Authors Between the Covers: What It Takes to Write Your Heart Out Inkandescent Radio

June 2023: A Note from Hope Katz Gibbs, founder, Inkandescent PR + Publishing Co. — Hello, and welcome to this month's episode of Authors Between the Covers Show on the Inkandescent Radio Network and Inkandescent.tv. I'm deeply honored to be here with today's guest, Lisa See; I was introduced to this New York Times bestselling author when my longtime freelance client, Costco magazine, assigned me to write about her latest book for the June 2023 issue of The Costco Connection.

It is the historical novel Lady Tan's Circle of Women, and it is truly the most anticipated book for the summer of 2023. It is inspired by a true story of a woman physician in 15th-century China, and in the book, we learn how the main character breaks free from tradition and treats women and girls from every level of society. I can't wait to hear all about this. But first and foremost, welcome, Lisa. I'm so excited to have you here.

Before we get into our Q&A, here's a little background on Lisa. As I mentioned, Lisa is a New York Times bestselling author of a dozen books, including The Island of Sea Women, The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane, and Dreams of Joy, which debuted at number one.

She was born in Paris but grew up in Los Angeles. We are talking to her from there now. And she lived with her mother but spent a lot of time with her father's family in Chinatown and says she has always been intrigued by stories that have been lost, forgotten, or deliberately covered up, whether in the past or now in the world today.

Lisa has been honored by the National Woman she has been honored as National Woman of the Year by the Organization of Chinese American Women. In 2001, she received the Organization of Chinese American Women honored her as a National Woman of the Year. She received the Chinese American Museum's History Makers Award in 2003, and in 2017, she received the Golden Spike Award from the Chinese Historical Society of Southern California.

Click here for our Q&A, and be sure to listen to our podcast interview on Inkandescent Radio Network and the video version on Inkandescent.tv.

A Note from Hope Katz Gibbs, host, Authors Between the Covers show — We begin a month of celebrating love (why reserve it for just one day?) in an interview with #1 New York Times bestselling author Jay Shetty, author of the new book: The 8 Rules of Love.

"During the Coronavirus pandemic, I spent a lot of time thinking about love," shares the award-winning storyteller, a former monk whose viral videos about peace and purpose have been viewed more than 10 billion times. His first book, Think Like a Monk, was published in September 2020 and distills timeless lessons into practical steps anyone can take to live a less anxious, more meaningful life. His newest tome, 8 Rules of Love, guides us on finding love, keeping it, and letting it go. “So many relationships were challenged or just didn’t make it through lockdown,” observes Shetty, a native of London who lives in Los Angeles with his wife Radhi Devlukia-Shetty. “Some relationships got stronger, sure. But we were all tested.”

To discover how to help people have healthier relationships, Shetty started with a Harvard Medical School study that scientists have worked on since the Great Depression.

“The scientists gathered information over 80 years, and it showed that how happy we are in our relationships has a powerful influence on our health,” explains Shetty, who helps readers seize that power in his insightful hardback. Its four sections offer meditations on solitude, compatibility, healing, and connection. His 8 Rules are born of these concepts, ranging from Letting Yourself Be Alone (Rule 1) to Loving Again and Again (Rule 8).

Having spent three years studying the Vedas at a Hindu ashram in Mumbai, Shetty sees life as a series of classrooms. Using a metaphor of connecting ashrams, he teaches us levels of love: Preparing, practicing, protecting, and perfecting it. “The key to a successful, loving relationship is to peel back the layers continuously," he believes. “You reveal a layer; your partner reveals a layer. From there, you figure it out together. And then you do it again.”

We leave you with this parting thought from Jay: “I once read a quote from Muhammad Ali, who said, ‘Service to others is the rent you pay for the room here on earth.’ I hold this dear to my heart because everything we do can be of service. We don’t need to build the biggest charity; we just have to have that spirit and mindset. Any person I meet, I say hello or open the door.”

Click here to learn more: 8rulesoflove.com.

Click here to read our interview in the Costco Connection.

Don't miss our podcast interview!

A Note from Hope Katz Gibbs, founder, InkandescentRadio.com: Hello and welcome to this month's episode of the Authors Between the Covers show on the Inkandescent Radio Network. I’m Hope Katz Gibbs, host of the show and creator of the Inkandescent PR + Publishing Co., thrilled to be here with the amazing award-winning teacher and author Phillip Done!

