By Todd Luck
The Chronicle

Cheryl Jeffries is a busy woman.

She’s an English teacher at Glenn High School, an associate minister at her church, a wife and a mother of five children. And last week she added published author to her duties.

Her first book, “Tools of the Believer: Ten Ways to Beat the Devil at his Own Game,” was released July 3. It’s been five years since Jeffries first started the book, which she began when she was an associate minister at Greater Grace Community Baptist Church. She said her idea was to write something to help Christians use the tools offered to them in the Bible to combat life’s hardships.

“I think that a lot of Christians … are living defeated lives and I know that God has given us in His Word, everything in His Word, everything we need to be successful and that a lot of people simply aren’t using the tools God has given us as believers,” said Jeffries.

Her busy lifestyle forced her to put aside working on the book. After not writing for two years, she took another whack at it last summer. It was the first time she hadn’t taught summer school in 11 years. It paid off and when she finished the book in July.

She sent it off to two publishers; both were interested in the book. She choose Tate Publishing, a Christian, family-owned company in Oklahoma. She received an enthusiastic letter from Trinity Tate, the company’s author acquisition manager, telling her about how she thought “Tools” was useful and inspirational. Tate also offered to do an audio book of “Tools,” an idea Jeffries was excited about.

“Tools” is a small book with only 72 pages. It sells for $8.99. Jeffries said her book is meant to be a handbook or reference guide to be used whenever troubles come up in life. It’s not something people just read and put on the shelf, she said, it’s something that’s meant to be used repeatedly.

“People are aware of these strategies so you have books on prayer, books on fasting and books on tithing, but what this particular manual does is it puts them all together and gives you a resource, so it’s more of a resource. But it’s definitely intended to be a manual, something you use over and over again,” said Jeffries.

The book defines the “game,” equipping readers by first defining the players, rules, objectives and strategies. Then, with many biblical references, it concisely defines each of the “ten ways to the beat the devil,” which include preventive prayer, continual prayer, fasting, tithing, knowledge of the Bible and seeking the Kingdom of God. The book is available at most major retail web sites, such as Walmart.com, Target.com and Amazon.com. Jeffries plans to do signings for the book soon.

Tools” is dedicated to Joseph Butler Sanders Parks, the pastor of Greater Grace, who brought her into the ministry and helped her become an associate minister. She continues to minister at her current church, Word of Truth International Life Center.

Her advice for young writers is to experience life before they begin to write about it.

“When I was young I thought about writing, (but) I was not ready. I didn’t have enough experience. I didn’t know enough about life. I would say to people experience life, experience life a bit, and then just begin writing about it,” said Jeffries.

Jeffries is already planning sequels and wants to make “Tools” into a series with the next book bearing the title “Tools of the Believer: Ten Ways to Recognize the Enemy.” She said she’ll have to wait to start on that one though, since she is teaching summer school this year.

Learn more about “Tools of the Believer: Ten Ways to Beat the Devil at his Own Game“

from The Bradenton Herald
By MELANIE MARQUEZ

Working on tugboats for almost 30 years took William Alligood to ports throughout the Gulf of Mexico. And with assignments sometimes lasting more than a month, the Palmetto man had to balance his active family life with his passion for working on the water.

His love for both kept him busy through his career and have tied up his time in retirement, something he’s been enjoying since June 2006. He took his experiences as a tugboat captain and wrote a book, “My Lifetime on the Water,” published by Tate Publishing and Enterprises and released on June 19.     

He’s faced onboard fire, grounded boats and sunken ones. He saw tugboat companies come and go and was one of the people who helped build Port Manatee. He used to drive into the port before there was a paved road leading into it.

And when Alligood, a burly man with a gray beard that reaches his chest, talks about some of his experiences with tugboats, like staking out in a Louisiana port through a hurricane or helping move oil rigs, he raises his arms and sways his shoulders smoothly to show the movement of the boat. His eyes open wide, a smile peeks out of his beard and his rocking motion mimics waves he would live on for days, weeks or more.

But lengthy assignments came with lengthy breaks, and Alligood would get a week off or more at a time; he looked at it as having a honeymoon each time he returned from a tugboat tour. He’s been married to his wife, Lois, for more than 37 years.

