Author Profile: Craig B. Garner

Hospital Stay

What’s on your nightstand now?

The Lost Books of the Odyssey

A World Lit Only By Fire: The Medieval Mind and the Renaissance

In Search of the Multiverse: Parallel Worlds, Hidden Dimensions, and the Ultimate Quest for the Frontiers of Reality

Who are your top 3 favorite authors?

Chuck Palahniuk
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Anne Rice

Favorite quote from a book?

“Unforeseen and unprepared for, the disease had come upon him, a happy man with few cares, like a gale in the space of two weeks. But Pavel Nikolayevich was tormented, no less than by the disease itself, by having to enter the clinic as an ordinary patient, just like anyone else.” Cancer Ward by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

“Howard Rourk Laughed. He stood naked at the edge of a cliff.”  The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand

When did you first consider yourself a writer?

I do not consider myself a writer.  I consider myself someone who has important information to relay to others, and writing is the most effective medium for me to use in this endeavor.

Is there a message in your book that you want readers to grasp?

Having worked in health care for many years, I am still continually surprised at the many ways in which a typical hospital stay can frighten patients and their families.  While sickness itself can certainly be overwhelming, just about any hospital related issue - from admission to procedures to billing to discharge - can be simplified until understood. The point of this book is to remind the reader that by breaking down any health care related topic into a series of steps, the fear and uncertainty that comes with a hospital stay can be greatly reduced, thereby allowing all involved to focus their energies on providing support and getting better.

Author Profile - Richard Godfrey

The End of the Race

What’s on your nightstand now?

The State of Africa by Martin Meredith, The Forty Years War, by Len Colodny, Your Life is Your Message by Eknath Easwaran, Behavior Traits of the Honey Bee by Vernon Carrier, Dholuo Grammer by Onyoyo, Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese, Unbowed by Wangari Maathai, and Common Wealth – Economics for a Crowded Planet by Jeffrey D. Sachs

What was your favorite book when you were a child?

The Little Prince – Antoine de Saint Euxpery

Who are your top 3 favorite authors? Mark Twain, Joseph Conrad, Barbara Kingsolver

Was there a book that changed your life? If so which one and how did it affect you?

Ghandi – An Autobiography – After leaving a projected career as a pilot in the Navy, I began to read about the philosophy of non violence and the biographies of those who advocate such action. I have pursued a path of my own in work and writing since that time.

Favorite quote from a book?

In five or six thousand years, five or six high civilizations have risen, flourished, commanded the wonder of the world, then faded out and disappeared, and not one of them except the latest ever invented any sweeping or adequate way to kill people. They all did their best to kill, being the chiefest ambition of the human race and the earliest incident in its history, but only the Christian civilization has scored a triumph to be proud of. Two or three centuries from now it will be recognized that all the competent killers are Christians. Then the pagan world will go to school to the Christian, not to acquire his religion but his guns. —Mark Twain

When and why did you begin writing?

In 1971, after returning to the United States from a two year Peace Corps stint in Nepal, I decided against entering law school and instead joined an ambulance company. My life was in a state of flux, pulled apart by a broken romance, loss of identity, and the beginning of the end of the tumultuous Vietnam War era. I needed a form that could transcend the chaos, and writing became the media.