Episodios

  • Episode 182 – J Thorn – A.I.

    Episode 182 – J Thorn – A.I.
    Dec 22 2023
    Overview J is back, and this time he's talking about his latest book series which deals with using A.I. for your writing. Our conversation entails the happenings from 20 books to 50k Vegas. J has a lot of thoughts about the future of publishing and the use of A.I. Book YouTube https://youtu.be/ICNtVSdkJVw Transcript Stephen: Cool. Great. Alright. I'm just gonna start us off. New episode, Discovered Wordsmith. I've got Jay Thorne which he has been on here. It's been about a hundred and twenty episodes ago Wow. Since he was on. Yeah. It's been a while. He just made the mistake of saying, whatever you wanna ask, go ahead. That love child that you fostered in Hindus are Hindi Himalayas. Tell us about that, Jay. This is breaking news. J: I can only talk about things that have really happened, Steven. So I Stephen: You're a writer. What the heck? Oh, come on. So alright. Hopefully, everybody knows Jay because I'm not gonna go into his background. He's been on here before. I'll put links in that. I really wanna get on these new books he's been writing. Let's just hit that right from the start. You are writing Or have written a series of books about AI, writers using AI, and more about that. So There's probably gonna be a million questions on that. I've got several written down I definitely wanna cover. So First of all, let's just start. Tell us about not only what the books are about, but why you wanted to write these books, Especially right now because, that could get death threats from some people writing a book like this. J: Yeah. I say this Sort of tongue in cheek, but it's certainly true. I don't get nearly the amount of hate because I'm a middle aged white guy, and I have that privilege, and it's terrible, but it's the truth. And I see other folks, Women and other people who get hate for it, and it's just it's so unfair. But that's, that's how the Internet is in general. But Stephen: Joanna seems to get a lot of people. And it's really, folks, she's been doing this forever. She's one of the most best voices for all of us. So yeah. Yeah. J: I think it's I think it's lessened more recently, but certainly early on, she took a lot of heat especially in her comments on her website. But, Stephen: because I think most are starting to realize. Hey. It's everywhere. Everybody's using it. Maybe it's not so bad. But, anyway, we're already off topic. So tell us about your bugs and why you're writing these. Okay. J: So I'm trying to think about how far back I have to go to put to give you context for this. I would say probably two or three years ago maybe, Pseudowrite was just being rolled out in a beta form. And Joanna was telling me she's you got you have to check this out. That's this new AI writing tool. And every couple months or every so often, she would say, hey. Listen. You gotta try this out. And every time I did, I just wasn't impressed. I was like, I don't know. It's not very good. It's weird. It, it doesn't do what I want it to do. And what comes out of it, I have to spend so much time cleaning it up. It's just not worth it. And so For years, I was very resistant, and I was like, I don't like it. It's not very good. And I said I enjoy the process of creating the words. So whether I think it's ethical or moral or makes any sense is kinda beside the point. I don't wanna farm out the most fun part of the experience. It'd be like being a musician, and you love playing live shows. And someone's hey. There's this Technology where you don't have to go on stage. You would be like I don't want that. Thanks. Other people can do that. It's fine. I'm just saying that's not, that's not what I want. And I'm saying this because I'm very transparent about it, and she and I'm proud of the fact that I changed my mind because she teases me all the time. And she was like, You hated this, and we almost had a falling out over it. And I'm like, I did.