When they first married Alligood worked overnight at Tropicana, earning $2.37 an hour. In 1977 he started working on tugboats as a deck hand and told his supervisor he wanted to work his way to the top and become a captain, something he did full time starting in 1987.

The job took him to places like Mexico, Key West, South Carolina and Trinidad. At Port Manatee he would help bring in ships through the 2.9-mile Manatee Harbor Channel, ships that traveled to the port from places like South America, Central America, Africa and Asia. The ships brought in items like fruit, plywood and petroleum products.

He was on assignment in Louisiana during Hurricane Katrina in 2005, tucked in a port 110 miles from the storm.

“Everybody that was in that part of the world tried to find a port to go into,” Alligood said.

He came close to a storm again when he was on a tugboat 23 miles from where Hurricane Rita hit the same year.

One Christmas Alligood was sent to work offshore with an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, about 580 miles from the entrance of Tampa Bay. Work was delayed when a storm hit before the tugboat could help move the rig.

“Weather dictates what you do offshore and Mother Nature wanted to whoop us,” Alligood said.

He remembers clearly the May day in 1980 when a ship collided with the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, sending cars plunging into the water and spreading debris into Tampa Bay. His crew was assigned that day to pick up any items they found floating in the water, an experience he recounts in his book:

We had plucked an assortment of things out of the water that day using a dip net we had on the boat. I suppose the most disturbing items were what appeared to be a picture of a family on vacation, and we also picked up a child’s flip-flop shoe out of the water, which made us three grown men cry like little babies with sorrow and sadness. After we had picked up those items, we didn’t talk much for a while. We just sat and stared at the damaged bridge, and cried for the poor families that had lost

their loved ones this tragic, stormy day.

Another difficult experience came during a 43-day assignment in Trinidad in 1999. He had left for the Caribbean knowing his father was ill and that there was a chance he would die soon. Banking on a promise from one of his supervisors, Alligood accepted the assignment with the agreement that he would be relieved as soon as his father’s health worsened.

But when his father was placed in a hospice and Alligood knew it was time to return, there was a delay in getting a new captain for the tugboat he was on. His father passed away the day before Alligood returned from Trinidad.

Long trips did allow him to bond with his crew and one of his favorite aspects of tugboat life was the camaraderie.

“I considered my crew as my family,” Alligood said. “You spend more time on the boat then you do at home.”

Melanie Marquez, Herald staff writer, can be reached at 748-0411, ext. 2620.

William C. Alligood

Age: 56

Local Residence: Palmetto

Occupation: retired tugboat captain

Birthplace: Manatee County

Family: wife, Lois; two sons, William and Joshua Levi; two daughters, Jeanne Marie and Mary Amber; one granddaughter, Liliana Marie

Tugboat captain helped build Port Manatee

Learn more about “My Lifetime on the Water“

 By: RUTH MARVIN WEBSTER
Staff Writer

In her first book, “Popcorn Poppin’ on the Apricot Tree” (Tate Publishing, $13.99), Oceanside resident Faith Paulus writes about her unusual childhood as the youngest of five children who became wards of the court when their schizophrenic mother was committed to a mental institution.

Written through the eyes of her 8-year-old self, Paulus recounts her story of being ripped from the family home in Michigan in 1965 and sent to be raised by the nuns at St. Vincent’s Home until her three sisters and one brother were returned to their father’s care as teenagers.

The title comes from one of the author’s favorite songs as a child, which her mother taught the children before the onset of her illness. “The title depicts the truth and illusion that we were trying to grasp in our formative years,” Paulus said. She added that the style of text is “almost like a quilt of anecdotes, with fabrics of memories,” culminating with a chapter that leaps to 2001 and recaps the lives of her siblings, who return to a Michigan lake house for a family reunion.

Calling herself Annie Peters (her maiden name) in the book, which she said gave her the necessary detachment to write it, Paulus blends her life’s events with pop culture events of the time.

“It is a coming-of-age story for our generation,” said the 49-year-old interior designer, who was raised Catholic. “We were the younger siblings of the celebrated teenagers of the ’60s.”

The narrative is peppered with references to political events, such as the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy, and the race riots in Detroit, as well as the music of the Beatles and Simon and Garfunkel, and movies like “Mary Poppins” and “The Sound of Music.”

