An Author’s Kiss shows

AK26-23. Brownell Landrum, The Hero’s Playbook

Self Discovery Wisdom Podcast

Authors Kiss with Sara Troy and her guest Bromwell Landrum, on air from June 10th

My “why” is the “why.” All of the stories I tell get to the “why.” My first book is even titled, “Five Reasons Why Bad Things Happen.” I truly believe that getting to the “why” of any issue, whether it’s in real life or storytelling, is the path to healing and personal growth. Therefore, all my books, stories, and screenplays are about getting to the “why.”

Years ago, when someone told me, “Brownell, you’re an explorer. You’ll always be an explorer,” they were right. I consider myself an explorer of metaphysical mysteries, and love writing about them, whether fictional or factual. I’ve written over a dozen books, stories, and screenplays in both fiction and nonfiction. My latest projects are the We Meet Again trilogy, an epic reincarnation mystery about a famous couple reunited to change the world, The End: A Love Story to the Universe (my most personal story to date) about how a hilarious but dedicated team Upstairs is desperately trying to unite a couple on Earth, and The Hero’s Playbook: For the hero in all of us. 

 ITunesSpotify+Video Soundcloud
  AmazonYoutube Music   iHEART
Podvine Podcasher  Podcast Addict
Mixcloud  Radio Public.   FM Player
 Odysee Youtube  Opodium
DO ENJOYTHE WISDOMFeedspot

Brownell Landrum is an author, speaker, innovator, songwriter, and explorer of metaphysical mysteries. Brownell’s motto is “I aspire to inspire.” 

All of Brownell’s books, projects and businesses deliver a deeper, thought-provoking theme and message. Her writing includes novels: The We Meet Again trilogy, The End: A Love Story to the Universe series,  the DUET stories tetralogy and the new Hero’s Playbook. 

She has published two nonfiction books, Five Reasons Why Bad Things Happen: How to Turn Tragedies Into Triumph and Fifty Shades Deeper: Sometimes the Most Powerful Messages Come Wrapped in Surprising Packages. She has also written and illustrated two Wonderactive Books! Children’s books, Sometimes I Wonder, and This Isn’t My First Time. Brownell is also the writer of several screenplays and treatments for feature films, short films, and television, including Denouement: The Art of Letting Go, INSPIRITORS, and more. She’s also written and co-written several songs, including one featured in a 2015 film.

In addition to being the Executive Producer of the Life is a Trip podcast, Brownell is also the inventor of the patented DrawSuccess training program. 

My motto is: Lose yourself in the fiction… Find yourself in the truth.

The Hero’s Playbook on Amazon

AMAZON

Brownell’s We Meet Again trilogy on Amazon

https://www.amazon.com

Find all her books HERE

FREE GIFT.

Link to download Part One of “The End: A Love Story to the Universe” by Brownell Landrum for FREE

https://dl.bookfunnel.com

https://brownelllandrum.com

facebook.com/brownell.landrum.author

facebook.com/groups/lifeisatripstories

instagram.com/brownelllandrum

tiktok.com/@brownell.landrum 

https://www.lifeisatrippodcast.com

lifeisatrippodcast.com/forgiveness-meditation

youtube.com/@brownell.landrum

FIND MORE SHOWS OF ILLUMINATION HERE

Discover the sites we share on linktr.ee/saratroy

BE OUR GUEST AND SHARE THE WISDOM

All of our shows/interviews are done by donation; if you enjoyed this show, please support us here with either a one-time donation or subscribe and support. Thank you. Please support Our Forgotten Seniors anthology and help to bring this book to awareness.

AK25-15. Janna Brooke Wallack “Naked Girl” Novel

Self Discovery Wisdom Podcast

An Author’s Kiss with Sara Troy and her guest Janna Brooke Wallack, on air from April 15th

“Naked Girl is a story of the enduring power of love in a family of lunatics,” says Janna Brooke Wallack of her debut novel, a poignant piece of literary fiction. Though not autobiographical, it reads like a memoir. Wallack’s enduring voice and fresh vision evoke the storytelling of masterful novelists like Ann Patchett, Kristin Hannah, and Zadie Smith. Naked Girl is a captivating and moving story that explores the dysfunction of a family, the struggles of ‘fitting in’ and the power of hope, humor, and imperfect love. 

Growing up motherless in 1980s Miami Beach, Sienna and her little brother, Siddhartha get by with their charismatic and capricious father, Jackson Jones. When a small windfall relocates them to a condemned mansion on the water, the siblings are forbidden traditional schooling and left to live off the land. As Jackson uses their new home to create a communal cult, the siblings are forced to raise themselves in a carefree, chaotic oasis. Living amidst the vagrant seekers who take up residence in Jackson’s utopia, Sienna and Siddhartha strive to protect their unconventional family.

Janna Brooke Wallack writes with warmth, compassion and comic brilliance in Naked Girl, an enthralling debut novel brimming with the adventure, resilience, humor and heartbreak of growing up on the fringe of decency and longing for the unattainable comfort of home.

