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Today we present the first episode of a miniseries on audiobooks by getting into the history and theory of the medium. Audiobooks are having a moment—and it only took them over a century to get here. Dr. Matthew Rubery, a Harvard PhD and Professor of Modern Literature at Queen Mary University of London, pioneered the study of the audiobook, its history, and its affordances. Among his other works, Dr. Rubery is the author of The Untold Story of the Talking Book (2016, Harvard University Press). He's also the editor of Audiobooks, Literature, and Sound Studies (2011, Routledge). Matt's latest book is titled Reader's Block: A History of Reading Differences (2022, Stanford University Press). In this fascinating conversation, we discuss the long history of recorded literature; the weird shame around audiobook reading and its cultural roots; the interplay between disability, neurodivergence, and alternate forms of reading; and what an audiobook criticism might look like. And for our patrons, we'll have our What's Good segment at the end of the show, where Matt will tell us something good to read, something good to listen to. Something good to do. You can become a patron of the show at patreon.com/phantompower. Today's show was edited by Mack Hagood. Transcription by Katelyn Phan. Music by Graeme Gibson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network
Today we present the first episode of a miniseries on audiobooks by getting into the history and theory of the medium. Audiobooks are having a moment—and it only took them over a century to get here. Dr. Matthew Rubery, a Harvard PhD and Professor of Modern Literature at Queen Mary University of London, pioneered the study of the audiobook, its history, and its affordances. Among his other works, Dr. Rubery is the author of The Untold Story of the Talking Book (2016, Harvard University Press). He's also the editor of Audiobooks, Literature, and Sound Studies (2011, Routledge). Matt's latest book is titled Reader's Block: A History of Reading Differences (2022, Stanford University Press). In this fascinating conversation, we discuss the long history of recorded literature; the weird shame around audiobook reading and its cultural roots; the interplay between disability, neurodivergence, and alternate forms of reading; and what an audiobook criticism might look like. And for our patrons, we'll have our What's Good segment at the end of the show, where Matt will tell us something good to read, something good to listen to. Something good to do. You can become a patron of the show at patreon.com/phantompower. Today's show was edited by Mack Hagood. Transcription by Katelyn Phan. Music by Graeme Gibson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history
Today we present the first episode of a miniseries on audiobooks by getting into the history and theory of the medium. Audiobooks are having a moment—and it only took them over a century to get here. Dr. Matthew Rubery, a Harvard PhD and Professor of Modern Literature at Queen Mary University of London, pioneered the study of the audiobook, its history, and its affordances. Among his other works, Dr. Rubery is the author of The Untold Story of the Talking Book (2016, Harvard University Press). He's also the editor of Audiobooks, Literature, and Sound Studies (2011, Routledge). Matt's latest book is titled Reader's Block: A History of Reading Differences (2022, Stanford University Press). In this fascinating conversation, we discuss the long history of recorded literature; the weird shame around audiobook reading and its cultural roots; the interplay between disability, neurodivergence, and alternate forms of reading; and what an audiobook criticism might look like. And for our patrons, we'll have our What's Good segment at the end of the show, where Matt will tell us something good to read, something good to listen to. Something good to do. You can become a patron of the show at patreon.com/phantompower. Today's show was edited by Mack Hagood. Transcription by Katelyn Phan. Music by Graeme Gibson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies
Today we present the first episode of a miniseries on audiobooks by getting into the history and theory of the medium. Audiobooks are having a moment—and it only took them over a century to get here. Dr. Matthew Rubery, a Harvard PhD and Professor of Modern Literature at Queen Mary University of London, pioneered the study of the audiobook, its history, and its affordances. Among his other works, Dr. Rubery is the author of The Untold Story of the Talking Book (2016, Harvard University Press). He's also the editor of Audiobooks, Literature, and Sound Studies (2011, Routledge). Matt's latest book is titled Reader's Block: A History of Reading Differences (2022, Stanford University Press). In this fascinating conversation, we discuss the long history of recorded literature; the weird shame around audiobook reading and its cultural roots; the interplay between disability, neurodivergence, and alternate forms of reading; and what an audiobook criticism might look like. And for our patrons, we'll have our What's Good segment at the end of the show, where Matt will tell us something good to read, something good to listen to. Something good to do. You can become a patron of the show at patreon.com/phantompower. Today's show was edited by Mack Hagood. Transcription by Katelyn Phan. Music by Graeme Gibson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/communications
Today we present the first episode of a miniseries on audiobooks by getting into the history and theory of the medium. Audiobooks are having a moment—and it only took them over a century to get here. Dr. Matthew Rubery, a Harvard PhD and Professor of Modern Literature at Queen Mary University of London, pioneered the study of the audiobook, its history, and its affordances. Among his other works, Dr. Rubery is the author of The Untold Story of the Talking Book (2016, Harvard University Press). He's also the editor of Audiobooks, Literature, and Sound Studies (2011, Routledge). Matt's latest book is titled Reader's Block: A History of Reading Differences (2022, Stanford University Press). In this fascinating conversation, we discuss the long history of recorded literature; the weird shame around audiobook reading and its cultural roots; the interplay between disability, neurodivergence, and alternate forms of reading; and what an audiobook criticism might look like. And for our patrons, we'll have our What's Good segment at the end of the show, where Matt will tell us something good to read, something good to listen to. Something good to do. You can become a patron of the show at patreon.com/phantompower. Today's show was edited by Mack Hagood. Transcription by Katelyn Phan. Music by Graeme Gibson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science-technology-and-society
Today we present the first episode of a miniseries on audiobooks by getting into the history and theory of the medium. Audiobooks are having a moment—and it only took them over a century to get here. Dr. Matthew Rubery, a Harvard PhD and Professor of Modern Literature at Queen Mary University of London, pioneered the study of the audiobook, its history, and its affordances. Among his other works, Dr. Rubery is the author of The Untold Story of the Talking Book (2016, Harvard University Press). He's also the editor of Audiobooks, Literature, and Sound Studies (2011, Routledge). Matt's latest book is titled Reader's Block: A History of Reading Differences (2022, Stanford University Press). In this fascinating conversation, we discuss the long history of recorded literature; the weird shame around audiobook reading and its cultural roots; the interplay between disability, neurodivergence, and alternate forms of reading; and what an audiobook criticism might look like. And for our patrons, we'll have our What's Good segment at the end of the show, where Matt will tell us something good to read, something good to listen to. Something good to do. You can become a patron of the show at patreon.com/phantompower. Today's show was edited by Mack Hagood. Transcription by Katelyn Phan. Music by Graeme Gibson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sound-studies
Today we present the first episode of a miniseries on audiobooks by getting into the history and theory of the medium. Audiobooks are having a moment—and it only took them over a century to get here. Dr. Matthew Rubery, a Harvard PhD and Professor of Modern Literature at Queen Mary University of London, pioneered the study of the audiobook, its history, and its affordances. Among his other works, Dr. Rubery is the author of The Untold Story of the Talking Book (2016, Harvard University Press). He's also the editor of Audiobooks, Literature, and Sound Studies (2011, Routledge). Matt's latest book is titled Reader's Block: A History of Reading Differences (2022, Stanford University Press). In this fascinating conversation, we discuss the long history of recorded literature; the weird shame around audiobook reading and its cultural roots; the interplay between disability, neurodivergence, and alternate forms of reading; and what an audiobook criticism might look like. And for our patrons, we'll have our What's Good segment at the end of the show, where Matt will tell us something good to read, something good to listen to. Something good to do. You can become a patron of the show at patreon.com/phantompower. Today's show was edited by Mack Hagood. Transcription by Katelyn Phan. Music by Graeme Gibson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Today we present the first episode of a miniseries on audiobooks by getting into the history and theory of the medium. Audiobooks are having a moment—and it only took them over a century to get here. Dr. Matthew Rubery, a Harvard PhD and Professor of Modern Literature at Queen Mary University of London, pioneered the study of the audiobook, its history, and its affordances. Among his other works, Dr. Rubery is the author of The Untold Story of the Talking Book (2016, Harvard University Press). He's also the editor of Audiobooks, Literature, and Sound Studies (2011, Routledge). Matt's latest book is titled Reader's Block: A History of Reading Differences (2022, Stanford University Press). In this fascinating conversation, we discuss the long history of recorded literature; the weird shame around audiobook reading and its cultural roots; the interplay between disability, neurodivergence, and alternate forms of reading; and what an audiobook criticism might look like. And for our patrons, we'll have our What's Good segment at the end of the show, where Matt will tell us something good to read, something good to listen to. Something good to do. You can become a patron of the show at patreon.com/phantompower. Today's show was edited by Mack Hagood. Transcription by Katelyn Phan. Music by Graeme Gibson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/technology
En ce vendredi 13 on parle de superstition !Superstition est une chanson américaine de Stevie Wonder, single extrait de son album Talking Book de 1972, du label MotownCette chanson fait l'objet d'une reprise d'Eddy Mitchell ! Suivez-nous sur instagram : https://www.instagram.com/nevermindlamacarena/?hl=fr Crédits : ©Primal Scream, Andrew Weatherall remixTitre : Loaded Label : Creation RecordsProducteur : Andrew WeatherallAuteur : Gillespie/Innes/Young ©Los del Rio, Bayside Boys remix Titre : La MacarenaLabel : SerdiscoProducteur : Carlos A. De Yarza, Mike TriayAuteur : Rafael Ruiz, Antonio Romero Monge ©Vladimir CosmaTitre : Le Père Noël est une ordureLabel : LarghettoProducteur : /Auteur : Vladimir Cosma ©Eddy MitchellTitre : SuperstitionLabel : Universal Music Division BarclayProducteur :Auteur : Stevie Wonder Hébergé par Ausha. Visitez ausha.co/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.
Patrons with temporary or permanent health or mobility conditions can use the library's Home Delivery service. Learn about the Illinois State Library's Talking Book and Braille Service.
Kirk talks with Wesley Morris and Josh Gwynn about the endless world of Stevie Wonder. Morris and Gwynn are host and producer, respectively, of the brilliant new six-part podcast series The Wonder of Stevie.Check out Josh Gwynn's terrific pop culture podcast Back Issue, Wesley Morris's culture podcast Still Processing, and Morris' essential writing on Aretha Franklin, Jam & Lewis, Meshell Ndegeocello, and his mustache, as well as his 2019 essay about Black American Music.REFERENCED ON THIS EPISODE:"Wild Wild West" by Will Smith, Kool Moe Dee, Rub Fusari, and Stevie Wonder, 1999"Straight, No Chaser" by Thelonious Monk, recorded 1967Thelma Golden and Michelle Obama talking about listening to records as kids, from Episode 5 of The Wonder of StevieStevie Wonder Song Excerpts:"Keep On Running" from Music of My Mind, 1972"You Are the Sunshine of My Life" from Talking Book, 1972"Jesus Children of America" from Innervisions, 1973"Boogie On Reggae Woman" from Fulfillingness' First FInale, 1974"I Wish," "Sir Duke," and "As," from Songs in the Key of Life, 1976"Happy Birthday" from Hotter Than July, 1980----LINKS-----SUPPORT STRONG SONGS!Paypal | Patreon.com/StrongsongsMERCH STOREstore.strongsongspodcast.comSOCIAL MEDIAIG: @Kirk_Hamilton | Threads: @Kirk_HamiltonNEWSLETTERnewsletter.kirkhamilton.comJOIN THE DISCORDhttps://discord.gg/GCvKqAM8SmSTRONG SONGS PLAYLISTSSpotify | Apple Music | YouTube MusicSHOW ARTTom Deja, Bossman Graphics--------------------OCTOBER 2024 WHOLE-NOTE PATRONSElizabeth CulverMeryl AllisonRobyn MetcalfeBrian TempletCesarBob TuckerCorpus FriskyBen BarronCatherine WarnerDamon WhiteKaya WoodallJay SwartzRushDaniel Hannon-BarryChristopher MillerJamie WhiteChristopher McConnellDavid MascettiJoe LaskaKen HirshMelanie AndrichJenness GardnerNathaniel BauernfeindPaul DelaneyDave SharpeSami SamhuriJeremy DawsonAccessViolationAndre BremerDave FloreyOCTOBER 2024 HALF-NOTE PATRONSLawrenceSy JacobsirritableIan PiddAndrew HoferJordan GatenbyMelissa KuhnsAshleySeattle Trans and Nonbinary Choral EnsembleKevin MarceloMatt CSamantha CoatesJamesMark NadasdiJeffDan CutterJoseph RomeroOl ParkerJohn BerryDanielle KrizClint McElroyMordok's Vape PenInmar GivoniMichael SingerMerv AdrianJoe GalloLauren KnottsDave KolasHenry MindlinMonica St. AngeloStephen WolkwitzSuzanneRand LeShayMaxeric spMatthew JonesThomasAnthony MentzJames McMurryEthan LaserBrian John PeterChris RemoMatt SchoenthalAaron WilsonDent EarlCarlos LernerMisty HaisfieldAbraham BenrubiChris KotarbaCallum WebbLynda MacNeilDick MorganBen SteinSusan GreenGrettir AsmundarsonSean MurphyRandal VegterRobert Granatdave malloyAlan MaassNick GallowayHeather Jjohn halpinPeter HardingDavidJohn BaumanMartín SalíasStu BakerSteve MartinoDr Arthur A GrayCarolinaGary PierceMatt BaxterLuigi BocciaE Margaret WartonCharles McGeeCatherine ClauseEthan BaumanKenIsWearingAHatJordan BlockAaron WadeJeff UlmDavid FutterJamieDeebsPortland Eye CareRichard SneddonJanice BerryDoreen CarlsonDavid McDarbyWendy GilchristElliot RosenLisa TurnerPaul WayperBruno GaetaKenneth JungZak RemerRishi SahayJeffrey BeanJason ReitmanAilie FraserRob TsukNATALIE MISTILISJosh SingerAmy Lynn ThornsenAdam WKelli BrockingtonVictoria Yumino caposselaSteve PaquinDavid JoskeBernard KhooRobert HeuerDavid NoahGeraldine ButlerMadeleine MaderJason PrattAbbie BergDoug BelewDermot CrowleyAchint SrivastavaRyan RairighMichael BermanLinda DuffyBonnie PrinsenLiz SegerEoin de BurcaKevin PotterM Shane BordersDallas HockleyJason GerryNell MorseNathan GouwensLauren ReayEric PrestemonCookies250Angela LivingstoneDiane HughesMichael CasnerLowell MeyerStephen TsoneffJoshua HillGeoff GoldenPascal RuegerRandy SouzaClare HolbertonDiane TurnerTom ColemanDhu WikMelmaniacEric HelmJonathan DanielsCaro FieldNaomi WatsonDavid CushmanAlexanderChris KGavin DoigSam FennTanner MortonAJ SchusterJennifer BushDavid StroudBrad CallahanAmanda FurlottiAndrew BakerAndrew FairL.B. MorseBill ThorntonBrian AmoebasBrett DouvilleJeffrey OlsonMatt BetzelNate from KalamazooMelanie StiversRichard TollerAlexander PolsonJustin McElroyArjun SharmaJames JohnsonKevin MorrellColin Hodo
On this week's episode, David sits down with Billy Perkins and Bryant Sanders to discuss the 1972 album from Stevie Wonder's classic run of masterpieces, "Talking Book". This is part two of that conversation.
On this week's episode, David sits down with Billy Perkins and Bryant Sanders to discuss the 1972 album from Stevie Wonder's classic run of masterpieces, "Talking Book". This is part one of that conversation.
In this episode of LEGENDS: Podcast by All Day Vinyl, host Scott Dudelson explores the extraordinary life and career of four-time Grammy-winning artist, Deniece Williams. From humble beginnings in Gary, Indiana, to gracing the global stage with her iconic songs, Williams shares the stories and lessons learned from her remarkable journey. Listeners are given a front row seat as Williams recalls her time working with Stevie Wonder on his Talking Book album, touring with The Rolling Stones during their infamous 1972 tour of the USA, showing Stevie Wonder how to drive and how her solo career was kicked off with chance encounter with Maurice White of Earth, Wind and Fire. We discuss the making of her debut album "This is Niecy" which was recorded with Earth, Wind and Fire as the backing band and brought Deniece her first taste of stardom, her work with Johnny Mathis and meeting Prince Charles with Johnny. How she convinced George Duke to make "Lets Hear it for The Boy" which ended up being her largest pop hit and the time her studio was turned Purple by Prince. This episode invites audiences to delve deeper into Deniece's partnerships with industry greats like George Duke and Thom Bell, highlighting the creative processes and insights that led to the creation of her enduring hits. The discussion not only celebrates her illustrious musical journey but also emphasizes her dedication to giving back to her community and paving the way for future generations. Capturing the perseverance, grit and unwavering spirit that marked Deniece's career, this episode provides a glimpse into the unique experiences and profound influence of this living legend. -- Please rate and subscribe after you listen - thank you!
