Parents Write

The Dead Guy rules!

2009-05-29T21:38:00.001-04:00

Yes, The Dead Guy is now an award winning novel.

The Reviews Are In

2009-03-28T14:50:00.002-04:00

Here are some reviews on The Dead Guy:

From BCF Book Reviews:
The car on the front cover says it all: “The Dead Guy” is a fast-paced action thriller, throwing you roughly in the passenger seat of Jack Thigpen’s Explorer and speeding you on a timed race around Detroit. Feeling a bit like Gone In Sixty Seconds with just a dash of Tarantino, this quirky yet serious novel will even make you laugh out loud, as it tracks down a crime ring that gets deeper and larger by the mile. Crafted with knowledge and detail that gives the novel immense realism, absolutely anything seems possible.

From The Book Connection:

This book is a roller coaster ride of action, intrigue, and mystery. Just when you think Jack has it figured out, something throws a monkey wrench into his theory and things are no longer as they seem. The reader will unconciously be biting off fingernails as he follows Jack from car dealerships to body shops to riverboats.

If this book hasn't won any awards yet, it should!

Riveting, intense, and action-packed, The Dead Guy by Doug Hewitt keeps you hanging on the edge of your seat and turning the pages.

Ecology Scholarship

2009-02-09T22:10:00.001-05:00

Today's scholarship link is related to those who care about the environment.

The Sufrider Foundation Scholarship is sponsored by the Surfrider Foundation, a grassroots, non-profit, environmental organization that works to protect our oceans, waves, and beaches. The award is a merit-based scholarship offering financial aid to undergraduate, masters and PhD-pursuing students. Prizes include one $2,000, one $3,000 and one $5,000 award. Surfs up: it’s time to save the waters and our pocketbooks.

Check out the Surfrider Foundation Scholarship!

Now, let's go hang ten!

For more scholarships, links to scholarship search engines, and tactics to winning scholarships by writing eye-catching essays, check out our eBook, Free College Funds, available at www.FreeFundsForCollege.com/

Doug and Robin Hewitt
authors of Free College Funds, available at:
www.FreeFundsForCollege.com

Another SPACE scholarship

2009-02-08T21:03:00.000-05:00

Today's scholarship link is again for students interested in space. It's from the same folks as the last scholarship we posted, the Spaacse Scholarships (no, not misspelled!).

The George R. Faenza scholarship awards money and a Washington D.C. trip to the student who best answers, "Why Does the United States Need Space Exploration?"

SPAACSE Scholarships
http://www.spaacse.org/spaacsescholarhs.html

Now, let's go explore some space!

For more scholarships, links to scholarship search engines, and tactics to winning scholarships by writing eye-catching essays, check out our eBook, Free College Funds, available at www.FreeFundsForCollege.com/

Doug and Robin Hewitt
authors of Free College Funds, available at:
www.FreeFundsForCollege.com

Out Of This World Scholarship

2009-02-06T20:13:00.001-05:00

Today's scholarship link is students interested in space. No, it's not just for astronaut wannabes. This scholarship is from the Spaacse Scholarships (no, not misspelled!).

For any student who draws or paints (i.e., 2D artwork), consider a work of art that expresses the beauty and inspiration of the universe. This scholarship is for you!

SPAACSE Scholarships

The Liliane Web scholarship awards financial aid to students who submit an exemplary piece of 2D artwork expressing the beauty and inspiration of the universe

Now, let's go draw some stars.

For more scholarships, links to scholarship search engines, and tactics to winning scholarships by writing eye-catching essays, check out our eBook, Free College Funds, available at www.FreeFundsForCollege.com/.

Doug and Robin Hewitt
authors of Free College Funds, available at:
www.FreeFundsForCollege.com

Free College Funds presents the wienermobile!

2009-02-05T19:25:00.001-05:00

Today's scholarship link is a goodie! We're here to help you find free college funds and scholarships to go to college for free. We have a great list of scholarship search engines in our eBook Free College Funds, which will help you get college funding and go to college for free. Check out www.FreeFundsForCollege.com.
In the meantime, want to ride in the Oscar Meyer weinermobile? There's a scholarship involved. It's put forth by the National Beef Ambassador Program (NBAP). Check out the National Beef Ambassador Program.

Now, let's go have a hot dog.

Doug and Robin Hewitt
authors of Free College Funds, available at:
www.FreeFundsForCollege.com

Today's Scholarship from Free Funds For College

2009-02-04T19:22:00.002-05:00

We're continuing our blitz to help people find scholarships! In addition to finding scholarship search engines, our eBook Free College Funds will help you get college funding and go to college for free. Check out www.FreeFundsForCollege.com.
In the meantime, today's scholarship is for people who skateboard. Wow!
Applications are due on April 15!

Patrick Kerr Skateboard Scholarship

And you thought skateboarding was just for fun!

Doug and Robin Hewitt
authors of Free College Funds, available at:
www.FreeFundsForCollege.com

Marbles, Anyone?

