Coming up next on this special literary edition of Arizona Horizon.

A new autobiography details a former state lawmakers fight against Covid 19.

Also tonight, bestselling author Isabella maldonado and Jeffrey Deaver team up again for another thriller, and an award winning author talks about the latest installment in her young adult series of fantasy fiction.

Those stories and more next on this special edition of Arizona Horizon.

Arizona Horizon is made possible by contributions from the Friends of Arizona PBS, members of your public television station.

Good evening, and welcome to the special literary edition of Arizona Horizon.

I'm Ted Simons.

Former state lawmaker Lorenzo Sierra has written a new book that details his battle with Covid 19 and his wife's fight against cancer.

The book is titled Fight Like Hell Love, politics, and the Will to live.

We spoke with Lorenzo Sierra about his memoir.

Good to see you.

Good to see you.

Thank you.

Last time we talked, we were kind of wondering how you were doing.

And it looks like you're doing pretty well.

Doing fantastic.

You know, the book is going to be released on October 14th, which is actually the fifth anniversary of the day.

They brought me home from the ICU, and it's also the ninth anniversary of Rhonda's last cancer treatment.

Wow, what a date.

Good for you and good for your wife.

You decided to go public on the very early with your fight against Covid 19.

And you're still going public with that fight?

Why?

Well, At the time, it was.

I remember that there was a lot of people.

This is a hoax.

This is just the flu.

And we wanted to make sure that people understood just how serious Covid 19 was at the time.

There wasn't a vaccine, and that was part of it, you know, part part of the whole reason for going public at the time.

And at the time, it really didn't look good for me.

Yeah, there was a period where, you know, it's talked about in the book where Johns Hopkins called my wife and said, well, we've got a priest on the floor.

Would you like for us to administer last rites?

And at that point she called my seat mate, Diego Espinosa.

And, you know, my wife is still battling with her own Covid, and she's now faced with this existential question.

She'll see.

She goes, you know what?

He's a fighter.

Do not let them do last rites.

And they didn't.

Real quickly here.

When did you start feeling sick?

When did you know this is more than just something else?

Well, it was about a full week, more than a full week before we.

My wife went to the hospital first on the Sunday before I did.

So she went.

And her being a cancer survivor, we really were dreadfully afraid for her because she has a compromised immune system system.

So when she went in, we're just absolutely petrified.

She turns out she only stayed in for a few hours.

They sent her home and.

But we had to stay in D.C.

and quarantine.

I just kept getting sicker and sicker and just feeling worse and worse.

And then on that Sunday, doctor Amit Shah, who was also in the legislature at the time, emergency doctor.

And he says, you know, you don't sound so bad, but let's let's go get you a pulse oximeter.

Oh, I don't know what that is.

Yeah, you do now though, don't you?

So I do it and it says 78.

Oh my goodness.

And I'm saying you know what.

That's a C plus you know a little bit more and I'm a B. And he gets deathly quiet.

He goes, he goes I need you to go to the E.R.. Now, with all seriousness, you need to go to the E.R.

now, and you may get put on a ventilator.

So that's when it really hit that, you know, we we were in trouble.

When did it really hit that things are turning for the better.

So I'm in a coma at this point.

In the first 24 hours, it was more it was pretty much on the other side that I wasn't going to make it right.

But something happened right in there.

I was put on to a test.

Convalescent plasma, high dose of convalescent plasma, and there was ten people in the study, and they had ranked them, you know, one through ten, one being, you know, you're going to be you're probably gonna be okay.

Ten is the worst.

I was number eight in that study.

And after two doses, I started to turn around and they had told my wife, expect him to be in the on the on a ventilator for weeks and in the ICU for months.

And I ended up being a miraculous recovery.

I was four days on the ventilator.

You write about the impact of prayer and you write about the impact of science.

Talk to us about that.

So I when when I introduced myself, when I'm doing a speaking engagement, I say, I come before you.

A man reborn of science and prayer.

I had world class medical professionals who were taking care of me at Johns Hopkins Hospital, and I literally had prayer throughout the world.

And I have to believe that in some way that really, really mattered.

So I always say born of science and prayer.

Yeah, yeah.

And also fighting like hell because you can't give up.

You got to fight.

And that's that's part of you, isn't it?

Ronda made she right before they told me they came into the room.

You're going to be put on ventilator.

We had just a minute to talk on FaceTime, and she says, I need you to make me a promise.

And mind you, my wife is a widow and she is looking at the very strong possibility of having to bury a second husband.

She says, I need you to fight like hell to come back to me.

And I said, that is a promise I'm going to make you.

I am going to fight like hell to come back.

And I just remember right before going under, praying to Archangel Saint Michael, just saying defend us in battle.

I knew that it was a battle at a cellular level and we fought.

Yeah, you sure did.

And you won.

