Fascinating True Tales from Old California

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About my guest:

Colleen Adair Fliedner is an award-winning author, journalist, and historian. She has written three nonfiction books, radio and t.v. commercials, screenplays, and hundreds of articles for newspapers, magazines, and online publications. She was a staff writer for the Orange County Register newspaper’s online travel website and was a regular contributor for Talking Travel Radio Network based on the East Coast. In the Shadow of War: Spies, Love & the Lusitania is her first novel. 

Colleen began her professional career as a research historian, writer, and oral historian at California State University, Long Beach, CA.  Her job included writing newspaper articles, brochures, radio, and cable television scripts, and more.  Her first nonfiction history book was written for the County of Los Angeles, a five-year-long project which required conducting more than 100 oral history interviews and combing through historic ledgers, photographs, and dusty, long-forgotten boxes of old documents. 

Her next two books were a history about Park City, Utah, “Stories in Stone: Miners and Madams, Merchants and Murders,” and “Quick Escapes from Orange County, published by Globe Pequot Press. She was then hired to ghostwrite two books and numerous blog articles for an internationally famous psychologist.

Her awards include Alumni of the Year (California State University, Long Beach) for her first nonfiction book commemorating the 100th anniversary of Rancho Los Amigos Medical Center, which began as the Los Angeles County Poor Farm. An article she wrote about Oklahoma City received an award from the Oklahoma Convention and Visitors Bureau. And her historical novel, In the Shadow of War: Spies, Love & the Lusitania, was the grand prize winner over 300 entries in the San Mateo Literary competition, an award which resulted in its publication by the Sand Hill Review Press. Recently, Colleen was honored by the California Writer’s Club (statewide competition) for a nonfiction short story about George Freeth that appears in their annual literary magazine.

In addition, she has optioned a screenplay and two teleplays, written radio and t.v. commercials, plays, and hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles. Her credits include the Los Angeles Times Travel Section, the Orange County Register; Westways, Home & Away (both Auto Club publications), France Today, BajaTRAVELER, and Native Peoples Magazines.

Her latest project is a nonfiction book, “Fascinating True Stories from Old California,” a compilation of interesting accounts of some of the Golden State’s most unique people, places, and things.

Colleen lives in Orange, California with her husband, Rick, and two Pomeranians. 

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