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

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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.


Grand Island Murders



Episode 10: Grand Island Murders

After the body of Edward Morrison was found in the bottom of the U.S. lighthouse boat on the shore of Lake Superior, stories began to flourish about what had happened and who was responsible — even before the facts were established. To this day, people still have strong opinions about an event that occurred more than one hundred years ago.

Sources:

Graham, Loren. Death At The Lighthouse: A Grand Island Riddle. Arbutus Press, Traverse City, Michigan. 2013.

 

UNSOLVED MICHIGAN MYSTERY: Death of a Lighthouse Keeper | https://99wfmk.com/grand-island-lighthouse-murder/?utm_source=tsmclip&utm_medium=referral

 

https://lostinmichigan.net

 

https://mikelbclassen.com

Read Valerie’s companion piece to this episode at Medium or at the Readers and Writers Book Club

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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

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Meet your host for Episode 10: Grand Island Murders.

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.

 


The Phantom That Came Aboard



Episode 9: The Phantom That Came Aboard: A True Gold Rush Saga

Perhaps the most famous Alaska Ghost ship story is that of the Eliza Anderson.  Here is the saga of a ship in distress, forced to choose between being battered to splinters by the savage sea or running around on the rocky shoals of Kodiak Island.  Instead, a tall, gaunt, wind-swept, rain-soaked giant of a stranger seized control of the ship’s wheel and steered her safety.  Then, his job completed, he vanished as mysteriously as he had arrived. For fifty years, the legendary “Stranger Who Came Aboard” was grist for the supernatural mill of Alaska Gold Rush stories.

 

 

 

 

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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

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Meet your host for Episode 9: The Phantom That Came Aboard: A True Gold Rush Saga

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.

 

Coming Soon:

 

“Did you know anarchists and socialists and Bolsheviks and syndicalists built the Alaska Railroad?”

 It’s true! The route between Seward and Fairbanks was approved in 1912, just before the First World War, and not completed until 1923. During the most violent period of American history, 1910 to 1920, which saw FOUR major terrorist bombings – Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York!

AND the Russian Revolution!

The Alaska Railroad was a socialist dream! It was owned by the government, all workers were paid by the government, and all benefits would go to the people, not private enterprises.

What more could a socialist or an anarchist or a syndicalist or a Bolshevik ask for?!

What could go wrong?

Want an in-the-weeds snapshot of what it was like to work on the Alaska Railroad with anarchists, socialists, syndicalists, and Bolsheviks?

IT’S COMING!!!

A RAT’S NEST OF RAIL

www.authormasterminds.com/steve-levi

 


What Happened to the Fandel Children?



Episode 8: What Happened to the Fandel Children?

Most parents can imagine no nightmare worse than the disappearance of a child, but how can a parent possibly cope when both of their children vanish, swallowed by the Alaska wilderness?

Some time during the late-night hours of Sept. 5 or the early morning hours of Sept. 6, 1978, Scott Fandel, 13, and Amy Fandel, 8, disappeared from their Sterling, Alaska home on the Kenai Peninsula, 136 miles (218.9 km) south of Anchorage. The mystery of what happened to the Fandel children has baffled Alaska State Troopers for over four decades. How can two kids vanish from their home without a trace?

The following two photos are age progressions from the Charley Project. If you have any information on this crime, please contact the Alaska State Troopers.

 

 

 

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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

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Meet your host for Episode 8: What Happened to the Fandel Children?

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. 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

 


Silent City Hoax



Episode 7: Silent City Hoax

Silent City

A hallucination is when something is seen that doesn’t exist.

A mirage is a real thing seen in the wrong location consisting mainly of images of distant objects. These may be steady or wavering, single or multiple, upright or inverted, vertically enlarged or reduced. A mirage is a natural optical phenomenon that can be captured on camera since light rays are refracted to form a false image at the observer’s location. However, what the image appears to represent is

Richard Willoughby

 

determined by the interpretive faculties of the human mind.