And does that give every day now an extra umph?

Every day is an extra oomph.

Because yes, I do know.

And people still tell me.

And this is the hard part, Ted, is when someone says, I followed your story and I was so glad you were you.

You came out of it.

You know, I lost my dad, I lost my mom, I lost my any number of folks.

And it's always that.

And I I'm happy that they're telling me this, that I was inspiring to them, but at the same time, having to deal with the guilt that I'm here and your loved one is.

Yeah.

Hey, before you go, we only got a couple of seconds left here, but what was the.

Was it difficult to write this?

I would think it would be difficult to go back into those days.

Absolutely was.

But we all have stories, Ted, and the world deserves to hear them.

Well, it certainly deserved to hear yours again.

It's a fight.

Like hell.

It's love, politics and the will to live.

Lorenzo Sierra, congratulations on the book.

Congratulations on your marriage.

Congratulations on everything.

And the extra if you get each day.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

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Award winning authors Isabella maldonado and Jeffrey Deaver have written a whole bunch of books on their own, and they're now out with a follow up to their first murder mystery collaboration.

That first book was titled Fatal Intrusion.

This new book is titled The Grave Artist, and it continues with a combined crime solving efforts of a federal agent and a private security expert.

We welcome Isabella maldonado to Arizona Horizon and welcome as well to Jeffrey Deaver, who also joins us.

Good to have you both here.

Thanks for joining us.

Our pleasure.

All right.

Isabella, you're the local are your local author here.

We're going to start with you.

When did you to decide, hey, let's get together and write a mystery novel.

Well, it started as a joke.

We were at a conference in Chicago together, and we just started.

We were in the green room, and we just started joking about, wouldn't it be funny to write a novel together?

And then we bumped into each other again in New York at another crime author or also attendee conference.

And we were we kind of talked about it again, a little bit less jokey.

And then finally we bumped into each other again at the Poisoned Pen in Scottsdale.

And after that we sat down together and we got serious and we were like, you know, maybe this needs to happen.

Well, how does it happen, Jeff?

How do two writers write a book?

Well, it's it's very fortunate that Isabella and I have a very similar writing style.

We write what we call thrillers.

Now, there's a distinction there.

Crime writing is divided into two categories.

Thrillers, which ask the question of what's going to happen.

Will we stop the terrorists?

Will we find the serial killer as opposed to a murder mystery which asks what happened to Christie or murder?

She Wrote that sort of thing.

They're both fun, but we write this, you know, pedal to the floor kind of fast paced thing.

We both write that we write from as a technical term, third person point of view.

We jump into other characters heads and we said, you know, let's try it.

Was it easier this time than last time.

In the sense that we kind of had a, an idea of how we were going to do it?

In that sense, yes.

But every book is a challenge.

Yeah.

Did you find the same thing?

You've written so many books is I, I don't want to say formulaic, but after the first one, did you say, oh, there's steps here that I recognize.

Well, I'll say there's nothing wrong with the word formulaic.

I mean, I fly a lot on book tours.

That airplane was built by a formula.

We like that.

It works.

You know, we don't want somebody to say, let's put an engine here, let's put the instruments here.

So we had the formula and it we stick true to that form, that template.

And we, we just stay with that.

Well that raises the question what makes a good mystery?

Crime, whodunit, whatever that whole genre.

What makes a good novel?

Well, I'll tell you one thing that does, and we made sure we did it here, is even though, like Jeff was saying, there's this sort of template or whatever, but it's the originality that you bring to that.

And in this case, we really wanted to be really original.

And we did.

And people are telling us they're like, we've never seen anything like this before.

This is fresh.

Yeah, please.

The other thing we have to say is that we do this not for ourselves.

I mean, we get to sit down in front of our desk, our dogs at our feet, and we make stuff up.

Does life get any better than that?

But we do this for readers, and every minute of our writing process is, is this going to be good for readers?

And I'll give you a fast example.

No children are heard in the books.

There's no explicit gore.

There's a lot of suspense.

Yes, but no animals.

Oh, we never heard an animal.

But is there someone on your shoulder saying, you know that's not going to work?

Or, you know, Joe and Glendale may not get that.

The spirit of the reader.

That's who's looking over our shoulders every minute.

Yeah.

Do you find the same thing?

Yes.

We do.

And also, the cool thing is about, you know, that we're both experienced.

We edit each other ruthlessly and we trust each other.

And so that way, if one of us is like, oh, I don't know about this, then we look at that very seriously.

I notice one of the blurbs on this latest one says it is, quote, intentionally misguiding until the final reveal.

Is that what makes a good mystery crime?

We have three surprise endings in this book, as we did with Fatal Intrusion.

And you know why readers are so smart?

It's so irritating.

You know, we come up with what we think is a great twist.

They're going to figure that out.

Let's put another one in.

