Karna Small Bodman - A Look Inside the Beltway

If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to be a Washington insider, pick up a book by Naples writer Karna Small Bodman. After being appointed by President Reagan as Deputy Press Secretary, Bodman spent several years moving in D.C’s inner circles.  It was her job to explain domestic policy initiatives to the national press corps, and she was involved with some of the most important issues of the time. She met almost daily with President Reagan, often travelling with him on Air Force One, and was sent to South America and the Far East to give speeches on the President’s economic priorities. Later, Bodman became a Senior Director and spokesperson for the National Security Council. She attended arms control talks with the Soviets and traveled with the team that briefed the leaders of Great Britain, France, and Italy, as well as Pope John Paul II.  When Bodman left the White House to become Senior Vice-President of a public affairs firm, she was the highest ranking female on the White House staff.

Her years in the White House gave Bodman an opportunity to observe how the executive branch of the government works and the challenges it faces. Since she had always wanted to write a book, Bodman decided to use her insider knowledge as the basis for a novel. “I’d been writing news scripts, briefings, magazine and newspaper articles my entire career, but the premium was always on brevity,” she explains. “I had to learn how to take ideas and extrapolate.” Her writing was influenced by her favorite authors: Nelson DeMille, Charles McCarry, and Vince Flynn.  Drawing upon her fascination with President Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative, Bodman came up with the idea for her debut novel, Checkmate. It tells the story of Dr. Cameron Talbot, a brilliant young scientist who devises a computerized system that can take over incoming missiles and send them back to their points of origin. When a group of militants send an agent to Washington to steal the new technology, Dr. Talbot finds her work and her life in imminent danger.

Bodman spent months researching the technical aspects of the novel. “The most difficult part of writing for me is organizing the research,” she says. “I probably over-research.” And it was her research that inspired her main character. According to Bodman, “Cameron Talbot isn’t based on any individual. I started with the technology and molded a character to fit. And I blended in many of the very smart women I knew in Washington.” The result is a novel that seamlessly melds fact and fiction into a political thriller with a strong romantic twist.

Since then, Bodman has written three more novel, each focused on a different threat to our national security. The characters work on the White House staff as well as in and around Washington, DC and in hot spots overseas. While there are international plots and political intrigue in all her books, Bodman also weaves a love story into each one. All her novels have hit #1 in Thrillers on Amazon. 

Bodman is most excited about her newest international thriller, Castle Bravo which will be released on June 1,  in time for her signing at the big publishers’ convention, “Book Expo,” in New York.

The plot of Castle Bravo centers around the White House Director of Homeland Security receiving intelligence about the possibility of a staggering new threat.  What if a hostile country or group was to obtain a small nuclear device, and instead of aiming it at one of our cities, they detonated it high in the atmosphere? The result would be the creation of an Electro-Magnetic Pulse or “EMP” sending shock waves that would fry all electronics on the ground in its line of sight.  There would be no electricity grid, no internet, no communication, transportation, refrigeration, ATMs.  Could it really happen here? Bodman hopes you will read the novel and decide for yourself.

A number of New York Times bestselling authors have already weighed in with their opinions of Castle Bravo. Christopher Reich calls it “Smart, slick, and exciting as hell. Castle Bravo is one great read. Karna Small Bodman has an insider’s feel for the corridors of power.  As you quickly turn the pages, you will find yourself wondering if the book is truth or fiction. A winner!” According to Steve Berry, “Bodman skillfully moves her players around on a global chessboard, presenting a provocative concept that rings all too real. You’re there, in a labyrinth of intrigue, where danger and drama abide. It’s fresh and relevant and makes you clamor for more.”

Bodman hopes readers will enjoy Castle Bravo, as well as her other novels, Checkmate, Gambit, and Final Finesse as she endeavors to make arguments about the importance of national defense.  As George Bernard Shaw said, “The best way to get your point across is to entertain.” Bodman’s books will certainly entertain while taking readers on an unforgettable journey inside the beltway.

To find out more about Bodman’s books, you can visit her website at www.karnabodman.com

Next: Robert Tacoma - Laughter's the Key

Tina Wainscott - Romance with a Thrill

Tina Wainscott was born and raised in South Florida and is a self-described “true cracker,” but the story of her life really begins in Pennsylvania. “I was conceived at a drive-in movie outside of Philadelphia, believe it or not. I guess the movie was pretty boring,” she says. “Then my parents, who were just kids, moved to Florida and discovered they were expecting. They collected shells from the beach to sell to souvenir shops to pay the doctor’s bills, and they managed to get the bills paid days before I arrived. They were the original shell seekers.”