Phil is coming to us from Budapest, Hungary, and I know that you will enjoy today's podcast interview, where he'll share insights into his international travels and new book, The Art of Teaching Children.

First, I must tell the audience that I have been a huge fan of Phil's since he published 32 First Graders and One Class Bunny. My kids were in elementary school then, and I was the communications director of the City of Fairfax Schools in Northern VA. I remember reading the book in one sitting – laughing hysterically and alternatively crying at his poignant essays. 

Today, we talk about that book, his career, Phil's well-deserved awards, and most importantly, his newest title, The Art of Teaching Children.

You'll learn:

What inspired Phil to write his latest tome, The Art of Teaching Children
What inspired him to pen his first bestseller, 32 First Graders and One Class Bunny
His career as a teacher
His multitude of well-deserved awards
His international travels and work as a teacher abroad
His own experience as a student
What’s next for Phil Done?
How can people buy The Art of Teaching Children, on sale now!

About The Art of Teaching Children: An essential guide for teachers and parents that’s destined to become a classic, The Art of Teaching Children is one of those rare and masterful books that not only defines a craft but offers a magical reading experience.

After more than 30 years in the classroom, award-winning teacher Phil Done decided that it was time to retire. His days of teaching schoolchildren may have come to an end, but a teacher’s job is never truly done, and he set out to write the greatest lesson of his career: a book for educators and parents that would pass along everything he learned about working with kids. The result is this delightful and insightful teaching bible, The Art of Teaching Children. From the first-day-of-school jitters to the last day’s tears, Done writes about the teacher’s craft, classrooms and curriculums, the challenges of the profession, and the reason all teachers do it—the children.

Drawing upon decades of experience, Done shares sound guidance, time-tested tips, and sage advice: Real learning is messy, not linear. Greeting kids in the morning as they enter the classroom is one of the most important parts of the school day. If a student is having trouble, look at what you can do differently before pointing the finger at the child. Ask yourself: Would I want to be a student in my class? When children watch you, they are learning how to be people, and one of the most important things we can do for our students is to model the kind of people we would like them to be.

Done tackles topics you won’t find in any other teaching book, including Back to School Night nerves, teacher pride, lessons that bomb, the Sunday Blues, Pinterest envy, teacher guilt, and the things they never warn you about in “teacher school” but should, like how to survive lunch supervision, recess duty, and field trips. Done also addresses some of the most important issues schools face today: bullying, excessive screen time, unsupportive administrators, the system’s obsession with testing, teacher burnout, and the ever-increasing demands of meeting the diverse learning needs of students.

With great wit and wisdom, first-rate storytelling, and boundless compassion, The Art of Teaching Children is the definitive guide to educating today’s young learners and the perfect resource for teachers and parents everywhere. Click here to buy your copy!

A Note from Hope Katz Gibbs, producer and founder, Inkandescent Radio — What an honor it is to interview Olivia Campbell, a journalist and author specializing in medicine and women. Her work has appeared in The Guardian, The Washington Post, New York Magazine, The Cut, and many others. 
Her new book is Women in White Coats: How the First Women Doctors Changed the World of Medicine. It is featured in the March 2022 issue of The Costco Connection. I have been writing for this monthly magazine since 1996 and have the privilege of writing this author interview article about Olivia and her book!

In our podcast, you'll learn: 

All about Olivia's career as a journalist and author who specializes in writing about medicine, women, history, and nature
How and when she knew she wanted to pursue this topic as a book
What in her research surprised her most
What delighted her, and what upset her
Any misconceptions about early women doctors that she wants to set straight
Lessons that contemporary physicians can learn from the three women doctors featured in the book
What she wants all of us, as patients, to know about doctors and medicine

Click here to learn more about Olivia, our cover story in the March-April 2022 issue of Inkandescent Women magazine!
First, a little more about Women in White Coats: How the First Women Doctors Changed the World of Medicine
This remarkable story will equally enchant fans of Hidden Figures and Radium Girls. We meet three Victorian women who broke down barriers in the medical field to become the first women doctors. They revolutionized the way women received health care and changed the way women looked at what was possible for themselves, their sisters, and their daughters.
In the early 1800s, women were dying in large numbers from treatable diseases because they avoided receiving medical care. Examinations performed by male doctors were often demeaning and even painful. In addition, women faced stigma from illness—a diagnosis could significantly limit their ability to find husbands, jobs, or be received in polite society.

