A Day in the (Nineties) Life

HANK: I’ve told you about my first job in radio, right? In 1970.  Ish. 
And how I got it—a complete newbie—because of the new EEO laws. For which I am forever and eternally grateful. I reported on politics, I wrote features, I put together the farm report. I covered crime.  I remember  Fred, the news director, looking at me askance for asking a robbery victim a question Fred thought was weird.

I had asked, in the post-robbery interview: “How did you feel when the guy took the money from the cash register? What was going through your mind?”

The news director was appalled. “Hank,” he said. Shaking his head. “Are you #%(@&(  kidding me?  How the #*%$@ do you think he felt?”

And now, of course, those are standard—yes, clichéd!--questions. I like to think I was ahead of my time.

Fellow radio veteran Nancy Cole Silverman’s memories are—different.

Radio Days

   By Nancy Cole Silverman

 In the late nineties, I worked as the General Manager of a Sports Talk radio station in Los Angeles.  Proof that God has a sense of humor. Sports was never my strong suit. I’m not a sports babe. But when the opportunity came to pitch the job, I did what any ambitious female executive would do, I leaned in. And what I learned from running a sports talk radio station  back then could fill a book, and in my case several. 

In many ways, my experiences in what was then a predominantly male field taught me a lot about the importance of persona.  To succeed, I needed to change mine. 

Allow me to explain.  The station’s outdoor billboard campaign was a tight shot on a woman’s bikini top with the words FAKE RIGHT/FAKE LEFT and the station’s call letters splashed across it. Their promotional items were logoed jockstraps and g-strings. My first directive from corporate was to meet with the station’s afternoon drive personality who looked like Jabba the Hutt.  When I walked into the studio and met him for the first time, he was sandwiched between the console and wall with two yardstick-sized pizzas in front of him, and his first words to me were, “Sit down, Babe, we need to talk.” 

Now if you’re thinking sexual harassment, I need to stop you right there.  Sports radio was not for sissies and if I wanted the job I was going to have to learn how to succeed without crying for a lawyer every time I heard a dirty joke or someone shot a jockstrap across the conference room. 

My point is, that to succeed in a man’s world, a woman needs to adapt more to her environment than her own sense of style. For me, that meant ditching the three-and-a-half-inch heels, and pulling my hair back in a ponytail. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to appear attractive, but what I didn’t need was for my team to be more aware of my femininity than they were of my ability to do my job.

I’ve talked with other women who’ve mentioned similar transformations while working with men.  One girlfriend told me she wore glasses when meeting with clients because she wanted to appear smarter. Another confessed she chose to wear bulky sweaters to hide her boobs, and a third confided she chopped her locks because men found her more believable.

My experiences in radio, particularly those working at a sports radio station during a time when there weren’t many women in the field, greatly influenced me when it came to the development of my character.  When I sat down to write the Carol Childs Mysteries, I didn’t want a female protagonist who was physically faster and more powerful than her male counterparts. I didn’t consider that to be realistic.  I wanted to capitalize on her feminine strengths; intuition and ingenuity. I wrote about a middle-aged woman who was smarter than she was strong, and had no trouble navigating her way through a crime scene or the nightmare of office politics, despite the fact her whiz-kid boss considers her to be the World’s Oldest Cub Reporter.  My tagline;  Where Brains Beats Brawn and a Mic is More Powerful than a Forty-five.

How about you?  How do you deal with brains vs. beauty? Are looks an asset, a liability, or a non-issue in a female protagonist?

HANK: Yikes. Wow. Things have changed, right? I hope?  Reds?  Weigh in.... 

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WITHOUT A DOUBT

As radio reporter Carol Childs investigates a series of Beverly Hills jewelry heists, she realizes her FBI boyfriend, Eric, is working the same case. Even worse, she may have inadvertently helped the suspect escape. The situation intensifies when the suspect calls the radio station during a live broadcast, baiting Carol deeper into the investigation.

In order for her to uncover the truth, Carol must choose between her job and her personal relationships. What started out as coincidence between Carol and Eric becomes a race for the facts—pitting them against one another—before the thieves can pull off a daring escape, leaving a trail of dead bodies behind, and taking the jewels with them.

Related subjects include: women sleuths, murder mystery series, whodunit mysteries (whodunnit), book club recommendations, suspense, noir.

Nancy Cole Silverman credits her twenty-five years in news and talk radio for helping her to develop an ear for storytelling. But it wasn’t until after she retired that she was able to write fiction full-time. Much of what Silverman writes about is pulled from events that were reported on from inside some of Los Angeles’ busiest newsrooms where she spent the bulk of her career. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, Bruce, and two standard poodles.

Amazon.com: amzn.to/1oBzuxa
Barnes&Noble: bit.ly/24pQM18
iTunes: apple.co/21uaOoS
Kobo: bit.ly/1QHS83c

A Choice of Jewelry

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:  So all this week we've been talking about reinvention: Gigi's recovery from cancer and her new outlook on life; Alice's cleaning out her basement, finding those old photos and transforming them into plots; Cindy Cavanagh's watching her book transform into a TV show; and Becky Masterman beginning a whole new career. So how did they do it? And is there a roadmap to reinvention? 

