RedPubPod #035 “Hey, Y’all… Watch This!” with Dr. Garrett Hinshaw

[00:00:00] Hey, Yall Watch This with me.

[00:00:06] RedPubPod, RedPubPod, RedPubPod, RedPubPod

[00:00:13] Good morning, good afternoon and good evening out there in podcast land this is RedPubPod.

[00:00:21] I'm Robert Knip here with Patty Thompson, an executive director Richard Eller and we

[00:00:26] have a special guest today, the big Kuhuna.

[00:00:30] It's a big doll.

[00:00:31] The top man Garrett D. Hinshaw is in the house.

[00:00:36] Let's hear it.

[00:00:40] Dr. Hinshaw, welcome.

[00:00:42] Thank you very much.

[00:00:43] It's so great for you all to have me in and looking forward to having a good conversation

[00:00:48] with you guys today.

[00:00:49] I'm going to turn the tables on this a little bit and let you quiz us.

[00:00:55] Perfect because I've got all kinds of questions I'd like to ask you.

[00:00:58] First of all, I want to hear how great Patty is.

[00:01:04] That's easy to do.

[00:01:07] She's our magic person.

[00:01:09] Yes, she's our serious leader.

[00:01:10] She's the one that keeps us all straight.

[00:01:12] She is.

[00:01:13] She has been honestly in all seriousness.

[00:01:15] She has been the system.

[00:01:18] This program needed.

[00:01:19] This whole initiative was just a real entrepreneurial idea that you all had and it's

[00:01:27] had such a great impact on our community.

[00:01:29] I'm so thankful for the work that you all do every day, but I'm going to grill you all

[00:01:33] today about some things that I think everybody needs to hear because there's a lot of

[00:01:38] questions about what Red Hall publication really is and what it does for this community.

[00:01:44] So I just like to hear about tell me about the mission and vision behind this initiative.

[00:01:50] I think our fearless leader should take that one.

[00:01:53] Okay, man.

[00:01:57] Actually, we think we're following the mission of the college and educating people.

[00:02:01] We don't always do it in classroom though.

[00:02:03] We get started that recently, but through our authors be it the ideas they come up with as

[00:02:10] poets or novelists or the research they do as historians or any other

[00:02:14] genre that they engage in.

[00:02:17] They are teaching our community, especially about us since this is a not a local

[00:02:24] publisher because we've published people all over the country.

[00:02:27] But as far as the mission of the college to instruct people, we just do it in a rather

[00:02:32] different way.

[00:02:34] Yeah, and I see those impacts when I talk with my trustees.

[00:02:38] They're hearing about the impact that you all have in the community.

[00:02:41] But what sets this publishing apart from others in the industry sector?

[00:02:48] Well, we're one of very few three in the country that are generated out of community

[00:02:54] college, right?

[00:02:54] As a literary press, not an academic press.

[00:02:57] That's colleges and universities and they have them go down and find one.

[00:03:01] But as far as literary press, open to public submissions.

[00:03:06] Yeah, we're one of three.

[00:03:08] And really, the entire thing was kind of modeled after your manufacturer and

[00:03:13] solution center.

[00:03:15] Richard and I were talking when we were working on the polio book about how, you know,

[00:03:20] book is a product and a book needs distribution and a book needs manufacturing.

[00:03:25] And you know, there needs to be work with the client to help the client promote the product.

[00:03:31] And you know, I'm looking at what you were doing at the manufacturer solution center with things

[00:03:34] like socks that delivered pharmaceuticals to people over time and helping people spend their grant money responsibly

[00:03:42] and get the most out of their money.

[00:03:43] And I thought, why can't we do that for art?

[00:03:46] Yeah, I think that's the entrepreneurial spirit behind this whole project.

[00:03:50] And it's my got so excited about it from again.

[00:03:53] I have supported it from the beginning.

[00:03:55] And we'll continue to do that because this is unique.

[00:03:58] I mean, it is not what people would normally think of a community college doing.

[00:04:03] But you all have taken it to the next level.

[00:04:05] What type of genres do you publish and how do you pick those projects that you're going

[00:04:11] to commit your time and energies and expertise into?

[00:04:15] Well, I'm the acquisitions editor.

[00:04:18] And by the way, I discovered that along my journey, I didn't know what I was until one day.

[00:04:22] I started Googling out this is what I am.

[00:04:24] I'm the person who 99% of the time gets the manuscripts, whether we've asked an author for

[00:04:31] more if they're coming on solicited.

[00:04:33] Once they come in, I send them to beta readers because I don't want to be the only person who

[00:04:38] makes that decision. That's not fair.

[00:04:40] I don't want to my biases to creep in.

[00:04:42] I have beta readers who read them.

[00:04:43] They send me notes.

[00:04:44] If the notes seem overwhelmingly good, I will do a little read.

[00:04:48] We discuss the marketability.

[00:04:50] You know, is it good?

[00:04:50] Great.

[00:04:51] But will itself?

[00:04:52] That's another story.

[00:04:53] And then if it's a bunch of green lights and the ss, then we enter into a contract.

