 Welcome to Community Matters on the Think Tech Hawaii Streaming Network. I'm your host, Catherine Norr. Today we're talking about a book called Island Fever, which is an anthology, including mystery stories written by Hawaii authors, including myself. With me today is the book publisher and an author, AJ Llewellyn, and authors Steve Novak and Kent Franker. Welcome, authors. Hello, Llewellyn. All right, so AJ, we'll start with you. What is an anthology? A lot of people don't know what that is. Really, it's a collection of stories, usually with one theme, and obviously it's an Island Fever theme. And I was really excited to have so many authors participate, and it really gives readers an opportunity to experience authors they probably don't know and to get to know their work in little bites. All right, so what gave you the idea to create an anthology with the title Island Fever? Well, I became president of Sisters in Crime Hawaii at the beginning of 2020, and it's been a very difficult time for a lot of authors because they felt housebound and, of course, COVID was going on. So that was the inspiration, but I wanted the authors to create something out of total chaos. That's the best form of creativity. And one of our authors, Lisbeth Hartz, she came up with the title, but really the concept was I wanted people to write about fever in any shape or form that happens in Hawaii. So we have one story, actually, only one about COVID and all these other kinds of fevers, murder, gambling, Kent wrote an incredible story about child abuse, and there are fevers that people don't necessarily know about like dengue fever. So that was the inspiration. Terrific. So, Steve, what led you to write your story and tell us about it? Well, you know the evolution of this. You, who are a member of the Sisters in Crime group with AJ, asked her if I could submit a story because you and I have been in another writer's group and you know my writing and I guess you thought I'd be okay. So you gave me the theme is fever and I just assumed it had to be some sort of mystery thing since it was Sisters in Crime. So I made up this prime murder fever story just out of the blue. All right, so tell us about like a little bit about what the topic of your story is, Steve, so that we can get excited about it. Well, of course it started off with a fever, but what kind of fever? I have several types of fever in there. There was a little bit of lust fever, which happened. A little bit of anger fever, which led to a murder. And then the title character, or not the title character, but the main character has an actual fever. And when she comes out of the fever, she and her family discover she had some repressed memories. So there's a lot of fever going around. All right, so Kent, let's talk about your story. Tell us about it. Well, I have two stories. The title one is Island Fever. And that's what a lot of people from the mainland get when they come to Hawaii. And it tends to be people that feel surrounded by a little bit of an alien culture. And sometimes this actually this loneliness and separation from support groups ends up unfortunately resulting in child abuse. And as a active physician, I was on the child abuse committee for a long time. But I've never seen this topic really addressed well in mystery stories. And so I thought this would be a good time to do it. All right. Okay, so AJ, tell us about your story. I know you have a story in the book as well. I do. It's called George Harrison's Gardener. And it's set right after 9 11. I went to Maui. I moved to Maui actually. And it was one of the first flights after they started planes leaving the skies again. And it was incredibly difficult to travel. You couldn't have anything in your suitcase. They're afraid of everybody. But I got to Maui with my best friend. And we had found this accommodation in a travel guide. And it was terrible. We had no window pains in our room. And mosquitoes were flying in. And people in Hana where we were staying were getting dengue fever. And I actually got it and couldn't figure out how it turned out from a pay phone. It is such a contagious disease. But they kept it very quiet. They didn't want the tourists to stop coming. But the pay phone I was using to call home was the same one George Harrison's Gardener used. So that's my tenuous connection with him. So I have to write about it. That's a fantastic inspiration and very unique. My story in the book is called Honeymoon. And it was actually inspired by the Gabby Petito case. You know, I was really intrigued by that. And I thought that it would be kind of interesting to kind of develop something with characters along those lines. So essentially the Kaley is one of the main characters. And immediately before her and her newly minted fiance Brandon leave for a three week camping resort Maui vacation. Brandon punches her in the face. He swears he's sorry and they enter the honeymoon phase of domestic violence. And she goes on the trip with them anyway. And her friend Melissa, she sees a photo of Kaley's bruised face on Instagram. And so she starts investigating this mysterious Brandon. And it turns out that he has a criminal record. And so that kind of leads to this kind of desperate search for them and solving the mystery of what the island fever on Maui is. So Steve, now I understand that you're quite a story writer. A few stories for that you submit to various contests. Tell us about your like story writing career. Well, I started off, I have a business book that was published about 15 years ago. I started writing the second one. And my the writer's group I was in which included Catherine told me how boring it was. And it was boring. So I tried to liven it up. First I interviewed some local business people executives. And that helped but not enough. So I started making up little stories to kind of go with the points I was trying to make. And then the group said, Steve, give up the business book. Your stories are much better. You need to go to fiction. So I started on a novel which I