Back in February 2009, after appearing on a few radio shows, and with experience of running a couple of local TV shows narrating stories from my romance book as well as filming local karaoke, I thought… why not try your own radio show. Loving a good old “chin wag” as we say in England I thought it might be good fun, little did I know just how much.
Here we are almost two years later and over 270 shows later the show is still going strong, is proving more popular than I ever expected, and I love every minute of it…well almost.
My show I called “A Book and a Chat” which is basically what it is, anybody who knows me will tell you I am no literary chat person, I am not one who goes into styles of writing etc, I just love to sit and have a chat, learn something and hopefully have some fun at the same time. As the show description goes…
"A Book and a Chat" has proved a hugely popular radio program with people of all ages. With two hundred shows already recorded, Barry's format of "a chat over a cup of tea" has received nothing but rave reviews from guest and listeners alike. The writer of a successful young adult romance book "Across the Pond" Barry has himself appeared on a large number of radio and TV programs. "A Book and a Chat" is a program for writers and readers, not so much a literary show, more like... let’s sit around have a cup of tea and a few laughs." - Read what the guests are saying about the show athttp://storyheart52.wordpress.com/a-book-and-a-chat-blog-radio-show
I am very proud of the many, many comments I have received from guests, nearly all love the style and many have come back for a second third, fourth or even fifth time.
During the nearly three hundred shows I’ve learnt many things, met some wonderful people and laughed a lot. I can honestly say there has only been one show I struggled with, and that was one of the early shows when I had a guest who had written a book about banking and high finance. I asked him one question and then could not get a word in for the next 25 minutes not understanding half of what my guest was talking about.
I have had some very famous guests on the show during these last two years from Emmy award winners such as Louise Shaffer, to authors such as Steve Berry who have 72 million copies in print throughout the world. I love to involve the YA Bloggers, as I call them the “Sham Wow” of YA literature as they soak everything up. I have made it a point to include bloggers as guests on the show as well as many debut authors. After all they might be debut authors today but they could be the stars of tomorrow. Class of 2K10 YA debut authors were great and I already have several from Class of 2k11 signed up for the show.
There are a few drawbacks in having what sometimes has been five shows a week, the jokes and anecdotes tend to repeat themselves, but I always try and make the chat flow and love to laugh as anybody who has listened will tell you. Many guests are what can only be described as “scared” when they first call in and we chat before the show starts, but as I say to them, it’s honestly just a chat over a cup of tea (in my case English PG Tips), and so many have told me afterwards how much they enjoyed the easy going format and style, that they were completely at ease.
One good sign as to how the show is being enjoyed is the way the time seems to rush by for all over them, this I very soon realized and started running some 1hr specials, which again people have enjoyed.
I have in the last two years covered subjects from abuse to life coaching, from Picture books to historical fiction. I have within three days covered a multi-million selling author such as Steve Berry, to William Link whose name might not be one you remember straight away until you realize he and his late writing partner wrote all the Colombo series, Murder She wrote and so much more. To be followed by a local author who had written some small books of stories about famous horses which were being sold on local “tack” shops.
I love the various styles that can appear on the show, learning about people’s fights over illness and abuse, historical novels about periods in history, Leaning about floods, disasters, love and laughter, the eclectic mix of shows not only keeps me looking forward each week to the next show but I hope my listeners as well. I have made many friends along the way learned many things, about the art of writing as well as telling a good story.
Along the way I have come up with this parallel universe theory, which has become a pet theory of mine.
I think there is this parallel universe where all these stories are situated, all us writers are is the conduit that allows the stories to be share din our world. Ask almost any author and they will tell you that no matter how much you outline or plan the story, the characters come along that were not even thought of, and take over the story, you get led down different paths not even thought about as the story develops. When you have completed the novel, and look back on it, often you can’t even remember writing some of it, let alone using some of the language and words which you’d never use. Yes... the parallel universe writes story for you… well that’s my slightly tongue in cheek theory.
As you can imagine I’ve had some shows that have ended up more like a comedy show, while others have brought tears to many a listener. One that will always stand out for me, was back in November of 2009. My guest was M.M Anderson and we were talking about her book “Werewolf Dreams”. There is an option and for people to dial into the show to chat to my guest themselves, and on this day a call came in to my switchboard, that as a show host you are able to control. I opened the phone connection and asked who wanted to talk to M.M. Anderson. All I got in response was some growling a cross between a dog and Chewbacca; yes a werewolf had dialed in to the show. My guest thought it might be one of her children and threats were made, but on checking the number it was from a totally different state.
So from Werewolf’s to film stars, multi selling authors to ones with their first book, abuse to humor, peoples to pets, tears to laugher I’ve seen had them all on A Book and a Chat” and hope to have many more over the shows yet to come. I guess a few new one liners are required, and you never know, perhaps I’ll even have another call from a werewolf.
Up and coming shows:
| Jan 29th Sat | Louise Shaffer -1hr |
| Feb 1st | Stephanie Vlahov |
| Feb 3rd | Tim Vandehay & Annie Greer |
| Feb 5th Sat | Kathy Bell (Regression etc) |
| Feb 8th | TBA |
| Feb 10th | DCS |
| Feb 12th Sat | Shannon Delany |
| Feb 15th | Becky Due |
| Feb 17th | NO SHOW |
| Feb 19th Sat | Jenne Helderman |
| Feb 22nd | Rose A Valenta |
| Feb 24th | Dr Kent Gustavson |
| Feb 26th Sat | Carole Estby Dagg 1hr -2K11 |
| Mar 1st | Amy Mittelman |
| Mar 3rd | Fran Lewis |
| Mar 5th Sat | Bettina Restrepo - 1hr 2K11 |
| Mar 8th | Jeff Sherratt |
| Mar 10th | Sue Ann Jaffarian |
| Mar 12th Sat | Hannah Dennison |
| Mar 15th | Joel Fox |
| Mar 17th | Sebastian Stuart |
| Mar 19th Sat | Kristina McMorris |
| Mar 22nd | Alfred Wellnitz - |
| Mar 23rd | John Ames |
| Mar 24th | Cynthia Kocialski |
| Mar 26th Sat | PUYB |
| Mar 29th | Kent Gustavson ?? |
| Mar 31st | Renne Hand |
Barry Eva (Storyheart)
Author of "Across the Pond"
Check out my new radio show blog:
Radio Blog: http://abookandachat.blogspot.com
Humor Blog: http://laughithoughtmytrouserswouldneverdry.blogspot.com
Across the Pond Blog: http://acrossthepon
Blog Talk Radio Show: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/Across-the-Pond
Book Site: http://across-
Amazon Reviews: http://tinyurl.com/o7sokp
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2hn1q0DZ34
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