Posted in blog, Write or Die Show

Love Yourself

By: AG Flitcher

Once again, I had a great time on the Write or Die Show podcast. Randi is always easy to talk to and makes me feel like I can be myself. Which is important for all of us to be able to do in our day-to-day lives. Discussing self-awareness, self-love, being ok with minimal change in ourselves, and actively listening to others’ pain was an important discussion because we have to realize that drastic change in ourselves and in life is not always possible or necessary. And even if it is, it doesn’t mean we lose ourselves. If we do, and it scares us, we must be brave and reach out to those we know will be there for us in honesty and support.

Thank you, Randi.

AG Flitcher

Get the book (affiliate link – thank you for your support)

Posted in blog, Write or Die Show

Synergies Make for a Great Podcast

Written by Doug Lawrence

What makes a great podcast is the synergies between the host and the guest. I recently appeared as a guest on the Write or Die Show podcast with Host Randi-Lee Bowslaugh. Randi-Lee put me at ease, and we launched into a conversation about mental health and grief effortlessly. We had personal experiences that we were able to feed off of, which made for a great show and some powerful takeaways for the listening audience.

I have found that being on the Write or Die Show is therapeutic for me and part of my healing journey as I get to share my story. What is even more important is that Randi-Lee has a story to share as well, and we complimented each other with our lived experiences.

Sharing my story is by far the best coping skill that I have.

Thank you, Randi-Lee, for this awesome opportunity.



SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/doug.lawrence.1610/
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/douglawrence-mentor
Twitter: @DougLawrenceJM
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCE4YC1GkfHrQtFYgYrf8baQ
Website: https://www.talentc.ca
Book: “You Are Not Alone” https://amzn.to/3SzIvIt

Posted in blog, Readers Intrigue

We are Light

Written by Roger Leslie

While Randi-Lee Bowslaugh interviewed me for her podcast, I immediately connected with her. She was open and playful and genuinely interested in the ideas I shared about living the life you dream.

Soon after, I was delighted when she invited me to read from my latest memoir, Light Come Out of the Closet for Readers Intrigue. As a former literature teacher, I know some tricks of the trade that help when I’m revising a manuscript. One is to read the work aloud to feel the rhythm of the language and the tone of the content. Even before I recorded my chapter for Readers Intrigue, I had read my book aloud several times.

While studying to be a teacher, I had some great professors. In one children’s literature class, our professor modelled how to animate our voice and expression to enhance the listeners’ experience. Reading aloud “I’m Going to Hell,” Chapter 1 of my memoir, I felt grateful for the humour I infused throughout the work. Recording the read-aloud for Readers Intrigue also helped me appreciate how different reading to a camera is from reading to a responsive audience.

I wrote Light Come Out of the Closet to shed light on how essential our spiritual journey is, no matter what unique qualities we have or experiences we face. At our essence, we are so much more than Christian or Muslim or atheist. We are far beyond just Black or White or Brown. We are not our political views, socioeconomic status, or education.

We are light. Whoever you are and whatever you believe, shine your light. It will feed your soul and inspire the soul of everyone you encounter.

Get the book (affiliate link – thanks for your support)

Roger Leslie, PhD
https://rogerleslie.com/

Posted in blog, Write or Die Show

“A SPARK OF TRUTH” has the Hidden Information that Exposes Reality

Written by Marilyn Redmond

Write or Die Show – with Marilyn Redmond – YouTube

Randi-Lee has a wonderfully open mind to the differences in mental illness and solutions. I was able to share a small version of my past that brought on my mental illness and tried to survive with medications and wrong information that only addressed the symptoms and not the root cause of my illness. After years of misery, self-medicating, and a lack of real information, I found a spiritual path in treatment for addictions from the prescriptions. A spiritual path replaced the need for medications. Reading that the lack of self-honesty is the basis for mental illness, I found through releasing the past harms, trauma, and mentally ill family, I could move into a love-based life and thrive.

I am no longer a fear-based person, but a love-based person. I no longer needed to be triggered from the past and could live in the “Now.” Without pills for 25 years, I have clear thinking for making good decisions for loving resolutions. I let go of the past and replaced the space with love and grace. Living in the moment is a gift and why it is called The Present. My psychiatrist declared me sane.