[00:04:57] And we put the monopipeline of when we see the book eventually being published.

[00:05:02] If it doesn't get accepted, this is where being an educational institute and being unique comes in.

[00:05:08] If it's not accepted, but we see some merit.

[00:05:12] We will recommend that.

[00:05:13] You know what?

[00:05:14] Here's a short list of some editors.

[00:05:16] Do a little bit more work.

[00:05:17] It's impaired reviewers.

[00:05:19] And bring it back.

[00:05:20] And we've had several authors do that.

[00:05:22] And if it's really just not up to stuff and there's no marketability, I'm very kind when I say,

[00:05:30] I'm sorry at this time we can't do your book.

[00:05:33] And this outlook, this way of looking at poetry and history books,

[00:05:38] there's been on whole other industry grow in the last six or seven years.

[00:05:42] The herh company is out there who didn't exist.

[00:05:44] When we started this, who were now in existence doing editing work, doing developmental work for

[00:05:49] with our authors.

[00:05:51] We've come in contact with some very high-end editors, such as Ron Rache's Brother Tom Rache,

[00:06:00] who looks at all of Ron's stuff before it goes to publication,

[00:06:04] is working with some of the authors now and we're bringing in some of that stuff.

[00:06:08] But a lot of what we do is because it's people from our area.

[00:06:13] And it's subjects that we are interested in, that we feel like the rest of the area around here

[00:06:19] in the CVCC service area would be interested in these subjects.

[00:06:24] So we don't say no to a lot, but sometimes to our own shagrion because of the human capital

[00:06:29] it takes to manufacture the product and get it to market.

[00:06:34] We do have these cottage industries that have grown up.

[00:06:39] What's the name of me?

[00:06:40] It's kind of...

[00:06:41] I think the thinking about it, whatever advisory members is Maya Kersmaya.

[00:06:45] And she's got a small publishing company called Anonymous Authors.

[00:06:50] Yeah, so she does some ghost writing.

[00:06:51] She says editing, she does lay out, she's publishes.

[00:06:54] Now there's a fee for it and we don't charge.

[00:06:58] But I'll be honest with you, when there's somebody here that the book isn't quite our thing,

[00:07:04] I will send her our books that we've rejected.

[00:07:08] And she's been picking them up and I'm impressed.

[00:07:11] I mean, so in essence we're also helping a local small cottage industry.

[00:07:16] I was just helping it.

[00:07:17] And the other thing that we're doing is we're kind of piggybacking off of the college's main mission

[00:07:22] because when we have those authors that aren't quite ready or need some help this fall

[00:07:27] we've jumped into teaching the class on that subject.

[00:07:30] Yeah, yeah, I got to the point where you realize there are so many people coming from MacDow

[00:07:37] MacDow account, Burke, Lenore called well about five different counties were represented

[00:07:44] in the workshop that we just started last week and it was the first time.

[00:07:47] And I have a waiting list.

[00:07:49] I've got 11 people already signed up for January.

[00:07:52] So this is another way for us to help those authors that not quite there but you can see that they're

[00:07:57] committed and passionate about it.

[00:07:59] We have a very special program taught by one of our authors who's really targeting what

[00:08:05] they can do to make that work a better piece so that they can be submit or find another publisher.

[00:08:11] And run a Browning White the teacher instructor in the workshop is also an example of how this

[00:08:17] program and the college itself is kind of a magnet to people who've relocated here because

[00:08:23] Ronda and her husband, they came from Florida and the very first thing she heard about was

[00:08:30] this little small press that could. And she's on the phone with Patty and before you know

[00:08:36] that we've got a manuscript from her and there's a whole relationship there.

[00:08:40] And what she's doing makes her feel at home here in Catabacani.

[00:08:45] She's glad to meet people that are literary-minded, informational-minded, historical archiving

[00:08:53] in mind. And that's been replicated throughout the past five or six years with this program,

[00:08:59] the drawing of people from the area who are interested in this kind of thing.

[00:09:04] I think that's one of the most interesting things for me about what you all do

[00:09:09] is the amount of connection that you make outside of this college.

[00:09:14] You know, you think about higher education and you look at the model that you all use.

[00:09:20] It's a business and education is a business when we think about producing quality product

[00:09:27] and having it ready for the next step. So talk to me a little bit about an individual that wants

[00:09:34] to get started, what are the steps in the publishing process?

[00:09:40] It can run any number of ways. We've had students. As my director of

[00:09:43] a student now that's interested in publishing through us and it's mainly to start with that idea

[00:09:47] of what do you want to say? What do you want to do? And we will help them shape how they do it

[00:09:53] because it could, if they were poet then you need to go right and get somebody to look at it

[00:10:01] and start to get that kind of affirmation or critique that will help you develop the product.

[00:10:07] Then when you've got a product something that you think can work, that's when you bring it to us.

[00:10:12] And we'll continue to help you shape it. There's a lot of different options.

