Homer Hickam

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 Homer H. Hickam, Jr. was born on February 19, 1943, the second son of Homer and Elsie Hickam, and was raised in Coalwood, West Virginia. He graduated from Big Creek High School in 1960 and from the Virginia Polytechnic Institute (Virginia Tech) in 1964 with a BS degree in Industrial Engineering.

A U.S. Army veteran, Mr. Hickam served as a First Lieutenant in the Fourth Infantry Division in Vietnam in 1967-1968 where he won the Army Commendation and Bronze Star medals. He served six years on active duty, leaving the service with the rank of Captain. 

Hickam's first book was Torpedo Junction about the battle against the U-boats along the American east coast during World War II. A military history best-seller, it was published in 1989 by the Naval Institute Press. In 1998, Delacorte Press published Hickam's second book, Rocket Boys: A Memoir, the story of his life in the little town of Coalwood. It became an instant classic. Rocket Boys has since been translated into many languages and also released as an audio book and electronic book. In February 1999, Universal Studios released its critically-acclaimed film October Sky, based on Rocket Boys (The title October Sky is an anagram of Rocket Boys). Delacorte subsequently released a mass market paperback of Rocket Boys, re-titled October Sky. October Sky reached the New York Times # 1 position on their best-seller list. 

Mr. Hickam has since had a very successful writing career with many best-sellers including Back to the Moon, The Coalwood Way, The Keeper's Son, and Carrying Albert Home. 

Mr. Hickam was also employed as an engineer for the U.S. Army Missile Command and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). He has received many literary awards and honors. Among them are the prestigious University of Alabama's Clarence Cason Award and the Appalachian Heritage Writer's Award for his memoirs and fiction. He also received an honorary Doctorate of Literature from Marshall University.

Mr. Hickam is married to Linda Terry Hickam, an artist and his first editor and assistant. They love their cats and share their time between homes in Alabama and St. John, US Virgin Islands.  

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Writer and editor B. Lynn Goodwin owns Writer Advice, www.writeradvice.com. She’s the author of an award-winning YA, Talent and an award-winning memoir Never Too Late: From Wannabe to Wife at 62, plus a collection of journaling prompts, flash pieces, and short articles.  Her flash fiction was recently published in Nebo, Cabinet of Heed, Murmur of Words, 100-Word Stories, and Ariel’s Dream. She lives with her energizer-bunny husband and their exceptional terrier. 

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Donald J. Fraser has spent a lifetime working in a variety of capacities in government. Fraser holds a bachelor’s degree in political science and a master’s degree in public policy and administration and currently teaches history through U.C. Davis’s Osher Center. In 2016 he released The Emergence of One American Nation that dealt with the founding era and in 2020 he published The Growth and Collapse of One American Nation that covers the period from 1790 to 1861.

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Trainer, writer, and artist Diana Hart Smith was born into Stu and Helen Hart’s legendary pro wrestling family in 1963 in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Diana studied Fine Arts at the University of Calgary before performing in the WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment), then known as The WWF (World Wrestling Federation) alongside her late husband Davey Boy Smith (The British Bulldog), late brother Owen Hart, and brother Bret ‘Hitman’ Hart. In 2001, whilst based in Tampa, Florida, Diana’s autobiography Under The Mat made Alberta’s top ten nonfiction best-seller list. She has two children, Harry, who wrestles all over the world as Davey Boy Smith Jr, and Georgia, an actress and voice over artist based in England. Diana now resides back home, in Calgary.

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Using his experience from the military, including eight years in the Pentagon, Don Helin’s first thriller, Thy Kingdom Come, was published in 2009. His second, Devil’s Den, was selected as a finalist in the 2013 Indie Book Awards. His latest thriller, Secret Assault, was selected as the best Suspense/Thriller at the 2015 Indie Book Awards. Don is an active member of International Thriller Writers, Military Writers Society of America, Pennwriters, a statewide writers group in Pennsylvania, and is a mentor with the Mystery Writers of America. He makes his home in central Pennsylvania where he is hard at work on his next Zack Kelly thriller, Long Walk Home.

