Fiction

It’s a beautiful evening here in Kerrville, Texas, and the weather is 84 degrees, I’ve just returned from the fabulous Kroc Center (of which there are only 8 others in the United States!) where I set up for a dinner for seating 125 people—no, I did not do it alone—are you kidding me, Jockey?  There were six of us scurrying like drunken squirrels getting tablecloths on, silver, cups and saucers, glasses, salt and peppers, sugars and creamers—and out of the dining room by a certain time so that the powers-that-be could get in there with centerpieces, banners, set up cameras, etc.!  I had also just helped with the Lions Club meeting at noon, today, and a nicer group of people you couldn’t’ meet. Very considerate and polite, but I was tempted to tell a lady that her shorts were really a little too short for a luncheon—but then, I thought better of it (Himself always cautions me on that point—the short shorts are not any of my business—still, there was that one moment when I considered it!

Could anyone tell me what Mitt Romney’s first name is?  Just an idle question. Are there many heated discussions concerning politics, amongst your friends and relations or does everyone find it better not to?  I’m sorry for whoever becomes President since,
A. this is not a dictatorship for the individual who is president to just expect or think he can ride in on his ideas and desires and get them and,
B. who’d want to have to work with a Congress who don’t even want to talk to a president, much less each other?  Maybe, since the country has expressed its annoyance and frustration with Congress often enough, they will be easier to work with, the next 4 years? 

Well, that’s my transition—heralding fictional ideas—that transitions into letting you know this is a Fiction column.  The well-known author, Ralph McInerny was a strong and vital voice in lay Catholic activities, taught medieval studies at Notre Dame University and wrote “The Father Dowling Mysteries”, which ran on TV for several seasons, and this book, “The Compassion of Father Dowling”, is a sterling collection of his short stories not only about a mystery but the human nature behind it.  It’s printed in Large Type and, therefore, easy to read.:”The benevolent and brilliant Father Dowling has cared for St. Hilary’s congregations while still finding time to unravel the knottiest of mysteries.” His great charm is the easy-going manner he has and even understanding the criminals who did when they felt they had to do.  He is, indeed, a gentle, kindly man while, at the same time, loving the unlovable. This is a nice, gentle book sans violent sex, sadism, evil people (except for the murderers, here and there) and anyone who reads it will love Father Dowling.

To be honest (which usually I am, sometimes when it would have been easier to lie!) about this next book, I am ambivalent about, and, as your reviewer, I will explain—and my reasons are strictly my own. “The Replacement Wife”, by Elieen Goudge, is a well-received, “thoughty” book about the subject of a wife and mother having cancer, learning it’s fatal and inoperable and deciding to pick her husband’s choice of wife to replace her, as she knows his likes and dislikes better than anybody. Well—he sort of does that, picking out his own “replacement wife”, she doesn’t like it and feels betrayed and he explodes and says she should have known she was playing with fire—and then, the doctor tells her that, with the new Cancer drugs she’s been taking, she will beat the disease and live another 20 years! Yeah. That’s what I thought, too. 

Well, by and by, they decide that for the sake of their marriage and kids, they’ll just “keep things as they are”, and he will distance himself from the “replacement” and his friendly buddy gives some excellent thought-provoking questions to ask himself, and so we journey on.  No, I will not tell you the ending, that’s the point of this column-I try to encourage you to read the book yourself. I, myself was not happy with the ending, but then I’ve asked myself exactly what ending did I want, much less expect, much less count on happening? See, Camille, the wife, picked Elise, knowing, “in her absence, they would need the constant, loving support only someone as kind and giving as Elise could offer.” Well, all that’s very noble and understandable—except that isn’t whom the husband, Edward, has, in accepting the situation, gravitated towards. Beginning to get the picture, are you? I always said you all were smart—smarter than the average poppets. 

