8-29-17 Interview
Elizabeth Sims was born to be a writer, but it took her a long time to embrace it. Beginning with the stories her beloved Dad told her as she sat on his knee, Elizabeth was drawn to and excited by words and stories. Having bought the conventional wisdom that it is “almost impossible for a writer to get published, get any recognition or make a living,” she pursued many other occupations. But while selling books at a Borders Bookstore she realized that she “could write as well as the authors she was selling,” and she was right. She took the risk and wrote her first novel – which was published. Since then she’s published nine books from two crime fiction series. She is member of the Mystery Writers of America, Novelists, Inc. She was a correspondent for the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, is a contributing editor at Writer’s Digest magazine and a keynote speaker and workshop presenter at writer’s conferences and retreats around North America. Hoping to help others who have been dissuaded from pursing their dream of being a writer by the conventional wisdom, she wrote You’ve Got a Book in You: A Stress-Free Guide to Writing the Book of Your Dreams, and is a mentor and a coach to new and aspiring writers. Listen to her story and be inspired. .

8-2-16 Interview

8-22-17 Passionate, talented and courageous Carrie Seidman is a dancer, a journalist, a cancer survivor, and parent of child with mental health issues. She discovered her passion for dance at three years old while watching her older sisters do what she was “too young “to do. Although assured that she could not begin to study until she was five Carrie managed to bully her teacher into letting her begin at “almost five.” And that tenacity is the hallmark of her life. Soft spoken and basically shy Carrie has a will of iron. She has survived everything life has thrown at her and emerged not only victorious over her own and her son’s challenges, but as an advocate for others who are facing those challenges. A graduate of Columbia University’s School of Journalism, Carrie has been a journalist for 35 years: a full time staff writer for the New York Times, Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, Albuquerque Journal and Albuquerque Tribune, she currently writes features, critiques and long form projects for Sarasota Herald-Tribune where she specializes in the arts and mental health. Motivated by the difficult and painful experience of her son’s descent into mental illness, Carrie created a series called, “The S Word: The Stigma of Schizophrenia” for which she received the national Mental Health America Media Award, and became one of only 9 American journalists to be a fellow of the prestigious 2016-2017 Carter Center for Mental Health Journalism. She has won awards from state and national journalism organizations, including the Gold Medal for Public Service from the Florida Society of News Editors in 2015. Carrie turned the project into a book called FACEing Mental Illness: The Art of Acceptance a collection of the stories and artwork produced for her ongoing fellowship project of the same name, which is aimed at changing cultural attitudes about mental illness and eliminating the stigma of a mental health diagnosis. The book will be launched on Friday, September 1st at 6:00 pm at BOOKSTORE1 SARASOTA Listen to this remarkable woman tell the story of her life and come to Bookstore1 to see her, purchase a copy of the book, and support this important mission.

10-29-13 – Audio Interview

Tom Aposporos still remembers portraying the planet Mercury in his first grade class play. By fifth grade, Tom knew he wanted to be an actor and his parents made it possible for him to take acting lessons. Luckily, for Tom, there were professional actors with whom he could study and he attributes his success in all of his varied careers to that training at a young age. At age 20 Tom was acting professionally but not sure of the stability of such a career. He followed his father’s example and went into the real estate business. Very quickly, he also entered public life, elected to the Poughkeepsie, New York Common Council at age 25, then Mayor of his city two years later. Following four terms as Mayor, the shareholders of Progressive Bank, Inc., a publicly traded bank holding company, elected him to their Board of Directors and he later served as Chairman of the Board. However, Tom never lost his passion for acting and the theater. One of the founders of the Theatre Odyssey, based here on Florida’s Gulf Coast, Tom works steadily as an actor and director, and most recently appeared in Banyan Theater Company’s critically acclaimed production of Time Stands Still. He also writes a weekly column on the life and people of the local barrier islands for the Sarasota Herald Tribune.

4-2-13 Audio Interview

Some think that critics are people who couldn’t succeed in the art they critique, this is not true of Jay Handelman, Theater and Television critic for the Sarasota Herald Tribune. Jay is, and has always been a critic, “I am perfectly suited to being a critic” he says ”it just fits me.” Self-effacingly, Jay says that he is “not sure he is serving a larger purpose,” but he loves the theater and “hopes that his work elevates the quality of what we see.” Pointing to early experiences that led him to this career Jay remembers having seen, at 11 or 12 years old, a Broadway production of 1776, and rather than wanting to be in it or to have written it, he wanted to talk about it. Also standing out in his memory is his 11th grade American Literature teacher, Mrs. Joyce Garvin, who taught her class “Waiting for Godot.” He says “we opened the script, the first line is ‘Let us go,’ and the stage directions say ‘they do not move.” She slammed the book shut and we talked about that line for two days.” Listen to this sensitive and thoughtful man talk about his love of theater, his certainty that he was meant to be a critic and how he made a path to that goal where there was really none to follow.