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As a journalist and media executive, Dennis Hetzel has won numerous awards for writing, industry leadership and community service, including the 2003 Paul Tobenkin Memorial Award from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism for leadership in coverage of race and diversity issues. Since 2010, he has been president and executive director of the Ohio News Media Association in Columbus, Ohio, and president of the Ohio Coalition for Open Government.​ He began his career as a weekly newspaper sports editor in the Chicago suburbs and has been a reporter, editor, general manager and publisher at newspapers including the Madison, Wis., Capital Times, the Cincinnati Enquirer and the York, Pa., Daily Record, where he was editor and publisher for 13 years. Under his leadership, the York paper won national awards from the Scripps Howard Foundation in public service journalism and a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award. He also has taught journalism at Penn State and Temple universities.​ 

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Award-winning author, Lauren Hudson, co-authored her first book, Our Best Tomorrow, at age thirteen. She is the recipient of a Mom’s Choice Gold Award, E-Lit Silver Award, Great Southeast Book Festival Award and young adult book awards at the New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco Book Festivals. A student at Dixie Height High School in Northern Kentucky, Lauren has appeared on Fox News, Fox Business News, and the Blaze.

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While Enough is fiction, Tony Hylton has been around journalism for more than 76 of his 77 years. He was less than a month old when printers’ ink was applied to his feet and the images made on newsprint as his sportswriter father held him.

His connection with this honorable profession has taken many forms – Editor/publisher of the Hinton (WV) Daily News (now Hinton News); visiting professor of journalism at Susquehanna University; public relations practitioner for a national trade association in Washington, DC and a steel company in northern West Virginia; communication director for AARP Virginia and Public Information officer for a major U.S. Army headquarters in the Republic of Vietnam. Enough features the interaction of journalism and the brand of rough and tumble politics found in southern West Virginia in 1960.

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Dr. Raymond Keller has been involved in active UFO research since 1967, when he was a reporter for the Bedford Times Register in his hometown of Bedford, Ohio, and a research associate with Earl J. Neff, the founder and director of the Cleveland Ufology Project (CUP). Keller established his own group in 1986, the Outer Space International Research and Investigations Society (OSIRIS) and was the publisher and co-editor with Ballarion Starr of that organization’s monthly organ, The New Millennial Star. Keller has conducted numerous excursions to UFO hot spots throughout the world and has communicated directly with extraterrestrials on many occasions. Venus Rising is his second book; the first being Emergence of the Afro-Zulians in the Transatlantic World, 1722-1811 (Lewiston, NY: Mellen Press, 2013). He now travels the world lecturing about Venus and his research on his books.

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A native of Charlotte, NC, Bucleigh Newton Kernodle has always had a passion for creative writing. Inspired by her ninth grade English teacher to spread her wings, sparked to push her limit at Elon University by her communications professors, and her editor at the Charlotte Business Journal showed her how to make words their very best selves, all culminated into a desire to write children’s books. Her faith in God is where she finds her direction. She cherishes being a wife, mother and daughter to her loving family and they have never stopped believing in her. For more information visit the author’s website.

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Barry Kienzle was born, raised and educated in northern Kentucky and is in every sense, a Kentucky boy, proud of his heritage and the state he calls home. As such, he is very familiar with its history and culture and feels honored that his first novel, The Crossings, is a story with northern Kentucky origins.

Barry studied Accounting at Northern Kentucky University, became a CPA and worked primarily in the accounting and finance areas in construction and real estate development companies, currently as a CFO. As he nears retirement, he is venturing toward a second career in writing and felt compelled to begin it with a novel about an amazing venture of his father’s who, in 1932 hopped a freight train and rode it to New Orleans to see the Mardi Gras.

 For more information visit Barry’s website HERE.

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 Marcus Kirsch has worked as a transformation, service design and innovation specialist for over 20 years. He is a Royal College of Art alumnus and former MIT Medialab researcher. He led projects for companies like British Telecom, GlaxoSmithKline, Kraft, McDonald's, Nationwide, Nissan, Science Museum, P&G, Telekom Italia, non-profits and startups. He won awards in the areas of creativity and innovation and has been publishing for the Guardian, Wired and other industry relevant publications.

He is a thought-leader and keynote speaker. In his off-time, he is a mediocre indoor-climber, movie nerd, maker and likes his whiskies neat.