The next one is another one of these “woman’s stories”, although not at all sugary and “dumb”, just interesting and full of human interest, “The Song Remains the Same”, by Allison Scotch, and it, too, is in Large Print.  Attendez!  Nell Slattery wakes up in the hospital, having luckily survived a plane crash, only to find she has no memory of who she is, or what happened, and beginning with a kind reporter (are the two terms really synonomous?) learns she was in a plane crash, apparently trying to run away. Her husband, Peter, is trying to hide his recent affair. Her mother is trying to sweep the real story of her long-lost father “under the rug”. Her sister, Rory, is trying to protect hers and Nell’s “volatile relationship” with conflicting stories of her own.”

So, with the help of the reporter, whom she makes a pact with that they’ll tell each other only the truth no matter what, Nell sets out, while confined to a hospital bed, to discover her relationships with others. During the course of her beginning “to learn the truth” about people and events, “the problem with forgetting everything, you don’t remember that trouble is always just around the bend.”  As you can imagine, memories are just around every corner, her ex-husband is trying too hard, her mother has a new man in town and the two of them loving moments in front of Nell, that rather makes her nauseous, her reporter/partner in finding out her past, such as the house, according to Indira, her mother, in Charlottesville, Va. “that’s where your father lived. That’s where he lived the other half of his life.  That’s where he lived his life without you, your sister, and me.”  So, does Nell recover all her memory, stay with her philandering husband and his pleading for another chance, learn her parent’s past and still love them? Does your past dictate your future and how much of it do we carry with us, forever and ever, amen? 

Interesting concept and the story moves right along—as will I, now, to the next offering for your reading pleasure, and this next author is a genuine delight as can be attested to by those of us who read and admire and chuckle over Alexander McCall Smith and his stories about the No.1 Ladies Detective Agency and the delightful people who “run it”. His newest is “The Limpopo Academy of Private Detection” which, upon reading, I laughed out loud at—why, you ask?  Thank you for asking—I delight in giving extraneous thoughts. Rudyard Kipling, in his classic collection of stories about and from India, wrote about a river he called “ the great, gray, greasy Limpopo River” and I always delighted in repeating it to my Brit grandfather, and he’d laugh with me at the images it brought up,  (the Brit were always linked to India, don’cha know!)

Alors! In Botswana, home to the No.1 Ladies Detective Agency for the problems of ladies, and others, it was customary to enquire of the people whom you meet whether they have slept well.  Of course, mosquitoes may be defeated by nets or sprays, just as dogs may be roundly scolded; a bad conscience, though, is not so easily stifled.” The language is always mannered, the thoughts made clear, and the reader is “let into” the various character’s minds and motives. The head of the detective agency is the wonderful, wise, Precious Ramotswe, and she is “haunted by a repeated dream, a vision of a tall, strange man who waits for her beneath an acacia tree, and she’d worry more about it during the day if she weren’t so busy.

The best apprentice at the husband’s garage is in trouble with the law and stuck with the worst lawyer in Gaborone; her assistant, Grace and fiancée, Phuti Radiphuti, are building the house of their dreams except the contractor is crooked—and,most shocking, Mme, Potokwane, defender of Botswana’s weak and downtrodden has been dismissed from her post as matron at the orphan farm.” Calamity has indeed struck! Help arrives from the tall stranger of the dreams, who turns out to be none other than the estimable Clovis Andersen, author of the manual the ladies detective agency runs by.”  You will not want to quit reading this book when bedtime comes—Smith has formulated a style that is, if I may be so dramatic, charming and funny and very knowing about people, their motives, and dark side. So, go check out this book and congratulate yourself on having a story of people and events that are both ordinary and grave and understandable.

Hey, guys, the big 4^th of July is coming up, and even though firecrackers are largely banned, everyone knows that some will go off, somewhere, in the middle of the night—and—and—there’s always slightly burned hot dogs on the grill, potato salad and homemade ice cream and chocolate cake, right? Keep smiling, water your plants, walk the dog;(no, he doesn’t get enough exercise stuck out in the yard, all by himself! Trust me on this—or ask your vet about the importance—and companionship that a walk with you provides.) and treat yourself to a double-dip ice cream cone after a hot day.

