Stark Reflections on Writing and Publishing

EP 283 - Doing LSB (Laughter, Stretch, and Breathe) with Amy S. Peele

Dec 23, 2022

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Mark has a chat with Amy S. Peele, an Amazon best-selling and award-winning author. They discuss her medical mystery series, her healthcare background, comedy, laughing yoga, and so much more.

Prior to the interview, Mark shares a question from recent a episodes, an update regarding looking for guests (especially newer writers) for the podcast, and a word about this episode's sponsor.

You can learn more about how you can get your audiobooks distributed to retailers and library systems around the world at starkreflections.ca/Findaway.

In their conversation, Mark and Amy talk about:

Having been an RN since 1974 and the life-long friends she has maintained her entire life
Leveraging the "two best friends" theme in her mystery series as the two main protagonists
Spending thirty-five years in organ transplants
Deciding to kill people she didn't like in real life as fictional characters in her novels
Writing the three murder mysteries after she retired in 2014 because she still had "transplants" that she needed to get out of her system
The next book she is working on, a romantic comedy
Amy's training with Second City Player's Workshop in Chicago because of her need to have some levity outside her day job work
How Amy got started with where and how to publish her first mystery novel and how she found her agent
The importance of relationships in the publishing world
Why Amy values local independent bookstores, including her local bookstore, Book Passage
The process of getting her books made into audio
Self-care for writers and why it's important
Laughter yoga and hand yoga
How, especially lately, we've been in fight or flight mode and the fact that people are not breathing
L.S.B. (Laughter, Stretch, and Breath)
Why deep breathing and laughter is so valuable
Advice Amy would offer to beginning writers
And more...

After the interview Mark shares a reflection.

He then welcomes new patrons Lizbeth Meredith, Stephanie Tallent, and Angela Grit Landau and thanks all patrons.

Links of Interest:

Amy S. Peele was born and raised in the Chicago area. Having graduated from South Chicago School of Nursing (SCCH) in 1974, Amy discovered her passion for organ donation and transplantation when she started as a transplant coordinator at the University of Chicago in 1976. She enjoyed a 35-year career in Transplantation retiring from University of California San Francisco in 2014. As President of the North American Transplant Coordinators Organization (NATCO), she was a guest on the Phil Donahue talk show as well as national and local radio stations, discussing the National Organ Transplant Act, which was passed in 1984.

Amy has a love for comedy and improv and graduated from Second City Players Workshop in 1985 in Chicago. She has also studied Improv at BATS (Bay Area Theatre Sports) in San Francisco. Amy’s sense of humor comes through in all her writing.

Amy met her architect husband, Mark Schatz, through his mother who was her student at a transplant coordinator course. They were married in 1987 and have two children. Gracie is a butcher, fishmonger, and chef living in Eugene Oregon. Bennett works in the digital sound industry in San Francisco, enjoys building bikes, and playing music.

Amy now lives in Marin County where she has been writing creatively since 1988. With CUT, Amy infuses her passion for transplantation into her murder mysteries and brings a fresh, knowledgeable, and humorous new voice into the world of mystery novels.

The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0