His articles can be found on Medium.com and LinkedIn.com and now in bookform as well. 

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Originally from New York City, Dr. Paula Christian Kliger is an artist, a board-certified clinical psychologist, psychoanalyst who has practiced as a clinician and a leadership/organizational consultant for 30 years. Dr. Christian-Kliger received her MA Degree and PhD in Clinical Psychology, with a minor in Statistical Measurement and Design, from Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.

Dr. Christian-Kliger’s unusual path to psychology through a career in music performance significantly influenced her to study psychology, after she returned from Southeast Asia where she performed for US troops and for injured Vietnamese people during the Vietnam War.

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Leonard, Coleman and Blunt have been around the world and back again several times each as the lead singers of three of the most legendary vocal groups of all time: the Temptations, Platters and Drifters. The three Washington, DC natives have a back-story right out of a Hollywood movie; Leonard, Coleman & Blunt grew up singing together in church and on street corners throughout the 1960s before finding fame and fortune separately, then reuniting after 30 years to harmonize together once again.

Glenn Leonard and his sweet tenor voice joined Motown’s legendary Temptations, recording ten hit albums, touring the world, and singing lead on many of their 1970s and 1980’s R&B hits. Joe Coleman joined the Platters for a two-decade stint as the group’s lead singer in addition to gaining a successful career as a songwriter and playwright. Joe Blunt performed and recorded with the Drifters for over a decade in venues all over the world alongside Ben E. King and Johnny Moore, earning a Lifetime Achievement Award from Sony Records.

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Krystian experienced first-hand the trials and self-esteem issues associated with visible scars beginning at age 4. Healing with visible scars left her feeling damaged and ashamed. She found the strength she needed to overcome her self-image and entered her first beauty pageant at the age of 14. Krystian began to volunteer in her community and searched for a platform she could resonate with. She wanted to choose a platform that she could be passionate about, and thus Shining S.C.A.R.S. was born. Through her healing campaign for Shining S.C.A.R.S. Krystian has used her personal experience and pain as a way to reach out to others, helping them to feel PROUD of their imperfections knowing that those scars and the stories of those scars helped shape the person they have developed into.

Krystian has shared her vision and mission for Shining S.C.A.R.S. at TEDx Boca Raton, Contagious Optimism Live and Next Gen Summit. She works to gather funding to provide her book Shining Scars, to children’s recovering centers treating patients relating to burns, cleft palate, spina bifida and cancer recovery. Her book was awarded the Mom’s Choice Award – Silver in 2013. By creating a positive and character building organization it is Krystian’s goal to build an informative community aiding in the healing process.

Krystian traveled to New York in 2013 for Book Expo America, where she met David Mezzapple, which led her to the Contagious Optimism Family, and co-author of 10 Habits of Truly Optimistic People. Krystian is currently an anti-bullying speaker for ICubed Agency, and is scheduled as one of the speakers on The Rise Above Tour 2016.

Modeling is another passion of Krystian’s, she has been featured in local commercials and gained modeling jobs nationwide, for designers as Rachel Allen and Fernando Wong.

Looking to the future, Krystian is interested in continuing to write and publish children’s books, and is studying Broadcast Journalism at West Virginia University.

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Susanna Liller, like many women, wears multiple professional hats (which she enjoys wearing). She is an organizational-development consultant, executive coach, women’s workshop leader, writer and musician. Her career, whether ediating, facilitating or coaching with groups or individuals, has always been about helping people find the path that evolves them to the next level of success. Susanna sees herself as a guide and motivator in this transformational process.

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Lisa A. McCombs retired from the public school classroom after a wonderfully combined thirty-three years in Taylor and Marion counties. A recipient of Marion County’s Reading Teacher of the Year, Lisa does not remember a time in her life that she wasn’t passionate about books: both reading and writing them.

Diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2001, Lisa has fulfilled her life with a successful 33 year teaching career. She is a Readers Favorite award winning author of young adult fiction with books that include Abby, Raspberry Beret, Opening Pandora’s Box, and Bombs Bursting in Air. I Have MS: What’s Your Super Power? is her nonfiction debut.

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