APW Book Club 5/25 Candy, Cigarettes, and Murder – Brenda Whiteside
The May selection for the APW Book Club is Brenda Whiteside’s new release Candy, Cigarettes, and Murder. We will be discussing it on Saturday May 25 at 10 a.m. on Zoom
Karen Lateiner is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Topic: APW Book Club 5/25 Candy, Cigarettes, and Murder – Brenda Whiteside
Date: Saturday, May 25, 2024
Time:10:00 AM Arizona
Join Zoom Meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85015210639?pwd=V0Z6UHE3bCtpR1RVdU8xZERuZHdZQT09
Meeting ID: 850 1521 0639
Passcode: 028932
Candy, Cigarettes, and Murder
It’s a birthday weekend with the gift of murder. Recently widowed, Emma Banefield looks forward to a getaway birthday weekend with her free-wheeling sister, Nicole Earp, sipping chocolate martinis at the peaceful, historic Dulce Inn. When a rude stranger, a nasty food critic, and a madhouse of temperamental artists greet them, all hope for a tranquil weekend evaporates faster than dew on a hot desert morning. Overlooking the riotous atmosphere is doubly hard after Em discovers the body of a hotel guest, and a second murder affects Nic personally. Now, entrenched in a caper that pits them against a surly detective, they cozy up to a hotel staff hiding dangerous secrets to uncover clues to the killer. Using their smarts and love of all-things mystery, will the Chocolate Martini Sisters solve the crime ahead of the obstinate Chief Detective or find themselves trapped in the middle of a third murder?
Amazon Series Link: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BQ9T7ZBX
Bio:
Brenda Whiteside is the award-winning author of romantic suspense, cozy mystery, and romance. She writes children’s books with her granddaughter under the names of Brenda Sue and Sadi Belle. She’s a born and bred Arizona native who sets her fictional stories in imaginary, but recognizable, Arizona locations. After marrying, she and her husband lived in six states and two countries, but a few years back they settled in Central Arizona. They admit to being gypsies at heart so won’t discount the possibility of another move. They share their home with a rescue dog named Amigo. While FDW fishes, Brenda writes.
APW Book Club 4/27/24 with Connie Cockrell
Topic: APW Book Club 4/27 with Connie Cockrell – Downtrodden
Date: Apr 27, 2024
Time: 10:00 AM Arizona
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87097024268?pwd=cktJODlqM0dLcERLV0xXaXJwbDRJQT09
Meeting ID: 870 9702 4268
Passcode: 210784
Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kc94grNqxT
Get started reading now so you can contribute! The Downtrodden is book two in the
Book description:
Wary after escaping from the Children of God, Alyssa and Kyra stop to help another survivor community but it’s up to Kyra to save them all from a mad man’s plans before they’re trapped.
Hardship, hunger, and thirst plague Kyra and Alyssa after their escape from the Children of God. A lucky find allows them to re-arm and resupply. Now they’ve found another survivor community and after watching the place for two days they decide to risk introducing themselves. They’re greeted with enthusiasm at the door but by that evening, find they’re trapped again in a community teetering on the brink of desperation. The survivors beg Kyra to help them remove the community’s leader but her plan pushes her to her limits. Can she carry out the plan or will she and Alyssa join the ranks of the downtrodden?
Bio
A 20-year Air Force career, time as a manager at a computer operations company, wife, mother, sister, and volunteer, provides a rich background for Connie Cockrell’s storytelling.
Cockrell grew up in upstate NY, just outside of Gloversville, NY before she joined the military at age 18. Having lived in Europe, Great Britain, and several places around the United States, she now lives in Payson, AZ with her husband: hiking, gardening, and playing bunko. She writes about whatever comes into her head so her books could be in any genre. She’s published twenty books so far, has been included in five different anthologies and been published on EveryDayStories.com and FrontierTales.com. Connie’s always on the lookout for a good story idea. Beware, you may be the next one.
APW Book Club 2/24/24 with Connie Cockrell
Save the date!
Connie Cockrell has graciously agreed to present her book for our review. If you are interested in presenting, send Karen an email and she will put you on the schedule.
APW Book Group with Connie Cockrell and First Encounter
Date: Saturday, February 24
Time: 10 am
Zoom link to follow
First Encounter: A SciFi, Young Adult, Post Apocalyptic Story by Connie Cockrell
Book Blurb:
It took a month of hard travel to find their first survivor community. After a cool welcome and a meager feast, Alyssa and Kyra find that the community has very restrictive roles they expect women to take. Imprisoned and starved, a young woman befriends them at great risk to herself. When the woman tells them the men of the community are bidding on Kyra to take to wife, they form a plan to escape. Weak, hungry and afraid, will Alyssa and Kyra have the strength to escape certain slavery?
Connie Cockrell Bio
A 20-year Air Force career, time as a manager at a computer operations company, wife, mother, sister, and volunteer, provides a rich background for Connie Cockrell’s storytelling.
