San Francisco Book Review

Jan Walters is a life-long resident of Iowa and enjoys working on their farm with her husband. Besides her love for writing and creating paranormal adventures for her characters, Jan loves to explore her family genealogy. Her first novel, Believe, is a time-travel romance set in the Victorian era. Believe is a story of second chances. Believe is unique in that both the heroine and villain travel back in time. Ms. Walters was a recipient of the Editor’s Choice award for Believe. Her second novel, York Street – A Ghost and a Cop Series, is the first book in a trilogy. York Street is a paranormal, murder mystery. York Street is about the adventures of a serious-minded cop and an irksome ghost who pair up to catch a serial killer. The second book in the trilogy, Red Sunset Drive – A Ghost and a Cop Series, will be released in early 2016. The chaos and mayhem continues as the two protagonists take on new unworldly villains. Her books are available in paperback or ebooks at Amazon, Barnes and Noble and other major bookstores.

Teri Metcalf is retired after nearly 20 years of educational research and development at Texas AM University. She and her husband Bob Presley live in College Station, Texas. She is the author of Chicken Poop for the Soul: Backyard Adventures, in which she describes their experiences with backyard chickens.Rambler Rose is the story of coming of age in coastal California during the 1950s and 60s. It’s about family relationships, American pop and political culture, and race and religion. The setting of California in the mid 20th century is a character unto herself. Other key members of the cast include Teri Metcalf’s mother, father and stepfather. Girlfriends, boyfriends and lovers appear in supporting roles, along with an assortment of colorful relatives. Through her narrative of experiences with people, places and things, she explores how those connections shaped her development and her understanding of the world.

Kevin Christofora found his calling when he began to coach little league. He has coached the Mountain Valley Little League (formerly the Woodstock Little League) since 2008.  More than a pastime, Kevin loves working with the children. He prides himself on teaching them that it’s about more than a game: it’s about honor, respect, and community. As president of the league, he enjoys working with the parents and community members that all have one main interest: the kids. As he puts it, “Mountain Valley Little League is real fun, real life, and real baseball, with no substitutions.”Written for children ages three to five, Kevin wrote The Hometown All Stars as a bedtime story to get kids interested in the national pastime again. His goal in writing this book was to get kids out of the house and onto the field – “ less screen,  more green.”  He believes in the valuable lessons that children learn from playing the game: teamwork, discipline, strategy, and thinking before they act. In addition, he wants to bring back the joy of being outdoors and playing, that kids in recent years have lost.An engineer by education, Kevin gave up the corporate life to move back to his hometown to carry on the family business and become the local butcher and a dad.  He has found more happiness becoming a baseball coach, than he ever had before. He hopes to pass the excitement of the game to other children with The Hometown All Stars. Nick’s Very First Day of Baseball is his first book of the series followed by Magic Bat Day.Seven-year-old Jewel interviews Kevin about his books.

Jon Land is the bestselling author over 25 novels. He graduated from Brown University in 1979 Phi Beta Kappa and Magna cum Laude and continues his association with Brown as an alumni advisor.Jon often bases his novels and scripts on extensive travel and research as well as a twenty-five year career in martial arts.  He is an associate member of the US Special Forces and frequently volunteers in schools to help young people learn to enjoy the process of writing.Jon is the Vice-President of marketing of the International Thriller Writers (ITW) and is often asked to speak on topics regarding writing and research.In addition to writing suspense/thrillers John is also a screenwriter with his first film credit coming in 2005.Jon works with many industry professionals and has garnered the respect and friendship of many author-colleagues.  He loves storytelling in all its forms.John currently lives in Providence, Rhode Island and loves hearing from his readers and aspiring writers.Jon Land is the bestselling author over 25 novels. He graduated from Brown University in 1979 Phi Beta Kappa and Magna cum Laude and continues his association with Brown as an alumni advisor.   Jon often bases his novels and scripts on extensive travel and research as well as a twenty-five year career in martial arts.  He is an associate member of the US Special Forces and frequently volunteers in schools to help young people learn to enjoy the process of writing.Jon is the Vice-President of marketing of the International Thriller Writers (ITW) and is often asked to speak on topics regarding writing and research.In addition to writing suspense/thrillers John is also a screenwriter with his first film credit coming in 2005.Jon works with many industry professionals and has garnered the respect and friendship of many author-colleagues.  He loves storytelling in all its forms.John currently lives in Providence, Rhode Island and loves hearing from his readers and aspiring writers.

