Category: Uncategorized

Meet the Author!

Visit us on Friday, June 21, 2024 at Studio Moonfall from 4pm to 7pm to meet Military History Author, Carl A. Bogar.

Hang out at the shop and take a peek inside their book, China on War:

Before the rise of the Shang Dynasty in 1,600 B.C.E., leaders of China developed their ideas on military strategy and tactics. Sun Tzu, authored the first manuscript on military strategy in the fifth century B.C.E. His work, The Art Of War is required reading at military academies globally today. This book is a brief synopsis of over three thousands years of Chinese military thought that shaped Mao Tse-tung’s ideals on how to win a farming peasant revolution and become the leader of a modern China establishing the People’s Republic of China in 1949.

Get a sneak peek at China on War at https://amzn.to/4c8mPKh

Carl began collecting military artifact in 1975, when his Grandfather a World War Two Army veteran gave him a German Helmet. Today the collection that he uses to do military exhibits like this one has grown to almost 41,000 items.

In 1988 Carl entered military service in the United States Marine Corps as a machine-gunner. In 1994, with just over six years of active service, Carl left the Marine Corps due to military cutbacks. Later that year, after seeing a recruiting poster reading “Sometimes Marines make betters soldiers”, he joined the United States Army Reserves as a military instructor.

In 1997, Carl was selected to go to the United States Military Academy located at West Point, New York as an instructor of map reading, trooping leading procedures, and basic tactics.

In 2000, after 13 years of service, Carl’s military service ended as an officer candidate due to service-connected injuries.

Carl holds college degrees in Criminal Justice, History, and a Masters of Arts in Military History from Norwich University.

In 2009, Carl was named the Veterans Business of the Year for Wisconsin by the U.S., S.B.A. In 2013, Carl was named the Home-based Business of the Year for Wisconsin and then U.S., S.B.A Region 5.

Carl was recognized as the Veterans Employment Representative of the Year while he worked for The state of Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development in 2007, by the American Legion Department of Wisconsin.

In 2015, Carl was named a Patriotic Employer by the Office of the Secretary of Defense, employer support of the guard and reserve.

Carl has been a member of Speaker of the House Paul Ryan‘s Veterans Advisory Board and Small Business Advisory Board since 2007. In 2009, he received a certificate of congressional recognition from the Speaker’s office for his service when Congressman Bryan Steil took office. Carl continues to serve on these boards for Congressman Bryan Stile who was elected after Speaker Ryan retired.

Today, Carl uses his degrees and love of military history to run Historic Military Impressions, providing short term military exhibits to add value to public events and other history-related history classes and programs all over the United States.

See you from 4pm to 7pm on Friday, June 21, 2024 at Studio Moonfall, 5031 7th Avenue with Carl A. Bogar!

Meet the Author!

Visit us on Friday, June 14, 2024 at Studio Moonfall from 4pm to 7pm to meet Literary Fiction Author, Kaitlyn Bolyard.

Hang out at the shop and take a peek inside their book, Mr. Wilson’s Wives:

Shunned by the women of her family for writing a tell-all memoir, Elizabeth Rodriguez escapes to northern Wisconsin for peace and inspiration. Before she can even get settled in, an obituary in the local newspaper catches her attention. As soon as she learns about Erwin Wilson and his twenty-three wives throughout his life, she makes it her mission to learn more. She begins by interviewing some of the locals and his remaining ex-wives, and she soon develops plans for her next bestseller. When her younger brother unexpectedly appears at her doorstep, she puts him to work helping her research and gather information. But with each mystery Elizabeth uncovers, she comes closer to the truth: maybe some stories aren’t meant to be told, and maybe building family trust is more important.

Get a sneak peek at Mr. Wilson’s Wives at https://amzn.to/3OCSudz

Kaitlyn Bolyard teaches writing and literature at DePaul University and Carthage College. She lives in Wisconsin with her chef husband, who keeps her well-fed. She writes mostly poetry because it can be finished in one sitting, but she has recently released her first novel, Mr. Wilson’s Wives.

See you from 4pm to 7pm on Friday, June 14, 2024 at Studio Moonfall, 5031 7th Avenue with Kaitlyn Bolyard!

Zee Lacson is coming to Studio Moonfall’s Kenosha Book Festival 2024 on July 28th & August 25th!

Zee Lacson has had practice in different professions. Engineer. Teacher. Photographer. Visual artist. Writer. But throughout her life she has always been a Dreamer.

She writes young adult magical realism fiction. Born and raised in Manila, Philippines with her grandparents, father, and twin brothers; she currently lives in the northern suburbs of Chicagoland with her husband and twin sons.

This is her dream realized.

