News
March 8, 2023Life Lessons for Children and Adults – An Authors Roundtable
Admission to the event will be $20 and will include one book from an author, and portions of the proceeds of the event will be donated to CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocate) of New York State, and Albany Medical Center Neonatal Intensive Care Unit to purchase blankets for babies. Discover Saratoga will also be providing special discount coupons for visitors to enjoy area businesses in the community. There are no advance sales for the event. Cash and credit will be accepted at the entrance. The event is hosted by The Eric Idea Agency, a public relations and events firm. After the discussion, the authors will be available for signings and discussions.
The moderator of the event is Subrina Dhammi, News Anchor at WNYT-TV NewsChannel 13. The authors are Sean Martin, who wrote Dear Liam & Noah, Letters from Daddy, and Roger Saillant, who wrote The Power of Being Seen. Mr. Martin is a prominent local freelance feature writer and sportswriter. Mr. Saillant rose to a senior executive position in The Ford Motor Company, served as CEO of Plug Power, became a college professor, and has co-authored two other books.
Dear Liam & Noah, Letters from Daddy
It has become common for people to look back and write letters to their younger selves based on their life experiences. Well, instead of writing a letter to his teenage self, this 55-year-old dad, married at 42 and a first-time father at 50, created a book of letters to his four-year old twin boys describing his life experiences. His life has had a series of ups and downs, many of the downs self-inflicted but many of the ups resulting from learning and growing from his mistakes. Along the journey that featured loneliness and sadness for the majority of his first three decades of life, he met the person affectionately known as “Mama” when he was 40, just months after he decided to finally change his outlook on the world and change the behaviors that had held him back from fulfilling his potential both personally and professionally. Their journey to becoming parents took them down a whole new path, one of dealing with years of fertility issues and set the bar high on the topics of determination, perseverance, education, and the importance of never, ever, giving up. He set out to create a project that taps into the most common aspects of life in our society and how his experiences related to everyday circumstances in hopes that if Liam and Noah are ever in a similar situation, they have either a good lesson to learn from their Daddy’s successes or can gain knowledge from one of his failures.
The Power of Being Seen
Set in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, this 50s era memoir is filled with the timeless emotions of a child growing up seeking normalcy under circumstances which are not. He feels the pain of being unseen but is coached by his older foster brother to be secretive about his situation. Caring adults, mostly teachers, peel back his facade, see him, and guide him away from despair toward a promising future. Saillant tells his story calmly, succinctly and convincingly, which allows the readers to sense his feelings of pain, anguish, and uncertainty. He has skillfully punctuated his telling with moments of humor typical of most growing boys learning about the world through trial and error. Readers will come away with a deeper understanding of life in rural Bucks County at a time when farms were small, hand labor was intense, and draft animals were still in use. They will also gain an appreciation for the foster care system and how it worked to assist subsistence farmers meet their needs in those times. And hopefully, they will see the benefits to all when others are seen and what a powerful force really “seeing and hearing” others can be for all of society.