Did you know what the ending was going to be when you started?

Yeah.

Well, yeah in the sense that we do outline.

So we know kind of where it's going.

Now the outline is not chiseled in stone.

We are and we do deviate and we reconfigure.

But we do have an idea we know where we're going.

Because I was going to say I knew the authors all the time.

And I always ask, did the characters go off and do something you weren't planning on them doing?

Well, they could offer suggestions.

They tried.

They tried.

They try that a few times in my books, and they're the next victims out there.

When you're writing and you're there with the dog at your feet and a little person on your shoulder, do you go, oh, this is this is this is good stuff.

Well, you know, when that happens, I'm a little suspect.

Because, you see, I should be like the airline pilot.

And she sits down and she's very unemotional.

She looks at the instruments.

Big storm ahead.

I don't care, I see a big storm.

Beautiful sunset, I don't care.

I'm all about getting the passengers where they're going.

That's what I concentrate on.

And we've.

We've decided that between us.

We have that same attitude.

Agree?

Yeah.

Yeah.

When you're writing.

Do you ever give yourself the creeps?

I mean, you can give yourself the creeps on some of this stuff.

Well, there's all kinds of different emotions can come out and, you know, sometimes, like, like my throat will tighten or sometimes I get.

Yeah, I'm like, oh, that is really creepy, you know?

But that's good because I'm like, that's hopefully what the reader is experiencing.

Yeah.

Exactly the same.

Yeah.

And I teach courses in writing.

I tell my students, if they look at something and they think, well, this is wrong, it's nonsense.

I say, don't be mad at yourself.

You just identified a problem.

Get in there and fix it.

You're a you're a craftsperson, you know, roll up your sleeves and fix it.

That's that's a lot of people think that, you know, you can't write a great American novel until the muse comes crushing you and you have to.

You can't do anything but.

Right.

But this is work.

You have to sit at your desk and work.

Absolutely.

You can't wait.

You can't be precious.

You can't wait for the muse and for us.

I mean, Jeff and I are both working writers.

We are under contract, multiple contracts all the time.

You can't just be like, yeah, yeah, breach of contract.

I don't feel it.

Yeah.

No, no, you get to work.

I think Jack London said the great author said, you can't wait for the muse.

You have to go after it with a club.

Yeah, I love that.

He did say, that's a great Jeffrey as far as you're concerned.

Former journalist, folk singer.

I know.

And had a deference to you and your viewers.

And I'm not going to sing.

You're not gonna sing.

And attorney.

That's right.

And yet, being a writer won out.

Well, I'll tell you.

Like Isabella, another coincidence between us, we wanted to write from a very young age.

But, you know, Mozart was composing when he was four.

Jackson Pollock was pouring paint on his mother's, you know, laundry room floor when he was three or whatever.

Writers have to live a while.

They have to experience things.

So I did journalism, folk singing, and then an attorney for a while, and then in my 30s, I knew now it's time.

And then I've been doing this full time now for 45 years.

And you were involved.

We talked before.

You've been involved in law enforcement, right?

And when did you realize it was time?

Well, I yeah, like like Jeff, I knew I wanted to write, but I probably at the same time, maybe in my late 30s, early 40s, I knew it was time.

But at that point I was full tilt, busy with my law enforcement career, and I was a captain on the police department.

So I was on call 365 days a year, 24 over seven.

I didn't have time until I retired.

So after 22 years with a gun in badge, that's when I finally had time to actually write.

So you couldn't say to a suspect, hold on a plot idea.

Repeat that statement again.

I think I'll use real quickly.

Is there another team effort in the works?

Oh, indeed.

Yes, we got the outline done and we're turning to that now.

We write for other publishers as well, but we're navigating that right now.

So next year we'll maybe we'll come back and visit with that.

Yeah, you're certainly invited.

And Isabel, you're always invited as well.

And it must be exciting to have.

I just think touching a book.

You must be so excited to know you wrote that.

There's nothing like it.

Yeah.

All right.

Isabella maldonado and Jeffrey Deaver again is the grave artist.

And it certainly starts with a wallop.

Holy smokes.

It's good to have you both here.

Thank you so much for.

Joining us.

Thank you.

Thanks.

A new book is out from an award winning local author who helps young readers navigate personal and emotional challenges through stories of imagination and empathy.

The book is titled The Hat Diaries Escape from the adventure.

It's the third book in the Hat Diaries series.

The author is Nadine Rooney, and she joined us on Arizona Horizon to tell us more.

Congratulations on the books I was telling.

It must be so neat to hold a book that you've written.

It is probably one of the coolest feelings in the world.

I have to say.

It's a dream come true.

Yeah.

Okay, so this is the third in the Hat Diaries series or series of books.

What are the Hat diaries?

Hat diaries?

There are three books.