Here’s a sneak peek at their book Twice Removed:

As part of an immigrant family, Jay has never felt like he belonged in his hometown of New Orleans. But in the summer before his senior year in high school, he thinks things are finally going his way when Maya, the half-Filipino girl in class he’s had a crush on, starts talking to him.

But Maya has secrets. And the more time they spend together, the further he’s pulled into a world of magic and superstition. When a generations-old family curse is revealed, Jay has to find a way to stop this winged, vampiric monster before sunset on Maya’s 18th birthday.

If he doesn’t, his new girlfriend might kill him.

Or worse, he’ll have to kill her.

If you can’t wait until you meet the author at this summer’s Kenosha Book Festival, pick up your copy at https://bookshop.org/a/9574/9781735135892

Stop by Studio Moonfall for more books by local authors and my friends from the indie publishing world, visit https://bookshop.org/shop/studiomoonfall to shop online, or https://www.libro.fm/business?bookstore=studiomoonfall for audiobooks.

S&E Black is(are?) coming to Studio Moonfall’s Kenosha Book Festival 2024 on August 25th and September 22nd!

S&E Black are Shannon and Edward, a duo of dark fantasy…

Shannon was born and raised in California and currently lives in Illinois with her husband, Edward, and their cat rescues. She is an urban gardener and an avid seed collector. In the makeup community, Shannon goes by zoomzoommacaron, where she collaborates with fellow MUAS across the world. She hosts a monthly zombie-themed makeup group called the #zombabescollab and adores SFX and other creative makeup. Shannon is also the owner of ShopCorpsicle, which specializes in handmade props, fake food, miniatures, prosthetics, and other accessories. She uses the alias Silence in Shadows for her traditional art. She also enjoys anime, cult-classic horror movies, cooking (and eating), sunbathing, photography, craft beer and kombucha, and singing badly.

Music fuels Shannon’s many passions, especially writing and creating art. She credits music with saving her life on multiple occasions in her teenage and young adult years.

Born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, Edward first discovered the joys of creative writing through his early high school studies and has spent many years exploring and developing a deep appreciation for the arts. Since first collaborating with his wife, Shannon, he has sprouted a passion and true affinity for storytelling and crafting literature. In addition to refining his skill in creating written works, his other interests include playing bass guitar, listening to music, and dabbling in photography. Edward is currently based in the greater Chicago area with his wife amidst his ever-growing vinyl collection and a clowder of rescue cats.

Here’s a sneak peek at their book The Chimera Snare: Fragments:

For Rayshell and her best friend Trish, senior year of high school is going to hell in a handbasket. The feud between Celestine and Daeva is bleeding into their world. When a mysterious visitor infiltrates her dreams, Rayshell is thrust into a realm of profound, otherworldly secrets. Together, Rayshell and Trish uncover the unbelievable—they are the living vessels for two banished Celestine guardians.

Amidst mystical recollections and a wondrous magic system that shatters the veneer of their everyday lives, the two friends embark on a journey against time to connect with the Celestine guardians’ allies in hopes of freeing them from their imprisonment. Simultaneously, the shadows cast by Daeva darken. The notorious outlaw, Merisek, has positioned himself to claim dominion over the Order of Existence—a trio of powerful artifacts capable of reshaping reality. Armed with two of these relics, Merisek races against the emergence of the Celestine guardians to claim the third. The stage is set for a showdown that will determine the fate of existence itself.

Rayshell and Trish are all that stand between Merisek and his unhinged desire to twist the fabric of reality into his making. As the threads of destiny unravel, the question looms: who will be the author of existence, and what profound truths will be unveiled in the final, decisive act?

If you can’t wait until you meet the author at this summer’s Kenosha Book Festival, pick up your copy at https://www.thechimerasnare.com/

Stop by Studio Moonfall for more books by local authors and my friends from the indie publishing world, visit https://bookshop.org/shop/studiomoonfall to shop online, or https://www.libro.fm/business?bookstore=studiomoonfall for audiobooks.

Rory Graves is coming to Studio Moonfall’s Kenosha Book Festival 2024 on September 22nd!

Here’s a sneak peek at their book Haunted Racine:

Like so many cities bordering Lake Michigan, Racine has a long and storied history. Some of that history is stranger than fiction.

The Live Towerview neighborhood, brimming with stories of the city’s earliest burial sites, is a hotbed of ghostly activity. Former asylums like the ambitious Taylor Home Orphan Asylum and the infamous Racine County Insane Asylum are filled with chilling tales of the unexplained. The local Masonic Temple houses the restless souls of some of the city’s earliest residents. So do Chances Food & Spirits and Ivanhoe, two of the most haunted taverns in southeastern Wisconsin. Historian Rory Graves uncovers some of Racine’s most notorious haunts.

Historian Rory Graves uncovers some of Racine’s most notorious haunts.