 ITunesSpotify Soundcloud
  AmazonYouTube Music   iHEART
Podvine Podcasher  Podcast Addict
Mixcloud  Radio Public.   FM Player
 Odysee Youtube  Opodium
DOENJOYTHE WISDOM

Janna Brooke Wallack’s debut novel, Naked Girl, has been named a semifinalist for the 2024 Publishers Weekly BookLife Prize in fiction. She also received recognition from Book Viral’s Golden Quill, Book Reader’s Association Group’s BRAG Medallion, and a silver medal in the Colorado Independent Publishers Association EVVY Award for Literary/Contemporary Fiction.

Her stories have been published or shortlisted by literary publications such as Hobart, Upstreet, Glimmer Train Press, American Literary Review, and many more. Her short story “Campaigning” was a finalist for the Lascaux Prize in Short Fiction. This novel’s prologue, “Five Pictures” was a finalist for Glimmer Train Press’s Short Story Award for New Writers, and her story “Cat and Rose” received a Pushcart nomination by The MacGuffin.

In addition to her writing career, she’s worked as a grant writer, a substance abuse prevention counselor, a wetlands manual editor, a theatre production assistant, and an actress.  After spending a couple of years in Hong Kong, she moved to Hoboken, NJ. She raised five children and moved to Stone Ridge in the Catskills of New York, where she ran a permaculture gentleman’s farm.

“In Wallack’s novel, a brother and sister survive a shocking upbringing of drugs, cults, and neglect.… “An endearing and fascinating perspective on a uniquely volatile and dangerous childhood.” —Kirkus Reviews

AMAZON

https://jannabrookewallack.com

www.facebook.com/jannabrooke.cohen

www.instagram.com/jannakowan

FIND MORE SHOWS OF ILLUMINATION HERE

Discover the sites we share on linktr.ee/saratroy

BE OUR GUEST AND SHARE THE WISDOM

All of our shows/interviews are done by donation; if you enjoyed this show, please support us here with either a one-time donation or subscribe and support. Thank you. Please support Our Forgotten Seniors anthology and help to bring this book to awareness.

AK25-14. Sam Hawksmoor & Genie Magee

Self Discovery Wisdom Podcast

An Author’s Kiss with Sara Troy and her guest, Sam Hawksmoor, on air from April 8th

Sam Hawksmoor is a prolific author whose writing career spans several decades. He’s penned captivating stories for both adults and young readers. Today, we’re diving into the final book in his four-part series, which brings the journey of Magie Magee to a powerful and satisfying close.

Set in beautiful British Columbia, Canada, this story spans 15 years of mystery, intrigue, and discovery. Sam Hawksmoor has a way of writing that feels dimensional, layered, and immersive. He always leaves you wondering just how much of it could be true because it all feels so possible, so real.

It reveals the stories of forgotten children—their struggles, abandonment, and the remarkable resilience that rises from it all. These are stories that don’t just tug at the heart; they offer lessons we can all learn from.

AMAZON

YOU WILL FIND ALL HIS BOOKS HERE

 ITunesSpotify Soundcloud
  AmazonYouTube Music   iHEART
Podvine Podcasher  Podcast Addict
Mixcloud  Radio Public.   FM Player
 Odysee Youtube  Opodium
DOENJOYTHE WISDOM

“Ever since I was a child, I’ve been lost in the world of words and stories,” says Sam Hawksmoor. “Writing isn’t just what I do—it’s who I am.” What began as simple backyard tales grew into rich, dimensional adventures filled with mystery, heart, and imagination. For Sam, every blank page is a new world waiting to be discovered, every character a living part of his creative soul.

He writes to transport, to illuminate, and to stir the mind. His stories invite readers into unknown territories where the line between fiction and reality often blurs and where every twist holds the whisper of truth. With each book, Sam offers a journey not just into the story but into the depths of his ever-curious, ever-expanding imagination.

WWW.SAMHAWKSMOORE.COM

www.hackwriters.com

https://www.goodreads.com/Sam_Hawksmoor

FIND MORE SHOWS OF ILLUMINATION HERE

Discover the sites we share on linktr.ee/saratroy

BE OUR GUEST AND SHARE THE WISDOM

All of our shows/interviews are done by donation; if you enjoyed this show, please support us here with either a one-time donation or subscribe and support. Thank you. Please support Our Forgotten Seniors anthology and help to bring this book to awareness.

AK25-06. Wendy Horwitz’s Milkweed and Honey Cake

Self Discovery Wisdom Podcast

Authors Kiss with Sara Troy and her guest Wendy Horwitz, on air from February 11th

In Milkweed and Honey Cake: A Memoir in Ritual Moments, Wendy A. Horwitz shares essays about ritual can exalt ordinary moments and the best way to open a pomegranate.

Holidays delight – and disappoint. A couple marrying during the pandemic finds a surprise after a rainstorm and a topsy-turvy search for a gravestone that honors her ancestors. Horwitz serves pomp and circumstance on the front porch when a graduation is canceled. Through the shifting seasons of life, amid the scramble of pet guinea pigs and birthday parties, her children add wonder and comedy to tradition.