I had never read or considered mirages other than mirages of pools of water standing on a highway on a hot day. And I knew nothing about the Silent City Hoax and no knowledge of any Ghost City before I experienced my North Slope phenomenon.

 

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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

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Meet your host for Episode 7: Silent City Hoax

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.

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

 

 

 

 

 


Sister Mary Janina



Episode 6: Sister Mary Janina

Isidore is a quiet little farm community. Not at all the place you think of when you hear someone has been buried alive in the basement of a church.

Sources:

https://lostinmichigan.net

Where is Sister Janina? Mardi Lind https://wondersandmarvels.com

Isadore’s Secret: Sin, Murder, and Confession in a Northern Michigan Town by Mardi Link

The 1907 Murder of Sister Janina: Isidore, Michigan https://99wfmk.com

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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 6: Sister Mary Janina

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.

 


Three Mysteries



Episode 5: Three Mysteries

From a small town in Utah to a mysterious mountain in Africa, mysteries fill the world around us. In this episode, I will share three mysteries.

 

 

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

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Meet your host for Episode 5: Three Mysteries

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.

I put in the necessary work for my later-in-life craft of writing fiction. I spend hours each day enjoying doing the necessary research to make my historical fiction come alive and to give action and accurate place, time, and characters, to all my stories—some 40 books in print and several in the queue with my remarkable publisher, Evan Swensen, who has taught me a great deal about how to write what people like to read. I maintain a passion to learn, to read, to inform and teach, and—above all—to engage you in my yarns.

 

 


Edna June



Episode 4: Edna June

How did a 200-pound pig become the “darling” on an Arabian horse ranch?

Owning a ranch isn’t very mysterious. It’s a lot of plain hard work. But there have been some mysterious things that happen here. I’m going to tell you about one of them.

 

 

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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

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Meet your host for Episode 4: Edna June

Victoria Hardesty has owned, bred and shown Arabian Horses for more than 30 years. She and her husband operated their own training facility serving many young people that loved and showed their own horses. She is the author of numerous articles in horse magazines, was the editor of two Arabian Horse Club newsletters, one of which was given the Communications Award of the Year by the Arabian Horse Association at their national convention. An avid reader from childhood, she read every horse story she could get her hands on. Victoria and her writing partner, Nancy Perez have written seven novels about Arabian horses. Check out their website at http://www.wonderhorsebooks.com/author-bio and see their books at Victoria Hardesty and Nancy Perez | Bookshelf (authormasterminds.com).


Alaska’s Ghost Ship, the CLARA NEVADA – and the $17 Million in Gold that Vanished



Episode 3: The Clara Nevada

No saga of the Alaska Gold Rush would be complete without a touch of the mysterious.  Every rush has its eerie events, and the Alaska Gold Rush was no exception. Perhaps the most perplexing incident of that era was the saga of the Clara Nevada. Here was a tale of greed, robbery, and murder, along with a ghostly re-visitation. But it was more than that.  It is also one of the largest successful robberies in American history combined with the third largest mass murders in American history as well, surpassed only by the  Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 and the 911 attack on the World Trade Center.

 

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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 3: The Clara Nevada

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 you in the mailings.

 

 


Vile Vortices



Episode 2: Vile Vortices

The world is full of mysteries. On this episode, I’d like to share about specific phenomena: Vile Vortices.

So, what is a vile vortex? You’ve heard the chilling stories about the Bermuda Triangle, right? Well, there are several other mysterious places where ships and planes seem to vanish.  These 12 places are collectively called the Vile Vortices, and like their more famous sibling, they all hold some rather creepy secrets. For the sake of time, I can only share a few.

To this day, scientists are not exactly sure how vile vortices work or even why they occur. What we do know is that there are areas in which strange, possibly even paranormal phenomena, disappearances, and disturbing tales seem to be commonplace. The Bermuda Triangle is most likely the most famous of the vortexes.

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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

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Meet your host for Episode 2: Vile Vortices

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.