Wainscott’s talent for storytelling developed at an early age. As a child growing up in Naples, she loved to direct make-believe movies with her neighborhood friends and create adventures where characters were caught in dangerous situations. When she was seven years old, she wrote her first story: “Pathways to Death.”  According to Wainscott, “I had a happy childhood and a stable home (as my mom is eager to tell people). But I grew up on Alfred Hitchcock.”  She took business courses after graduating high school because she “wanted to be sensible,” but she also enrolled in creative writing courses at night to satisfy her desire to write. She eventually took a job as a sales support manager for a software company, but she continued to write short stories in her spare time. One of those short stories “got too long” and developed into her first full-length novel. In an ironic twist, she was laid off from her job the very month her first book, On the Way to Heaven, was published. She has been writing ever since.

Wainscott describes her books as “romantic suspense with a paranormal twist.” Of her twenty-three published novels, seven are set in Florida; two of them in Naples. Her favorite, Unforgivable, was inspired by an actual event. “A little girl was giving away kittens in front of the local Publix,” she recalls. “A man came out, took one of the kittens and threw it against the window. Luckily, the kitten survived, but I was so incensed, I sat down and started writing. I imagined what might happen to the girl’s life as a result of that incident, and the whole story came together. I call it my gift book.” Wainscott later got to meet the actual kitten that inspired the story.

Wainscott’s career has taken twists and turns (much like those in her novels) from paranormal romantic suspense to straight suspense with some romance, and now, plunging back into paranormal romantic suspense again as Jaime Rush. "I took a pseudonym because I'd gone away from romance and paranormal and my new publisher wanted to bring me out as a fresh new author," she explains.

Her “Offspring” series, for Avon Books, is about a group of people with extraordinary psychic abilities and a shady government agency out to kill them. "In the first four books, each couple is dealing with being thrown together with strangers and being hunted down,” she says. “They've got to solve the mystery of who's behind it and how their parents were involved, parents who are now dead. I call it X-Files meets Lost. The fifth and sixth books in the series (Beyond Darkness and Darkness Becomes Her) are more stand-alone as far as the plot arc goes. You can pick up any book and jump right on the train, but it's always nice to start a series at the beginning to watch the characters evolve."

Wainscott is also doing some stand-alone novellas in the “Offspring” series so new readers can get a taste of her writing for $1.99. The Darkness Within is available now, and a spin-off story will be out soon.

Wainscott continues to evolve in her writing. "I'm finding that my writing is veering into more traditional paranormal elements. For example, in the “Offspring” series, I discovered there really is a Darkness. Some of the characters in Darkness Becomes Her and the novellas actually possess Darkness … or does it possess them?"

Wainscott is “wildly excited” about a whole new series that's scheduled to come out starting April of 2013, called “The Hidden”. In the series, Crescents (humans who hold the essence of deities) walk the knife’s edge between the glamour of Miami and the “Hidden,” a place filled with dark magic. Dragons, angel hybrids, and sorcerers, Crescents must fight the dissention among their kind and the lure of their darkest nature. "I'm having a ball creating a world, a history, different kinds of beings, and yet all anchored in the quasi-normality of a real city,” Wainscott says. “Playing with magic really opens up the possibilities.” She was inspired by “those mysteries in our everyday lives, like where our socks go, and why things are in a different place than we know we put them.”  Her Crescents can see the dangers in this other world that exists right along with ours. They have to deal with this without revealing it, or their own magic, to regular humans. Wainscott will be writing as Jaime Rush for these books and plans to releasre two related novellas prior to the series’ launch.

While her deadlines keep her writing for more than eight hours a day, she sets aside weekends for “family time” with her husband and daughter. She also enjoys reading, swimming, and watching favorite shows like Supernatural and Once Upon a Time. But being a writer is her true calling, her passion and her obsession. “It’s so exciting when an idea first blooms in my mind,” she says. “I love the writing process, especially when everything’s flowing.  And I love creating people and worlds and drama. But, as I was preparing a talk for the Friends of the Library, I discovered the real reason I write. My characters come to the story with baggage, with hurts and vulnerabilities as well as strengths. And while I put them through hell during the course of the story, they come out on the other end stronger. Not only do they find love, but they love themselves. We all have baggage. Isn't it nice to know there's hope that we can overcome anything?"

