Category Archives: Episode

The Most Lovable Conman of the Alaska Gold Rush



Episode 20: The Most Lovable Conman of the Alaska Gold Rush

One of the most scandalous persons to be associated with Nome was Wilson Mizner, a loveable scoundrel. Mizner was involved with gambling and prize fighting in Nome, and it was said he was probably the only man with the reputation of being able to “borrow money from a lamppost and is said to be the only man who ever hired the Nome brass band on credit.” In addition to these northern distinctions, in the course of Mizner’s life, he was also a mining engineer, actor, playwright, Fifth Avenue art dealer, husband of the “second richest woman in the world,” proprietor of the legendary Brown Derby in Los Angeles and, with his brother Addison, a founder and promoter of Boca Raton, Florida.

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This podcast is sponsored by Author Masterminds and the Readers and Writers Book Club. 

Check out the Author Masterminds Website

Get to know the authors at The Readers and Writers Book Club

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Meet Steve Levi, your host for Episode 20: The Most Lovable Conman of the Alaska Gold Rush

Steve Levi is a 70-something writer in Alaska. He specializes in the impossible crime and the Alaska Gold Rush.  An impossible crime is one in which the detective must figure out HOW the crime was committed before he can go after the perpetrators.  As an example, in THE MATTER OF THE VANISHING GREYHOUND, the detective must figure out how a Greyhound bus with four bank robbers, a dozen hostages, and  $10 million can vanish off the Golden Gate Bridge. Steve’s books can be seen at www.authormasterminds.com/steve-levi and www.steverlevibooks.com. He also does two historical uploads a week.  Send Steve your email, and he will include it in the mailings.

Now Available:

 

The historical key to understanding the Alaska Railroad is that it started as a Socialist dream.  It was a profit-making instrument owned by the government. By the time the railroad finished, the dream of socialism as a governmental form had died.  The Russian Revolution showed how flawed socialism by a national government was, the hard-core socialist, anarchist, and syndicalist radicals had been deported on the BUFORD, and the end of World War I flooded American stores with consumer goods. The Roaring Twenties had started, and everyone was making money, and there was no longer a need to have a ‘socialist’ government.

 


Mysterious Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia



Episode 19: Mysterious Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia

Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia was born into the most elite segment of Russian society on June 18, 1901 as the youngest daughter of Tsar Nicholas II, the last sovereign of Imperial Russia, and his wife, Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna. Anastasia was the younger sister of Grand Duchesses OlgaTatiana, and Maria, and was the elder sister of Alexei Nikolaevich, Tsarevich of Russia.

During WWI, Anastasia–like her sisters–volunteered as a nurse right in the royal palace at Tsarskoye Selo.  Many of its rooms had been turned into hospital wards. In 1917, the February Revolution in Russia forced Czar Nicholas II to abdicate the throne. After the Revolution of 1917 and Nicholas’s abdication, Nicholas and his family (including Anastasia) were taken as prisoners to Tobolsk, then to Yekaterinburg, where on June 18, 1918, Anastasia celebrated her last birthday.

Nicholas, his wife Alexandra, and their four girls and one son, were held at Czarskoye Selo palace and then taken to Ekaterinburg in the Urals after the Bolsheviks seized power in the October Revolution. Tsar Nicholas II, Tsarina Alexandra, and their five children—including 14-year-old Anastasia–were shot and bayoneted to death by Bolshevik revolutionaries under Yakov Yurovsky on the orders of the Ural Regional Soviet in Yekaterinburg on the night of July 16-17, 1918. Also murdered that night were members of the imperial entourage who had accompanied them: court physician Eugene Botkin; lady-in-waiting Anna Demidova; footman Alexei Trupp; and head cook Ivan Kharitonov.

The executioners then took the bodies to the Four Brothers mine [an abandoned mine shaft some 14 miles from Ekaterinburg, in the Koptyaki forest],

Anna Anderson

where they were stripped, buried, burned in a gasoline-fueled bonfire, and the bones doused with sulfuric acid to disguise the remains further and mutilated with grenades to prevent identification. Finally, what was left was thrown into the mine pit, which was covered with dirt. After 300 years of imperial rule, the Romanov empire ended in a chaos of gunfire and bayonets.

