Author Spotlight - Book Publishing & Marketing | ElkPress

AUTHOR ON SPOTLIGHT

OCTOBER AUTHOR OF THE MONTH

Shannon Condon is an avid writer and has been since her early teens. Her dream has always been to write novels. She graduated Phi Kappa Phi from the College of Journalism and Communications at the University of Florida. In 2014, she had the opportunity to become a full-time writer and the result is the Magdalena Series. It follows protaganist, Maggie Curran from a newly orphaned fifteen-year old to an adult with a family and career as a black ops assassin. Shannon loves to write suspense/thrillers and crime mystery. Keeping the reader on the edge of his seat with unexpected twists and turns is what motivates her. She is currently taking a hiatus from the Magdalena Series to explore a new genre. Her upcoming book is a YA paranormal thriller. Shannon is excited about the change and hopes to give her readers chills! She likes to travel to the locations where her books are set whenever possible to immerse herself in the culture and bring genuine details to the settings.

Shannon is a mom to three amazing boys and after living in different parts of the country has been in North Carolina for twenty years. Watching her sons live their dreams is a constant inspiration for her.

SEPTEMBER AUTHOR OF THE MONTH

LAURENCE MICHAEL HAYNES BORN ON SEPTEMBER 1959 IN QUEENS, N.Y. TO ROBERT AND MARIA HAYNES. OLDER SISTER LINDA HAYNES RICE (DECEASED). ATTENDED› ST. ANNS ELEMENTARY SCHOOL, ARCHBISHOP MOUOY HIGH SCHOOL AND ST. JOHN'S UNNIVERSITY. MOVED WITH MY 2 AMAZING PARENTS (ROBERT & MARIE) TO SYOS!SET, N.Y. IN 1978 WHERE I MET MY BEAUTIFUL FUTURE WIFE AMY. I WAS MARRIED IN 1982 AND HAVE BEEN BLESSED WITH 3 BEAUTIFUL DAUGHTERS (CATIE AGE 33, TINA AGE 31 AND BERNADETTE AGA 25).

THIS JULY 24TH, AMY AND I WILL BF CELEBRATING OUR 38TH WEDDING ANNIVERSARY. I GRADUATED FROM ST. JOHN'S UNIVERSITY IN 1981 WITH A DEGREE IN ACCOUNTING. WORKED AS A JUNIOR ACCOUNTANT FOR DOUBLEDAY AND COMPANY BOOK PUBLISHERS FOR 18 MONTHS AND THEN RETURNED TO THE FAMILY LAND SURVEYING BUSINESS. I BEGAN WORKING FULL TIME WITH MY DAD AS A LAND SURVEYOR IN 1982, BECAME LICENSED IN NEW YORK STATE IN 1995 AND STILL PRACTICE LAND SURVEYING AS THE OWNER OF 2 LAND SURVEYING BUSINESSES ON LONG ISLAND.

MY LOVE FOR DRAWING BEGAN AS A YOUNG BOY AND IT REMAINED A HOBBY OF MINE WILL INTO MY TERN YEARS. AFTER MARRYING AND STARTING A TAMILY, THERE WAS A VERY LONG PERIOD OF TIME IN WHICH I NEVER PICKED UP A PENCIL. AS OUR DAUGHTERS GREW, AMY AND I BECAME VERY INVOLVED IN ALL ASPECTS OF "THEIR LIVES AS WELL AS BEING INVOLVED WITH OUR PARISH SCHOOL (WHICH OUR GIRLS ATTENDED) AND CHURCH. ST. EDWARD THE CONFESSOR, LOCATED IN SYOSSET, N.Y. WHICH IS A SMALL TOWN ON THE NORTHSHORE OF NASSAU COUNTY, LONG ISLAND, N.Y. I SERVED ON ST. EDWARD'S SCHOOL BOARD FOR 6 YEARS (1 YEAR AS VICE PRESIDENT AND 1 YEAR AS PRESIDENT). I WAS CO-CHAIR OF THE PARISH DINNER DANCE WITH A LIMILONE FRIEND OF MINE FOR 7 YEARS. I HAVE ALSO BEEN INVOLVED IN NUMEROUS PARISH STINTS AND FUND RAISERS.