Matthew Rubery's book Reader's Block: A History of Reading Differences (Stanford UP, 2022) explores the influence neurodivergence has on the ways individuals read. This alternative history of reading is one of the few books which tells the stories of "atypical" readers and the impact had on their lives by neurological conditions affecting their ability to make sense of the printed word: from dyslexia, hyperlexia, and alexia to synesthesia, hallucinations, and dementia. Rubery's focus on neurodiversity aims to transform our understanding of the very concept of reading. Drawing on personal testimonies gathered from literature, film, life writing, social media, medical case studies, and other sources to express how cognitive differences have shaped people's experiences both on and off the page, Rubery contends that there is no single activity known as reading. Instead, there are multiple ways of reading (and, for that matter, not reading) despite the ease with which we use the term. Pushing us to rethink what it means to read; Reader's Block moves toward an understanding of reading as a spectrum that is capacious enough to accommodate the full range of activities documented in this fascinating and highly original book. Matthew Rubery is Professor of Modern Literature at Queen Mary University of London. His earlier books include The Novelty of Newspapers: Victorian Fiction after the Invention of the News (Oxford, 2009) and The Untold Story of the Talking Book (Harvard University Press, 2016). He has also edited or co-edited Audiobooks, Literature, and Sound Studies (Routledge, 2011), Secret Commissions: An Anthology of Victorian Investigative Journalism (Broadview, 2012), and Further Reading (Oxford, 2020). Currently, he is working on a history of “projected reading”, a form of assisted reading that involves projecting books on ceilings which a patient can read while lying in bed. This was first used to help World War 2 soldiers injured on duty who could not read conventionally. Matthew also likes to collaborate with charities and other organisations to think about ways of reading more suited to people with disabilities or neurodivergent readers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network
Matthew Rubery's book Reader's Block: A History of Reading Differences (Stanford UP, 2022) explores the influence neurodivergence has on the ways individuals read. This alternative history of reading is one of the few books which tells the stories of "atypical" readers and the impact had on their lives by neurological conditions affecting their ability to make sense of the printed word: from dyslexia, hyperlexia, and alexia to synesthesia, hallucinations, and dementia. Rubery's focus on neurodiversity aims to transform our understanding of the very concept of reading. Drawing on personal testimonies gathered from literature, film, life writing, social media, medical case studies, and other sources to express how cognitive differences have shaped people's experiences both on and off the page, Rubery contends that there is no single activity known as reading. Instead, there are multiple ways of reading (and, for that matter, not reading) despite the ease with which we use the term. Pushing us to rethink what it means to read; Reader's Block moves toward an understanding of reading as a spectrum that is capacious enough to accommodate the full range of activities documented in this fascinating and highly original book. Matthew Rubery is Professor of Modern Literature at Queen Mary University of London. His earlier books include The Novelty of Newspapers: Victorian Fiction after the Invention of the News (Oxford, 2009) and The Untold Story of the Talking Book (Harvard University Press, 2016). He has also edited or co-edited Audiobooks, Literature, and Sound Studies (Routledge, 2011), Secret Commissions: An Anthology of Victorian Investigative Journalism (Broadview, 2012), and Further Reading (Oxford, 2020). Currently, he is working on a history of “projected reading”, a form of assisted reading that involves projecting books on ceilings which a patient can read while lying in bed. This was first used to help World War 2 soldiers injured on duty who could not read conventionally. Matthew also likes to collaborate with charities and other organisations to think about ways of reading more suited to people with disabilities or neurodivergent readers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Mike Coughlin was born in 1947 and had what most people would say is a somewhat normal childhood. I would agree, but it is relevant to say that Mike was diagnosed in the second grade with youth related Macular Degeneration. While he did not lose all his eyesight, he lost enough that reading, especially out loud in school, was not doable for him. In fact, his eye specialists did not even tell him that he was what we classify today as legally blind. Michael did not learn the true extent of his eye condition until he was in his twenties. He was not given access to what we call today assistive technology. Even so, he survived and flourished. He is an Eagle Scout and has achieved the highest rank in the Boy Scouts Order of the Arrow society. Mike secured a college degree from the University of Notre Dame and a Master's degree in Ocean Engineering from the University of Miami. Later he earned a second Master's degree in systems management (MSSM) from the University of Southern California's continuing education program. He worked for General Dynamics for seven years. Then he went with his boss to work for 20 years at Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc in acoustics. He then worked, again as an underwater acoustical engineer, for 20 years at Boeing. Michael is clearly unstoppable. He will discuss the various technologies he began to use although somewhat later in life. He also will discuss just how he accomplished so much and, as you will see, it is all about attitude. About the Guest: Until early in my second-grade year at St. John the Baptist Catholic grammar school in Fort Wayne, Indiana, no-one knew my eyes were changing. It was the eye screening they provided that singled me out as having a problem. My wonderful parents, Joseph and Dorothy Coughlin, transplants to Fort Wayne from New York City, started trying to find out what was wrong. Eventually they learned it was Macular Degermation, something rarely found in young people. My earliest years were spent on a farm outside of Fort Wayne as my parents had moved from New York to Fort Wayne due to a transfer by the General Electric Company, where my father was an engineer. The transfer included a move to a rural rental farmhouse on a 40-acre farm and the birth of myself in 1947 and my brother two years later. My mother, with a master's degree in education from Columbia University, was raising my brother and I and teaching English at the local rural high school. During those four years my father took up hunting and growing a large garden, a big step for a kid from New York, and I learned about rural life with the ability to play on farm equipment and see many types of farm animals. Early on I wanted to be a farmer. Once I reached school age, we moved into Fort Wayne for the schools. Fort Wayne is a middle sized Mid-west city of about 250,000 people. It was like so many Mid-western cities of that day. We lived outside the center of the city and my schools, both grammar and high school, were made up of middle-class children. As my sight degraded, I was taken to several ophthalmologists and to the University of Indiana Medical Center, but learned little helpful information other than the details of my situation. My teachers accommodated me by letting me sit in front of class and because my outload reading skills where poor did not call on me to read aloud. Interestingly, I seemed to be able to hold things close to my eyes and comprehend the text I saw silently. Because I passed all written tests and my classes with satisfactory grades, they gave me. OK grades and passed me. My shining moments during my grade school years came in my achievement as a Boy Scout. I attained the rank of Eagle Scout with a Bronze Palm and was selected for all three steps in the Order of the Arrow. I also was the senior patrol leader for our troop. My years at Bishop Luers High School, a co-institutional Catholic school, were another matter. I succeeded from the start, earning high honors grades and selection as president of both the Junior and Senior National Honor Societies. I was a member of the yearbook staff and was given a leading part in the senior play. Although I am sure a number of the girls in my class had the higher grades, due to the non-mixing of most classes, class rankings were separated. So, I was 3rd in my class. of about 150 boys. I was also awarded the Indiana State Catholic Youth Leadership Award by the Knights of Columbus. I still had not been given information on my actual visual status nor information about assistive aides for the blind. Everything I did was by holding written materials close to my face, listening very attentively and not driving. I took the SAT and other tests such as an engineering aptitude test, I wanted to be like my father, an electrical engineer. I scored adequately on the SAT and highly on the aptitude test. I applied to four mid-western colleges and was accepted in all and chose to attend the University of Notre Dame in south Bend, Indiana, which I thought would be fairly near home. The summer after high school, I was an exchange student to France, where I lived with a French family for seven weeks and my counterpart lived with our family for seven. It was a great experience, but while in France, I learned my father had taken a job in Philadelphia. On my return, together with my family and my French counterpart, Francise, we moved to Strafford, PA, outside of Philadelphia. The move took me to a new part of the country and my summers in Philly were full of excitement with the exploration of a big city and learning about the Jersey Shore. During those summers, I worked for General Electric as an engineering aide. College went very well too. Nort Dame was a good experience. It was competitive but their Electrical Engineering Department was staffed with excellent professors who helped me through every step, but not as a person with a visual disability because I rarely mentioned it to anyone. Honestly, I am not sure why, but I tried to be as normal seeming as possible. I learned to take notes from verbal descriptions of what was being written on the blackboard and if a professor did not verbalize the writing, I asked him to do so, and he did. If I missed something, I left a blank in my notebook and obtained the missing information from a friend. I completed all my course work and had a 3.5 grade average at graduation and was selected to the Eta-Kappa-Nu honorary Electrical Engineering Fraternity. ND won the football national championship my sophomore year and that was a real highlight. During my senior year, it became obvious that due to a crash in the space program, jobs would be hard to find. I decided to go to graduate school and took the GRE and GMAT, again with no assistive help. One path I investigated was to get an MBA, and I had also heard from a friend, about Ocean Engineering. My advisor suggested I stay in engineer, because he felt my talents were best suited for it. Although I applied to several MBA programs, I also applied to the University of Miami in Ocean Engineering (OE). In addition to the advice I received to stay in engineering, it is possible the choice of Miami was because my brother was a sophomore there. I was accepted and given money at Miami, and the next year started my graduate studies in OE. Two years flew by during which I was married to my first wife Judi and I left Miami with an MS in OE. One course of suey in OE is underwater sound. It is focused on SONAR and is quite mathematical, just what an electrical engineer likes. During the summer of those two years, I was married to my first wife, Judi. The job market was still tight, but I interviewed and was hired into the Sound and Vibration group at the Electric Boat Division of General Dynamics (GDEB) due to my studies in underwater sound. Once in Connecticut, I found a very good ophthalmologist, Dr. Kaplan, and for the very first time, was told I was legally blind and what that meant. We had some long discussions after which he voiced some displeasure on how little information I had been given on my situation. He said he had to register me with the state and set me up with a low vision specialist. Those steps led me to getting a Closed-Circuit TV (CCTV) magnifier and access to the Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (LBPH) and their Talking Book program. Both the CCTV and Talking Books opened my world to general reading and technical literature which I generally avoided due to the increasing strain of both the MD and the onset of myopia or age reeled eye changes. During seven years at GDEB I moved from engineer to supervisor and had the opportunity to earn a second master's degree in systems management (MSSM) from the University of Southern California's continuing education program offered at many military installations. For me it was at the submarine base in Groton CT. My wife and I bought a house and had our daughter, Laura. In 1978, my boss at EB opened an opportunity for me by interacting with associates at Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc. (bbn), at the time, the foremost acoustics firm in the world. He opened a local, New London, CT, office of the firm and hired three of us to staff it. We continued working for the Navy, but as consultants. I stayed with bbn for twenty years and participated in many projects around the world. For the last ten years I was manager of a group of about 40 engineers and scientists, many ay of whom had Ph.D. or master's degrees. bbn provided me with several CCTVs and a Xerox/Kurz well scanner-reader. bbn was an early adopter of Ap-le Macintosh computers. One of my associates immediately found that all Mac's had magnification and text to speech features. This opened the computing world to me. (I had been able to deal with punch cards, but the computer screen with small letter left me out.) During these years, I was able to travel to Hawaii, Japan, and many cities in the US. My LBPH recorded books were constant companions. During this time, my daughter Laura was married and gave us a grandchild, Chloe. Throughout my working life, I have had the opportunity to give something back to several communities. I was on the advisory board for the Connecticut Stat Library for the Blind, on the Board of directors for CHRIS Radio, and on the Board of Directors for the Waterford Education Foundation I was president of a a Macular Support Group in Waterford, CT and am now on the Board of Directors for the Southeastern Connecticut Center of the Blind, where I conduct a support group for those with Macular on how to use digital technology. Shifts in the Department of Defense (DOD) business world produced some big layoffs at bbn. Thus, in 2000, I was searching for a job and with the help of a friend, connected with a group at the Boeing Company that worked in the undersea world, as opposed to most of the company which did airborne things. They were looking for someone who lived on the east coast who had a background like their work. The group was in Anaheim, CA, and then in Huntington Beach, CA. I fit the profile and after an interview was offered a. job as an off-site Technical Representative. Since I had no other solid offers, I accepted feeling the job would last at least a few years. The relationship lasted over 20 and provided a very rewarding end to my career. Boeing, like bbn was totally accommodating to my assistive needs. Although they computer usage was based on Windows PC's s, they provided me with special software which was now available on those platforms and with CCTV equipment as I needed. Someone was always available to assist in getting special software up and running. By the time I started with Boeing, LBPH cassette readers were small and made traveling with them quite easy. I also had a laptop with screen magnifier'/reader software and internet connectivity anywhere I needed ii. While at Boeing, family matters took some good and bad turns. My daughter and her husband had my second grandchild, Evan. The bad part is my long-time wife and partner, Judi, died of cancer. After the grieving time, where things seemed s unsteady. it all turned around, when I met and married my current wife, Karen. I am again on firm footing and life has not been better. As I grew nearer retirement and brought up the subject with my supervisor, she had other ideas. She wanted me to keep working, however, I was able to reduce my work week to four and then three days. Finally, when I found a good replacement, she agreed to let me go. I had to stay in a two day a week consulting role for a year or so. I worked for Triad Systems Inc., a firm that provided part time support to aerospace firms on the west coast. On the home front , life proceeded without mishap. I am now fully retired and working as a volunteer for the southeastern Connecticut Center of the Blind. God things have again arrived as Karen's daughter, Kate, and her husband brought us another grandchild, Esme. Although most of the events above were very good, I am now happy in retirement and ready to do what I can to support others and to enjoy my family. Ways to connect with Mike: mjcoughl@aol.com 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 Well, hello, once again. I'm Mike Hingson. Your host Welcome to unstoppable mindset. And today we get to interview Michael Coughlin. Who's Michael Coghlan? Well, that's what we're going to find out in the course of the day. But I'm going to start a little bit different Lee than I have in the past. Let me tell you how I met Michael. He wrote me an email a few months ago, and talked about the fact that he read my book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man's guide dog in the triumphant trust. And we had discussions about that Michael happens to be a person who was blind. And he talked about his engineering background and other such things. And me being a person with a physics background and also in sales, but also doing a lot of engineering and tech stuff. It just seemed like the thing to do was to have Michael come on to the podcast. So we can find out all the scandalous and non scandalous things that we want to know about him. And just give us a chance to dialogue. And I thought it'd be kind of fun if all of you get to hear it. And that's how we, we discovered each other, we finally were able to get a time where we could get together and chat. So here we are. And Michael, welcome to unstoppable mindset. **Michael Coughlin ** 02:34 Thank you. I'm glad to be here. **Michael Hingson ** 02:37 Well, we'll really appreciate you being here. Why don't we start by you may be talking about the the younger early, Michael and tell us a little bit about you. And we'll go from there. Sure. **Michael Coughlin ** 02:48 And as you said, I had emailed you because of reading the book, which was powerful. There were in addition to my low vision blindness, were a few other parallels that caught my eye and maybe we'll cover those as we go through this feel free start. I was born in Fort Wayne, Indiana, another midwesterner and I was born on a farm, as was my brother. My mother and father were New Yorkers at birth, and in their early years, they moved to Indiana, because my father was an engineer working for General Electric, and he was transferred to Fort Wayne. When they arrived in Fort Wayne, they decided to look at the Midwest, there's different sets of eyes and they rented a farmhouse on a 40 acre farm. And my father even became a hunter and raised a large garden and it was something pretty adventurous for a New York kid. But they were loving it. And I grew up for the first five years of my life on that farm, exposed a farm animals farm equipment. And I think at that time, I had been wanting to be a farmer. But quickly, they moved me into the city because of the school system. My mother had been a was a school teacher by trade and that taught in a rural schools and they felt the city schools would just be stronger. So at five years old, we moved in to Fort Wayne, and I started school at St. John the Baptist Catholic school and began my early years. In second grade. When they were doing I skipped screening for students. They immediately picked up on the fact that I couldn't see very well. And it was a bit of a shock to everybody I was getting by okay, but my parents were told that I had high problems and they immediately contacted a friend who was not the mala just to look at me, sent me to quote the best ophthalmologist in the city and I started going to him, he examined me and examined me and sent me to the University of Indiana Medical Center. And they all pretty quickly decided that I had macular degeneration. As a juvenile, um, it's very unusual in those days to come up with juvenile macular degeneration. **Michael Hingson ** 05:21 So What year was this? This would **Michael Coughlin ** 05:24 have been about 1953 or 54. Yeah. So, I mean, I was in second grade. And I was obviously starting to have visual difficulties. One of the things I didn't do very well was read aloud, because I was having trouble seeing the print even though I held it close I, I just never could read things out loud. But the school accommodated that well enough. They sat me in front of the class, when the work was going around, and each kid was asked to read a paragraph, they just skipped me. However, I was able to hold things close, read silently, figure out what was on the page, do my homework, pass my tests, and get reasonably good grades, I was probably an average to a little better than average student. So as I progressed, through grammar school, I was just given a little leeway on reading out loud, and everything else seemed to work fine. So they said average student, but if I had something to brag about in those years, it was my Boy Scout work. We had a wonderful Troop at my school. And in the years that I was a boy scout, I earned the rank of Eagle Scout with a bronze POM. I was awarded all three steps in the Order of the Arrow. And by eighth grade, was the senior patrol leader for our troop. Though I had managed through scouting, to excel in something, and then I moved on to high school. At this point, of course, I'd gone through all through grammar school, I'd been seeing ophthalmologists, I knew I had macular degeneration. But I had not been given one piece of information regarding assistive technology, such as talking books, large print, learning Braille, or anything else. I can only attribute that to the fact that I kind of saw things. I didn't run into anything, because I did have a low vision, but I could see. And so they just treated me like everybody else. And just acted like everybody else as best I could. When I got in high school. And I went yeah, go ahead. No, go ahead. Alright, went to Bishop lures High School, called institutional Catholic High School where the boys were sort of separated from the girls in most classes, because that's what was done in those days. I really got it, my grades markedly improved. I made high honors or honors at every grade point, every grade session all the way through high school. I was elected president of the Junior National Honor Society and the senior national honor society. I was in senior play with the lead one of the lead roles. I was on a yearbook staff. I just participated in everything I could, and the only thing I could not do was drive. And I had a lot of friends. And back