Each one is a little bit different, but it follows along Ryan Rigby, a young boy living with his mom.

In the first book, we find out that he is able to put on these magical hats at night that he puts on, and he wakes up and he has these adventures where he transforms into the role of the hat wear.

And then we take things up a notch in book two, where there's a portal, a magical portal he can put on the hat and time travel and step into different dates in history with these hats.

And then the third one, escape from the adventure.

The new release is the final conclusion, ending in a big cliffhanger.

Yeah, so it's like historical fantasy fiction in a lot of ways.

Yes.

And for what age group?

It's really age eight through adults.

Same John was the as the Harry Potter series.

Yes.

So anybody who really kind of likes believing in the unbelievable or won some kind of a book that's going to take them away to another place, this this book is for you.

Escapism is the key here.

Exactly.

And this last one, this last one deals, like with World War two and is in Germany and these sorts of things.

That's the setting for the beginning of the book.

And most of the book and the chapters alternate between this setting in Germany and the real life unfolding, where certain people are trying to rescue Ryan from this situation he's in.

So it's real life versus fantasy life, and a lot of the real life part takes place in this sort of haunted house, if you will.

Wow.

How do you how do you come up the ideas with all this?

It's really the idea started with the premise of how cool it would be to be able to sort of be someone else, even if just for a day, because I think a lot of us look at other people and you think it's better in those other person's in that other person's shoes.

So that was kind of the premise and being able to to sort of go somewhere else in your mind.

And that's what this book is really premised on, believing in yourself.

Divorce, blended families, death of a pet, these kinds of.

That's all included here, That's included there.

And also in my other children's series, which is called free to the frog.

That one, I really focus on that stuff.

But the Hat Diaries I do focus on there's losing a parent, there's love, there's friendships and relationships.

So a lot of different topics that appeal to everybody.

So that The Hat Diaries again, we've got that there.

But you mentioned free to the frog is for maybe younger age group for.

Free to the frogs for age.

I'd say pre-K through age ten.

And it teaches kids about different types of family situations.

Interesting.

All right.

How do you write for kids, especially with free to the frog.

But I mean, in certain aspects of the hat, how do you write for a younger audience without talking down to them?

That's a good question.

How do you write?

Basically, you want to make things understandable at a very basic level.

If you're writing a book that's in this technically middle grade fantasy adventure.

You want to keep it young enough.

You don't use any foul language.

You want to keep it understandable things that children can relate to.

But then if you're also trying to appeal to a larger network, such as even adults, you can't make it to simplified.

So it is a delicate balance and juggle to hit the right note.

Do you ever find yourself stopping yourself saying, wait a minute, wait a minute, I'm kind of crossing the line here.

I do, I do, and I have readers.

I have my editor and I official editor, two editors, and I also have unofficial editors, people in the Jara that I'm writing for.

And they help me kind of keep it real, because I'm trying to be in the mind of a 13 year old boy when I'm writing, and clearly I'm not a 13 year old boy.

So the teenage younger readers helped me keep it at the right level.

And when things like bullying and death of a parent and death of a pet and these sorts of things, how do you send a message without being too obvious or without being preachy?

It's also a delicate juggling act and a balance, but you want to speak the way children would speak, or adults would speak in a very matter of fact way, and kind of make these topics not taboo and scary, and make children and adults feel comfortable to talk about these things.

Because let's face it, even if people don't like talking about them, they are real life.

So it's not.

Life's not all a fairy tale, so you need to be able to approach it in a way that's very matter of fact, and put it out there and try to encourage children and families to be comfortable talking about these things.

And there seems to be a lot of action in The Hat Diaries, especially here.

There's a. Lot of action.

Yeah.

Are you getting some some questions, some interest in film, TV streaming, whatever's out there these days?

Yes.

So Netflix if you're listening.

But that is the goal ultimately to become a screenplay or three screenplays or a mini series.

Everybody who's read it, especially the adults, all say, seriously, when's the movie coming?

And that's really how I wrote the book with that in mind.

Yeah, yeah.

Hey, last question here, especially with free to the frog books for the younger kids.

It must be rewarding to know that somewhere, someplace a parent is reading this story to their kid before bedtime.

Isn't that?

That must be a great feeling.

It is a great feeling.

A lot of teachers, parents have written to me, school psychologist, that they use the Frida series as tools to begin these somewhat uncomfortable conversations, and it feels great to hear that.

Yeah, well, congratulations again.

And this is the Hat Diaries escape from the adventures number three.

But number one and two are out there, and fruit of the frog never goes away either, so.

She never goes away.

Yeah.

Thank you so much for joining us.

And congratulations on your.

Thank you.

Thank you.

For having me.

You bet.

And that is it for now.

I'm Ted Simons.

Thank you so much for joining us on this special edition of Arizona Horizon.

You have a great evening.