AS OUR DAUGHTER GREW, AND WENT OFF TO COLLEGE, I FOUND MYSELF WITM SOME EXTRA TIME. I BEGAN TO DRAW AGAIN ABOUT 10 YEARS AGO. I HAD REDISCOVERED MY LOVE FOR DRAWING AND ALONG WITH IT THE DESIRE TO DO SOMETHING POSITIVE WITH MY TALENT. THIS IDEA OF WRITING AND ILLUSTRATING CHILDREN'S BOOKS WITH A POSITIVE CHRISTIAN MESSAGE SEEMED TO BE THE BEST PATH FOR ME TO TAKE.

SINCE 2017, I HAVE HAD 3 BOOKS PUBLISHED WITH CHRISTIAN FAITH PUBLISHING. I HAVE A 4TH BOOK CURRENTLY BEING PUBLISHED. IT IS SOMETHING THAT I TRULY LOVE AND HOPE THAT SOMEDAY I CAN TURN IT INTO A SUCCESSFUL CAREER FOR THE SECOND HALF OF MY LIFE. I BELIEVE THAT BECAUSE OF ALL OF THE CHOICES (AND MOST NOT GOOD) THAT CHILDREN HAVE THESE DAYS WHEN IT COMES TO TELEVISION, COMPUTERS, VIDEO GAMES AND SMARTPHONES, THE SPECIAL TIME THAT A PARENT OR GRANDPARENT USED TO HAVE READING A BOOK WITH A SIMPLE LESSON OR MESSAGE HAS BEEN OUSTAND NEEDS TO BE REDISCOVERED.

AUGUST AUTHOR OF THE MONTH

Dr. Frank L. Douglas grew up in British Guiana with his mother and four siblings. His love of education earned him a Fulbright Scholarship and he came to America during the turbulent years of the 1960s. He worked at Ciba Giegy and Aventis, and was involved in the pharmaceutical industry where he spearheaded research and development of drugs that treat tuberculosis, arthritis, diabetes, seizures, cancer and pulmonary embolism, among others.

Douglas has received the Global Pharmaceutical Research and Development Director of the Year Award in 2001 and 2004; the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Organization for the Professional Advancement of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers in 2002; the Black History Maker Award in 2007; the Geoffrey Beene Foundation and GQ Rockstar of Science, and the Odyssey Award from the Center of Medicine in the Public Interest in 2010; and the Caribbean Heritage Award for Entrepreneurship in 2011.

Douglas wrote Defining Moments Of A Free Man From a Black Stream in honor of all those who have helped him along his journey.

JULY AUTHOR OF THE MONTH

I spent most of my life with and in the military. My Dad was in the Navy and I traveled with the family across the Pacific and the Atlantic and he retired to Phoenix, Arizona when I was in the seventh grade.

I graduated from High School and then Arizona State University with a degree in business but promptly went into the Army just in time to get to Vietnam before we came home. I spent the entire year of 1972 in Vietnam seeing first hand what I had grown up with on the television news. I think because I was predisposed to the military lifestyle of moving every few years to new places and new schools I stayed in the Army and spent sixteen years overseas in different assignments doing different things in different countries, mostly in Europe. I participated in the first Gulf War and in the peacekeeping effort in the Balkans, was at the CIA for three years, was the Army’s first “cyber-cop” and when I retired in 2000 after thirty years, I went to work for an IT startup in the computer security arena. After the tragedy of the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001 I was hired by the Massachusetts Port Authority to run their security program covering three airports and the seaports of Boston. I settled on Boston’s North Shore where I live with my wife, Eleanor, who is a Doctor of Psychology with over forty years of private practice, and a successful artist. She is also an ordained minister in the Church of Spiritualism with dovetailed nicely with the way my life has gone since retiring from military and security responsibilities.

Writing has always come naturally to me and I have always had a vivid imagination but I have never been religious. So writing my first book, A Million Monkeys, came as a shock and surprise to me since it details the story of Genesis and The Meaning of Life from the perspective of a “voice from above” if you will allow me to characterize it like that. I struggled for two years over the question “why me?”. Then I set to the difficult task of translating what thoughts came into my mind about all that into a published book. The second book, The Crown of Happenstance, contains some message from Spirit but is mostly a science fiction/fantasy work that stems from my seeing barbed wire sticking out of a tree in the North Carolina woods. The third book, continues the story of Bon of Shonak and I had a great deal of fun writing that. I just started Book Four, another in the Shonak series, this one notionally titled “Bot Diaries” that detail the interaction of Shonak human-appearing mechanical beings, or bots, and people on Earth throughout our history. For example, in Chapter One, a bot just happened to be there when Alexander the Great, at the age of twelve, tames his famous horse. IT was the bot watching it all which provided the name, Bucephalus. This book should be even more fun to write and all the others!