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This podcast is sponsored by Author Masterminds and the Readers and Writers Book Club. 

Check out the Author Masterminds Website

Get to know the authors at The Readers and Writers Book Club

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Meet Carl Douglas, your host for Episode 19:

Mysterious Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia

 

My pseudonym as an author is Carl Douglass, adopted as a means of telling stories with gripping realism—the truth of which would not bring trouble to my door. My writing of gripping, realistic fiction began after I was obligated to retire from the private practice of neurosurgery due to sudden blindness in my left eye from a retinal detachment which caused loss of stereoscopic vision. I carried with me decades-long knowledge of doctors, hospitals, and institutions of higher learning, including some less than laudatory information. My military experience during the years of the recent unpleasantness in Viet Nam also gave me considerable insight. Both of those lengthy experiences provided true grist for the mill of my writing, but neither of them need to connect the stories to the lives of the real people and places where the stories took place. In that sense, I know too much and have no wish to incriminate or to bring harm or embarrassment to real individuals or institutions. My rich and varied life has provided even more fodder to feed my mind and contribute realism to my written work. In my time, I have had to work due to lacking a sugar daddy. I have been a grease monkey, a lumber mill and forest worker, a lifeguard, a slaughterhouse worker, a diener in a morgue, a lab rat, an academic writer, a medical officer in a mental hospital, a naval officer and surgeon, a brig doctor, and a deep diving officer. I have been the husband of one fine wife, the father of four children—one deceased—eleven grandchildren, and seven great-grandchildren. All of them have enriched the depth and breadth of my storytelling.


The Investor Murders



Episode 18: The Investor Murders

What happened on a foggy September day in 1982 in the small fishing village of Craig, Alaska? Many believe they know who killed the crew and passengers of the Investor, but only the killer knows why the massacre occurred.

 

Sources

Bovsun, Mara. “Murder on a fishing boat—and there was never a conviction.” March 31, 2019. New York Daily News. https://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/ny-justice-story-investor-boat-killings-20190331-y333ejn4qjd5vnhf33wzxg4jiy-story.html

Dodd, Johnny, and Adam Carlson. “The mystery of who murdered 8, including a family, on a fishing boat in Alaska.” December 11, 2017. People. https://people.com/crime/people-explains-investor-fishing-boat-murders-alaska/

Hale, Leland E. What Happened in Craig: Alaska’s Worst Unsolved Mass Murder. 2018. Kenmore, WA: Epicenter Press.

Kahn, Dean. “8 killed in 1982 Investor murders remembered in exhibit.” April 30, 2016. Washington Times. https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/apr/30/8-killed-in-1982-investor-murders-remembered-in-ex/

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This podcast is sponsored by Author Masterminds and the Readers and Writers Book Club. 

Check out the Author Masterminds Website

Get to know the authors at The Readers and Writers Book Club

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Meet your host for Episode 18: The Investor Murders

Robin Barefield is the author of five Alaska wilderness mystery novels, Big Game, Murder Over Kodiak, The Fisherman’s Daughter, Karluk Bones, and Massacre at Bear Creek Lodge. She has written two nonfiction books, Kodiak Island Wildlife and Murder and Mystery in the Last Frontier. Sign up to subscribe to her free monthly newsletter on true murder and mystery in Alaska and check out her podcast: Murder and Mystery in the Last Frontier.  Read more about Robin’s books at Author Masterminds.

Now Available: 29 True Stories about Murder and Mystery in Alaska

 


Where is Baby Shannon?



Episode 17: Where is Baby Shannon?

Some of the facts in this true story have been established, but some things are still unknown.

