(upbeat bright music) - Hello and welcome to Prairie Pulse.

Coming up a little bit later in the show we'll profile artists, Bill Briene, but first joining me now is guests Author, Robert Chambers.

Robert, thanks for joining us today.

- Thank you very much.

- Well you know, you're here today to talk about your new book, ""Kimberly"" and I want to get into that, but before we do, tell the folks a little bit about yourself and maybe your background.

- Background is Scott's Irish in ancestry, was born up in Canada in Quebec.

So I had the opportunity of dual cultures and decided to immigrate to the United States in 1978 been here obviously ever since.

I'm trained in Canada and in the United States, as a trauma surgeon, went back after my training in the United States to Canada, to complete my training but then as I say, I later came back to the United States to say, and became a US citizen in 1984, and moved to Minnesota in 1995. and I have worked, as per principally as a trauma surgeon was trained as a trauma surgeon and retired in 2005, started writing really as a kid, not writing but designing stories.

and that kind of says evolved as a hobby.

- With that said, you were here a few years ago, talking about your book, "Hidden Wounds" Tell us briefly about that book again 'cause we do want to get to "Kimberly" but how did that book do?

- Did fairly well, the thing that surprised me is despite the Canadian setting and the Canadian lead person in it, did not do that well in Canada, which was really a surprise.

but did quite well in Britain, did quite well in the United States, and overall pleased with the results.

- Well, here we go.

We are here today, to talk about the new book "Kimberly" So tell us about that.

What's it about?

- "Kimberly" is written prior to "Hidden Wounds" and then put away because I didn't like parts of it and it needed a lot of work.

It was brought out of the cupboard, mostly as a reaction to "Hidden Wounds", "Hidden Wounds" is tough in places.

It deals with PTSD and she goes into some very dark places and I wanted something lighter, I wanted something just fun, not that attacking terrorists is fun, but it's principally an action adventure and again features a strong woman, which because of my family and any number of strong women in my family history, I tend to focus that on strong women.

- Yeah, well you just said "Kimberly" was before "Hidden Wounds" initially and put it on the shelf, but how did you come up with the idea and the characters in that book in "Kimberly"?

- I have friends who are women warriors, and one of them Christine Rennee Jackson Page was at the time she left the Navy was a Petty Officer first class her last tour was on the Eisenhower in the Persian Gulf for about six months.

Her squad did the avionics on the jets and we talked quite a bit.

The character is not based on Chrissy, because she's actually quite different from Chrissy.

But I think that that background and some other contacts, kind of just led my brain there.

- Yeah so what makes "Kimberley" special?

- Primarily that it focuses on the whole issue of women warriors.

Women warriors are a very different breed.

All warriors are different breed regardless of gender, but there are some special issues with women warriors problems that they have.

And curiously the whole business of women warriors has sort of been put away and almost hidden.

Most of the public are and I think we'll get into this a little later, but most of the public are unaware that 17% of our military forces are female, over 200,000 and some of them have very high ranks.

Women warriors has been around since the days of, and probably earlier, but no one since the days of the Romans in England.

Then shortly after the Romans invaded England an Anglo-Saxon, Sydney Queen led her warriors and she dig deeply it, she was commander, she was the tactician.

and I'm beat up on the ninth region.

Roman governor didn't like that came back from where he was messing around in Wales with the rest of the army and kind of dealt with her and the Romans were in England for another 400 years.

In the US context, we had women on the battlefield in the Revolutionary War.

They weren't there as combatants, they were there bringing water to the combatants, and they ended up with a nickname of Molly pitcher after the pitchers that they call it the water.

A couple of them, two or three of them, at least that are pretty well-documented, were wives whose husbands were artillery people and were killed and the wife stepped in and kept the gun operating and doing her husband's job.

That's documented in more than one case, we get to the Civil War, and women dressed up as men to hide and fight as combatants and nobody figured out that they were female until they were killed or wounded.

And of course women's spies have been notorious from on both sides and sometimes working both sides, for as long as history has been around.