Always remember what a privilege it is to have a library in your town, and since I can see the flaws in the one just renovated and re-opened here in Kerrville, trust me when I say you have a great director and staff and great balance in materials available to the public—i.e.you! Sometimes we take libraries for granted and maybe the good ones should be, as they try valiantly to fulfill the needs and requests of its patrons—but, again, realize that not all libraries are like ours in Liberal.  Give a compliment to Jill, our director, or anyone on staff—or even a suggestion to improve something. Take care of yourselves and your furry friends and see ya next column. Bye!

Earth Day and Coming Events

April always seems like a whirlwind of activity!  Some of the library staff just returned from the Kansas Library Association’s annual conference.  Lots of good information is always presented to guide library staffers in ultimately providing the best service for our patrons. 

National Library Week has come and gone.  The theme this year was You Belong @ Your Library.  The emphasis was on all the varied things libraries provide for patrons with a wide range of interests.  The week kicked off with a cookie and lemonade reception on Monday, the 9^th.  Patrons were invited to put their names into a drawing for neat prizes in the children’s, teen, and adult categories.  If you were called as a prize winner, be sure to stop by the library and pick up your prize. 

The final sessions of spring story time took place on Thursday, the 19^th.  The next group of story times begins with the start of summer reading the week of May 29.  Speaking of summer reading, something new is available this year for attendees of our program.  In order to speed up the sign up process, which begins the week of May 21, patrons have two options.  They can either stop by the library for the forms necessary to enroll their children in the summer program OR they can go to our website at www.lmlibrary.org, click on Youth Pages, then Kids’ Corner, then Summer Reading and the forms will be available to print out.  In fact, it is set up that you can fill them out before printing them out.  Then all you need to do is stop by during sign up week with the completed forms and we’ll get your children enrolled.  This should make sign up a much more pleasant experience.  Should you have any questions, please call the Children’s Desk at 626-0180, ext 4. 

Today is Earth Day.  Second graders in our district got to start celebrating early with a special program on Monday, April 16, provided through the partnering of Liberal Parks & Rec, Natural Resource Conservation Service, Seward County Conservation District, and Memorial Library.  Educator Tarra Tyson and docents Joe and Connie from the Lee Richardson Zoo presented a program about how our conservation practices here impact wildlife in other parts of the world.  They brought along boa constrictors, desert tortoises, and chinchillas.  The students not only got to see the animals but got to touch them as well. 

It’s always impressive how well behaved these second graders are even when they become excited about seeing the animals.  The second grade teachers are to be commended for guiding their students in the proper behavior out in public. 

In honor of Earth Day, here are a few resources available in the library.  Two popular book characters are featured in Earth Day stories.  Mercer Mayer’s Little Critter presents It’s Earth Day and the ever-popular Jane O’Connor character Fancy Nancy stars in Every Day is Earth Day.    Diane de Groat, who is famous for her ‘catchy’ titles, has penned Ants in Your Pants and Worms in Your Plants, another fiction offering.   Wilma Gore and David F. Marx have each written non-fiction books about Earth Day with the title Earth Day.  The 333.7 section in the Children’s Library will net a plethora of various titles having to do with the conservation of our many resources.  Another non-fiction title is Recycle this book :  100 top children's book authors tell you how to go green edited by Dan Gutman  who is also the author of Honus and Me, The Kid Who Ran for President, and the My Weird School series, among others.  The book offers simple things that anyone can do.  Gutman points out that if enough people do these simple things, it will make an impact.   So check out these and other titles and see how you can join others in making that impact.  Have a happy Earth Day.  See you at Memorial Library!

Nonfiction

Ye Gods and Little Fish hooks, as one of my good friends (from the depths of the Blue Ridge Mountains used to say), this has been a busy week and, with the arrival of a best friend, Sylvia Harbuck, this afternoon, it’s going to get a tad busier! Syl and I are not good for each other’s checkbook when shopping as we’re always saying to the other one, “Oh, that would be great in your home—look good on you—be something your husband would like”, etc. and we leave the store carrying more than our purses. It’s all her fault, is the thought that comforts me but Himself keeps urging caution and I ask myself, “Do I really need this?” What a ridiculous question and one I’ll never lose sleep over!  Needless to say, we will be hitting Chico’s, Barnes and Nobel, Cheesecake Factory, etc. and that’s the way it is, in Kerrville, Tx.

