on our podcast for you to get to meet and to get to know. And you may find her story fascinating and want to reach out to her if you have ideas of writing a book or want to learn something more about being an author Kerri, welcome to unstoppable mindset.   Keri Wyatt Kent  02:16 Mike, it is so good to be with you.   Michael Hingson  02:20 So tell me just a little bit about your life in general. I mean, obviously, you grew up and so on. But tell me just a little bit about you.   Keri Wyatt Kent  02:29 Well, I've been a writer since college, I graduated college and began writing right away as a newspaper reporter. I'm, I live in the Chicago area. And I have two grown kids and a husband that I've been married to for 30 years, I've written 11 books, traditionally published and done a bunch of other collaborative books and self published titles. So my work is writing to do it. I've been doing it for years and raising a family and some.   Michael Hingson  03:02 So that's what I do. What got you started in writing.   Keri Wyatt Kent  03:05 So as I said, when I was in college, I was a part of the student newspaper, and then right away got a job out of college, working as a newspaper reporter. And it is, it's a great training ground. For learning how to write you have to learn how to write quickly, you have to summarize sort of complicated things in a in a short amount of space. As far as the amount of number of paragraphs, you have to tell a story. But I think one of the things I learned from that beginning, Mike was that knowing which details you need to leave in, but also what you need to leave out. A lot of people want to write, but they don't know what to leave out. You don't have to tell everything you know, in whatever you're writing, whether it's an article, blog posts a book, you have to be focused and being a newspaper reporter really helped me learn that.   Michael Hingson  04:10 What is it that people like? In the writing of a newspaper reporter? What do they want to see? And what do they not want to see? What makes a good reporter in a newspaper environment, a good reporter?   Keri Wyatt Kent  04:22 You know, one of the things that I learned was to be a bold interviewer, to ask hard questions probe a little deeper. And today, you know, interviewing is one of my strengths. And it's a key part of my work as a collaborative writer. People want to know the facts, and they want to know how it impacts them. And that's true, not only in newspapers, I think that's true everywhere. When a lot of people write a book and they want to write this is my thoughts and this is my stuff and my story. But a good book will tell the writer story, but then connect it with the reader. And I think Being in, in newspapers for quite a while before, at the beginning, my career really helps me to remember why. What's the so what of what I'm writing? Why does it matter to my reader?   Michael Hingson  05:15 What was your favorite newspaper interview, something that you really liked that stands out in your mind that you did where you were really successful.   Keri Wyatt Kent  05:25 You know, I remember doing a story about a group at my church that and I was able to write about them. In the newspaper, they went on a mission trip, and they met a family and a little boy who needed heart surgery of some kind, and he couldn't get it in the, you know, rural area of a developing country where he lived. And they were able to bring him to Chicago to Children's Hospital to get the surgery, and, you know, changed his life. And, you know, went back to his family, of course, but, but the story of how this woman decided to get involved and help this child, it was, it was really a cool story. And I remember, you know, talking to her about her decision to help somebody else, you know, and to, you know, she didn't just go down and like, you know, help out in this community for a week or so she got involved with this kid and his family, and, and they, you know, a lot about trust, you know, because the boy's mother had to let him, you know, go with these people to get the surgery he needed. It was a pretty cool story. I thought that was one of my favorites.   Michael Hingson  06:39 Well, so do you do any writing for newspapers today?   Keri Wyatt Kent  06:45 I do not write for newspapers today. But I've over the years, because newspapers have kind of changed, you know, it's the publishing industry has changed dramatically over the last several decades. So I do write for magazines, I write for websites, I, I have other writing avenues that I that I write for now, most of my work these days is, is in books, because I have that opportunity. But I often am asked to write for a magazine or a website. And so I do a lot of that. So you know, it's interesting, because I think one of the, one of the things that has allowed me to keep on to have a career over several decades of writing is adapting to change. And that is, I think, a lot of times people have trouble adapting to change because they get scared. Their fear keeps them from, they want things to stay the same. And they're, they're scared of doing something new. And I've just tried to adapt, you know, I've written magazine articles I, you know, written social media stuff, all kinds of different things. And you just have to see the change as opportunity, rather than being afraid of it. And so, when we see change as opportunity, then we have are motivated to innovate,   Michael Hingson  08:23 motivated to innovate, interesting way to put it in makes a lot of sense. We certainly live in a world right now, where there is a lot of demand to adapt to change for all of us.   Keri Wyatt Kent  08:33 For sure, right? Everything has turned upside down with the pandemic. And just there's a lot that's changed. And my industry keeps changing the publishing industry. You know, when I was a reporter, that Job had lots of promise and possibility today, that small newspapers that, you know, used to serve small towns are just thought, and it's a lot harder to become a reporter, and there's less. It's more competitive to make it in that industry. When I first published my first book, there were a lot less emphasis on authors needing a platform or a huge audience in order to get a publishing contract. And that industry is continually changing. And so writing requires sort of ongoing reinvention. And I think in in these times, everybody is having to sort of be willing to adapt to change the way kids go to school these days, the way people go to work these days, you know, the economic opportunities, everything has changed. And so when we are willing to adapt, we can thrive. It's it's just, we can't thrive when we expect things to stay the same.   Michael Hingson  09:53 How did you transition from being a newspaper reporter to writing books? Why Why did you switch How'd that all come about? There must be a story there.   Keri Wyatt Kent  10:03 Yes, yes. So I was a newspaper reporter, it's a demanding job, a lot of times you are working late you're covering, I was at a paper with it covered local government meetings, which are, you know, at eight o'clock at night, and. And in fact, you know, if something happens, like, you know, go to war, or there's a, at one point, I remember, as a newspaper reporter, there was a shooting in our quiet little suburb, which was big news. And on the Sunday, when I was having some people over to my house, my editor was calling me saying, You got to come in and help us with this story. It's a big story. So it's an all consuming sort of, sort of job. And when I decided my husband, and I decided we wanted to start a family, I thought I want to have I want to have a little more control over my schedule than newspaper reporting gives me so I started doing freelance writing. And at first I was doing kind of a lot of magazine articles. I wrote for places where I had connections, including construction marketing today, and roads and bridges magazine. Because I knew that there were opportunity, I knew that some people who worked in those particular magazines, I had connections there. But eventually I decided to write a book because I had questions. My first book was called God's whisper in a mother's chaos. And I wrote it when my kids were one and three, which didn't give me a lot of writing time, because more than three year olds are demanding, and time consuming. But I wrote about my experiences as a mom. And the question was, what happened to my life, I had it all figured out on the all my ducks in a row, everything was great. And then these two little people invaded my life, and I couldn't even you know, get anything done. And where was God in the midst of that? Because I had said, Well, my relationship with God should look like this, it should get up and heavy, you know, quiet time and do certain things and volunteer a lot of my time at church, all these things that I were harder to do. And I tried to address the questions that I was wrestling with, because I thought again, with my reader, other people might be asking those same questions. And so that is, that was kind of the beginning of the journey of writing books.   Michael Hingson  12:51 So what kind of books primarily have you been writing from the beginning, and how it's evolved?   Keri Wyatt Kent  12:58 So that first book was published by University Press, and then I did another book with them. A lot of my books are that, about that intersection of, of living our faith, and real life, not being idealistic, or, you know, fluffy about it, you know, really talking about the struggle and the the challenges of everyday life and how our faith fits into that. So in the publishers category is they call it Christian living. But I think my particular focus was integrating your faith with real life. A, several of my books talk about the importance of taking a Sabbath slowing down living at a pace that allows us to consider things of faith, as sometimes we get so rushed, and we get so busy, that we miss out on being able to really experience God's love and God's presence. And so that's been a big part of the stuff that I write about. I write about pace of life, I write about slowing down, I write about kind of choosing to take your time to really connect with God in a deeper way. And so that's been the main focus of my writing of my own books. I also started helping pastors and a couple pastors who had content they wanted to write a book about and they needed a collaborative writer, they needed somebody to help them. From there. I started helping not only pastors, but like business people, and other people who had booked ideas, but didn't, couldn't do it on their own. Really. They needed a writer. They had great ideas. They did not I have writing skills. And so we brought their ideas and, and my writing skills together and so that I could collaborate with them and help them to write a book. So that's been in the past several years that's been my focus is helping other people tell their story.   Michael Hingson  15:16 I have to ask, what was your first book called?   Keri Wyatt Kent  15:20 My first book that I wrote? Hmm, God's whisper in a mother's chaos.   Michael Hingson  15:26 Wow. And so was that more of? Well, not necessarily a memoir, but was I would assume there's some biographical parts to that.   Keri Wyatt Kent  15:38 Absolutely. One of my writing colleagues called memoir ish. It's not it, it offered people some teaching, I would say, but it was mostly the story of my me and my kids, and the things I was learning in the midst of that. So yeah, talk about my kids. And my life as a mom, my, my own thoughts and struggles with my faith. And at the time, Mike, there were books for Christian moms, but most of them were written by people who were sort of past the stage of parenting, right. But they were, you know, maybe their kids had gone off to college. And they thought, now I'll write my book. I wrote it when my kids were little. And so and I was, like, I wrote about the fact, you know, I wrote telling people, yeah, my daughter's crying, my son's crying, I sit down on the stairs and just start crying. And because we're all crying, because it's just so stressful, you know, I can't figure out how to help them. Not try. And, and that at the time, like these days, people, blog people, you know, do podcasts, and they're extremely honest about their own struggles. At the time, especially within Christian publishing, that was not what most people did. And so my book was a little bit unusual, in that it was written in the midst, like from the trenches of, you know, parenting preschoolers, but also, in its honesty, of the struggles that I went through, as a young mom, and all young moms do, it wasn't like I was my experience was unusual. Talking about it at that time was unusual. And so um, yeah, I think that book, it's, it's been out there for years. And it's still, you know, continues to sell. It's still in print. So I think that's because it resonates with people.   Michael Hingson  17:52 Well, speaking of things changing, you said that publishing Christian publishing wasn't like that so much back then. But it sounds like it's reinvented itself. Why is that? And how has it changed?   Keri Wyatt Kent  18:07 There's a couple things. It has changed dramatically. It's not only Christian publishing, but all publishing. publishers want to know that you're going to bring an audience with you, when you put when you approached them. So a big part of being able to get a publishing contract, for example, is you have to have what what is referred to as a platform, you have to have a big mailing list or a big following on social media. Although it's interesting, I was reading an article today that even though publishers make decisions based on an author, social media, and how many followers they have, and that sort of thing, that doesn't necessarily translate directly to book sales. But when I first started writing, that was not as big a deal. The other thing that's really changed is, I do quite a bit of self publishing, I help other people write books and then help them self publish them. Or I've self published, taking some of my books, some of my books, I've, you know, done 11 traditionally published books, some of them have gone out of print, that means they're the publishers no longer selling it, and I can have the rights revert back to me. I've sometimes taken those books and re published them as a self published title. And this just recently, I, I self published a Christmas Devotional, an Advent devotional and just did it myself. The way I was able to do that is is self publishing. Used to be just what was called vanity publishing. You'd pay somebody to print your books and you had to buy a bunch of them and they sat in your garage and you maybe tried to sell them to friends and family. These days. Amazon has a A platform called Kindle Direct Publishing, that allows you to upload a manuscript, upload a cover, and put your book on Amazon. And as long as it's not, you know, plagiarized from somewhere else, or, you know, as long as it makes sense, you can do it. And so that has really opened up. The ability to self publish for a lot of people. That was one of the things that I did to sort of, you know, reinvent myself is, I realized about 10 years ago that everybody was starting to talk about self publishing and this change and the technology called Print on Demand, where when someone orders a book from Amazon or other places, they have the technology to print a single copy, instead of a press run of, you know, 1000 or 10,000 books, you can print a single copy, and mail it out to whoever's ordered it. And that changed the publishing game, because anybody could publish their own book. And I decided back a while ago, I wanted to learn as much as I could about the self publishing and how to do it. And I was a little intimidated, I was a little scared at first, I'm like, I don't know how to do this. But I just, I'm a learner, and I learned it. And that enabled me then to begin to help other people, not only with collaborative writing, sometimes, in collaborative writing, you're working on something that you're going to present to a traditional publisher. But sometimes people want to self publish, I recently finished a project for a business woman who runs, she runs a national organization. And she came to me with just an idea and said, I want to write a book, and I all I know is the title. And I said, Okay, you know. And so I helped her shape her idea into a book outline, I collaborated with her to write the book. And then I guided her through the self publishing process. And that book is now her calling card, it establishes her as a credible authority, it opens doors for new business opportunities or speaking opportunities. And that would not have been possible 20 years ago, because I mean, she, she could have done it through like a vanity press. But this allows her then, to sell her book on Amazon. And that's a great a great way for people, they may not want to be an author per se, they want to be an authority. And so book establishes them as an authority.   Michael Hingson  22:37 My impression from something that you said a little while ago, though, is that content has changed. You said that when you were first writing your original book, there wasn't as much of an interest or people didn't necessarily publish a lot of books being honest about themselves. And I gather that, that whole focus on life and life experience and, and self analysis has changed.   Keri Wyatt Kent  23:06 I think people were doing that maybe outside of the Christian publishing industry. But in the Christian publishing industry, there was more emphasis on, you know, here's the best way to live your life kind of thing. But that's changed. Now. That's changed. Now. I think there are a lot of authors who are very honest about their, their struggles, their, their challenges, their fears, and, you know, people, Christian authors talk about their, their own struggles with depression, or, you know, people will talk about their eating disorder or their, you know, their marital problems or their divorce or whatever, things that were kind of just not talked about, you know, back back in the day, so, I think people are more honest. Because also social media gives readers a chance to connect with authors in a different way. I remember as a kid, I love Madeline L'Engle. She wrote A Wrinkle in Time, and she wrote a bunch of other books, and she, she was my favorite author. And I remember like writing her a letter, like, telling her how much I loved her book and that kind of thing. And I was so excited when she like, wrote back and, but at the that was like, the only way to connect with an author was to write them like basically a fan letter or something. And today, you can look up your favorite author and you can listen to their podcast or you can, you know, see a picture of them with their kids on social media or whatever you we have a lot more access to writers. So it's kind of harder to like pretend everything's great. If you Are you know, I mean, obviously people curate and you know, kind of make sure that they present a certain image on social media or whatever. But it's, it seems to be more okay. To be honest with who you are. And   Michael Hingson  25:16 so I think the publishing industry has accepted that reinvention? I think so   Keri Wyatt Kent  25:20 yeah, I think so because they want, they want something that people can relate to. Right? Again, it comes back to the reader, you know, when you're a writer, you got to think of your reader and your reader needs to be able to know, just see themselves in your story. And so I think when we're honest about, you know, our struggles or our fears, then the reader can relate.   Michael Hingson  25:47 Do you think that the demands of readers and the interests that readers have in books has evolved and maybe reinvented? Or is it just that authors in the publishing industry are catching up? Or recognizing what readers really want?   Keri Wyatt Kent  26:05 That's an interesting question. I think people have gotten used to, you know, I mean, even, you know, look at some of the other media that we consume, like television, or, you know, shows that we stream or whatever, however, we receive sort of, that sort of thing. You think about, like, Father Knows Best, or Leave It to Beaver back in the 50s, you know, where it presented, or even like the Brady Bunch, right, it presented, like, this sort of idealistic look at a family. And, you know, there may be some small problem, but what gets worked out in the 30 minutes of the sitcom or whatever, um, and I think you look at, like, some of the shows today, and they've gone almost to the opposite extreme, but of, you know, reality TV or whatever, but they, they are dealing with deeper issues, they're dealing with struggle, in a way that, you know, we didn't before so I think our society has just evolved in in that we're willing to talk about, and want to take a look at you know, deeper issues. Maybe sometimes too much. Like goes to television.   Michael Hingson  27:30 Yeah, television has certainly made a big difference in, in all of our lives and social media has, we, we now seem to be a society that absolutely has to have instant gratification, we want to know this now. And the other part of it, it seems to me is that as society has made these kinds of demands, as society has shifted, it also expects the information just to be put right in front of it, and it doesn't tend to do a lot of research anymore. So it doesn't go beyond the story.   Keri Wyatt Kent  28:10 Yeah. And people will accept as true. Things that might not be true. You know, everybody, you know, I read it on the internet. So it must be true. Or they, you know, hear a story and they hear, right, they don't redo research. They don't, you know, wonder is this actually what's the case? And so that makes it harder sometimes, I think, for people to discern, I think discernment is, you know, kind of wish it was more highly valued in our current culture than it is.   Michael Hingson  28:48 I know I have. Oftentimes, when I speak, I've been asked about the World Trade Center and my experiences and people say, What do you think about the conspiracy theorists? Or isn't it true that this really happened and of course, the, the most common one for me, is the story that keeps floating around the internet, about the dog that was with its blind person up on the 100 and 12th story of one of the towers. And the person told the dog to just go down the stairs and the the dog got wouldn't leave and got them up. But then the dog ran back in and went back up and saved hundreds of people and did that two or three times and then was finally killed when the tower collapsed. And there's just a drop of truth in the story. Right, in that there is one person who was blind with their dog. Not me, but who who felt that he wasn't going to get out and he told his dog to go when the dog wouldn't go, which is what the dog should do that dog stays with its person. Right? And that's it. But that whole story has just made it around the internet and continues to be there. And I keep getting asked, isn't that a true story? And the answer is no, it's not, you know, people don't take the time to learn what a guide dog is about, for example.   Keri Wyatt Kent  30:19 And they don't tend to take the time to realize that the tower was hit on the 93rd floor or whatever. And so the dog couldn't get down from the 112 floors.   Michael Hingson  30:29 And how and how many stories are in the World Trade Center? How many floors? I don't know, 110. The other part about the story. But yeah, exactly what you say is true. There was one person, according to a police officer who I met, there was one person in Tower two, who was on the 90th floor, the 91st floor, and got down past the fire after tower two was hit. He was just in the right place at the right time, and he made it past the fires. But otherwise, no one made it out from above where the aircraft hidden both towers, of course. Right,   Keri Wyatt Kent  31:13 right. Well, you know, it's interesting, I remember back when, when email was first starting, people would forward. Oh, here's something, you know, they have some story. I'm like, that's not true. Was before Facebook. So I'm showing my age. But before Facebook, people would email you, you know, these sort of urban myths and, you know, telling you different things. And I would email back I was like, I was fighting for truth. I'm like, this is false. It is not a true story. You shouldn't forward things, because you just heard it or somebody sent it to you do your research. It's not true. And social media has taken that to the nth degree, you know, of more and more stories that are not true. And I feel, especially as part of my faith, Mike, I feel like if truth matters, it really matters. And a lot of times I find people of faith are the ones who are forwarding the, you know, conspiracy theories or the you know, template urban myth or even that's one about the dog right. It's a feel good story. Oh, that sounds like Lassie, you know, kept running into the burning building to save the people. And you want it to be true, but it's, it's not and it's, it's not good to even a heartwarming story like that. It's not good to just forward things that aren't true. And I think our our culture has lost its grip on what is true, you know, if you try to counter people's argument about all sorts of things, you know, politics or the pandemic or whatever with truth, they accuse you of like believing the lies on both sides. So it's, it's a challenging time to, to tell stories, because truth does matter. But it seems to be a value that's sort of eroding in our culture.   Michael Hingson  33:09 I have to do this speaking of Lassie, he never she never did save Timmy from the well. But she did save Timmy from from bear and from this attack and all sorts of things and the this was in this brief article I read in the end of the article was did a pretty anybody ever tell Timmy and his parents maybe it was time to move?   