Local Authors Covered Traditional And Non-Traditional Routes In 2009

By Nancy K. Crevier

Local writers got busy with their ideas, pen, and ink in 2009.

Sophfronia Scott had been noodling the idea for a book about book writing for small businesses and entrepreneurs when “the recession showed up and made it the right time for the book,” she said in January. Her book, Doing Business By The Book: How To Craft A Crowd-Pleasing Book And Attract More Clients And Speaking Engagements Than You Ever Thought Possible, published by Advantage Press, became available in December. The how-to book explains why business people need a book as much as a business card, and the smart steps to complete the process of writing and publishing.

Sandy Hook poet and author of four books of poetry (The Man on the Tower, winner of the 1994 Arkansas Poetry Award; Where the Glories of April Lead, During the Beauty of Shortage and A Less Fabulous Infinity), as well as numerous chapbooks that he says serve as a “staging area for books in progress,” Charles Rafferty has no reason to be humble. Mr Rafferty was the recipient of a 2009 Artists’ Fellowship from the Connecticut Commission on the Arts, as well as the 2009 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Creative Writing, both awarded earlier this year. The grants will allow Mr Rafferty, an editor and teacher, to spend more of his free time writing.

Network marketing expert Tommy Wyatt and business partner Curtis Lewsey also entered the realm of authorship in 2009. Appreciation Marketing: How to Achieve Greatness Through Gratitude was Amazon’s #1 selling business/marketing book on its launch date in August. The book deals with the  power of appreciation and building relationships to create more business, by learning to take care of people already in a business person’s circle of business.

Newtown author Justin Scott has had two dozen books published under his own steam. Now, writing with best selling adventure-thriller author Clive Cussler, Mr Scott has turned out The Wrecker, the second in a series of books featuring an early 20th Century character, detective Isaac Bell, created by Mr Cussler in his 2007 novel The Chase.

The Wrecker, on bookstands since November 17, jumped immediately to the number six spot of The New York Times Hardcover Fiction Best Seller list. It is the first book on which the resident has collaborated, and also the first time he has had the pleasure of seeing his name on the prestigious best seller list.

From My Seat is a look at the 2008-09 UConn men’s basketball season, penned by 2009 UConn graduate and former team manager Kyle Lyddy. A first time author, Kyle’s book came out this past fall, and offers a peek behind the scenes stories at the team driven by Coach Jim Calhoun.

Just as the year drew to a close, two other books by Newtown authors became available. Town Historian and prolific historical author Dan Cruson published Stratford, West Woods, & Everett Road: The History of an Easton Community. The micro history focuses on a small section of Easton, and is yet another peek into the history of this region.

Michael Oristaglio penned A Sixth Sense, The Life and Science of Henri-Georges Doll with co-author Alexander Dorozynski. Mr Oristaglio, a former geophysicist who spent most of his career at the Schlumberger-Doll Research lab in Ridgefield, tells a story of not only how Schlumberger stood out in the era of oil and gas exploration, but also that of Henri-Georges Doll, French-American scientist and inventor who “made it all happen.” A Sixth Sense is a publication of Overlook Press.

Not all of Newtown’s newest authors published in the traditional manner this past year. Jodi Valenta’s love affair with the environment goes back to her childhood in New Jersey when her father, “who was ‘green’ before ‘green’ was the in thing,” she told The Bee in July, had her handing out recycling bins in the neighborhood.

Today that love has developed into something that benefits her children as well as countless others. Combining her writing skills and her ecology background, as well as the realization that she and husband Jason had come to that today’s children spend far too much time indoors, she launched her blog, Kids Discover Nature. Families unaccustomed to spending blocks of time outdoors together can be stumped as to how to spend that time, she realized, and she felt that a blog could help break down some of those barriers, and inspire families to enjoy nature. Kids Discover Nature is part journal, utilizing the Valenta family’s own experiences to provide advice, and part resource material to provide guidance.

Bill Hart also turned to blogging to share his useful experiences. As the father of three teenage girls, he was amazed at how frequently families are willing to fall in to the trap of “single point failure” parenting, and not just because he was thrust two years ago into the role of a solo parent when his wife of 20 years, Kathleen, died.

Mr Hart, a self-employed engineering consultant, is familiar with the concept of single point failure; it is an engineering term designating a part of a system with no backup, so that if it fails the whole system fails. It can be applied, he has observed, to traditional parenting roles in which one parent holds the power concerning family and household matters and the other holds the power in earnings and outside matters.

The inability to allow the other partner in on that information, he said, can be catastrophic when something happens — whether it is divorce or death — to remove one of the parents from the picture. The blog that Mr Hart created this spring, FatheringOn.com, digs into that subject, as well as other life lessons on gender roles, housekeeping tips, and solo parenting. He muses thoughtfully on acquiring skills to keep the household running, his good luck despite the sorrow in his life, and his frustration with a world that continues to believe it is only mothers who can keep the family on an even keel.