Oh, and we did enjoy seeing Phil and Margaret Light and two of their friends, recently in Fredricksburg, and both couples were celebrating their anniversaries and had done the beautiful, amazing Blue Bonnet wildflower tour—isn’t it amazing what some rain will do?  They are so thick and lie in blue blankets all over fields, rocks, small streams and, from a distance, it’s as though you are looking at a lake or river—incredible! Come next Spring, end of March, first of April and see a truly unique Texas “sight” and stop in to see Himself and I—we are only 25 minutes from Fredricksburg. The wine is always available and the grill can be started in 3 minutes! 

Them are the facts as I seen “em, and, having said that---are you ready, Patty?—the col. is Non-Fiction!  Surprise!  But a beautiful segue , I thought. Oh, yes, and I might mention that there are golf courses every whipstitch and always local tourneys going on—come on down!  The first book has received a lot of laughs and good reviews—“Don’t Put Me In, Coach; My Incredible NCCA Journey from the End of the Bench to the End of the Bench”, by Mark Titus.  We’ve just finished March Madness and K.U., by the way, surprised everyone (except my great-grandson!). Both Himself and I were at the TV, urging them on—we had two or three scares, I might add, along the way to the Final Four! Amazing season—and with seven Freshmen players!  You just know those high school hotshots were on the verge of panic, once in each game, to say nothing of having to learn to play with strangers and a new coach and learn what to watch for in tapes—again, Ye Gods and Little Fish hooks! 

Okay, this book is "the most hilarious, irreverent, inside NCAA-Hoops Memoir Ever Written Most Likely" and the young man sitting on the end of the bench is Mark Titus—he became a legend for bench warmers, his followers were named “Club Trillion.” Mark tells about players’ lives and experiences and he can ‘cause he grew up with them and he rode the bench and yet set the record for most wins for Ohio State.  His teams won the Big Ten championship and made it to the Final Four—with him on the bench, of course, for most of the games. He said, “If I had to describe the Final Four in only 13 words, this is what I’d say; “It’s essentially just a weeklong circus with a few basketball games thrown in” and even though the hoopla got annoying pretty quickly, I enjoyed the locker room every day before and after our games.” His outlook/sizing up on other teams is very entertaining, his pranks are R-rated but the guy really is funny and it’s a great read for male Basketball fans—trust me on this.  Get the book for Uncle Harry or Dad or a jock cousin—they’ll thank you for it.

“Confessions of a Surgeon: The Good, the Bad, and the Complicated—Life Behind the O.R. Doors,” by Paul Ruggieri, M.D., is not funny but it’s a very interesting book as to what goes into the making of a surgeon, the shaping of their attitude toward patients, the practice, and each other.  He’s also very honest—he doesn’t say he’s not without faults—in fact, “I must admit, fatigue and impatience have undoubtedly contributed to some mistakes I have made in the operating room. Some abdominal operations can last for 5, 6, 7 hours, depending on the problem and I get tired—particularly if the surgery is in the middle of the night. Most surgeons are used  to operating  and operating well in a fatigued state.  It is something we learn in training and carry with us as a badge of honor.” 

And, I was amused by this, having known some surgeons—“Surgeons are always in a hurry. They are in a hurry to get you out of the office; they are in a hurry to see you in the morning; they are in a hurry to get you into the operating room, do the surgery and are in a hurry to get you out of the hospital after your surgery. There is sort of an unspoken belief that “has long existed among surgeons that speed in finishing an operating equates with being ‘good’.  Reckless speed in the operating room can injure or kill if the wrong surgeon is driving.” (You might want to read  the last 2 sentences again—this surgeon is nothing if not honest.)  He has made mistakes and admits his patients can pay the price, and I was reminded of a good friend of mine, married to a doctor, who answered a complaining patient---“As long as medicine is administered by doctors and not machines, mistakes and tragedies will happen.”  Wise answer if difficult, at time, to agree to.

