Spotlight – Sylvia Shults

In this blog we turn the spotlight on Sylvia Shultz. Sylvia has been writing for years, and recently made the switch from fiction to nonfiction. Following a lifetime spent in the pursuit of the weird and the strange, she now shares that passion with her readers. Her fiction (both horror and romance) is still floating around out there, but these days she concentrates on living a childhood dream — telling true ghost stories. Her non-fiction works include Ghost of the Illinois River and Fractured Spirits: Hauntings at the Peoria State Hospital. Fractured Spirts was featured on an episode of the SyFy Channel’s hit show Ghost Hunters and it is the first book to examine the famously haunted asylum from both a historical and a supernatural perspective.

Her second book is a much more personal experience. “Hunting Demons” is a terrifying tale of demonic attachment. In the book a paranormal investigator, who has devoted her life to helping those suffering from unwanted spirit activity, runs a foul with three demonic entities. She never knew that her desire to help would lead to her own nightmare.

This book is an eye opener to good and evil, right and wrong, living and dead and the minions of evil’s dominion. Every spiritual, paranormal or non sensitive individual will get something out of this documented work of truth that will change you for a lifetime. It is an excellent read and is brutally honest in the subject of demonic oppression.

Sylvia lives in the Midwest in a ninety-year-old house full of books, animals, plenty of interesting hobbies and a devoted husband. In her spare time, Shults gets more material for her books by going on paranormal investigations. She wanders around cemeteries and sits in haunted morgues so you don’t have to.

Sylvia’s FaceBook page
Sylvia’s Amazon Author’s page
Sylvia’s website and home of her paranormal podcast, Lights Out.

This Week’s Podcast:

On the podcast this week Sylvia Shuts joins us to talk about her new book Hunting Demons and share some fantastic Ghost Stories with us.

You can listen to this podcast this Thursday (10/22) at Ron’s Amazing Stories, download it from iTunes, stream it on TuneIn Radio or listen on your radio Friday night at 8pm Eastern time. Check your local listing or find the station closest to you at this link.

The Calendar:

October 01: The classic retelling of, “The Thing on the Fourble Board”
October 08: The Mysterious Travels Episode
October 15: The Horror Express #9
October 22: Ghost Stories with Sylvia Shults
October 29: Old Time Horror with Jim Harold

Spotlight – Frankenstein

Frankenstein, who was he? What was he? He started out as the creation of English author Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, but he has become so much more. He is a superstar icon and has maintained a place as the very definition of scary for nearly 200 years. He made his debut in 1818. The novel was published anonymously by a small London publishing house and was titled, The Modern Prometheus. The second edition of the book included Mary’s name in 1827.

How did the story come about? Mary, Percy Shelly (Mary’s Husband), Lord Byron, and John Polidori decided to have a competition to see who could write the best horror story. After thinking for days, Shelley dreamt about a scientist who created life and was horrified by what he had made; her dream later evolved into the novel’s story.

Since the novel’s publication, the name “Frankenstein” has often been overused to refer to the monster itself. However, in the novel he is known as, the creature, the monster, the demon or just plain it. What did the monster think of himself? When he spoke to Victor Frankenstein he calls himself “the Adam of your labors, but is instead is your fallen angel.”

Frankenstien's Monster How was he created? Was the monster a collection body parts grafted together from cadavers and reanimated by the use of electricity? Not in Shelly’s novel, the doctor spends two years painstakingly constructing the creature one body feature at a time. He obtains these parts by dissection and the slaughter-house. He then brings monster to life using his unspecified process.

The movies are what changed everything. They took elements of the story and presented us with the modern day Frankenstein. “He is Alive!” became the battle cry and since that famous decree in 1931 by Collin Clive the visage of Boris Karloff has become the subject of our nightmares.

This Week’s Podcast:

Coming up this Thursday on the podcast we have the ninth episode of the Horror Express. Jason and I take you into the world of ghost stories, answer your emails and have a old time radio treat called, Frankenstein. You won’t want to miss it!

You can listen to this podcast this Thursday (10/08) at Ron’s Amazing Stories, download it from iTunes, stream it on TuneIn Radio or listen on your radio Friday night at 8pm Eastern time. Check your local listing or find the station closest to you at this link.

The Calendar:

Spotlight – Civil War Week

On Ron’s Amazing Stories the Blog, we spotlight this week’s guest author on the show, J.D.R. Hawkins.

J.D.R. Hawkins When Julie was asked: “What inspired you to write your first book?” – I went to Gettysburg and saw the battlefield for myself. I had never seen a battlefield of that enormity before, and the experience effected me so profoundly that it inspired me to write a book from a typical Confederate soldier’s perspective.