Horwitz explores how ritual can exalt ordinary moments and frame the extraordinary – a blue heron, an old cupboard’s scent, and the lingering feel of an engagement ring long gone prompt reflections laced with yearning and humor. Guiding us along a wooded path, to the kitchen table, in a messy garden, and under a tent reverberating with song, she traces the boundaries of ritual, considering what we do when ritual falls short, and how we might adapt to each other’s practices. And when the wider world seems broken, new rituals provide hope.

Lyrical and funny, thought-provoking and deeply moving, Milkweed and Honey Cake is at once a meditation on our desire for meaning and the story of a woman’s lifelong efforts to create it.

 ITunesSpotify + Video Soundcloud
  AmazonYouTube Music   iHEART
Podvine Podcasher  Podcast Addict
Mixcloud  Radio Public.   FM Player
 Odysee Youtube  Opodium
DOENJOYTHE WISDOM

 Wendy A. Horwitz’s essays have been published in The Philadelphia Inquirer, Afterimage, Neurology (Humanities Section), Jewish Literary Journal, Intrepid Times, and McClatchy-Tribune News Service, among others. Originally trained as a pediatric psychologist, she lives in Philadelphia, where she teaches writing and health, and humanities. 

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

https://bookshop.org

Amazon

https://www.booksamillion.com

https://www.wendyhorwitzauthor.com/order

 https://www.wendyhorwitzauthor.com

https://www.instagram.com/wendy.a.horwitz

https://www.facebook.com/wendyahorwitz

FIND MORE SHOWS OF ILLUMINATION HERE

Discover the sites we share on linktr.ee/saratroy

BE OUR GUEST AND SHARE THE WISDOM

All of our shows/interviews are done by donation; if you enjoyed this show, please support us here with either a one-time donation or subscribe and support; thank you. And please support Our Forgotten Seniors anthology and help to bring this book into awareness.

AK25-06. Sara Winokur’s Ivory Bones

Self Discovery Wisdom Podcast

Authors Kiss with Sara Troy and her guest Sara Winokur, on air from February 11th

Acclaimed geneticist-turned-author Sara Winokur returns with her highly anticipated novel Ivory Bones: The Lewis Chessmen Murders. This mystery-thriller transports its readers into a world where DNA science unravels ancient secrets, and the hunt for a missing treasure turns deadly.  

Set against the landscapes of Iceland, Africa, and the Americas, Ivory Bones follows forensic scientist Brynja Pálsdóttir as she races to recover the iconic Lewis Chessmen—among the most celebrated medieval artifacts—before time runs out. A centuries-old diary holds the clues, revealing a brutal tale of survival and secrets buried for generations. Brynja’s investigation not only uncovers the chess pieces’ shocking past but also forces her to confront the truth about her own genetic heritage. 

Sara Winokur, whose groundbreaking scientific research helped identify key mutations in muscular dystrophy and Huntington’s disease, combines her professional expertise with a passion for storytelling. As a descendant of Barbary pirate Jans Janszoon, Winokur was inspired by her personal ancestry for the plot of Ivory Bones. Her enthusiasm for accessible science and authentic historical research delivers a page-turner that is sure to please fans of her first novel, Double-Blind: The Icelandic Manuscript Murders, as well as new readers. 

“History, DNA, and mystery are puzzles waiting to be solved,” says Winokur. Ivory Bones challenges us to consider how much of our past defines who we are, and how far we’ll go to uncover the truth.”

 ITunesSpotify Soundcloud
  AmazonYouTube Music   iHEART
Podvine Podcasher  Podcast Addict
Mixcloud  Radio Public.   FM Player
 Odysee Youtube  Opodium
DOENJOYTHE WISDOM

Sara Winokur is a geneticist, researcher, and author whose cultural thrillers combine DNA science with gripping historical fiction. With a Ph.D. in molecular genetics, Winokur’s groundbreaking research has contributed to identifying mutations responsible for diseases such as muscular dystrophy and Huntington’s disease. 

In her novels Double Blind: The Icelandic Manuscript Murders and Ivory Bones: The Lewis Chessmen Murders, Winokur transports readers to vivid Nordic landscapes and ancient adventures, crafting intricate mysteries that blend science, history, and cultural intrigue. A descendant of the Barbary pirate Jans Janszoon, her work explores themes of identity, heritage, and resilience. As an ovarian cancer thriver, Winokur’s storytelling reflects her belief in turning life’s challenges into opportunities for growth. Sara Winokur resides in Southern California with her family and is often found exploring the globe in search of new stories.

AMAZON

AMAZON

 https://www.sarawinokur.com

https://www.facebook.com/sarawinokurauthor
https://www.instagram.com/sara_winokur

FIND MORE SHOWS OF ILLUMINATION HERE

Discover the sites we share on linktr.ee/saratroy

BE OUR GUEST AND SHARE THE WISDOM

All of our shows/interviews are done by donation; if you enjoyed this show, please support us here with either a one-time donation or subscribe and support; thank you. And please support Our Forgotten Seniors anthology and help to bring this book into awareness.