Cockrell grew up in upstate NY, just outside of Gloversville, NY before she joined the military at age 18. Having lived in Europe, Great Britain, and several places around the United States, she now lives in Payson, AZ with her husband hiking, gardening, and playing bunko. She writes about whatever comes into her head so her books could be in any genre. She’s published twenty books so far, has been included in five different anthologies and been published on EveryDayStories.com and FrontierTales.com. Connie’s always on the lookout for a good story idea. Beware, you may be the next one.
She can be found at ConniesRandomThoughts.com or on Facebook at: Facebook.com/ConniesRandomThoughts or on Amazon at Amazon.com/author/conniecockrell
You can purchase the book at Amazon on Kindle ($.99) or in paperback.
APW Book Club 10/28/23 with Bobbie Scopa
Please join us for the October meeting of the APW Book Club. Bobbie Scopa will talk about her book, Both Sides of the Fire Line: A Memoir of a Transgender Firefighter.
Topic: Both Sides of the Fire Line: A Memoir of a Transgender Firefighter by Bobbie Scopa
Date: October 28, 2023
Time: 10 a.m. Arizona
Join Zoom meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88383180755?pwd=a1FlaDZ6M2JuVFhZYjJBYlhWR3Y2dz09
Meeting ID: 883 8318 0755
Passcode: 739048
Bobbie will talk about how she got to the point of writing her story and making it public. It was a long and circuitous route. After not talking about her gender issues for years when she was young, then in her marriage, then after transition while working as a firefighter. Now after 65 fire years, she was now going to make her story public. Writing her story took only a few months to put on paper. The stories were already in her head. She just had to sit and start typing. It wasn’t a cathartic process like some friends thought it might be. But rather it was just an important story that needed to be told.”
BOBBIE SCOPA is a retired firefighter/chief, author, podcast host, and public speaker. She has forty-five years of firefighting experience and has received numerous professional awards and industry recognition, including Firefighter of the Year (1990) from the Professional Firefighters of Arizona; the Governor’s Award, State of Arizona (1990); a Certificate of Appreciation from the City of New York for work performed at the World Trade Center in 2001; and the Unit Citation Award for efficacy in the US Forest Service (2014). She was a featured speaker at the US Forest Service’s Pride Outside diversity, equity, and inclusion event in June 2021. She is a popular keynote speaker for leadership and diversity. She is also the host of the podcast BobbieOnFire that has had over a million downloads and is the author of Both Sides Of The Fire Line. Scopa divides her time between Puget Sound, Washington, and Scottsdale, Arizona.
APW Book Club 9/23/23 with Elaine Auerbach
Karen Lateiner is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Topic: APW Book Club: Dirty Linen: How Women Sued The Reader’s Digest and Changed History by Elaine Auerbach
Date: Saturday, September 23, 2023
Time: 10:00 AM Arizona
Zoom: The Zoom link has been sent to Book Club Members. All are invited. Email Karen at kslateiner@gmail.com for the link.
Dirty Linen: How Women Sued The Reader’s Digest and Changed History by Elaine Auerbach is the story of the landmark 1970s sexual discrimination lawsuit against the well-known magazine and publishing empire. It is a tell-all peek behind the doors of the ivy-covered tower that was home to what was then the world’s best-selling magazine. The lawsuit changed the communications industry forever. This personal tale of the fight for gender equality is both a look at how far we have come and how much there is still to do.
Elaine Auerbach’s broad experience includes writing for and editing books, magazines, newspapers, television and corporate communications. She spent 13 years as an editor with Reader’s Digest and more than 30 years at PepsiCo, Inc. She lives in Kingman, AZ. Elaine will talk about the process of writing and publishing her nonfiction book and the challenges of first person history.
Dirty Linen: How Women Sued the Reader’s Digest and Changed History is available on Kindle, Kindle Unlimited and via Amazon. Elaine has hard copies available for this group at $10 plus shipping, which is less than what Amazon charges. Contact her directly to order: elaineauerbachauthor@gmail.com
Heads up: For our October 28 meeting, we will review Both Sides of the Fire Line by Bobbie Scopa
APW Book Club 6/24/23 with Nancy Marshall
Karen Lateiner is inviting you to the June APW Book Club meeting on June 24 at 10 a.m. with Nancy Marshall’s new book, A Dry Hate.
Topic: APW Book Club – A Dry Hate: Power vs. the People with Nancy Marshall
Date: Saturday, June 24, 2023
Time: 10 a.m. AZ time
Zoom: The Zoom link has been sent to Book Club members. All are welcome to join, however. Contact Karen at kslateiner@gmail.com
ABOUT THE BOOK
A Dry Hate began the morning a friend called Nancy Marshall to say, “They’ve thrown Jason in jail! What do we do?” A practicing attorney, Marshall offered to bail him out. Realizing that four activists had been jailed without justification, and defending one of them pro bono, Marshall decided to put the story into writing.
But the book goes way beyond that one arrest and trial. Nancy learned about the extent of abuse of power in the period of roughly 2000-2012, and she has included a lot of stories that have been “inspired by historical events.”
