Today I am hosting Caroline Giammanco, non-fiction author, and teacher, on my blog. Caroline hails from Missouri where she is a classroom English teacher at the local high school.
Tell us about the titles you are promoting and their descriptions:
Bank Notes: The True Story of the Boonie Hat Bandit – A bank robbing spree in St. Louis garners national attention in 2007-2009. This nonfiction inside look into our criminal justice system tells how an independent stock options trader, a single father of twins, became known as “St. Louis’s most notorious bank robber.” He’s also my husband. 
Guilty Hearts: The World of Prison Romances – Why would any woman love an inmate? Delve into the lives of eleven different inmate families and couples to find out what keeps them together—and why your life may depend upon the health of those relationships.
Caroline’s books are published by: W & B Publishers
Her current work in progress: I am finishing my third manuscript entitled Inside the Death Fences: Memoirs of a Whistleblower. This autobiographical work follows me from my life as the daughter of a deputy sheriff to becoming a whistleblower in the Missouri Department of Corrections.
I asked her favorite quote and her answer was: “The good news is we will all have high schools named after us.” This quote comes from the movie Deep Impact when the shuttle crew realizes they will have to sacrifice themselves to save earth. As a school teacher, this one always strikes a chord.
Who is the author who inspires you the most and why: There are so many to choose from, so this is a tricky question. My two favorite books are The Great Gatsby and To Kill a Mockingbird, so I would say Fitzgerald and Lee are tied. They make the readers face distressful situations, none of which are completely satisfied in the end.
If stranded on an island, what book would you want with you? I would want to have Gone with the Wind with me. It is long and has a great deal of subtext within it, so it would occupy my time and my mind.
What book is on your bedside table right now? Chasing the Scream by Johann Hari. It tracks the history of the War on Drugs.
Tell us three fascinating things about you:
1) I am a country girl at heart and would live in the middle of the woods in a cabin if I had a choice.
2) As I alluded to earlier, I am a middle-class, professional educator whose husband happens to be in prison for a high-profile crime spree. Life is full of unexpected twists.
3) I have no fear of public speaking. I could speak in front of a stadium full of people and not even wince. Do not ask me to sing, though.
What would be your ideal workspace? My ideal work space would be an upstairs den in a cabin or cottage in the woods. I’d have a comfy chair and face out a window looking at the peaceful countryside. In reality, I do most of my writing propped up in bed in my single-story house in town. A girl can dream, though.
What is your advice for other authors: Don’t be afraid to speak the truth and be relatable to your readers. If you can get them to care about your topic and to consider you credible in their hearts and minds, you will gain loyal fans.
Tell us where to find you and your books: Readers can find me at the following:
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100009880805237
https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=caroline%20giammanco%20author%20fans
@ GiammancoBook on Twitter
Trailers for my books:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljro0F8oxg0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfv8H7-22OU
Caroline’s books are available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Check her out! Remember books make great Christmas presents, and as always, if you love it, leave a review. Authors love reviews.
Thank you, Caroline, for guesting on my blog today. Good luck with your books and keep in touch.
My guest blogger today is the uber-talented author, Peggy Jaeger. We’ve agreed there aren’t enough Peggy’s in literature and it was a good way for us to begin talking. Both of us writing for The Wild Rose Press, we sometimes get in each other’s way on the Tuesday night chat room when called on. Which Peggy?
My husband came down with a cold at Thanksgiving after a week of sitting in a deer stand. The cold weather made his body vulnerable to the rhinovirus that causes the common cold. When you have a cold it doesn’t feel very common, but they are everywhere. So far mankind has not found a cure for the common cold and every doctor will say, “it’s a virus and it has to run its course.” I read somewhere once that skin cancer had been cured by injecting it with the rhinovirus. That might be an urban legend, but then again, maybe there is a reason why we cannot, or should not, eradicate the common cold. 
Books make great Christmas presents. I know because I read them, and others do to. I grew up happy in the library. My sisters and I would walk the few blocks to the old Carnegie library in Enid during the summer and load up with as many books as our arms could hold (or the library would let us check out at one time). There was just something about the smell of ink on paper and the book in my hand that made me happy. I was transported to another world.
Check out the website of Shelley Workinger’s Foodfic blog! But what are they eating? We discuss food after the apocalypse.
I’m not getting any younger. I don’t know who is, but it is becoming obvious that life is getting shorter and not longer. No, I’m not sick, but my house is cluttered with things I don’t use and maybe never needed. I cleaned out my parent’s house when they died, and I know what a chore it is. My children will someday be faced with the same thing. With that in mind, I’m beginning to clear out the clutter. My house is large and that only makes the problem bigger. I can and do stuff things in closets, attic and garage that are no longer needed.
Fall is upon us. The temperatures fell this week and my basil and cannas are worse for wear. I made pesto at the last minute to save as much basil as possible and I have faith the cannas will be back in the spring. I have a great Chicken Caprese recipe to try out tonight. Cool weather makes me want to cook – and eat. So, I must exercise more to counter act the inevitable.
I viewed the original manuscript typed by Dr. Angie Debo for And Still the Waters Run at the OSU library this week. It was her most controversial book and almost not published because of the content.
Warm afternoons turned into cool mornings in the forests of southeast Oklahoma last weekend. But we are Vikings. We can take it! The storms overnight turned over a few tents – but the damage was minimal. 
Peggy Chambers "Views from the Hammock" site 