Author Conversations

Sid Korpi has combined her decades of varied professional experience — as an editor, writer, journalist, English teacher, actor, and ordained minister/animal chaplain — with her lifelong devotion to the animal companions who have blessed and shared her life in creating Good Grief: Finding Peace After Pet Loss. Surviving a “tsunami of loss” in her own life led to her discovery of spiritual truths that brought her strength and facilitated her heart’s healing. She felt compelled to share these things with others who suffer — often in isolation — from the passing on of their very dearest nonhuman friends, their pets.

She notes, “Unfortunately, our society on the whole discounts their grief as frivolous since they’ve ‘merely lost an animal.’ People often report that they got over the death of a fellow human being easier than they did that of their pet simply because they were given permission to really grieve over the human and thus found the support they needed to process those feelings. This same support is often sorely lacking when the intense feelings of sorrow are a result of pet loss.”

In this book, she melds her personal perspectives and stories with those of professionals (such as veterinarians, animal communicators, and religious leaders) and other animal lovers the world over. She hopes to ease the pain of those who feel they are alone in their suffering — because, she has found, nothing could be further from the truth.

“Those of us who share a deep bond with our animal companions are in abundant supply. Too many of us have obviously felt we must keep silent in our anguish or be labeled somehow defective,” she says. “I want this book to end the misperception that we must suffer in solitary confinement and thus prolong, or stay permanently stuck in, our grief.”

Sid Korpi lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with her husband Anthony Kaczor and their six “mere animal” friends/family members: Blanche, and Keely (Westies); Giles and Xander (cats); and Atticus and Scout (finches).

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Minnesota born Dick Hill is a Five Star Author who has earned numerous creative, marketing and broadcasting awards. Hill, a graduate of the University of Minnesota, survived a thirty-five year advertising career including twelve years with Campbell Mithun. He is president of Dick Hill Advertising, and lives with his wife, Mary, in Edina, Minnesota. Their car’s license plate reads HKDONMN, acronym for the title of this book.

What’s inside Hooked on Minnesota? Roger Erickson, the former WCCO announcer, and partner with Charlie Boone on The Boone & Erickson Show, tells about the many joys of living and vacationing in the Land of 10,000 Lakes. Photography buffs will enjoy the tips and ideas that Kathy Scott Lampi, Grand Rapids, shares with readers. The Photo Lady’s north woods camera-experience is featured in chapter Four, “Nature and Vacation Photo Tips.” The biggest fish caught in Minnesota weighed an even 54 pounds. The giant muskie (muskellunge), was pulled in and weighed at Lake Winnibigoshish, Itasca County, in 1957.

Hooked On Minnesota is a valuable guide to Minnesota’s great wonders-from the bustling Mall of America to the untouched wilderness at the Boundary waters (BWCA). Dick Hill’s insights about Minnesota’s good life make this a fascinating and entertaining reading experience all wrapped into one. Make this book your constant guide to vacationing in Minnesota. For all the times you want something to do, someplace to go, somewhere to dine, picnic, swim or fish. Hooked On Minnesota is a true gift for residents and visitors, alike. It is the ultimate Minnesota souvenir for everyone’s coffee table.

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Dr. Eldridge graduated from the University of Minnesota Medical School with prestigious Alpha Omega Alpha honors. She completed her residency through the U of M with time spent in Hawaii studying health risks related to human exposure to pesticides.

Dr. Eldridge practiced family medicine with a passionate emphasis on prevention for over 15 years in the Twin Cities, Minnesota, before devoting herself full time to researching and speaking internationally on cancer prevention and nutrition.

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Dr. John Gray is an expert in the field of communication, Gray’s focus is to help men and women understand, respect and appreciate their differences in both personal and professional relationships. In his many books, CD’s, DVD’s, tapes, workshops and seminars, he provides simple, practical tools and insights to effectively manage stress and improve relationships at all stages and ages by creating the brain and body chemistry of health, happiness and lasting romance.