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    36 m
  • Episode 181 – Gretchen McCullough – Confessions of a Knight Errant

    Episode 181 – Gretchen McCullough – Confessions of a Knight Errant
    Dec 12 2023
    Overview Confessions of a Knight Errant is a comedic, picaresque novel in the tradition of Don Quixote with a flamboyant cast of characters. Dr. Gary Watson is the picaro, a radical environmentalist and wannabe novelist who has been accused of masterminding a computer hack that wiped out the files of a major publishing company. His Sancho Panza is Kharalombos, a fat, gluttonous Greek dancing teacher, who is wanted by the secret police for cavorting with the daughter of the Big Man of Egypt. Self-preservation necessitates a hurried journey to the refuge of a girls’ camp in rural Texas. Then a body turns up nearby that is connected to Middle East antiquities, and they are on the run once more. Gretchen McCullough was raised in Harlingen Texas. After graduating from Brown University in 1984, she taught in Egypt, Turkey and Japan. She earned her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Alabama and was awarded a teaching Fulbright to Syria from 1997-1999. Her stories, essays and reviews have appeared in The Barcelona Review, Archipelago, National Public Radio, Story South, Guernica, The Common, The Millions, and the LA Review of Books. Translations in English and Arabic have been published in: Nizwa, Banipal, Brooklyn Rail in Translation, World Literature Today and Washington Square Review with Mohamed Metwalli. Her bi-lingual book of short stories in English and Arabic, Three Stories from Cairo, translated with Mohamed Metwalli was published in July 2011 by AFAQ Publishing House, Cairo. A collection of short stories about expatriate life in Cairo, Shahrazad’s Tooth, was also published by AFAQ in 2013. Currently, she is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Rhetoric and Composition at the American University in Cairo. Book Website http://www.gretchenmccullough.wix.com/gretchenmccullough Favorites YouTube https://youtu.be/3ff8O98jt3E Transcript Stephen: So today on Discovered Word Smith I have Gretchen McCullough and you may notice if you're on YouTube watching the episode that there's no video because Gretchen is not. Anywhere in this hemisphere of where I'm at or at least I should say this continent. So we had a bit of a spotty connection and we turned off video to make sure we could hear everything. So Gretchen, welcome. How are you doing today? I'm Gretchen: doing great. Thanks for having me on your show. Stephen: Yeah. And I'm excited. So let's jump right into that before we start talking about your book. Tell us a little bit about you. And where you are at the moment. Gretchen: I'm sitting in my bedroom and it's dark outside. It's quite noisy. I live in a really busy part of Cairo. And yeah. That's where I am. It's across the Nile from Tahrir Square where a lot of Americans probably are familiar with Tahrir Square because of the uprising. It's not that far from the square. It's a huge island called Zamalek. And you can walk everywhere in this area. You don't really need a car. It's a neat burrow. There are lots of coffee shops. Yeah. Stephen: Nice. What, why what brought you to Cairo? Gretchen: It's a long odyssey. I taught in Egypt in the 1980s and then I taught in Turkey and then I taught in Japan. And then I went and got an MFA from the university of Alabama. And I had a Fulbright in Syria in 1997 to 99. And. I went back to Tuscaloosa, Alabama for a year and a friend of mine said, there's a job in Cairo. You're perfect. Why don't you apply? And I did. And I got the job at the American university in Cairo in 2000. And I've been here ever since. Stephen: Gretchen, where are you originally from? Gretchen: I'm originally from Harlingen, Texas. It's called the Rio Grande Valley. It's near the Mexican border, near Brownsville. It's the very tip of Texas. That's where I grew up. I'm from a very small town. Stephen: Big change. Gretchen: Yes. I wanted to get out of that town in 1980 and I didn't realize how far I would go.