So women in battle, women and warriors, women spies are not terribly unusual.

- Well, you know, we're on this subject, you know you said 17% are currently serving in the military.

Can they get into Navy SEALs?

- Yes.

No one currently is, there's no females SEALs at the moment.

There was Razzi senior female who started the application process and decided partway through, that she wasn't that interested.

It was very interesting to me that one of the collaborators, so one of my people had helped me with this book was a medically discharged after an injury, SEAL Team 5 member, male and I thought I was going to have to have an argument with him about female SEALs.

He fully embraced the idea, he liked the idea and did not want any standards changed, but had no problems with the idea.

In fact, like the idea of female SEALs In fact, the fact that the SEAL badge is on the cover of "Kimberly", just above the B there, the Trident pin was his idea, actually his insistence and he's helped me quite a lot.

So the fact that he embraced the idea of a female SEAL was a little surprising.

- Well, let's step back a minute.

Can you tell us a little bit about your time as a trauma surgeon and maybe how that shaped your writing?

- Yeah, trauma surgeon, when you say it kind of sounds glamorous and it really isn't, it's pretty ugly you're in the trenches constantly.

you have you know, people throwing up on you at four, two o'clock in the morning.

and all sorts of nice things like that.

It's also very difficult.

I used to think that one of the most difficult things I ever did was to tell parents that their 16 year old has just bought a driving car up of the tree.

Then I ran into a situation where, two young people, 12 year old and a 14 year old, male, female witnessed a murder suicide of their parents and were orphans, and the the boy finally figured out that there that his father had a brother that they were estranged, but the brother at this time, it was in Chicago, the brother was in St. Louis and they did find them and bring them back.

but that was tough gone and the Plainfield tornado, went up about a quarter mile from our emergency room door and we were the principal trauma center receiving casualties from that.

We covered 371 casualties between 1505 in the afternoon of 2300.

And that was tough and now I wasn't in the ed Thank goodness I was not charged with the triage stuff cause making those decisions, that's just agonizing.

Basically I just worked one case after another in the OR but there was some very difficult cases and there is no way, you try to make yourself immune from the emotional reactions and you try to stay absolutely cold and be in the problem and working the problem.

But you're a human being, you gotta know that you're dealing with human beings.

- So how did you translated that, or kind of use that in your writing process?

- I'm not sure that I consciously put it in the process, but again if whatever your background, if a writer says that their background never gets into their writing, that's just nonsense (laughing) - Well, you mentioned strong women.

Can you talk a little bit more about your interest in strong women and writing about strong women?

- The writing just started coming out of the stories in my head, but there are many strong women in my family dating back to the Alice sky in the 18 hundreds.

When part of our family left, the Alice Guy for North America ship stopped in Quebec city, there was small parks on the ship the ship was quarantined by time the quarantine was lifted the only member of our family still alive was a four year old girl.

There were not family services at the time somehow, Nate a 17 year old boy.

who I guess, knew her from the ship or knew her from the ILS guy or somehow got her into central Ontario.

She grew up, there are multiple stories about her and the family.

She died at 104, and my mother had a four year business degree in the 1930s, which was unusual for men and unheard of for women.

My second daughter has a Master's in Finance Accounting, and a CPA she's does financial stuff with an outfit in Chicago.

You come into her office and want the finances explained, she'll explain them to you.

You argue with her, she'll explain why you're wrong, you keep arguing she points at her grandmother's degree that's up on her wall, says genetic, I'm right, you're wrong.

you're wasting my time, get out of here (chuckling) - Well, I understand you're gonna read a passage for us.

and while you're picking out that passage, or do you have it ready?

- No ,just give me a second go ahead.

- Yeah, what is the overall theme of the book while you're picking it up?

- The theme of the book is to honor women warriors and just talk about them instead of having a John Wayne action adventure, we got a Jane Wayne action adventure.

And it starts with an incident in junior high that pushed her toward Navy, pushed her towards SEALs and sort of gave her a lifetime goal of getting back at terrorists.

