Cheri Carandanis's career as a nurse came to a screeching halt in 2019 after a car accident left her with a traumatic brain injury. The cognitive and physical disabilities that resulted left her unable to do her life's work. "I could not trust my brain," she recalls. "And so I, I retired my license, and that was tough." How would she recover? How would she move forward? During her rehab, one doctor suggested she get a coloring book. "So I did, and I hated it. It was horrible. I ripped up the boo...
Jul 18, 2025•29 min•Season 6Ep. 11
A lifelong curiosity about how things work led John Kamal to earn a master's degree in mechanical engineering, which led to Career #1 as an aerospace engineer, Career #2 as a supply chain software innovator and Career #3 as a public school teacher. And then, there's the accordion. John's creativity has been written in all these venues and it's still going strong. Hear about his invention that showed up in the movie The Martian and his thoughts on teaching STEM in American public schools at a tim...
Jul 13, 2025•40 min•Season 6Ep. 10
As a young man in the east African nation of Rwanda, Cedric Muhikira was interested in construction and went to college to become a civil engineer. But he knew that to reach the pinnacle of success in that field, he had to study and practice in the United States. He emigrated in 2019, just in time for the COVID pandemic. And while his growth as an American was put on hold during that time, things blossomed for Cedric in 2021. He is now a civil engineer for a consulting firm supervising the prope...
Jun 25, 2025•37 min•Season 6Ep. 9
Amobi Miracle Moses Eche wants to be an engineer when he grows up. But right now, he's a prolific author at age 13, having written his third novel, The Busted Tire . With the solid support of his mother, Moses is a middle school honor student with lots of ideas to write about. He's written two short children's books followed by The Busted Tire, a story about a man who loses his way in life, finds drugs and violence, then turns to God for redemption. Moses counts as his first inspiration his past...
May 19, 2025•15 min•Season 6Ep. 8
Forty years after the city of Philadelphia bombed a home in an eviction that went off the rails and killed all 11 people inside, there is still interest in the story as evidenced by a number of developments in 2025. Tom Kranz, who covered the story at the scene on May 13, 1985 and wrote a book about it, reports on another book in the works by a university professor, a middle-school project on the rights of the MOVE children and an adaptation of the MOVE story for an episode of a prime time TV se...
May 13, 2025•12 min•Season 6Ep. 7
Jacob Moon spent 28 years as a corrections officer in one of Florida's huge county jails. Much of that time was spent supervising psychiatric inmates. So, it's not surprising that the villain of his latest novel, Letter 26 , is a psychopathic serial killer who augments kidnapping and murder with mortuary skills. Jake's love of writing came early in life and began with short stories about all kinds of subjects, some of which were published. Today, he is enjoying the freedom to write novels and ha...
May 09, 2025•34 min•Season 6Ep. 6
You have to remind yourself that Samantha Ulrich is only 20 years old. With more than 39,000 YouTube subscribers, a new book explaining how to score YouTube success and a nascent clothing line, she has achieved what other entrepreneurs work at for a lifetime. She is a 10-year veteran YouTuber since she started at age 10 posting videos featuring her Barbie dolls. Now, as Samantha Zazz, her website, zazzifyit.com , promotes her books and her YouTube coaching business. For a monthly or yearly fee, ...
May 01, 2025•31 min•Season 6Ep. 5
The 6,000 residents of the Moon habitat known as the Daedalus Dome are under attack by a mysterious hacker. Their waste management system has shut down, a ship has blown up killing a thousand citizens and the atmosphere processor is red-lining threatening the entire population with suffocation. Once again, the Earth-based Planetary Commission turns to Enrico Janice Walton Stein, known globally as Chairman Rick, for his leadership and bravery that twice helped save them. This time, his partner is...
Apr 09, 2025•4 min•Season 6Ep. 4
Lisa Michaud, an American expat now living in France, is enjoying the sweet spot where music and writing intersect. She has published her second novel, Somewhere in Hollywood , a semi-autobiographical story of a young woman navigating life and love in Los Angeles. Like her protagonist, Lisa marches to the tunes of many drummers, guitarists and singers with an eclectic taste in music and an insightful writing style. Music may well be in her genes as evidenced by a quirky 1968 album featuring her ...
Mar 09, 2025•39 min•Season 6Ep. 3
As a 6-year-old boy, Matt Campbell had a stuttering problem. His mom thought that the local community theater might give him more confidence. It did, and after just a few years his stutter was gone. He'd come out of his shell and he was acting in one local play after another. By age 14, he'd acted in 33 shows. Today, at age 30, Matt is a full-time actor who has appeared in many commercials, TV shows, movies and music videos. His dream was to create a movie based on a wild weekend he had in Las V...
