The Fonz...and Beyond~Henry Winkler

From Emmy-award winning actor, author, comedian, producer, and director Henry Winkler, a deeply thoughtful memoir of the lifelong effects of stardom and the struggle to become whole.

Henry Winkler, launched into prominence as “The Fonz” in the beloved Happy Days, has transcended the role that made him who he is. Brilliant, funny, and widely-regarded as the nicest man in Hollywood (though he would be the first to tell you that it’s simply not the case, he’s really just grateful to be here), Henry shares in this achingly vulnerable memoir the disheartening truth of his childhood, the difficulties of a life with severe dyslexia, the pressures of a role that takes on a life of its own, and the path forward once your wildest dream seems behind you.

Since the glorious era of Happy Days fame, Henry has endeared himself to a new generation with roles in such adored shows as Arrested Development, Parks and Recreation, and Barry, where he’s been revealed as an actor with immense depth and pathos, a departure from the period of his life when he was so distinctly typecast as The Fonz, he could hardly find work.

Filled with profound heart, charm, and self-deprecating humor, Being Henry is a memoir about so much more than a life in Hollywood and the curse of stardom. It is a meaningful testament to the power of sharing truth and kindness and of finding fulfillment within yourself.

@hwinkler4real

Who I Am (Part 2)

Melissa Bourbon @MBourbonWArcher

National Best Selling Author

Part 1 April 30, 2020

I wanted to write a book. A character was born, then her family, then the mystery and premise of the book.


I wanted to have that book published and pursue a new career, although I never had expectations of bestseller dom. I joined a writing organization, learned to hone my craft, found an agent, then another agent, and voila, a short 3 years later, the book found a home and became a series. That became the Lola Cruz mystery series. Lola is a novice PI in Sacramento. I like to say she’s my alter ego if I were a sassy, smart, Latina Private Eye.


My next series was a cozy mystery that is set in Texas, in a small fictional town called Bliss. The Magical Dressmaking mystery series helped me hit my first bestsellers list. With Harlow Cassidy, who is a descendent of Butch Cassidy (with my alternate ending to his life), I finally felt like I was on my way.


I then moved on to another cozy series. This one is a bread shop mystery series set in a central California coastal town called Santa Sofia (named after my daughter). Ivy is an apprentice to Olaya Solis, who owns Yeast of Eden. I love the punny titles in this series. The Walking Bread and Flour in the Attic are my favorites! Dough or Die releases in August, and I’m currently working on book six in this series, Murder Gone a-Rye. With two more books currently contracted, there will be lots more murder and mayhem in this beach town.


I wanted to venture into Indy publishing. This led me to write two romantic suspense books (based on Mexican legends) and one light paranormal romance. They recently released and I’m so thrilled that they are in the world. I’m very proud of these books.


Next up is a new venture. The Book Magic series will have a companion set of books written by my good friend Wendy Lyn Watson. Cora, the heroine of the Death series by Wendy, takes place on the Oregon coast, while her cousin Pippin’s world in the Murder books is in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. I’m so excited about this series.


My writing world has expanded over the years, growing with me as I’ve moved across the country. From California, to Texas, to Colorado, and now finally settled in North Carolina, I’m writing exactly what I want to be writing, and living the writing life I only dreamed of fifteen years ago. 

Melissa Bourbon Ramirez is the national bestselling author of more than twenty mystery books.

She is a former middle school English teacher who gave up the classroom in order to live in her imagination full time. Melissa, a California native who has lived in Texas and Colorado, now calls the southeast home. She hikes, practices yoga, cooks, and is slowly but surely discovering all the great restaurants in the Carolinas. Since four of her five amazing kids are living their lives, scattered throughout the country, her dogs, Bean, the pug, Dobby, the chug, and Jasper, a cattle dog/lab keep her company while she writes. Melissa lives in North Carolina with her educator husband, Carlos, and their youngest son. She is beyond fortunate to be living the life of her dreams.

My website: http://melissabourbon.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MelissaBourbonWinnieArcherBooks

Online Book Club (The Book Warriors): https://www.facebook.com/groups/BookWarriors

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/melissabourbonbooks/

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/MelissaBourbonBooks/

Who I Am (Part 1)

Melissa Bourbon     @MBourbonWArcher

Over the years, I’ve sometimes wondered how I kept my head afloat on any given day. My husband has always had an intense job with long hours. I have been writing since 1994, or so, but my first book wasn’t published until 2008. I’ve also have taught middle school English for years and years. And I’m a mom, which, as so many of you know, is a full-time job all by itself.


