Author Presentations

After a long hiatus from giving in-person author presentations, I now have two speeches scheduled. I enjoy speaking to organizations such as Rotary, Kiwanis, Optimist as well as book clubs and other groups seeking speakers. Over the course of my writing career, I’ve come up with a new speech each time a book has been published. Since I only published one book during the pandemic, my current talk is titled “Lessons Learned During the Pandemic.” It features the variety of experiences both positive and negative I had over the last two years.

Relying on Electronic Devices

If nothing else, the pandemic demonstrated our reliance on electronic devices. I went from not knowing what Zoom was to using it every weekday as my grandson’s Zoom assistant for kindergarten. As we isolated and stayed home, more communications went electronic rather than in person. In our household, we also had a battle over the last six months to get our streaming service working. We spent many hours trying to diagnose streaming problems between our Internet provider, the TV, Roku, electronic connections in our house and phases of the moon. It would work, then die, then work for a while, then die again. Finally, the combination of our two sons and one grandson resolved the problem for us. It has been working for almost a month now Along the way my laptop started acting up, so I replaced it. My smartphone has a cracked screen, a battery that requires constant recharging and often thinks it’s in Gerlach, Nevada, instead of Lakewood, California. All part of the wonderful world of electronic devices.

Reading Patterns

Have your reading patterns changed over the years? For me, I read mainly thrillers for many years. Once I got hooked on writing at the age of 56, I began reading more mysteries because that was the genre I became interested in writing. Now I am going through a non-fiction phase. Although I’ve written one non-fiction book (the biography of a WWII veteran), my other 17 published books have been fiction. The book I most recently finished reading is Sapiens, A Brief History of Mankind by Yuval Noah Harari. I highly recommend it as an insightful analysis of the history of humans, which also poses interesting questions about our future.

Ways to Read Books

I’ve always enjoyed having a print book in my hands to read. I’ll occasionally read in e-book format, but since I’m on devices enough, I still prefer print editions. Back when I was driving by myself a great deal, I always listened to an audio book. Lately, I haven’t been driving by myself much, mainly taking my wife and grandson places so this habit has fallen away. How do you prefer to read books?

Family Gathering

For the first time in over 2 years, we got together with all of our grandkids. We hadn’t seen 2 of them in that period of time, and they had grown like weeds. We also had a chance to go to the beach, the Long Beach aquarium, La Brea tar pits, many good restaurants, parks and playgrounds.