If you can’t wait until you meet the author at this summer’s Kenosha Book Festival, pick up your copy at https://bookshop.org/a/9574/9781467150781

Stop by Studio Moonfall for more books by local authors and my friends from the indie publishing world, visit https://bookshop.org/shop/studiomoonfall to shop online, or https://www.libro.fm/business?bookstore=studiomoonfall for audiobooks.

Marc McGowan is coming to Studio Moonfall’s Kenosha Book Festival 2024 on September 22nd!

Here’s a sneak peek at their book Hell’s Embrace:

The beautiful demon princess Laustra has waited more than 300 years to lead the armies of hell against mankind. Sadistic, calculating, and insanely powerful, her dream of finally seeing civilization fall is almost at hand. But all is not lost. Through the darkness, one solitary light has finally emerged.

Kim Makibi, a woman chosen by God and endowed with the power of the angels has been called upon to assume the role of humanity’s champion and save the world from Hell’s evil embrace. As the eternal battle between good and evil erupts on Earth once again, the fate of mankind will not be decided by the hands of men.

And Laustra, her allies, and humankind will see that when it comes to saving the world, you never send a man to do a woman’s job…

If you can’t wait until you meet the author at this summer’s Kenosha Book Festival, pick up your copy at https://bookshop.org/a/9574/9781478790075

Stop by Studio Moonfall for more books by local authors and my friends from the indie publishing world, visit https://bookshop.org/shop/studiomoonfall to shop online, or https://www.libro.fm/business?bookstore=studiomoonfall for audiobooks.

Kaitlyn Bolyard is coming to Studio Moonfall’s Kenosha Book Festival 2024 on June 23rd, July 28th, and August 25th!

Kaitlyn Bolyard teaches writing and literature at DePaul University and Carthage College. She lives in Wisconsin with her chef husband, who keeps her well-fed. She writes mostly poetry because it can be finished in one sitting, but she has recently released her first novel, Mr. Wilson’s Wives.

Here’s a sneak peek at their book Mr. Wilson’s Wives:

Shunned by the women of her family for writing a tell-all memoir, Elizabeth Rodriguez escapes to northern Wisconsin for peace and inspiration. Before she can even get settled in, an obituary in the local newspaper catches her attention. As soon as she learns about Erwin Wilson and his twenty-three wives throughout his life, she makes it her mission to learn more. She begins by interviewing some of the locals and his remaining ex-wives, and she soon develops plans for her next bestseller. When her younger brother unexpectedly appears at her doorstep, she puts him to work helping her research and gather information. But with each mystery Elizabeth uncovers, she comes closer to the truth: maybe some stories aren’t meant to be told, and maybe building family trust is more important.

If you can’t wait until you meet the author at this summer’s Kenosha Book Festival, pick up your copy at https://amzn.to/3OCSudz

Stop by Studio Moonfall for more books by local authors and my friends from the indie publishing world, visit https://bookshop.org/shop/studiomoonfall to shop online, or https://www.libro.fm/business?bookstore=studiomoonfall for audiobooks.

Audrey Wilson is coming to Studio Moonfall’s Kenosha Book Festival 2024 on June 23rd and September 22nd!

Audrey Wilson is an award-winning writer of both screenplays and fiction. Since graduating from Columbia College Chicago with a BA in Television Writing and Producing, she has produced nationally and internationally for PBS and National Geographic, as well as locally for WLS Chicago. Her dozen screenwriting award credits include the SoCal Screenplay Competition, the Filmmatic Horror Screenplay Awards, the Austin Under the Stars Film Festival, the Toronto Lift-Off Film Festival, the Manchester Lift-Off Film Festival, and the Berlin Lift-Off Film Festival. In 2018, she received a regional Emmy nomination for her work with PBS. As a professional screenwriter, Audrey is represented by Entertainment 3:33. Audrey is the author of two traditionally published novels, Wrong Girl Gone and Only Human, and one poetry collection titled Landing Like Rain. Audrey has also spoken professionally at numerous writing events, including the Independent Writers of Chicago, the Southwest Michigan Writers Conference, and the Let’s Just Write! Chicago Writers Conference. 

Love can be romantic. It can be platonic. It can be between you and a partner, a family member, a friend, or even with yourself. Whatever the relationship, if love can break your heart, words can mend it.

From the award-winning author of Wrong Girl Gone and Only Human comes Landing Like Rain. This illustrated collection of poetry and short stories weaves together tangible, bite-size tales about the simplest acts of love, such as the feeling of being tangled up in the emotions of your first love, to the painful awakening of what it means to love someone, and what it could mean to lose them. Through laughter, tears, and everything in between, Landing Like Rain is so much more than words on a page – it’s a feeling you won’t want to fall out of.

Here’s a sneak peek at their book Only Human:

Have you ever had a crush?