Nancy hopes that A Dry Hate: Power vs the People will have a broad readership with book and discussion groups and in high school and college classrooms. She has a deep and abiding belief that by continuing to educate ourselves, to think and talk about ideas and events, we will become a stronger democratic society. By opening ourselves to the interchange of ideas and knowledge we will be more able to combat propaganda, lies, abuse of power and threats of violence.
The book is available on Kindle.
APW Book Club – 4/27/23 with RuthAnn Hogue
Date: May 27, 2023
Zoom Meeting link has been sent to members. If you’d like to attend, contact Karen Lateiner kslateiner@gmail.com for the link. Guests are welcome.
APW Book Club – 4/22/23 with Elizabeth Graham
Karen Lateiner is inviting you to the April Book Club Meeting
Topic: Homeless Initiative project and book-in-progress with Elizabeth Graham
Date: Saturday, April 22, 2023
Time: 10 a.m. Arizona
Zoom: To be sent to book club members the week before and on request to others.
In a break from our traditional format, we will be discussing a book that had not yet been published. Instead, this is an opportunity for us to hear about the book Elizabeth is working on and provide feedback. Surely this will be a meeting you won’t want to miss. Karen
BRIEF HISTORY OF THIS PROJECT AND BOOK: THE HOMELESS INITIATIVE – A 501©3 Nonprofit Organization
On a foggy, wintery night in 1999, I was smuggled across the Amu Darya River from Turkmenistan into Afghanistan. At this time, I was the Chief of Party in Central Asia for Mercy Corps International – a $30+ million dollar operation overseeing projects in five countries. The U.S. Government wanted an American’s assessment of Afghan women barely surviving under the Taliban regime. I wore a blue burqa and was provided local footwear, but I was still assaulted – a Taliban male hit me on the back of my head with his rifle butt because I looked up (to gather information) instead of looking down at the ground. This consulting task concluded that the West could do little to change Afghanistan at that time.
Two years later, the 9/11 attack on American soil propelled President Bush to declare “War on Terrorism” targeting Afghanistan in his quest to find Osama bin Laden. This war cost $2.313 trillion dollars and 243,000 lives were lost. (www.watson.brown.edu/costsofwar.) For 20 years (2001 to 2021) American soldiers bombarded cities and futilely searched almost every cave in Afghanistan. Bin Laden was not found in a cave nor in Afghanistan, but in a large home in Pakistan – an entirely different country. He was killed in 2011, but American soldiers continue to wage war in Afghanistan for another ten years!
In January 2023, I launched a Resettlement Program in Arizona called The Homeless Initiative. This project has several rationales. First, we intend to provide transitional solutions to a minimum of 1,000 refugees (or more) desiring new lives in the United States. Second, we are creating a social marketing publication – a “coffee table” book – that will reflect their lives in their home countries and illuminating their reasons for fleeing – (1) Afghani’s under Russian, American, and Taliban occupation, and (2) Ukrainian refugees due to war. This social marketing book is intended to persuade American citizens to accept and empathize with refugee integration into U.S. society – a country whose history and political structure are based entirely on the intellect of former immigrants and refugees.
The plight of refugees or immigrants equates to the story of “how to build a ship in a bottle.” The ship embodies this current wave of desperate human beings, and the bottle denotes the borders of the United States. What happens to these immigrants/refugees in their early years in the U.S. will affect how productive they are as citizens in our democracy. Each of them will pay taxes and many of them will work in the fields to support our country’s food chain. Each of us across the U.S. must ask ourselves how much this new community of immigrants will enrich our country – and the rational response is just as much as our own ancestors did decades or centuries ago.
BIO:
Elizabeth Graham is the author of Democrazy Version 2020: A Warning to All U.S. Citizens. She has spoken to the Book Club previously about her book and experiences.
“I had a TOP SECRET Security Clearance by my sixteenth birthday, and was working in my father’s office at the age of seventeen. He was the head of a CIA undercover U.S. West Coast operation. I continued CIA employment for many years. By my mid-thirties, I worked with Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) in Denver, Colorado – also with a TOP SECRET clearance. As the Data Base Manager for the largest Russian-language military, technical, and intelligence library in the United States, we did C3 analysis and played the “red” team on the White House War Games. I was taught to read, write, and speak Russian. I began traveling to the Soviet Union and over time became one of the few Americans living and working in Russia for decades. I became bicultural and this unique perspective on Russia and their relationship with the United States is the essential ingredient and the warning inferred in this book [Democrazy].”
APW Book Club 3/25/23 – Jody Sharpe
Meteorologist and psychic Gayle Force proves a force to be reckoned with as she moves back to her beloved Mystic Bay. While sleeping, an angel sent her a message in a dream. Gayle realizes she must save an old man from drowning. But who is this old man? With the help of attorney Alex Knight, she finds they are caught in the middle of a future crime. But can Gayle and Alex solve the case and save the old man before it’s too late? With twists of intrigue and love they find angels are at the helm as they prove the bully never wins.