Through my curiosity, I researched how culture has been programmed in fear that perpetuates mental illness and a lack of reality. Investigating the history behind religions, government, education, medicine, and more brought information that was hidden from the public.

 All parts of our culture are infiltrated with lies, deceit, and misinformation. My new book, “A Spark of Truth” has the history up to current times revealing the information from earliest times and through secret societies, evil Elites running the three major powers, banking, education, medicine, media, and entertainment. They have controlled, contaminated, and poisoned our food, air, water supplies, and more. New forms of leadership and government are forming to change the basis of our lives from deceit to honesty. 

Get Marilyn’s book here (affiliate link).

Posted in blog, Readers Intrigue

The Idea Behind Dying to Tell

Written by: Val Collins

I was thrilled to get the opportunity to record the first chapter of my latest thriller, Dying To Tell, for Readers Intrigue, but the opportunity didn’t come without its challenges. At first, I recorded away happily, but when I listened to the finished recording, I realised no non-Irish person would understand a word. Irish people speak too fast at the best of times, but apparently, we speak even faster when we’re reading. So I recorded it again, and again, and again. And to be on the safe side, I even added subtitles.

Now, about Dying To Tell. It’s the fifth book in the Aoife Walsh Thriller series. But you don’t need to read the others to know what’s going on. Each book is a separate story, and the only characters that are in all five books are Aoife, her family, and her best friend, Orla.

The inspiration behind Dying To Tell? Well, it’s the easiest plot I ever came up with. It came straight from a story my mother told. Many years ago, a woman she knew was lying on the beach with her new husband. The woman fell asleep, and when she woke, her husband had disappeared and was never seen again. Isn’t that some story? All I had to do was give the couple names – Matt and Nicole Gallagher – and the story practically wrote itself.

So, there you have it – Dying To Tell is a journey where reality mixes with fiction, and secrets lurk in every corner. Does that sound like your cup of tea? Well then, grab your cosiest spot and let’s unravel the unknown together.

Get your copy (affiliate link)

Posted in blog, Our Neurodiverse World

My ADHD Brain

Written by Molly Foss

Being on Randi-Lee’s show was a new and fun experience! 

Some days it’s hard to talk about having ADHD; it feels like I’m just telling other people all the ways that my brain lets me down by not being normal. 

But as Randi-Lee and I mentioned, having ADHD makes my brain work differently, and that’s not always bad. (I’ll admit it’s not always great, either. I’m not one of those “ADHD is a SUPERPOWER!” people.)

I’m amazing at trivia games; I somehow excel at escape rooms and all kinds of puzzle games. If you need a strange workaround built out of questionable supplies like MacGuyver, I’m your girl. 

With my camping website, I realized there weren’t any trusted brands that made a completely battery-operated baby monitor. I thought of many different ways to work around that and wrote an article about them.

A while later, I got an email from a guy who read my article and used it to create a battery-operated baby monitor for camping! (Affiliate link)

It’s fascinating how all of our brains work differently, but when we work together and use each other’s strengths, we can get a lot farther than we could individually. 

I could never host a podcast, but I’m glad that Randi-Lee can and that she’s using her powers to help break stigmas surrounding mental health. 

Remember friends, it’s not stupid if it works!

Posted in blog, Write or Die Show

We Need Compassion & Empathy – Dementia

Written by: Katie Marie

It was an amazing experience to appear on Randi-Lee’s show. Such a wonderful opportunity to talk with a compassionate and enthusiastic person about things that mean a great deal to me.

Those being writing, in particular in the horror genre, and the invisible challenges many of us face, like mental health and dementia.

I truly believe that by improving the conversation around dementia (and other mental health issues), we will normalize the condition and make it less frightening, which will increase society’s wider awareness of it and improve services and treatments.

I think one way to improve the conversation around these topics is by having plausible and ‘realistic’ representation in fictional works. Positive representation can help the misunderstood to feel more visible and accepted.

It was a part of the reason I wrote my novella, A Man in Winter.

Arthur, whose life was devastated by the brutal murder of his wife, must come to terms with his diagnosis of dementia. He moves into a new home at a retirement community, and shortly after, has his life turned upside down again when his wife’s ghost visits him and sends him on a quest to find her killer so her spirit can move on.

With his family and his doctor concerned that his dementia is advancing, will he be able to solve the murder before his independence is permanently restricted?

