VS Grenier ~ Award-Winning Author, Speaker & Podcaster

In my book, What Do You See When You Look at Me?, I use bright and colorful real life photos of both wild and domestic animals. With each picture, I invite my young readers to look carefully at the animal and describe what they see. Underneath each photo is a one-sentence caption of what I see. For example, the first photo is of a flamingo, not the whole bird, just the head and neck. I see a pink, curvy neck yet I also see the letter S. I hope to teach children to look at more than just a flamingo or elephant but to see the detail in each animal. I also hope that they can look closely at the animal and look for emotion such as the smile on the elephant's face, the tear in the horse's eye or even the big yawn of the tiger that is either tired or bored. If I were to talk to parents or teachers about my book and how I would like for them to use my book with children, I would tell them that aside from looking at fun pictures and learning to read the simple text, I would hope t

About the Book: Torch in the Dark tells the moving story of how Hadiyah Joan Carlyle, a single mother haunted by memories of her own traumatic childhood, pioneered as one of the first women since World War II to enter the trades as a union welder. Beginning in a Jewish immigrant neighborhood in New Jersey, the story moves through San Francisco’s colorful Haight-Ashbury in the sixties to arrive at Fairhaven Shipyard in Bellingham, Washington. For Hadiyah, welding becomes a metaphor for healing from the dark past as well as a path to self-reliance and economic survival. While providing insightful perspective on the culture of the 1960’s and 1970’s, Torch in the Dark offers profound inspiration for anyone struggling with issues of abuse and oppression. Overall Thoughts: I had a bit of a hard time getting into this memoir as the writing is more blunt and pointed into the facts at the beginning. As you get past the first few chapters, you start to understand and see thr

  Join Host Virginia S Grenier on Monday May 13, 2013 as guest author Jewel Kats visits the show. They will be talking about Jewel's lastest graphic novel "DiTzAbled Princess" and recent events to help spread awareness.   "DitzAbled Princess" comes out as a web comic on Tapastic.com and Marvelous Spirit Press published a graphic novel based on this character. It's a hybrid of a women's comic book meets graphic novel. Once a teen runaway, Jewel Kats is now a self-made Diva. She’s authored seven books! For six years, she penned a syndicated teen advice column for Scripps Howard News Service (USA) and TorStar Syndication Service (Canada). Jewel also interned in the TV studio of ­Entertainment Tonight Canada. Her books have been featured in Ability Magazine twice. She recently made a guest appearance on Accessibility in Action. Jewel appeared in a documentary series by the Oprah Winfrey Network (Canada) in September of 2012. Katarina Andriopoulos ha

Hadiyah Joan Carlyle grew up in a Jewish immigrant neighborhood in New Jersey, became active in the Civil Right movement of the sixties and migrated to San Francisco’s colorful Haight-Ashbury to be part of the counter-culture there. In the seventies, she was the first and only female shipyard welder in Bellingham, Washington, north of Seattle. In the eighties, Hadiyah returned to the East coast to earn her MSW at Rutgers University. In 2003, she completed the certificate program in Memoir Writing through the University of Washington Extension. She is an active member of Seattle’s thriving community of writers. Today Hadiyah lives in Seattle’s Queen Anne neighborhood close to her son, Washington State 36 th district Legislator Reuven Carlyle, his wife Dr. Wendy Carlyle and their four children. Activist, hiker, devoted grandmother, Hadiyah delights in the wild beauty of the Northwest while remaining connected to her gritty urban East Coast roots. Though we