then, at 16, not only could you drive, you could drive with a friend. So I was always able to get rides, and I just went right through high school. Still not using anything in the way of assistive technology, assistive technology. But I prospered. And at the end of my senior year, I was awarded the Catholic, the Catholic Leadership Award for the state of Indiana by the Knights of Columbus. And I decided that it was time to think about college. So there I was, and I was starting to fill that application. And so I took the graduate or the SATs test, it took another test in engineering aptitude. I scored reasonably well on the LSAT, again, with no help, no large print, no extra time holding it close. But I got through it did pretty well on that engineering aptitude test applied to four colleges in the Midwest and were accepted to all of them. I think a lot because my high school teachers liked me and gave me good recommendations. Anyway I have the four selected the University of Notre Dame, which was a good school, good Catholic school, had electrical engineering, which was where I had applied to get in and was ready to head off to college. My senior year at the end of my senior year, in high school, my parents, I was an exchange student in France, where I went there for seven weeks and lived to the French family. The correspondent, French student, Francis came back in the US for seven weeks. And right in the middle of that, my father took a job in Philadelphia, and we moved to Philadelphia. So I was transplanted into the east coast into a big city, and had a whole nother set of experiences that were great. I enjoyed it, I explored that city for the four years I was in college, even though I went back to Notre Dame, went to the Jersey Shore and saw what that was about. And went off to college, where they put me on an airplane in Philadelphia, I flew out and began my career at Notre Dame in electrical engineering, again, doing everything everybody else did, I didn't go out of my way to tell people that I couldn't see very well, I just played the role of a student. And for four years, managed to get by with pretty good grades, I had a 3.5 GPA at the end of my four years. And I had a degree in electrical engineering, and was ready to move on again to the next stage in life when the space program collapsed, and engineering jobs virtually disappeared. And so I said, Well, maybe grad school would be something one might think about for a little while longer. And I started looking into MBA programs, which I don't know we're getting popular. But my one of my engineering advisors suggests that I might want to stay in engineering because he thought I was a good engineer. I had done well in all my classes, all my labs, working with computers. So I thought about it. And somebody mentioned that there was a kind of a new field opening up called Ocean Engineering. And at the University of Miami had a program. While at the time my brother is a sophomore at Miami. And it seemed like wow, wouldn't it be kind of interesting to put out there and maybe room with my brother and, and whatever. And so I applied in ocean engineering, as well as a few MBA programs. I was accepted to Miami, they gave me money to go to school, paid my tuition gave me a stipend. And so I went, I went off to the University of Miami for a to attain that graduate degree, which I did in two years. In the middle of those two years, married my first wife, Judy, we moved she moved down to Florida. And there we were, for a couple years earning a graduate degree in ocean engineering. One of the curricula within ocean engineering is underwater acoustics. And that was very interesting to me because it was pretty mathematical. And guy double E's love math. And so I spent my courses in acoustics. And when some job interviews on campus came around, one of the companies looking for people with odd degrees were was electric boat Division of General Dynamics, because noise and submarines go together, or at least the lack of noise. They want you to be quiet. Yeah. So they gave me a job offer. And I took it, and we moved to Connecticut. And the came up here and one of the things I did during that first year, besides getting started with my job was to find an ophthalmologist because since I didn't see very well and I didn't want it to get too much worse. It was probably a good idea. And I found a fella Dr. Kaplan in Mystic and got an appointment and walked in and for the first time in my life had been I was told I was legally blind. I had no idea what that meant. And I was surprised because up until that point, I was getting by. I was enjoying what I was doing. I wasn't failing in anything, and like seem good. But anyway, he gave me a good overview on it. He said yeah, he was pretty disappointed. At the fact that I had been involved in everything to that point and never been told I was legally blind, nor had been told that there was any assistive technologies available to make it easier for me. So wait, you're mistaken. That would have been 1971. **Michael Coughlin ** 15:19 Okay. He did a few things, he registered me with the state of Connecticut. They actually have people in the state that come out and try to help you with things. He, they then sign me up for the Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped. They stay State Library. And, lo and behold, they provided me with a talking book reader and talking books. For the first time ever, I was able to listen to books. All the ones I wanted, anything I wanted, was there available to me. And it was eye opening at that point. i From that time on, even though the device they had for as a player was pretty bulky. I carried that around everywhere. I went and was always listening to books, in addition, **Michael Hingson ** 16:11 is that records or cassettes? That **Michael Coughlin ** 16:15 at that point, they were both that's and I got records. Okay. They gave me a record player. Mostly those were the periodicals on what were then throwaway discs and, and the cassette, but I had to carry a second briefcase anywhere I went to bring that recorder because it was pretty big beast. Yes, **Michael Hingson ** 16:36 I remember those ranking was a General Electric manufacturing machine might **Michael Coughlin ** 16:42 have been but it was a great believe me went from nothing to that it **Michael Hingson ** 16:46 was large, but still Yeah. **Michael Coughlin ** 16:50 In addition, through Kaplan, I met another low vision specialist. And what he showed me was a closed circuit TV magnifier. And at that time, that beast was bigger than the tape recorder, believe me, oh, yes, full size, black and white television with a separate camera. But all of a sudden, I could see things I couldn't see because there were magnified. And so instantly, on arrival in Connecticut or close to it. I had two pieces of technology that just opened up the world. And it allowed me through that CCTV to get a second master's degree in systems management from University of Southern California. They ran that program on military bases. And they gave it I went to the submarine base in Groton and took that for two years and earned a master's second master's, I had access to closed circuit television for that I had my library books on or talking books on tape, and I was pretty happy in my career at General Dynamics was going well. I went, I went from an engineer, through senior to specialist and was an engineering supervisor in about seven years. And anyway, so we were good, but my boss at the time was struggling a bit with his advancement in life. And we had been doing a lot of work underwater acoustics on submarines with with a consulting firm that worked for the Navy called Bolt Beranek and Newman while the BBN was a diverse company, because not only were they the leading acoustics company in the world, but they also had some people that were working on something through DARPA called the ARPANET. So here we go, he gets an offer to start a local, then in New London, which is across the river from Groton, a local office of BBN recruits myself and a couple of other engineers and I am now a consultant working for the Navy Department. At that point in time, BBN was extremely interested in helping me out. So they provided me with a closed circuit was actually a portable closed circuit TV magnifier as well as the desktop version. And a few years later, I Xerox kurz wild text to speech reader. So now I had a little more technology that I could use to get printed books into text format, or speech format. And soon thereafter, one of my good friends who I still play golf with Doug Hannah, came across the fact that a Macintosh computer could magnify the screen and had text to speech. And that was from the all Most of the beginning of the Mac, those features were built into their operating system. Did **Michael Hingson ** 20:06 you ever get to spend much time up at BBN in Cambridge? **Michael Coughlin ** 20:10 Oh, yes. Lots of time at BBN in Cambridge. **Michael Hingson ** 20:14 Did you ever get to meet a guy up there named Dick Durbin sign? **Michael Coughlin ** 20:19 No, but I'll bet he was in a speech synthesis group. **Michael Hingson ** 20:24 I don't know that. He was there. He, he and I went to UC Irvine together. And I actually saw him. I actually saw him at BBN later, and we worked on some projects together, but I suppose there's a large place. So it **Michael Coughlin ** 20:41 was it was large and, and for the most part, my work was done with the acoustic side of things. Although as the internet grew, the computer side of BBN, when I started was about 5050 grew huge and dominated the company and, and all. I mean, they were very early adopters in, in speech recognition, right? They had a voice recognition or a voice sort of dialer feature in their phones from years before they were they were very much into that sort of thing. I **Michael Hingson ** 21:20 remember once when I visited BBN, he Dick told me about a transducer they had that actually would simulate the sound of a jet engine. I believe that yes, he said it was like the size of an ashtray that like the typical floor ashtray in a hotel but he said you didn't want to be anywhere near it when they fired it up because it really was just like a jet engine and it had all the the audio capabilities and all the features. So it really sounded like a jet engine. So you didn't want to be anywhere near Munich fire to an **Michael Coughlin ** 21:57 an aircraft acoustics was a huge part of the work that was done there. And air airport acoustics and they were just in a lot of acoustics but our little group was in submarine acoustics and, and kept us busy. Working at BBN was great in that they were a Mac House, everybody used maps. They put a Macintosh on my desk. It had the ability to magnify what I wanted to see and do text to speech. Even though it's a bit cumbersome, in that you had to copy things paste and whatever. But But I got good at that. I was able to use that computer to do word I could do Excel spreadsheets. I could do graph view graphs. I could do program planning, you name it. All of a sudden the world of the PC was opened to me, thanks to the Mac. And my career at BBN span 20 years. It was it was a great place. They were very early adopters in a lot of technology exposed to a lot of it early emails. They were one of the first companies to to use email. In fact, the fella that put the at sign in email name worked at BBN Ray Tomlinson, so that that was the place but after 20 years, because they were a true consulting firm and fairly expensive rates. And the government was competing on a cost basis. And so eventually I was in a situation where I was looking for a job. And friend of mine at BBN suggested a fella he knew at Boeing might want to buy mica job. And that led to a situation where they their group who was doing work and underwater vehicles, were located on the west coast, wanted somebody on the East Coast who did similar work. And so I was hired as a tech rep, where I would represent the group on the west coast, but I would interact with their Prime customers on the East Coast, one of whom was General Dynamics electric boat, and so my location in Groton was, was great. So what I thought would be about a four three or four year experiment with Boeing ended up as a 20 plus year career with Boeing. And I, they too, were a great employer. They provided me with up to date, closed circuit TVs, they made sure that I my laptop had the best software it turned out by that time. In the PC world. There were software there were things like Jaws and zoom texts. And so I they had Zoom Text on my machine. I was stopped into the internet anywhere I went. And I had closed circuit TVs, both at their facility in California and at my house. And by that time, you could put the library of the blind cassettes into Walkman size machines. So it was easy to carry that along on my travels. And for what was what 20 plus years I had a great career with them as as a tech rep. I was no longer now you had mentioned sales. My father and brother are sales people he was a sales engineer, my brother was a salesman and so is light all his career. My case not so much being in Myers Brigg ISTJ, which stands for introvert a bit. Sales was always a pressure job to me. And as a manager, by that time at BBN have have managed managed the Department of 40 engineers and scientists, the whole job was get more work sales. That was a pressure position for me, when I switched to BBN and I was nothing but a an engineer in the field with no sales pressure and work at all times. I loved it just lower pay less pressure, but I prospered. i I'm sure I was a huge help to them. Because every year my contract or the thought of me coming on for another year came up. Different supervisors wanted me and I just stayed in I was there for over 20 years. And it was it was kind of career where I was traveling a lot. And I enjoyed traveling. And I could get by in airports with little monoculars and asking questions and remembering the Airport layout. So I didn't get lost. And I just got by. Great. And as that careers continued through 20 plus years, and I was getting older, the subject of retirement began to crop in. I talked to my supervisor, you know, I'm at an age where retirement is something I might want to think about. Nope, nope. Well, I went from five day weeks to 40 weeks to three day weeks always saying I want to get out now. And finally they said, Well, if you can find a replacement, then we'll talk about it. So I was fortunate and able to find somebody I thought was good at it as today. And so then they put me on as a consultant for another year and a half on Tuesday weeks. And finally I was able to retire. What year was that? He retired? Yes. And that's where I am today. **Michael Hingson ** 27:42 But what year did you retire? **Michael Coughlin ** 27:45 Okay. During my time at Boeing, which I thought the career itself was fantastic. There were some times good and bad. I, my, my daughter and her husband gave us two grandchildren, Chloe and Evan. However, after many, many years, my first wife Judy succumbed to cancer. And that was tough. And when you are seeing some of that now, I'm sure, but in any case, after that, there's some low points and whatever I met Karen, my current wife, we, we went out for a few years and eventually we're married and, and everything has just turned back around the way it was. I'm happy. I'm retired. Her daughter has given us a grandchild ESMI who's now two and a half, almost three. And we are enjoying life. **Michael Hingson ** 28:42 So how long have you guys been married? **Michael Coughlin ** 28:45 This will be it was just 10 years we were we were married in 2012. Newlyweds? **Michael Hingson ** 28:50 Almost. Yeah. Well, I'm curious. What. So you, you clearly had a rich life you'd have the life that you enjoyed. But what do you think about the fact that early on? They did not that that no one the ophthalmologists and others didn't give you any access to assistive technology didn't give you more access to understanding about blindness and so on. And I don't ask that to say what a horrible thing but rather just what do you think about it? Now looking back on hindsight is always a wonderful thing. Looking back, **Michael Coughlin ** 29:34 I almost angry. At the time, I thought everything was fine. But when you look back, I believe. Number one, I think a lot of eye doctors are great if they can help you but if they can't help you, they tend to push you off to the side. And I think that was a little of it. And it maybe was just the fact that in the URL The days even though I had macular and I couldn't see printed and everything I saw well enough to get by. And I'm just thinking they figured, well, he's doing okay, whatever they should have done way more. And maybe even my parents should have done more. But But I don't I even looking back feel that in some sense the fact that I had to hold things up here to read was almost embarrassing to them, they they didn't grasp the concept of a young person not saying well, it just didn't grasp it. And unfortunately, since we were in the middle of Indiana, and there really weren't Apparently, people with very much knowledge of the subject. It just happened. And I just hope today, that way more attention is paid to people, the few juveniles that are limited sight, because I'm sure I could have had a fuller experience in life, if I at least had been exposed to talking books at a younger age. **Michael Hingson ** 31:14 Here are a lot of us who believe that it is so unfortunate that more of us also did not get the opportunity to learn braille, because right is outcomes, the basic means of reading and writing. **Michael Coughlin ** 31:30 I understand I agree completely. And so here I am having to sit here with my closed circuit TV, off to the right with about 40 power magnification in order to be able to see my notes, hey, I have a fellow in our, at the center of the blind Kevin, who is a braille reader and, and he's totally blind, but he has the Braille and he can sit at a meeting and read what he needs by reading it in Braille, when I'm at those meetings, I can't read anything. You can't, I cannot see any print, I just always have to rely on what I hear or ask questions. **Michael Hingson ** 32:13 So you're seeing reality, the advantage that we had was being blind people than if we do read braille, and so on, for not the advantages that we can look at meetings from a different perspective, which I love to talk about which, namely, is, if people are doing meetings truly the right way, they would provide everyone the information in advance of the meeting, so that people could read this stuff with the idea, then you can prepare and then you go to the meeting, and you can discuss it rather than spending half the meeting reading the information. Yep, well, they **Michael Coughlin ** 32:50 do that fortunately, times. Case of the center, I gather all of the information they're going to pass out as Word documents earlier, and I do go through them. **Michael Hingson ** 33:02 But what I'm saying is they should really do that for everyone, rather than passing out information at the meeting. People should get it in advance so that nobody has to read it at the meeting, rather use the meeting to be more efficient. So that's a lesson we could teach them which, which a lot of people really haven't caught on to yet understood. It does make life a little bit of a challenge. But I'm glad that that your your work at the Center will tell me a little bit about your work at the center and how you got involved in what the center is all about. **Michael Coughlin ** 33:34 Right? Well, it's my second time involved being involved with the center of the Blind in New London. First, the first interaction came about in in probably the late mid mid to late 90s, when we had a macular degeneration support group in Waterford, that that was started by a fellow's a friend Duncan Smith since passed. And, and I ended up as president of the group. And it was it was a pretty active group for about 10 years. And we brought people in that had macular and tried to provide him with information. And as part of that the center of the blind was one of the participants and their lead person helped us get speakers and so there's sort of a three to four person group as the lead and and that center lead person was one of those. I can tell you what her name was, but I forgotten it is too many years ago. So when I retired and I'm trying to think of giving back and doing things that what what can I do also I should have mentioned that not only they work with a senator I also at one point in time was a reader On the advisory group for the State Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, where I'd attend meetings and from a reader point of view, try to help them with their services. And I was on the board of directors for Chris radio, which is a radio service that reads newspapers and periodicals to people. So I've done a few of those kinds of things as well. But now I'm retired, I say, I want to be able to give back to some degree and, and so I thought of the Senator and gave them a call. They looked up their webpage, and there's a phone number I gave a call, talk to the Executive Director, Wendy Lusk. And she said, we'd love to have you come down and talk so. So I did, Karen and I went down. And we sat and talked to Wendy and, and Tammy, the assistant and said, well, might I be able to do. And after a little discussion, the concept of a support group for macular degeneration came up. And they didn't have such a thing. And they thought that would be a worthwhile project that they should put into their calendar. And that's what we've done. So I, every first Wednesday of the month, get together with others who are interested in. And the primary focus is learning how to use cell phones, because the new cell phones or smartphones and iPhones and also that others are pretty hard for people who are beginning to lose their sight. And they don't have an understanding of some of the assistive aids that are in the phone. So that's what we do. We spend a couple hours just answering questions and presenting information that I pick up over the web on things their smartphone can do for them. And as as that went and started gaining traction, Wendy asked me if I wanted to be on the board. And I said I'd be glad to do that and was elected to the board a couple of months back. So I'm on the board of directors as well as running that support group. **Michael Hingson ** 37:17 Do you think that let's deal with the pathological world? Do you think that attitudes have changed very much in terms of how I doctors handled blindness and blind people today over, say 40 years ago? **Michael Coughlin ** 37:35 Well, a little better. I mean, I have a fella now Dr. Parker I've been seeing for when, when Kaplan sold his practice, Dr. Parker took it over, I go to see him. He, he tries to keep me appraised of any new emerging things in the way of AI specialists, and what they may be doing for people with low vision. But, but they're more on the scientific side, and he really doesn't have any, any of the low vision aids, you have to go to a separate guy for that. And I've gone through those things so many times. That? I don't know, right? I would say better, but not great. Yeah, **Michael Hingson ** 38:29 what, what I have found and having significant conversations with people is that still all too often, if you go to an ophthalmologist, and it's discovered that for whatever reason, you're losing eyesight, and they can't do anything about it. They consider it a failure. And they just walk out sorry, there's nothing we can do and that we haven't seen enough of an awareness