Julie is an award-winning author who has written for newspapers, magazines, newsletters, e-zines, and blogs. She is one of a few female Civil War authors, uniquely describing the front lines from a Confederate perspective. Her “Renegade Series” includes “A Beautiful Glittering Lie,” winner of the 2013 John Esten Cooke Fiction Award and the 2012 B.R.A.G. Medallion. The sequel, “A Beckoning Hellfire,” is also an award winner. Both books tell the story of a family from north Alabama who experience immeasurable pain when their lives are dramatically changed by the war.

Ms. Hawkins is a member of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, the International Women’s Writing Guild, the Mississippi Writers Guild, Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers, and Pikes Peak Writers. She is also an artist and a singer/songwriter. You can hear one of her original songs Gray Is The Rose right here on ITunes. She recently completed a nonfiction book about the War Between the States, as well as two more sequels for her “Renegade Series.”

Julie lives in South Dakota with her husband of 31 years. They have two sons, a daughter-in-law and will soon be grandparents!

On a personal note I have a great time talking with Julie about her books, Civil War history and writing style, but one thing that we did not cover was her music. I found out after the interview that she is a talented musician and song writer. I hope Julie wants to come back to the show so we can talk about her music. I listened to and even bought one of her songs, Grey is the Rose, from iTunes.

-Ron

This Week’s Podcast:

On the podcast this week we will have Civil War historian, Author and Musician, J.D.R. Hawkins. We also have an OTR story from American Cavalcade called Robert E. Lee. It is going to be a great show.

You can listen to this podcast this Thursday (00/00) at Ron’s Amazing Stories, download it from iTunes, stream it on TuneIn Radio or listen on your radio Friday night at 8pm Eastern time. Check your local listing or find the station closest to you at this link.

The Calendar:

September 17: Detective Drama Week
September 24: Civil War Historian and Novelist, J.D.R. Hawkins.
October 01: The classic retelling of, “The Thing on the Fourble Board”
October 08: The fifth annual Month of Spooky Continues.
October 15: The fifth annual Month of Spooky Continues.

Comic Books: A Noble Beginning

So, we have comic books, but where did they come from? After all everything has a beginning.

For the beginning of the comic you would have to go back to the pulp heroes. “Pulps” were small 10 cent books, sold on the newsstands and were published from 1896 through the 1950s. They were usually filled with action heroes going to exotic places and having adventures. Among these heroes were Doc Savage and The Shadow. While these guys did extraordinary things, they weren’t called superheroes. However, they had their influence on what was to come.
The Phantom made his debut on February 17th, 1936. He was the first costumed hero and was created by Lee Falk. The Phantom was a normal “human” person. He fought crime with bravery and death defying stunts. He was one of the first characters who used a mask to hide his true identity. This, of course, would become the hallmark of most superheroes and crime-fighters to follow.
There is a lot of discussion on the origins of the first real comic book. Most agree it was Action Comics #1 which was first published in June of 1938. Why was this one so special? It introduced greatest superhero of all time, Superman. We would go on from there and enter what would be called the golden age of comics (Late 30’s through the 50’s). Much of what we see today was developed during this age and would catapult a billion-dollar industry.
If you want to learn more about the history of Comic Books and Superheroes I recommend: Super-history: Comic Book Superheroes and American Society, 1938 to the Present by Jeffrey K. Johnson. This study views American history from 1938 to 2010 through the lens of superhero comics, revealing the spandex-clad guardians to be not only fictional characters but barometers of the place and time in which they reside.

This Week’s Podcast:

On the podcast this week Jacob Edwards joins us to talk about the current state of comic books and it major stakeholders DC and Marvel. He also introduces us to an episode of the Blue Beetle. BB was one of the first comic book heroes to get his start on old time radio in the 1940s and go on to have good success in the comics.
You can listen to this podcast this Thursday (09/03) at Ron’s Amazing Stories, download it from iTunes, stream it on TuneIn Radio or listen on your radio Friday night at 8pm Eastern time. Check your local listing or find the station closest to you at this link.

The Calendar:

August 27: CBS Radio Mystery Theater – Circle of Evil
September 03: A new story from the Blue Beetle introduced by our friend Jacob Edwards!
September 10: Time for a detective drama
September 17/24: Working on getting a Civil War historian
October 01: The Fifth Annual Month of Spooky Begins!