A Man in Winter examines the horrors of isolation, dementia, loss, and the ghosts that come back to haunt us.

In 2014, there were an estimated 5 million adults with dementia, and it is projected to be nearly 14 million by 2060. So, it is essential that we have a better understanding of this disease to increase our ability to interact with compassion and empathy.

Podcasts like this are a key element of the conversation, and it was a joy to be involved.

Get Katie Marie’s book (affiliate link).

Posted in blog, Readers Intrigue

Ancestral Memory to a Book

Written by W.L. Hawkin

Thank you for the opportunity to read from my romantic suspense novel on Readers Intrigue. Reading aloud to my students was one of my favorite things to do when I taught high school English. Here’s a little more about the making of LURE.

I wrote the first draft of Jesse and Hawk’s story thirty years ago when I lived in rural Ontario. I was something of a wild child and quit high school with only grade ten. In my mid-thirties, I felt the need to graduate, so returned to high school by registering for one correspondence course at a time. Along the way, I enrolled in a course called Native Ancestry that changed my life.

One night, I was sitting at my kitchen table reading the chapter on Animism—the belief that all beings, be they rocks, trees, deserts, fish, or winds, are alive with spiritual force—when I realized I knew this. I totally resonate with this. That epiphany set me on a new path. I’d just started my B.A. in Indigenous Studies at Trent University when I wrote the story of Jesse and Hawk. I was reading books by Anishinaabe (Ojibwa) storytellers; learning with traditional teachers and Elders; going to powwows and feasts; attending ceremonies; and soaking up a culture I resonated with. Then one day, my seventy-five-year-old mother casually said, “I’m not surprised you’re into this. My great-grandfather married an Indian. She was Tuscarora, and he was Dutch.” I don’t know if there’s such a thing as ancestral memory, but perhaps my mother was right. While researching my ancestry, I connected with a previously unknown line of the family who confirmed my mother’s story and sent me a tin-type photograph of my Indigenous great-great-grandmother. 

I found the manuscript of the thirty-year-old draft, wrapped in brown paper, a few years ago while packing to move. When I read it, I was surprised and intrigued. It was a romance! I started to rewrite it, then Jesse found the bones of a missing Indigenous girl in her shed. Ruby Little Bear started to speak, and the story took off in another direction.

If you’re curious to know more, go to my website: http://bluehavenpress.com or drop me a line at wendy@bluehavenpress.com.

Get the book (affiliate link).

Posted in blog, Write or Die Show

BE KIND TO YOURSELF

Written by: SG Blaise

It was such a pleasure to talk to Randi about my writing journey. So much has changed in the ten
years since I set out to write The Last Lumenian saga.

In the beginning, one of the biggest challenges for me was not knowing how long it would take
to finish the first book. It felt like a never-ending journey with no specific end date. (Little did I
know what it feels like after publishing!) I had to learn to accept the uncertainty that came with
writing a book, become more patient, and enjoy the journey.

The other biggest challenge was not having readers and, as such, not having feedback on the
book. It helped tremendously to be part of an R&C group, and also, having my family read it as
each version was done made the process more bearable.

Lastly, I discovered that the writing journey does not end with getting my book published–that
was only another beginning for a different journey with many more twists and turns. I learned to
enjoy what may come and celebrate every mini-milestones when they come my way. But most of
all, I learned that no matter where I was on my journey, it was vital to be kind to myself as I was
my own biggest critic.

Get SG’s book here (affiliate link)

Posted in blog, Write or Die Show

Belief

By Susan Gold

Randi’s Write or Die Show – YouTube is bringing forth open conversation of hope, truth, and light for all of us to share.  The jewel of a podcast program is a forum of discussion centered around mental health issues. Though specifically for writers, Randi is masterfully producing inspirational episodes for our global community. I was grateful for the opportunity to have a conversation with Randi on the show, and though I was nervous, she put me instantly at ease to share my own story as a first-time published author and the trajectory of the journey.  It was during our conversation I realized my main coping strategy is belief. Belief in my journey, belief in all the players and circumstances that have come my way as the conduit of soul evolution. Toxic Family: Transforming Childhood Trauma into Adult Freedom is the finished piece, and I welcome you to join me for more if you feel called at susangold.us