2009-02-03T19:06:00.001-05:00

We're going on a blitz to help people find scholarships! In addition to finding scholarship search engines, our eBook Free College Funds will help you get college funding and go to college for free. Check out www.FreeFundsForCollege.com.
In the meantime, how's this for a scholarship?

National Marbles Tournament Inc.
Tournament is June 21- 25, 2009

Visit:
www.nationalmarblestournament.org/

And you thought playing marbles was just a game!

Doug and Robin Hewitt
authors of Free College Funds, available at:
www.FreeFundsForCollege.com

Going Back To School

2009-02-02T21:28:00.002-05:00

We just want to make a suggestion for adults to consider going back to school in these troubled times. Maybe take some classes at a community college. It never hurts to have extra job skills, especially nowadays! Why not look up the courses at a community college near you and see what's new. You might be surprised at the expanded curriculum!

Doug and Robin Hewitt
authors of Free College Funds, available at www.FreeFundsForCollege.com
your source of scholarships and scholarship search engines

Free Funds For College

2009-01-31T15:01:00.003-05:00

Everyone should have their tax information by now. Filing the FAFSA, Free Application for Federal Student Aid, asks a lot of financial questions regarding the parents income. Many of the answers can come directly from tax filings, so we believe it's advantageous to fill out your 1040s. You can wait to file them, of course, but now you have the answers at hand for the FAFSA.

We welcome everyone to take a look at our eBook - Free College Funds, which is available at www.FreeFundsForCollege.com. It's a great eBook and will pay for itself with the scholarships you can find with it. Learn how to get scholarships, enter data into scholarship search engines, and write great essays on those scholarship applications!

Check out www.FreeFundsForCollege.com!

It's Time To Start Searching For College Scholarships

2009-01-24T21:44:00.003-05:00

For all of you parents out there who are looking at college acceptance letters for your high school senior children, it's late, but not too late, to kick it into high gear and start applying for free college scholarship money.

We've got a great eBook that will help you with your search. It's all about getting free funds for college. It has links to scholarship search engines. And one of the highlights is that there are a succession of FAFSA online application screenshots. The FAFSA application is Step 1 in any college scholarship search, and many parents stumble on it. Or, it's so intimidating, that parents put it off. Well, our eBook, titled Free College Funds, is the answer for you!

Check out the website Free Funds For College and pick up a copy today!

Free College Funds eBook

2009-01-18T22:35:00.002-05:00

Robin and I have written a new eBook titled:
Free College Funds - The High School Guide.

It's meant to help parents and teens (and adult students!) find free college funding sources. It's full of great advice and links to scholarship search engines.

For more information, check out:
Free Funds For College

See you at school!

Free College Money, Scholarship Search Engines, Scholarship Money, Free Tuition, College Grants, Free College Funds, College Funds, Go To College For Free, Find Scholarships Grants

Social Networks

2009-01-18T21:24:00.007-05:00

Another author asked me where I have social networks. Other than MySpace, here are the URLs where I have set up a Doug Hewitt mystery author site.

http://twohewitts.blogspot.com
http://crimespace.ning.com/profile/DougHewitt
http://morganmandelbooks.ning.com/profile/DougHewitt
http://bookmarket.ning.com/profile/DougHewitt
http://www.communati.com/dhewitt29

I don't know if these social network sites will help sell more copies of The Dead Guy, but I will say they've been fun to hang out at. And there are a lot of nice people there (virtually speaking, of course).

Let me know if anyone has an idea of more networks that help with book promotion. Sharing is a good thing!

Happy promoting!

~Doug Hewitt

The Dead Guy, New Mystery Novel, Doug Hewitt, mystery novel, mystery book, crime novel, murder mystery, mystery author, good mystery read

Parents Write Goes Sleuthing

2009-01-16T22:56:00.002-05:00

Robin and I are heading to the Sleuthfest convention next month!

This is a convention for mystery writers. And so, because my latest novel, The Dead Guy, is a mystery novel, we figured we'd go! Plus, it will be in February and held in Florida. That's a good reason to go, too!

We would like to invite anyone who is going to look us up!

See you in Florida!

Doug and Robin

Parents And The Holidays

2009-01-03T14:35:00.003-05:00

The holiday season can be a stressful time. This is due, in large part, to expectations. It's so difficult to meet everyone's expectations, which can often be inflated because of how we think the holiday season should be.

Sometimes we think that just getting through the holiday season with no major catastrophe is a major accomplishment.

But the warmth and good feelings are there. We know they are. We hope everyone took the time to appreciate the good things about this holiday season.

Doug and Robin
www.HewittsBooks.com
See Doug's Funny Spuds Video Trailer for The Dead Guy

New Book Trailer Arrives!

2008-12-27T00:09:00.003-05:00

This is a funny video book trailer. Okay, we're biased, but we think it's one of the funniest ever produced.

What other book trailers have Mr. Potato Heads reenacting a murder scene?

In this video, they do! It's a scene from Doug's novel The Dead Guy.

Here's the link.

Spuds Reenact The Dead Guy Link

The Latest Scoop

2008-12-14T22:50:00.002-05:00

Okay, a brief post on the latest news.