Keri Wyatt Kent  33:37 Yeah, we should just like be a little more careful about all of this he was unsupervised. When he preps he shouldn't   Michael Hingson  33:49 share a parenting discussion there that. Oh, gosh. But yeah, but But blasey never did save Timmy from the well. But anyway, there are urban myths, right? It's another urban myth of sort of like Fibber McGee and Molly now I'm dating me, but I never did listen to Fibber McGee and Molly growing up. I collect old radio shows. And so I listened to that show now. And anyone who knows anything about Fibber McGee and Molly knows that they have a closet that whenever Fibber opens the closet, everything comes falling out. And that's what they remember about Fibber McGee and Molly, but it only happened a couple or three or four times a year. It didn't happen in every episode, but it's what people remember. And it is a pretty funny skit whenever it does happen. Yeah, but but we we do glom on to these myths, and these these thoughts and they take over our memory, whether they're true or not, and I'm sorry, I've never bought into the concept of alternative facts. Because you it is a fact or it's not and there isn't an alternative if it's an alternative. It's not a fact. Yeah, and that It could be a different argument, but it's not a fact. People have forgotten that. Right.   Keri Wyatt Kent  35:05 And that's I think the nature of, of sort of insidious lies is that they have a little element of truth, like the story about the dog that you mentioned, or, you know, there's, there's certain facts can be twisted, to tell to change the narrative, right. So again, you have to have discernment and try to not let your fear get the better of you, I think that's part of it is people hear something, they don't understand it, and they misinterpret it. And then their fear takes over.   Michael Hingson  35:43 And some of them misinterpret it deliberately. But it is, it is part of society. Today, there is a whole set of theories about how the government really took down the towers, the twin towers of the World Trade Center using microwaves and other things, and some physics arguments are used and so on. But there, there's a lot that's left out of those theories. And the bottom line is that when it all comes down to it, the experiences of the people who were there ought to count for something. But the conspiracy theorists ignore that. And so they, they choose to put these things forward. And one person's written books, and others have told stories on speeches and so on. But the reality is, what happened is what happened aircraft crashed into the buildings. The resulting fuel explosions further damaged the infrastructures. And the buildings eventually collapsed. And there's no getting around that. Yeah, but people like to try to create mountains out of molehills   Keri Wyatt Kent  36:54 or change the narrative in some way to make it not wanting to deal with the fact that I think we for for years, the United States kind of felt like we were immune, or we would never get attacked on our own soil. It was, you know, wars were fought somewhere else, not on our land. And so wanting to believe that means people would come up with outlandish ideas to you know, sort of explain away the idea that, that we were being attacked, you know, that somehow it was some sort of sleight of hand that the government was doing or something and, you know, so that, that I just when I think about what motivates people to like, come up with something like that. I think a lot of times people didn't want to believe that, that we would be attacked on our own would be attacked. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you're   Michael Hingson  37:54 working on a number of projects now. And I'm Chris, that brings us a little bit to what, what brought us together. On an earlier podcast, we had a chance to meet Susie Florrie who wrote thunder dog with me. And it was a very collaborative venture was a lot of fun. And then this past summer, I began looking at writing another book. And Susie didn't have time to work on it. She's finishing a master's program. And I assume she's still planning on going on to the Ph. D. program, isn't she? Yeah, she is. She is she's, she's got lots to do right now. Scholar is, and she introduced us.   Keri Wyatt Kent  38:38 Yes, yes. He's a longtime friend. And we have, I was delighted that she introduced us, Mike.   Michael Hingson  38:45 So we started writing a book proposal. And the idea was that as I have traveled the world and talk about the World Trade Center, and talk about my experiences, and what I did, I did not ever spend time really developing in a program to teach other people how to accomplish the same sorts of things that I did, which in a nutshell, is basically saying, I haven't taught people how to learn to control their fears. And, and somebody suggested to me to call the program and so on blinded by fear, because that's exactly what really happens. We get confronted by unexpected life changes. All of us with the pandemic today. The World Trade Center, 20 years ago, the Pentagon, any number of things that have happened and we become blinded, we become paralyzed. We don't know how to make decisions. We can't make decisions, because we're confronted by this thing that seems overwhelming to us, whatever it is. And it doesn't need to be that way. than the fact is that I think some people believe we're wired to be this way, we're wired. But but in a sense, we're not. We've been taught by our parents, our peers, everyone around us about fear, but we've never really collectively been taught how to control it or not be totally blinded by it. So we, you and I started writing this book. And now of course, we've submitted a proposal. And we have a great working title, I like the title you came up with, which is a guide dogs Guide to Being brave, which is more positive anyway. But tell me what what you think about this book, or what it can do, and kind of your thoughts about the whole process that we're going through.   Keri Wyatt Kent  40:42 Mike, I was so excited when, you know, Suzy introduced us. And we started talking about this idea, because I do think people are, they want to live a courageous life, they want to not let their fear control them or blind them. But they need help. And so I feel like this book is going to give them some very positive, doable, suggestions and guidance on overcoming what fear does to us, we're gonna feel fear, it's a human emotion, it's a response, and it's a part of life, it's there to protect us, right? You know, we, if we didn't have fear, we drive on the wrong side of the road, or, you know, we do things that take unnecessary risks, so, but we, a lot of people, let their fear paralyze them, or blind them, or whatever they don't, they don't want to take unnecessary risks, but then sometimes they don't want to take any risk at all, or they tell themselves stories, oh, you know, the government took down the buildings or, you know, they're trying to control you, they're gonna microchip you with the vaccine, or whatever, they make up stories that, that keep them from living a full life. And when we live a brave life, it's a more meaningful life. And so I feel like that's what we want to give people with this book is, is how can people live courageously, not just to say they did it, but because it makes for a better life. So I'm excited to you know, find the right publisher for this book and to the process of writing, I think, will be just a learning experience for both of us and a lot of fun. So and I think the book will help people when we get it finished.   Michael Hingson  42:33 Bravery does not mean that you take unnecessary risks. Bravery, means, to me, at least in part, that you don't live a risk free life, but you live a life where you do move forward, and you don't let what occurs to you, panic you and keep you from moving forward, and that you also are brave, if you step back from time to time, and look at what you did and say, did I make the right choice there? Or should I have done something different? Or what did I learn from the choices that I make? And we are, as a society rarely, self analyzing?   Keri Wyatt Kent  43:16 Yeah, to take us, I love that to take a step back and learn. Because otherwise, we're going to repeat our mistakes, right? And living your right Living Courageously doesn't mean haphazardly risking things without thinking them through. But taking the time for some self examination for some reflection on our life. And that's a lot of what I've written about my whole career is, you know, taking time to slow down and to reflect. And in those moments, we can decide to be to be brave, because we can go Oh, right now I'm feeling scared. But I can look back at, oh, I've done this before, and I managed to just fine, you know, and as a result I can I can move forward with with courage and confidence. And so I think that's part of what we're, you know, as we've talked about the outline, and we've been working on that, you know, the whole idea of, of mindfulness and reflection and taking time for just examining our own fears. And I think a lot of times you can when you're feeling scared, notice your own thinking, Oh, look at me, I'm feeling nervous, like what's going on? What am i What's the worst case scenario? If this happens, then what you know, but if, if it doesn't turn out badly, then I could have a lot of positive results. So I think this book will help people to do those things.   Michael Hingson  44:47 I hope so I'm looking forward to moving on with the book and and what it will bring. It's going to be a great adventure and I regard life as an adventure anyway, so This is just another part of it. And I'm looking forward to the fun that we will have with it. And I hope that we, indeed will be able to help others recognize that you can control your fears, you can be in very tenuous and very dangerous, if you will situations, at least to you. They seem dangerous, and they might very well be. But the reality is that you can control your fear. And you can use it to help you make better decisions and be able to focus.   Keri Wyatt Kent  45:36 Right, right, exactly. So it   Michael Hingson  45:39 will be a lot of, it'll be a lot of fun to see how all this goes. And neither of us knows what the ending of this book is gonna be yet, but it's gonna be a lot of fun.   Keri Wyatt Kent  45:49 That's what I love about writing, Mike, you know, when I write, every time I've written a book, I've had an outline of how to plan. But as the project unfolds, even as you're writing about something, you gain new insights, I think God gives you a you know, ideas, but also, as you explore what you think about something, you're thinking evolves, and it does go in directions, it's an adventure, publishing, writing is an adventure. And it's fun, because you're learning as you're doing it, I think that's why I love my job is I learn I learning is one of my like, on strengths finders, it's one of my top strengths, because I love to learn. And I writing allows me to learn about all sorts of people about all sorts of topics. And so, and when we take the mindset of a learner, and we stick open and curious, I think that also is a way of addressing our fear, we are less afraid. If we let go of feeling like we have to have everything in control, we have to know everything, we're just learning. And that's, that makes life more interesting and less scary.   Michael Hingson  47:06 One of my favorite sayings that that I've adopted, and I don't think that I probably was the original creator of it, but I don't know where it came from, is don't worry about what you can control focus on the things you can and the rest will take care of itself. I know that that's what I heard, said to me, when I was running away from tower to collapsing. And then of course, we talked about that in Thunder dog, which is, which is my book. And and I tell the story of how I believe very firmly that God said to me, don't worry about what you can't control focus on running with Roselle and the rest will take care of itself. Because that was probably the time that I came closest to panic. But even then, I focused. And I did hear that voice saying that. And the reality is that following that advice was what kept us going on Tuesday, as we ran from the tower, went into a subway station and came out and so on. But ever since I keep hearing people say we should get back to normal. And even today, talking about the pandemic we we hear people talking about, and the news media says we've got to get back to normal, normal will never be the same again.   Keri Wyatt Kent  48:28 Every day, that's true, whether we're in a pandemic, whether we're being attacked, whether or it will never be the same because life unfolds that way. And we have to just constantly adapt to change. And I think when we realize that, and I think you know, we're going to talk about this in our book, our upcoming book, when we are willing to go Oh, Today's a new day and there's things to adapt to and change then we can there's less angst you know, we're not going Why isn't like it used to be because it used to be is not today's today, like it's it's not used to be so yeah, I agree. We were not going to go back to normal. There never was a normal, it's each day brings us new adventures. And if we embrace those, then we live a better life.   Michael Hingson  49:18 So you have other projects that you're that you're working on. And I know you and Susie worked on one, didn't you?   Keri Wyatt Kent  49:25 Yeah, um, Susie and I have have done some things together. And I'm also I just I think I told you about the book with the business woman that just came out. It's called trust your voice. And my Christmas Devotional just came out. I'm also I'm also editing a book for another friend of yours. And we're working on a book proposal for him. So I'm constantly you know, working in writing on different projects, but um, but I'm looking forward to, you know, helping you right ears. And it's it's fun to be able to have all these people who I help them write their stories and help them. Share them with the world. It's it's, it's a fun career.   Michael Hingson  50:11 Susie told us a little bit about going to Ireland and and she talked about the story of the donkey whisperer and so on. And you you went with her on that trip, didn't you?   Keri Wyatt Kent  50:23 That was so fun. Like it like you, Mike. I'm an adventurer. So Susie called me and said, Hey, I'm going to Ireland in two weeks Do you want to come with? And I said, Yes. So I got a you know, and then I got to meet she's, um, she's got a book coming out called sanctuary, right. And it's about a Donkey Sanctuary in Ireland, and the man who started that in his son's story of falling away and coming back. And it's a wonderful story. And I got to meet Patrick, the man who is the book is about, we went exploring, driving around Ireland, it's, they drive on the other side of the road from where we live. And Suzie was great. Driver, I was the navigator, which, you know, but we, we just had such a wonderful time. And we stayed in this little cottage where we both like, did some writing work, but also we were exploring castles and little towns, and it was absolutely great. So we had a fun time doing that. But   Michael Hingson  51:28 yeah, and never saw a single leprechaun.   Keri Wyatt Kent  51:32 We didn't however. So there's a funny story. So they, they don't talk about leprechauns as much in Ireland as they talk about fairies. And fairies are not like Tinkerbell they're more mischievous, they're, they're more of a, they can maybe wreak a little bit of havoc, if you're not if you're, if you get on their bad side, or whatever. And so I had been taking some pictures with my iPhone. And one of the things if you're shooting into the sun with an iPhone, there's a little.of light that it looks like a little green dot that sometimes shows up in your pictures. And with the, the iPhone also has this thing called Live where you can hold your finger on the photo and it moves a little bit, it's actually shot a short video for your still picture. And so in one of the pictures that I had taken, I think at a graveyard because in for some reason we were looking at old cemeteries because they're, you know, the graves are like, hundreds of years old. This little dot was in the picture. And I showed it to some of our friends in Ireland. And they're like, I'm like, what is that? It's weird. There's this little dot moving around, like, what is it? They're like, Oh, it's a fairy. Okay, might be, who am I to say? So   Michael Hingson  52:54 it was a real question is do you see? The real question is do you see the dot whenever you take pictures over here? Yeah, well, I   Keri Wyatt Kent  53:01 I looked it up. And apparently there's some trick of the the lens on a on an iPhone that if you're shooting into or at a certain angle to the light, it's going to the.is there and I have seen it other places. But I, I kind of like the idea that that in those pictures, there's a fairy   Michael Hingson  53:18 fairy and no matter where I am, right, so the fairies are all over. They're not just in Ireland. And it's just that people don't recognize them. And on our way to me,   Keri Wyatt Kent  53:28 yeah, I think you know, there's powers that be maybe, but maybe perhaps the fairies are everywhere. And only in Ireland, do they? Do they acknowledge   Michael Hingson  53:37 and really acknowledge them? Yes. Well, I was in Ireland, back in 2003. To do some speaking and work with the Irish guy dog school. I never did encounter fairies. And I never did encounter leprechauns. People said don't go out at night. The leprechauns are there and they're not necessarily nice. And I figured, well, but I don't need any wishes. So I could make peace with leprechauns. I never met any.   Keri Wyatt Kent  54:04 Oh, that's too bad, you know, but maybe they were there, but you just didn't get to encounter them? Well,   Michael Hingson  54:10 I'm sure you know, I'm sure they were there. But they are they, they chose not to make their presence known. So that's okay. Yeah, so you have but you have lots of projects you're working on. Now, as you said, you're working on one with a person that I know. That's is that a memoir or biography or what   Keri Wyatt Kent  54:29 it's um, it's a memoir,   Michael Hingson  54:30 it's what's the difference?   Keri Wyatt Kent  54:33 Um, well, a biography can be written by by somebody else. But an autobiography is written by yourself but a autobiography tends to kind of go chronologically you know, I was born here and then this happened and it's kind of a catalogue of your life whereas memoir focuses typically on a season or a specific event like your dog, your book, Thunder dog was a member More of a specific event that days 911. And what happened there, but then it wove in parts of your story of, of growing up and how your family handled your blindness and some of the it also woven information about the abilities of blind people and how they, they don't sometimes get the opportunities they should, in the discrimination they face and that sort of thing. But the hook or focus was on that particular day. Some people do what's called a stunt memoir, I think of there was a book called by a Jewish man written called The Year of Living biblically. And he went through the, the, the Bible, especially the Old Testament says he was Jewish. And he tried to do all the laws that were written in the Bible. And, you know, wearing a prayer shawl and you know, doing sacrifice, sacrificing an ox or something like you went and did all the old, you know, all law things in the Torah. And he wrote about, and he's very funny guy, so he tells his own story, but he set himself up to do a stunt, so to speak. So a memoir focuses on a season, or sometimes a stunt, sometimes in a specific event. Whereas autobiography is basically like a catalogue of your whole life.   Michael Hingson  56:31 Got it? So this book that you're working on is a little bit more memoir ish.   Keri Wyatt Kent  56:37 Yeah, for sure, it tells his whole story. But, um, if we can, I guess we could just tell you, you, you referred me actually to this man, who is also he lost his sight in, in a in an accident, as a soldier. And it's so it's a story of his overcoming the challenges, you know, and a change, he had big dreams of being a part of the, you know, police force in his native country, and then, you know, kind of had to change his direction. And just the things that he overcame. So it's, it's, it's his life story, for sure. But it's a memoir, because we also want to try and like, connect his story. I think my more focus, you know, we talked about, we've been talking a lot in this conversation about connecting with the reader and having the reader see themselves in your story. And so I think his overcoming of a lot volunteered to learn, learn braille, learn to walk with a cane and learn English all at the same time in a culture that he was unfamiliar with. And, and so I think that, you know, sort of that overcoming obstacles in your life theme is one that readers will relate to, even if they're not somebody who's blind and having to learn English.   Michael Hingson  58:05 So and he has accomplished all those tasks. Yes, yeah.   Keri Wyatt Kent  58:08 He's, he's got a great job out in Nebraska now working with, with helping other blind people. And yeah, he's an amazing, he's an amazing person. So it's been fun to talk with him and learn more about him as I'm working on that proposal.   Michael Hingson  58:25 Well, anxious to see how all that comes out and see the book when it's published. Well, I want to thank, I want to thank you for being on the unstoppable mindset, clearly an unstoppable person. And I appreciate all of your stories and the time that you spent with us. If people want to learn more about you, if they want to reach out to you and maybe talk to you about helping them with a book project of some sort. How do they do that?   Keri Wyatt Kent  58:52 You know, I help people. I'm a publishing adventure guide, and I help people tell their powerful stories. So my website is a powerful story.com a powerful story calm, they can also find me at Carey Wyatt can't calm that's a little harder to spell so. So a powerful story.com is where you can connect with me I have a blog and information about my projects and a way to contact me there. So I would love to hear from, from our listeners about if they're interested in writing a book, if they're interested in writing at all. I try to mentor other writers where I can I'm going to be speaking at a writers conference out in California in February on self publishing, so that's another way west coast Christian writers you can find out more about that by going to West Coast Christian writers.com. So lots of ways to connect with me.   Michael Hingson  59:49 Well, I hope people will and I want to thank you for being with us today and spending an hour with us talking about what you do in your life and your insights and I am looking forward To see how we are able to progress with a guide dogs Guide to Being brave, and I hope that we'll get some good news on that soon and we will start to really get serious about writing it. Right?   Keri Wyatt Kent  1:00:11 That's a thank you anything to write it in my plan for 2022 is to write the guide dog help you write the guide dogs Guide to Being brave. So we're hoping that we'll find a publishing home for that that would be, that'd be great.   Michael Hingson  1:00:27 Well, thanks again. And as always, for those of you who are listening, if you have any thoughts or want to ask questions, or reach out to me feel free to do so. You can reach me at Michael H I   M I C H A E L H I at accessiBe A C C E S S I B E.com. MichaelHi@accessiBe.com. We hope that you enjoyed this podcast to the point where you will give it a nice five star rating wherever you listen to podcasts. If you'd like to subscribe or learn more about the unstoppable mindset, please visit Michael Hingson M I C H A E L H I N G S O N.com/podcast. And we thank you all for listening. And we hope that she'll be back with us again next week. We're getting close to Christmas. And we'll do some adventurous things around that as well. So thanks very much, Keri, and thanks very much everyone for coming to unstoppable mindset today.   Michael Hingson  1:01:31 You have been listening to the Unstoppable Mindset podcast. Thanks for dropping by. I hope that you'll join us again next week, and in future weeks for upcoming episodes. To subscribe to our podcast and to learn about upcoming episodes, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com slash podcast. Michael Hingson is spelled m i c h a e l h i n g s o n. While you're on the site., please use the form there to recommend people who we ought to interview in upcoming editions of the show. And also, we ask you and urge you to invite your friends to join us in the future. If you know of any one or any organization needing a speaker for an event, please email me at speaker at Michael hingson.com. I appreciate it very much. To learn more about the concept of blinded by fear, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com forward slash blinded by fear and while you're there, feel free to pick up a copy of my free eBook entitled blinded by fear. The unstoppable mindset podcast is provided by access cast an initiative of accessiBe and is sponsored by accessiBe. Please visit www.accessibe.com. accessiBe is spelled a c c e s s i b e. There you can learn all about how you can make your website inclusive for all persons with disabilities and how you can help make the internet fully inclusive by 2025. Thanks again for listening. Please come back and visit us again next week.