Carole Bumpus, a retired family therapist, is the author of the historical novel A Cup of Redemption, (October 2014) and a companion cookbook, Recipes for Redemption will be published August 2015, both from She Writes Press. Her food articles have been published in both the US and in France. Carole is a state board and branch member of the California Writers Club (CWC), San Francisco/Peninsula Branch, and has been published in three CWC short-story anthologies: Fault Zone: Words from the Edge, Fault Zone: Stepping up to the Edge, and Fault Zone: Over the Edge. Her original food/travel interviews taken from over seventy-five people in France and fifty in Italy, along with more recipes, will culminate in a series of books called, SAVORING THE OLDE WAYS. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. Visit her website at carolebumpus.com. San Francisco Book Review's Kate Stephenson chats with Carol about her two books.

Interviewed by Ross Rojek, Editor-in-Chief, City Book ReviewNeal Stephenson is an award-winning American writer and game designer known for his works of speculative fiction. His novels have been variously categorized as science fiction, historical fiction, cyberpunk, and "postcyberpunk." Other labels, such as "baroque," have been used.  Stephenson's work explores subjects such as mathematics, cryptography, philosophy, currency, and the history of science. He also writes non-fiction articles about technology in publications such as Wired. He has worked part-time as an advisor for Blue Origin, a company (funded by Jeff Bezos) developing a manned sub-orbital launch system, and is also a cofounder of Subutai Corporation, whose first offering is the interactive fiction project The Mongoliad. He has also written novels with his uncle, George Jewsbury ("J. Frederick George"), under the collective pseudonym Stephen Bury.In this interview, Ross discusses Neal's latest book, Seveneves.

Interviewed by Ross RojekR. Douglas Jacobs first exhibited his flair for writing at an early age, but relegated his ability as a writer in concentrating on screenplays when he was in his early 20's. He had hoped to be an auteur, and wrote, produced, and directed his own film in 1995, entitled Coffeebeans Poems. But his attempts at independent filmmaking were exhausted through his failure to procure a distributor for his effort. So, in 1998, he shifted his energy to producing a Spanish language television series for ESPN with renowned fitness producer, Ernest Schultz, which was produced and aired in 42 Latin American countries through ESPN's pan-regional networks in 2001. The network, unfortunately, reneged on supporting the program, Mente y Cuerpo, and without advertising revenue to sustain it, the series ceased to survive beyond 35 episodes. In 2005, R. Douglas Jacobs reverted back to writing as a means of coping with the disappointment of being unable to resuscitate his television series, and began compiling and writing sonnets for a poetic anthology, which he self-published in 2007. The book, The Rhymes of Love and Reason, marked his first foray as an author and served as a primer for an even more ambitious literary project, Gethsemane: An Epic Poem About Us, which he released in 2011. This particular literary endeavor was a landmark attempt in constructing a narrative to a story completely told in poetic verse and ending in unique rhymes. The challenge of writing this book took up two years of his life and, regrettably, led to the dissolution of his engagement to his companion of six and a half years. In 2013, R. Douglas Jacobs released his first children's book, The Slip-slide Misadventure of Mildew Goo, in paying tribute to the concept of a novel caricature, which was inspired by his ex-fiancée. This book, like the two previously published works, failed to find an audience. R. Douglas Jacobs remain undeterred and decided to adapt Gethsemane as an audio book and produce the project in the vein of esteemed cinematic icon, Orson Welles. Like the book, which preceded it, Gethsemane: The Radio Theatre Experience, took more than two years to create and features a collaboration with gifted composer, Mark Moya, and a baroque ensemble they founded together, Musicus Gethsemanensis. Recently, R. Douglas Jacobs was finally rewarded with a long, overdue recognition from a reputable source in the literary industry. On June 12, 2014, Nick Owchar, former deputy book editor of the Los Angeles Times, reviewed Gethsemane, the book, and wrote R. Douglas Jacobs citing his work as being "Emotional, brilliant, wow, disorienting, risky." In many ways, the man who struggled to find some recognition as an "artist" felt a sense of redemption, which he had always sought. This fall, R. Douglas Jacobs will be working on reconstituting Musicus Gethsemanensis with the intent to record a separate soundtrack of the Gethsemane score, and will resume work on a manuscript to his next book, which will be a narrative told in free verse, and is aptly entitled, deFragmentation.

Gabriel Moran

Harald Hansen

Barry Tutor

Daniel Babka Interview

Glyn Iliffe

Ron Parsons

Stacey Roberts

Larry Booker