raising in the eye care world, where people recognize that just because you can't see it's not the end of the world and you can still be just as productive as you otherwise might have been accepted when you use different techniques. And, and a lot of state rehabilitation agencies are somewhat in the same sort of boat, they don't really ultimately do the things that they could do to better prepare people for having a positive attitude about blindness when they're losing their son. **Michael Coughlin ** 39:31 Yeah, I think that's true, although Connecticut, their agency is called WSB. The Bureau for the education of the blind and and they're pretty good. I just actually had a SB fella come to my house to give me a how do you use a cane training? I've never used a cane. And it's part part of our macular sport group. Discussion. One of the fellas in They're mentioned the, what he called his ID cane. And that was a term I'd never heard him. And what do you mean by that? And he said, Well, he said, because he has macular like me, said, I still see well enough to get around. But I'm tired of explaining to people they don't see very well. And so I got an I A cane, white cane, which you're legally able to use. And he said, the one I have is a little shorter, because I don't really need it as two more people with less vision. And it helps people understand that I don't see very well **Michael Hingson ** 40:37 in the answers. And the answer is even with an ID cane, that works until it doesn't. I know, I know, a guy who lived in I think it was Mount Laurel, New Jersey, and will take the train to Philadelphia every day, when he was losing his eyesight and the New Jersey Commission gave him a cane. But they also continued to emphasize eyesight a lot. And they didn't really convey to him the true importance of learning to use a cane as he's losing his eyesight. So one day, he was walking along the side of the New Jersey Transit train to go into the car to find a seat and involved process to Philadelphia. And key he turned in where the where he saw the openings for the car, and promptly fell between two cars. And then the train started to move and they got stopped and got him out. If he had been using his cane that would never have happened. And he became an avid cane user after that. Right. **Michael Coughlin ** 41:48 Great. And I completely understand that. And and I'm using it more and more. No doubt. **Michael Hingson ** 41:56 Yeah, there's and the problem is that people just all too often think it's a horrible thing and makes you look weird. Well, you know, there are a lot of things that all sorts of people use that make them look different than other people, that doesn't mean that they're less people. **Michael Coughlin ** 42:12 I actually had an experience a while back, which made the use of the cane even more, it highlighted it a little more is a number we were going back and forth to the Caribbean for a few years at on vacation at the Sandals Resort, and we got to the airport in Antigua getting ready to fly home. And since I don't see very well, I always will go up to the attendant at the ticket counter and say, you know, I'm visually disabled, can't see I really need early boarding we could cause legs, feet and other things trip me and I I'd like to get into a seat before the crowd arrives. And the first thing she did is looked at me and said, You're not blind, you know. And, and I was stunned. But but said yes, I am I cannot see. And they let me show. All right. All right. So after that in airports, I started at least wearing dark glasses. That helped a little bit with a cane. It's even at least then you have a claim to your claim, having to pull out the piece of paper from the state that says I'm legally blind. I have one of those, but that's kind of going a little too far. So I do find it a little bit more helpful. **Michael Hingson ** 43:39 Well, of course, what you discovered, the more you use a cane is the better traveler you are. And that helps you get around. Yes. Now as you know, I happen to use a guide dog. In fact, I didn't use either a cane or a guide. Well Mark cane or guide until I was 14 when I got the guideline. I never learned to use a cane until I was 18. But I discovered that I could teach anyone to use a cane in five minutes, but teaching people to have the competence to use a cane takes months because one is just a technique which you can learn easily the other is developing an attitude and developing the true awareness of that you know where you are and what's around you and how to recover from getting lost and and other such things like that along the way. That's a whole different animal entirely. Absolutely. But nevertheless, it's it's doable. So I still mostly use guide dog but there are some times that I'll leave the puppy dog at home or if I'm just stepping out a little bit leave the dog tied down and I'll use a cane but that doesn't happen very often. And certainly when I travel Alamo who is not a current guide dog comes with ready to go so We just returned from a weekend Israel doing work and all that, and he needed fine. And even on the long airplane flight to and from Israel, He did really well. Excellent. You know, it's, it is a matter of learning to use the skills that that we have. That **Michael Coughlin ** 45:19 is That is true. And in my case technology has been my savior. Sure, closer to TVs, the books on tape, and the fact that computers now have text to speech and magnification. Without it without those. I would not have had an engineering career I don't believe. So **Michael Hingson ** 45:44 what do you use to read books today? **Michael Coughlin ** 45:48 I do. I use my iPad. I have the bard application, which is the current app that's put out by the library. handicapper, I think they changed their name recently, but it's the same thing. And so I download books through them, and use the iPad, to read the books to me, I don't have to use a recorder anymore. It's and I can do the same thing on my iPhone. So. **Michael Hingson ** 46:23 So now of course, you have the ability to navigate through those books a whole lot more than you used to. **Michael Coughlin ** 46:28 Yes, because the again, I'm an apple person, but on my iPad, I can magnify the screen very easily. So downloading books is a little cumbersome, but not bad. And then I can pick whatever book I want to listen to and with Bluetooth headphones, or what I air pods or whatever they call them and listen to those without bothering anybody else. **Michael Hingson ** 46:53 Yeah. And again, the other neat thing is that you can skip around in a book, which is something that you couldn't do before, right now with the advantage of the DAISY format and so on you can which is a format, which is kind of an ePub environment. But you can literally skip around the book by chapter or any number of levels. Yep. **Michael Coughlin ** 47:15 And, and not only do I use that app, but I also have downloaded books on audible. Occasionally, if I can't find where I wanted, or, or iBooks it's now called something else. But and so some of the books he can't get it the library right away, you can you can go on and pay for him. And but mostly, it's through the the Library for the Blind. Certainly, that's where I found the underdog. So **Michael Hingson ** 47:45 what do you think overall has been the biggest obstacle you've had to overcome? **Michael Coughlin ** 47:49 If you go back and look, to me, the biggest obstacle was the invent the advent of the PC, and getting to use a PC. When, when I was moving along in my career, and early on, I did a lot of software engineering. But I was back in the earliest days, it was key punches. And all of that I got by then as they started using terminals, but simple terminals, I could have the software printed out, I could use the CCTV to see it, I could make changes to the software and have others enter it. It was everything was slow back then. But when the PC came along, it became an individual tool that everybody used, you had to be able to use it and and as I said it was Doug, Hannah and my good golfing buddy now who, who figured out how to use that with text to speech and magnification. And that just opened up the whole world of the personal computer, which which is today I mean MATLAB and other pieces of software you have to use. It made it available to me, had I not been able to make that jump into the PC world, I think I would have really been hampered on my ability to continue as an engineer or an engineering manager. **Michael Hingson ** 49:20 So you're not too bothered by the fact that there was a time that Bill Gates said that 640 K is all you'd ever need. And we have Emory. **Michael Coughlin ** 49:29 Well, you know, I remember using before Yeah. And I remember when the very first Mac's came out, they only had two floppy drives and no hard drives. So I had **Michael Hingson ** 49:45 a my first computer that I really use it all was Xerox sigma seven. We also had an OS born from my wife even before that, but it had the Xerox had two eight inch floppies no hard drive 64k and What was it? Yeah, you know, but amazing. I **Michael Coughlin ** 50:03 mean, the technology has just moved so fast. And, and the fast moving technology is great. And it's frustrating. Because a lot of the people that develop it's because now they can write software that does everything. The concept and of course you work for a company that that's very attuned to that fact, is that much of the stuff they throw out there now is very hard to use. If you're visually disabled, **Michael Hingson ** 50:34 you'd have visual issues there. The awareness has not grown like it needs to to make sure that all that stuff is inclusive. Absolutely. **Michael Coughlin ** 50:42 And it as fast as the technology is moving it. The accessibility features of software, to me are falling further and further behind. Even though there's more and more people that seemed to work in the field of accessibility. I think they're still not moving fast enough. And it is frustrating I had, I mentioned that one of the other obstacles that are countered, over the years when I was working at Boeing. Computer Training was becoming easy. And everybody had to take seven or eight computers, courses through the year and be qualified in things like obstacle don't leave obstacles and jet engines in called FOD and foreign object detection and on and on. And, and those courses were originally written by the various divisions and by people who got told make a course. And so they might dig up a course making pieces of software, whatever. And when they would finish it and put it out to everybody. Many of them wouldn't work with screen readers. And not only Weren't they work with screen readers, and they didn't redo the text, they'd have little tests you had to pass. And those certainly didn't work for the screen reader. And they were very, very frustrating. And I ran across to fellow at Boeing corporate, who became a friend and his father who had macular and he was really sensitive to that fact. And between the two of us we, we fought tooth and nail to get a standard a corporate standard on for courses put in place that included the fact that you had to be able to access the course with a screen reader took about five years for for that standard to finally be propagated throughout Boeing. And even when they did, I ran across the fire protection course where it wasn't in place. And I couldn't do that test and this. So you have to fight for that stuff. There's no doubt about it. **Michael Hingson ** 52:55 There are times that you do things to draw the line and say, look, you've got to make this inclusive. **Michael Coughlin ** 53:01 Great. Absolutely. It's getting better. I mean, I mean, at least if you stand up and squawk about it, there are people who will listen more than they used to. **Michael Hingson ** 53:13 Yeah, well and I think we're slowly raising awareness and it's a it's a challenge. consumer organizations are helping and we're we're we're now getting people to recognize it more much less that it really is part of the law the Americans with Disabilities Act really is more comprehensive than people want it sometimes to get credit for. And sometimes we have sites where it is still happening. **Michael Coughlin ** 53:40 Oh yeah. And and sometimes it just happens when you don't think about it we had when I was at the Boeing facility in California and they had been California it's always beautiful as you know. And and so stairways for buildings are often outside and inside stairways and we had a nice building and an out big, big wide outside stairway and they came in and put in new a new surface on the top step of the third floor landing so you wouldn't slip and a just as they did it, they covered up that yellow stripe that marked the top step and that next day I almost stepped right off into an clobbered down a flight of stairs, got my supervisor and said hey, help me an appointment and we she took me right over to the safety people within this was in Huntington Beach and today a day later they had a yellow stripe on the top **Michael Hingson ** 54:40 of that step car alternative that is which you didn't really have access to at the time was 30 Days came back. Which is another story of course I agree. But at **Michael Coughlin ** 54:51 that time, I was not. Right. Right. Look for yellow stripes, because I could see that much But anyhow. **Michael Hingson ** 55:02 So what what do you do for extra curricular activities in such out of work like sports and so on? Yeah, **Michael Coughlin ** 55:09 I, I love sports. When I was younger, I could play other few others like I never could be a baseball player with a little ball moving real fast, or a tennis player. But But I did like to play football because I was big enough to be a blocker and part of that team. And I played basketball, because basketball is pretty big. I played that least through college but but I was very fortunate in that my father, as an engineer had a medium kind of income and belonged to we belong to a country club in Fort Wayne. And the golf pro, there was a big advocate of teaching young kids how to play golf. So I started learning golf when I was about eight years old, and have always played golf. It got harder when I couldn't see the golf ball very well. I became eventually became a member of the US blind Golfers Association. I still am a member, they have a well, it was at the time a DVD. Now I think it's an online thing. It's a course for coaches of blind golfers. And they adopted the term coach, but I don't know helper to whatever the sighted person is about the blind golfer. And I show my friends that and, and pretty quickly, they figured out well, let's see, we've got to help him line the ball up in the middle of his clubface and point out where the hole is. And, and then there's these new range finders, the one I have talked. And so I push a button, it says your 180 yards. And so between a friend Nirn learning how to be a coach, and that I'm still an avid golfer, I play that a couple times a week. And if I have a good round, and I play from the senior tees, because I'm definitely senior, I still can once in a while break at which is a very, I think a very good score. And then I love to swim. And we had a swim team at that club and I from about age eight to 15 or something I was into competitive swimming. And now we have a pool and I swim every day in the summer. So **Michael Hingson ** 57:23 So is is Karen a golfer? **Michael Coughlin ** 57:27 No. It was the last week. We thought about that once but it didn't go over too. **Michael Hingson ** 57:33 Well. You try Yeah. Now you have, **Michael Coughlin ** 57:36 of course also love sports on television where I have a big TV and sit close my my passion of course is Notre Dame football. And for the people that see a video, the back screen of my my video is a picture I took of the Notre Dame Stadium football field when I was back at my 50th college reunion. **Michael Hingson ** 58:01 So Oh, go ahead. **Michael Coughlin ** 58:04 Well, I was gonna say they improve the stadium immensely since I was there. And there's a big area up at the top where you they have banquets and and you entertain and and so our class that was where we had our 50th anniversary dinner. And so he couldn't be looking over the stadium and I took a picture and put it in my Zoom background. So so they **Michael Hingson ** 58:28 still talk to you. They still talk to you even though you've got some advanced degree work from USC, and Miami and Miami, USC even more than Miami. But yeah, **Michael Coughlin ** 58:40 well there was a time Miami and Notre Dame went like that. Now it's not but USC Of course. And I tell people that but I I have never had bad vibes over the fact I have advanced degrees from **Michael Hingson ** 58:55 C See, I love to tell the story that when my wife and I got married, the church didn't fill up until 12 minutes after the wedding was supposed to start, I suppose started for and and for 12 crowds came in and Only later did we learned that everyone was still sitting out in your pliers waiting for the end of the USC Notre Dame game. Of course. Again, I want to point out that my wife, of course, is an SE grad she did her master's work there. And of course I have to point out that we won, which proves that God was really on our side that day. Just say sometimes, **Michael Coughlin ** 59:30 you know the story of one of the Notre Dame Miami games where they had the great dinner or breakfast before the game and and when they the University of Miami Chaplain got up and said that well, you all know that God is not doesn't take sides in football. And so we'll both pray and see who the better team wins and Lou Holtz, then the coach Scott up and said, Yeah, you're completely right. God is not involved. But his mother is. **Michael Hingson ** 1:00:08 Good answer. Yeah, only Luke could do that. That's the neat thing about good college football rivalries. Absolutely. Always find that. That's **Michael Coughlin ** 1:00:19 kind of my sports, fat, passion for, for television, and then golf and swimming or my dad, **Michael Hingson ** 1:00:26 I grew up listening to the Dodgers. And of course, we're spoiled. We have been Skelly who I still know them. Yes, yes. The best announcer that ever is when was and probably will be in. So I learned baseball from him. There's a lot of fun listening to him. And **Michael Coughlin ** 1:00:43 posters where Claire and I are now. I've been converted. She's from Boston. So we're Red Sox fans. So this weekend, they're playing each other. Well, **Michael Hingson ** 1:00:53 and then in days gone by in basketball. We had Chick Hearn, and of course, Boston had Johnny most. **Michael Coughlin ** 1:00:59 Oh, yes. Oh, yes. **Michael Hingson ** 1:01:03 Johnny is, Johnny was certainly a character. Well, I want to thank you for taking the time to do this today. It was was fun to do. I'm glad that we got a chance to really chat and do
Happy New Year! Have you set your artistic goals for 2024? Join Dr. Judi Bloom and Richard Skipper as they hep you with Creativity, with a dose of therapy! We will also be joined y three artists who trly do set oals and achieve them! Dr Judi Bloom is a practical, interactive, solution-focused therapist specializing in relationships and in navigating through major life transitions. For 3 decades she has treated patients of every background and helped them work through a wide variety of personal challenges. Sally Darling: Record librarian at KABC, LA. Much stage directing, including The Consul with Frances Breeze (Francesca Palmieri in the original with Patricia Neway) Narration with symphony: The Carnival of the Animals, Façade (solo, no rests!) 2016 Hanson Award, 2017 Bistro Award, nominated for MAC female singer award five years consecutively, 2017 - 2021 Sang ‘They're Either Too Young or Too Old' at the Cabaret Convention 2019 Narrated over 250 books for The Talking Book program for the Library of Congress and for Recorded Books. Currently: “Tales and Cocktails with Sally Darling”, Wednesdays at 6. Extraordinary experience: I witnessed the Ceremony of the Keys in the Tower of London from the Constable's flat. Meg Flather's recent Hammerstein & Sondheim: CAREFULLY TAUGHT was also nominated for a BroadwayWorld Award. Meg has released eight CDs of her original music and has authored two books: Home Shopping Diva. . . Lessons, Lyrics and Lipstick and Hold On Tight . . . a love story. Meg proudly serves as the North American Brand Ambassador for StriVectin Skincare. Meg debuts The Brick Room Tour—her series revisiting five shows she has created and performed in Don't Tell Mama's Brick Room BARBARA MINKUS began her show business career in NYC in Julius Monk's review, Bits and Pieces.
On the Horizon: Exploring the Evolving Publishing LandscapeDive into the dynamic world of Talking Book Publishing with hosts Kathleen Kaiser and Adanna Moriarty, joined by the charismatic small publisher Jay Hartman in our last episode of 2023. Jay shares his love for books, the challenges traditional bookstores face, and the evolving industry landscape. Experience a heartfelt ode to libraries, Jay's new venture with Misty Media, and insights from his YouTube channel, "The Publishing Game." The episode peaks with the exciting debut release, "The Perp War Pumpkin," a Thanksgiving crime fiction anthology donating all net royalties to Second Harvest food banks or Feeding America. If you'd like to support this project, you can do that here Jay champions diversity in publishing, applauding organizations like IPPY and IBPA. The episode wraps up with a call for continuous learning and transparency in the industry. Join Kathleen, Adanna, and their guests for an engaging ride through the ever-evolving book industry on Talking Book Publishing.We'd like to hear from you. If you have topics or speakers you'd like us to interview, please email us at podcast@talkingbookpublishing.today and join the conversation in the comments on our Instagram @writerspubsnet.
On Unleashing the AI Revolution in Book Promotion and Transforming Your SuccessDiscover the exciting realm of AI in book promotion as Kathleen and Adanna take you on a captivating journey. Uncover an AI's ability to create fictional legal cases that sparked court controversy and see how it spices up content with adjectives, adverbs, and emojis. They emphasize that AI is a powerful tool that, when used thoughtfully, can speed up tasks without entirely replacing human creativity. Learn how AI, particularly ChatGPT, can be a game-changer for indie and self-published authors struggling with book descriptions and social media posts.They delve into the importance of specific hashtags, reader engagement, and emotional clarity in sales writing. While highlighting AI's potential for research and customization, they also address its limitations and the necessity of double-checking information. This discussion culminates in an exciting revelation: a webinar that promises to enhance your Amazon visibility by crafting compelling book descriptions, selecting the best keywords, and exploring optimal book categories within Amazon. Plus, a downloadable eBooklet with attention-grabbing content prompts- free for webinar attendees. Sign up at WPNwebinars.com and unlock your book's potential.Talking Book Publishing Podcast is valuable for those seeking guidance on enhancing your book's marketing efforts. It addresses common concerns and offers expert perspectives to help you navigate the ever-changing publishing landscape.We'd like to hear from you. If you have topics or speakers you'd like us to interview, please email us at podcast@talkingbookpublishing.today and join the conversation in the comments on our Instagram @writerspubsnet.
