Michael’s Blog

Dear friends,

Just back from Kansas, where this journey really began.

It was at my alma mater, Washburn University of Topeka, where I first heard about Viktor Frankl. The week of May 11, 2009, I went back to share my book on Dr. Frankl with four audiences: at a retirement home in Manhattan (where we raised money for Project Rescue of Amazon Youth), Topeka Downtown Rotary, Topeka South Rotary (my old club) and a wet and wonderful audience at the Topeka Public Library the stormy evening of Friday May 15.

I found in Kansas what I’ve learned in Georgia: that people are hungry for Viktor Frankl’s message of hope and loving life.

I was privileged to see many old friends in Kansas, including Julie Riphahn — whose inscription in her daughter Anna’s book that said ”Love life - Julie” has inspired me, as well as audiences whom I tell Anna’s brief story to.

I feel this journey taking on a life of its own. People ask me where I’m going next. Other than the World Congress of Logotherapy in Dallas in June 2009, I don’t know. I think that’s up to powers greater than me.

But I see the need for this message everywhere I go. And I am overwhelmed and so very grateful for the response from those who’ve read The Last Freedom.

A special thanks to my friends who did so much for me on my trip to Kansas: Lynn Hinkle, Claudette Sands, Denise Walsh, my Rotary friends such as Jeff Gabriel and Scott Hesse — and my fellow “Frankl Society of Topeka” members Jim McHenry, Maria Russo and Roger Aeschliman. Thank you all so very much. You define friendship!

And you help give my life meaning.

Michael
Sunday May 17, 2009

What an adventure it’s been since The Last Freedom came out in early December!

My first event was a card table set up outside the new restaurant Casablanca (how ironic, since it’s my character’s favorite movie!) during the Christmas-themed First Friday celebration in Augusta, Ga. Sold five or six. The next day, did the card table thing at the Saturday market downtown. Sold another handful.

Since then, it’s been a whirlwind.

We had two pre-Christmas book signings at the small but sincere Book Tavern downtown, and we rocked the joint. Another at Barnes and Noble Feb. 21. And a growing number of speaking engagements around town. And the books are flying off the shelves at the Book Tavern, the only store where the book is readily available.

Word of mouth has been unreal. And the reaction to The Last Freedom has been overwhelming and so very humbling. So many people have said they couldn’t put it down, and that it really moved them. I even got a call from Mrs. Frankl in Vienna!

It’s going to be a wild spring. The World Tour is headed for Kansas, and perhaps Alabama and Texas and Florida and beyond. Since we’re doing all this ourselves, without the help of a major publisher, it’s going to take time. But this will be a world tour.

We gotta get some T-shirts!

Thank you to all my friends and supporters who have already made The Last Freedom a success. We’ve endured the burning. Now it’s time to give off light!

Michael
Sunday, March 8, 2009

Welcome to my first-ever blog. I’ve written tens of thousands of editorials and newspaper articles, and now I’ve written a book, The Last Freedom. But this is my first-ever blog entry. I feel like a 10-year-old test-driving a Jaguar. You have to know both how to drive it and where to take it.

OMG! I’ve got 2, like, BTW, write like this? Will this go out into space, like, forever? Will some alien civilization see this and turn back, perhaps saving the Earth from total destruction or enslavement?

Whatever. Actually, I know where I want to test-drive this blog. I plan to use it to tell stories about my incredible, unlikely journey that took me from Topeka, Kansas, to Vienna and to the teachings of Viktor Frankl. And to invite you to tell me your stories.

I wrote this book because so many people know about Viktor Frankl — people have come to my talks on him with his Man’s Search for Meaning in hand — but so many people do not know of him. He was not a self-promoter, and his message about finding meaning in life’s moments isn’t as sexy as Freud’s, and then Dr. Frankl died in-between Mother Teresa and Princess Di.

I wrote it in novel form to make the jump to the entertainment media. To see Viktor Frankl’s name up in lights, and beneath it “…and time permitting, Frank Sinatra.”  (OK, I borrowed that joke from the movie Top Secret.)

Anyway, lots of wonderful things have happened along this journey, and I’ll share some of them in this little cubby of cyberspace. And I hope you other Frankl fans will do the same.

So, let me get the discussion started:

Hello. My name is Michael. And I’m a Franklphile.

More to come…

Michael 8/19/08