For more about Tina Wainscott, visit her website at http://www.jaimerush.com/

Next: Karna Small Bodman - A Look Inside the Beltway

Cynthia Thomason - A Place for Romance

Cynthia Thomason’s romance with romance novels began more than twenty years ago. This former English teacher turned auctioneer was looking for something more stimulating to do with her time, so when her son started school, she started writing. Her first novel, a historical romance titled River Song, took her almost three years to complete. Published in 1998, this tale of a beautiful con artist and a gambling plantation owner won Thomason a Romantic Times K.I.S.S. award. Since then, she has penned twenty novels including historical romances, contemporary romances, historical mysteries, and a time travel anthology. But romance remains her favorite genre. “I enjoy writing books and stories for and about women. I love historical romance because I enjoy doing the research. Contemporary romance is shorter but more fun.”

For Thomason, writing romances presents its own unique challenges. “Characters and ideas don’t come easily to me. I have to work at it. The most difficult thing is coming up with something fresh and new, taking the tried and true plot line and finding a hook to make it uniquely mine.” For example, one of her mystery novels features an auctioneer as an amateur sleuth. The idea for the character came from Thomason’s years as the owner of an auction company, and identifying with her characters is something Thomason really enjoys. “The thing I like most about writing is getting into the characters’ heads. It’s like being an actor and getting to play all the parts.” She hopes her readers will take from her characters a sense of common humanity. “I’d like readers to come away from my books with the understanding that we all have failings, but we can overcome them.”

An avid traveler, Thomason finds inspiration for her stories in the places she’s been. “I’ll be somewhere, and an idea will come. One thread that seems to run through her books is the small town setting. She and her husband, Walter (also a writer) have traveled extensively throughout the United States. “I can honestly say that I have found something to admire about every locale,” she says, “but I am always drawn back to America's small towns like the one where I grew up. For example, my husband and I went ot Cedar Key on a pleasure trip. It was such an interesting, artsy little town that I thought, ‘Wow, I could set a book here.’” The idea eventually evolved into a three-book series. One of Thomason’s historical mysteries, Stagestruck, is set on a Mississippi riverboat. Two other novels, Gabriel’s Angel (Maggie Award Finalist) and Return of the Wild Son, (HOLT Medallion Winner and National Readers Choice Award Finalist) were inspired by lighthouses. “Lighthouses are a common setting for me – I just like them,” she explains. She even gets ideas for characters from places she’s visited. “My main characters are often an outgrowth of a setting. They come from my imagination, but they’re usually more exciting than I am.”

This South Florida writer calls the Sunshine State “a very rich place for a writer looking for settings.” Her latest novel, Christmas in Key West, tells the story of a young Key West native who returns home to care for her father and rekindles a romance with her high school sweetheart. Windswept, a historical romance set in pre-Civil War Key West, was praised by the Detroit Free Press as “A fresh Caribbean breeze of a romance.” But whether it’s a lighthouse in Michigan, an artist colony on the Nature Coast, or the Florida Keys at Christmas, Cynthia Thomason’s readers know they’re in the right place for romance.

For more about Cynthia Thomason, visit her website at http://www.cynthiathomason.com/

Next: Tina Wainscott - Romance with a Thrill

James Sheehan - The Thinking Man's Grisham

When James Sheehan decided to set pen to paper eighteen years ago, he was looking for a hobby that would ease the stress of his job as a trial attorney. Today, he is the author of three thought-provoking legal thrillers that inspire readers to ponder the complexities of life.

Sheehan, a native New Yorker, came to Florida over thirty years ago to study law at Stetson University. After working for a firm that represented major corporations, he decided to go into private practice where he could represent individuals who were downtrodden or discriminated against. His desire to “humanize” the death penalty issue inspired him to write The Mayor of Lexington Avenue, the tale of Jack Tobin, an idealistic trial lawyer fighting to exonerate an innocent man on death row. Praised as “A terrific novel, a genuine literary achievement” (Booklist), the book established Sheehan as an insightful new voice in the legal thriller genre. By seamlessly weaving together the stories of two childhood friends whose lives take vastly different paths, Sheehan gets readers to examine the thorny subject of capital punishment in a new light.