Mar 02, 2025•27 min•Season 6Ep. 2
Jennifer Carr gave up her career as a family and marriage counselor to do something she loved more--writing. She is an author of several romance novels in both Christian and Clean Contemporary categories, a conscious choice based on her desire to create work accessible to wider audiences. Her latest book, Wrapped Up In You , follows two young people whose love of music brings them together in a sweet, country romance. As we await her next release in March of 2025, Jen and I talked about juggling...
Feb 01, 2025•29 min•Season 6Ep. 1
Of the 23 episodes I produced for the Type. Tune. Tint. video and podcast in 2024, I came up with four that really amazed me because of the amazing people behind them. Any time you need a little inspiration, perhaps a reminder that your life isn't as crappy as you think, watch/listen to this episode to see how Zach redefined his life after an unsuccessful suicide attempt; how Allie dove into the world of wasps and created more than 800 illustrations of individual species; how Mary Beth survived ...
Dec 21, 2024•6 min•Season 5Ep. 23
Jeffrey Ashkin's first novel, The Second Life of Jonathan Sendel , begins with a bewildered man who discovers he is a clone and is charged with finding the killer of his original self. As he and his assigned police officer dig into the case, he comes to a disturbing realization--the real Jonathan Sendel was not a solid citizen. The story begs the question, are we happy with the person we project to the world, or do we wish we could have a do-over? My conversation with Jeffrey who, in addition to...
Dec 08, 2024•32 min•Season 5Ep. 22
As a Fullbright scholar, Kristen Van Nest lived and traveled across Europe for a year learning about marketing and branding. At the time, she was a young woman in her early 20s and considered it a gift. "The great thing about travel is you meet these people who live these very different lives," he says. "And I think they saw that I was genuinely curious about them as people and understanding them, and so they invited me into their lives and that is such a gift." Her travels continued to China wh...
Nov 14, 2024•35 min•Season 5Ep. 21
Founded by Jae Logan of Edison, New Jersey in cooperation with the Woodbridge Metro Chamber of Commerce and the Woodbridge Public Library, the Central Jersey Book Festival will present holiday ideas for book gifts and an appearance by the legendary Brimstone . Brimstone is a professional wrestler, radio host/podcaster, actor, voice actor, author, musician, philanthropist, food critic, horror model, and comic book/animated/children's book/video game hero. He's also very modest. Founder Jae Logan ...
Oct 27, 2024•22 min•Season 5Ep. 20
Sue Steinhardt, a retired English teacher from Warren County, New Jersey, found her voice as a writer in an unexpected place. After adopting a St. Bernard/Mastiff mix named Phil, she discovered his personality and idiosyncrasies made him unsuitable as a therapy dog, but perfect as the imperfect subject for children's stories. Thus was born the Imperfect Phil series of children's books and a whole new career for Sue. Today, she and Phil travel to book fairs and school classrooms bringing their me...
Oct 18, 2024•28 min•Season 5Ep. 19
September 30, 2024, is International Podcast Day. Who says? I have no idea but I'm going with it. This episode contains random facts about podcast history, podcasts today and a blatant, shameless plead for more subscribers for Type. Tune. Tint.! Whadya think of this episode> Support the show Subscribe to the Type. Tune. Tint. podcast today. Cheap. Right here....
Sep 30, 2024•8 min•Season 5Ep. 18
A conversation with Marine veteran Zach Tidwell, survivor of a severe head injury following a motorcycle accident, a recovering alcoholic and an unsuccessful suicide attempt that left him totally blind. After all that, he's designed a iPhone app and is writing a book. Whadya think of this episode> Support the show Subscribe to the Type. Tune. Tint. podcast today. Cheap. Right here....
Sep 27, 2024•34 min•Season 5Ep. 15
Whadya think of this episode> TK Books LLC Contemporary fiction and science fiction; ebooks, softcover, hardcover and audiobooks. Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you. Support the show Subscribe to the Type. Tune. Tint. podcast today. Cheap. Right here....
Sep 11, 2024•37 min•Season 5Ep. 16
The Dinicola family of Scotch Plains, New Jersey is used to having lots of dogs around. They provide a foster home for dogs awaiting adoption, a specialized commitment that requires patience and a love of animals. One particular dog was a hard sell because of his skittish personality. So, they got special permission to adopt Jordan and he's now a family member. Their story is immortalized in the children's book Jordan and the Fosters , written and published by dad Joe Dinicola and illustrated wi...
