“The New Freedom Warriors: Children Of Heremone, Book 2”

Former longtime Chicoan David Dirks, now living in Brentwood with Karen, his wife of 55 years, is imagining a world somewhat like our own but where spiritual warfare takes center stage. The first book in the “Children Of Heremone” series, “The Redemption Of Elijah Kidd Kane,” finds young Elijah under the sway of one Grant Humphreys Harvard, president of the Harvard-Westwood Academy for the Gifted, located in the southern hills of Ojai Valley.

Sent by president Harvard to nurture a science and technology center in Botswana, under the guidance of a mysterious and evil spiritual force called the Keeper, Elijah is brought into the true Light of the Almighty One by Esi Ada Ogolla, a young Botswanan girl gifted with spiritual insight. Together they must confront the malevolent god Heremone and Heremone’s proxy, Sir Bitrus Bitrus Ghirmai, the Interior Minister of Botswana.

Through the mysterious “Spirit of Mars” Ghirmai has provided free, unlimited electricity to Botswana as he lusts to put the country under his sway. Though popular with the people, he “secretly specialized in a massive program of adoption and kidnapping of children and teenagers for sex trafficking.” With Esi (“the Almighty’s anointed warrior”) and her parents, and later a couple of wavering friends, Elijah hopes their small group can defeat Ghirmai and combat sex trafficking, one person at a time.

“The New Freedom Warriors: Children Of Heremone, Book 2” ($12.95 in paperback, independently published through Resurgam Books; also for Amazon Kindle) tells the harrowing tale of spiritual warfare on multiple fronts.

Elijah’s friend, James Darwin Carter, arrives in Botswana to carry out the Keeper’s sinister mission, but Esi’s father intervenes and guides “James through a detailed study of the ancient text and the redemption story.” He is set free. “Thokato—love—had freed him from the destruction of his soul.”

But James’ new spiritual roots do not go deep, and he proves an unstable ally. Elijah tries to get James to understand that “Ghirmai follows a different god, one perhaps more powerful than Keeper.” 

Then, when Esi is taken by Ghirmai, all seems lost. Will the darkness be overcome? The next volume will tell the tale.

“Whispers Of The Wild: A Collection Of Poems”

Chico author and artist Meghan Irene Turner finds “nature is not a backdrop, but a living presence, a spiritual companion, a mirror reflecting our own journey.” 

In “Whispers Of The Wild: A Collection Of Poems” ($3.83 in paperback, independently published) she adds in the Introduction that “There is a voice that speaks beneath the hum of our daily lives. It rises from the hush of forests, the ripple of rivers, the soft tread of deer through morning…. May these words … remind you that life, in all its forms, is sacred. And that when we slow down and listen, the world speaks in poetry.”

Human folly is revealed when the poet says “Good Morning, World” “even though I am scared./ even though bombs fell over Ukraine,/ and over the Palestinians last night./ even though the dollar,/ isn’t enough anymore…./ even though the day that chases/ the light is uncertain,/ I say,// ‘good morning, world.’”

In “Revisiting A Vision,” the whole earth reels from human depredation. “Cook your favored meal./ Labor over every grain, dice, and stir./ Then, toss it on the dirt./ Watch the dust play in the flavor you cannot taste.// … This,/ is what climate change feels like/ when the matrix burns away.”

And yet there is “Each Day. A Celebration”: “Each and every cell of you,/ and of me,/ is life./ We will celebrate this.// … Learning to love,/ exposed and bare,/ choice given to surrender./ We will celebrate this.// Time given in breath,/ measured by memory,/ and this moment, right now./ We will celebrate this.”

Winter brings “Entanglement”: “Winter sky,/ I am in love with you./ As if,/ you are my lover.// Because,/ my lover is you,// The big chill of night air,/ I love./ Because, it reminds my skin to be alive// … Your washed skies,/ those are my lover’s eyes/ gazing at my day.”

Love requires “Optimism”: “Don’t tell me that the butterflies are dying,/ or that the sky rains weapons.// … Don’t tell me any of this./ Because I already know.// Now tell me,/ all of the ways you love the world,/ and all of the things you do to show it.”

“Dream Sweet: A Lyrical Bedtime Story”

Natalie Borer grew up in Grass Valley, attended Chico State, then became a high school English teacher and a “Substacker, Swiftie, wife, and mother of three” and now an author of a lullaby book. 

She and her family live in Corning; she writes me she was inspired by “my love of storytelling ever since I was little. I have memories of elementary school projects where, as a class, we would write a book and each have a page to illustrate. I had always wanted to be a teacher when I grew up, and only one day did I waver from this when I said out loud, ‘Maybe I'll be an author instead of a teacher,’ and my teacher responded with, ‘Why not be both?’”