On August 2, 2011, Thunder Dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog, and the triumph of trust at Ground Zero was officially released. Overnight it became a bestseller book on the NY Times Bestseller list and even rose to the #1 rank. I was the principal author, but in 2010 I met Susy Flory, herself a full-time author, who helped bring the story alive.   Now, you get to meet Susy and hear her story. There is an incredible and fascinating story to Susy's life and her books. She even gets into a discussion of the need for authors to make their websites accessible for persons with disabilities during our interview. My time with Susy in this interview was fun, informative, and not boring in any way. I hope you think so as well. Some directories do not show full show notes. For the complete transcription please visit https://michaelhingson.com/podcast About Our Guest: Susy Flory is a #1 New York Times best-selling author or co-author of fourteen books, including The Sky Below, a new memoir with Hall of Fame Astronaut/Explorer Scott Parazynski, and Desired by God with Van Moody. Susy grew up on the back of a quarter horse in Northern California and took degrees from UCLA in English and psychology. She has a background in journalism, education, and communications and directs a San Francisco Bay Area writers conference. She first started writing at the Newhall Signal with the legendary Scotty Newhall, an ex-editor of the San Francisco Chronicle and a one-legged cigar-smoking curmudgeon who ruled the newsroom from behind a dented metal desk where he pounded out stories on an Underwood Typewriter. She taught high school English and journalism, then quit in 2004 to write full time for publications such as Focus on the Family, Guideposts Books, In Touch, Praise & Coffee, Today's Christian, and Today's Christian Woman. Susy's books include So Long Status Quo: What I Learned From the Women Who Changed the World, as well as the much-anticipated 2011 memoir she co-wrote with blind 9-11 survivor Michael Hingson, called Thunder Dog: The True Story of a Blind Man, His Guide Dog, and the Triumph of Trust at Ground Zero. Thunder Dog was a runaway bestseller and spent over a dozen weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. .http://www.susyflory.com/ https://www.facebook.com/everythingmemoir About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog. Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards. https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/ accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/ Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below! Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can also subscribe in your favorite podcast app. Leave us an Apple Podcasts review Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts. Transcription Notes Michael Hingson  00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i  capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.   Michael Hingson  01:21 Welcome to another episode of unstoppable mindset. And today we have a person who I regard as a very special guest. I'm a little bit prejudiced, though. You know, my story if you've listened to these podcasts regularly, 20 years ago, I worked in the World Trade Center and escaped with my guide dog Roselle. And in I think, June, if I recall, right, maybe it was earlier than that. Maybe it was like April or May of 2010. I got a phone call on a Sunday afternoon from a woman who said that she was writing a book called Dog tails. And she said she wanted to include Roselle story. I noticed that wasn't my story. It was rosellas story in her book, and asked if I would tell her our story. And I did. There was this pause afterward. And then she said, Why aren't you writing your own book. And she offered to help. And the result of that was that Suzy Florrie introduced me to her agent, we created a proposal and thunder dog was published in August, officially released in August of 2011. And I thought it would be kind of fun to have Susie on to tell her story. And to compare notes and talk about whatever comes along. So Susie, welcome to unstoppable mindset.   Susy Flory  02:38 Thank you, Mike, I'm so glad to be here with you.   Michael Hingson  02:43 I'm been looking forward to this for a while. And I think that we'll have a lot of fun. And we'll see who all we can can pick on what can I say. But here we are. So So tell me what got you into writing in the first place, what made you start to go down that that path.   Susy Flory  03:04 It was kind of a childhood dream. It's kind of one of those, you know, I want to be a lion tamer, I want to be an astronaut kind of dreams for me. Because I didn't know any writers. And I didn't, I had no idea how to go about it. But I just always loved reading. And I know you love reading too. We're very alike in that way. And so I just grew up in a book of world, a world of books and ideas and stories. And just always thought, Wow, if I could do that, but I didn't think it was a real kind of dream. And then I got to work at a newspaper. And I sort of started to see that there might be a way in. And it wasn't until my late 30s that I went to a Writers Conference. And I remember seeing a book editor walk by for a publishing house and he was wearing kind of grubby tennis shoes and jeans and a T shirt. And I thought he's just a normal guy. He's just a regular person because I think I thought you know, people who did writing and publishing were highly evolved beings that I could not be a part of. And so that was just kind of my way it was just seeing Hey, maybe I can do this.   Michael Hingson  04:23 And there you are.   Susy Flory  04:26 So you know overnight successn 20 years.   Michael Hingson  04:30 So you were working. You were working in a newspaper what were your reporter   Susy Flory  04:35 I was a features writer. Okay, I'm not really a hard news person. All they love to read the news, but I love the stories behind the news, and particularly people stories. So even though I was reading that book, dog tails, you know, I was very interested in the people's tails as well. And so I love meeting interesting, unique people who have a story to tell which is almost everyone in the world. If you sit down and talk to them   Michael Hingson  05:03 well, how did you? So how did you get into doing a book.   Susy Flory  05:09 So that's another big jump. So when you're in a newspaper, you know, you get an assignment or you get a lead, or you have an idea yourself, and you got write a little story on it. And you can do it in a few days, typically. So I kind of knew how to do that. But it wasn't enough for me, I, you know, wrote some shorter stories, got some things published. And then just found myself wanting to go deeper and do research and be people and just get bigger stories down on paper. So that was kind of a craving for me. And I think it's because I gravitated towards books, because I loved books so much. And so what my second book, one of my very early books was a memoir that I wrote for myself. It's called a stunt memoir. And it's kind of where you're set yourself some assignments, and then you live them out and write about them. So I decided to investigate women who I thought had changed the world, people like Harriet Tubman, Eleanor Roosevelt, you know, Rosie the Riveter and do something that those women had done. And I just created like this little set of assignments for myself. And I was terrified because writing a book is really hard, as you know, or maybe it was easy for you. I don't know, like, maybe it was easy for you. But writing a book is hard for me. But I enjoyed it so much the challenge, and it pushed me and challenged me. So that's kind of how I shifted from writing articles, which felt doable to books, which seemed extremely hard and scary.   Michael Hingson  06:50 What was your first book published?   Susy Flory  06:53 So my first book was about the Davinci Code. Do you remember that story? Yes. It was published in the early 2000s. And it really took the writing and publishing world by storm unexpectedly. And there was a lot to talk about in the book was about Jesus, and maybe he was married. Maybe there was this whole mystery that we didn't know. And the book was fiction, it was all made up. But it really touched on some things I think people were curious about. So my first book was called fear, not the VINCI. And it kind of centered on these big questions that people had.   Michael Hingson  07:32 How did you get it published? Since you had not published a book before?   Susy Flory  07:37 Good question, because I didn't have an agent at that point. And basically, what you do is you start submitting. So without an agent, you create what's called a query letter. And it's basically a pitch a short pitch. And back in the day, you could either mail them, so you would write a letter with a self addressed stamped envelope, hoping that you would get a response. Or it was really kind of early days of email correspondence, as well. So you can do either and you would contact, you would basically be cold, calling editors, and trying to get them excited about you and your writing, and whatever your idea was. So that's what I did. And I got 13 rejections on that first book. And number 14, I found an editor who was interested, who I had met at a writers conference. So I think when they meet brand new writers at a Writers Conference, industry, people, they can see that you're not a crazy person, and they might want to work with you. So it's a good groundwork to lay. So going to a conference meeting another and then writing these query letters. That's how I got that book deal.   Michael Hingson  08:53 I was that evolves to today, is the process different now do you think,   Susy Flory  08:59 um, it's very similar. If you don't have an agent, you still have to jump through these hoops. And that's how they weed a lot of people out to, you know, are not informed to want an easy way in. And so the pitching process is similar, but right now I have an agent so that that literary agent helps with that process. But I still have to create the pitch, still create a book proposal still, you know, develop the whole thing without actually writing it yet. And then, you know, the publisher needs to see what this book is going to be. They need a very good idea of it before they invest in it. So it's a lot of work. It's kind of that pre production part.   Michael Hingson  09:49 Yeah. Which is true, whether it's in writing or in selling or anything that you do, or that anyone does. There's always going to be a process and In a sense, it's good. It hasn't changed. Because, as you said, so many people want an easy way in. And the fact is, there isn't an easy way in,   Susy Flory  10:09 right? You gotta do your homework and prepare ahead of time. And then you may or may not be lucky. Yeah. But you can't be lucky if you don't prepare. And I know that you are so good at that, Mike, you're really great. You're an inspiration to me how you do the homework and prepare for everything that you do.   Michael Hingson  10:31 Well, thank you. You mentioned about easier, harder writing what I did when we did thunder dog, I had written lots of notes, I had created a lot of thought, on paper, and wrote a lot of the history. But that wasn't a book yet. And then when you said, Well, why, why aren't you writing your own book, and we, we started working toward that, and created a proposal that that was sellable. And of course, you having an agent, that was that was valuable, too. But the the point is that then when we started working on the book, all those notes came together. And what you did was you, you used your newspaper skills, if you will, to to coalesce that. And then we work together on on creating it, I'll never forget, when we were working with the folks at Thomas Nelson, and they came back and they said, The problem with your book right now is that you don't have good transitions between being in the World Trade Center and going back to previous places in your life. And it hit me I know how to do that. And I had never really thought about it before, but over a weekend created those, those transitions. And they love that. And of course, Curtis like that when they when they did their review of the book, but we worked well as a team. And I think there's there's value in that too. Because we we had a story to tell him, You adopted our story. And we made it a collective story, which I think helped.   Susy Flory  12:03 Yeah, because you can have a wonderful story and a lot of people do. But you have to make it entertaining, and enjoyable and readable and engaging and almost like addictive. You know, it's like the kind of think of it like the first date, you have a cover and a title and maybe a first page to connect with the reader. And then after that they better work. So we're not gonna stick around for long, if he's not excited, exciting to read,   Michael Hingson  12:32 right. I remember reading the first Harry Potter book, and it took a while to catch on. But we read it after lots of others had gone. I think actually it was the third book had already come out. By the time we discovered it. And Karen and I stuck with it. We read the audio version with Jim Dale. And for a while, we kept saying what is it that excites people about this? Because it just started out so slowly, but because there was such a big furor over it. We stuck with it. And it got better as it went along. But it didn't start out grabbing us with that first page.   Susy Flory  13:14 Yeah, it felt like that, too. But I think maybe children, you know, I mean, it was kind of geared towards what 6/7 eighth graders kind of that was maybe the primary audience at first. Yeah, like that's, yeah, yeah. And like, they might stick with something longer than a grown up reader would. And so in that case, I think we kind of followed what the kids were enjoying, and then kind of figured out, oh, this is good storytelling, it did kind of build, you know, it had the build. I agree with you on that.   Michael Hingson  13:46 And we have now read them all three times. You know, they're, they're great. They're great books to read. What about self publishing? How does that fit into the scheme of just the world of writing a book? And getting a book out? But also, can that help in terms of either that book or later books getting noticed by editors?   Susy Flory  14:14 Yeah, so self publishing, there are so many options. These days. It's kind of the wild west of publishing. And, you know, you have so many ways that you can be published, it's actually kind of confusing and overwhelming for people where it used to be more kind of straightforward, I think, with self publishing, if you have some sort of platform. So if you are out there speaking teaching, you have some sort of, you know, media channel a name for yourself, I think it's a really, really great option. If you don't have that you need to be prepared to do some advertising. And people have made a way for themselves self publishing that way as well. But it also works for someone who wants to publish something for friends and family. So I think a lot of this depends on your expectations. And in a world where physical bookstores, many of them have gone away, and much book shopping has gone online, it really is a viable option. But you really need to educate yourself and, you know, be involved at every step of the process, where when you're with a traditional legacy publisher, there are times you can kind of just let them take the lead on certain things.   Michael Hingson  15:31 Do you think that the traditional publishing world is going to go away with everything being online and so on?   Susy Flory  15:38 That is such a great debate, and it's been raging for years? Yeah. Yeah, it really changes like, you know, depending on what's going on in the world, and what's going on in the culture, the type of books that sell, or don't sell change. But right now, the publishing industry is doing just fine. And so I, I think there's always the danger. But there's something about physical books that people love and have loved for 1000s of years. So I don't see it completely going away, I do see it completely, you know, continuing to change and evolve.   Michael Hingson  16:16 I hope that libraries and bookstores, and the traditional publishing world doesn't go away. I think you're right. And I, I don't know how to really describe what it is to sit down with a book. You know, for me, it's in Braille, of course, but still, reading a book in Braille is not the same as listening to a recorded book, just like reading books with an electronic device, just apparently, isn't the same as sitting there and being able to turn the printed page, time after time, I hear people say that there's just nothing like reading that printed book.   Susy Flory  16:57 And, you know, people worry about television, and the streaming services, you know, Netflix, and all those things that offer so many options for entertainment. But there are still, I think, a very loyal and solid segment of the population that are word people. We love words, and you know, words in a book are they speak to us deeply? And so I think we're safe for now, Mike?   Michael Hingson  17:25 Yeah. Well, and and if you could get some of those people who watch TV, to sit down and read an engaging book, and if they truly get engaged, I wonder if that would, would change some of their views. Because what a book brings that television doesn't is the whole issue of imagination. I have, I have listened to radio shows that really evoke imagination. And I've even watched a few television shows that compel you to imagine, they don't spell everything out. And I find those to be most engaging a ball.   Susy Flory  18:10 I love that. Yeah, I'm actually in school right now, working on a master's, and my thesis that I'm working on touches on this idea that the reader collaborates and participates in the story. And so a book is going to be different. Every time a person picks up a book, whether it's fiction or nonfiction, it's going to be a little different, it's going to hit that person differently. Because they're participating. In that experience. It's like, as a writer, you're talking inside of their head and having a conversation with them. But you're not just dictating what they're gonna think and feel and imagine. So yeah, I love that. It's the process of, of engaging the imagination.   Michael Hingson  18:53 It's interesting to think about textbooks, I am still of the opinion, having read many textbooks in my life, especially physics textbooks, and so on. I think authors of textbooks are really missing it. By just making the textbooks about fact and theory and teaching what they teach and never putting stories in. I think they could do so much more if they both personalized it, and put some stories behind the teaching in the books that would make them more compelling for people to want to read.   Susy Flory  19:35 I agree. And when I used to read, I don't read magazines too often these days, but back in the day, I used to read a lot of women's magazine, infant fashion and culture and all the stuff and I would always read the story, story part of the article and just skip over the teaching and bullet points and facts parts so I totally agree with you.   Michael Hingson  19:57 Well, even magazines like Playboy, you You know, I don't know how many people know. But one of the best science fiction stories of all the fly was originally published in Playboy, and Playboy had stories no matter what else it was doing. And, and all the other different things that went into it. The creators of that magazine recognize the value of good stories and good writing to one of my favorite stories about September 11. Is that a week or so later, after the the events of September 11. And we got very visible in the media. We got a call, I got a call from America Media and of course, are the people who publish the National Enquirer and other magazines, and, and papers which tend to be weak on accurate content and more on sensationalism. And this person wanted to do an interview and they said it was going to be serious, and we talked on the phone, and they wanted to send someone out to take pictures. And I said, okay, and I went off and I told my wife, Karen, that this was happening. And of course, she immediately hit the roof, they're going to sensationalize it. How could you even agree to that? You know who they are. They're crazy. And, in fact, the guy called the day before he was going to come out to take the picture. And he said, I want to make sure that that I'm calling the right person. This is Michael Hinkson, who was in the elevator that fell from the 100th floor to the bottom and survived and, and he's the guy right. And Karen immediately said, nobody's coming out to take pictures. Well, what we found out later was that, in fact, there had been that rumor and they were investigating it. But American media still published our story as part of a journal that they put out around the World Trade Center. And it was actually one of the most journalistically best pieces, not just my story, but the whole magazine was one of the best pieces that that I had ever encountered. And Karen acknowledged it as well. They were very accurate. They were very thorough and told a great story. So you know, they can do it, sir, like the Harlem Globetrotters. Right? They have to be great basketball players to do what they do.   Susy Flory  22:24 Yeah, I know that. Sometimes they hire really good writers for their special editions, too. And they charge more for them. Because it's, you know, they're putting out a book basically. Right?   Michael Hingson  22:36 And they did a really great job with this one. And so, you know, people can do, what do publishers look for when someone is sending them a proposal and so on? What are they looking for?   Susy Flory  22:49 They look for three things, Mike, they look for a great idea. They look for great writing superior writing with a distinctive voice to it. And then they look for a platform, that you have some kind of connection with your readers, and that there are people out there who will buy what you have to fix. A lot of people have great ideas or they can write. But you know, to get someone to actually purchase a book. Yeah, to invest in it, there has to be that connection in some some way, some fashion or another. So those are the three things they look for, they will sometimes accept two out of three. So if you have an incredible story or book idea, and incredible writing gifts that you have refined, and with a distinct voice, sometimes you can squeak by without a platform, or, you know, one of the other things. So that's, that's kind of the scoop.   Michael Hingson  23:50 Well, I noticed that when we did thunder dog, the world had already changed to the point where they weren't doing as many book tours, and the publishers weren't doing as much marketing. They were also requiring that, that we as the people who were writing the book and proposing had to demonstrate what we were going to bring to marketing the book.   Susy Flory  24:14 That's right. Yeah, we had a lot of fun coming up with ideas and, you know, having meetings and things like that.   Michael Hingson  24:22 Well, and and we did and, you know, I think it actually did help a lot in not only getting visibility for the book, because we had, of course, you and I the biggest steak of all, we were the the authors, the creators of the book, but that also it gave us an insight into the world and the things that the publishers do and wanted to do, but they did their part as well. But today it is true that an author has to be ready to be able to to help sell the book   Susy Flory  25:00 Absolutely, you kind of become almost like your own little multimedia Corporation. But you know, on a very small scale, but you have to get the word out. And that doesn't mean just going on Facebook and saying buy my book, you have to look at where people are hanging out and what they like to read and do. You need to be out there, being excited about your book, which is easy to do, if you have written something that you know, is very meaningful that you care about deep. Lee, I always had a great time talking about thunder dogs. I was out there talking about it. You were talking about it 10 times more and more effectively. But we did we just had a good time sharing the story sharing the things that you have learned and wanted to share in the book.   Michael Hingson  25:50 And still do, by the way.   Susy Flory  25:54 That's right. And it's a story that never gets old Mike.   Michael Hingson  25:58 No, it doesn't get old it is it's gonna be there. It's fun to go out on on the road still and do speeches and travel and tell my story and talk about teamwork and trust and all sorts of things. And one of the things that I love to do somewhere in the course of of every talk that I give is to to encourage people to buy the book and then I have well nowadays Alamo set up and I say look, Alamo just told me that we're running low on kibbles. And so we poor starving off and we need you guys to buy books because Elmo says he's got to be able to eat tomorrow.   Susy Flory  26:30 Which is the trip which, by the way, right? Writers work hard for their kibble.   Michael Hingson  26:36 That's right. And their dogs and their dogs expected piece of the action.   Susy Flory  26:42 Right? Yeah, that was such a fun summer Mike hanging out at your house with Roselle and Africa. And Fantasia, you had three big beautiful labs that would be kind of wrestling at our feet as we talk. Yeah, it was a wonderful summer.   Michael Hingson  26:59 Yeah, it was. And we we, we lost well, Africa, retired in 2018. And then Fantasia passed away the next year. So we are now one dog family. But we also have a cat. So we we do keep busy with all of those. So tell me what, what is the difference between a memoir and a biography or an autobiography?   Susy Flory  27:27 Yeah, I think one thing to talk about it with that question. First is to say that there are kind of two categories of memoir, there are memoirs by big celebrities. So this might be a person like Michelle Obama, or Bill Gates or something like that. They can write whatever they want to write. So they may call it a memoir, more often, it's an autobiography. And they tell you the whole story of their life. And it's like 500 pages, you know, it's like this big huge brick of a book. But they're in a different category. They're just a household name. For most of us, myself included, people don't know us, as well. And so we write, we try to write an exciting story. So a memoir is making a story of your life. It's a true story. But you're doing some storytelling, and you have a beginning, middle and an end, you have an exciting moment that you're building to, and a lot of times that focuses on a season of your life. So thunder dog, focused on your 911 story. And then, you know, brought in things from your life as part of the book. And so a memoir is, is more focused than an autobiography. It's not a history, it's not a comprehensive history of your life.   Michael Hingson  28:46 Yeah, and I've read some pretty boring autobiographies. And there again, it goes back to what I said earlier. My My theory is that, putting some stories in help, where we're preparing, as you know, and have now submitted a proposal for a book. Originally, we were talking about calling it blinded by fear. But Carrie and I are, are calling it now a guide dogs Guide to Being brave. And it's about fear, and it's about overcoming fear. And it's about how, when you're confronted with an unexpected life change, you are often so fearful that you become blinded to making good choices. You don't learn how to use that fear in a positive and strong way. But one of the things that that I believe is important in writing that book is is to include stories to illustrate points along the way, because I think that makes any book more interesting.   Susy Flory  29:47 Yeah, I find that stories stick with me. And so you know, if I go to church and the preacher is preaching this amazing 10 points sermon, I'm not going to remember the points Unless they're stories involved, so I'll walk out and remember the stories. But remember the point?   Michael Hingson  30:06 Well, and the stories may be able to take you back to the points but but still, the stories are what sticks with you, because they're personal, you can you get drawn into the stories, because you can make them personal and kind of make them your own and, and you can feel what's going on in the story.   