Motivated by personal loss and frustration over inadequate medical care, Elizabeth Blackwell, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, and Sophia Jex-Blake fought for a woman's place in the male-dominated medical field. For the first time, Women in White Coats tells the complete history of these three pioneering women who, despite countless obstacles, earned medical degrees and paved the way for other women to do the same. Though very different in personality and circumstance, together, these women built women-run hospitals and teaching colleges—creating for the first time medical care for women by women.

With gripping storytelling based on extensive research and access to archival documents, Women in White Coats tells the courageous history these women made by becoming doctors, detailing the boundaries they broke of gender and science to reshape how we receive medical care today.
About Olivia: "I started writing as a young girl — mysteries fashioned after her beloved Nancy Drew," noting that as a teen, her passion for ballet saw her train to become a professional dancer. A broken foot prompted Campbell's pivot to arts journalist. An unplanned pregnancy, complicated birth, and postpartum depression turned her writing interest from the arts to a medic in college.
Today, she is an independent journalist, essayist, and author focusing on the intersections of medicine, women, history, and nature. Her work has appeared in The Atlantic, New York Magazine/The Cut, HISTORY, The Washington Post, The Guardian, SELF, Aeon, Scientific American, Smithsonian Magazine, Literary Hub, Atlas Obscura, Good Housekeeping, Catapult, Parents, and Undark, among others. Visit her journalism portfolio here.
Olivia's first book, Women in White Coats: How the First Women Doctors Changed the World of Medicine, was published in March 2021 by HarperCollins/Park Row Books. 
She holds a m

A Note from Hope Katz Gibbs, producer, Inkandescent Radio — What an honor it is to feature this new book by Ellen Harper and Sam Barry, entitled: Always a Song: Singers, Songwriters, Sinners & Saints. A collection of stories from Ellen, a singer, and songwriter, who is the folk matriarch and mother to the Grammy-winning musician Ben Harper. Ellen shares vivid memories of growing up in Los Angeles through the 1960s among famous and small-town musicians raising Ben (pictured below) and the historic Folk Music Center.

Jackson Browne says of the book: “An eloquent searching account of a life lived for truth, love, and music.”

Roger McGuinn, leader of the Byrds, writes: Ellen Harper is folk music royalty, growing up with Pete Seeger and Joan Baez around the dinner table. Her story is heartrending and a pleasure to read."

Jonathan Lethem, New York Times bestselling author of Chronic City and Motherless Brooklyn, says: "Ellen Harper's unique vantage as a red-diaper baby, folk connector, counterculture witness, and maven of family and community is matched by her memory, wit, and compassion."

With the help of Sam, an author and musician who is a founding member of the book band The Rock Bottom Remainders (learn more about him below), readers take a ride through folk music history:

Harper takes readers on an intimate journey through the folk music revival.
The book spans a transformational time in music history and American culture.
Covers historical events from the love-ins women's rights protests and the assassination of John F. Kennedy to the popularization of the sitar and the ukulele.
Includes full-color photo insert.

Ellen shares: "Growing up, an endless stream of musicians and artists came from across the country to my family's music store. Bess Lomax Hawes, Joan Baez, Sonny Terry, and Brownie McGee—all the singers, organizers, guitar and banjo pickers and players, songwriters, painters, dancers, their husbands, wives, and children—we were all in it together. And we believed singing could change the world."

Be sure to listen to our interview and watch the video on the April 2021 cover of BeInkandescent Health & Wellness magazine.

Music lovers and history buffs will enjoy this rare invitation into a world of stories and songs that inspired folk music today.

A must-read for lovers of music history and those nostalgic for the acoustic echo of the original folk music that influenced a generation.
Harper's parents opened the legendary Folk Music Center in Claremont California as well as the revered folk music venue The Golden Ring.
A perfect gift for people who are obsessed with folk music all things the 1960s learning about musical movements or California history.

Great for those who loved Small Town Talk: Bob Dylan The Band Van Morrison Janis Joplin Jimi Hendrix and Friends in the Wild Years of Woodstock by Barney Hoskyns and Girls Like Us: Carole King Joni Mitchell Carly Simon—and the Journey of a Generation by Sheila Weller.