He’s been very honest in this book; he’s been exhausted, frustrated, failed, cried when there was nothing more to be done and his patient will die, but what a wonderful person and excellent surgeon he’s become, since medical school—as were my personal friends. I had, as did many others in and around Liberal, a wonderful doctor, Ross Grimes, who was called upon by other chiefs of staff to operate on them when they needed a really good surgeon. Ross was Cleveland Clinic trained, gentle, big, bear of a man, who found he could only have time for his hunting dogs and riding his Tenn. Walker horses around midnight. 

I went in the night before a hysterectomy and was a trifle apprehensive, Ross ambled in around 8 o’clock, sat down, asked how I was doing and I told him and asked him, being a bit of a smart-aleck, which I’ve now, of course, outgrown—“Ross, have you ever done this before?  I’d hate to think that I was your first patient!”, and he smiled his big Oklahoma farm-boy grin and said, “Connie, I actually did this, having read about it in a medical book, when I was 18 or 19 on a farm cat who’d had too many kittens”. It sounded like a suspicious recommendation to me, so, the next morning, this starched, busy, no-nonsense nurse came in to “prep” me and I asked—smiling—“Could you ask Dr. Grimes one last question?” and she assured me she could and what was it?  “Ask him whatever happened to the cat he operated on?” All professional smile left her face, she straightened up, put on her professional slightly disapproving face and assured me that I had a fine doctor and would be in good hands but my last words, in the operating room, were “Ross, if you can hear me—whatever happened to that cat?’’and quietly passed out!  I adored that man and am among his many admirers—what do you suppose, though, ever happened to that cat?

Okay, enough of a personal anecdote and let’s move onto another book! We’ve all started hearing about the wonderful dogs that are with our troops, protecting and being a “special” help to the men and women who are in constant danger and lately, I’ve been hearing on TV of the hopes that their companions can come back to the states with them. These dogs—yes, and cats—have kept the troops “sane in the situation I’ve been in for months” and the plea, from many of them is, “please help me bring my dog/cat home because I really don’t think I’d have made it through this if not for his/her companionship and courage and love.” Well, “No Buddy Left Behind; Bringing U.S. Troops’ Dogs and Cats Safely Home from the Combat Zone”, by Terri Crisp, talks about these special relationships and the cover alone did this animal lover in—a soldier, with all his gear, sitting in a jeep, I think, with a wonderful white German Shepherd “type” sitting across his legs with these huge dark eyes, alert expression and bonded to his master, obviously.  Of course he should come home with “his” soldier—who else has been through the cold, heat, rain, no food at times, living in danger and a lot of noise but the soldier’s dog? 

Let me tell you a brief message about Ms Crisp; she is the program manager for SPCA’s Internatioinal’s Operation Baghdad Pups and has made 36 trips to Iraq and Afghanistan since the program started and has been interviewed on many TV shows. You can learn more about this operation at Operation Baghdad Pups at http://www.spcai.org/.

Some school children who wanted a Pet/People project agreed to raise the 4,000 dollars needed to get each pet to safety—and everything was to be kept secret in the foreign country, “because if certain people in Afghanistan find out this organization exists, a lot of animals would be killed, “and I’m not just talking about dogs and cats that belong to the troops.  The bad guys in that country do not play nice.” Our author said, “All of a sudden Iraq looked pretty darn tame and the logistics of transporting an animal from the battlefield to the designated airfield—in the wee small hours of the morning—looked pretty grim.” 