Over the last fifty years, life has become more complicated. Longer working hours, intensified by grueling commutes and more traffic, the increased cost of housing, food, and health care, rising credit card debt, and the combined responsibilities of work and childcare in two-career families are only a few of the sources of stress in our fast-paced modern lives. In spite of the new technologies designed to connect us, information overload and round-the-clock accessibility via the Internet and cell phones have reduced much of our communication to the equivalent of text messaging. We are stretched to the limit, with little energy for our personal lives. Despite increased independence and opportunities for success at work, we are often left with a sense of isolation and exhaustion at home.

Over the last fifteen years, a new trend in relationships has emerged linked to increasing stress. Both couples and singles believe they are too busy or too exhausted to resolve their relationship issues, and often think their partners are either too demanding or just too different to understand.
Without an understanding of our different needs, men and women are adjusting their actions and reactions to no avail. Our actions may be pointed in the wrong direction. Why Mars and Venus Collide provides a new understanding and a variety of techniques you will need to counter the disruptive effects of stress and to steer a true course to a lifetime of love.

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Born in Ventura, California, Robert Kull has spent years wandering North and South America, working as a scuba instructor, travel guide, construction worker, logger, dishwasher, truck driver, bartender, community organic gardening teacher, firefighter, photographer, and professor. In 1985 he lost his lower right leg after a motorcycle crash in the Dominican Republic. He began undergraduate studies at age forty and now holds a PhD from the University of British Columbia. Bob currently lives in Vancouver, BC.

In 2001 Bob traveled to a remote uninhabited island on the rainy, wind-swept coast of southern Chile. More than one hundred miles from other people, I built a shelter and lived alone for a year to explore the physical, emotional and spiritual effects of deep wilderness solitude. Here, through words, photographs, and videos, you can experience what it’s like to live alone in the wilderness.

Solitude is sometimes dark and difficult, but there is deep joy abiding in the flickering stillness. Moments when, as unexpected gift, boundaries and buffers dissolve and all is, as it always was, sacred and alive. Solitude can remind us there is no true spiritual freedom except through surrender to our own lives just as they are – here and now – in each moment.

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These are changing times for the publishing and broadcast industry! Major dynamic changes on many levels and areas have had a significant impact on the authors and their readers.

Those who have enjoyed listening to authors speak of and about their work have found it increasingly difficult to connect with and hear that deeper conversation in a meaningful way.

Experienced authors and publicists will tell you there are many who can do an interview but only a few are able to deliver in the art of conversation. It is the deeper genuine conversation that will truly honor the authors work and context of their story and content.

There are the three only things that are essential to a successful book.

The FIRST and most obvious is a good book. A good ‘write’ in any category creates its own dynamic and in so many ways creates its own momentum and sells itself by word of mouth.

The SECOND essential for a successful publishing effort is a good cover.  Ironically in the business of words here is where a picture or creative art is worth a thousand words and all the pages that are embraced between the covers of the publication itself.

The THIRD and final essential for a successful publishing effort is media and broadcast exposure.  An author who has the opportunity to connect with their target audience to detail the story and share the meaningful insights crucial to the potential reader completes the sale!

The changes in the broadcast industry have dramatically changed the media and broadcast opportunities which have been and continue to be an essential component of the three only things equation for authors and readers to connect.

The authors and publishers on this site are the leaders in this new paradigm. (Please visit the Contact and Your Interview tabs for your specific details.)

Now anyone with an internet connection anywhere in the world can at anytime access and listen to an author’s conversation about their book.  It is the conversation that creates the relationship with author and reader and inspires the reader to complete the sale!

KATHERINE M. SANFORD, M.A., M.F.C. is a certified Jungian analyst and practicing Marriage and Family therapist in Del Mar, California. She studied at the Jung Institute in the mid-1950s in Zürich, Switzerland and trained at the Los Angeles Jung Institute where she received her certification in 1978.

She is a founding member of Friends of Jung, San Diego. She has written several papers and lectured nationally and internationally on issues of the animus, motherhood, and the wounded child. Her most recent work, The Muddled Milk of Motherhood will be published in Psychological Perspectives in 2006.

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