Sources:

https://wbckfm.com/cold-case-cedar-springs-the-disappearance-of-baby-shannon/ Cold Case Cedar Springs: The Disappearance of Baby Shannon

 https://charleyproject.org/case/shannon-dale-verhage The Charley Project

 https://www.clickondetroit.com/news/michigan/2022/06/03/michigan-girl-still-missing-25-years-after-mother-murdered-found-dead-in-lake-killer-on-death-row/

 https://www.woodtv.com/news/michigan/convicted-killer-from-mi-up-for-execution/

Citation:  Timmerman, L.C. and John H. The Color of Night: A Young Mother, a Missing Child and a Cold-Blooded Killer, New Horizon Press. Far Hills, NJ 2011

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This podcast is sponsored by Author Masterminds and the Readers and Writers Book Club. 

Check out the Author Masterminds Website

Get to know the authors at The Readers and Writers Book Club

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Meet your host for Episode 17: Where is Baby Shannon?

Valerie Winans is a graduate of Northwestern Michigan College, a retired state government manager, and a former campground host in Denali National Park and Preserve, Alaska. Valerie is the author of three books: Alaska’s Savage River: Inside Denali National Park and Preserve, Road Trip with Remington Beagle: Michigan to Alaska and Back, and A Hero’s Journey: Life Lessons From A Dog And His Friends. A writer of both fiction and non-fiction, her books are written to inform and entertain readers of all ages. She currently resides with her husband in Traverse City, Michigan. More information can be found at www.valeriewinans.com.

Valerie is a writer for readers of all ages and dogs’ best friend.

 

 


Alaskan Ghosts



Episode 16: Alaskan Ghosts

In May of 1973, the chief mate and two sailors on the Alaska State ferry Malaspina saw a sight about which they are undoubtedly still telling their grandchildren. On a clear Sunday morning near Twin Island in the Revillagigedo Channel north of Ketchikan, a huge vessel suddenly ap­peared dead ahead. Lying broadside to the path of the ferry, it was about eight miles away and was an “exact, natural, and real” ship.

The three men, in two different locations on the ferry, reported the same sighting. With binoculars, they scanned the strange vessel and saw sailors working on deck. The ferry crew watched the strange ship for ten minutes, and then, just as suddenly as it had appeared, it vanished into thin air.

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This podcast is sponsored by Author Masterminds and the Readers and Writers Book Club. 

Check out the Author Masterminds Website

Get to know the authors at The Readers and Writers Book Club

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Meet your host for Episode 16: Alaskan Ghosts

Steve Levi is a 70-something writer in Alaska. He specializes in the impossible crime and the Alaska Gold Rush.  An impossible crime is one in which the detective must figure out HOW the crime was committed before he can go after the perpetrators.  As an example, in THE MATTER OF THE VANISHING GREYHOUND, the detective must figure out how a Greyhound bus with four bank robbers, a dozen hostages, and  $10 million can vanish off the Golden Gate Bridge. Steve’s books can be seen at www.authormasterminds.com/steve-levi and www.steverlevibooks.com. He also does two historical uploads a week.  Send Steve your email, and he will include it in the mailings.

 

Now Available:

 

The historical key to understanding the Alaska Railroad is that it started as a Socialist dream.  It was a profit-making instrument owned by the government. By the time the railroad finished, the dream of socialism as a governmental form had died.  The Russian Revolution showed how flawed socialism by a national government was, the hard-core socialist, anarchist, and syndicalist radicals had been deported on the BUFORD, and the end of World War I flooded American stores with consumer goods. The Roaring Twenties had started, and everyone was making money, and there was no longer a need to have a ‘socialist’ government.

A RAT’S NEST OF RAIL

 

 


Bigfoot in Alaska



Episode 15: Bigfoot in Alaska

Alaska, known for its vast wilderness and diverse wildlife, has captured the imagination of many when it comes to the legendary creature known as Bigfoot. While the state is renowned for its hulking wildlife like bears, moose, caribou, and sea lions, sightings of Bigfoot in Alaska have been relatively scarce compared to other regions believed to be its natural habitat.

In Bigfoot stories, the creature is often described as elusive, hiding behind trees, and partially or entirely obscured. It provides just enough evidence for believers to support its existence and skeptics to cast doubt. So, the question remains: Is there a Bigfoot in Alaska? The answer, as always, is up to you to decide.