Aug 16, 2024•24 min•Season 5Ep. 15
A cocaine addiction, two burglaries that cleaned him out and a fraught recovery have shaped Sam Gladu's music. Performing as DjRetsam , Sam has been sober for ten years and only a few months into his new career as a rap artist. But he has attracted the attention of Busta Rhymes and a streaming audience that has grown to thousands. His music is raw and real with messages of recovery, loss and optimism. He also hates to see used books go to waste, so for the last three years he's been gathering us...
Aug 04, 2024•43 min•Season 5Ep. 14
Your support of Type. Tune. Tint. for a few bucks a month is highly appreciated! Whadya think of this episode> Support the show Subscribe to the Type. Tune. Tint. podcast today. Cheap. Right here.
Jul 30, 2024•1 min
A near-death experience inspired professional musician Andrew Schulman to create the Medical Musician Initiative , teaching musicians to become part of the care of critically ill patients in ICUs. Having benefitted himself from the healing power of music, Andrew is on a mission to bring a dose of medical music to every ICU around the world. The autobiographical account of his life, death and rebirth Waking the Spirit has attracted attention globally and remains a compelling story of survival and...
Jul 28, 2024•54 min•Season 5Ep. 13
Wasps are not our friends, usually. However, Chris Alice Kratzer has found redeeming qualities in wasps, dedicating an entire book to them called The Social Wasps of North America . She was also inspired by a specific type of wasp to design a new kind of home insulation that could go into production sometime in 2024. We'll find out when Yellowjacket Insulation will be coming to a Home Depot near you. Alie's fascination with nature informs her creativity and a moral imperative to find solutions t...
Jul 11, 2024•36 min•Season 5Ep. 12
Three authors, three books, three ways to enjoy your summer reading! I invited three of my returning authors to tell us about their new books, all coming out during June, 2024. There’s something for everyone here, to wit: Fork Social Media! (And the algorithm it rode in on) . Sudi “Rick” Karatas returns for his third visit to Type. Tune. Tint. with stories of social media users who ended up booted, suspended, tossed because the algorithms can’t take a joke. We agree that it’s necessary to guard ...
Jul 01, 2024•47 min•Season 5Ep. 11
Dr. David Weill spent 20 years as one of the world's pre-eminent heart and lung transplant surgeons. Some of his exploits are detailed in his memoir, Exhale: Hope, Healing and A Life in Transplant , which he wrote to preserve the amazing nature of transplant surgery, its successes and failures. But as many authors have found, writing fiction from fact is incredibly freeing. Thus, his first novel, All That Really Matters , is a fictional account of Dr. Joe Bosco, a transplant surgeon based broadl...
Jun 21, 2024•32 min•Season 5Ep. 10
Australia’s pre-eminent recovery guru brings his positive energy to the world. It took sheer exhaustion from a 17-year heroin addiction to simply stop the madness. And in 2009, he cleared his head and began living a life devoted to better health and commitment to helping other addicts. "I'm incredibly blessed to be where I am today,” he says. At age 48, Danny Shannon is a college graduate, an expert on helping addicts get and stay sober and the developer of an online program and mobile app desig...
Jun 08, 2024•35 min•Season 5Ep. 9
I lost a friend of mine recently. I was fortunate to reconnect with Rob Feldman after going our separate ways for several decades. I was even more fortunate to be able to speak with him at length during this podcast episode in January of 2023 . I learned so much about this individual whom I only knew dribs and drabs about even while working with him for a couple of years in the mid 1980s. He lived a remarkable life and I thought you might share my remembrance of him here for a couple of minutes....
Jun 02, 2024•3 min•Season 5Ep. 8
Of all the author stories I’ve encountered in five years, this is probably the most amazing of all. Mary Beth O’Connor is a retired federal administrative law judge who survived a childhood rife with physical, sexual and emotional abuse followed by 20 years of hard core alcohol and drug addiction. Faced with never-ending feelings of abandonment, danger and marginalization, she persevered through high school and college, made it into law school, dropped out, then rejoined finally tackling her add...
Apr 05, 2024•30 min•Season 5Ep. 7
The combination of musical talent and digital technology has created a new breed of artists who can create amazing music at home using a computer and a keyboard. It’s one thing to create tunes as a hobby. It’s quite another to identify a market for that music and sell it. In this episode, we meet Evan Oxhorn who has done just that. He’s recorded hundreds of songs and stock music tracks that have earned him thousands of dollars from video producers, YouTube posters and commercial television progr...
Mar 23, 2024•36 min•Season 5Ep. 6