Billy Gould (Faith No More, Talking Book, Koolarrow Records) and Jared Blum (Talking Book, Gigante Sound) discuss composing the soundtrack to "The Eclipse", Koolarrow Records, Talking Book, Sleepbomb, "Shandi's Addiction" and more. Launch of “The Eclipse” soundtrack on vinyl How did the soundtrack opportunity come together? Composing to film segments Where can we see “The Eclipse” film? Personal story with Director's family in Serbia Billy's attraction/connections to Serbia Writing soundtracks are very different than songs Soundtracks can create a movie in the mind 3 members of Faith No More are movie composers Was there pressure for creating the soundtrack Sleepbomb – The Cabinet of Dr Caligari The challenges of making soundtracks to silent movies Koolarrow's evolution as a label The story of “Shandi's Addiction” – Billy, Tom Morello, Brad Wilk & Maynard James Keenan Recording “Calling Dr Love” for the “Kiss My Ass” tribute album Recollections of initial hearing the Mr Bungle demo tape Making demo for “From Out of Nowhere” with Mike Faith No More's original demo tapes Interview wrap up Order "The Eclipse OST" on vinyl here. Extended, Commercial-Free & High Resolution version of this podcast is available at: www.Patreon.com/VinylGuide Listen on Apple: https://apple.co/2Y6ORU0 Listen on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/36qhlc8
BONUS EPISODE: Is there a Halloween version of a Christmas carol? In this spooky season minisode of THE STORY SONG PODCAST, we're having a very serious Halloween party. Join your hosts as they create a binding, definitive list of the eight songs that belong in the Halloween song canon. We'll explain Halloween to visitors from outer space, avoid songs that are genuinely upsetting, and later, go clubbing with Santa and Liza. So grab a bite-size Snickers, put on your best disguise, and enjoy this special Minisode of THE STORY SONG PODCAST. Continue the conversation; follow THE STORY SONG PODCAST on social media. Follow us on Twitter (@Story_Song), Instagram (storysongpodcast), and Facebook (thestorysongpodcast). THE STORY SONG PODCAST is a member of the Pantheon Podcast Network. “The Monster Mash” by Bobby "Boris" Pickett and The Crypt-Kickers (from the album The Original Monster Mash) is available on Apple Music, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, Tidal, Deezer, Pandora, Spotify, or wherever you listen to music. “Thriller” by Michael Jackson (from the album Thriller) is available on Apple Music, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, Tidal, Deezer, Pandora, Spotify, or wherever you listen to music. “This Is Halloween” performed by The Citizens of Halloween (from the album The Nightmare Before Christmas Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) is available on Apple Music, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, Tidal, Deezer, Pandora, Spotify, or wherever you listen to music. “(You're the) Devil in Disguise” by Elvis Presley (from the album Elvis' Gold Records, Vol. 4) is available on Apple Music, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, Tidal, Deezer, Pandora, Spotify, or wherever you listen to music. “Superstition” by Stevie Wonder (from the album Talking Book) is available on Apple Music, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, Tidal, Deezer, Pandora, Spotify, or wherever you listen to music. “Every Day Is Halloween” by Ministry (from the album Twelve Inch Singles) is available on Apple Music, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, Tidal, Deezer, Pandora, Spotify, or wherever you listen to music. “Werewolves of London” by Warren Zevon (from the album Excitable Boy) is available on Apple Music, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, Tidal, Deezer, Pandora, Spotify, or wherever you listen to music. “The Phantom of the Opera” performed by Michael Crawford and Sarah Brightman (from the album The Phantom of the Opera Original London Cast Recording) is available on Apple Music, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, Tidal, Deezer, Pandora, Spotify, or wherever you listen to music. “Grim Grinning Ghosts” from Disney's The Haunted Mansion, performed by The Mellomen (available on the album Walt Disney World Official Album) is available on Apple Music, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, Deezer, Pandora, Spotify, or wherever you listen to music. “Black Magic Woman” by Santana (from the album Abraxas) is available on Apple Music, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, Tidal, Deezer, Pandora, Spotify, or wherever you listen to music. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
On Unlocking Amazon's Hidden Categories: A Path to Publishing Success Join us for an eye-opening episode that will supercharge your publishing journey and leave you ahead of the game. In this riveting conversation, hosts Kathleen and Adanna dive deep into the heart of Amazon's latest category conundrum with Amazon expert Dave Chesson of Kindlepreneur. Have you heard of "ghost categories?" These elusive realms are new in Amazon's category system and have confounded authors, making it challenging to become bestsellers or even get noticed on category pages. If you're in the publishing world, this is essential intel you can't afford to miss. Dave shares invaluable insights on how to identify and conquer these ghost categories. He lays out the strategies for using keywords effectively to skyrocket your book's visibility. It's like having a treasure map to the hidden gems of Amazon's marketplace. And, he unveils a game-changing tool called Publisher Rocket. But that's not all. We'll also explore why keeping your finger on the pulse of Amazon's changes is a MUST for success. In a rapidly evolving industry, staying informed is the key to your publishing endeavors. Whether you're a seasoned author or just starting out, this episode will empower you with insider tips from folks working in the publishing industry. Learn how traditional publishers lag behind, while indie authors have the ability to adapt and thrive in the ever-changing landscape. It's time to take the reins of your writing destiny! Don't miss out! Subscribe to Talking Book Publishing Podcast now and equip yourself with the knowledge and strategies to make you a formidable force in the publishing world. Extra: INSANE Amazon Category Change [NEW Rocket Feature] - Watch it on YouTubeWe'd like to hear from you. If you have topics or speakers you'd like us to interview, please email us at podcast@talkingbookpublishing.today and join the conversation in the comments on our Instagram @writerspubsnet.
Robert Margouleff is a Grammy Award-winning record producer, sound engineer, and electronic music pioneer who might be best known for his work with Stevie Wonder in the early '70s on a string of award-winning albums, like Music of My Mind, Talking Book, Innervisions, and Fulfillingness's First Finale. In 1980, Margouleff produced DEVO's Freedom of Choice album which included Whip It. Robert has spent time in the studio producing and engineering for Quincy Jones, Jeff Beck, the Doobie Brothers, Depeche Mode, Oingo Boingo, DEVO, and the list goes on and on. He was a colleague and friend of synthesizer inventor Robert Moog, and was also an early creative resource for Andy Warhol's "factory" and co-producer of the cult classic film “Ciao! Manhattan” in 1972.
On a Mission for Change: Unveiling the Rise of a New Publishing HouseIn our latest podcast episode, we had the pleasure of sitting down with Kristen McGuiness, a prolific author and visionary founder of Rise Books. Kristen shared her incredible journey in publishing, from working at the big five houses to becoming an accomplished writer. Her upcoming debut novel, "Live Through This," set to release on October 10, 2023, embodies the spirit of change that defines Rise Books.Kristen's passion for stories that inspire change and radical ideas is the driving force behind Rise Books, and she discussed how the publishing house offers a unique platform for authors to make a difference. We also delved into her role as a book coach and her dedication to helping authors find their path in the literary world-including how you can make money writing full-time like she has done as a ghostwriter.Kristen's energy and motivation are infectious, and so is her inspiring vision for Rise Books. Whether you're an aspiring author or a book enthusiast, this episode is a must-listen.Stay tuned for Kristen's insights and explore the world of publishing from a fresh perspective. Join Kathleen and Adanna to catch this engaging 51-minute conversation and discover the power of stories for change.Don't miss out on a single Talking Book Publishing episode! Subscribe to our podcast now.We'd like to hear from you. If you have topics or speakers you'd like us to interview, please email us at podcast@talkingbookpublishing.today and join the conversation in the comments on our Instagram @writerspubsnet.
An Uncommon Author's Odyssey: Crafting Modern-Day Nursery RhymesStep into children's literature with our latest episode of Talking Book Publishing! Join your hosts Kathleen Kaiser and Adanna Moriarty as they dive into a captivating conversation with Kelly Anne Manuel, the brilliant mind behind 31 unique and delightful children's books.Kelly Anne's journey is as extraordinary as it is inspiring. She embarked on her writing adventure in March 2022. Within a year and a half, she transformed her creative vision into a collection of modern-day nursery rhymes for children. These charming stories are brought to life through rhythmic verses that flow effortlessly like a breath of fresh air.Discover the magic behind Kelly Anne's imaginative process. The remarkable synergy between her words and the illustrations resembles the movie "Field of Dreams." Where creativity blossoms, and if you build it, they will indeed come. With an iPad, a cell phone, and an unwavering determination, Kellyanne's poetry evolved into a spectacular series of books that captivates the hearts of young readers and their parents alike.Prepare to be transported into a world where words find their perfect artistic match. Don't miss this episode as we delve into the spellbinding world of Kellyanne Manuel's imaginative creations. Welcome to Talking Book Publishing – where the magic of storytelling takes center stage! We'd like to hear from you. If you have topics or speakers you'd like us to interview, please email us at podcast@talkingbookpublishing.today and join the conversation in the comments on our Instagram @writerspubsnet.
Unveiling the Art of Developmental Editing and the Life of a YA AuthorDive into the depths of the editing realm with Talking Book Publishing as Kathleen and Adanna converse with acclaimed YA Author Rebecca Inch-Partridge, the brilliant mind behind "Escaping the Dashia." However, this episode offers more than just a glimpse into Rebecca's latest work; it unveils her dual role as a developmental editor, shaping literary gems from behind the scenes.Discover the pivotal role of editing in creating literary masterpieces as the trio delves into the intricacies of developmental editing. Rebecca unravels the secret to maintaining your artistic vision throughout the editing journey, all while gaining insights into the nuances that elevate your narrative to new heights. The discussion covers the diverse roles of editors, their collaborative efforts in refining your manuscript for publication, and the indispensability of this process in your creative odyssey.Rebecca's multifaceted expertise sets this episode apart—she not only refines manuscripts but also crafts her own literary wonders. Gain exclusive insights into her distinctive creative process, her deliberate choice to abstain from self-editing, and the intriguing reasons behind it.Embark on an enlightening expedition, gathering wisdom for your personal journey, in this episode of Talking Book Publishing.We'd like to hear from you. If you have topics or speakers you'd like us to interview, please email us at podcast@talkingbookpublishing.today and join the conversation in the comments on our Instagram @writerspubsnet.
On Making a Living as a WriterIn this episode, Kathleen and Adanna enjoyed chatting with Sheila Lowe, a bestselling author whose literary accomplishments are inspiring. Having sold over 400,000 books throughout her career, Sheila joins us to share insights on making a living as a writer.In our conversation, we'll explore Sheila's journey as an author, uncovering the secrets behind her success in the competitive publishing world. She has become an expert in book promotion and generously shares her tried-and-tested strategies to market your book effectively. From eBook promotion tactics to book signings and everything in between, you'll gain practical tips to get your masterpiece into the hands of eager readers.Throughout her career, Sheila has authored nonfiction books for educational purposes, penned a memoir, and written a mystery series, offering listeners a well-rounded glimpse of a diverse writing portfolio. Sheila masterfully utilized her expertise as a forensic handwriting analyst to craft characters in her mystery series. This unique approach adds an extra layer of authenticity and intrigue to her novels, captivating readers. She reveals how she navigated the challenges of her writing pursuits with her work. Whether you're an aspiring author seeking guidance on turning your passion into a profession, a seasoned writer looking to enhance your book sales, or simply a book lover curious about the life of a bestselling author, this episode is for you. Join us as we explore the world of words with Sheila Lowe and unravel the secrets to her literary triumphs. Get inspired, informed, and entertained in this episode of Talking Book Publishing.We'd like to hear from you. If you have topics or speakers you'd like us to interview, please email us at podcast@talkingbookpublishing.today and join the conversation in the comments on our Instagram @writerspubsnet.
On Submitting and Setting Up a Book TourThe ins and outs of book tours and the art of submitting work to publications in this captivating episode of Talking Book Publishing. Join host Adanna as she engages in an enlightening solo conversation with the multi-award-winning poet, playwright, and memoirist Anne Marie Wells.Drawing from her extensive experience, Anne Marie sheds light on the intricate world of submitting work, having successfully placed over 50 pieces, including two manuscripts. Delving deep into her writing journey, she addresses the challenges of rejection. Plus how setbacks have propelled her growth as a writer.Anne Marie lets us in on her innovative approach to organizing an unconventional book tour spanning multiple states and cities. With her commitment to treating writing as a business, she embodies the principles of Talking Book Publishing.Join us for a crucial conversation that offers valuable insights into an author's journey and process. Whether you're an aspiring writer, a seasoned author, or simply curious about the inner workings of the literary world, this episode is an essential listen.We'd like to hear from you. If you have topics or speakers you'd like us to interview, please email us at podcast@talkingbookpublishing.today and join the conversation in the comments on our Instagram @writerspubsnet.
Jenn and Sharifah are off this week, so please enjoy this First Edition episode about sci-fi and fantasy "insta-buys" and more with Jeff O'Neal, Sharifah, and Kendra Winchester. This content contains affiliate links. When you buy through these links, we may earn an affiliate commission. First Edition Kendra Winchester comes on to commemorate the 15th anniversary of two events that heralded the modern audiobook boom: Amazon buying Audible and Apple allowing third-party apps on the iPhone. Then, Sharifah Williams, Book Riot's Director of Content and co-host of our SFF Yeah! podcast, joins me to debut a new segment: The Insta-Buys. Check out First Edition on Twitter, on Substack, and on Instagram. And if you have a moment to rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts, please and thank you! Discussed in this episode: Better Than Nothing? Exploring the Limitations of AI-Narrated Audiobooks from a Disabled Person's Perspective 10 Audiobook Narrators You Need to Follow on TikTok The Untold History of the Talking Book by Matthew Rubery Check out Kendra's podcast, Read Appalachia. You can also follow her on Substack, Winchester Ave, and posting photos of her Corgis on Instagram and Twitter @kdwinchester. Sharifah Williams co-hosts our SFF Yeah! podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Join us on a captivating episode of Talking Book Publishing as we reunite with one of our first guests, Ivor Davis, a seasoned writer with a remarkable career from the '60s to the present day. Kathleen and Adanna are thrilled to delve into Ivor's publishing journey, covering his experiences with traditional publishing through an agent and his exciting venture into self-publishing with two brand-new books on the horizon.Each author's path is unique in the vast publishing landscape, and Ivor's story exemplifies the diverse possibilities. This episode explores the challenges and triumphs, offering a vital narrative that empowers you to navigate your book's journey. While the publishing industry may seem daunting at times, this podcast is dedicated to equipping you with the knowledge and insights necessary to make informed decisions, guiding you toward the most suitable path for your aspirations. Whether traditional publishing, indie houses, self-publishing, or a hybrid approach, the trio dives deep into each option, unraveling the advantages and intricacies.So, if you're eager to embark on this enlightening expedition, we warmly invite you to join us. Let's uncover the secrets of the publishing world together, empowering you to make informed choices and ensuring your book finds its best possible path forward.We'd like to hear from you. If you have topics or speakers you'd like us to interview, please email us at podcast@talkingbookpublishing.today and join the conversation in the comments on our Instagram @writerspubsnet.
Kendra Winchester comes on to commemorate the 15th anniversary of two events that heralded the modern audiobook boom: Amazon buying Audible and Apple allowing third-party apps on the iPhone. Then, Sharifah Williams, Book Riot's Director of Content and co-host of our SFF Yeah! podcast, joins me to debut a new segment: The Insta-Buys. Check out First Edition on Twitter, on Substack, and on Instagram. And if you have a moment to rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts, please and thank you! This content contains affiliate links. When you buy through these links, we may earn an affiliate commission. Discussed in this episode: Better Than Nothing? Exploring the Limitations of AI-Narrated Audiobooks from a Disabled Person's Perspective 10 Audiobook Narrators You Need to Follow on TikTok The Untold History of the Talking Book by Matthew Rubery Check out Kendra's podcast, Read Appalachia. You can also follow her on Substack, Winchester Ave, and posting photos of her Corgis on Instagram and Twitter @kdwinchester. Sharifah Williams co-hosts our SFF Yeah! podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
On eBook PromotionsIn this episode, Kathleen and Adanna delve into eBook promotion—a crucial aspect of book marketing. They explore why it is necessary, how to identify the most effective strategies within your budget, and whether converting your book into an eBook is financially viable. With their extensive marketing expertise, they offer insights into the lucrative eBook market. Whether you've been struggling with book sales or want to explore additional avenues for promotion, this episode answers many pressing questions.Marketing your book is a complex and essential process that often feels overwhelming. Recognizing the challenges authors face in navigating the publishing world, Kathleen and Adanna established the Talking Book Publishing Podcast intending to shed light on the industry. They aim to make the publishing landscape more transparent, which aspiring authors can find challenging to penetrate and understand. Fortunately, there are resources available, such as their podcast.Talking Book Publishing Podcast is a valuable resource when seeking guidance on enhancing your book's marketing efforts. It addresses common concerns and offers expert perspectives to help you navigate the ever-changing publishing landscape.We'd like to hear from you. If you have topics or speakers you'd like us to interview, please email us at podcast@talkingbookpublishing.today and join the conversation in the comments on our Instagram @writerspubsnet.
