S6-EP9: Doug Crowe on Stories That Do More Than Sit on a Shelf

What does it mean to leave something behind that truly lasts?
In this deeply uplifting episode of Spirit Talk Show: Bedtime Stories for Grown-Ups, Doyle and producer Howie welcome author, speaker, and podcaster Dom Brightmon, a self-described Positive Thought Catalyst whose life’s work centers on one powerful idea: advance others so they can advance themselves.
From becoming the youngest Area Director in Toastmasters at just 23, to writing bestselling books like Going North and Stay the Course, to hosting over 1,000 conversations with authors and leaders on the Going North Podcast, Dom’s journey is a masterclass in intentional growth, mentorship, and joyful leadership.
This episode drifts effortlessly between laughter, insight, and imagination. Together, the trio explores:
How mentorship can accelerate a life
Why libraries are sacred community spaces in a digital world
What it means to create your own “piece of immortality” through words and ideas
How humor, hydration, and preparation can quietly transform your days
And why acknowledging strangers might be one of the most powerful acts we have
As always, Spirit Talk Show weaves in a signature tribute story, a spoken-word poem, and an original narrative—turning conversation into something closer to a shared fireside moment. What emerges is not just an interview, but a reminder that leadership doesn’t have to be loud, success doesn’t have to be lonely, and positivity—when practiced daily—can ripple farther than we ever expect.
Settle in. Listen closely.This is a story about connection, courage, and the quiet work of lighting the way for others.
Spirit Talk Show: now go tell a story worth telling.
Spirit Talk Show – Bedtime Stories for Grown-UpsHosted by Doyle Follow Spirit Talk Show on social media:Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/spirittalkshowInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/doylespirittalkshow/X: https://x.com/doylespirittalk Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/spirittalkshow www.spirittalkshow.info  If this episode resonated with you, please subscribe, rate, and share it with someone who might need it.

What if success as a writer isn’t measured in bestseller lists—but in persistence, purpose, and showing up anyway?
In this deeply grounding episode of Spirit Talk Show: Bedtime Stories for Grown-Ups, Doyle is joined by Terry Whalin—editor, author, acquisitions professional, and publishing mentor whose decades-long career has helped thousands of writers navigate the often confusing, myth-filled world of publishing.
With more than 60 books written, contributions to over 50 magazines, and years spent on both sides of the editorial desk, Terry brings rare clarity to questions writers quietly struggle with:Why isn’t my book selling?What am I doing wrong?Is it even worth continuing?
The conversation centers around Terry’s acclaimed book 10 Publishing Myths: Insights Every Author Needs to Succeed, unpacking the beliefs that most often derail writers—like expecting publishers to do all the marketing, assuming books are instant income machines, or believing you’re not a “real writer” until a book is published.
But this episode goes beyond advice.
Terry shares:
Why most books don’t fail—expectations do
How rejection becomes survivable (and even useful)
The overlooked power of magazine writing and steady visibility
What it really means to take 100% responsibility for your creative life
Why consistency beats talent more often than we want to admit
He also reflects on the moment that changed his life entirely: a single book read in college that redirected his future, leading him through years of global work, service, and eventually back to writing—with deeper purpose.
As always on Spirit Talk Show, the conversation blends practical wisdom with reflective storytelling. A short tribute story and poem honor Terry’s role not as a gatekeeper, but as a steady guide—someone who holds the mirror for writers when doubt creeps in and reminds them that the work still matters.
This episode is a quiet reassurance for anyone who’s ever stared at a blank page, a rejection email, or an unfinished manuscript and wondered if they should stop.
You shouldn’t.And Terry Whalin explains why.
Spirit Talk Show – Bedtime Stories for Grown-UpsHosted by Doyle Follow Spirit Talk Show on social media:Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/spirittalkshowInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/doylespirittalkshow/X: https://x.com/doylespirittalk Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/spirittalkshow www.spirittalkshow.info  If this episode resonated with you, please subscribe, rate, and share it with someone who might need it.