Susy Flory  30:27 Yeah, I love that. And that's, that was so important with your story, because most people are never going to have the set of experiences that you had on 911. They just aren't, you know, that was a unique event. But by telling your stories, and opening up your life in your world, you know, your hopes, dreams, fears, all of that people can relate to that. And that's what made your story. So I think a gauge engaging makes it so engaging and relatable.   Michael Hingson  31:01 So going back to memoirs, you created a community called educational memoir, right? It's called Everything, everything memoir, is that to teach people to write memoirs, or   Susy Flory  31:13 Yeah, and it's not it's, it was not never aimed at professional writers, although some writers are part of the community. But any ordinary person who wants to write their story, and so you probably have people ask you for advice with writing and publishing. And I've had that a lot. And at some point, you can't help everyone. You can't give every person individual person, you can't go to coffee with them, and tell them what to do, and help them and so I created this educational community. And it's on Facebook, we have a private group. And then I'm also doing a one year coaching group where people can write their memoir in a year with some coaching and help and feedback. And so, so many people want to write their stories, and they just don't know how to do it, or they write something that's difficult to read, that's not engaging. So my my mission and goal is to help people write a good, readable, interesting them more.   Michael Hingson  32:14 Well, and you said at the beginning, that most everyone has a story to tell. And I think that's absolutely true. You know, I'm working, as you know, with accessibility, so we we deal with making websites more accessible. And the whole story is about the fact that only 2% of websites today are usable, and most are not, they're not fully inclusive. And I'm looking forward to the time when someone will really write the story, it's, it's still new, because there's so much of it that's being written in history, if you will, but I'm looking forward to the time that we can write the story of accessiBe in the story of how the Internet becomes more inclusive. And there. And already, there are just so many incredible tales to tell, about website access things that that people have done. Things that people have learned along the way that have helped them create more inclusive environments in their own world and how making a website inclusive is made other parts of a company inclusive, and so on. And it'll be a fun story to tell at some point. It's kind of one of those things that's evolving today.   Susy Flory  33:30 It'll be nice when it's history, right? Rather than a current problem.   Michael Hingson  33:34 Yeah, well, and in a current event, but but it will happen and that's what's going to be a lot of fun. But but people do have stories and it would be nice if more people would learn how to articulate and tell their stories. I think that too many people are are losing the the whole idea and the whole ability of using words to create images that people can read and see. So they're, they're losing this ability to write which is extremely unfortunate.   Susy Flory  34:10 Yeah, they may feel like I did once upon a time that there are these amazing books and stories out there, but that they can't do that themselves. And I feel like with some help, and some practical, you know, solutions and templates that people can what,   Michael Hingson  34:28 what about fiction as opposed to nonfiction in terms of writing skills and so on, because people like we mentioned Harry Potter what a creative thing which is just totally out of imagination. Yeah,   Susy Flory  34:43 when one big way to learn if better, if you should aim at fiction or nonfiction if you're, you know, want to write a book is what do you enjoy reading? And for me, I enjoy reading nonfiction. I love true stories big true kind of adventure. citing stories. And so that's what I gravitate to when I go into a bookstore or library. That's where I'm heading. And I read fiction sometimes, but not not heavily. And so that's one good way to figure out what you should be writing. And fiction. People are interesting novelists, they have stories inside of their heads. And so they walk around the story. And these characters and these, you know, events, and eventually they have to write it down. It's, it's like they're always incubating these stories.   Michael Hingson  35:33 Yeah. And you and I both have our favorite authors. I'm still working on convincing you that Mark Twain is the best, but you know, we'll get there.   Susy Flory  35:43 I'm not saying I don't like   Michael Hingson  35:48 who's your favorite author?   Susy Flory  35:50 Oh, goodness. That's such a great question. We'll do fiction, fiction fiction fiction. Right now I'm enjoying reading Barbara Kingsolver. So she wrote, she's written several things. But she's a great storyteller. And Ann Patchett. I love me and Patchett, who's a southern novelist, who kind of writes his big epic novels, about families that are all interconnected and have secrets and things like that. So those are probably my two favorites.   Michael Hingson  36:22 We, we do a lot of fiction reading at home here, because we play audio books, and can listen to them while doing other things. That's really hard to do with a nonfiction book, you do have to concentrate differently and more on nonfiction.   36:39 I think so. Although memoir can read it, you know, it depends on the memoir, the famous ones, you know, the famous celebrity memoirs, no, but a really well, that memoir can almost be like a novel, it's very similar to how a novel, you know, unfolds. And so those can be super engaging, that they have to be well written.   Michael Hingson  37:02 It's, it's all about the story, right?   Susy Flory  37:06 Yeah. And engaging, the reader could have no ageing   Michael Hingson  37:09 the reader. And yeah, that's, that's, again, easier to do. Both Karen and I find sometimes that we're reading, and suddenly, we go, how did how did they get there? Because our mind went off in a different direction, you know, the book just took us somewhere. And we just leaped off into a theme, and then we come back, and they're in a different place now.   Susy Flory  37:36 Yeah, there has to be a logic, you know, there has to be planning that's happened behind the scenes that maybe you aren't aware of as a reader, but it does all have to fit together kind of like the structure of a house, the framing of the house.   Michael Hingson  37:49 Well, in the case of audio books, also, the other part of it is that the reader of the book, the person reading the book, and recording, it, has something to do with it. I've been spoiled by some really good readers of talking books over the years for blind people, and find that there are some people who professionally are recording books for everyone today who are good, but I also find that sometimes there aren't good readers, or that for some reason, we don't react well to them. And that diminishes the book a great deal. Unfortunately. They may very well be good books, but still   Susy Flory  38:29 some audio do you call them a performer or a narrator? What's an audio Column A   Michael Hingson  38:34 reader but you know, people reader former some people call them narrators.   Susy Flory  38:38 Yes. And some are like an actor's Yeah, some are like, Yeah, they just make it come alive, and some are very dead. So I totally get that.   Michael Hingson  38:47 Some are actors. I remember years ago as a child reading, kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson and Roddy McDowell read it. The actor, and there have been others. My favorite science fiction book of all times, the Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein was read by Robert Donnelly, who was primarily a radio actor, but was perfect for this book. And, and I, I've read other books by actors who've just been very good. And they put voices in the books and they they use different voices for different characters, and they pull it off really well.   Susy Flory  39:29 Yeah, I have a book coming out in February that's set in Ireland and I'm hoping for the audio book that they have somebody who can, you know, an Irish person or somebody who can have a really good Irish accent, because I just listened to have you ever listened to Angela's Ashes on audiobook?   Michael Hingson  39:47 A while ago?   Susy Flory  39:48 Yes. Yeah. Frank McCourt. He bred it. Oh, yeah. His voice. He was so alive. He did voices and he would also sing Irish songs as part of the and you wouldn't Totally missed that if you were reading it on paper.   Michael Hingson  40:03 Yeah. Yeah. Again, some people can bring, bring a book to life and sometimes the author is the best one to do that. Tell us about the book in February.   Susy Flory  40:15 Yeah, this is a book I've been working on for a couple of years. It's called sanctuary. And it's about a real life donkey whisper in Ireland. The man named Patrick Barrett and he grew up his father started Ireland's Donkey Sanctuary. So they've rescued 1000s of donkeys over the years, because the problem is donkeys can live 50 to 60 years. They're sort of like parrots, and people will grow old or their life conditions will change. And this poor donkey is just kind of left to fend for itself. And it happens all the time, they'll find donkeys by the roadside that are starving. And so he grew up in this atmosphere. And as he grew up, he ran into different kinds of troubles and struggles. And it ended up that his father's Donkey Sanctuary actually rescued him. And so it's small town Ireland, small village Ireland with the castle, you know, on the main street and donkeys and Irish family and redemption.   Michael Hingson  41:20 It was a great book to read. I remember you asked me to read it and write the foreword in the endorsement for it. And   Susy Flory  41:28 that's right. Yeah, your forum forward is right up front there.   Michael Hingson  41:32 The only thing I never did see in the book was a leprechaun. So I still teach about that.   Susy Flory  41:38 We made a rule now leprechauns in the book are on the cover.   Michael Hingson  41:41 They might get you in trouble you know, those leprechauns they know these things.   Susy Flory  41:46 There are fairies of their I don't know if they're leprechauns. But there's a strong belief in fairies and Banshee as well. So yeah, Irish about to talk about imagination. The Irish have strong literary and beautiful imagination really   Michael Hingson  42:03 don't want to run into a banshee, though.   Susy Flory  42:04 Do you don't know.   Michael Hingson  42:08 I've seen Darby. Oh, Gil, I know about these things.   Susy Flory  42:13 Apparently, they make a really strange noise at night and you want to stay inside when you hear   Michael Hingson  42:17 that? You don't, I don't really want to come out where they are. Well, so that book is coming out in February. And I'm really looking forward to to seeing it out. And do you have any say? Or do you have any ability to to provide input into who will read it? If it gets on to Audible or in a recorded form?   Susy Flory  42:38 No. So far, I have not had that. And I don't think Patrick wants to read it himself. He's super busy. It's lots of kids and a busy life. So I think they, you know, will choose the best person that they can.   Michael Hingson  42:56 I would hope they would do an interview with him though. I mean, he is very interesting person just having read the book, and I would hope that there'd be an opportunity to to hear his voice somehow.   Susy Flory  43:08 Yeah, that's a great idea. Yeah. And he can do voices himself, you know, he can. The whole one of the reasons he's called the donkey whispers he can talk to donkeys in their own language, the way that they talk. They have very extensive vocabulary. And he can also imitate people as well. So he's very good at that. He has that year for that.   Michael Hingson  43:31 That will be exciting to to have come out. Now you also have another book that has been made into a movie that's coming out next year, right?   Susy Flory  43:40 Yes. And you know, I said sanctuary was coming out in February. I was wrong. It's actually coming out St. Patrick's Day in March. Oh,   Michael Hingson  43:48 my goodness. Good day for it to come out.   Susy Flory  43:52 But that same week, it's very odd net. This was not planned, but a book that I did a few years ago called The Unbreakable boy. It's a father son story about a boy with brittle bone disease and autism. That was made into a movie recently, it's being released by Lionsgate studios. And Zachary Levi and Patricia Heaton are starring and it comes out the exact same week as sanctuary. So it's a very strange and unusual week in my world.   Michael Hingson  44:24 Well, double double opportunity.   Susy Flory  44:29 That's right, we're gonna try to do we have plans to do a movie premiere. Up in the San Francisco Bay area, we're renting out a small theater, a single screen theater, so I'm hoping that will all come to fruition and we'll have some fun with a little we're gonna have some red carpet and the whole thing. Oh, cool. Did you know about red carpets? You've been on red Park? Yes.   Michael Hingson  44:53 Yeah. Well, here's a question. How has the pandemic of affected reading and books do you think and writing for that matter?   Susy Flory  45:05 I know children's books and why a young adult books have been selling like crazy, you know, with kids at home, and homeschooling and things like that. I do know, fiction and novels. Novels are fiction, but fiction is much stronger right now. People want entertainment and escape. Escape. Yeah. So yeah, they don't necessarily want to read heavy, you know, dark, difficult, you know, material challenging material, they want to, they want to, they want to escape, they want to move to someplace like Ireland or, you know, something like that. So fiction's doing law?   Michael Hingson  45:44 Well, it's, it's, um, it's very understandable. I mean, there's so many heavy things that we're dealing with the things that have happened over the past two years. And we're just slammed with the media, or by the media with all of the stuff that you want to escape. We've stayed home. And, and not done any travel, I did my first trip to speak in well, in May of this year, and that was the first one since March of last year. And traveling has been significantly less. But you know, staying at home has been a lot more bearable when we read books together. And so it also Karen and I are sharing it, but reading and and I've met as I said before, a fair amount of fiction helps just escape and get away from all this stuff that we're sick and tired of seeing on television and hearing.   Susy Flory  46:41 Yeah, I agree. I've been reading a lot and watching a lot as well, watching things like the Great British baking show. So yes, Escape has been important. We want that to be the beautiful thing about stories. They do sweep you away.   Michael Hingson  46:57 We watched the holiday bake off this last Sunday. Learn some new recipes. I don't know whether we'll try them. But we're trying to keep the calorie count down too. That's the unfortunate thing about the Bake Off.   Susy Flory  47:14 So true. That's been a hard thing for me during the pandemic because I love chocolate. Well, yeah. So yeah, we I have a little country grocery store that I go to if you're in Volcano, and they have See's Candy, right by the cash register. It is a big, it's been a big temptation, temptation, have a box of chocolate and a good black and sit there and enjoy it.   Michael Hingson  47:40 Well, I must admit, as I've said many times over the past year Instacart and Grub Hub are our friends. And it's very convenient that we can get some things like now that Christmas is here, peppermint bark from Costco, and, and other things. So yeah, that's it's always good to have a little chocolate around. Every time we we do have to go deal with Kaiser or a doctor or anything like that. I keep saying when you're writing prescriptions, please put that 10 pound box a season. Nobody's done that yet. It's very disappointing.   Susy Flory  48:17 Yeah, they should make a deal with fees. I think that could work out.   Michael Hingson  48:21 I think so I don't quite see the problem. I don't either. Well, in another thing. I know that it's very important for authors to have websites and have things up on the internet. That's, of course, a great way not only to advertise, but to establish personal relationships with people. And of course, I'd be remiss if I didn't explore how we might help authors do a better job of making their websites accessible so that people with various disabilities who might not be able to access part of their sites, get the access that everyone else has. Probably a lot of author websites are not overly complex websites, they're, they're not. They will have pictures and so on. But they're not necessarily overly complex. But it would be great to explore ways to work with the author world, to help them make their websites more accessible.   Susy Flory  49:23 Yeah, and kind of the probably that one of the most influential organizations as the author's skill. So I think, you know, if they can jump in and cooperate and partner with you, I think it would be a huge victory.   Michael Hingson  49:41 Well, you and I have talked about that before and we never did really follow through much but there's been a lot going on. So I'd love to, to get any help you can and reaching some of the folks that are but also if any authors are listening. As we've talked about on these podcasts, accessiBe helps makes websites a lot more accessible and it's not an expensive process. And I mean, it's really not an expensive process. So people ought to go to accessiBe.com and check it out. And also they can go to our website audit tool called ACE which you can get to it accessiBe.com, or just go to ace.accessiBe.com and plug in your website address and see how accessible it is and and learn about the things that you need to do to make it more accessible and usable. Because the reality is that over 20% of people in the world have a disability. And if you make your website accessible to those people, you can get up to 20% more business. And I mean, who could argue with doing that?   Susy Flory  50:48 I love that. Yeah, as writers, we want to speak and write and communicate and tell our stories to everyone. And no one should be excluded from that.   Michael Hingson  51:01 It's not that magical or hard to do. And so, you know, I hope that that it will happen more and more. And I know authors tend to really, truly be starving, don't have a lot of income, but accessiBe and is a way to do it. But we could certainly explore working with the author skilled, and you're right, that is something that we should do. So   Susy Flory  51:25 and also as published authors who have if you're a traditionally published author, or self published, you go through publishing companies who offer those services. It's something that we can recruit request for by publishers.   Michael Hingson  51:40 Good point that, that they also deal with access and make it accessible right from the outset, we had to do some of that, as I recall, with Thomas Nelson, there were some things that weren't accessible, but they fixed it.   Susy Flory  51:53 That's right. That's right.   Michael Hingson  51:56 And it is one of the things that as we're dealing with a guide dogs Guide to Being brave, however, that goes, access has to be a part of it. We've been working toward making thunder dog, a movie, although that's moving very slowly, the pandemic hasn't helped. But again, as that happens, it will need to have an audio track and be accessible so that it'll have to be described. So blind people can have access to it, much less everything else that goes along with it. So it will be fun to see how it goes. But you know, the reality is access is just something that tends not to be included in the conversation. We need to figure out ways to to get it more visible and get more people making sure that they provide inclusion. It's just not that expensive and hard to do.   Susy Flory  52:51 Yeah, I love that you're advocating in this area mica that you're persistent and consistent with it.   Michael Hingson  52:58 We need to get some of those Irish ferries to help us.   Susy Flory  53:01 That's right.   Michael Hingson  53:02 They have influence either out of their friends to leprechauns who stay in hiding, but they have to have   Susy Flory  53:08 and some of the stubbornness of the donkeys. You know, donkeys are stubborn, because they're smart. And they are opinionated. And so they come off as stubborn.   Michael Hingson  53:19 Oh, I know that if I ever get to Ireland, I do want to go be Patrick. I look forward to that. And you know, the other thing is, if people don't deal with access, we could always point out that we we probably can find people who can help us get a deal with a banshee you know, to get them to make their sites accessible.   Susy Flory  53:39 That's right, we'll set the Banshees on Yeah,   Michael Hingson  53:41 we'll set the Banshees on works for me. I really want to thank you for for being here and being a part of unstoppable mindset. But just, we haven't had a chance to chat for a while and the pandemic has has been for me, it's actually kept me pretty busy just with with things going on. And so I can't complain about that. But I think also again, it comes back to how you approach it. And you know, so this is just another adventure in a chapter in life, too.   Susy Flory  54:18 That's right, so fun to visit with another storyteller Mike and I love that you are telling your story of this new venue now with your podcast.   Michael Hingson  54:28 It's a lot of fun. Well invite people to come and listen. And of course, we hope that people will will give us good five star ratings. And if you know of anyone else who ought to be a guest, I'd love to chat with people and and bring them on. So we really love to to deal with this unstoppable thing and I just realized there's something else that we should talk about in your life, because you've been confronted by a couple of major life changes like with The whole breast cancer concept and so on that have suddenly thrown things in your way. But you you motored through   Susy Flory  55:07 them. That's right, I had breast cancer just before you and I started working together. And so I was still recovering from it, because it takes a while, you know, with surgeries and treatment and medication and all the things. And I decided that I didn't have time to wait anymore, or to be afraid, or, you know, to let things hold me back. And so, I'm not saying I became unstoppable. But I did feel like I went into turbo, after I recovered from breast cancer, and I literally did think I was gonna die. My dad had died in his 40s of cancer. And so I thought that might be my path. And so when I survived, I decided to move forward and, you know, have courage. And I think that's probably what led to me writing you that email that one day.   Michael Hingson  56:10 Well, the the issue isn't unstoppable. But unstoppable mindset, it still is, it's all about how you choose to approach things, whoever you are. And the bottom line is that mostly, we have control over a lot of things in our lives. And there are things that we don't have control over. But if you worry about things you can't control, you'll go off on strange paths, if you focus on what you can, and let the rest take care of itself. Most always, you're better off for it.   Susy Flory  56:44 That's right. i My mindset became my unstoppable mindset became for me the thought or the idea of why not, you know, what do I have to lose? Why not try? And so I became more comfortable with the idea of having some failures, which is going to happen whenever you try something new. But, you know, just the idea of why not, why not try.   Michael Hingson  57:11 But also love the idea that the whole point behind a failure is not that it's a failure. It's a it's an opportunity to learn and move forward to.   57:21 And it's normal. It's not fun. Yeah, some amount of failure is normal in this life. And once you realize that, that that's just part of it. And maybe you had to get that out of the way before you can move forward.   Michael Hingson  57:34 Right? Which gets back to mindset, which is cool. Well, again, I want to thank you for taking the time to be here. You got lots going on and a book, I'm sure books to write what's the next project   Susy Flory  57:51 I This one's kind of funny. It's called The Ultimate Bible nerd and I bought the format's Bible Dictionary, it's in six volumes. So if you kind of picture your whole desk being taken up by these giant bar, and I'm going to read through it, it's 7 million words. I'm going to read through 7 million words the year and write about it so we will see what comes out with that. I'm not quite sure yet.   Michael Hingson  58:20 Make it a novel.   Susy Flory  58:24 It's not going to be 7 million words I'll tell you about.   Michael Hingson  58:27 That is a little bit long to deal with. But I bet that whatever comes out is going to be fascinating and worth reading. I'm gonna have to go off and look up fear not the VINCI   Susy Flory  58:44 it's out of print, but I think there's a few copies floating around   Michael Hingson  58:51 I'm assuming it wasn't an audio book.   Susy Flory  58:54 I think this was before audio books were routine. Yeah, and yeah, so it was not   Michael Hingson  59:04 have to look anyway. You never know. Well, thanks again for be here. And it was good talking with you. And I want to thank everyone for listening. And again, if you have any questions you want to reach out Susie how can people reach out and find you?   Susy Flory  59:25 My website is SusyFlory.com and my name is spelled S U S Y F L O R Y or you can find me on Facebook at everything memoir.   Michael Hingson  59:39 Cool. And as always, if you have questions, comments, thoughts, please feel free to reach out to me Michael Hinkson web address to reach out to is MichaelHi@accessiBe.com M I C H A E L H I @ A C C E S S I B E dot com. Please go to Michael hingson.com/podcast. To learn more about the podcast. If you haven't listened to us before, we hope that you'll give us a five star rating in whatever podcast host you are using. If you know anyone who might be a good guest, or if you'd like to talk about coming on the podcast and chatting with us, please reach out. We'd love to hear from you. And you can, you can rest assured that I will respond. So, thank you very much for listening to unstoppable mindset, the podcast where inclusion, diversity, and the unexpected meet. Thanks for listening.   Michael Hingson  1:00:48 You have been listening to the Unstoppable Mindset podcast. Thanks for dropping by. I hope that you'll join us again next week, and in future weeks for upcoming episodes. To subscribe to our podcast and to learn about upcoming episodes, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com slash podcast. Michael Hingson is spelled m i c h a e l h i n g s o n. While you're on the site., please use the form there to recommend people who we ought to interview in upcoming editions of the show. And also, we ask you and urge you to invite your friends to join us in the future. If you know of any one or any organization needing a speaker for an event, please email me at speaker at Michael hingson.com. I appreciate it very much. To learn more about the concept of blinded by fear, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com forward slash blinded by fear and while you're there, feel free to pick up a copy of my free eBook entitled blinded by fear. The unstoppable mindset podcast is provided by access cast an initiative of accessiBe and is sponsored by accessiBe. Please visit www.accessibe.com. accessiBe is spelled a c c e s s i b e. There you can learn all about how you can make your website inclusive for all persons with disabilities and how you can help make the internet fully inclusive by 2025. Thanks again for listening. Please come back and visit us again next week.