Doug has his mystery novel, The Dead Guy, published.

You can view the video trailer here: View Video Trailer.

And you can view the first chapter in PDF form at our home webpage:
HewittsBooks

Happy Holidays to all!

Doug and Robin

New Direction

2008-12-06T00:06:00.000-05:00

Doug is having his novel The Dead Guy published on December 15 by Aberdeen Bay, so that really puts a crimp on time for blogging.

Check out www.HewittsBooks.com for the latest details. There's a free chapter available for viewing at The Dead Guy webpage at the HewittsBooks.com website. Check it out. It's free.

Parents Day at College

2008-10-14T23:25:00.002-04:00

Robin and Doug are going to visit their son David during Parents Day at the college at which he's a freshman.

David is in the marching band. Although Doug is an avid football fan (having played in college at Kalamazoo College), Robin is not. But they are both eager to see the marching band performance at halftime.

A student's freshman year at college is tenuous. Dropout rates are highest during the freshman year. When parents take the time to visit their children at college, even if it's only once or twice during their freshman year, it speaks volume to the young college student. It's a clear sign of support. So, check out when Parents Day is and visit your children attending college.

Be Careful What You Ask For

2008-10-11T23:14:00.003-04:00

We're writers. We like to write. We dream of selling books and signing publishing contracts. So, with two book contracts in one week, you'd think we're on Cloud 9. Well, we are, but that doesn't mean we're feeling maximum overload. Think about it. Doug has just sold his first mystery novel, The Dead Guy, to a wonderful new publisher, Aberdeen Bay Publishing. As the writing team of Doug and Robin, we've contracted for a book about college funding, based on the fact that we have five children in higher education and we're not paying a dime and neither are our kids!

But be careful what you ask for. The deadline for Doug's rewrite (and there is a request from the publishing company for a revision) is about three weeks. But at least it's a completed manuscript. For the scholarship book, we have plenty of notes, but other than that, we're starting from scratch. And we have a deadline of a couple of months on that. Yikes. We love to write and we've dreamed of having these opportunities, but for the moment time is stretching us so thin that we're becoming translucent. And don't even ask us about the transparencies nightmares.

Just kidding.

We're having a good time. Expect more updates soon.

Doug and Robin
www.HewittsBooks.com

A Parent's and Grandparent's Greatest Gift

2008-10-03T20:11:00.002-04:00

We were watching a new show the other day. It was called Huckabee, and of course the show featured the former Arkansas governor, Mike Huckabee. During the show, Mike Huckabee took questions from the audience. A father-to-be asked for advice on how to be a good parent. After a bit of stumbling, Mike Huckabee hit it on the head. The greatest gift you can give, he said, is your time. Never forget that.

We agree.

Free College Money

2008-09-22T21:36:00.003-04:00

After writing The Joyous Gift of Grandparenting, we decided to write something we believe many parents have a great need for. And that is? Free college money, of course. We realized that sending 5 children to college and other institutions of higher education for virtually free, that we have a plan, a set of techniques, that would be beneficial to other parents looking to save money on sending children to college. We believe we have a publisher, and we're going to angle to have this book published as soon as possible, probably in the spring of 2010. Actually, that's about as fast as it gets in the publishing world. We're excited about this book, and we'll provide updates as often as possible.

Summer Vacation

2008-08-24T11:48:00.004-04:00

We're back from vacation. Carolina Beach is a wonderful getaway, and the beaches are excellent. That is, not crowded, beautiful sand, and a fishing pier. Of course, we took our grandkids. The highlights were teaching them to surf. Not that we can do it, but we at least know the theory of successful surfing. And we met with success! Just think of the wonderful memories our grandchildren will have as they go through life, thinking back to the summer they spent with the grandparents, learning how to surf. (By the way, we made sure they wore personal flotation devices (PFDs), formerly known as life preservers.) For more great ideas on bonding with your grandchildren, be sure to look through our book The Joyous Gift of Grandparenting.

Summer Reading List

2008-07-08T20:09:00.003-04:00

We encourage our grandchildren to read books during the summer. A few weeks ago, we visited a bookstore with them and "helped" them pick out books. Actually, we let them pick out whatever they want, then we add a couple of our suggested reading titles. Doug is going to read Eragon this summer, along with our grandson Gavin. It'll be great for them to talk together about the book, discuss plot points, and enjoy the highlights together.

Here, then, are a few titles that should be on every grandchild's reading list, at some point or another during their upbringing.

The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet
Where the Wild Things Are
Eragon
Big Red

Of course, Newbery Award winning books are usually very good.

The most important thing is that the grandkids read. It'll give them a huge advantage in the coming school year, sure, but it also rounds them out as human beings.

Summer Travel Tip

2008-07-05T23:37:00.005-04:00

When going on vacation this summer, it's a good idea to plan for the unexpected.

Practice good safety routines. Always write the names of your grandchildren (actually, this applies to parents and their children as well), address, and several contact phone numbers on labels to place inside both shoes and backpacks. Write down medical insurance information on tags that they have with them. This could save vital time if you have the information handy when a medical situation involving the grandkids arises.