“Dream Sweet: A Lyrical Bedtime Story” ($11.99 in paperback, independently published; also for Amazon Kindle), for babies and young children, celebrates seasons and special occasions with charming full-page illustrations from QBN Studios. She “decided that for my debut I'd go with a bedtime lullaby poem that I wrote, which stems from my experiences in early parenthood that I've gotten to relive and reinvent from my childhood. This lullaby commemorates these early years from my childhood combined with my children's.”

The book of dreams is about to open: “It’s time for bed now, little one. Settle in close, cozy, and snug./ As the sky turns from day to night, let the moon shine and the stars burn bright./ Now rest your head and your tired, little feet, wishing your dreams are nothing but sweet.”

How sweet? For the three children in the book, “Sweet as hot cocoa and Christmas tree hunting, Santa Claus, cookies, and present wrapping./ Sweet as fireworks and ‘Happy New Year!’ Banging pots and pans, loudly we cheer./ … Sweet as the kiss of a cute butterfly, and the sight of the first star in the sky./ … Sweet like the glow of your golden night light, your feathery pillow feeling just right.”

“I am so fulfilled by this stage of early parenthood,” she notes in the book, “seeing their faces bewildered and their starry eyes full of wonder over the simplest of things.”

G’night!

“Create More: Lessons Learned From A Life At The edge Of Entrepreneurship, In Five Acts”

Len Jessup thought of returning to Chico State as a professor. After all, he had received an MBA and bachelor’s degree in information and communication studies from Chico State, so it seemed logical. Though that didn’t happen, he did become a business professor, served two stints as a university president (most recently of Claremont Graduate University in Southern California), and two as a business school dean.

He realized his great joy was fostering innovation, leading change-oriented teams, and encouraging business startups. As managing partner of Desert Forge Ventures, which uses venture capital for just those purposes in the Las Vegas area, Jessup could write a book about the qualities needed for someone leading innovation. 

He did write it; it’s called “Create More: Lessons Learned From A Life At The edge Of Entrepreneurship, In Five Acts” ($19.99 in paperback from Entrepreneur Books; also for Amazon Kindle). He draws on his own experiences and those from leaders like Steve Jobs in each of the five chapters.

“Child’s Play” encourages childhood creativity; “Innovating at Work” introduces the idea of the “intrapreneuer,” one who innovates from inside an existing company; then there are the qualities of “The Transformational Leader”; “The Leader as A Creative Visionary”; and “The Leader We Need” (“We’ve got to continue to support and incentivize our young entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs.”)

Jessup notes developing five characteristics of an entrepreneurial leader (creativity, vision, charisma, drive, and resilience) “won’t amount to much if you lack one essential personality trait: your tolerance for risk…. Successful entrepreneurs must become comfortable taking risks, and nearly anyone can learn to do this.”

Risk taking is not a random dice throw but flows out of the leader’s “core competencies,” creativity, adaptability, discernment, foresight, and “pattern recognition” (seeing common factors in organizational problems). Throw the dice, but with educated intuition.

Jessup lays out practical strategies to help the budding leader “see around corners.” “A leader with a strong ethos doesn’t just tell people what to do—they inspire trust because of who they are and how they lead.” Readers will find inspiration to “create more” by helping others achieve their own dreams.

"Free Bird"

It’s just after midnight, January 1st, 1990. Molly Kristen Sparrow, 33, is about to leave San Diego, and her husband, forever. Isaac is not home; clueless and unfaithful, he’s the scion of a wealthy family and Molly will be giving up much—including her son Grant, not yet 18, because the family will pay for his education. She hopes Grant will understand—someday. Six months later she will find herself in Mendocino, a medical assistant to Dr. Potter at a small clinic.

There’s a bar in Mendocino called The Floppy Fish; every summer owner Lyle takes off while his friend Tom, fresh from teaching archeology and grant writing at a prestige university in Connecticut, takes over as barkeep and fixit guy. Tom is Thomas James Hemingway (“no relation”), 38, and one day his woodworking skills fail him at the bar and a huge splinter impales itself in his rear end. So off to Dr. Potter.

As Molly helps Tom get undressed—Tom is in a very vulnerable position—he is stunned by Molly’s beauty, the most beautiful woman he has ever seen. In his life. Molly thinks he’s cute, but soon, when they begin seeing each other, her stomach does flip flops in his presence.