My mother is always telling me to slow down, relax, don’t take on so much, etc. But I think it’s in my nature to keep busy. As Lucille Ball said, “If you want something done, ask a busy person.”


I’m that busy person.


I rarely have time to waste, so I multitask expertly. TV time with the kids—or for myself with one of the awesome Netflix or Amazon original series? I’m also updating my website, or editing—my own work, or a freelance job, or helping my son with schoolwork, or brushing the dogs, or brainstorming for an article or new book. Or, of course, folding clothes. There are always clothes to fold.

Follow Your Dream (Part 2)

Larry B. Gildersleeve   @LarryBGAuthor
Christian and Inspirational

Part 2 (Part 1 April 21)

The familiarity of Bowling Green from my high school and university years easily enabled my home town to become the setting for all of my novels, either partially or entirely. Certainly not unique, many of my imaginary characters have a basis in people I’ve known over the years. One example. A character in my first two books is Kentucky’s Chief Justice. The character’s fabric is based upon my late father, who was not a lawyer, and my understanding of the work of a person in such a position came from our current chief justice who has been a friend since my college days.

Hearing Ann Patchett speak brought so much into focus for me. She said that while there is no one formula for success, worth considering is that most books are purchased and read by women. She went on to say that writing books about women, for women, with strong women characters not defined by nor dependent upon men, and a happy ending, would be worth considering. I didn’t just consider, I embraced all of it.

I know when I begin how my book will end, and work backward to create a chapter-by-chapter outline of the story and the arcs of my characters. My style has been carefully evolved into short, fast-paced, dialogue-driven chapters with page-turning endings to draw the reader onward to the next chapter. My first two books each had over fifteen named characters. My third and future novels will only have four or five.

I write in the Christian and Inspirational genres. Regarding story ideas, Follow Your Dreams was inspired by my lifelong commitment to journaling, and The Girl on the Bench touches upon the travesty and tragedy of human sex trafficking. The novel I’m currently writing has a character beset by early-onset Alzheimer’s, an illness that disproportionately plagues women over men.

I read once that “Vision without discipline is a just a dream.”

With that in mind, I discipline myself to invest substantial time and effort six days a week – writing, publishing and marketing. I’ve gone well beyond the 10,000 hours, and regard this pursuit as a journey, not a destination I’ll ever reach.

Now that I’m a thrice-published author, albeit self-published, my dream is to cross the threshold to become a legitimate bestselling author. As my female protagonist says in Follow Your Dreams:

“Dreams never come true for those who never dream.” 

Larry B. Gildersleeve is a father of two and grandfather of four who turned to writing after a four-decade career as a corporate executive. He lives in Bowling Green, Kentucky with Kathleen, his wife of 30 years. www.larrygildersleeve.com

Follow Your Dreams (Part 1)

Larry B. Gildersleeve   @LarryBGAuthor

Christian and Inspirational Fiction

There’s no way of knowing how many people dream of being a published author. What we do know is that relatively few invest the time and resources to see the dream through to fruition. That was almost me.

Compositions I wrote in high school English classes received A’s. I know because I saved them to inspire me to one day try to become a published author. My mother, the town’s librarian, encouraged me to pursue that dream after university graduation. I didn’t, succumbing instead to the lure of corporate America.

But over the years, as I moved from the East coast to the West, and travelled around the world, I filled journals with story ideas and character descriptions, saving them for the day when writing would become a priority in my life. It took almost forty-five years, and happened when I wound down my late-career entrepreneurial ventures and returned home from Seattle to Bowling Green, Kentucky. The lessened business demands, the slower pace of life and the welcoming feeling extended by new friends and old created an environment that sparked my desire to finally begin to write in earnest.

I didn’t just ease into a comfortable chair in front of a keyboard, rather I attacked my new profession with an all-in commitment. I had read it takes a minimum of 10,000 hours to become truly proficient, but not necessarily successful, at a new endeavor, be it a different career direction or playing golf. Or becoming a novelist.

I invested a lot of time and quite a bit of money studying my new craft. I purchased more “how to” books than I care to recall, and studied a variety of resources available online. I attended a few writing conferences and seminars, but departed more disappointed than fulfilled. The kindling to get the fire burning happened when, on a referral from an author friend in Seattle, I engaged a wonderful writing coach/editor in California – Lynda McDaniel – who was a successful author and journalist in her own right.

Lynda and I have never met. She taught me to write fiction through the exchange of countless iterations of the manuscripts for my first three novels, and she will be receiving the first draft of my fourth in June. Since I began in 2015, I’ve been creating my own MFA program in a Word document in which I record the best thinking and most useful guidance I’ve encountered about the craft of writing, and I will happily share it with anyone.