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    24 m
  • Episode 180 – Kalee Boisvert – Make Money Your Thing

    Episode 180 – Kalee Boisvert – Make Money Your Thing
    Dec 3 2023
    Overview With inspiration from her own life, Kalee Boisvert has developed an easy-to-use system for women, young and old, to take control of their finances. Make Money Your Thing is an approachable guide to take women on a journey from avoidance and overwhelm to feeling comfortable and in control of their finances. This book provides simple action steps to learn the basics of money management, understand the importance of balancing the books, and embrace the uniqueness of your own personal situation. The end result is women feeling good about where their finances are right now, and building a solid foundation for where you want to go in the future. When money is your “thing” you can feel completely at ease about making it work for you– Book YouTube https://youtu.be/vWXdJt5G6PM Transcript Stephen: So today on Discover Wordsmiths, I want to welcome Kaylee. Kaylee, how are you doing Kalee: today? I'm doing well. Thank you so much for having me. Stephen: Yeah, this is great. And we, right before we started, I mentioned I don't get a lot of nonfiction, so I'm excited about this. Yay. All right. So before we get started talking about your book tell us a little bit about you, where you're from, and some of the things you like to do besides writing. Kalee: I am from Calgary, Alberta, Canada. And a little bit about me. What else? Sorry. Stephen: jUst some of the things you like to do besides writing. Okay. Kalee: Other than writing, I love reading. I am a big bookworm. So I think. By nature, it was destined to write a book, but I love reading and I've discovered how easy it is to read off my phone. Now I have a one year old and so I can't really have books out because he has a tendency of ripping pages. So he's at that. That very destructive stage. So I read on my phone, but I find it so easy that I can read on the go all the time. So I'm reading way more books and book talk has actually gotten me a lot more interested in some of the books that are on there and are popular. So for a book talk and all that, but I do love reading. I love like my guilty pleasures, like real housewives watching the real housewives of everywhere, those shows. And then I'm also always really busy with my kids. I'm a single mom. I have a nine year old and a one year old. Like hobbies include going to the park and things like that. Stephen: Nice. Okay. And so with all that going on young kids and busy why did you want to write a book? Kalee: Silly me. Yeah. I think it's because of how much I love books in general. So I'd always wanted to write a book. I've read books like, and just like love, like I see authors and people who write books is just, to me, they're like celebrities. I think it's so amazing because it's a long, challenging endeavor to write a book. Stephen: You probably realized that way more when you actually wrote one. Kalee: Exactly. Exactly. And I. kept receiving the message like I started writing stories when I was young when your teacher would ask you to write a, couple page story and mine would go on for 20, 30 pages and that was like grade four. And because I was like, how do you develop A story in two pages. So for me, it was like this very elaborate the character development and everything But the teachers you could tell didn't even read it and i'm assuming it's because they had a lot of grading to do and I It went beyond the assigned work. So in their defense, I'm sure that was what was behind it. But in my mind, I was seeing it as, Oh, maybe I'm not a good writer. That's the messaging I took to believe. So then I decided maybe I wasn't meant to write. But it was like a few years back. I was just sitting in my office and I said out loud. I really want to write something because it just had all come back and it just, I don't know. It was just like, I was pondering this has always been a goal of mine. And a colleague happened to be walking by and he's Oh,
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    Menos de 1 minuto
  • Episode 178 – G.S. Gerry – Meth Murder & Amazon

    Episode 178 – G.S. Gerry – Meth Murder & Amazon
    Nov 22 2023
    Overview G. S. Gerry doesn’t just write books, he creates humorous experiences with the written word.  When life kicks you in the nether regions find a way to see the humor in it all.   I am all about Mastering life Experiences Through Humor.  My purpose is to share my own experiences to help you laugh at my pain, and laugh through yours.  G. S. Gerry engineers uniquely hilarious concepts that are quirky and utterly unique, geared towards entertaining those on the lookout for that one truly unique experience.  