Be sure to check out our video and podcast interview on Faceboook Live: Tuesday, March 16 at 1pm PST — www.Facebook.com/hopekatzgibbs

About Book Doctor Sam Barry: Sam is an author musician and publishing professional. He is the author of How to Play the Harmonica: and Other Life Lessons. He coauthored Write That Book Already! The Tough Love You Need to Get Published Now with his late wife Kathi Kamen Goldmark and Always a Song: Singers Songwriters Sinners and Saints—My Story of the Folk Music Revival with Ellen Harper.

As a member of the literary rock band, the Rock Bottom Remainders, Sam edited and coauthored Hard Listening: The Greatest Rock Band Ever (of Authors) Tells All with his bandmates Stephen King Amy Tan Mitch Albom Dave Barry Roy Blount Jr. Matt Groening Greg Iles James McBride Roger McGuinn Ridley Pearson and Scott Turow.

Sam is currently a freelance editor book doctor and publishing consultant. Previously he was an ordained Pre

A Note from Hope Katz Gibbs, creator, Inkandescent PR + Publishing Co. — I am thrilled to host an Inkandescent interview on Sunday, Jan. 16 with authors Stephen Gilliland, a professor at Claremont Graduate University, and his brother Jim Gilliland. They have a big goal, a giant job, and a determination to keep the premise of their new book simple.

"We promise to each other to do at least one exercise activity every day. It doesn't matter if you are sick, traveling, or tired. And to keep each other honest, we share one pic doing our activity every day," the authors and brothers share on their book website: pushingupbook.com.

The dynamic duo embarked upon a journey of crazy workout challenges that increased in intensity as the year progressed; 10,000 push-ups each in March became 30,000 push-ups by December.

Authors Stephen Gilliland and Jim GillilandAt the time, they were each searching for something more – more from their relationship as brothers and more from their middle-aged bodies. And as each month passed, they discovered the unexpected gift of what it means to live more fully as connected brothers, fathers, husbands, and successful leaders.

I am excited to share their story with you and invite us to join them in the journey. "We hope you  uncover scars you didn't know you had, grow muscles and inner strength, and find authentic support in connecting more deeply with someone else," Stephen says, about the tome which will take you on an inner journey of life through lessons on:

Taking the "I will" commitment and achieving audacious goals.
Asking for help and finding a genuine connection.
Recognizing limits and preparing to fail.
Embracing "should be fine" as a mantra against doubt.
Practicing empathy and reaching out in times of loss.

Here's to Pushing Up! Click here to learn more about the book. Scroll down to check out the introduction.

From Pushing Up!

Introduction by Stephen Gilliland and Jim Gilliland

It was out of the blue, but it was not. We had just spent the holidays together; my daughter and her husband recently moved to Vancouver, where Jim and our parents live, and we all had a big family Christmas. Jim gave me a book for Christmas – Living with a SEAL: 31 Days Training with the Toughest Man on the Planet.

In this book, Jesse Itzler describes a month of physical punishment that resulted from having a Navy SEAL live with him and train him daily. The journey defies typical workout wisdom by eschewing "recovery days" and pushing each day harder than the last. Itzler was in decent shape at the start of the month. By the end, he was running with a 50-pound vest and completed 1,000 push-ups in a day.

Some of the workouts he described seemed insane. But he pushed through the insanity for physical and mental gain. I saw Jim reading this book shortly after he bought it. He finished it in a couple of days. He gave it to me and asked me to read it right away.

JG: Have you finished the book?

SG: Just a chapter. I am reading it to Cindi.

JG: Okay, once you are done, I have a New Year's resolution workout proposal for you.

That filled me with fear. What would he be proposing? Would I be able to handle it? I was in good shape for 51 but not great. My wife expressed her concerns. "You're not going to do any of those crazy Navy SEAL things with Jim, are you?" But I was also excited.

Workouts had become boring. Runs had become shorter. And I was five pounds heavier than I had been in my late 40s. When I think about it, the workouts and physical challenges were not as big a concern for me as the commitment. Could I commit to a greater focus on working out? I don't want the exercise to run my life. I have always been the opposite of a weekend warrior when it comes to workouts: I am pretty good during the week but usually take weekends off. It's a break from work and working out, a break from schedules. I don't take commitments lightly, and this was going to be a b