A year later, Sheehan revisited the death penalty question in The Law of Second Chances, the story of Henry Wilson, a death row inmate, and Benny Avrile, a man facing the death penalty for his role in a robbery/murder. Their lives intersect when Jack Tobin finds himself representing both men. Unlike The Mayor of Lexington Avenue, The Law of Second Chances is based on an actual case. “People always asked me if Mayor was based on a true story. It wasn’t, but I thought I’d do that with Second Chances,” Sheehan explains. “So I researched death penalty cases until I found the one I wanted.” Sheehan was also looking for a character as compelling as the one he created in his first novel. “I had such a great character in Rudy (the innocent inmate in Mayor) that I wanted to come up with one just as good. I think I did that with Henry Wilson.” It seems that the critics agree. The Law of Second Chances has been called “An involving thriller that is also a moving meditation on love and friendship.” (Booklist)

Sheehan’s third book, The Lawyer’s Lawyer, is another in the Jack Tobin series. According to Sheehan, “A lawyer’s lawyer is the lawyer other lawyers look for when they get into trouble, and Jack certainly fits that bill.” The story begins in a small Florida town that is being ravaged by a serial killer. A suspect is eventually arrested, convicted, and sentenced to death. Ten years later, as the execution date draws near, Jack Tobin is asked to revisit the case. This sets into motion a series of events that lead to Jack being tried for murder. Now he must find his own lawyer’s lawyer or risk becoming the newest resident on Florida’s death row. The Lawyer’s Lawyer is slated for release in January, 2013.

In his spare time, Sheehan keeps his brain sharp by reading, his body fit by competing in triathlons, and his soul nourished by spending time with his five grandchildren. In addition to teaching full-time at Stetson Law School, his alma mater, he has finished his fourth novel, The Alligator Man, a legal thriller that could have come straight from today’s headlines. The Alligator Man tells the story of a young Floridian whose life is decimated when the company he works for is driven into bankruptcy by corporate greed, and he decides to avenge himself by murdering the former CEO.  The idea for the book came from Sheehan’s desire to explore what causes a person to become a criminal. “As a society, we treat people in a black-and-white way, but most things aren’t that clear cut,” he says. “The message from my books, and from fiction in general, is that there are lots of layers to life. And books provide a tapestry for life. That’s why people enjoy them so much.”

For more about Jim Sheehan, visit his website at www.james-sheehan.com

Next: Cynthia Thomason – A Place for Romance

Randy Wayne White - Doc Ford and Dinkin's Bay

In 1987, the Tarpon Bay Marina in Sanibel closed its doors, and Randy Wayne White found himself out of a job.  After spending thirteen years as a fishing guide, White had to look for another line of work.  As it turned out, the marina’s loss was the reading public’s gain.

White moved to Florida in 1972 and took a job working for the Fort Meyers News-Press.  He was impressed by the “complexities” of the state, and became fascinated by Florida’s social and natural history.  He also found himself drawn to the sea and eventually obtained his captain’s license.  Then he decided to purchase a boat and become a light-tackle fishing guide.

His experiences on the water inspired him to try his hand at writing. Although he had never formally studied the craft, he was an avid reader and credits “a wonderful library system” with helping him develop his skills.  “I always wanted to write,” he says.  “It was a calling.”  He was influenced by his favorite writers:  Conrad, Hemingway, Twain, Peter Matthiesen, John D. MacDonald, and John Steinbeck.  In fact, the inspiration for White’s Doc Ford came from a character in Steinbeck’s Cannery Row.  “I wanted to create a character that was purely analytical, not spiritual,” White explains. So he made Doc Ford a scientist - a marine biologist.

White started out writing several novels under the pseudonym “Randy Striker.”  So when the government closed Tarpon Bay to powerboat traffic, White decided to turn to writing full-time.  His first Doc Ford novel, Sanibel Flats, was published in 1990 and was chosen by the American Independent Mystery Booksellers Association as one of the “Hundred Favorite Mysteries of the Twentieth Century.”  Since then, White has published eighteen novels centered around the exploits of ex-CIA agent Doc Ford and his friends at Dinkin’s Bay.  In his latest, Night Vision, Doc Ford finds himself protecting a mystical Guatemalan teenager from the degenerate trailer park manager she can implicate in a murder. According to Booklist, “White handles the action scenes superbly, writing with both precision and dramatic flair, but he gets inside the heads of his characters, too…” 

When it comes to writing, White does his job superbly.  A New York Times-bestselling writer, he has been awarded the Conch Republic Prize for Literature and the John D. MacDonald Award for Literary Excellence.  In addition to his Doc Ford novels, White has written several non-fiction works, many based on his extensive travels.  His non-fiction books include, Baitfishing in the Rainforest, The Sharks of Lake Nicaragua, Last Flight Out, and An American Traveler. The Gift of the Game, a PBS documentary that he wrote and narrated, won the “Best of Best” Award at the 2002 Woods Hole Film Festival.