Using a visionary approach towards life, laughter & entertainment. Derald Grake destroys his life the moment he decides to sell the family home. After capturing the American dream, this father of 4 hopes to solve the complex formula of buying low and selling high. Witness one ‘normal’ family embark on a hilarious and entirely unexpected journey involving, among other surprises, assassins, meth, murder, and the end of Amazon. Wrapped inside this intriguing mystery are eye witness accounts and compelling evidence to separate truth from fantasy. Follow the clues, sort through the lies, and put the pieces together of this twisted reality. From award winning author and visionary creator G. S. Gerry comes the critically acclaimed debut Meth Murder & Amazon. Book Website https://gsgerry.com/meth-murder-amazon/ Favorites YouTube https://youtu.be/uY5vbwr8Ex4 Transcript Stephen: Today on Discover Wordsmiths, I have Jerry. Jerry, how are you doing today? GS: I'm great. How are you? Thanks for having me. It's a Stephen: pleasure. It's a good to have you on and you mentioned it was raining where you're at. I live in Ohio. It's raining here. Also. Where are you located? GS: Started in Land O'Lakes, Florida. So 30 minutes from Tampa and I feel like it's been raining every day nonstop since the summer started every day at some point it rains like it was torrential Stephen: downpour today. Wow. Okay. We had a like monsoon. The other day I lost electricity for three hours. It was coming down so hard. I couldn't see my neighbor's house. It was crazy. Yeah. GS: It did knock out the internet here earlier, but not too Stephen: crazy. Yeah, I felt like we were in Florida. Yeah. All right. We are what, before we talk about your book I love your background, by the way, that's a great background. Tell us a little bit about you and some of the things you like to do besides writing. GS: Yeah I've actually been only writing for about a year and a half. I never thought I was going to be a writer. I had a crazy situation at work that kind of led me to hey, I want to be a writer. And so I can tell you about that real quick. I was working on a project. I do a lot of technical report writing at work on my new cyber security and credit card compliance. So you select your card at Walmart, Target any kind of store, right? Those customer, those companies have to have a compliance report. And so that's where a company like the one that I work for come into play. So we write a lot of long reports look at a lot of controls. And so I had a situation at work. I gave a customer a report and the next day she calls me and she's Jerry, this report. It's completely the same as last year. I'm like, Oh, gosh, please don't tell me that's the case. This is like a 500 page report, start reviewing the report saying we went on site. We didn't, there was no on site. We were in like the pandemic, like early pandemic at this time. So I was like, Oh, she's right. We have to rewrite this report. So the guy who was on my team, he was the guy who was leading the assessment. And he's the one who wrote the report. He copied my work. Yeah. Word for word and turn it into the customer, like it was his work. So we had to rewrite the report. It went from 500 pages to 750 pages. And it takes me like two months to fix the report. And afterwards, I'm like, man, I just wrote a novel. That's it.
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    34 m
  • Episode 177 – Audrey Birnbaum – American Wolf

    Episode 177 – Audrey Birnbaum – American Wolf
    Nov 1 2023
    Overview Growing up in New York in the late 1960's, Audrey Birnbaum assumed that watching Holocaust documentaries was a perfectly normal family activity. On her first day of elementary school, Audrey sat in the cafeteria, unwrapped her liverwurst sandwich, and excitedly told her new classmates about her public television proclivities. Her Brady Bunch-watching peers had never heard of PBS, but they had heard of PB&J (and they weren't too keen on liverwurst either). They made it abundantly clear: Audrey's childhood was, in fact, not normal at all. We will never know whether it was schoolyard bullying or watching tragic Shoah documentaries that was responsible for Audrey's acute sensitivity to others; but that empathy may have helped pave the way for her choice of medicine as a career. Audrey chose to specialize in Pediatric Gastroenterology - for who needed more help than children; and where could anyone feel more suffering than in one's gut? Day in and day out, she watched intricate family dynamics play out in the context of fragile health. Audrey listened to each patient's story until she could retell it with clarity and give it meaning. Through witnessing and recording these tender dramas, the seeds of writing had been planted. Book In the summer of 1941, eleven-year-old Wolf is coming of age amidst the rubble and antisemitism of war-torn Nazi Berlin. Destitute and facing imminent deportation, he must leave behind his ill sister and travel with his family across a continent entrenched in war. With nothing in hand but expired visas to the US, Wolf and his family must figure out how to sneak aboard the Spanish freighter the Navemar, a ship that will gain its reputation as the "Hell Ship of Death." But this is only the beginning of Wolf's saga. "American Wolf: From Nazi Refugee to American Spy is a heart stopping true story full of last-minute rescues, near-death encounters, and survival against untold odds. It is also a story about coming of age, family dysfunction and national identity, and is a resounding testament to the triumph of the human spirit. Using the extensive, detailed notes compiled by her father, author Audrey Birnbaum retells in memoir style a poignant and vivid account of Wolf's childhood in Berlin, his riveting escape from Nazi Germany, and the continued challenges he faced even as he reached freedom. Favorites https://thevillagebookstore.net/ YouTube https://youtu.be/if0lOOeo1O0 Transcript [00:00:00] Stephen: today