You know about WOWI — right?Writing On Whidbey Island — the new writing-focused podcast I’ve co-launched with Tom Trimbath? Tom and I were recently invited into the home of author Dan Petersen. We had the pleasure of discussing his approach to writing and his experiences since first publishing nine-books ago!
Dan Petersen’s Latest Release!
Available NOW!
This weekend Dan releases his newest book from the Shane Lindstrom detective series — “Final Impulse“. Prior to our visit, Dan kindly saw that Tom and I received advance copies of his latest addition (or would that be edition? LOL). This is my introduction to the Detective Lindstrom series — and I quickly found I thoroughly enjoy Dan’s writing!
Like a lot of us, I’m a busy guy. It can be tricky to fit in daily reading time. I frequently have to set down a book after only a few minutes or even a few pages. When it comes to Dan’s book, many chapters are only a couple of pages long. Personally, I appreciate this — I refer to this approach as ‘digestible chunks’. This presentation makes for an easier transition to and from a literary adventure.
Have you seen Tom Selleck portray Jesse Stone in the TV-movie series? I too have enjoyed these and often thought their stories could take place here on Whidbey Island. My hope has been to discover a detective series that answers this call — and with Final Impulse I believe I’ve Finally Found IT!Dan writes using real-life Whidbey locations; for an islander like myself, I feel-like-I’m-there as I follow the story. The characters are are distinct and memorable. While I have only begun to read Dan Petersen’s newest book, I am excited to follow Shane Lindstrom as he gets to the bottom of his latest mystery!
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Dan Petersen is a former professional journalist turned book-author who is now writing for fun. His impressive list of titles are enough to cover most coffee tables! Our time with him was pleasant and insightful — discussing how, why, and what to write, including the seemingly counter-wisdom of what not to write. Every Saturday morning Dan posts on his sought after blog. And when you join us for this WOWI listen, don’t be surprised by hearing heavy breathing and clicking toenails in the background. That’s Duncan — Dan’s dog and the cover-model for one of his books.
Earlier this year my friend, Tom Trimbath, and I started a new endeavour — Writing On Whidbey Island! WOWI is our podcast looking at writing as it relates to the island we love. We talk about our experiences, hold interviews, and are looking to connect with graphic artists, bookstore owners — EVERYONE!
Tomorrow we are meeting with south Whidbey author and blogger, Dan Pedersen. A former Pacific Northwest journalist and magazine manager, he has since discovered writing for fun.
Dan started with the topics of nature and rural living and evolved to writing mysteries. Six of these focus on his Whidbey Island detective character, Shane Lindstrom … who occasionally leaves the island to further fight crime!
Our podcast with Dan should be posted by the end of this week — watch for it!
This weekend I will be participating in not one but TWO meet-the-author events. It will be a long weekend and I’m sure it will be a BLAST!!! (WIBC calendar of events)
The first of these two events will be at Goose Community Grocery on Saturday between 10AM and 2PM. From the sounds of it they are going to have a number of local authors who’s books are featured in the store, and I get to be one of them! Goose is located in Bayview at 14485 HWY 525, Langley, WA 98260. I will have a supply of my recipe books and a pen if you would like my scribble. Come out, I’d enjoy meeting you — let’s talk baking and cooking! I’m pretty sure Goose will be having BBQ on Saturday. There’s even a chance my fellow author, friend, and new-podcast co-host Tom Trimbath will be there, too!
After Goose will be going to…
Saturday from about 3-6PM, after signing books at Goose, I plan to be at the Coupeville Arts & Crafts Festival. More specifically, I’ll be at the tent in front of The Kingfisher Bookstore — located at 16 Northwest Front Street, Coupeville, WA 98239. I will be back all day Sunday 10AM-5PM again joining Kingfisher. More books will be available as I help Kingfisher’s owner, Meg, and her staff along with other local authors. Come on out, get some great books, let’s talk MORE about cooking and baking, and if you like I’ll happily put my scribble in your book.