Some stories entertain.Others quietly keep us alive.
In this powerful and deeply human episode of Spirit Talk Show: Bedtime Stories for Grown-Ups, Doyle is joined by Richard Spiegel, a prolific fantasy and dark speculative fiction author whose work lives at the intersection of imagination, trauma, love, and resilience.
Richard is the author of five published novels—with many more already written—and the creator of expansive story worlds including the Wolves and Ravens trilogy and the ongoing Eternal Nights saga. His writing blends fantasy, paranormal elements, romance, and psychological realism, not as escape, but as a way to understand what it means to survive.
This conversation moves far beyond craft talk.
Richard speaks candidly about:
Writing as a form of emotional containment and release
Living so deeply inside fictional worlds that they rival reality
Military service, medical retirement, and the unseen cost of sacrifice
Why fantasy isn’t the opposite of truth—but one of its most honest languages
Creating characters who endure trauma, break, recover, and keep going
He describes himself less as an author and more as a correspondent—someone recording events as they unfold in worlds that feel fully real to him. That intensity allows him to write full novels in weeks, but it also carries a cost, requiring constant grounding, support from his wife, and an ongoing negotiation between imagination and everyday life.
The episode includes:
A moving tribute story honoring Richard’s work and its emotional impact
A poem inspired by his fiction and the spaces it creates for readers
A live excerpt from Broken Angel, the harrowing conclusion to Wolves and Ravens, exploring sacrifice, love, and irreversible choice
Together, the hosts and Richard reflect on why readers binge his books, why he avoids filler and spectacle, and why he believes the most important stories leave room for the reader’s own imagination to do part of the work.
At its heart, this episode is about storytelling as resilience—about how imagined worlds help us process real pain, how darkness can be approached with care instead of fear, and how fiction can become rehearsal for being human.
These are not stories that distract you from life.They sit beside you in it.
Spirit Talk Show – Bedtime Stories for Grown-UpsHosted by Doyle Follow Spirit Talk Show on social media:Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/spirittalkshowInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/doylespirittalkshow/X: https://x.com/doylespirittalk Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/spirittalkshow www.spirittalkshow.info  If this episode resonated with you, please subscribe, rate, and share it with someone who might need it.

What happens when you stop chasing spectacle—and start chasing truth?
In this richly layered episode of Spirit Talk Show: Bedtime Stories for Grown-Ups, Doyle sits down with Sacramento filmmaker, actor, musician, and creative instigator Sean Kilcoyne for an evening that drifts effortlessly between laughter, philosophy, memory, and imagination.
Sean is the kind of storyteller who builds entire worlds from small rooms: public-access studios, festival-bound short films, late-night scripts, and borrowed light. From Chowder Heart and Family to Regional Treasures: Digging for Freedom, his work reminds us that storytelling doesn’t need million-dollar budgets—just heart, curiosity, and the courage to believe small stories matter.
Together, Doyle and Sean explore:
The hidden magic of Sacramento’s scrappy creative scene
Making short films as acts of faith rather than commerce
Family as collaborators, anchors, and co-creators
Why comedy, sincerity, and rebellion often live in the same breath
The episode unfolds as something more than an interview. Through live readings of AI-inspired plays, poems, and surreal short scenes—a vending machine that knows too much, strangers bonded by a shared dream in a DMV line, a lost-and-found desk that returns forgotten moments—Sean steps fully into the act of storytelling, revealing how art becomes a mirror rather than a mask.
There are detours into music, mysticism, aging, parenthood, creative burnout, ethical dilemmas in art, and the quiet ache of the roads we didn’t take. There’s laughter, awkwardness, sincerity, and the sense that something real is happening in the room.
At its core, this episode is about one essential truth:Storytelling is connection.And sometimes the most honest stories don’t live in Hollywood—they live right here, told by people who keep showing up with a camera, a question, and a contagious laugh.
Settle in.Dim the lights if you feel like it.You’re not just listening to a story tonight—you’re stepping into one.
Spirit Talk Show – Bedtime Stories for Grown-UpsHosted by Doyle Follow Spirit Talk Show on social media:Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/spirittalkshowInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/doylespirittalkshow/X: https://x.com/doylespirittalk Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/spirittalkshow www.spirittalkshow.info  If this episode resonated with you, please subscribe, rate, and share it with someone who might need it.