on Discovered Wordsmith, I have Audrey. Audrey, how are you doing this morning? I'm great, [00:00:06] Audrey: Steven. Thank you so much for having me. [00:00:08] Stephen: It is great to have you on and I'm excited to hear about this book but before we talk about your writing and your book, let's find out a little bit about you. [00:00:15] So tell us some of the things you like to do and where you live outside of writing. [00:00:20] Audrey: Stephen, I live in Westchester, New York, and I have not always been a writer. This is pretty new to me. I actually. I want to say I was a doctor, but I think I'm allowed to say I still am a doctor, but I don't [00:00:34] Stephen: think you ever stopped being a doctor. [00:00:37] It's one of those [00:00:37] Audrey: professionals that I want to hold on to that title a little bit, though. I don't walk around like I didn't put MD on my book because I thought that was, I don't know. Ex I do. I'm a pediatric gastroenterologist. [00:00:52] Stephen: Wow. That's a mouthful. That's a lot. [00:00:53] Audrey: It's a mouthful. It's people will have trouble saying it. [00:00:57] I usually say kids from here to here . But [00:01:00] people are, they're good with that. Yeah. I [00:01:02] Stephen: study kid farts, [00:01:04] Audrey: yeah, [00:01:05] Stephen: probably what the answer the kids would like, . . I'm sorry. Go on. Tell us more about you.
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    46 m
  • Episode 176 – Ashley Earley – Heart of Skulls

    Episode 176 – Ashley Earley – Heart of Skulls
    Oct 26 2023
    Overview Ashley Earley grew up in Georgia, where she spent most of her time running wild in the woods of her backyard, building forts to create her own fantasy worlds, obsessing over books, and experimenting with her writing. Today, she lives in Colorado with her dog and still spends her time devouring any book she can get her hands on, writing, and editing for her clients at Earley Editing, LLC. In May of 2021, she graduated with distinction from University of Colorado Boulder, receiving a B.A. in English with an emphasis in Creative Writing. She also enjoys snowboarding, exploring, annoying her dog, constantly eating chocolate, and sharing her writing adventures on Instagram. Her Thriller/Suspense short story, Chasing Hair of Gold, won first place in the 2016 Writer’s Digest Popular Fiction Awards. As a writer, she leans into fantasy or horror due to her love of all things creepy. As an editor, she loves a little bit of everything when it comes to fiction. Give her that steamy, forbidden romance, give her vampires, or even that young lovey-dovey stuff with all the twists and turns! Book Website https://www.ashleyearley.com/ Favorites https://www.tatteredcover.com/ YouTube Transcript Stephen: Today on Discovered Wordsmiths, I have Ashley to welcome. Ashley, how are you doing? I'm good, how are you? I'm doing good. Before we get started, we're going to talk about your book, Heart of Skulls. Before we do that tell us a little bit about yourself, where you live, what you like to do and some things, hobbies and stuff outside of writing. Ashley: Okay. So I originally grew up in Georgia, but I live in Colorado now. I ended up moving out here for college and never went back or leave the mountains. So Stephen: do you ski now? Ashley: I snowboard, so I'm like, Stephen: the cooler person. Okay, cool. Got it. Ashley: Yeah, so I do snowboard when I'm not writing. I love reading. I have little coffee reading dates with my friends. I have a dog that I go hiking with quite often. Yeah, and then I run my own business, so I do that a lot of the time as well. So Stephen: pretty busy. Your own business related to writing or something separate? Kind Ashley: of related to writing. I write, I book edit. So I run my own book editing business with a couple other editors on Stephen: my team. You ever argue and yell at yourself about what should or shouldn't be in a book? Ashley: I do when it comes to my own books where I'm like, yeah, this works. This doesn't work. Oh my gosh, I'm a terrible writer. Like the typical stuff. Stephen: All right. What'd you go to school for when you went to Colorado, if I may ask? Oh, Ashley: I majored in English with an emphasis in creative writing. Stephen: So do you feel that has helped you with your writing career now? Or is it like it was nice, but not so much. Ashley: It was nice, but not so much. It did help with my editing career because I got to critique people in person and kind of fall in love with critiquing content. So that's. That's what I do now. So I'm a developmental editor who focuses on the content of someone's book and how it flows and all that good stuff. So it helped me with that and got me passionate about critiquing people. But otherwise for writing definitely not. I would say that they don't really teach you like the writing techniques people should be aware of. Stephen: Interesting. See, okay. And I ask that my own personal passions I feel we focus with younger kids in school way too much on spelling and grammar when they have no reference to what that is used for and where I feel we should work on just having kids tell stories and learn about how to tell a story and what makes a good story because once you write a bunch more, the spelling and grammar makes sense and falls into place. And I'm sorry, but The kids that are going to struggle and not get the w...