NOTE — Kingfisher Bookshop, pictured below just got a new paint job. It is now handsomely brown with yellow trim.
You will of course remember my friend, Tom Trimbath — the gent who helped coach me through getting my first recipe book published on Amazon. Tom is a great guy and we have continued to talk about various creative ideas to produce together. One of these is a collaborative writing project, another is to present a series of self-publishing workshops, and we’ve talked about starting a podcast!
A podcast — that’s neat! What’s the plan, Don?
Whidbey Island – We are here!
Our plan so far is to keep things fairly open — we want to talk about all-things-writing as it relates to Whidbey Island. Self-publishing, marketing, writing groups on Whidbey, local authors, visiting authors, you name it. I have portable recording gear, so one of our ideas too is to produce our podcast recordings at different locations on Whidbey including local business who would be interested in hosting us and in turn receive a plug on our show.
COOL! When can I tune-in?
My book available on Amazon, Smashwords, and …. EVERYWHERE!
Last month Tom and I set a goal — to record 1-2 podcast episodes by the end of June. As summer has switched on, this has been a bit of a juggle — and if you look at the calendar … yeah … time is drawing near. We are currently working to schedule our first recording tomorrow morning OR during next week. With launching our show we also have the recordings from the how-to self-publish workshops we have presented — so we should have a decent collection to start with out of the gate.
Let’s face it — most days are just …. well …. days. Some good stuff happens, some bad stuff happens … rinse, wash, repeat … not a big deal. Occasionally there are days when it seems like nothing can go right — UGG! — chin up, do your best to keep moving forward. And then, every once in a while, there are days where Everything Just Seems To Go RIGHT! For me, last Monday was one of those days …
Here’s how it went… with a little back-story
Lance English …. Pirate! (he’s actually a nice guy)
The Seattle Monorail with the Space Needle in the background
The drive down the island and into Seattle was nice. Once at the Seattle Center, instead of taking the Monorail as I had originally planned, I opted to walk to the parade staging grounds at the other end of the city located near Pioneer Square. The slightly-cool and slightly-warm sunny pre-Spring day begged for a walk, and it was lovely! To be frank, as far as I’m concerned the parade was a poorly planned bust — however it was great to spend time with my fellow S.A.M.S. members and the two ladies who lead us in carrying our banner. After the parade I was surprise-treated to lunch …
Wow, Cool, Thank You!
Catching up with my Canadian friends at ECCC involved crossing a number of fingers. The convention annually attracts around 95,000 fans* of geek-culture — some of my people — many of whom are wearing impressive costumes that they have personally crafted. This includes my two friends, so they blended in amid all the heroes, villains, elves, Jedi, and … well, everyone. Also, the three of us were working with limited electronic communications that day. Fortunately, everything worked out! I connected with my friends in the terraced park next to the Washington State Convention Center. By further luck and happenstance I ran into Chad — an absolute gent, a heckuva photographer, and the man who has taken among my favourite pictures of my Celtic-rock band, Nae Regrets. As evening neared Christina, Martin, and myself hiked a few blocks away from the convention where we enjoyed dinner together before saying our fond goodbyes. As opportunity presents, I look forward to visiting them in Toronto.
(* 2018 ECCC attendance according to Wikipedia)
But onto Monday …
The previous week I got my book, Make Your Own Darn Good Cookies, placed in its very first bookstore — The Kingfisher Bookstore in Coupeville, Washington. That felt great — the beginning of the next state of being a published author! Also, the owner of Kingfisher — Meg — is an absolute JOY of a person.
Coupeville Public Library
After a relaxing start to my Monday — delicious in part because we tell ourselves that’s not what a weekday morning is supposed to be like, especially a Monday. Just before noon I popped over to the Coupeville Public Library. I wanted to check the status of scheduling the presentation I’ve done with Tom Trimbath on how to self-publish books and e-books. Monday
This is when all the neat stuff began!