In one chapter, Paulus recounts “how we (Paulus and her siblings) collectively got rid of the housekeeper we didn’t like” when a neighbor told their father that the children had been locked out of the house to play all afternoon in the snow. With this scene, Paulus also makes the observation that “I marveled at the fact that as a force, the greatest single asset that the Peters children possessed was our steady strength in numbers.”

Paulus adds initial capital letters to expressions and turns of phrase commonly used in her family and at school. In one incident near the beginning of the book, she writes about one of her mother’s “Episodes” when she mistakes her Very Important Package of Christmas cookie cutters for a bomb.

“For a while now, my mother’s bedtime had been scheduled even earlier than my own,” she writes. “We children had been warned not to disturb her, since She Was Not Feeling Well.”

Paulus describes her mother’s more and more frequent hospitalizations in the fifth floor mental ward as “slumber parties” and her mother’s increasing detachment from the family as “losing my mother to the Other World.”

“Even more irritating were the private Slumber Parties that were being held in her honor on the Fifth Floor of St. Lawrence Hospital. I was beginning to suspect, with a twinge of envy, that her new early bedtime was probably due to a lack of sleep from all the fun.”

But Paulus appeared at ease finding the humor in what could be a dreary, depressing tale. “We can choose and consider what is learned,” she said. “There’s always a treasure and a gift. I surrendered my mother to the state institution. Maybe God wanted her there.”

In fact, her now 82-year-old mother, who was once a university professor, remains to this day in the care of the Michigan State mental health system. And her father, who fought for years to have his children live with him, has since passed away. Paulus said that in the Catholic Church at the time, it was rare for a father to get custody of the children, and that mental-health issues were often brushed under the rug, as they were in her family.

The memoir, which contains 18 chapters each labeled by date, also includes family photos and recipes. She said she particularly enjoyed included first lady Eleanor Roosevelt’s recipe for Creamed Crabmeat In Patty Shells which her grandmother ate at a White House luncheon she attended.

Paulus is working on a screenplay adaption of her memoir which she plans to pitch at the San Diego Film Festival in September, and Tate Publishing is releasing an audio version of the book.

Contact staff writer Ruth Marvin Webster at (760) 740-3527 or rwebster@nctimes.com.

Fast Facts

Faith Paulus will sign and discuss “Popcorn Poppin’ on the Apricot Tree” from 1-3 p.m. June 16 at Barnes and Noble, 2615 Vista Way, Oceanside. Visit Paulus’ Web site at www.popcornpoppinontheapricottree.com.

 Jean Peerenboom column

Private investigator’s cases stretch faith, beliefs to the limit

What happens when a New York Irish Catholic resettles in Green Bay? He’s going to go to great lengths to find a good deli.

That’s how “The Lord Be With You” ($20.95) opens. It is a mystery with a private investigator and dialogue reminiscent of Robert B. Parker’s Spenser books.

Author Mick Gleason admits it is more than a bit autobiographical.

The main character is Cal Flynn, a man of strong faith and deeply influenced by his Irish Catholic upbringing. As he opens a private investigation business in Green Bay, his cases stretch his faith and beliefs to the limits. His first case involves the pursuit of a relic purported to have belonged to Jesus himself, a relic his church would prefer never sees the light of day.

Sound like the “Da Vinci Code?” He admits it inspired him. “The idea of relics attributed to Jesus intrigued me.”

Gleason grew up in New York, where a high school creative writing teacher said “if I didn’t write, it would be a waste. It took me 35 years to do it,” he said. When he found himself unemployed, his wife, Laurie, suggested he try writing, it would give him something to do.

After the first few chapters were written, his wife encouraged him to keep going.

“When I wrote this it was stream of consciousness,” he said. “I wrote about New York. The World Trade Center bombings impacted this character.” Because the Gleasons are in Green Bay, he set the story in Green Bay.

“I’m a major fan of Spenser, Parker’s character, and Sara Paretsky, James Lee Burke and Andrew Greeley. I was always intrigued by Parker’s Spenser character. I wanted to do a series like that.”

Gleason writes on weekends now and finds himself in a zone once he gets started. “I start in the morning and it’s dinner time before I know it,” he said. “I can see the characters and hear the dialogue.”