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    49 m
  • Episode 175 – Colin Leonard – Country Roads

    Episode 175 – Colin Leonard – Country Roads
    Oct 17 2023
    Overview Colin is Irish and used tales of his homeland to create his horror novel, Country Roads. When Luke Sheridan moves out of Dublin city to rural Kilcross with his wife and baby, he imagines the worst part will be his extended commute to work. They can look forward to enjoying the countryside and being part of a small community. After all, his old friend Declan Maguire lives in the house next door and is a Garda in the nearest town.But Declan’s devilish attitude towards drink, drugs and women means trouble is never far from his door. And worse, gruesome murders and the appearance of sinister figures at night mean the countryside is becoming a very dangerous place to live.Country Roads —don’t go outside alone. Book Favorites Website https://colinleonard.com YouTube https://youtu.be/0cmZn4vZ8bI Transcript Stephen: today on discover wordsmiths, I have Colin Leonard, how are you doing today, sir? Colin: I'm great. Thanks very much. Stephen: Oh, Colin: please. No. I'm my book was just released yesterday and we had a launch party the day before. So I'm this is a timely interview as well. I'm all about the book at the Stephen: moment. Nice. Awesome. All right. So launch party, congrats. Was it fun? Colin: Yeah, no, it was great. It was Bridgescape Press, my publisher organized this and we had a good few people online and yeah, just had a great time and nice chat about folk horror. Stephen: Nice. And that's the book Country Roads, which we're going to talk about in a few minutes. But before we get to the book, tell us a little bit about yourself where you live and some of the things you like to do besides writing. Colin: So I live in County Mead in Ireland in a little rural, it's not even a village, it's a little tiny cottage with a scrap of land that keeps me busy when I'm not writing, repairing the house and trying to keep the field from growing too wild apart from that, I have a young family. So the rest of my time is taken up with. Their activities, which they are big into sports and music. So we get to bring them here and there, watch their matches and watch their performances. So that's Yeah, it's a lovely age that they are at the moment. What do they play? Two of them play piano, one plays violin and they play soccer and cricket as Stephen: well. Wow, nice. Yeah I had piano lessons when I was young and still play music. So it's a great thing for kids. Yeah, definitely approve. Colin: Yeah, no, it is. It is fantastic to do it. Stephen: So let me ask with a family and everything, why did you want to start writing and why'd you want to write horror? Colin: I've always been writing on and off. From when I was a kid, I was always encouraged by my parents and my school teachers my, we were made aware. All the time that my grandfather was a poet, he had stuff published in the national newspapers. So he was a farmer in the truck driver as well, but he took the time to write poetry. Then leading into secondary school, I continued writing genre type stuff and entering it into competitions, some of which I won and got into the school magazine and that kind of thing. But life takes you in different places. Even though i did english literature in college i didn't end up working in that i did different things travel different places but once my life became more settled and i got a bit older i became more focused on trying to get published and concentrating on. Learning my craft a bit more and given a bit more time to writing. Stephen: Nice. Nice. Okay. So your book is called country roads. And it's full core. Tell us a little bit about the book. So Colin: it's as you say, it's called country roads and it's set in Rural ireland in somewhere similar to where I live and where I grew up. It's about a guy called luke sheridan who moves to Displaced from the city with his wife and his baby, and he does that kind of at the behest of his old...