finished. I'm wrapping it up, going through a second round of edits on my own before I submit it to an editor. And in the midst of that, I thought, well, I need to, I need to get better at writing. So I started doing short stories as an exercise. And I've written quite a few of them. And I've been submitting them to literary magazines. No luck yet. But the wonderful editor that I met through this island fever book has helped me. And so far, my edited stories have not been rejected yet. My unedited ones have. So let's see where this goes. You know, it's really a challenge to be a writer. It takes a lot of years and a lot of patience and a lot of trial and error. And I know Kent, you've written a number of books. Tell us about your books. You know, I've had multiple careers. And I got really interested in writing short stories while I was going off to places in the Pacific and stuck in hotels where there was no entertainment at night. And so I wrote a whole series of short stories about this, which I stuffed in a drawer. And they're still in that same drawer. And then I got bored with just writing short stories and wrote my first novel. And now I have actually seven books that are published. Four of them are sort of techy thrillers. And then a couple of mysteries and one nonfiction. But it's been a pleasure. I wrote my first short story at age nine. And I've probably have a hundred short stories in my little book of that. And I'm going to come out with my own anthology next year. So that's my story, really. All right. And AJ, I know you are a prolific author. Tell us about what you do. Well, I'm primarily a writer of romantic mysteries. So I'm a hybrid author. I have two publishers, plus I self publish. I have 325 books out there. And I love what I do. And it was really fun for me. Some of the authors that are in anthology really were not published before. Some had never worked with an editor before. So it was fun for me to help them kind of nudge their dream along. And to be really honest, it was fun for me to write something that had no sex in it, because my readers really expect hot stuff in my books. And after a while, I've written over 300 books, you run out of positions. And I just really liked writing a really honest mystery. And there's a tiny bit of romance, but not really. And so that was really fun for me. But I just wanted to say, I think that anthologies, when I started 17 years ago, submitting short stories everywhere, I was told the short story format is dead. Anthologies are not happening. And it's simply not true. They are a really good way for seasoned writers to get smaller stories out there, but also for people that aren't published to become known. And the short story format is a life and kicking. So keep submitting. You will be accepted. Sure. And yeah, you know, I haven't, that was my first short story I've written, the honeymoon story in the book. It's a wonderful story. Thank you. As you know, I loved it. The funny thing about that is I wrote it when I had COVID. That's right. I've forgotten about that. In fact, that allowed me to have time to be home to write the story and gave me some inspiration. And you know, it did happen during COVID time and was really inspired by that. I think people do like to read about what we just went through. But I do have five published books for fiction. And you know, it is a long road. And it's really enjoyable and hard to write a novel. But writing a short story is a different skill set, I think. It's harder, actually. Because you have to distill your idea into a small space. Right, right. And it, you know, I didn't know what I was doing. But you know, I felt like it worked better than I thought it had. Maybe it was that COVID that I had that inspired that. So what do you think makes for a good short story, Steve? Since you write so many, you know, how do you like come up with ideas and write in such a confined number of words? Well, see, this was a challenge for me. And that's why I started doing it was because in a novel, you have a lot of, you know, time, a lot of words to work with. And I know I repeat myself and I can go on and on. And I needed to work on that. I focus on literary fiction. This anthology with a mystery was a little bit different for me, but I tried to make it as literary as possible. So I focus on the characters and their journey. What makes them tick? Why do they do what they do? So and in a short story, you have to, you have to really present the characters. You don't have, you know, you don't have a lot of time for descriptions and a lot of background. So you really have to, the readers really have to get to know them quickly and what their journey is, why they're doing it. And of course, where they start and where they end up. So that's what I try to do. But where my ideas come from is all over the map. One that I particularly like was listening to the radio and a woman who is a singer-songwriter, she's talking about her and her fiancee at the time was addicted to drugs. And he got, you know, he got over, you know, he overcame that and they got married and such. So I'm listening to this and I thought, well, what would happen, what would happen if he didn't overcome this addiction? So I wrote a short story about that. And I really like it. And it's, it's out there waiting. I've sent it to several places. It's waiting to be published. And I'm sure the readers are waiting to read it. Oh, yes. Ken, what, how, what inspires you to write about a particular topic? I know you've written about a lot of really interesting topics. Sometimes I just get interested in a place. And then I'd like to use that as the background for, for a story. But, you know, writing short stories, the key is to stick with one character to me. And, and really, I don't like to jump around with a point of view. It's from the point of view of a single character. And there's got to be a progression in there that is not predictable necessarily. I like to have a little twist at the end, something a little bit unexpected to come