The Amazing E.G. Marshall

I decided this week to put the spotlight on a great actor, Mr. E.G. Marshall. We will have one of his episodes of CBS Radio mystery theater on this Thursday’s podcast. What made his radio show unique was that it did not appear during the golden age of radio. In fact, the first episode did not go live until January 6, 1974. Radio dramas ended some 13 years earlier when Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar ended its run in 1961. CBS Radio Mystery Theater ran from 1974 through 1982, eight years and nearly 1400 episodes was its legacy. E.G. Marshal was not creator of the program, that was Himan Brown a he is the subject of another article later on.
What I found was this piece taken from Biography. I could not find the author credit for it, so my thanks to the folks of Biography for providing it. I have edited it down a bit so if you want to read the entire article I have included the link at the end.
-Ron

BIO OF E.G MARSHALL

EG Marsall E.G. Marshall kept the secret of his original name throughout his life. His career began on Broadway, where he eventually starred in the original runs of The Crucible, Waiting for Godot, and The Iceman Cometh. His films include Twelve Angry Men and The Caine Mutiny. On TV, Marshall became a household name in the 1960s for his role in The Defenders.
In all likelihood, E.G. Marshall was born on June 18, 1914, in Owatonna, Minnesota. However, both the date of his birth and his true name are the source of some controversy. While many public records list Marshall’s birthday as June 18, 1910, in a 1997 interview Marshall insisted that his true birthday was four years later. Since his death in 1998, certain pieces of social security information have emerged that appear to confirm the 1914 date. An even greater mystery than Marshall’s date of birth is the origin of the initials “E.G.”
When asked to state his full name in interviews, Marshall insisted, “My full name is E.G. Marshall. I am known by no other.” When pressed as to what the “E.G.” stood for, Marshall typically responded in jest. Some of his more noteworthy responses were “Enigma Gregarious,” “Everybody’s Guess” and “Edda Gunnar,” an obscure reference to a book of Norse legends. While many hypothesize that his real name is Everett Gunnar, the true meaning of his initials (as his son-in-law David Sayer suggested shortly before Marshall’s death) “will go with him to his grave.”
Marshall became interested in theater and acting at a very young age. “I used to watch movies—silent movies—and stock companies and theater whenever I could,” he later recalled. He also began performing wherever he could—in school, at church, at the YMCA, and in community theater productions. But in Minnesota during the Great Depression, there were few opportunities for advanced training in acting. “There were no acting schools back then,” Marshall said. Instead, he attended the University of Minnesota and Carleton College, where he indirectly honed his acting skills by majoring in speech and music. He eventually made his way to the theater and starred in many successful plays.
While he was enjoying a successful career as a leading man on Broadway, Marshall was also developing his film career. He made his feature film debut in the 1945 picture The House on 92nd Street before appearing in such 1950s classics as The Caine Mutiny (1954), Twelve Angry Men (1957) and Compulsion (1959). His most notable later film roles included Woody Allen’s Interiors (1978), Superman II (1980), Nixon (1995) and Absolute Power (1997).
Despite this prolific career as a stage and film actor, the venue where Marshall enjoyed his most success was television. Marshall’s most acclaimed and famous role came on the 1960s CBS courtroom drama The Defenders. Marshall played Lawrence Preston, an implacable defense attorney who represented such diverse and controversial clients as civil rights demonstrators, neo-Nazis and conscientious objectors. In one especially controversial episode of the socially piercing show, Marshall’s character represented an abortionist. The Defenders ran from 1961 to ’65, and for his performance on the show, Marshall won the 1962 and 1963 Emmy Awards for outstanding performance by a lead actor in a series. After The Defenders went off the air, Marshall again achieved television success on the NBC medical drama The New Doctors, which ran from 1969 to ’73.
E.G. Marshall married first wife, Helen Wolf, in 1939. They divorced in 1953, and he later married Judith Coy. Marshall had seven children from his two marriages. He died at his home in Bedford, New York, on August 24, 1998, at the age of 84.
Over the course of his long and distinguished acting career, Marshall developed a reputation for his honest and stirring depictions of characters, as well as for his willingness to embrace socially critical, controversial material. And though many of the plays, films and TV shows that he appeared in featured dark themes, Marshall believed that underpinning all his work was an optimistic, life-affirming message: “No matter what,” he said, “atom bombs, hydrogen bombs, anything—life goes on: You can kill yourself, but you can’t kill life.”

E.G. Marshall. (2015). The Biography.com website. Retrieved 09:24, Aug 25, 2015, from http://www.biography.com/people/eg-marshall-23030.

This Week’s Podcast:

As I have already mentioned we have an excellent episode of CBS Radio Mystery Theater on this Thursday’s show. Also on the program is a story from a mailman that will leave you scratching your head. So be sure to tune in this week and you will not be disappointed.

You can listen to this podcast this Thursday (08/28) at Ron’s Amazing Stories , download it from iTunes, stream it on TuneIn Radio or listen on your radio Friday night at 8pm Eastern time. Check your local listing or find the station closest to you at this link .

The Calendar:

August 20: An interview with Patty Wiseman author of the Velvet Shoe Collection.
August 27: CBS Radio Mystery Theater – Circle of Evil
September 03: A new story from the Blue Beetle introduced by our friend Jacob Edwards!
September 10: Time for a detective drama
September 17/24: Working on getting a Civil War historian
October 01: The Fifth Annual Month of Spooky Begins!