In this episode I speak to colleague and friend Maisie Wake. We discuss trick training, the ethics and methods. What are tricks and should we train them? Maisie is an Equine Massage Therapist and a behaviour consultant for both equines and chickens. She is a supporting member of IAABC, and a member of the Equine Behaviour and Training Association. She is also currently in training to be an animal physio, as it is important to her that she can offer help both behaviourally and physically. Maisie loves working with a variety of species, and started her career with work experience at two wildlife aid centres, exotic birds at Exmoor zoo, falconry training, and then many years at The Donkey Sanctuary. You can find Maisie on both Facebook and Instagram @mwaketherapy. https://mwaketherapy.wixsite.com/equilibrium

This week's Twohundredpercent Podcast sees your heroes turn their gimlet eye onto two stories from the Football League. The first is a horror story, that of Nottingham Forest and their dismal start to the season under Chris Hughton. We explore key issues such as: who is responsible for editing his Wikipedia page? Are monkeys in suits any match for modern football data analysts? And are all these questions moot, when the prophecised Chosen One is consolidating his power right now in Sherwood Forest, waiting to scatter his magic beans and lead Forest back to domestic and European glory? The second story is far more redemptive, as Edward and Ian celebrate Rochdale AFC's seeming deliverance from yet another murky takeover attempt in the EFL. There's also news of Sean Dyche, a monstrous road junction in Chesterfield and some more potential solutions to the thorny issue of male pattern baldness; as well as action from the 1989 Full Members Cup, if anyone cared. If you'd like to get in touch with us, to suggest a future Match of the Week or pose a listener question, you can find us on Twitter @twoht or @200percentpod, or email twohundredpercentpodcast at gmail dot com. If you'd like to bask in this episode's Match of the Week, you can find it here. There's a bunch of different ways in which you can subscribe to the 200% podcast. You can do so through Spotify, which you can find right here, whilst the podcast RSS feed is here and you can subscribe through Google Podcasts here and Itunes here. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Welcome to our brand new Careers Fair series! In this episode, we join Dr. Alex Thiemann, veterinary surgeon at charity The Donkey Sanctuary, discussing everything from the importance of education to the highs and lows of charity work to the ability to travel across the world with your job. Thinking of becoming a vet but have no clue where to start? Look no further than ‘So You Want To Be a Vet?', a brand new FREE series from Vet Mentor! Join vet students Sofia and Erin as they interview successful vet students from each of the UK Vet Schools in their 'OpenPod' series, share the insights of fantastic vets in the industry and cover everything from specialisms and research to discrimination in the practice - think BIG, we have some great guests lined up! Follow our Instagram @soyouwanttobeavet to keep up to date with all our releases! If you have any ideas of what you'd like to see us talk about, then drop us an email at vetpodcast@medicmentorfamily.org --------------- Motivate Me by Mixaund | https://mixaund.bandcamp.com Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com