Dantro and Pat risk everything as they slip into Marston’s palace through a hidden tunnel, searching desperately for Billy and Jane before it’s too late. Deep behind enemy lines, every step brings new danger. Meanwhile, across the galaxy, the League of Planets prepares for open war against Marston, setting the stage for a conflict that could determine the fate of multiple worlds. Tension rises on all fronts in this suspenseful chapter of The Planet Man.
Spirit Talk Show – Bedtime Stories for Grown-UpsHosted by Doyle Follow Spirit Talk Show on social media:Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/spirittalkshowInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/doylespirittalkshow/X: https://x.com/doylespirittalk Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/spirittalkshow www.spirittalkshow.info  If this episode resonated with you, please subscribe, rate, and share it with someone who might need it.

In this moving episode of Spirit Talk Show – Bedtime Stories for Grown Ups, Doyle sits down with writer, paraglider pilot, and rare cancer survivor Jonathan Hutton, author of Unflappable: Soaring Beyond Diagnosis.Jonathan’s journey begins with an unassuming runny nose that turned out to be a rare, incurable head and neck cancer. What followed was a 16-year odyssey through surgeries, treatments, loss, and rediscovery. Yet, amid the pain and rebuilding, Jonathan found new meaning—in the air. As a paraglider, he learned to trust the invisible, to find lift where others saw only gravity, and to write about life not as triumph, but as motion.Doyle and Jonathan talk candidly about illness, identity, faith, and the courage to keep rising when control is gone. Together, they explore how writing can become an act of flight and how healing isn’t about being cured—it’s about learning to live inside a body that has been remade.Listen for:How Jonathan found freedom and creativity through paraglidingWhat it means to “fly afraid” and write honestly about survivalThe role of faith, fear, and humor in facing mortalityA powerful tribute story and poem celebrating Jonathan’s resilienceUnflappable is available now at unflappable.press and on Amazon.“Life isn’t about escaping gravity—it’s about learning how to dance with it.”
Spirit Talk Show – Bedtime Stories for Grown-UpsHosted by Doyle Follow Spirit Talk Show on social media:Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/spirittalkshowInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/doylespirittalkshow/X: https://x.com/doylespirittalk Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/spirittalkshow www.spirittalkshow.info  If this episode resonated with you, please subscribe, rate, and share it with someone who might need it.

The war escalates beyond Earth as Dantro takes the fight into space itself. With Martian forces pressing their advantage, the Planet Man and his allies engage in a high-stakes confrontation among the stars. As ships collide and strategies are tested, courage and ingenuity become Earth’s last defense. Victory is uncertain, danger is everywhere, and the future of two worlds hangs in the balance in this pulse-pounding chapter of The Planet Man.
Spirit Talk Show – Bedtime Stories for Grown-UpsHosted by Doyle Follow Spirit Talk Show on social media:Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/spirittalkshowInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/doylespirittalkshow/X: https://x.com/doylespirittalk Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/spirittalkshow www.spirittalkshow.info  If this episode resonated with you, please subscribe, rate, and share it with someone who might need it.

Author, adventurer, and lifelong dreamer Alison Gieschen—known as the nautical novelist—shares her remarkable story of courage, creativity, and reinvention.After three decades running an equestrian program, Alison and her husband sold everything to pursue a dream many only imagine: circumnavigating the globe on a 43-foot sailboat. Their voyage has taken them through 46 countries, across the Panama Canal, and into the heart of what it means to live freely and fully.From terrifying storms and miraculous rescues to the quiet awe of Polynesian sunsets and island friendships, Alison transforms every experience into art. Her works—Blue Ridge, Riding the Waves of Reality, The Legend of Altor, Julie’s Vaulting Dream, The Seven, and her forthcoming Sienna: A Mermaid’s Tale—weave myth, truth, and the spirit of adventure.Discover more about Alison’s writing, voyages, and creative journey at alisongieschen.com
Spirit Talk Show – Bedtime Stories for Grown-UpsHosted by Doyle Follow Spirit Talk Show on social media:Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/spirittalkshowInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/doylespirittalkshow/X: https://x.com/doylespirittalk Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/spirittalkshow www.spirittalkshow.info  If this episode resonated with you, please subscribe, rate, and share it with someone who might need it.