February Meeting: Panel Discussion "Writing a Reality Novel"

Author Stephen Maitland-Lewis had a long career as an attorney and investment banker before turning to writing. An award-winning author, he is a member of the Executive Advisory Committee of the International Mystery Writer’s Festival. Pulling from his vast industry experience he has crafted a startlingly realistic, yet interesting, story of greed, lust, and corruption set in the world of high finance.

Fans of the film Wall Street will recognize the basic theme, but Ambition brings it to the next level. In fact, the first three pages are packed with glowing testimonials from luminaries in a variety of different fields, including bestselling author Kitty Kelley, former Orion Pictures President Bill Bernstein, and former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan. 

Stephen Maitland-Lewis is an award-winning author, a British attorney, and a former international investment banker. He held senior positions in the City of London, Kuwait, and on Wall Street before moving to California in 1991. He owned a luxury hotel and a world-renowned restaurant and was also the Director of Marketing of a Los Angeles daily newspaper. Maitland-Lewis is a jazz aficionado and Board Trustee of The Louis Armstrong House Museum in New York. A member of PEN and The Authors Guild, Maitland‑Lewis is also on the Executive Advisory Committee of the International Mystery Writer’s Festival.

His first novel, Hero on Three Continents, received numerous accolades. His second novel, Emeralds Never Fade, is the 2012 Benjamin Franklin Award winner in the category of Historical Fiction and the 2011 Written Arts Award winner for Best Fiction. Maitland‑Lewis and his wife, Joni Berry, reside in Beverly Hills, California and in their home in the French Quarter, New Orleans.

America is under assault. Cyberterrorist strikes plunge northern California into darkness. Cellular and Internet communications are silenced, with financial and air traffic control systems threatened to follow. 

Rushed in by Homeland Security to prevent further attacks, network security entrepreneur Kirsten Lockhart conceives a daring plan she feels offers the only chance to stop the terrorists. Securing the help of a computer genius being pursued by the CIA, Kirsten races to implement her risky plan to turn the terrorists' own weapons against them. She quickly finds herself pursued not only by the terrorists but by powerful forces in the U.S. government who for their own reasons want the cyberattacks to continue. With a story that springs from today's headlines, James McFarlin's new thriller AFTERSHOCK takes you on an electrifying journey where soaring political ambition and military overreach propel the nation toward global conflict where few, if any, winners will emerge.

Jim speaks and writes on the subject of cyber threats facing the United States.  A former Air Force officer, he spent his career in computer technology and served as CEO of two high-tech firms in Silicon Valley.  He is a member of the Cybersecurity Technology Forum, is active in major national cybersecurity events and was a recent participant in The Economist debate series on cyberwarfare.

His online journal, www.CyberWarfareToday.com, analyzes and comments on trends in global cybersecurity.  He has authored two novels.  The most recent, AFTERSHOCK: A Novel, was published in 2013 and is enjoying popular wide reception.  An avid tennis player, Jim resides in Rancho Mirage, CA with his wife Maureen.  He is serving his third term as president of the Palm Springs Writers Guild.

A native of Ord, Nebraska, Jim moved to Oregon, and then to Alaska in 1974.  He worked as a schoolteacher, journalist, roughneck, mink rancher, truck driver, logger, and real estate broker. 

During his real estate career he authored four books on the subject, two by NY publishers two self published, and wrote numerous articles for various national real estate magazines of the time.

 Jim wrote two novels in 1957 that did not see the light of day but the bug, planted during creative writing courses in college and work as a feature writer on a newspaper, was in him. In 2005 he self published a novel entitled FOR WHAT HE COULD BECOME. That book has sold 2,700 copies. There are 300 copies in his garage.

In 2007, he self published THE MOST EXPENSIVE MISTRESS IN JEFFERSON COUNTY. That book has sold 2,000 copies and took second place in the nation for fiction from Independent Presses. There are 1,000 copies in his garage.      

His third novel, THE CUT OF PRIDE was accepted by a literary agent in NY for representation but after six months of rejections he self-published it. He now hopes that like Pat Conroy and Mark Twain, his self-publishing period is over and his fourth novel AS ALL MY FATHERS WERE, will be sold to the highest bidder in New York. 

 Jim and his wife, Patti, live in Anchorage, Alaska in the summer and California in the winter.