Kickstarter!!!

You all are amazing, really. In the first 24 hours, we were 54% funded and since then we're now up to 75% funded with 22 days left. Thank you so much to everyone who contributed and put their weight behind this project. And if you're still thinking about it, an anonymous donor has generously offered to match $1 for $1 any new pledges that come in the next ten days. Meaning if I get $125 more, they'll match the rest and boom! Fully funded! Please take a moment and check out all the tiers/rewards we have to offer. Oh, and anyone from my list who even pledges $1 will be thanked personally in both audio and print books. http://kck.st/3i9vHsz

A huge Mahalo to the following backers who contributed thus far:

Aaron Linsdau

Chip Chong

Chris Simpson

Coral Kemp

Danielle Williams

Eli Forkner

Elizabeth Reed

Gay Mathews

Isadora OBoto

Jamie Pacheco

Jeri Barnes

Jessey Mills

Kamille Howard

Kate Stock

Kensi T

Kourtney Ross Wyko

Rose Combs

Ryan Haugen

Savannah Gilmore

Shawna Vickery

Sparkle Barnes

Steve Russell

2022 IAN Book of the Year Awards

Good news for Bridgetown! Bridgetown was selected as a finalist in another completion, the 2022 Book of the Year Awards by the Indie Author Network. The two categories were: “First Novel with over 80,000 Words,” and “General Fiction.” Congrats to Glen Dahlgren for winning yet another award and beating me out lol. Get your copy of Bridgetown here and check out Glen Dahlgren's amazing series here. Glen has won so many awards it's literally insane . . . his series is going to be something massive, I can feel it. Congrats Glen!

Barnes and Noble Ala Moana Signing

I was pleasantly surprised when my contact at my local B&N (Ala Moana, Honolulu, HI) emailed me this week and asked me to stop by and sign some copies of Bridgetown! I love B&N's support with local authors and, you know me, I was there in a heartbeat. If you're in the area, definitely pop in and check them out! Oh, I also took the squid with me too! (Happy Five Months to Colby!)

Monarch Butterflies

If any of you follow me on social media, you'll know that we've been raising and releasing Monarch Butterflies lately. Sadly, Monarchs are back on the Endangered Species List as of this year due to habitat loss and predators. Here in Hawaiʻi, the Bul Bul birds eat both the caterpillars and the butterflies.

The good news is we happen to have a Crown Flower tree growing on our property where they lay their eggs so we collect and bring the caterpillars inside and then release them after they've magically transformed into a butterfly. If you haven't seen the process before it's super weird they start to crawl in zombie-like circles and then hang in this weird J form and then boom! They transform into a chrysalis. Logan does a wonderful job doing this and loves waving buh-byeeeee at them as they fly away.

20Booksto50K Conference Vegas 2022

I spent a week in Vegas! Every year, 20Booksto50K—the largest independent author Facebook group out there—holds a national convention in the heart of Vegas baby. I spent a week learning and networking with some of the most amazing authors out there. This is my second year in attendance and it was absolutely fantastic. I'd never been so motivated in my life and have more ideas than I know what to do with (one being the Kickstarter campaign!). If you don't mind, I'm going to introduce you to three great authors that I think you should know of . . .

The first author I met is Amy Harrison who spoke on a memoir panel. She's a wonderful author with her own recovery memoir out called Eternally Expecting: Eternally Expecting: A Mom Gets Sober and Gives Birth to a Whole New Life...Her Own. You can follow here at: https://www.amylizharrison.com...

The second author I met (who is absolutely amazing) is Dr. Sheryl Recinos. She actually led the memoir panel and though she didn't speak about herself much during the talk, we caught up and had a wonderful dinner together. She has a ton of books out, including her fantastic memoir, titled Hindsight: Coming of age on the streets of Hollywood. She also has wonderful middle grade books out as well so please do yourself a favor and check her out.

You can follow her at: https://www.amylizharrison.com...

The last author I want to mention is actually an old friend. He's an amazing athlete/explorer who is known for the longest solo expedition from Hercules Inlet to the South Pole, his book Antarctic Tears, his winter trek across the Greenland tundra, and his three ski expeditions across Yellowstone National Park in winter. Arron Linsdau is a super nice guy and he's got some great books to check out, most notably: Antarctic Tears: Determination, adversity, and the pursuit of a dream at the bottom of the world (Adventure Series)

You can follow here at: https://www.aaronlinsdau.com/

Little Free Library Charter #156258

We are now official Little Library Stewards!!!! Charter #156258.

We've ordered our charter plaque and registered our new LFL with the app and nonprofit. Our neighborhood has really embraced it and I've got a load of books donated from the Rotary Club here in Hawaiʻi, as well as my local indie bookstore Bookends.

We live on a corner lot, and a few weeks ago I was walking my boys home from the park and heard a zapping coming from the power lines. I looked up and one of our palm trees was ARCing with electricity, which meant something had to be done.

As it turns out, HECO, the Hawaiian Electric Company, provides a free service to remove trees that have the potential to damage infrastructure or hurt individuals. So I scheduled with them to have an arborist remove the tree and had a vision....why not leave a stump and utilize our corner lot with great visibility to add a new little free library? Fun fact, this was built, or at least cut, entirely with a jigsaw since my circular saw is on the fritz! Learn more at: www.LittleFreeLibrary.org and if you're in the area, leave a book or take a book no biggie.