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    27 m
  • Episode 174 – Saph Dodd – Sovereign Fourth

    Episode 174 – Saph Dodd – Sovereign Fourth
    Oct 10 2023
    Overview Saph Dodd has been writing for as long as she’s known how. Since she first picked up a pencil and learned to string sentences together, she’s been creating fantastic and intriguing stories. This twenty-six-year-old writer adores reading, especially action-adventure, fantasy, and horror stories, as well as lore and mythology.  Her first novel, published when she was sixteen, spurred her to continue to do what she loves. Writing is her passion. She lives in a small Tennessee town with her family: a younger sister, Jennifer, a constant source of inspiration, and supportive parents. Book https://www.jumpmasterpress.com/product-page/sovereign-fourth Favorites YouTube https://youtu.be/CYSX-gHrdJA Transcript Stephen: Today on Discovered Wordsmith, I have Saf Dodd. Saf, how are you doing today? I'm doing really well. How about you? I'm, I'm doing good. I'm not as pink as you are today. Saph: Yeah. Pink is, it's a takeover in here. Stephen: Got it. Okay. So we know you like pink. Before we talk about your book, tell us about some other things about you, what you like to do outside of writing. Saph: Well, shocker. I like to read. Okay. Mostly action, adventure, fantasy or horror, but I also I also do makeup. I'm a full time beauty specialist. So like I, I do makeup looks a lot and I Stephen: cause, Oh, nice. What's your cosplay characters, Saph: Ladybug from miraculous ladybug, Marinette from miraculous ladybug sailor moon, Alice from Alice in Wonderland, both versions and Cinderella. And a couple of characters from Bluey. That's what I've got in my roster right now. Stephen: Oh, nice! My daughter loves Miraculous Ladybug. Oh, yes, I love it. I actually know that one a little bit. Saph: I actually got to meet the voice actress of Ladybug at Huntsville Pop Culture Expo when I was there to sign books. Stephen: Oh, nice! Yeah, that's always fun to do. There's been a lot more of those in recent years. I think it's a good change in the culture that there's so much of this available. So tell us where do you live? And if there's anything really cool about where you live. Well, Saph: I live in Nashville, so it's Nashville, Tennessee. To music city, I guess, like, I've lived here all my life and it doesn't seem like it's that cool. But, like, I guess, like, everybody moves here to get big and country Stephen: music. I can relate. I live near Cleveland, the rock and roll capital. I've only been to the 1 time. So, yeah. Nice. All right. So why did you wanna start writing, and then what made you wanna write this book? Okay, so Saph: I have literally been writing for as long as I know how, I knew how I started at a very early age, just writing stories down in notebooks and stuff because I, I, and I, I would excuse me. I would try to, I would tell stories to my mom before I knew how to write. And then, like, when I learned to write, I was like, this is so cool. Now I can put my ideas down. And, you know, there wasn't much structure to it because I was a really young, but it's built, it's built into something more of a, more of like a craft that I do. And I, I started writing because, like, I felt it in me. I knew that I needed to, like, I was always destined to write. And this particular novel was really hard for me because I wrote it to eat, like, because I wrote it to get through my grief over losing someone very close to me. That's why the main core themes in Sovereign Fourth are lost in grief. So I wrote that to help me kind of move on and cope. It's dedicated to my uncle. Stephen: That's a that's a coping mechanism. That's a way recommended is writing your feelings, writing things down and channeling that into a story is, I guess you could look at it as taking the bad thing and putting it into something good. Yeah. Saph: And then it became my debut album. I Stephen: know a lot of people do. Nice, nice.
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    37 m
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