Two outstanding first-person encounter Bigfoot books written by Dr. Matthew Johnson:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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This podcast is sponsored by Author Masterminds and the Readers and Writers Book Club. 

Check out the Author Masterminds Website

Get to know the authors at The Readers and Writers Book Club

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Meet your host for Episode 15: Bigfoot in Alaska

Evan Swensen, book publisher, editor, author, and Author Masterminds charter member along with his wife, Lois, publishes books by authors worldwide. He has been the publisher and editor of Alaska Outdoors magazine and producer of Alaska Outdoors television show and outdoor videos, and host of Alaska Outdoor Radio Magazine. He has been an Alaska resident since 1957.

As a pilot, he has logged more than 4,000 hours of flight time in Alaska, in both wheel and float planes.  He is a serious recreation hunter and fisherman, equally comfortable casting a flyrod or using bait, or lures.  Evan has been published in many national magazines and is the author of five books and publisher of more than 1,000 books by other authors.

Evan claims to have the best job in the world; he gets up in the morning, puts on his fishing vest, picks up his fly rod, kisses his wife goodbye, tells her he’s going to work—and she believes him.

Author Masterminds: https://authormasterminds.com/evan-swensen

Author Masterminds One Last Cast book: https://authormasterminds.com/details/XLxrX

One Last Cast on Amazon: https://bit.ly/3H0OzTo

One Last Cast short video: https://youtu.be/2wzwWmim-2g

Alaska Outdoors https://alaskaoutdoorsmagazine.com.

Alaska Outdoors Blog: https://alaskaoutdoorsmagazine.com/blog/

Alaska Outdoors Videos: https://bit.ly/37xjUzl

 


What Happened to Joseph Mengle?



Episode 14: What Happened to Joseph Mengle?

This is a mystery that spanned forty years before being solved and put to rest. Investigators from numerous countries, including the United States, West Germany, Israel, Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay, all of which made confused and futile searches for the man or hard evidence of his having died. His name was Josef Rudolf Mengele.

 

 

 

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This podcast is sponsored by Author Masterminds and the Readers and Writers Book Club. 

Check out the Author Masterminds Website

Get to know the authors at The Readers and Writers Book Club

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Meet your host for Episode 14: What Happened to Joseph Mengle?

 

My pseudonym as an author is Carl Douglass, adopted as a means of telling stories with gripping realism—the truth of which would not bring trouble to my door. My writing of gripping, realistic fiction began after I was obligated to retire from the private practice of neurosurgery due to sudden blindness in my left eye from a retinal detachment which caused loss of stereoscopic vision. I carried with me decades-long knowledge of doctors, hospitals, and institutions of higher learning, including some less than laudatory information. My military experience during the years of the recent unpleasantness in Viet Nam also gave me considerable insight. Both of those lengthy experiences provided true grist for the mill of my writing, but neither of them need to connect the stories to the lives of the real people and places where the stories took place. In that sense, I know too much and have no wish to incriminate or to bring harm or embarrassment to real individuals or institutions. My rich and varied life has provided even more fodder to feed my mind and contribute realism to my written work. In my time, I have had to work due to lacking a sugar daddy. I have been a grease monkey, a lumber mill and forest worker, a lifeguard, a slaughterhouse worker, a diener in a morgue, a lab rat, an academic writer, a medical officer in a mental hospital, a naval officer and surgeon, a brig doctor, and a deep diving officer. I have been the husband of one fine wife, the father of four children—one deceased—eleven grandchildren, and seven great-grandchildren. All of them have enriched the depth and breadth of my storytelling.


Mysterious Idioms



Episode 13: Mysterious Idioms

I find Idioms interesting; their origins are a mystery.  First of all, some of them sound idiotic, nonsensical, for example ‘saved by the skin of your teeth?’  What in the world does that mean?  But the word “idiom” is not related to idiocy, rather ‘idiom’ comes from the Greek word “idioma,” meaning peculiar phrasing.  That perfectly describes an idiom.  An idiom is a widely used saying or expression containing a figurative meaning that differs from the phrase’s literal meaning.  Idioms often reflect a commonly held cultural experience, even if that experience is antiquated.  For example, you might say that someone should “bite the bullet” when they need to quit procrastinating and do something they don’t want to do.  Originally the phrase referred to wounded soldiers literally biting down on a bullet to avoid screaming during a wartime operation.  Thus, from the past a phrase we still use today though it literally does not apply.