Discovering Zealandia: A Geologist's Antarctic OdysseyJoin Kathleen and Adanna as they welcome geologist and author Bruce Luyendyk to discuss his upcoming memoir, Mighty Bad Land, available May 30. In this engaging episode, Bruce shares his experiences during his first scientific expedition to Antarctica, where he and his five-person team embarked on a six-week geology quest, accidentally discovering a new continent and unraveling the mysteries of Zealandia, the world's eighth continent.Delving into Bruce's gripping narrative, Kathleen and Adanna explore the trials and triumphs of his Antarctic journey, shedding light on the profound implications of proving the existence of Zealandia. As they navigate the fascinating world of scientific exploration, they also dive into the challenges and rewards of writing a memoir that seamlessly combines adventure, scientific inquiry, and personal growth.This episode immerses listeners into Antarctica's awe-inspiring landscapes and scientific discovery's indomitable spirit. Whether you're a science enthusiast, an adventure seeker, or intrigued by captivating memoirs, don't miss this thrilling conversation between Kathleen, Adanna, and Bruce Luyendyk.Mighty Bad Land is available for pre-order today and regular purchase starting May 30, 2023. We'd like to hear from you. If you have topics or speakers you'd like us to interview, please email us at podcast@talkingbookpublishing.today and join the conversation in the comments on our Instagram @writerspubsnet.
Jody Hudson was born in Michigan but has moved a number of times since graduating high school. She spent 15 years in the retail industry. She then spent five years being a stay-at-home mom before finding new employment in the nonprofit sector. Her story sounds somewhat typical, right? Not really. Jody has a much different story to tell which you will get to hear on this episode of Unstoppable Mindset. Jody is the penultimate unstoppable person. Jody's second child, Alex, was born in 1995. Alex was a very active child and worked hard at everything she did. While in the fifth grade, Alex began exhibiting physical symptoms which eventually lead to her no longer being able to be an athlete and active person. In high school, she began losing weight. No doctor could diagnose what was happening. It wasn't until college that happenstance lead Jody and Alex to a doctor who correctly diagnosed Alex's condition as Lyme's Disease. Listen as Jody tells hers and Alex's story. She will tell you about the book she wrote as well as about the Alex Hudson Lyme Foundation. This episode is very powerful, and Jody leaves us with strong advice we all can take to heart when we are presented with life challenges. About the Guest: Jody Hudson, Grants and Philanthropy Director for California CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates), is a fundraising professional with over 15 years of nonprofit leadership experience. She is the CEO and founder of the Alex Hudson Lyme Foundation, an organization that seeks to increase research efforts and patient support for Lyme disease and MCAS. Before joining California CASA in 2021, she served as Vice President of Development and Communications for Girls Scouts of Central California South and, before that, led the Catholic Charities Diocese of Fresno as Director of Operations. In 2018, Jody was honored with the Marjaree Mason Center Top Ten Professional Women Award. Hudson is also an author and speaker. Her book, My Promise to Alex: Through Pain Comes Purpose, is a memoir about her daughter's journey with Lyme disease and her passing at the age of twenty-two on March 24, 2018. For more information on Alex's foundation, please visit www.alexhudsonlymefoundation.org 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 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 w w w dot Michael hinkson.com/podcast. Michael Hinkson is spelled mi ch AE 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 anyone or any organization needing a speaker for an event, please email me at speaker at Michael hangsen.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 accessibility and is sponsored by accessibility. Please visit w w w dot excessive b.com excessively is spelled ACC e ss IBE. 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 ne Michael Hingson 00:00 Access cast and accessibly initiative presents unstoppable mindset, the podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet Hi, I'm Michael Hinkson, Chief mission officer for accessibility and the author of the number one New York Times best selling 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, and acceptance 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 accessibility, that's a cc e ss I, capital B II. Visit www.to. Access a b.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 01:20 Well, Hi, and welcome to unstoppable mindset. Today we get to interview Jody Hudson and Jody has got a very good and strong and compelling story to tell. She is a person who has worked in the world for a while. She is the Director of of grants right for California casa. Jody Hudson 01:43 That's correct. The advanced philanthropy director, Michael Hingson 01:46 advanced philanthropy director Wow. And, and, and again, but there's a lot more to Jodi than that. So we're gonna get to it. So Jodi, welcome to unstoppable mindset. Now, where are you? Exactly. Jody Hudson 01:58 So I'm in Fresno, California. And we have just been getting hit with these recent rains. It's really sad to see what's going on out there. But in fact, before I jumped on, we just had another big downpour. So we're, we're right now good, but you never know when a next one is going to hit us. Michael Hingson 02:18 Yeah, we don't get that level of rain in Victorville. I don't think it's rained here today. We had a little bit of rain Tuesday, but we just don't get that kind of rain here. And as I mentioned earlier, I heard on the news that there are a few places in the Sierras that have had something over 670 inches of snow, and they've gotten more snow this week. So how will this affect the drought it will, at least in the short term, but whether this is really going to have enough of an effect on the aquifers to really give us long term aid remains to be seen. But the way it's going, I think we're going to see more years of a lot of rain and other things happening. So we'll we'll kind of see how it goes. Jody Hudson 03:05 I yeah, I agree. It was crazy. Last week, the 99 was shut down because of flooding. So you just never know what's going to happen. Right? Michael Hingson 03:15 Go figure I know. Well, so let's start a little bit by you maybe telling us some of your background. As a younger God, what you did when going to school and all that give us all the highlights from an earlier time. Jody Hudson 03:33 Oh my goodness. Okay, we could be here a long time because I'm not a young man. You know, I'm in my early 60s here now. But now I'm teasing. Michael Hingson 03:41 So just talk about the early parts. Jody Hudson 03:44 So I'm a Michigander born and raised in Grand Rapids, Michigan, went to school at Central Michigan University where I graduated with a degree in retail. I've always loved fashion clothing. And so that's what I did for quite some time. Worked at Marshall Field's Lord and Taylor made my way west to Los Angeles. My claim to fame was that I was the manager of the Chanel boutique on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. I felt like I had arrived, so to speak. Then got married and made my way to Fresno where I currently reside. Two children, Garrett and Alice, my son's 29 My daughter's 22 And I stayed at home for about five years just to be a stay at home mom. And then when I decided to get back into the work environment, I got into the nonprofit world which I absolutely love. I have a servant's heart and it really spoke to that worked at Catholic Charities for about 1314 years. I worked at Girl Scouts for a little bit until I couldn't eat any more cookies. It was not good for my waistline and at all. And then I've been with California, Casa for two years, and we oversee all of the 44 Casa programs throughout the state of California. I am a product of foster care, I was born to a single mother who put me up for adoption. So I was in the foster care system for the first six months of my life until I was adopted. So I've kind of come full circle in that whole realm. But so that's what I'm currently doing. And then we'll get more into my true purpose and mission, which is the Alex Hudson line foundation. Michael Hingson 05:46 So Marshall Fields, so did you get good deals on Franco mints? Jody Hudson 05:50 Oh, my gosh. I know, Chris, and at Christmas time, because I worked out in Chicago at State Street at their flagship store. And during Christmas time, they'd have like the big pyramids of frango mints and I just devoured those. Like there was no tomorrow I have a weakness for sweets. I could not have sweets in my home, because they will be gone. I don't have willpower. I don't know what the word means. Michael Hingson 06:17 No. Have you ever had mint? Meltaways? Yes. Which do you like better? Franco mints? Yeah. I like them both. But I do have to admit that there is something about Franco mints. Jody Hudson 06:29 Oh my gosh, that just brought me back. I love that brought me back in time for sure. Yeah, and I miss them. I do too. I do too. I love those Frank moments. So good. It's kind of like melt in your mouth. Michael Hingson 06:42 Yeah, really tasty stuff. Jody Hudson 06:44 I think that's probably why girls with the Girl Scout cookies, then men's is my favorite. Because I was born and raised with the kids go mess with men. Go into the cooking mode. Then minutes. So what's your favorite Girl Scout cookie? Michael Hingson 07:00 And Miss? Then Miss? Yeah. Although I've also enjoyed venture foals, which is one of the newer Well, Jody Hudson 07:06 that's yeah, that's one of the the newer ones. Michael Hingson 07:09 A new one rasberry one that I haven't tried yet. Yeah, you Jody Hudson 07:12 know what I'm not a big fan of of the data, kind of like to keep my my the fruit and the chocolate all separate love them both, but really like the the combination together, but anything with chocolate, mint, peanut butter, I'm down for all of that stuff. Michael Hingson 07:31 So I bought a case of Thin Mints. Well, actually, last year, I guess, I bought a case of Thin Mints. But somebody misunderstood and they made the order for two cases. Oh, and so I accepted that and I took them all. But even with the one case, what I did with two would have been the same with one which is they all mostly get put away mostly in the freezer. And for me, especially out of sight out of mind. And so most of them are still there. And they will be eaten over time. Which makes it a little bit frustrating for the Girl Scouts every year because I don't buy a case every year. It'll take me three years sometimes to eat those two cases, as I said, out of sight out of mind. But I do know where they are now having thought about them. This may cause a open so Jody Hudson 08:26 I think I know where you're going after this little conversation here. Michael Hingson 08:31 Yeah, I promise I won't get up and go do that while we're talking. Okay, but still. So So you got into this whole idea of the nonprofit Well, I actually another memory going back to Chicago and Marshall Fields. Do you remember Robert Hall? I do. Where the values go up, up, up and the prices go down? Down? Down? Jody Hudson 08:52 Yep, yep. Michael Hingson 08:55 Ah, those were the days having been born in Chicago and live there for five years and been back occasionally. But still. Great stories, great stories. Jody Hudson 09:05 Yeah, I just don't like Chicago when it's December, January. It's like 80 degrees below with the windchill factor and you're trying to make your way from where you live in Lincoln Park down to State Street a little bit. Michael Hingson 09:18 A little bit tough. And even with the L it could be tough. Oh yeah. Jody Hudson 09:23 Oh, yeah. But boy, I had good good times there. I just graduated from college. So I was making a little bit of money hanging out and living with my sorority sisters. So it was just like an extension of of college. But when you have a little bit of money, it's a little bit more fun. Yeah. Michael Hingson 09:41 Well, you were you bring back memories for me also, a few years ago, I was in Chicago for a speech or I was there for a convention I don't recall which now, but they were doing the event where you Um, to raise money for something, they did the Polar Plunge so everybody would go and jump in Lake Michigan. And I think Rahm Emanuel was the mayor. And Jimmy Fallon was there and they decided they were going to go do the plunge. And I was watching it with my cousins on TV. And they went in the water. It was zero or colder. Oh, we were very happy to be in a heated house. And the reporter said, these guys are doing it all wrong, because they went in in their suits, you know. And as soon as you get out of the water, you can go into a tent that was warm, where you could dry off. But just before they got out, a woman got out who was just wearing a bathing suit. And the reporter said, How much smarter she is because it'll dry right off and she won't be cold very long. And they were right, you know, but Well, that's the difference between intelligent people and politicians sometimes, I guess. I don't know. Jody Hudson 11:01 My gosh, when my dad had a summer camp in Grand Haven, Michigan, and that brings me back to those memories that summertime with like the Polar Bear Plunge, we had that with the kiddos getting up early in the morning, like at six o'clock and going down. And if you if you did it every day, then you got like a special award. But yeah, I never did it. I watched my campers go in. But I'm like, Yeah, that's too cool for me. Michael Hingson 11:29 Yeah. But you know, it's part of our country. And it's always fun to go to, to different places. And of course, go into Chicago go always for me at least. There I'm sure better places. But I like to go to UNO's and get a nice good deep dish pizza to Jody Hudson 11:46 deep dish pizza. And it's a fun place to be in Chicago on St. Patty's day too. So Oh, yeah. That's always a blast. Dine the river green and drinking green beer and all that good stuff. Yeah, Chicago. Chicago is a fun fun city. Michael Hingson 12:02 Yeah. Memories will tell us about California casa a little bit. So you've been doing that for now? What two or three years? Yeah, Jody Hudson 12:10 for two years. And as the grants and philanthropy director, I helped to raise money not only for California, casa, but for our network. So California, CASA is the the parent, the umbrella so to speak, over the 44 Casa programs throughout the state of California. And we our initiatives, our mission, our you know, philanthropy, everything is in support of foster children. And there's 80,000 foster kids in the state of California. And what a casa does is they are that one person that link to help these kiddos to navigate through the court systems to be that voice for them, to help them where maybe they don't have a mom, dad and adult anybody to help guide them through life. And it can be transformational for these children to have a casa appointed, watching over them, it really makes a big difference. Michael Hingson 13:24 Do foster parents help with any of that? Or is this really kind of pre them or our in spite of them? Sometimes, Jody Hudson 13:31 you know what I mean, it's kind of done in conjunction with them as well as a CASA is a volunteer, they go through a training which I went through a training as well, just to kind of better understand what a CASA volunteer does, it's about a 3040 hour training commitment. Once you go through, you actually get sworn in as a casa and the in the court system. And then you are assigned a child and you could be assigned a child for maybe a year, two years, some people have had classes for, you know, even greater longer periods of time. It just depends upon, you know, the the cases. But it really is such a great meaningful program. And we definitely, you know, right now, we have probably 12,000 classes, but as I said earlier, there's 80,000 foster kids, you know, in the state of California, so there's definitely a gap. And that's what we try and do is you know, raise money raise funds to recruit classes, to train them to help the local network, you know, really pouring into the hearts of these foster kids. Michael Hingson 14:51 So are their centers that these people are based out of or how does it work? Jody Hudson 14:55 The classes themselves? They Yeah, so There's, you know, like I said, 44 class of programs throughout the state of California. So there's like a casa in Kern County, there's a casa and Fresno County. It's all, you know, based upon that the counties, each county is really supposed to have a CASA program. And, you know, there's what 51 counties, I think, in the state of California, so, yeah, 58 So we're, we're missing obviously, a couple of Casa programs, but each CASA program is you know, their own 501 C three, they, you know, raise their own funds money, they have their own board, executive directors, own staff, and we come alongside them to support them, and to give them you know, additional training, additional resources, and help where we can, we were lucky enough California casa, to be working with a lobbyist team who petitioned and we did receive a state appropriation in Governor Newsom budget for $60 million. And that is, you know, going to be funneled out to our Casa programs. However, as we know, the state of California is a little messed up right now with with budgets, and we only received the first wave of that $60 million, we received $20 million, and we were able to pump out that money to our network. But the other two bases are in jeopardy right now. And we are petitioning and trying to get that money back. So we will see Michael Hingson 16:39 is that because of the legislature in some way or what? Yeah, Jody Hudson 16:45 we are very grateful for what we did receive, and that was a blessing, we didn't even think that we were going to get that. And it really is to help our, our programs with infrastructure, it's to help them with, you know, recruiting, it's to help them just really build upon their their programs. So yeah, we're hopeful though, the, you know, legislators and other government officials and senators and people in the Capitol, they were not happy that our funding was was cut, because they really have become aware of our programs and the impact on the foster children. So we do have some really good people in our corner. So we'll, we'll see what happens. Michael Hingson 17:30 He cut it. Who cut the funding, if the governor had it in his budget, and so on what happened, Jody Hudson 17:37 it was in the legislative portion of the budget. So I don't know all the details. Yeah, in our inner workings of how all that happens. And, you know, with politics, things can be moved around, things can be cut, because maybe they're negotiating and looking for something else. Who knows what goes into all of those discussions. But like I said, we've got a lot of good champions and people in our corner, and it wasn't just cost of that was cut, there was a lot that was cut. So yeah, we're just hoping that we're gonna get that back. Michael Hingson 18:14 I remember. Now, a number of years ago, the national level, there was a major discussion about the government. And what it had been doing through what was called the Talking Book program, which later became the National Library Service of the Blind and Physically Handicapped. And they, the Congress decided that they wanted to cut a bunch of the funding. They said, we can get things from other ways. And one of the magazines that was produced under the program was playboy. And the Congress people's fee with a conservative said, Well, that's ridiculous to publish Playboy, that blind people can take advantage of all the pictures and stuff. And the answer to that was, that's correct. But go read Playboy read the articles, because there were there were many, well written articles. And mostly, they are really good articles in Playboy. The original story, the short story, the fly came out of Playboy among other things, and eventually it got dealt with, but people do get some very strange ideas about things from time to time, don't they? Jody Hudson 19:26 They sure do. And, you know, I've never seen a playboy, but I did hear that. There are some really great, great articles in there. So but yeah, so you know, well, we'll just have to kind of wait it out. I mean, we're so full speed ahead. And we are, you know, implementing what we can with the the funding that was awarded to us in our in our programs and and we're grateful for that. Michael Hingson 19:49 We are a 501 C three, right. So you do you obviously do a lot of soliciting outside of what the government provides. Jody Hudson 19:55 Oh, absolutely. I mean, we have, you know, government money. We've got you no private funding. So, yes, we have different pockets that we definitely, you know, reach out to. But, you know, from the pandemic, it's it's tough. Yeah, for for fundraising for nonprofits, I mean, everyone, you know, that was was losing out because they weren't able to have fundraising events and other things. And people were really tightening up their belt. So, yeah, well, we'll have to see how how things work out. But the nonprofit world is definitely definitely hurting. Michael Hingson 20:37 Yeah, and it's gonna be a process. Well, for you, though, what made you go into the whole idea of doing nonprofit stuff? So it's different than what you've done in the past? Jody