On CorkToday with Patricia Messinger ---- Difficulties applying for the Fair Deal Scheme Balloons , Plastic cups and other plastic items to become a thing of the past under a new EU Directive We hear about socially distanced events to take place at Bantry House for the West Cork Literary Festival We hear the effect on Weddings on our series Cork vs Covid On our tourist trail we head to the Donkey Sanctuary at Lisscarroll Our Movie Review Plus the Breaking news stories of the day See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Chip interview with Ann from the Isle Of Wight Donkey Sanctuary 25.10.2020

On Cork Today with Patricia MessingerDiscussing restaurant No Show’s the effect it has on the business and how restaurant and café’s are finding it hard to recruit staff as they compete with the PUP payment .... Adrian Cummins Why some charity shops have not reopened since the lifting of restrictions on retail ..... Maggie Dwyer of Gorta We catch up with Penny Dinners with their Christmas Plans ... Caitriona Twomey Why the Donkey Sanctuary in Liscaroll is appealing for funds .... Laura Foster Donkey Sanctuary LiscarollIreland Under Lockdown programme tonight on Virgin 1 - Zara King Virgin Media News Counsellor Joe Heffernan joins us discussing alcoholism See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This week Calum Watt, Callum Roper and Bradley Allsop discuss the attempt by the government to reopen schools in the UK, the insidiously supine response of the UK media, attempted smears against Keir Starmer, the response of our trade unions and the idea of mutualising the BBC.Incidentally, the donkey in the picture for this week's podcast is called Shocks and you can adopt him from the Donkey Sanctuary charity here: www.thedonkeysanctuary.org.uk/adopt/shocksOpening music: New Beginning - Gunnar OlsenClosing music: March to Victory - Silent Partner