But "Facing the central part of the cafeteria, "Kimberly could see Laila "coming toward them from the corridor on the opposite side, "there was a boy, "she didn't recognize a few feet behind Laila.

"Something was not right.

"He had on a heavy jacket, "which was weird this early in the fall.

"Instinctively she started to get up "to find a teacher.

"Before her eyes the boy disappeared in a cloud of fire, "black and debris.

"As she ducked under the table, "she saw Laila flying to their right, "explosion was sufficiently violent.

"The glass behind Kimberly and Alison blew out "Kimberly immediately got to her feet "and began running toward the blast zone."

That is the start and right away, I'm trying to define the character Kimberly responds by going toward the blast zone, her friend Alison and her, are both girl scouts both with first aid badges and Kimberly's context just to get into it and help people found Lyla, realized she was dead.

Alison wanted to run the other way, which is the instinctive reaction of most people.

So immediately I'm trying to show Kimberly's character as being a person that goes to solve problems.

- Yeah, sure.

And so what do you hope that readers would take away from this book after, as they read it?

- I hope they just have a good fun with Kimberly as she drops through the sky and beats up on terrorists.

I hope that they learn fortunately because of the SEAL team 5 guy that helped me out with it, the SEAL training is fairly detailed.

A lot of people focus on hell week and think that that's the end of the SEAL training.

That's the end of the first phase, which is the first period of conditioning training.

They have another three years of training after that.

And, that's what it takes.

It takes three years before you even even consider putting a person in a actionable SEAL team.

So they learn about the SEALs, I also hope that it gives them an opportunity to think about the woman warrior in some of the problems.

Kimberly has a problem.

She can't figure out what guy in his right mind, is gonna get involved with a sailor girl.

It's deployed at sea for months at a time and undertakes dangerous missions.

I mean, that's not in context of our society, not typical wife and mother - Was COVID a good time for you to write?

I mean, a lot of us were staying at home a lot and doing things, or was it a hard time to write it?

- Both.

It was good in the sense that it gave you a lot of time.

I mean, we just couldn't do... Nobody could do a lot of other things.

On the other hand, I think one of the things that we have discovered with COVID-19 is that hiding in your basement for prolong months at a time is not mentally healthy.

- Yeah.

Well, are you drawn toward action adventure for your writing?

- Not particularly.

It is a genre that I'm interested in.

I like, I kind of have fun with but and you know again somehow the fun with, I was thinking when she was dropping through the sky into the Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC, and some of that and my knowledge of the DRC comes from friends who lived and worked there.

And so again, go to your earlier question.

about what gets into your book, all sorts of things, get into your book.

From probably yourself.

I'm drawn to other genres, the whole point with "Hidden Wounds" was to let the public understand what folks with PTSD go through.

And that was the principal there.

Although again, it's a strong woman, again, it's a woman warrior.

- Yeah.

So what's been your reaction to this book so far?

- Fairly good.

The one surprise was interest in India.

All of a sudden my sales in India, at least were going up before the last couple of months.

I'm not sure what they're doing now.

Overall, I'm reasonably content.

Obviously I'm one of these people that's never happy with that side of this stuff, but I would have to say really simply content.

- What's your advice, for someone who may be sitting down to write what they're going to think as a book for the first time?

- Oh, that, you know, when we were talking before we came on camera, that's a subject of several college courses.

It's very hard to answer in the short answer.

I think if you're just coming out of the blue and doing it for the first time, it's very difficult.

I have over 70 manuscripts which are hanging around in various...

They go from anywhere from 10 pages to 300 pages.

You need to know and need to learn about the technical aspects character building, where to put plot points, things like that in the story.

On the other hand, go with your feelings and just write.

And it's very easy to go back and reorganize the manuscript to hit the block points and so on.

- So if people want a copy of "Kimberly" where can they go?

- First of all to Amazon.com And Amazon gave me a webpage it's amazon.com/author/roberttchambers That'll get you to see my webpage, click on the cover you want, and that'll get you to a sales page.