White structures his novels in three levels.  As he explains it, “First, I try to write a fast story.  I also try to make a political or environmental statement. And then, there’s a spiritual level that I write for myself.  My readers can take from the story whatever they want.” He calls writing “the hardest work I’ve ever done,’ but loves it nonetheless.  According to White, “The best part of writing is reading something I’ve done and saying, ‘Gee, that’s pretty good!’”  He also enjoys having readers tell him how they’ve been affected by his works.  His biggest challenge is finding the time to write. “The impositions on my time are more than I’d ever imagined,” he says “People think that because you write, you don’t really work.  They don’t realize that even when you’re up from the typewriter pacing, you’re still working.” 

White’s next Doc Ford novel, Chasing Midnight, will hit bookstores on March 6, 2012. White describes this as among the best of his thrillers. Set completely on Florida’s west coast, Chasing Midnight finds Doc Ford pitted against environmental extremists and the Russian mob.

When he isn’t writing, White enjoys reading non-fiction, traveling, boating, windsurfing, playing baseball, and socializing with friends at his restaurant, “Doc Ford’s Sanibel Rum Bar & Grill.”  He even dabbles in the culinary arts. “I cook all the time,” he says. “In fact, I do all the cooking at home.”  “Home” for White is an old Cracker house that sits on a Calusa Indian mound on the bay.  For the man who was named a Florida Literary Legend by the 2010 Florida Heritage Book Festival, this peaceful setting has inspired some of the most compelling novels in all Florida fiction.

For more about Randy Wayne White, visit the author’s website at http://www.randywaynewhite.com/

Next: James Sheehan - The Thinking Man's Grisham

Julie Compton: The Story Behind the Story

Julie Compton is fascinated by why people behave the way they do. This fascination has taken her from the practice of law to a career as a writer, culminating in two successful novels that combined elements of both.

Although Compton has been writing “as long as I can remember,” she never thought of making a career of it. She worked for private law firms until the birth of her second daughter when she began staying home with her children and writing seriously. Six years later, she resumed practicing law for a “dream job” as a trial attorney with the US Department of Justice that offered the privilege of working on some of the largest corporate bankruptcies in the country. She returned to writing full time in 2003 when her family moved to Florida for her husband's job.

The idea for her first novel, Tell No Lies, in which an assistant DA compromises both his professional and personal principles in his quest to become top DA, sprang from two separate incidents. “Back in '96 or '97, I heard a radio report about a politician who had been caught doing something unethical, and it got me thinking about what compels someone to do something so obviously wrong. Perhaps I'm too naïve, but I believe most people go into politics for the right reasons, but somewhere along the way they take a wrong turn. At about the same time, I read a newspaper article about a teenage boy who was involved in a crime of some sort – I don’t remember the exact nature of it. His mom claimed he was innocent despite what appeared to be  a mountain of evidence against him, and I found it so interesting how a parent could rationalize the evidence away. I put the two concepts together and wrote the framework for the novel.” Compton worked on the first draft for three years, spent another three years editing, and in 2008, Tell No Lies was finally published. Many critics have compared her to Scott Turow, and Kirkus Reviews gave it a starred review, calling it “a taut, tense cautionary tale complete with courtroom drama and a surprise ending."

Although Tell No Lies has been described as a legal thriller, Compton sees it more as a book about family and relationships. “When I started writing, I didn’t intend for it to be a mystery. I saw it as a relationship story with a mystery imbedded in it. I wanted to explore what makes a generally good person start sliding down the proverbial 'slippery slope'.”  After the novel's release, Compton was fascinated by how much of a lightning rod her protagonist turned out to be. Readers' reactions inspired her to write a sequel, tentatively called Keep No Secrets.

Compton finds it easier to balance her writing and personal life now that her children are older. She even finds time to volunteer as a guardian ad litem for neglected and abused children, a position which heavily influenced the themes of domestic violence in her second thriller, Rescuing Olivia, released in 2010.  Rescuing Olivia is the story of a Florida biker whose girlfriend disappears from the hospital after a motorcycle accident. In his quest to find her and save her life, he is forced to face the demons of his own past if he is to have any chance of saving Olivia from hers. Publishers Weekly called the novel "intense" and "entertaining," and Kirkus Reviews aptly labeled it a "[m]odern-day fairy tale" in which "Compton burrows . . . deeply into Olivia's and Anders' troubled back stories and dramatizes in such psychologically compelling terms the swain's attempt to rescue his princess." Compton hopes her readers will come away from her books realizing that “there’s always a story behind the story.” And that’s the story Compton wants to tell.

