Matt Matern speaks to author (Ian) Blake Newhem about his life, challenges with health issues, ghost writing career, & his writing inspirations.
Newhem’s a ghost – writer – for … he can’t say, lest goons stalk and shiv you. With an MA (U. of Manchester, UK), he’s placed in competitions and written 100+ mass-market books, articles, stories, and essays for publications/publishers including HarperCollins; Crown; Perigee; Adams; Utne Reader; North Dakota Quarterly; Writer’s Digest; Story; MadHat Lit; Origins; Brain, Child; Genre; Really; White Ash; Gannett’s Journal News; & News Corp’s Times Herald-Record. Anthologized, twice Pushcart-nominated, NPR-produced, and selected Starcherone Books Prize finalist, featured on 200+ radio and TV shows. Newhem advocates for freelancers as contract adviser on the National Writers’ Union Service Organization board. He rescued orphan elephants in Kenya; winter-summited Kilimanjaro post-cancer; almost died skydiving; taught war reporting in Croatia; and he fights fires.
Confronted with helping to rebuild the ruins of lower Manhattan in the aftermath of September 11, Ambassador Charles A. Gargano spent the next twelve years cleaning up and revitalizing Ground Zero and developing One World Trade Center. The experience was life affirming and provided a signature testament of hope in the shadow of one of the worst events of the twenty-first century. As a legendary real estate icon, engineer, and Republican strategist who served in the US government for three decades, Gargano has become a thought leader and pioneer in the field of re-engineering. He knows what does and doesn’t work and how to apply that experience to the foundation of America.
Aric Hatch is a 16-year-old drummer for the British Army, and newly orphaned, at the edges of a battlefield during the bloodiest year of the American Revolution. Wandering among the dead, wondering what to do, he encounters another boy-“Orion.” Who seems to manifest out of nothing. Is he a boy at all? The two of them, alone together, then with Akt’adia, the young woman who’s become chief of a local Native American tribe, embark on a dangerous adventure. Dodging the enemy, suffering the elements-and growing closer even as they find themselves farther from their home worlds. Healing Star is a coming-of-age story about the gateways we can find in our traumas if only we can muster the courage (and the company) to face them.