He would like to keep the Cal Flynn character going. “I’m not looking to get rich doing this, but I want it to get enough attention so my publisher will offer me a contract for more.”
Learn more about “The Lord Be With You.”

 Iranian’s Book Focuses on his Tough Childhood

OZZIE ROBERTS / UNION-TRIBUNE on “SignonSanDiego”

July 30, 2006

San Diego, CA– Abbas Kazerooni couldn’t have known, as he stood in Tehran Airport trying to coldly hold back tears as his mother wept and hugged him tightly, that it would be the last time he’d ever see her.

The 7-year-old also could never have fully understood that he was about to take his first steps into a world filled with grown-up horrors that he would have to handle all by himself.

His parents, Karim and Marzieh Kazerooni, were desperately trying to get their son out of the country before he turned 8 and became eligible for the army. The threat of war with Iraq was looming, and the Kazeroonis feared their son would surely be killed.

Abbas Kazerooni, who left Iran at age 7, is now 28 and a student at California Western School of Law. Also an actor, Kazerooni’s first book, “The Little Man,” is about his life.

Their plan was for Marzieh to take Abbas with her to live with relatives in the United Kingdom and for Karim to join the family sometime later. But on this day, airport authorities informed the Kazeroonis that Abbas was the only one who could leave Iran. That meant if he were going to join relatives in the United Kingdom by way of Turkey, he would have to do it all on his own. And Marzieh’s fears for her son nearly tore her apart.

Now, two decades later, still haunted by memories, Abbas, 28, a professional actor and a student at California Western School of Law, has written his first book about his life.

“The Little Man,” published by Tate Publishing, LLC, and selling for $17.95, is the first of a two-book series and includes the scene at the Tehran airport that Abbas says remains one of his hardest memories with which to make peace.

His mother died suddenly of a heart attack three years after that day. And the guilt, sometimes, is almost overwhelming.

“Now looking back, I wish I hadn’t done that , stopped myself from crying and holding her,” Abbas says with glazed eyes. “My mother began crying and crying; she became more hysterical than I’d ever seen her before. And my father (ordered) me not to cry or (show any emotion) that would further upset her. ”

“I fought hard to hold back my tears, and now my last memories of my mother are of (her like that) and me not comforting her.”

The book, Abbas says, is dedicated to his mom. But the chemistry between a mother and her son is not its only theme.

Somewhere, after finally landing in Turkey, where a sleazy so-called friend of his father immediately left him on his own, the young man picked up moxie.

He did odd jobs in and around the place where he stayed. He also deftly budgeted the sizable chunk of cash his father had given him after withdrawing savings and hocking nearly all the family’s possessions.
And, with long-distance help from his father, he used persistence and charm to enlist the help of an official in the British Consulate to finally get him to England after four months in Istanbul.

“I figured out that my biggest weakness and my biggest strength was my age,” Abbas says. “and I learned how to use it to my advantage.”

In his adopted new home, where one of his older cousins and his wife would adopt him (making him a naturalized British citizen), Abbas picked up more than an accent.

“They sent me to England,” he says, “and I became British.”

Abbas became a high-achieving student athlete with a focus on performing arts and law. He has acted professionally in theater, on the radio and with the BBC, HBO and other television production companies. He had a role in the 2004 HBO production of’The Hamburg Cell,’ a fictionalized account of the 9/11 hijackers.

‘he Little Man’ touches on all of that. But although the writing was cathartic, it couldn’t lessen the pain of certain memories: that scene in Tehran Airport; his grade school days soon after he learned of his mother’s death; and one of his darkest nights in Istanbul.

At 7, nearly 8, Abbas had become streetwise, but not streetwise enough. He headed unaccompanied to a food shop after hours.

Before he got past a dark alley, a drunken robber grabbed him, bashed him against a wall a few times and drew blood, pressing a knife to his neck before taking a meager sum of money.

An adult who had befriended Abbas may have saved his life when he came into the alley searching for the youngster and scared the mugger off.

“I thought I was gone,” Abbas says. “I had nightmares about that incident for the next three or four years.”

He says he strongly believes that his life has made him a strong person. But every so often he asks himself: “Was it all worth it?” Did his family’s decision actually save him from certain death in the Iranian military?

But all that is food for the second book, he says.