Also, we have a LFL Book Wishlist here: https://www.amazon.com/hz/wish...

Interview with Kourtney Ross Wytko (Forensics Therapist)

(This is the current draft of the interview with Kourtney Wytko, a forensics therapist who I've been working with closely during the plotting/drafting of Late Blight in the Koʻolaus. It will be included in the back matter of LBitK. Enjoy!)

During the run-up to publishing Bridgetown: A Harm Reduction Novel, I reached out to my dear friend Jen Cutting (Supplies For Life) and asked if she could connect me with people in her circle who might be interested in giving feedback on an advanced reader copy. Jen doesn’t know how to disappoint and connected me with some amazing people that helped get my book of the ground. Kourtney Wytko was one of those people. From the onset, Kourtney was pumped about Bridgetown and I quickly realized that the work she does is in the same vein as my fictional character Harley and the very real Haven Wheelock, MPH. A forensic therapist who works in a psychiatric facility, Kourtney has dedicated her life to a world I knew very little about, yet one that runs parallel to what I know and write, the common thread being substance use disorder and mental health. I hope you enjoy our following interview:

What’s your name and what do you do?

My name is Kourtney Wytko, and I am a forensic therapist. I work with people who were found not guilty by reason of insanity (NGRI). I help them reintegrate into the community and then work with them to maintain stability in the community setting for the remainder of their supervision.

What drew you to this line of work?

Working in mental health was not like my lifelong dream, as I originally went to college to become a teacher. My bachelor’s degree is in elementary education, but while teaching kindergarten, I became utterly disgusted that I made more money bartending 3 nights a week than by teaching. It also pained me that public education is so tied to standardized testing, and I hated that the first experience most of my students experience with school was one of failure based on a certain test. I had kids who didn’t even know a single letter at the beginning of kindergarten who not only learned the alphabet but all the sounds, but since they didn’t know certain words on a test, they were marked a failure. So on a whim, I applied to exactly one grad school (that only accepted 13 students to their program) and told myself that if it was meant to be, it was meant to be. Turns out I was accepted, and once I started grad school, I got a work-study job at the state psychiatric facility. I continued bartending, and when I graduated from grad school, the hospital offered me a full-time job and I have been there ever since. I spent the first 5 years of my career working with civilly committed people and have been working with the NGRI population since 2012.

Before I embarked on this journey, you sent me a massive box of books withtitles such as The Center Cannot Hold, No One Cares About Crazy People,Mad in America, The Collected Schizophrenias, and more. You’re obviously areader. What should be on everyone’s TBR list?I am definitely a big reader and was happy to send you what I had because I love sharing books with people. I think those books you listed are all great and I think people should read them. Everything is Fine: A Memoir by Vince Granata is an excellent look at a family where one brother commits a crime and is found NGRI and what that looks like for them. Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness by Susannah Cahalan is another good one that looks at the difference privilege can make in receiving good treatment. These books are incredible and really touched me and shaped how I try to serve my dudes.Another is Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion by Father Greg Boyle (calm down, I’m not promoting religion; I just adore his approach). He talks about radical kinship and just loving people where they are. I have found that to be the most therapeutic thing I can do. Just show someone that they are worthy of love just as they are. Someone giving a genuine fuck about you can be life changing. Then there is All the Young Men: How One Woman Risked It All To Care For The Dying by Ruth Coker Burks. In this book, she tells how she became the caregiver and advocate for so many HIV-positive men at the beginning of the AIDS crisis in the South. And once again, she was someone who cared so deeply about people that many others viewed as “throwaway people.” Both books had a profound impact on me.And last but not least, I think everyone needs to read One Hit Away: A Memoir of Recoveryand Bridgetown: A Harm Reduction Novel by Jordan P. Barnes. These books humanize addiction and harm reduction and that’s something we need more of. You better not take that part out, Jordan!

Want to read the rest? Join my Patreon to read this and more!

Have You Preordered Late Blight in the Ko'olaus!

No One in Their Right Mind Asks for Mental Illness

Seven years after pleading not guilty by reason of insanity, Avery West agonizes over the reality that his time at the Hawaiʻi State Hospital is ending. He can’t imagine a life beyond the confines of his psychiatric facility, even if his schizophrenic symptoms are finally in remission. But having spent most of his adult life surviving with mental illness, he has found stability and is terrified of losing everything he’s fought for. Yet despite his reservations, Avery’s treatment team insists he’s ready to move on with his life.

After Avery becomes the newest addition to a local sober home, he struggles to adapt to a world where he’s feared and viewed as damaged goods. Any slip-up will see him hospitalized again, tearing him away from a daughter that deserves to have her father back. But when he becomes involved with a coworker who believes Western Medicine has failed him to no end, Avery toys with the idea of what life in a perfect world would look like. Faced with controlling his destiny, can Avery hold it together or will he spiral into a rapid decline?

From the award-winning author of One Hit Away comes Late Blight in the Koʻolaus, a galvanizing novel exploring the complexities and stigma of mental health, schizoaffective disorder, and where one goes after being found not guilty by reason of insanity.

Release Date: 2/13/23

If youʻd like to support the launch, please preorder today! You wonʻt regret it!

November Wrap Up