Nancy Cole Silverman has some suggestions for that very adventure--including jewelry!

The Gold Watch vs. The Brass Ring
   by Nancy Cole Silverman

When my father retired he was given a gold watch. Times change, and as I approached retirement, I was looking for a brass ring.  After nearly twenty-five years in radio the station I worked for was merged with another, and like many of my colleagues, I was purged; thrown out like yesterday’s newspaper and forced to reinvent myself.

In my debut novel, Shadow of Doubt (Henery Press 2014) my protagonist, Carol Childs, a middle-aged, single mom, is working for a talk radio station and has left her secure position as an account executive to pursue her dream job as a reporter. However, her enthusiasm to reinvent herself isn’t matched by her new boss, KCHC’s boy-wonder, Tyler Hunt, who considers her the world’s oldest cub reporter, in search of a good story.

Reinvention is never easy. There are always those closest to us that refuse to see us in a new light.  But along the way I’ve picked up a few tricks that helped me find my way as a novelist.  

not this kind of radio, of course...

After a long career in radio, working both sides of the desk - that of reporter, and later as a sales exec and general manager of a sports radio station (God has a sense of humor!) - I learned it’s seldom the job, but the skills, that define the person, and we don’t leave those behind.  With take them with us. 

So, here’s my bag of tricks. 

#1. Identify who you want to be and what you want to do. Look around, dig deep inside yourself for those lost dreams and hobbies you never had time to pursue and go after them.

# 2. Match your skill sets to that of a new profession.  Are you organized? Detail ordinated? Goal driven?  If you’re a writer, chances are you possess a wealth of skills you’ve never thought about and that many companies need.  

# 3.  Talk about what you want to do in the present tense. Focus on the future, not the past. Will Rogers, famous for his social commentary, said it best.  I’ll paraphrase: If you want to know the direction a man is going, don’t just listen to what he says, look where the tips of the boots are pointed. So often people say one thing and do another.  The fact is we can’t move forward if we continually have our feet pointed in the wrong direction.

This brings me to my forth trick and with it a word of caution. 

# 4. Warning!  I don’t advise this for everyone, but I threw away my business rolodex.  It’s too easy to look backwards and talk about yesterday.  If you plan to move forward, your time and your conversations must be about what you’re doing now. Not about what once was.  Make new friends, seed your new database with people who can help you to advance in a new direction.

#5 Join clubs. Read books. Dress the part.  Hollywood is famous for its stars, and many have reinvented themselves more than once.  Katy Hudson became Katy Perry, going from gospel rock to mainstream pop music. Remember the underwear model Marky Mark? Who could forget those abs? He became Mark Wahlberg, a major success on the big screen today. Of course those of us in California can hardly forget Arnold Schwarzenegger who went from body builder, to action star, to politician. 

And, speaking of politicians, Sheila Kuehl, once known as Zelda Gilroy, Dobbie Gillis’ wannabe girlfriend, today is a member of the LA County Board of Supervisors.

Nobody said reinvention was easy.  The path is frequently peppered with problems, and like my protagonist, Carol, we’re sometimes faced with difficult questions and decisions that may challenge the very things we thought we knew and held dear.

In SHADOW OF DOUBT, Carol is faced with a dilemma.  Her next door neighbor, Samantha, is the niece of a top Hollywood talent agent and has become an invaluable source for insider industry news. But when Sam comes to Carol with news of her aunt’s death, things take an unexpected twist, and Carol starts to wonder if she’s being played by Sam to cover up a murderer.  

I love that as a novelist I’m able to twist the facts and turn up the heat on my characters -something I could never have done when working in a news room.  I hope you enjoy my new novel shadow of doubt. After years of writing broadcast copy and news, it’s been nice to reinvent myself as a novelist.

HANK:  How about you, Reds? What steps have you ever taken to reinvent yourself--as a writer? as a reader? As a person? 

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Nancy Cole Silverman credits her twenty-five years in news and talk radio for helping her to develop an ear for storytelling. But it wasn’t until 2001 after she retired from news and copywriting that she was able to sit down and write fiction fulltime. Much of what Silverman writes about today she admits is pulled from events that were reported on from inside some of Los Angeles’ busiest newsrooms where she spent the bulk of her career. In the last ten years she has written numerous short stories and novelettes. Today Silverman lives in Los Angeles with her husband, Bruce and two standard poodles. 

SHADOW OF DOUBT

When a top Hollywood Agent is found poisoned in the bathtub of her home, suspicion quickly turns to one of her two nieces. But Carol Childs, a reporter for a local talk radio station, doesn’t believe it. The suspect is her neighbor and friend, and also her primary source for insider industry news. After a media frenzy pits one niece against the other—and the body count starts to rise—Carol knows she must save her friend from being tried in the court of public opinion.

But even the most seasoned reporter can be surprised, and when a Hollywood psychic shows up in Carol’s studio one night and warns her there will be more deaths, things take an unexpected turn. Suddenly nobody is above suspicion. Carol must challenge both her friendship and the facts, and the only thing she knows for certain is that the killer is still out there. But the closer she gets to the truth, the more danger she’s in.