Hudson 20:49 Oh, absolutely. Retail and nonprofit, very, very different. But Michael Hingson 20:54 although you, you can tribute it to the nonprofit of Marshall Field's with Franco mints, but that's okay. Jody Hudson 21:00 That's right. So, so I had my son in 93, I had my daughter and 95. And then I stayed home for for five years. And then when I was deciding to you know, get back into the workforce, one of my girlfriends, became a development director over at Catholic Charities, and she called me up. And she said that she was going to be starting this position at Catholic Charities, and she was going to be forming a women's Guild and that she wanted me to be on it, there was gonna be about 12 of us that were going to, you know, be the the pioneers of this Guild, and a common, you know, take a tour of the facility and see what I think, see what I thought so sad to say, I mean, I'm Catholic, but I had never heard of Catholic Charities before. So got my car went and down and opened up the doors, took a tour, I saw the clientele, I saw the people there that were, you know, waiting for services. And I just had this aha moment where this was where I was supposed to be, I was supposed to be giving back. I was supposed to be helping those, you know, less fortunate. And I told my girlfriend Kelly at that time, I said, Yes, I go, I want to be part of this guild. But even more importantly, I want to see if there's employment here, I would love to work at Catholic Charities. And as luck would have it, there was a position open. And it was for in the food pantry overseeing the food pantry. And check this out, overseeing the thrift store. Well, I think with my degree in retail, and working on Chanel boutique, I qualified to oversee the Catholic Charities thrift store. So the joke was always, you know, hidden, here's Jody from Rodeo Drive to Fulton Street, where Catholic Charities was and yeah, the price tags are just, you know, a couple of zeros off, but hey, she's, she can handle those. So, I fell in love with it. And it was so good as my kids were getting older, you know, to bring them to these, like food drive events, and, you know, the the farmers market that we would have, and they would see what the face of poverty looked like. And they fell in love with it. And you know, they were always there supporting my fundraising efforts. And and, you know, just supporting, giving back. So it was it was wonderful. It was really good. It must Michael Hingson 23:45 get pretty emotional. Because you see so many people who are facing challenges and so on. How are you able to just move forward and not take it so emotionally personal, if you will? Jody Hudson 23:59 You know, that's an excellent question. And it was very hard for me in the beginning, I wanted to take home these children that I saw, I wanted to fix everything I wanted to be the Savior. I wanted to be the knight in shining armor and I realized that I couldn't do it right. I mean, there I was limited in what I could do, but I could go out and raise money so that the pantry would be full of food so these families could eat so these families could you know go into the thrift store and purchase clothing or be given clothing, clothing and hygiene every so often so I can I can do you know what I can do in my in my wheelhouse. But you're right, it was tough. The first six months, I took it home with me there was no separation of my work and my life. But it just became more of a driving force for me in my job, more motivation to really get out there. and get the community involved with our mission and what we were doing. And even though the names of Catholic Charities, we never asked what people's religion was, hey, if you have a need, then we're going to be there. And we're going to meet that need. Michael Hingson 25:18 Yeah. And it's, it is a an issue and a challenge for, for I know a number of people to get beyond the being so emotionally involved that you can't separate it, while at the same time developing a greater empathy. And I in fact, I think it's, it makes sense to develop the empathy and the understanding. But you can't take it personally because you didn't cause it all. And all you can do is try to work to fix it. Jody Hudson 25:45 Right? And, you know, I said about my children going down there and being exposed to that, to this day, my my son, he'll tell me, Mom, he goes, it's a blessing and a curse, this empathy that has been passed on to me because he wants to be now that fixer, and he wants to, you know, when people come to him and share their problems, I mean, he wants to, you know, help them and he's going through that process right now realizing that he can't fix everyone's problems, right? He can, he can only do so much. But yeah, it's definitely tough. What does he do? So he used to work at Merrill Lynch. He graduated from ASU in 2008. Teen got a job right out of college, I mean, super smart, young man. And he worked at Merrill Lynch for over a year. And that just wasn't him. Like I said, he has that empathy, that very sensitive heart. And we also had a, you know, family crisis during that time. And I'll get into that later. But he just really, and then we had, you know, the pandemic hits. So he left Arizona, came home to Fresno to try and figure out what it was that he wanted to do. And now he's been with his current job for over a year. And really, really excelling in it and doing well. And I think he has found his niche. And he works for this organization called behavioral stars. And they are assigned troubled children from the school system. And he meets with these kids one on one, he has about 12 kids right now in his caseload, and he really tries to work with them on behavior modification, trying to work with them on just, you know, being a positive influence in their lives, because so many of these kids come from such troubled homes that they don't have that. And so Garrett is kind of trying to fill that void. And he's done very, very well, just this morning, he sent me over a text and he had to present to his team on some like motivational, inspirational messages. And it was like a 2030 minute presentation. And I love the two YouTube clips that he shared, and one of them spoke about how, you know, you can't let your past you know, dictate what you're doing today. It's like the overcoming and, you know, we're all going to have challenges, but how it's how you rise above from it. And I love it, because as he is administering to these kids, and helping them with their life challenges is also healing for him. Michael Hingson 28:44 And it's clear, you've passed on a wonderful legacy that that he is taking advantage of, and he'll he'll expand out and I suspect, Jody Hudson 28:58 Oh, absolutely. And, you know, I wrote a book, and I keep telling my son, I go get, your story is going to be even far greater than mine. And I can't wait to read your book one of these days, because it's going to be so inspirational with everything that you have gone through. I mean, I'm just really, really proud of him for climbing Klein, and just, you know, making it happen. Michael Hingson 29:25 Well, we've talked about Garrett, and we should get to Alex, I know you want to talk about all of that. So you said that Alex was born in 1995. Correct. And, and a lot of things have happened. So tell us a little bit about Alex, if you will. Jody Hudson 29:42 Sure. So Alex was supposed to be a Christmas baby. Her original due date was December 25. But she came a little bit early and she was just a sweet, sweet baby. She and her first five years I mean just a very sweet, shy, innocent little girl. And then she discovered sports and the tomboy in her really came out along with the the big brother that was right by her side helping her. So she was very active. She played soccer, she played softball, she ran track, she did cheerleading, volleyball, you name it, and she was very, she was a very good scholar to her brother definitely had more of the smarts. But he didn't apply himself out, worked much, much harder for her grades, and did very well with that. And then in the fifth grade, she started developing joint pain, inflammation, and we thought it was all related to her sports. And that's what the doctors thought as well that she was just an overworked you know, athlete. And so she would suck it up. She would like tape up her legs, ankles, do the ibuprofen. Well, that went on for several years, and nothing really changed. In fact, it just kept getting worse. To the point where her freshman year in high school, she was playing basketball running on the court, and her knees ballooned up to be like the size of grapefruit. And she dropped to the ground. And she was carried off by her teammates and coach. And they ran some X rays. And they discovered that she needed to have knee surgery that she had some issues with with her knees. So she had one knee surgery done on her right knee and they said if that took and did well, and it was successful, then they would do the left knee. Well, it didn't help but it didn't change anything. So basically from her freshman year in high school on Chica never run again. She it was the beginning of the the end for her because she couldn't play sports any longer. Everything that she had identified with was gone. And in high school, that's especially hard when you lose your your peer group. And so she really went through a dark period for a while only had maybe a friend or two, started losing weight started developing digestive issues. Then we, you know, started thinking, well, maybe he's got anorexia or an eating disorder. I mean, we just really went through hell and back. And she graduated from high school went to a junior college because we were still trying to figure out what was going on with her health. And she did well at junior college and applied to several colleges and ended up getting a full ride at UCLA. But she wasn't able to carry that out because she was losing weight. And she was down to about 87 pounds. And we were going from doctor to doctor probably 40 Plus doctors, and Alex on her own just by going on the internet, found this doctor down in LA who specialized in digestive issues. And she said mom goes I think I found a doctor that might be able to help me. And at that point, I'm like, Sure. What's what's another doctor? I mean, we we've been, you know, striking out with all of our local doctors and everybody at this point, just that she and I both were crazy, right? Because they would run tests and they couldn't find anything wrong with her. So we got in the car went down to LA. And within a half hour of talking with this doctor, he asked me Mrs. Hudson, has anybody test tested Alex for Lyme disease. And I innocently said, What is Lyme disease. And then he told me what it was and this was in 2017. And I'd really had never heard about it. And here I am from Michigan, you know, thinking that maybe I would have heard about it growing up. But we consented to her getting tested for Lyme disease and a couple of weeks later, sure enough, came back with a diagnosis that she she had Lyme disease. So now test, what's the test the test. If you go to a regular doctor, most of them are still testing with an outdated western blot test, which will give you false reads on it. This doctor was smart enough to have outs tested through iGenex and iGenex is out San Jose area. And they are very detailed. I mean, it's everyone sends people to iGenex just to because they know that testing that's part of the problem with Lyme disease. testing can be so. So what's the word I'm looking for? Not not reliable, inaccurate, inaccurate? Yeah. So tested her with the iGenex. And that's what it came back with. So in that moment, you know, I had to first of all, as a parent, figure out what this diagnosis was. And then second of all, how do I treat it, because I'm disease, you just can't go to any doctors, so many of them don't know about Lyme disease and how to treat it. And therein lies the problem trying to find proper doctors that know about this disease. And also, you know, the the treatment, because it's not like cancer, where there's a tried and true path. With Lyme disease. It's almost like, here's your buffet, you can do antibiotics, you can do this, you can do that. Or maybe you can do a combination. And it's a trial and error. But Alex didn't have have time to go through a trial and error. You know, she was at 80 pounds and 2017, down to a handful of foods that she could eat without reacting. And I had to get her better quick, like, Michael Hingson 36:17 do you before going on? Do you have any sense of how she got Lyme disease? Jody Hudson 36:25 No. And that's the thing. 35% of people that get Lyme disease will have what's called the classic bullseye rash, where it's a circular little red ring on your body of the point of impact where people are a bit, the majority of people don't know they have Lyme disease, until maybe they've been sick for a while. And by then it's hard to treat, because it's you know, once it gets into your bloodstream, and in your system, it can wreak havoc on every part of your organ. I mean, people have died from Lyme disease, because of, of, you know, getting into their heart, people have died from it from, you know, getting into their brain. It's, it's really quite horrific. And I mean, that can be adopted at this point from everything that I had to get schooled on real quick like in 2017. Till she passed away in 2018. But yeah, the majority of people when when you first have Lyme symptoms, it's like a summer flu. So you, you know, might have just being you know, feeling lethargic, joint pain, inflammation. And it's not until other symptoms appear when it can really become quite critical, like an Alex's case where it affected her whole digestive system. Michael Hingson 37:53 You How did you how did you end up handling it? What did you do, because you certainly had to do something in a hurry. Jody Hudson 38:01 So what I did was, you know, social media can work for you or against you. And in this situation, it definitely worked for me two things happen once I got Alex's diagnosis. Interestingly enough, she was diagnosed in May, which may is Lyme Disease Awareness Month, and our local TV station, KC 24 had just done a episode a segment on Lyme disease. And I knew these people very well through all of my fundraising efforts at Catholic Charities. So I called them up and said, Hey, you guys just did a episode. You guys just did an episode on on Lyme disease. My daughter has just been diagnosed with Lyme disease. I need to know these three women that you spoke with because I need to find out how to treat my daughter. So that was number one. Number two, was I took to Facebook with Alex's consent. And I basically made a play saying, you know, my daughter has just been diagnosed with Lyme disease. I'm still trying to figure out what Lyme disease is. If anybody has any resources, know of any doctors locally, can put me in touch with people, please, you know, DM me, and you'd be surprised at how many people that I didn't realize had Lyme disease in the central valley that reached out to me. And Jessica Devine was one of them that lived right in Clovis, a couple of you know, Fresno, who had been diagnosed with Lyme disease had been battling it for a couple years. And she gave us the name of her doctor in Pismo Beach, and that's where we started. So it definitely helped by, you know, getting the message out there. And when you're a parent, parent and your child is struggling and you need answers, you do what it takes. aches. Right? Michael Hingson 40:00 Right. So you reached out to that doctor. Jody Hudson 40:04 So we reached out to that doctor. And then at the same time, we googled best Lyme facilities, best line treatment, because, you know, I'm a mama bear. I single mom at that time, Alex's dad wasn't in the picture at all, financially, emotionally, any of that. And I was working parents. And I thought, Okay, I need to tackle this, right. I'm going to roll up my sleeves, we've got a diagnosis, we're gonna get the doctor treatment, she's going to be better in a couple of months time, I was so naive. I had no idea what I was facing. And so we had this appointment with, you know, this doctor in Pismo in June. So Alex had been diagnosed in May that this appointment for June. But then I started researching best Lyme clinics. Sofia Health Institute was one, there was a couple others and I basically got on the phone. And I begged and pleaded to get into these facilities. And insurance doesn't cover a lot of this. In fact, it didn't cover most of it. In a year's time, I spent over $100,000 Trying to get Alex better, I sold cars. I had people give me money. I mean, it was crazy what I did. But again, any of us would do that in our situation with a sick child. So we went to the doctor in Pismo, we also went to Sofia Health Institute. And with every doctor that we saw, it was a whole new protocol. Everybody, you know, had their own opinions. And it was just, it was just really tough. Like I said, you know, with cancer, it's tried and true. These are the treatments that you go through. But with Lyme disease, because there's so many different co infections. You have to figure out who you know what symptoms are the most troublesome, you start there, and it's like, okay, eliminate that. So that symptom, and then let's move on to the next. And that's what we were trying to do with Alice. But at the same time, she kept losing weight, and she couldn't be strong and healthy enough with her treatments. Because she was so malnourished, so it was just, it was a mess. Michael Hingson 42:35 And no matter what happened, nobody was able to come up with any solution that seemed to help. Jody Hudson 42:41 We had a team of about 12 doctors we had, because as I said, once Lyme disease is in your blood system, which for Alex, it had been since. You know, if you go back when her symptoms first started, which we thought was just that overworked athletic body. It was in fifth grade. Now here she is in college, right? So I mean, it'd been 10 years that this had been living in her her system. So she had cardiologists she had a gastro doctor. She had, you know, a doctor, the doctor in Pismo that was kind of like the the lead on this. But we had so many other people that we had to bring onto the team. And then not to mention, just she was in and out of hospitals, just trying to get IVs and other stuff in her system to keep her healthy. Michael Hingson 43:42 When did you get to the point where you realize that you weren't going to be able to fix her and how did you reconcile that? Jody Hudson 43:52 So May of 2017 She got the diagnosis by December after going through a whirlwind of in and out of hospitals, different doctors. I knew in December that I was losing her she was we just we couldn't get a leg up. And from June until December, we literally had gone cross country Now mind you, I was still trying to hold down a job at this time, right? So I was just going back and forth and people were giving me their their sick time and vacation time. And I was just trying to uncover anything that I could to get her her better. But we realized that not only did she have Lyme disease, she had something else called mast cell activation syndrome, which she basically was allergic to almost every type of food she was down to like four or five safe foods. She could eat. And I detail all this in my book because I mean, it could take hours and days to go into all of this because it's just such a crazy, crazy disease. But Michael Hingson 45:12 was that caused by the limes? Disease? Jody Hudson 45:15 Correct? Yeah. When your immune system is compromised, it creates havoc in your in your system. And so everything gets Miss wired. And her histamine levels, everything we're, we're off. So you know, her treatments, she would try and have different types of treatments. And her supplements things that normally she could take before now, it was as if it was an enemy entering, you know, a danger zone here, she would try and swallow these supplements and take her, you know, treatment. And her histamine levels would just start attacking, thinking that was, you know, something bad that was coming into her system. Just horrific the pain that she was going through, but it was December. And I remember, you asked me, How did I reconcile with this, I remember getting in my car, and just driving. And I pulled over and I found it on the dashboard. And I had the serious conversation with God. And I was in tears. And I basically said, listen, here's the deal. Like I'm telling God what to do, right? I said, here's the deal. I go, you either take her right now, because I can't deal with this anymore, or you heal her. But this purgatory is not working for me, I cannot do this any longer. And that says, you know, and so that's what he did a couple of months later. Michael Hingson 46:47 So you had so hard and I have some associations with Lyme disease in a different way. First of all, when I was living in New Jersey and the selling some products, I knew a couple guys who had accompany the turns out they they did have Lyme disease, it was apparently somewhat controlled, but they did have it. And I only know that because they told me but my fourth guide dog was bit by a tick relatively soon after we moved to New Jersey and we knew she was bitten we, we got the tick and we got it out of her and and the vet said there's nothing you know, we can do to analyze it or anything. And you know, as long as she's okay, she's okay. Well. One of the things I've learned about guide dogs is that they are and a lot of dogs, especially when there's a lot of love, and they want to please, they're incredibly stoic. We never detected any illness in her until May 1 of 1999 