Anyway, for this one dog, a school group—only 12 children—took on the task for raising 4,000 dollars (it’s what it costs for one—one—dog to be brought out) and they held bake sales, car washes, went on radio and TV pleading for help for this lady soldier’s dog to be brought home (she was coming home ahead of the dog), and actually raised 11,000 dollars for 3 dogs!  The students and teacher asked the lady soldier, Jessie, if it would be all right to be her pen pal and Jessie emailed back, “Are you kidding?  I can’t believe they’d do this for a complete stranger and I’ll gladly correspond with them, and I’ll send pictures and photos of the dog, Tiger, too.  This is incredible news.  I just can’t get over it and you have no idea what this means to me.” The students were thrilled and everyday they checked to see if Jessie had sent anymore pictures or news of Tiger, who, being a mountain pup, was growing like a weed into a big boy.

The children’s sponsor, a teacher named Dena, said when she told the principal and staff “that my students were going to raise 4,000 dollars everyone said they’d never get it done, but those girls got together and brainstormed and left no stone unturned.”  The plane came, it was pouring rain, but those 12 girls and Dena stood out in the rain, holding home-made signs saying “Welcome home, Tiger,” and “We love you and now you’re safe”, they stood back as he was unloaded, bewildered, tail wagging, desperately needing a potty break after 44 hours, and, then, in the shelter of a hangar, they all welcomed the Afghanistan dog to his new, safe home in the united states. 

A call was placed to Jessie—“He’s here and he’s just fine” and Jessie began to yell and by then, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house, and, as I read this, and thought of all the love and stick-to-it’ve-ness and bake sales and newspaper articles car washes that these 12 girls had done, all for a dog and a person they didn’t even know, I wiped my eyes and said, “There is goodness in this world.”  The End.  There are other stories in here, and other animals that need help and thank Heavens for the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals helping many Jessies and Tigers live the rest of the animal’s life together.

Interview with Zach Carpenter

Local author Zach Carpenter recently held a book signing of his new novel Soul Hunters at the Liberal Memorial Library. Liberal Memorial Library had the opportunity to catch up with Zach and talk about Soul Hunters and his inspiration for writing.

Liberal Memorial Library: How did you come up with Soul Hunters?

Zachary Carpenter: I've always been a fan of horror and all things creepy and unexplained. The concept of slicing a monster's head off and saving the person about to get eaten was always something I found appealing. So I began writing a series of short stories where I and a bunch of my friends from my youth group at church were the heroes. I called them "Knights of the Covenant." It's not a work that I would try to publish or anything though. But Soul Hunters eventually developed out of that basic idea, where there was a group of people who are like vigilantes and they kill monsters. They are a mysterious group that to outsiders they are just monster hunters, but to each other they call themselves as a group, "Soul Hunters." And for the explanation to that one, you'll just have to read the book.

LML: What was your inspiration?

ZC: Okay, well my inspiration for Soul Hunters, (once it actually became Soul Hunters,) was a video game series called "Hunter the Reckoning." It was about this group of monsters hunters who seem to always get called back to a certain town when the ghouls try to come out of the woodwork. I played the first game, was hooked, but couldn't find it for the console I had but found and bought the 2nd one...Never got to play the 3rd one though...makes me sad...But there was the games, and then I also watch the first Underworld and the Hugh Jackman movie Van Helsing. Those gave me a lot of ideas to work with. Then as the story progressed and continued to get better I started playing the Resident Evil and Silent Hill games.

LML: Did you always want to write?

ZC: No, never saw myself ever being a writer. It was like pulling teeth to get me to even try to read when I was younger.

LML: How did you get into writing?

ZC: I read a book by Frank Peretti called, "This Present Darkness," when I was 13. It was a book about a small town and how there was this church that these demons were trying to destroy the people going there and also it showed the angels fighting to keep those people safe. It inspired me to take a stab at it. Inevitably, everything I wrote starting out just seemed like a bad knock off of Peretti's work, but then I started writing fan fiction of the character Casey Jones from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and I even had ideas for an X-Men story. I never got around to writing that one, but the Casey Jones one was the first actual full length, novel size story I wrote. I never did anything with it though. It's on an old floppy disk. Yeah, I wrote it on one of those older computers. I’m not sure if I can even get it back.

LML: How do you reconcile having zombies with Christianity?