Zandbroz here in Fargo Breckenridge, Expressions Floral and Red Door Art Gallery in Wahpeton.

- Okay, Robert, thanks for joining us today.

- Thank you very much.

- Stay tuned for more.

(bright upbeat music) - Bill Brien is a native American digital artists from Bismarck Inspired by his wife's battle with cancer Bill strives to share their story and his native heritage and inspire hope through art.

- [Bill] After we left mail and got back to the hotel room, we prayed and prayed.

We were lost.

We were at the end of our rope.

The wolf is a very emotional animal.

The howling wolf image represents how we felt at this point.

We were calling out for answers.

We were calling out for direction and guidance.

(gentle inspiring music) My name is Bill Brien.

I am a native American digital artist.

I got interested in art due to my wife.

She was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2014.

She did the surgery, the mastectomy, radiation, and chemo.

She got a clean bill of health, but then around late 2015, early 2016, the cancer had returned and the cancer spread.

I really wanted to share her story, I wanted to share what she was going through, and I didn't know how, I ended up Googling a free art app on my phone.

And I just figured I'd give it a try And I started doodling and I made something, I really enjoyed having at my fingertips my canvas and I stuck with digital arts since that moment.

I grew up around art.

My dad's an artist In a way my dad's own artwork has influenced me just later on in life.

As a native American artist, knowing that everything around us is alive and has meaning.

I love to incorporate that because culturally, we do believe there is a spirit that's dwelling within every living thing and capturing that in art to create a story that extends my own cultural background, whether it's Chippewa, Lakota, Dakota, or Matey, and sharing that with those who look at my artwork is what I try to achieve.

When I'm working on a piece that I've started, I get lost mentally, emotionally, spiritually.

There could be an hour that goes by and to me it only feels like five minutes.

The more a piece comes to completion.

I feel like it's another kind of chapter in my own life that I've completed.

The title that I choose for each piece has to have its own spirit, as well as just the piece.

Culturally as a native American, we passed on our knowledge through stories.

And so I believe that I'm doing that still with my art.

Every piece that I've created has a story that comes with it.

Passing on the knowledge of my own background is Lakota, Dakota, Chippewa.

It is in the weaknesses of both men and women.

where their true strength resides.

When and where one person is weak the others are strong, we do not have to be strong all the time.

That is a precious gift between husband and wife.

What I want people to take away from my art is the simple slogan of my company.

Hope through art.

The reason I started this company and I discovered art because of my wife, Jerry, is that there's always hope in the midst of suffering in the midst of trials and tribulations.

We all go through them, regardless if it's from a loved one, passing from cancer or any illness, or a sudden passing of a loved one, or even just the tragedy of losing a job.

As long as we have hope things will be okay.

The Bismarck Cancer center, was where my wife received radiation treatment.

In honor of my wife I donate part of my proceeds from all of my art sales to the Bismarck Cancer Center.

They in turn will give those donations out to families who are going through their own cancer journeys.

Every time that I'm doing art, I know that it still connects me with Jerry.

We spent quite a bit of time on the road, going to doctors appointments.

She always knew that things will be okay regardless of what was going on.

And I see my wife's hand guiding the art.

and the journey of this whole endeavor slowly but surely just guiding it along the way that drives to continue to do what I'm doing.

I am telling a story, stories do have an end, but the story of life doesn't.

So this is a small contribution that I'm doing for myself for remembering my wife.

and hopefully passing on the teachings of my own tribal background to those that view the art.

and buy the art.

(gentle serene music) Eagle flies high in the heavens, relying on the updrafts to stay aloft.

Even though they are flying high in the clouds, they still have the keenest vision of any bird, to see what is before it.

This colorful eagle, allows me to be a little closer to my wife, as I know the eagles soar close to the heaven.

- Well, that's all we have on Prairie Pulse this week, and as always, thanks for watching.

(bright upbeat music) - [Announcer] Funded by the North Dakota Council on the Arts.

and by the members of Prairie Public.