up. And, and then a lot of my earlier stories always ended with a bad ending. You know, unfortunate things happen. Now I try to veer away from that. A lot of my stories now are end up with an unexpected happy ending. So that's, I think I've said enough. Yeah. All right. Hey, Jay. Yes. Now let's move to the reader. Okay. Why, why would a reader want to read an anthology versus a novel? What would lead them to delve into that? One of the reasons anthologies are appealing to people is that, as a society, we all suffer from CPA, continual partial attention. I learned this from a teacher of mine. So people who read books, their attention wanders with a short story. It's short. Therefore, if they don't like one story, they can move on to the next. But I also think because it involves 10 different writers, this particular anthology, as I said before, each fever is completely different. And we didn't just write about COVID, one author wrote about COVID. But we touch on smallpox, which there are people in Hawaii that don't realize that smallpox wiped out most Hawaiians 200 years ago. So there are actual people there that don't know it. So they're learning a little bit of history in a short story that's fiction. So my feeling is that with anthologies, you can touch on difficult topics, can cover child abuse. One of the stories that still affects me deeply in Hawaii was the murder of Peter Boykama. His family murdered him. It's only just in the last year or so. We all knew what happened that his father killed him, but his mother finally admitted it. And it's such a terrible, terrible case of child abuse. He's not the only one. It was just a very famous case. And I was really appreciative that Kent touched on it because he's dealt so much with children. And also, I feel it's one of those cases that people didn't want to touch in fiction. So we did. We touched some difficult topics. And I think it's a great way for people to think, oh, let me read some more of his books. Let me check this author out. What else have they written? Sure. It is a good way for people to learn about your or your writing style about Kent's, about other authors and make decisions about whether they might want to read their books. So that's terrific. So I understand you did a book signing recent. Yes. Last week in Ventura, and it was just a magical evening. My friend Sheila Lowe is a bestselling author, and she was launching her own book. And she invited me to come and do a signing. And that's me with Josephine Vallant. She has a story in there in the Island Fever anthology called Lost Identity. And I'm so proud of her. She's a new author. She's had in the last 12 months three books and this story published. And I just want to say, Steve, when you and I first started talking, you were a little bit hesitant to send me something because you just felt like your work wasn't maybe ready. And it's one of the best short stories I've ever read. I've told Catherine that numerous times. I know I've told you that. So I really appreciate it that you let us publish it. Well, I feel like I feel like we discovered you. I appreciate you letting me and the whole journey working with you and make our editor was just wonderful. She's a very good editor because I think she really lets authors keep their voice. She doesn't try to rewrite you. And that's really essential in a good editor. Steve, how how important is editing to the writing process? Well, it really opened my eyes how amazing because, you know, I think I have a good story. Well, you know, you think it's bad, you think it's good, but I think I have a good story. And then my first time with a professional editor, Meg, and she really made very, very few changes. But it made it pop. It really kind of sharpened it up and made it, I think, really worthwhile. So it's it's huge. It's it's a huge difference. Sure. And so, AJ, what are the challenges in publishing a book, an anthology? To be really honest, I've got anthologies out there with a couple of other authors, and I have a couple of my own anthologies. But when you're publishing multiple authors, you've got different skill levels. You have authors that maybe published a couple of books and think they're Shakespeare and they don't want to be edited. And so you're saying to them there isn't an author alive who doesn't need an editor. And my feeling is it's a product and I want the best product out there. And we also had an author who submitted a story that was completely plagiarized. And had we published it, we would all be in serious trouble. And I just don't understand anyone stealing. It was really devastating. So you don't know who you're dealing with sometimes, you know. And I feel like, thank God, I have such a great editor. Meg isn't just a content or line editor. She does everything. And she's my personal editor in house being for many years. But she actually googled the story and tried to research it because she thought, this is an interesting story. I thought it was too, because it was about horse racing industry in Hawaii and there is no. So I assumed it was based on fact. And then to find out this woman completely plagiarized, every single word was shocking. So that's what you have to deal with in an anthology is making sure people it's authentic. It's unique and it's their own. And all three of you did exactly that. Fantastic. Well, AJ, let's, in wrapping this up, how can people buy island fever? It's available on Amazon in ebook and paperback. It's also, it's on Kindle Unlimited. So you can read it for free if you subscribe to KU. Terrific. All right. And thank you to all of you for being on Community Matters today. We've learned a lot and I hope the viewers will look to buy your books and Island Fever. And thank you for joining us today for this special episode of Community Matters. Please tune in for my show, The Wide World of eSports, every other Thursday at noon, Hawaii time on thinktechhawaii.com. See you then. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn, and donate to us at thinktechhawaii.com. Mahalo.