I was directed to speak with Debbie, whom I had already understood handled most of the presentation scheduling. After introducing myself and explaining Tom’s and my workshop she said that she remembered reading my previous submission and wanted to get us in soon. Somehow it came up that I m currently working on another book, and she asked what that was about. I explained that it is a collection of Highland bagpipe sheet music featuring military and patriotic tunes and their history. Debbie immediately asked if I would be willing to present this book. What she didn’t know was that I had already been thinking about it but hadn’t quite broken the ice on How. She suggested that this presentation would fit in well at the Oak Harbor library, being close to the Navy base, and that she’d like to host me at the Coupeville library around the 4th of July this year. I am absolutely flattered to be asked — so now, all the more, I’m pushing to complete this book! Monday
As I went to leave the library — the first time — I saw one of the fellows who works at the library. I hadn’t really seen him before, but I have heard about him — moreover, I’ve heard about what his wife and he are doing… Monday
This is one of the many great pictures on the Seattle Times article, I felt this one was the best…
Behind the library help desk sat one Mr. Gabriel Chrisman. I had heard about his wife, Sarah, who writes books about the Victorian era. The amazing thing is that they live their lives — not completely — much in keeping with 1880/1890s period. I stopped to pass on to Gabriel that I was aware of his wife’s writing and that I admire what they’re doing (sadly some people don’t understand while other’s have been regrettably worse). Our conversation turned to asking Gabriel if he might help further research a bagpipe tune I need information on for my military & patriotic music & history book. Gabriel was intrigued by my query and asked me to send him my notes. He was also interested in the book I’m working on and apparently can get behind hosting my presentation. While I left at this time, we spoke into the afternoon — but that happened later … Monday
Meg at Kingfisher Bookstore in Coupeville
When I left the library — this time around 1230 — I saw a notice about an event I had forgotten about. Meg, the owner of The Kingfisher Bookstore was presenting a book-related topic starting an hour later. I raced home — I needed lunch and more-presentable clothes — and I raced back! Making it through the door just before her presentation started, I was able to let Meg know I was there to support her topic — and she met me with her immutable smile just as I had found it the week before. Monday
Meg’s presentation was fun and enlightening — and part way through took a walk a few blocks over to her bookshop. The weather was warm and bright; we got to see more of her shop and the historic building it’s in. I spoke with Gabriel more and also stuck around after the presentation. Meg and I spoke about a number of upcoming things. There’s an arts and crafts festival in Coupeville during the summer and we discussed how she might bring people into her shop. She said she would like to host book readings and possibly small music performances and would like to feature me (see “Tom” below). I told her that Tom Trimbath and I have talked a bit about starting to do podcasts about all-things having to do with writing, authors, bookshops (etc) on Whidbey Island. Meg said she’d like to start a small book publishing company on Whidbey and I said that I’d like to be a part of that. Monday
By the time I left Meg’s shop I was pretty much dancing and pinching myself just like Tom here…
Monday was MAGNIFICENT — and there’s more to come! And since then…
Over this past weekend I got in touch with my friend, Rick. He loves history and is involved with curation of local early settlers with the Doc Maynard Society. When he found out about the bagpipe sheet music and tune-history book I’m working on he said he would be interested in that and that people from his historic society would be, too. Do I hear another presentation date in the works?
Loads of good things in the works! Some of which has to do with presentations I’ll possibly be doing. So that in mind, if you’d like me to present or my bagpipe sheet music and history book once it’s ready, maybe you’d do well to get on my calendar now — contact me.
Let’s face it — most days are just …. well …. days. Some good stuff happens, some bad stuff happens … rinse, wash, repeat … not a big deal. Occasionally there are days when it seems like nothing can go right — UGG! — chin up, do your best to keep moving forward. And then, every once in a while, there are days where Everything Just Seems To Go RIGHT! For me, last Monday was one of those days …