MUSIC

Marvin Gaye https://bit.ly/37Rhsha

California Raisins https://bit.ly/2TgXA1s

This podcast is sponsored by Author Masterminds and the Readers and Writers Book Club. 

Check out the Author Masterminds Website

Get to know the authors at The Readers and Writers Book Club

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Meet your host for Episode 13:

Rebecca J Wetzler, originally a California girl, has lived in Alaska since she was eight years old.  From early in life, she has been an avid reader, and hoped to write her own books someday.   From her earliest memories she has been a believer.  Shortly after moving to Alaska, she asked Jesus into her heart during Sunday School. As her life progressed, Rebecca realized her faith gives her steady spiritual regrounding to weather the drama of real life.  She challenges the untruths forecast by the world’s darkness by believing the Light of God’s Word, and she wants to share the spiritual truths with others.  Bread Box for the Broken is her first book.

www.rebeccawetzler.net

https://authormasterminds.com/rebecca-j-wetzler

https://www.linkedin.com/in/rebecca-j-wetzler-7b763a49/

https://www.facebook.com/authorrebeccajwetzler

https://www.facebook.com/holyspiritdove

 


The Haunted Lemp Mansion



Episode 12: The Haunted Lemp Mansion

 

The Lemp Mansion in St. Louis, Missouri, is said to be one of the ten most haunted places in America. The mansion continues to play host to the tragic Lemp family after death. The once stately home to millionaires became office space, then decayed into a run-down boarding house. Finally restored, the Lemp Mansion is presently a fine dinner theatre, restaurant, and bed and breakfast.

Sources:

https://www.legendsofamerica.com/mo-lempmansion/

https://www.neatorama.com/2014/10/30/Lemp-Mansion-Tales-of-a-Cursed-Family-and-Their-Haunted-House/

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This podcast is sponsored by Author Masterminds and the Readers and Writers Book Club. 

Check out the Author Masterminds Website

Get to know the authors at The Readers and Writers Book Club

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Meet your host for Episode 12: The Haunted Lemp Mansion

Mary Ann Poll is the author of four Supernatural Thriller novels, Ravens Cove, Ingress, Gorgon, and Dullahan.

Sign up to subscribe for free information about upcoming events at www.maryannpoll.com and check out her podcast Real Ghost Chatter.


More Than Just Rain Falls from the Sky



Blood Rain

Episode 11: More Than Just Rain Falls From the Sky

When we see precipitation forming into storm clouds, we know that rain is on the way. But this clean, life-sustaining liquid is not the only thing that falls from the sky. Can it actually rain blood? That might sound like a biblical disaster straight out of the book of Exodus, but that’s just what happened in India. Also, what is a Star Jelly, and does it come from the sky?

Star Jelly

 

 

 

 

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This podcast is sponsored by Author Masterminds and the Readers and Writers Book Club. 

Check out the Author Masterminds Website

Get to know the authors at The Readers and Writers Book Club

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Meet your host for Episode 11:

My name is Adam Freestone. Apart from being an author, I have Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. I am confined to a wheelchair, and my condition requires me to use a ventilator and other medical equipment. Because of this, I am not a person most people are accustomed to seeing. My disability makes my day-to-day routine challenging, and it takes a lot of determination and patience to get anything done. Oddly enough, trying to show what I go through is what initially gave me the idea for the main character of my Sentinel Flame books, Hyroc. Hyroc is not disabled, but he is different than everyone else, and this causes him problems. I wanted to present how I live with my disability in an interesting way readers would find intriguing. Though Hyroc’s story occurs in a medieval fantasy world, what he has to deal with is very similar to what I experience in my everyday life. I tried to reflect through the character that though my situation seems dark and depressing, there is light in my life, and that’s what keeps me going.