Batt Humphreys

Fri., August 6th, 2010 from 12-2pm
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Georgia native Batt Humphreys started his television news career in Charleston, SC in the early ’80s. His debut novel, Dead Weight (Joggling Board Press, paperback, $14.95), begins his fiction-writing career in the same place.

In one of America’s most beautiful cities, an ugly crime. Charleston, South Carolina, in 1910 is the scene of a true story. There is a trial in the town, a triangle of animosities. A Jewish merchant murdered, a black man accused, and a white populace primed for a hanging.

Into the real events, steps a fictional character. A reporter from New York arrives to cover the story. Hal Hinson follows the facts, but finds that Charleston is a much more complex and seductive city than he imagined. Hinson discovers a dangerous balance in the racial divide, a country of beauty and cruelty, and a love story that reviewers describe as Shakespearean in its ending.

About the author:
Batt Humphreys, a Georgia native, began a career in television news in Charleston in the early ’80s. His career took him to CBS News in New York where he spent 15 years, most as a senior producer. He managed the coverage of many of the events that have shaped our lives over the past quarter century, including the first hours of the morning of September 11, 2001, and several wars and elections. As a reporter, he covered hurricanes, executions, and more murders than he cares to remember. When he left CBS in 2007, one of his colleagues wrote, “Quite frankly, there’s no one other than Batt that you’d rather have in the control room when news breaks. He worked ridiculous hours, through the middle of the night, and somehow managed to be sharper and tougher and more quick-witted than those of us who were less sleep-deprived could ever be.”

In 2007, Humphreys returned to his beloved South, but it wasn’t long before the lure of the headline drew him to a century-old story. He and his wife Laura currently live on a farm outside Charleston, along with horses, dogs, and cats of varying populations.

Dead Weight, Humphreys’ first novel, is based on a true story.

Michael Cogdill

Fri., August 20th, 2010 from 12-2pm
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She-Rain tells the fictional story of Frank Locke, who was raised in poverty, ignorance, and violence in the North Carolina mountains in the early 20th century.

Frank overcomes his harsh beginnings with the help of two very different women — Mary Lizbeth and Sophia. This love triangle engenders consequences no one sees coming.

In a rhapsody of Southern voices, mingling hilarity and sorrow, She-Rain speaks of lives soaring beyond heartbreak, fundamentalism, and self-destruction. Two women in love with one man ultimately prove the power of human hearts to answer high callings. They show us all how to heal–and thrive–to the very end.

About the author:
Michael Cogdill is one of the most honored television storytellers in America. His cache of awards includes 24 Emmys and the National Edward R. Murrow Award for a broad range of achievement, from live reporting to long-form storytelling. His television credits as a journalist include CNN, CNBC, MSNBC, and The Today Show, and Michael’s interview history crosses a wide horizon: The Reverend Billy Graham, Dr. Mehmet Oz, Dr. Henry Kissinger, Abby Hoffman, Senator Hilary Clinton, Senator John McCain, Howard K. Smith, James Brown, Keith Lockhart of the Boston Pops, and many other newsmakers. His coverage credits include Presidents and Vice Presidents of the United States.

Michael spent ten years writing She-Rain, letting it evolve into a world of fiction drawn from his upbringing in western North Carolina but reaching far beyond. His other writing credits are Cracker the Crab and the Sideways Afternoon, a children’s motivational book, and the self-help volume Raise the Haze. Michael makes his home in Greenville, South Carolina, with his wife, Jill (a children’s book publisher), and their golden retriever, Maggie. He’s currently working on his second novel and works of non-fiction, as well.

Beth Webb Hart

Fri., September 3rd, 2010 from 12-2pm
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South Carolina native and critically acclaimed author Beth Webb Hart brings us another Christian fiction novel, Love, Charleston (Thomas Nelson, paperback, $14.99), an inspiring, heart-warming novel set in romantic Charleston, South Carolina.

“Stay and wait.” Anne Brumley heard these words years ago in the bell tower at Saint Michael’s Church in Charleston. She’s certain they were from God and has been waiting for true love ever since. But her sister, Della, and their cousin, Alicia, have their doubts. Could Anne have misunderstood His calling?

Saint Michael’s new rector may be the answer to Anne’s prayers. Good-old-boy and widower Roy Summerall can’t believe he’s been called to pastor such an historical and decidedly rich congregation. He can’t possibly measure up to their expectations.

It will take a miracle of extraordinary love to provide a happy ending for each of these four Charleston friends.

About the author:
Beth Webb Hart, a South Carolina native, holds a B.A. in English Literature from Hollins College and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Sarah Lawrence College. Her first novel, Grace at Low Tide, was one of three finalists for the 2006 Christy Awards in the general/contemporary fiction category. Her second novel, Adelaide Piper, was selected for Books-A-Million’s book club and for their national book of the month for December, 2006. Both titles were included in the “Top 10 Christian Novels of 2006″ list by Booklist, the American Library Association’s review journal. Hart’s third novel, The Wedding Machine, became an ECPA bestseller in July of 2008.