Readers know this because Molly and Tom alternate chapters in “Free Bird” ($14.99 in paperback from Boyer Publishing; also available for Amazon Kindle) by Chicoan Pamela Dean. It turns out to be a spicy romance, tastefully explicit, from phone sex to passionate love play (but is it … love?). Even the kisses summon eros. “When Tom kissed me,” Molly writes, “the earth seemed to move under my feet. The way his big hands cradled my face so gently, reverently almost, was more sensual than anything I have ever experienced.”

There’s a special charm to this novel because Chico State, Madison Bear Garden and even the Oy Vey Bagel Company (remember, it’s the 90s, folks) play key roles. 

But is all of this just a summer fling? Will Molly become her own person after being in thrall to Isaac’s family? If she falls for Tom, is love a trap as well? Lovers of spice will find the meal cooked to perfection.

“Outer Space Is Closer Than Antarctica: And Other Things I Learned While Falling In Love At The Bottom Of The World”

In four work trips to Antarctica’s McMurdo Station from 1999 through 2007, Chicoan Michelle Ott’s life changed dramatically. In Antarctica, she writes, “I have experienced the sadness of a long-distance breakup. I have scrubbed dirty pots and pans for ten hours a day, and I have witnessed the bright-green aurora australis at -30 degrees Fahrenheit; it was so beautiful I cried, and my tears froze my eyes shut. I have had my breath knocked out of me by a gust of Antarctic wind.”

A metaphorical wind knocked her breathless when in 2004 she met Sean, also bound for Antarctica via Christchurch, New Zealand. Sadly saying goodbye to her New York boyfriend, Ott found love at McMurdo, and the story is told in her unconventional memoir, “Outer Space Is Closer Than Antarctica: And Other Things I Learned While Falling In Love At The Bottom Of The World” ($19.95 in hardcover from Chronicle Books; also for Amazon Kindle).

It’s unconventional because it blends the author’s inner exploration with the science she learned (and experienced) at McMurdo. In her time there she worked as a dining attendant and baker (included is the round cookie recipe for 1000 people; think 10 pounds of butter and 40 eggs), later as a janitor, and still later as Administrative Coordinator in the galley.

Antarctica—coldest place, windiest, driest. And then there’s “the Kármán line,” the place “where outer space begins, 62 miles above sea level; it is the border between earth’s atmosphere and outer space. When we cross this threshold, we leave the conditions of aeronautics and enter the conditions of astronautics. We can no longer fly airplanes; we need spaceships.” Ott notes the distance from Chico to McMurdo Station “is 8,496 miles. This means that outer space is closer than Antarctica!”

Ott’s whimsical drawings make the science accessible as she describes katabatic winds, the polar vortex, an ice cube neutrino detector, and the thirteen pieces of clothing needed for extreme cold.

Her 47-year-old self looks back two decades, “yearning for a different feeling…. That which I thought was far away has arrived.”

“Why Am I Still A Christian?”

The Advent season, with its glitter and good tidings, has a dark side. The promised one who will loosen the stranglehold of death has not yet come. “In 2025,” writes Ricky Hayes in his spiritual autobiography, “the headlines have been littered with assassinations and murders. I didn’t know the victims, but I know they didn’t deserve it. That’s the sickening part about Death: it doesn’t discriminate, it doesn’t ask, it doesn’t care. All it does is take.”

Hayes, born and raised in Chico, found Death “would pop up again and again—sometimes as a shadow in the corner of my room, sometimes in hospital corridors, sometimes in the faces of people I loved.” So, he asks, why did God “let me carry this fear like an uninvited passenger for my entire life?”

Hayes explores that question (and many more) in “Why Am I Still A Christian?” ($13.99 in paperback from Publishers Brew, publishersbrew.com; also for Amazon Kindle). The story is “messy, it’s raw, it’s sometimes irreverent, but it’s real.”

The first half of the book is Hayes’ spiritual odyssey, and it’s messy indeed. “It’s about how grief, doubt, porn, legalism, cult-like religion, and plain old despair nearly convinced me to leave Christianity behind. But it’s also about how, through all that chaos, Jesus kept showing up. Not the Jesus of fire insurance, shame, and performance, but the Jesus who refuses to let go, even when you’re screaming at Him.”

The second half focuses on specific theological issues, with a biting critique of the modern American church which all too often, Hayes writes, suggests “salvation depends on our performance instead of Christ’s finished work.” In fact, “what I have learned most of my life from Christians, both Fundamentalist and Charismatic, is how not be be a Christian…. We’re supposed to influence people to be reconciled to God by loving one another, not by fighting a cultural war.”

The promise has been fulfilled: “The cross is about God revealing the greatest love one can give through the light of the world, Jesus Christ. Whatever blackness hinders our souls from seeing his beauty, God will shine through if we desire him to do so.”