The behavior of individuals and groups seems to be in the news a lot these days.  The same concept in the natural world might not hit the news quite as often, but it's just as important.  Any farmer or rancher will tell you that the more you know about what your plants and animals are telling you, the more effective your response can be, and the more you both can produce together.  Leaves wilting usually means, “Water, please.”  Ears back on the horse usually means “I'm unhappy with something – back off.”But an animal's personal life experience might make all the difference in the meaning of similar signals, even within species and breeds.  When my chickens peck my leg, it means, “Pick me up, because I want to be held,” but someone else might think, “The poultry are attacking!”  That type of thing can cause a very important miscommunication error for humans, leading to an improper reaction.  It's not so bad with a chicken signal, but not so good with a Longhorn.  Animals are individuals, just like people.In today's podcast, we bring you Ben Hart, from our interview at the Donkey Welfare Symposium in Davis, California last year.  He is an animal behaviorist, lecturer, trainer, and author that started his equine experience with heavy horses, but now works mostly with donkeys and mules (and people) for one of the UK's leading equine charities, The Donkey Sanctuary.  He uses his mad equine whispering skills to understand not just the species and breed, but the animal's individual experience.  He takes each “patient” on its own merits, and never assumes that the animal is the one that needs to learn something – the people have to give a little, too.  If you watch the news these days, I think it's obvious that we can all learn from that.Links:http://www.hartshorsemanship.com/ http://www.hartshorsemanship.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=controller.viewPageAbout https://www.thedonkeysanctuary.org.uk/ https://www.thedonkeysanctuary.org.uk/what-we-do/for-professionals/behaviour https://www.thedonkeysanctuary.org.uk/who-we-are/our-people https://donkeywelfaresymposium.homestead.com/ http://research.thedonkeysanctuary.org.uk/node/443Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/agriCulturePodcast)