ZC: This is the one I've wanted to answer the most. Well first off let's cover some basics:

- Soul Hunters is meant to be a horror story.

- It is a story that shows a conflict of Good and Evil.

- God isn't some pansy that sits idly on his throne when crazy crap starts going down.

Exodus 15:3 says, "The Lord is a warrior; the Lord is his name." So, I don't just have demons possessing dead bodies (thus making zombies), but I also have werewolves, deformed flesh eating creatures, some with wings, some that look almost human, and goblins that take after Hannibal Lecter. I also have a demon possessed, knife happy scarecrow whom I have affectionately named Jack. So, how do I reconcile having a buffet of evil when this is supposedly a "Christian" book? Well for one, the hunters in my story need something to hunt! But more than that, it's because, it is only when we see the evil pursuing our own lives that we see our need for God. We see that we need him to desperately come in when we are surrounded by those monsters and save us before they eat us. Now, do I mean this literally? I'm not opposed to that possibility if it ever came down to that, but in our own personal lives when people realize that the battle for their soul is real, that God is pursuing their hearts, and so is the devil, we need a savior who is willing to slay the zombies and werewolves and demons in our lives. Because as much as God loves people, and as personal as he is in wanting to reveal himself to folks, the devil is just as committed to personally destroying people and making sure they don't see God's love for them. It's personal for Satan too.

LML: How did you get into the process of publishing?

ZC: Well, when I started Soul Hunters I did want to get it published, but of course, I didn't know where to start. So when I was 19, a lady in the church I was going to at the time, Amanda Schwab, had gotten her first book, "Woman Beautiful," published by TATE Publishing. She referred me to them and they have been great. TATE Publishing helped me with editing the story, helping it to be more fluid as a piece of writing, and they helped me with producing it and marketing. The great thing about TATE is that most companies will only market a book for maybe 2 years at the most, and if it doesn't sell they move onto the next book. But with TATE that work with an author to continually market the book, and are always committed to helping it be as successful as it can be, regardless of sales. So in other words, they won't leave you stranded in the gutter if your book doesn't sell. They will still continue to work with you through everything.

LML: What about Soul Hunters 2? Will there be a Soul Hunters 3?

ZC: Soul Hunters 2 is coming along pretty good. Right now it's going kind of slow and that always sucks, but I am over half way finished with writing it! It does follow the same characters, but it takes place in Denver, Colorado instead of the fictional "Broken Edge, Kansas," that the first book took place in. I can't give away any spoilers about the story, other than in book 2, a law has been passed in Colorado and a couple other states that give werewolves and goblins the same rights as normal human citizens. But as far as submitting it to the publishers, they want Soul Hunters to have been out at least a year before I submit the next one.

As for Soul Hunters 3, yes, there will be a third book. In fact, there will be the original SH trilogy, and then there will be a prequel trilogy, and the story line for those actually starts in the year 1888, and that trilogy will follow the ancestors of some of the main characters in the original trilogy.

LML: What other kind of writing do you want to do?

ZC: I love writing song lyrics. I can write short prose pieces too. I LOVE writing fan fiction, and it's been years since I've done any but last fall I took a creative writing class at the college and got a chance to start another fan fiction story. This one is about the character Scorpion from the Mortal Kombat video games. I also have another idea for another horror story, but it is set more in a fantasy world like Lord of the Rings, only it's a horror story. Yes, I will be one to try to put a horror twist to anything.

I've caught a lot of crap from certain people about my interests. I guess they don't see how somebody who professes to be Christian would even give those things the time of day. But the way I see it, and this isn't mine it's from Ted Dekker, another awesome author, "It's critical that we use a very dark brush — a black brush when we paint evil, and when you bring the Light into that darkness, as characterized in John 1, it becomes very vivid, and when it dispels the darkness, we see the brilliance that's there." He also said, that anybody who wants to impact their culture must speak the language of their culture. Right now, zombies, werewolves, and vampires are part of that language.

For those who want to know more about go to http://www.soulhuntersofficial.com/ or http://www.tatepublishing.com/