My first novel, Dancing Alone Without Music, came to life with KDP in 2016. The sequel, aptly named Follow Your Dreams, was a 2018 KDP release. Sales of both have been underwhelming because (I hope) I still haven’t figured out how to effectively market self-published books online. But I’m investing a lot of time trying to figure it out. My third novel, The Girl on the Bench, was published by Book Locker and released in late 2019.

Larry B. Gildersleeve is a father of two and grandfather of four who turned to writing after a four-decade career as a corporate executive. He lives in Bowling Green, Kentucky with Kathleen, his wife of 30 years. www.larrygildersleeve.com

A Novel Way to Promote Your Writing (Part 1)

Judith Nembhard   

A Passionate Fiction Writer    



Here’s a piece of writing advice: promote your book, but promote it slant (with apologies to Emily Dickinson), and the way to achieve this slanted book promotion is by doing a workshop. In our quest for tips on how to promote our books, we writers often pore over the pages of Writer’s Digest and other magazines on writing, read books such as Guerrilla Marketing for Writers, and attend writing conferences. From all of these sources, we often get information that is of interest, some of it actually useful. One promotional avenue that you may not have read about, however, is a workshop. You attend workshops to learn new techniques and to brush up on old ones. Well, how about giving a workshop yourself?

When Is It Time?

Chris Pepple    @ChrisPepple16

Award-winning author with six published books. She is also a freelance writer, manuscript consultant, and editor.

As a writer, I know that I’m not perfect. No one is. Unfortunately, very few of us can catch our own mistakes. After 20+ years as a writer and 10+ years as a freelance editor and manuscript consultant, you would think I wouldn’t need someone to look over my own manuscript. I do, though. I still make mistakes in grammar and even leave out words in a sentence at times. Computerized programs don’t always catch the types of mistakes I make. When I try to proofread my own work, I think I know what it says instead of seeing what I actually put down on paper. I always hope that others catch my mistakes before I go to press with an article, a poem, or a book.

Hardly working?

by Chris Pepple

As a published author, I am often amused by what some people think of the life of a writer. The funniest comment I remember came a few months ago when someone said, “I wish I had a talent that allowed me to have a job that I didn’t have to work hard at. I envy authors, musicians and painters.” This person assumed that because I had honed my talents as a writer, my career was now like a day in the park…no hard work involved. Same goes for anyone with creativity involved in their careers. It can look to others as if we sit back and let the creative juices flow, then let the world snap up our masterpieces. 

I guess my career is like a day in the park…a day camping in a National Park maybe. To make the trip successful for my family, I have to do a lot of work. I research parks before we ever leave home. Then I print maps with detailed directions. I save money for expenses, plan meals and set aside funds for souvenirs. Only then can I begin the hours of packing. Finally, I load the car and add plenty of books and games for the journey. Once we arrive, I unload, set up the tent and begin to prepare meals. Finally, I snap a few pictures to load on Facebook to let the world see what a glorious trip we enjoyed. 

That’s how I see my time as a lifelong writer. I planned for this journey before I had books in print. To hone my skills, I spent hours with a pencil and paper trying my hand at biographies, novels, short stories and poetry--searching for my style and my voice. I entered writing contests and valued feedback from writers and editors. (Dedication to my career as a writer means still seeking feedback along this journey.) I have packed my “travel bags” with contest entry forms, writers’ conference brochures, writing seminars and notes filled with suggestions to sharpen my skills. 

I write, edit, rewrite and even throw away quite a few pages. I research market trends and audience preferences. I check out other books written on my subject or in my same style. What other short story collections are out there? What Bible studies on this topic will I compete with? How are they priced and marketed? 

I finally “set up camp” before my audience, blogging and Tweeting to announce my latest book. I research opportunities to speak about my work, and I e-mail potential book buyers at all hours of the day and night. Only then can I snap my picture with my book cover and put it on an author’s page for friends to see the career I am enjoying. 

I don’t mind that my career looks easy to some people. That means I have written well, stayed true to my voice and provided a quality product for my intended audience. 

Chris Pepple is a freelance writer with three TCPRA awards for outstanding feature articles. Her articles have appeared in The New Social Worker, Tennessee Conservationist and other state and national publications. She has two published books: Look to See Me: A Collection of Reflections (2006) and Reflections on Suffering: Defining Our Crosses and Letting Go of Pain (2012). For more than four years, she served as the writer on staff at Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tenn. She received her Master of Divinity degree from Emory University. Chris is the mother of two daughters who delight her with their own faith, courage and love.