Foal named Lockie born at the donkey sanctuary during COVID-19 - Cork Today See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

On CorkToday with Patricia Messinger - Discussing the latest with Dr Nick Flynn on Covid 19 testing taking too long, are overweight people at more at risk and how can workplaces deal with social distancing as more return to the work placePatricia chats with a Fermoy lady living in Sydney who after a battle with cancer was told she could never have children, she is now pregnant and she tells Patricia her story A handsome foal born at The Donkey Sanctuary in Lisscaroll during the COVID-19 lockdown hasbeen appropriately named Lockie – we speak with the Donkey Sanctuary People's problems with getting through to phone companies with their network problemsPlus the breaking news stories of the day See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Hi Guys, Just got back from my trip to Antigua and we have so much to cover on this amazing tropical island that we decided to break the one recording into two shows for you. This is part one. Thanks and shout out to the staff of the Starfish Jolly Beach Resort and Jermaine (our tour guide). We will be talking about new cocktails that we had down on the island and there is a nice range of drinks (one sweet, one middle, and one boozy)!! We first start off with the Purple Dragon (Thanks to Sharlene at the resort who gave us the recipe), second is a national drink in Antigua and we even found bottled in the liquor stores. We want to thank Johnny Tved on the Kon Tiki Floating bar to give us the recipe to this one...hi Johnny!! Yes, I did say floating as it is in the ocean and you can either swim there or a small boat will get you to and from the bar. The third drink will be featured in the next episode for you! The island is about 100 km east of St. Kitts or 500 km east of Dominican Republic. It is about 108 square miles in size (11x14 miles) and has about 100, 000 people for its population. English is the main language on the island and get this...there are 365 beaches (one for every day of the year)!! I went to eight!! We did visit and we briefly discuss the donkey sanctuary that we went to and yes, Norma adapted a donkey (Stevie, who is blind)! Plus also a floating tiki bar...did I mention that before and of course I got behind there and made up one of my cocktails for the owner. The highest point on the island is named after figure in USA history...listen to find out!!! On "Travel Tips" segment: yes, i finally got Norma behind the microphone again and she went through some new ones for you when you travel to know plus a recap of previous ones if you haven't heard them before. Here are some cool links for you: Starfish Jolly Beach Resort: https://www.starfishresorts.com/resort/starfish-jolly-beach-resort Kon Tiki bar Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/KONTIKIANTIGUA/ Starfish Guest's Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/164569750843443/members/ Jermaine Knight (tour guide extraordinaire): https://www.facebook.com/karol.browne?fref=gs&dti=164569750843443&hc_location=group_dialog {tell him Craig from Tiki Central Canada sent you and he will take care of you!!!} Donkey Sanctuary: https://www.facebook.com/Antiguas-Donkey-Sanctuary-222536801135071/ Our Antigua page: https://tikicentralcanada.ca/antigua/

Matsalar kashe jakuna ta zama babbar barazana ga yawan jakuna da ake dasu a Duniya inda masana ke cewa idan ba’a dauki matakin da ya dace ba, ana iya rasa kusan rabi na jakunan nan da shekaru 5. Wannan na zuwa a dai-dai lokacin da Najeriya ke shirin yin doka kan haramta kashe jakuna, yayin da kungiya mai suna Donkey Sanctuary ta kaddamar da rahoto kan hakan a Abuja dake Najeriya.  A cikin shirin Bashir Ibrahim Idris ya duba irin matsalolin da ake fuskanta a wasu yankunan kasashen Afrika.

Persistent Chinese demand for donkey hides is now pushing the animal's population in many countries, including a number in Africa, to the brink of collapse according to a new report by the Donkey Sanctuary. The skins are used to make gelatin that used in a Chinese medicine known as ejiao. But given the popularity of ejiao and the enormous demand in a market as large as China's, there simply aren't enough donkeys available to supply the ejiao's production requirements. With the market unable to legitimately supply the 4.8 million hides needed annually to make ejiao, poachers have stepped in to steal donkeys and kill them for their skins. And in most cases, those poachers are taking donkeys from vulnerable subsistence farmers who depend on these animals for their survival. The bottom line is that this a serious crisis that is worsening, in Africa and throughout the developing world. Alex Mayers is the former Head of Programmes at the Donkey Sanctuary and one of the co-authors of the organization's latest "Under the Skin" report. He joins Eric & Cobus to discuss the report's findings and why this problem is proving to be so intractable. NOTE: this interview with Alex was recorded just prior to his departure from the Donkey Sanctuary. JOIN THE DISCUSSION: Facebook: www.facebook.com/ChinaAfricaProject Twitter: @eolander | @stadenesque | @DonkeySanctuary SUPPORT THIS PODCAST. BECOME A SUBSCRIBER TO THE CHINA AFRICA PROJECT. Your subscription supports independent journalism. Subscribers get the following: A daily email newsletter of the top China-Africa news. Access to the China-Africa Experts Network Unlimited access to the CAP's exclusive analysis content on chinaafricaproject.com Subscribe today and get one month free with the promo code PODCAST: www.chinaafricaproject.com/subscribe  

In the third episode we cover "Death of a Hollow Man" where a mad thespian kills a new catholic and a drama queen accountant in order to finance his lunacy and a new theater. Cully's first love interest arrives and Joyce doesn't cook much. Join us as we discover tape floats and there is such a thing as a Donkey Sanctuary.

Au sommaire de Planetoscope, la colère qui monte dans les favelas de Rio de Janeiro. Après une multiplication des agressions et vols à main armée, le président brésilien a annoncé mi-février le transfert à l'armée du commandement des forces de sécurité de cet État. Des "mesures extrêmes" dénoncées par la société civile qui parlent de violations des droits dans leurs quartiers. Pour le grand décryptage de ce vendredi on parlera de la réhabilitation, des toutes premières favelas pacifiées dès 2008. Dans la seconde partie de votre émission, on prendra la direction du Kenya où l'utilisation des peaux d'ânes dans la médecine traditionnelle chinoise a un impact majeur sur les familles. Le "Donkey Sanctuary", qui a enquêté sur des accusations de cruauté, révèle que des millions de ces animaux sont tués et beaucoup d'autres maltraités. Enfin Julie Rosselin reviendra en studio pour partager son coup de coeur média de la semaine tournée en Libye et plus exactement à Benghazi, une ville dont on parle beaucoup pour les attentats qui la secoue encore régulièrement, mais moins pour sa reconstruction et l'énergie des habitants qui l'habitent.

Volgens statistiek van die Donkey Sanctuary in die Verenigde Koninkryk is daar wêreldwyd nagenoeg 44-miljoen werkende donkies. Niemand weet werklik hoeveel donkies daar in Suid-Afrika is nie. Die meeste mense is onbewus van die die nood en omstandighede waarin die donkies moet oorleef. Este Gross het in die platteland na 'n verafgeleë township gegaan om uit te vind...

Joel Darkes 1/3 of pop rock band from Birmingham, Boyband LUNAFALL has a good chat about their brand new single "Knock Me Down" also grilled on his fellow band mates, We talk about single "Christmas Day" supporting The Donkey Sanctuary! PLUS Joel talks about X Factor and up coming gig in Birmingham on December 8th you can get your tickets here.. https://www.facebook.com/lunafallband/ *Dandi Patch Discount Code SCOTT10* https://www.dandipatch.com/ Kindly Share / Subscribe and Review

Entrevista realizada a Rosa Chaparro del Refugio del Burrito en Octubre de 2017. Maravillosa iniciativa subsidiaria de The Donkey Sanctuary, dirigida a proporcionar cuidados, protección y seguridad permanente a burros y mulos, en cualquier lugar de España. Además realizan una gran variedad de actividades dirigidas a compartir los "superpoderes" de estos seres tan sensibles en beneficio de personas con ciertas dolencias, pero también sanas. http://www.elrefugiodelburrito.com/es/nuestra-mision

Entrevista realizada a Rosa Chaparro del Refugio del Burrito en Octubre de 2017. Maravillosa iniciativa subsidiaria de The Donkey Sanctuary, dirigida a proporcionar cuidados, protección y seguridad permanente a burros y mulos, en cualquier lugar de España. Además realizan una gran variedad de actividades dirigidas a compartir los "superpoderes" de estos seres tan sensibles en beneficio de personas con ciertas dolencias, pero también sanas. http://www.elrefugiodelburrito.com/es/nuestra-mision

Demand in China for traditional medicine made from donkey skin is fuelling a growing illegal trade in donkeys worldwide. All over the developing world, rural farmers find their donkeys kidnapped or killed. Sometimes, they are persuaded to part with them for cash, only to realize later that they aren't able to replace them, because of the jump in prices. In Africa, this is particularly bad news, because donkeys are a key part of rural economies across the continent. Not only are donkeys important for getting around and to carry stuff, they help to plow fields, get kids to school, and they are frequently part of the family. Without donkeys many African economies grind to a halt. African governments know this, and many have banned the trade in donkeys. In this edition of the China in Africa Podcast, Eric and Cobus speak with Alex Mayers of the Donkey Sanctuary in the United Kingdom about this problem. He lays out how the situation has developed over the last few months, why donkeys can't be farmed to feed this demand, and how different African governments are coping with the issue. He also talks about how this trade could have possible negative health effects on Chinese users.    

We took a weekend trip to Guelph and checked out some cool breweries, had some good eats, played some fun games and hung out with some donkeys.

Whilst Craven remains lost in space and time, Wex joins Peel and Dave to talk about Across the Seven Kingdoms

Something different to do this Easter Holidays If you are looking for something to do during the Easter Holidays in 2016 then this is the episode for you. What we will tell you about in this episode: Really Wild Photography Session at the Isle of Wight Zoo Fun Dog Show at the Donkey Sanctuary 10th April 2016 Trail Centre Opening Weekend 2nd & 3rd April 2016 Royal Solent Jazz Weekend 2nd & 3rd April 2016 Isle of Wight Grand National & Scurry 13th April 2016 80's Extravaganza at Coburgs on the 8th April 2016 April Fossil Walks at Yaverland and Brook The Night Runner 16th April 2016 St Mildred's Church, Whippingham  Charity Street Launches on the Isle of Wight 4th April 2016 In the News In this weeks' news Tony brings details of a new festival, One Acre, celebrating Isle of Wight bands in August 2016. Ali reports on more reasons for the Isle of Wight to celebrate great national publicity as Ventnor is featured in the Metro paper in the top 17 most picturesque seaside towns. Food & Drink  In the food and drink segment we bring you a review of lunch at the Bandstand in Sandown, fab food and a magnificent setting.

Donkeys In Wroxall on the Isle of Wight  In this weeks' episode we tell you all about the Isle of Wight Donkey Sanctuary, a charitable attraction, what you can see there and why you should visit. What's Included?  The purpose of the sanctuary What goes on there  Why you should pop along to visit the donkeys Which members of your family would like to visit How much time you will need What to see when you are visiting In the News This week we bring you details of the Isle of Wight Challenge 2015, an ultra walking/running endurance event taking place on the 2nd and 3rd May 2015.  Also some rather crazy news that, despite 70% of responders being against the idea, the IOW council will be introducing charges for foot passengers on the floating bridge between Cowes and East Cowes. Rumours are that it will cost 70p for a return trip or 40p if you pay using a smart card. Pensioners and children will be exempt. Watch this space for further future developments.  Food & Drink  We talk Hunters Chicken, Lasagne and dancing on the tables at the riverside pub, The Folly.

Whether you're traveling for work or pleasure, finding abundance and sustenance while on the road is easy once you know where to look and if you plan ahead (which I argue should be done even when you're NOT traveling). With loads of general tips for finding vegan food in airports, preparing for airplanes, choosing veg-friendly hotels, and traveling internationally, I end this episode with details of my recent travels to Ireland, interpersing food tales with some of our favorite things to do - related to literature (Yeats and more), history (particularly in Dublin and Kilkenny), nature (hikes in Connemara), and animal protection (Donkey Sanctuary and Ballynahinch Castle).