When I called her to dinner, and she didn't come and we found her on her bed, almost unresponsive. And through getting her to an emergency vet and then going elsewhere and so on. And finally meeting a woman who we regard as a very dear friend, although I haven't talked with her for a while Tracy Gillespie, who is in the University of Penn system. And working for emergency vet in Toms River, New Jersey, as I recall. She said Lynnae has glomerular nephritis. And it is morphed from Lyme disease. So she wouldn't keep the good stuff in her system, the kidneys would pass it out along with the bad stuff because the Lumeria went bad. So she had to retire. And we were able to keep her for three more years. But still, we we knew that there was was something there but it was just one of those things. So I appreciate all you are saying that's my closest brush, fortunately, or whatever with Lyme disease, but it's it is a very insidious thing. Jody Hudson 49:04 It really is and you know, that's can be carriers of Lyme disease and, you know, with with the ticks and that's why I always when I'm you know talking make make sure that I recognize that it's not just humans. I'm glad that you shared that story. I mean, it is, you know, as we do tick checks from head to toe on our body, we need to do that as our animals come in from the outside because they are just as susceptible to it as as we are. Michael Hingson 49:38 Well I'm being a guide dog. We kept a close eye on her so we found it right. Still it occurred. Well so. So Alex past, God listened to you and and did take her then what did you do? Jody Hudson 49:57 So, what I did was yes, she she passed on March 24. In fact, tomorrow's her five year anniversary, I cannot believe. Yeah, I can't believe it's been five years and some aspects of it, I feel like it was just five, five minutes, five days and other times. So I feel like maybe it's been longer. But she and I were very close, we were just with everything that I'd gone through being divorced. And being a single mom, I mean, the mother daughter bond is very strong. To begin with, and ours was especially strong just with our our life experiences and challenges. And when Alex was, I mean, she was bedridden for for several months before she passed away. And she was always so positive. And she kept, you know, thinking that she was going to be this Lyme warrior, she was going to, you know, get to UCLA, finish that degree and start her own nine nonprofit. And when we knew that, God, you know, had other plans for her, I made a pact with her and said that I was going to basically carry her torch for her. And so after she passed, money started just flooding in. There was a GoFundMe account that someone had set up for me and I started receiving quite a bit of money. And I knew that was going to be my my seed money to start the outsets in line Foundation. And here again, I was working for a nonprofit, I was still working at Catholic Charities. And I thought, Okay, I'm gonna, you know, petition, I'll get someone to help me to, you know, see what that looks like. And, you know, people have told me, it's going to take about a year to get a nonprofit up and running. So that okay, good, that will give me time to adjust and make the transition. Well, I received status that I had been awarded 501, C, three for the outsets, in line foundation in 30 days. And in my classic CPA, comment, my CPA when I got the letter, I said, Okay, roll in, tell me that this is like a joke. Like, this isn't true, right? Like, I really didn't get this approved so quickly. And he said, God, sometimes the good Lord does things that there are no explanations for Congratulations. You have a 501 C three. Yeah. And so yeah, we were up and running in June, we started our first fundraiser, we were able to work with global Lyme Alliance and do a research grant with them, we were able to award some financial grants to lyme patients. So we, you know, we're doing everything according to Alex's wishes, and five years later, we're still doing that. So it definitely, like I said, before this mother daughter bond, I know I'm not doing it alone, I know that she, you know, is helping me every step of the way. And you wrote a book. And I wrote a book. And that was something that I did not expect at all, like I am a business woman, I write reports. I don't journal I don't write for fun. But this was something that was just laid on my heart. And I was a member of the Fresno State book club. And there was a gallon there who had just written a book, and I started talking to her. And I said, you know, I feel like I need to get this stuff out of my head and onto print. Because just as I'm chatting with you, there's so much that people didn't realize of the journey that Alex and I went on, especially that last year, even my closest group of friends, you know, when they read my book, they're like, God, God, we just didn't realize everything that you had gone through, we thought we did. And I said, No, I, I feel bad. I wasn't able to catch everybody up on this, I said that I was running so fast to get my daughter better, that I didn't have time to bring my team along with me. So this book was written for so many different reasons. Just to let people know how amazing my daughter was and what she went through, also to, you know, give people hope, inspiration. And also just to, you know, give validity to this horrible disease that so many people's still in the medical community don't recognize, or, you know, give it such a stigma. So the book came out. Last February, I self published it and Uh, you know, it's, it's done pretty well, I mean, I've received over 100 plus five star reviews on Amazon, which, to me, if I just, you know, was able to impact one or two people at that, wow, that would be great, you know, people would really understand what I'm trying to convey. But you know, just the, the impact, and what I'm getting back from it that people, you know, write to me or call me. It's just so overwhelming, you know, and for them to appreciate my daughter and love my daughter, with what she went through, it's pretty, pretty touching. Michael Hingson 55:42 What a blessing. Well, tell me, what would you like people to take away from listening to you today. Jody Hudson 55:51 So what I want people to take away from listening to meet today is, no matter what challenges you have going on in life, it's how you show up that people are going to remember. And for me, in that moment, when Alex passed away, it could have been so easy just to throw the covers over my head, and give up and be, you know, this grief girl, but I didn't want to be defined by that I wanted to, you know, have people look at me, and be that example, for others be that example for my son, be that example for my friends, that no matter what I had gone through, that I can still show up every day, and that there's still like to be lived. And to do that, also, you know, in honor of my daughter, right, with everything that she went through, how could I just lay it in bet. And I mean, she's suffered far greater than, than I did, and, and I just, I couldn't do that. So I needed to make some, you know, purpose out of what she went through. And that's what I'm I'm trying to do and I'm trying to accomplish? Michael Hingson 57:05 Well, how can people reach out to you and communicate, correspond or learn more? And Jody Hudson 57:11 yeah, so we have a website alexhudsonlymefoundation, website, www dot alexhudsonlymefoundation.org, there's ways that you can get a hold of me on the website, you can also go into Amazon, and look for my book, my promise to Alex written by me, Jody Hudson, I would love it if you know, people would, you know, by the, by the book, and, you know, support me through that, because all the proceeds from that book, go right back into the foundation. And, you know, if people are out there, struggling right now with, you know, medical mysteries, you know, check out Lyme disease, check out and see maybe if that's something that you might have in the doctors just haven't been able to diagnose. You know, be your own advocate, never, never give up. And that's one of the things that Alex and I never did, no matter how many times that door was slammed in our faces from the medical community. We still kept opening it up and trying to get to answers. Michael Hingson 58:22 Never giving up is extremely important. We do it all too quickly. And we, we don't realize that we can do a lot more than we think we can. Jody Hudson 58:33 Amen. Amen. You don't know you know how strong you need to be until you are in those moments where strength is all you got? 58:42 Well, I want to thank you, Jody, for being with us today. And for telling your story and having the courage to do it and to continue doing, what you're doing and anything that we can do to help through this podcast and so on, please let me know. And we met through accessibility, which I'm really happy about. And I appreciate your desire to help in dealing with inclusion and website accessibility but more important, anything that we can do to continue to promote what you're doing. We're in so I want to thank you for that. And I want to thank you for listening to us. We really appreciate it reach out to Alex through Jodi reach out to Jodi especially and Alex will know and we want to hear from you please email me at Michaelhi at accessibe.com. Accessibe is A C C E S S I B E.com. Or go to www dot Michael hingson h i n g s o n.com/podcast. Please give us a five star rating wherever you're listening and like especially if you're on iTunes, please give us a five star rating. Those tend to show up a lot and we appreciate it. But Jody most of all, once more. I want to thank you for being here and for not only inspiring us but I hope educating a lot of people about Lyme disease and just being stronger and more unstoppable than we think. Jody Hudson 1:00:00 Thank you so much for having me and listening to my story and Alex's story It really means a lot to me Michael Hingson 1:00:11
On this episode of Change Makers, we are talking to the Talking Book Narrators. Learn about the history of Talking Books, and hear from two well-known Narrators.On this Episode (In Order of Appearance)Sara Brown, APH Public Relations ManagerMaggie Davis, APH Studio DirectorMicheal Hudson, APH Museum DirectorJack Fox, APH NarratorJill Fox, APH NarratorAdditional LinksSmith and Other Events Tales of the Choctaw NationMaisie Dobbs
Acts 5:40-42, "...they did not cease teaching and preaching that the Christ is Jesus."On the line with us is the legendary Luke Norris. We talk about the book of Acts and the Christian church is America.
To get live links to the music we play and resources we offer, visit www.WOSPodcast.comThis show includes the following songs:Midnight Rose - Shine FOLLOW ON SPOTIFYCassidy Ladden, writer Marvin Conan - Ode To Ali FOLLOW ON SPOTIFYTalking Book feat. Jared - Free The Feeling FOLLOW ON SPOTIFYKaren Harding - Strong For You FOLLOW ON SPOTIFYCarissa Summer Rose - Blacktop FOLLOW ON SPOTIFYBelieve Over Hope - Champion of Me FOLLOW ON SPOTIFYmPHATic - Freedom Calling FOLLOW ON SPOTIFYJulie Burton, writer Bobby Caputo - What Did I Miss FOLLOW ON SPOTIFYThe Ipsan Project - Where Our Love Is FOLLOW ON SPOTIFYMayela - No Vamo A Dormi FOLLOW ON SPOTIFYFor Music Biz Resources Visit www.FEMusician.com and www.ProfitableMusician.comVisit our Sponsor Robert Donovan at threevisionspublishing.comVisit our Sponsor Lynda Dobbin Turner at lyndadobbinturner.caVisit our Sponsor 39 Sources of Income at profitablemusician.com/incomeVisit our Sponsor Bandzoogle at: http://www.bandzoogle.comVisit www.wosradio.com for more details and to submit music to our review board for consideration.Visit our resources for Indie Artists: https://www.wosradio.com/resources
Back when we were a newspaper-reading country, there was the morning edition paper and the evening edition paper. The day's stories were always a big topic of conversation. But if you were blind or visually impaired, newspapers were not immediately accessible—until Radio Talking Book. Joseph Papke is the supervisor of the organization in St. Paul, and he joined MPR News host Cathy Wurzer to talk about the birth of the essential service. Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation. Subscribe to the Minnesota Now podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. We attempt to make transcripts for Minnesota Now available the next business day after a broadcast. When ready they will appear here.
In this episode, we're joined by Dot and Lindsay from the Inside My Favorite Manuscript podcast! Dot and Lindsay are book historians and nerds, and they'll be sharing their knowledge and insights on the world of medieval manuscripts and how you can incorporate them into your Pathfinder or D&D game. From the history and creation of these beautiful texts to the modern-day scholarship surrounding them, this is an episode not to be missed for any book lovers or history buffs. Check out Inside My Favorite Manuscript for yourself here. Join our discord community! Support us on patreon! Check out our merch! Socials: Website Twitter Instagram Citations & References: Dot's Coffee with a Codex videos are here. Brandon Hawk's episode on IMFM is here. The Luttrel Psalter film is here. Send us your feedback online: https://pinecast.com/feedback/the-maniculum-podcast/e80d14f2-b148-4b78-9503-910ee20b8286
In today's episode we welcome back Kristina Garner of Blossom and Root to talk about her Book Seeds. We were so excited to share this time with her and we know you'll love it. Support The Podcast If you like what you hear, consider supporting the podcast: https://homeschooltogether.gumroad.com/l/support Consider Leaving Us A Review If you have a quick moment please consider leaving a review on iTunes - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/homeschool-together-podcast/id1526685583 Show Notes Blossom and Root - https://blossomandroot.com/ Book Seeds - https://blossomandroot.com/book-seeds/ Kristina Garner of Blossom and Root - https://homeschooltogether.fireside.fm/107 Connect with us Website: http://www.homeschool-together.com/ Store: https://gumroad.com/homeschooltogether Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/homeschooltogether Facebook: www.facebook.com/groups/homeschooltogetherpodcast/ Instagram: www.instagram.com/homeschooltogetherpodcast Twitter: https://twitter.com/hs_together The Gameschool Co-Op: https://www.facebook.com/groups/gameschoolcoop/ Email: homeschooltogetherpodcast@gmail.com
I've been playing a lot of Santana lately, and do it again to open this week's episode. Also of note is new music from M.O.M trio, Emmet Cohen, Noah Baerman and more. Also a nod to Stevie Wonder and the 50th anniversary of Talking Book. Playlist Artist ~ Name ~ Album Santana ~ Mother Africa ~ Welcome Louis Moutin, Jowee Omicil & François Moutin ~ Fly with the Wind ~ M.O.M McCoy Tyner ~ Salvadore De Samba ~ Fly With The Wind David Borgo ~ Liberosis ~ Suite of Uncommon Sorrows Emmet Cohen ~ Braggin' in Brass ~ Uptown in Orbit Noah Baerman & Henry Lugo ~ Creepin' ~ Alter Ego Stevie Wonder ~ You've Got It Bad Girl ~ Talking Book Peter Sprague ~ Life Loves Lone Jack ~ Peter Sprague Plays Pat Metheny, Vol. 1
What albums turn 50 in 2022? What are some of 1972's best albums?Here are some of the topics that we go over in this episode: Was Stevie Wonder's "Music of My Mind" overshadowed by "Talking Book"?Did Steely Dan's "Can't Buy a Thrill" set the foundation for "yacht rock"?Was the "K. West" sign on the cover of "Ziggy Stardust" David Bowie's allusion to Kanye West?Did Toploader do "Dancing in the Moonlight" better than King Harvest?
A conversation about the singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist's studio innovations, and melding of social consciousness and musical creativity. Guest: Jon Pareles.
Come celebrate “Talking Book's” 50th birthday! Come discover our favorite Hidden Tracks! And more than anything, come mourn Adam's catalytic converter. DBL! And of course you can enjoy all today's tunes on our custom-built Apple Music playlist: https://music.apple.com/us/playlist/dbl-ep-34-playlist/pl.u-e98lol5CZEbb Email: dadbandland@gmail.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/dadbandland Insta: https://instagram.com/dadbandland FB: https://www.facebook.com/dadbandland Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The word 'reading' may appear to describe something specific and universal, but in reality it's more of an umbrella term, covering a huge range of ways in which people interact with text. Dyslexia and hyperlexia may be two of the more obvious departures from normative ideas of reading, but whether we're neurodivergent or not we all read in different ways that can vary significantly depending on what we're reading and why we're reading it. Matthew Sweet is joined by Matt Rubery, Louise Creechan and poets Debris Stevenson and Anthony Anaxagorou. Matt Rubery, Professor of Modern Literature at Queen Mary, University of London has worked on books including The Untold Story of the Talking Book; Audiobooks, Literature, and Sound Studies, Further Reading and Reader's Block: A History of Reading Differences. You can hear more from him in an episode about the history of publishing called Whose Book is it Anyway? https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b080xzm6 Dr Louise Creechan is studying is a Lecturer in Literary Medical Humanities at Durham University and a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to showcase academic research. You can hear her discuss Dickens' Bleak House in an episode called Teaching and Inspiration https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00169jh Debris Stevenson describes herself as 'Dyslexic educator, Grime-poet and Dancehall raving social activist'. Anthony Anaxagorou's latest collection of poetry is Heritage Aesthetics, published on 3rd November 2022. Free Thinking has a playlist featuring discussions about prose and poetry https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p047v6vh The theme of this year's National Poetry Day is the Environment and you can hear Radio 3's weekly curation of readings and music inspired by that topic on Sunday at 5.30pm and then on BBC Sounds for 28 days https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006x35f Producer: Torquil MacLeod.
Twitter: @podgaverockInsta: @podgaverockSpecial Guest Host: Jeff GrossStevie Wonder “I Believe (When I Fall In Love It Will Be Forever)” from the 1972 album "Talking Book" released onTamla. Written by Stevie Wonder and Yvonne Wright and produced by Stevie Wonder and Malcolm Cecil and Robert Margouleff.Personel:Stevie Wonder – lead vocal, background vocal, piano, Hohner Clavinet, drums, Moog bassCover:Performed by Josh BondIntro Music:"Shithouse" 2010 release from "A Collection of Songs for the Kings". Written by Josh Bond. Produced by Frank Charlton.Other Artists Mentioned:The Beatles "Help"Father John MistyMichael McDonald
Twitter: @podgaverockInsta: @podgaverockSpecial Guest Host: Jeff GrossStevie Wonder “I Believe (When I Fall In Love It Will Be Forever)” from the 1972 album "Talking Book" released onTamla. Written by Stevie Wonder and Yvonne Wright and produced by Stevie Wonder and Malcolm Cecil and Robert Margouleff.Personel:Stevie Wonder – lead vocal, background vocal, piano, Hohner Clavinet, drums, Moog bassCover:Performed by Josh BondIntro Music:"Shithouse" 2010 release from "A Collection of Songs for the Kings". Written by Josh Bond. Produced by Frank Charlton.Other Artists Mentioned:Motley CrueDef Leppard “Pour Some Sugar On Me”Def Leppard “Love Hurts”Def Leppard “Photograph”Green Day “American Idiot”Green Day “Jesus of Suberbia”AerosmithSteven TylerJoe PerryThe BeatlesBob DylanThe Grateful DeadPhish “Wading in the Velvet Sea”Paul SimonIron and WineThe Avett BrothersOutkastKendrick LamarMariah CareyAdeleIan AndersonRadiohead “Kid A”Radiohead “Amnesiac”Radiohead “In Rainbows”HamiltonHigh FidelityStevie Wonder “Blame It On the Sun”Stevie Wonder “Superstition”Stevie Wonder “Maybe Your Baby”Father John MistyBob MoogThe Jazz CourtiersStevie Wonder “You Are the Sunshine of My Life”Dolly PartonELOBoys 2 MenGeorge MichaelRichard MarxBilly PrestonMarvin GayeShuggie Otis “Strawberry Letter 23”Stevie Wonder “Innervisions”Stevie Wonder “Fulfilling His First Finale”Paul Simon “Still Crazy After All These Years”Stevie Wonder “Songs in the Key of Life”Stevie Wonder “I Just Called to Say I Love You”Art GarfunkelFasther John MistyJosh GrobanGeorge MichaelPeter FramptonMichael McDonaldJohn LegendMacy GrayD'Vine JoyStephen Reed Williams
In Episode 64 of Book Talk, Etc. Tina and Renee are joined by popular Bookstagrammer Dennis from Scaredstraightreads. They share what they've been loving lately, their latest reads, shelf additions, and have book talk about the world of book influencing **If you enjoy the podcast, please consider supporting us on Patreon ! We bonus episodes including: Books we DNFed, Books We Disagreed On, What's in the Mailbag, Second Year Spoiler Author Chat, + our ALL NEW CRIMINALLY BOOKED! Plus, we host fun Zoom events like Mood Reader Happy Hour +Book Talk Book Club, a private Facebook group & our NEW DISCORD where you can interact with other patrons for just $5 a month! Perfect Days | Raphael Montes Best Day Ever |Kaira Rouda The It Girl |Ruth Ware In My Dreams I Hold a Knife | Ashley Winstead 5:50 Loving Lately Ultimate Girls Trip: The Ex-Wives Club (D) The Resident Evil- tv (D) Uncoupled- Tv (D) 7:45 Buxom Full-On™ Plumping Lip Polish Gloss (R- shade Gabby) Fenty Gloss Bomb Mask Skincare 10:23 Pango Books (T) Tina's Pango Shop13:00 Book Talk Chelsea @suspensethrill on Goodreads Latest Reads 35:45 When We Were Bright and Beautiful |Jillian Medoff (D) 36:10 Look Closer | David Ellis (D)