Have you ever had a crush so astronomically huge you were willing to tell the person anything to make them fall in love with you?

If you’re Annalise Dresden, then the answer is yes. Yes you have. And you’re in way over your head.

Before Frankie, Leece was like any other girl in her mid-twenties – a pre-med student with unreached potential, too much debt, a drinking problem, and no memory of her life before her nineteenth birthday. Alright, maybe she wasn’t like any other girl, but still. Her life was somewhat normal. But Frankie changed everything. Frankie, the simple girl with the first crush eyes, working at a discount store in Northwest Indiana after dropping out of college. Frankie, who somehow changed Leece’s whole life with a single look.

If you can’t wait until you meet the author at this summer’s Kenosha Book Festival, pick up your copy at https://bookshop.org/a/9574/9781619295353

Stop by Studio Moonfall for more books by local authors and my friends from the indie publishing world, visit https://bookshop.org/shop/studiomoonfall to shop online, or https://www.libro.fm/business?bookstore=studiomoonfall for audiobooks.

Anne Morse Hambrock is coming to Studio Moonfall’s Kenosha Book Festival 2024 on June 23rd & July 28th!

Since childhood, Anne’s parents steeped her in a soup of classic comedy influences, producing a daughter who would have almost no choice but to view life through a lens of laughter.

She has been writing silly things in a variety of forms since 2006, wearing a dizzying array of hats:

Poet/Cartoonist: “Anne & God: Conversations With The Infinite”

Blogger: “Anne The Passive Aggressive Poet” and “Overbooked & Underpaid: Notes From A Yes-a-holic”

Contributing gag writer: “The Brilliant Mind Of Edison Lee” newspaper comic strip syndicated worldwide by King Features

Columnist: Humor columns for The Kenosha News

Anne’s current passion project is her one-woman-show which combines her comic poems with stories from her hapless life and her original jazz/fusion/celtic/world music for harp and synthesizer.

Her lighthearted exchanges with whatever is steering us through the universe have been gathered into two book collections: “Some Days Call For Chocolate and Other Pick-Me-Up Poems” and the forthcoming “Dear God, Did I Say That Out Loud?”.

The best way to read her current work is to subscribe to her substack “Anne The Passive Aggressive Poet”. The newsletter is totally free – no ads, no spam – just a chance to read some stuff that might make you feel better. If you are into that sort of thing.

Here’s a sneak peek at their book Some Days Call for Chocolate:

Sometimes funny, sometimes inspirational, always true, this first book collection of Anne’s conversations with unnamed supreme being is a perfect way to brighten your day.

If you can’t wait until you meet the author at this summer’s Kenosha Book Festival, pick up your copy at https://annemorsehambrock.net/product/some-days-call-for-chocolate-book

Stop by Studio Moonfall for more books by local authors and my friends from the indie publishing world, visit https://bookshop.org/shop/studiomoonfall to shop online, or https://www.libro.fm/business?bookstore=studiomoonfall for audiobooks.

Meet the Author!

Visit us on Friday, June 7, 2024 at Studio Moonfall from 4pm to 7pm to meet Fantasy Author, Richard Sweitzer.

Hang out at the shop and take a peek inside their book, ODE: The Scion of Nerikan:

The old stories were true! Ancient tales speak of the fabled Nerikan Prison where fearful creatures were once locked away. These were thought to be simply fantastic stories, but centuries later the lost prison has been found and its last living captive has escaped! A massive and hateful beast has been unleashed unto the world and is once again rampaging towns and hillsides. What it seeks, no one knows; but what it finds is a little girl who is not afraid. And the bold child has one simple request of the monster: to help her find her home.
An ode to timeless fantasy stories of long ago The Scion of Nerikan is an adventure that redefines family and friendship on an epic scale.

Get a sneak peek at ODE: The Scion of Nerikan at https://bookshop.org/a/9574/9798986557816

Richard Sweitzer is an award-winning author, voice actor, morning radio host, and comedy writer.

He received his Master of Arts degree in English/Creative Writing from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where he was an Assistant Editor for the school’s literary journal. During his tenure at UWM, his short story collection won the Faculty Fiction Award.

Prior to that he studied English Literature and Creative Writing at UW-Stevens Point, winning the English Department award four years in a row, the L&S Distinguished Achievement Award, and the prestigious Ellen Specht Memorial Scholarship, all while graduating summa cum laude.

He has taught programs on Creative Writing and Publishing, and one of his novel excerpts won the top prize in a nationwide writing contest.

When he is not writing, he hosts a popular morning radio show in central Wisconsin. His decades-long tenure in radio has earned him numerous broadcast awards and significant recognition for his public service.

See you from 4pm to 7pm on Friday, June 7, 2024 at Studio Moonfall, 5031 7th Avenue with Richard Sweitzer!