For more information, visit the author's website at http://www.julie-compton.com/

Next: Randy Wayne White - Doc Ford and Dinkin's Bay

Drs. Chris Cortman and Harold Shinitzky: Knowing Your Own Mind



Dr. Shinitzky (L) and Dr. Cortman (R)



If you’ve ever felt that something was preventing you from living life to the fullest, two Florida psychologists have a prescription that might be just what the doctor ordered. Doctors Chris Cortman and Harold Shinitzky have combined more than 80,000 hours of clinical experience into Your Mind: An Owner’s Manual for a Better Life, a book that will help readers understand how the mind works by examining “ten simple truths that will set you free.”

The idea was the brainchild of Dr. Cortman, a Sarasota psychologist specializing in the treatment of emotional trauma, relationship problems, depression and anxiety. After twenty years of clinical practice, Cortman identified ten common issues shared by most of his patients and ten interventions to effectively deal with them. He decided to incorporate this information into a book.  A short time later, he attended a meeting of the Florida Psychological Association where the speaker was Dr. Shinitzky, a former faculty member at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Cortman was so impressed by the presentation that he decided to introduce himself. The two men quickly discovered that they shared common experiences, philosophies - even the same quirky sense of humor - so they decided to collaborate on the book. To Cortman’s original ideas, Shinitzky added his own evidence-based research and clinical anecdotes. Over the next several years, the men became what Shinitzky describes as “two psychologists with one brain.”  

Their mutual respect and admiration enabled Cortman and Shinitzky to avoid the pitfalls that plague other co-authors. According to Cortman, “Working with such a bright, intelligent guy, I worried about being able to disagree without hurt feelings. But Harold made it easy.” Shinitzky  agrees. “The partnership of two doctors without ego issues was so much fun. Writing together was a delight, never an intrusion.” It has also resulted in an immensely readable, common-sense look at the problems that prevent people from enjoying healthy relationships and fulfilling lives.  Shinitzky hopes the book will help readers “go from passive to active participants in their own healing and growth.” Cortman believes that the book presents “simple, yet life-changing concepts” that will enlighten readers and give them insights into their behavior.

Since the release of Your Mind: An Owner’s Manual for a Better Life, the good doctors have lost no time embarking on new projects. In addition to their full-time psychological practices, they have converted the information from their book into a youth prevention curriculum that Shinitzky presented to the National Dropout Prevention Conference. The two hope to form a non-profit organization promoting what they call their “Social Black Belt Youth Curriculum.” Shinitzky has also launched an internet patient resource website, “Able Village,” to connect disabled patients to providers they need for comprehensive care. He is the consulting sports psychologist for “Athlete Connections,” a program that helps student athletes transition to life after sports, and has recently been tapped to be consulting psychologist for the Animal Planet show, “Fatal Attractions.”  

For his part, Cortman has been presenting on a multitude of topics to many professional associations and organizations. He recently participated on a panel with Jane Pauley as part of Sarasota’s Community Mental Health program. He also writes a monthly column, “The Couch,” for Venice Magazine. In addition, the charismatic duo have their own half-hour weekly radio show, “Your Mind Matters,” produced by the Health and Wellness Channel, and are planning for the launch of a nightly television show on HWC this spring.  They have recently received an offer to publish their second book, The Age of Anxiety: Protecting Yourself From The 21^st Century Epidemic of Stress, Fear and Worry.

Despite their enormous professional demands, Cortman and Shinitzky recognize the importance of having fun. Cortman enjoys spending time with his wife and three children (including new baby son Dylan.) Shinitzky, who was recently named “Outstanding Psychologist” for his contributions to the Florida Psychological Association, likes to travel, play tennis, and visit with family. But whatever the future may hold for Doctors Cortman and Shinitzky, readers everywhere will benefit from being able to improve their lives by finally having an owner’s manual for their minds.

For more information, you can visit the authors’ websites: drshinitzky.com (Dr. Shinitzky) and srqshrink.com (Dr. Cortman).  

Next: Julie Compton - The Story Behind the Story