EPISODE 667 - Leslie R Schover - Fission - A Novel of Atomic Heartbreak, Oak Ridge and the Manhattan Project

After retiring from her academic and clinical career as a psychologist, Leslie Schover has returned to her early love of writing fiction. She brings her knowledge of people, relationships, and sexuality to her novels. She grew up in Highland Park, in the suburbs of Chicago, and minored in creative writing at Brown University before receiving her PhD in clinical psychology at UCLA. Her mother did not want her to choose writing as a profession and told her that only someone as single-minded as Truman Capote, who had published a novel at age twenty-three, could be a successful author. Leslie spent most of her psychology career at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation and at the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center.

She was one of a few pioneers in advocating for reproductive health in people dealing with chronic illness, especially cancer. She published three self-help books in the Jurassic age: Prime Time: Sexual Health for Men over Fifty (Holt, Rinehart, & Winston, 1984); Sexuality and Fertility after Cancer (John Wiley & Sons, 1997); and Overcoming Male Infertility: Understanding its Causes and Treatments (John Wiley & Sons, 2000).

She was also coerced by colleagues, who wielded the powers of promotion and tenure, into writing thirty-five book chapters on sex and/or fertility after cancer, with the daunting task of avoiding self-plagiarization. She created all content for a digital health company, Will2Love.com, which received an Innovations Prize in the 2019 Astellas C3 competition for cancer care. Unfortunately, Will2Love, with its mission of helping people with cancer to solve sexual and fertility problems, did not survive the pandemic. Her first novel, Fission: A Novel of Atomic Heartbreak, is based in part on her parents’ stories of life during the Manhattan Project in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. It will be published by SheWrites Press in January, 2026.

https://www.leslieschoverauthor.com/

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EPISODE 666 - Darlene Oakley - Canadian freelance writer, editor, and transcriptionist - Inner Sanctum - Remnant

About the author
Darlene Oakley is a freelance writer, editor, and transcriptionist based in Canada’s Niagara Region. She has written for the dental, healthcare, and parenting audiences and now specializes in scientific research and experimental development (SR&ED). She has over 200 articles published online to date. She has held various roles within the publishing industry for the past 25 years.

Darlene has been writing short stories and books since she first learned how to put pen to paper. This book is a culmination of a life’s pursuit and comes out of a love for words and writing, relatable characters, a little bit of sci-fi, love and suspense.

Inner Sanctum was written primarily in the NCR, particularly at Brewed Awakenings in Kemptville, Ontario -- lattes, books, and great atmosphere just seem to go hand in hand.

Inner Sanctum: Remnant - The last-known remnants of life from Upper World Earth is dying.

The underground city of Egerton’s population – saved from almost certain death on the surface 400 years ago – is shrinking.

Family Control Officer Aurora Cassle and Mayor’s Assistant Den Maron must find out why. Their investigation reveals Egerton’s long-forgotten history and long-buried secrets which generations of mayors have hidden from the public.

Den and Aurora’s research leads them to one conclusion; the only way to save their city – their people – is to return to the surface.

To do so presents great risk to everyone. No one can really predict what awaits them on the surface after four centuries – wars, disease, predators. Most are willing to take the risk, but some don’t want life in Egerton to change at all and do what they can to ensure no one leaves.

The fight to return to the surface comes at a cost no one expects.

https://www.facebook.com/DarleneOakleyAuthor
https://nextleveleditingandtranscription.com/

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EPISODE 489 - Author Darlene Campos Shares the Amazing Story of Holocaust Survivor Pete Philipps

Hello! Hola! I'm Darlene P. Campos, an Ecuadorian-American author who is also a proud Houstonian.

I earned my BA in English-Creative Writing with a Medicine and Society Studies minor from the University of Houston (Go Coogs!) and my MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Texas at El Paso (Go Miners!).

I am the author of the young adult novels Behind Mount Rushmore, Summer Camp is Cancelled, and Heaven Isn't Me, traditionally published by Vital Narrative Press.

Pete Philipps' Interview
Pete grew up in Essen, a major industrial city on Germany’s Ruhr River. His father worked as a cattle hide dealer for an international trading company in nearby Mühlheim. His mother was a designer for a fashionable women’s dress shop. Pete, his younger twin brothers, and parents lived together in an apartment.

1933–39: Pete had barely passed his first birthday when the Nazis came to power. His father realized the danger that now faced Jews in Germany, and the family left for Prague, Czechoslovakia in 1936. Pete attended Jewish school there, but the times were unsettling. In fall 1938, the Sudetenland, a region of Czechoslovakia, was incorporated into the Nazi Reich, and the following March, German troops marched into Prague. Shortly thereafter, Pete’s family left for Italy, where they settled in the Genoa suburbs. There, they were attacked by local antisemitic fascists. Soon after Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, the Philippses immigrated to Ecuador.

1940–45: In Quito, the Philippses joined the growing colony of refugees from Germany. Pete attended a private boys’ school. His father set up business making margarine, while his mother did clothing alterations and knitting. In May 1941, just six months before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the Philippses arrived in the United States. Pete’s father returned to his former company.

After the war, Pete learned that his paternal grandmother, who had fled earlier to the Netherlands, had been deported to Auschwitz, where she perished. He completed his education and, after a tour of military duty in Germany, became a journalist for the New York Times.

https://www.ushmm.org/remember/holocaust-survivors/volunteers/pete-philipps
https://www.ushmm.org/
https://www.darlenepcampos.com/
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Published: Jan. 20, 2025

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