Beth lectures on a variety of topics and has taught creative writing on the college and high school level where she received two national awards from Scholastic, Inc. Beth Webb lives with her husband, Edward Hart, and their daughter in Charleston, South Carolina, where she serves as a writer-in-residence at Ashley Hall.

Joyce and Jim Lavene

Fri., September 17th, 2010 from 12-2pm
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North Carolina husband and wife Jim and Joyce Lavene have teamed up again for their latest mystery novel, Deadly Daggers (Penguin, paperback, $7.99), the third in their Renaissance Faire mystery series.

Jessie Morton’s latest apprenticeship at the Renaissance Faire is in service to Daisy, the master swordsmith. But when a professional dueler–and Daisy’s former flame–is murdered, and twelve evil, magical daggers are loose in Renaissance Faire Village, it’s up to Jessie to keep a sharp eye out for the killer and the daggers before they destroy the Village.

About the authors:
Bestselling authors and award-winning photojournalists, Joyce and Jim Lavene are a husband and wife team who started out writing novels in 1999 and have had more than 40 books published. They have also written, The Everything Guide to Writing a Novel, as well as hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles. Somewhere along the way, they decided to write mysteries, and they have been hooked on that genre ever since.

They have six mystery series (Missing Pieces, Peggy Lee Garden, Renaissance Faire, Stock Car Racing, Pet Psychic, and Sharyn Howard) and work for a small newspaper in Stanly County, North Carolina. When they aren’t promoting their books, coming up with new ideas for books, or taking photos of sweet potatoes that look like guinea pigs and congressmen who look like sweet potatoes, they spend time with their family of 3 children and 5 grandchildren and their cat, Quincy, who “helps” them write.

Tonja Weimer

Wed., September 29th, 2010 from 12-2pm
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Award-winning children’s author and performer Tonja Weimer has a second career as a relationship coach and dating expert. Her new book, Thriving After Divorce: Transforming Your Life when a  Relationship Ends (Atria Books, paperback, $15.00), shares her life-changing strategies.

The end of a significant relationship has traditionally been viewed as a crisis to be endured, weighed down with many negative connotations. In Thriving After Divorce, author and relationship coach Tonja Weimer asserts that divorce has the potential to create a powerful change in one’s life, daily habits, and even in one’s personal identity. Weimer offers readers a transformational approach to growing through the challenging life transitions that arise from the breaking of one of our most defining partnerships. Through the expressive and powerful metaphor of the TAO–Take, Action, and Outcome–Weimer guides readers through a tumultuous time to stable ground by showing how to put one’s actions in line with one’s needs for positive outcomes that will strengthen and prepare the heart for a new path.

Weimer believes that the key to a successful transition is in learning how to create a new authentic relationship with your partner in the absence of shared romantic love. This new relationship allows for a continuation of your combined goals, building and sustaining necessary boundaries, and guidelines for a new form of relationship. Weimer shows readers how to work through shared responsibilities involving children, mutual business interests, the care of family members, and other situations that require both parties to partner together in the new space of the relationship. Thriving After Divorce encourages separated partners to build a new interconnectedness and healthy relationship, while at the same time working toward an independent, complete life filled with integrity and self-honesty.

About the author:
Tonja Evetts Weimer has an M.A. in Human Development, is a Master Certified Single’s Relationship Coach and a Certified Life Coach with the International Coach Federation (ICF). She has been a keynote speaker in almost every U.S. state, as well as in Europe and India. She has appeared on numerous regional and national television interview shows, including CNN’s ShowBiz Today, and was the online Dating Expert for the USA/NBC TV Network mini-series, The Starter Wife. Tonja is also an award-winning newspaper columnist, writing a weekly dating column called Savvy Dating, carried by newspapers in hundreds of cities across America and Canada. She has been published in New Woman, Hope, Grand, and House Beautiful Magazines. Her columns and articles have won three Matrix Awards.

Tonja grew up outside of Bakersfield, CA, the daughter of cowboys who migrated from the Oklahoma dustbowl. Her father was a renowned cattle auctioneer; her mother competed in the Grand National Rodeo at 83 years old. Tonja studied atop haystacks and tractors to eventually earn a scholarship that led to her Master’s Degree in Human Development. She worked with children in Harlem in the sixties, and won a grant with Easter Seals to work with developmentally disabled children in Pittsburgh in the eighties.

Thriving After Divorce marks Weimer’s first book since her career change in 2002 from a children’s author and educator to a relationship coach and dating expert. After 22 awards for her 7 books, 6 albums and 2 videos for children, including her album, Space Songs for Children, which was taken aboard flights of the U.S. Space Shuttle, Tonja suffered Spasmodic Dysphonia, a condition that left her unable to sing and perform to the thousands of children that packed auditoriums to see her nationwide. With over thirty years of her career behind her, most people would have viewed such an incident as a sign to retire. Not Tonja. Instead, she says the opportunity allowed her to “find a new voice.”