[00:10:17] You know, like I say, if it's ready to go, it comes from a noted editor,

[00:10:21] we know that this is going to be, you know, it's vetted. And then we get the two students that have

[00:10:27] come to me within the past year currently at CDCC and their works needed a little work

[00:10:34] and I gave them some nice marching orders and I hope to see them back.

[00:10:39] Now me, I see this program is like life in an emergency room.

[00:10:46] Everybody has gotten emergency. I want to get their book out.

[00:10:49] It winds up on my desk and then there's there's sick people coming in the sub door.

[00:10:56] There's a people coming in and Patty gets on me because she'll say,

[00:10:59] like, look, I saw a proof laying on the desk the other day that's not on my pipeline.

[00:11:03] What's going on here? I know that way. That was a former student and she did a little book

[00:11:07] of poetry and I told her that I'd throw it together for her and Patty's eyebrows go up and down

[00:11:12] and she goes, like you know, you've got to put that in system and I'm like, oh yeah.

[00:11:15] I don't know, but because that gives us our number and we're inching things, you're just

[00:11:20] we closed it 200 books. Yeah, we put it put together 200 books in the past several years and

[00:11:27] a lot of those were not the majority of them, but at least 20 or 25 of those were done

[00:11:32] during the COVID lockdown. When you send us home for our safety during the COVID lockdown,

[00:11:37] Richard and I got to work on doing the book for Hickory and at the same time we worked on

[00:11:44] Austin All-Rand Center's a manuscript that we were able to decode and put together as a book.

[00:11:51] And probably 2022, 23 other poetry books because I didn't want this program to disappear in

[00:11:58] COVID. I didn't want it to become another victim of that disruption. And thankfully you were

[00:12:04] you had relief in us to where when we came back, you let us just keep running with it.

[00:12:08] So we appreciate that. By the way, the Hickory book is still on sale. There's limited numbers

[00:12:13] of copies available, but now one sale at Barnes and Noble. Yeah, Barnes and Noble and

[00:12:19] tasteful eating. Our sponsors. Yeah, people better talk about the entire house. Absolutely.

[00:12:25] Absolutely. There are sponsor. Thank you. Awesome. Yeah, I want to know only sponsored.

[00:12:30] Oh, the best. The best. The best. We'll take all the sponsors we can get. So when you're thinking

[00:12:35] about this program, this put Redhawk publications, this isn't what community colleges do.

[00:12:44] But they should. Yeah, they absolutely should. And I'll tell everyone that that's what they should

[00:12:49] be doing. But you know, our important is marketing and how do you market? What we do here in

[00:12:57] what our capacity is. I mean you think about the individuals that we've connected with. He has mentioned

[00:13:02] how SNOL ran the county commissioner in a board trust team member. He's got a book that we've worked

[00:13:07] with. We've got national road figures out there that we've worked with that have really just

[00:13:15] when I look at the quality of what we put out, how do we get that word out even better?

[00:13:22] Well, we started, you know, one of the problems that you have is that, you know how it works

[00:13:27] to the community college. We're all kind of working on the shoe string. And so we began with

[00:13:32] word of mouth and the traditional social media outlets. And I think that's kind of still how we do it,

[00:13:39] which ought to be as innovative as we possibly can with those outlets and expand them as far

[00:13:44] as we can. But part of it is we've networked, you know, and patty is an absolute master of this

[00:13:50] at networking to be able to figure out who's got something that might be published well that we

[00:13:57] want to be in business with. And there was a time, of course, when I first started,

[00:14:02] Richard and Robert were saying, Mark, the program get us manuscripts beyond just poetry

[00:14:07] and poetry we love doing, but things that are a little different. And it's now four years

[00:14:13] in my anniversary in November, I don't have to market what we do anymore. Sometimes I don't like to

[00:14:20] go to events because people come to me, I have a book. That's a good thing, right?

[00:14:26] Oh, yeah, yeah, good trouble. Yeah, the events were a huge part of it. I mean, you know,

[00:14:31] somebody would come in and say, I came to hear this author talk tonight and look,

[00:14:36] this is a real book. You guys did this and we'd say yes, we did this and they'd say, well,

[00:14:41] I think I've got a book. You know, one is a guy named Steve Hill, Dr. Steve Hill from out of

[00:14:50] how many acres? They on town part of statesville about eight, I think. Yes, like it's called in the

[00:14:58] shadow of the clock and it's just this basic little small part of statesville North Carolina.

[00:15:03] And he does 200 years of history in pictures and text. And it's been one of our best seven books,

[00:15:09] especially through he-em because he is the author. He does a lot of his own marketing. So a lot

[00:15:15] of the marketing comes from the writers themselves because they know that it behooves them to throw

[00:15:22] there a bunch of their work in their trunk and go. And that's what we want. We want a partnership

[00:15:27] with our authors because they know the market in terms of who might be interested in this.

[00:15:33] And then we encourage him to go anywhere and everywhere. I'm going next week down to Morrisville

[00:15:37] to talk about the furniture book and that's, you know, coming up on two years old but it's one

[00:15:42] of those ever-greens subjects in speaking of Steve Hill. He's got a new one that's, we've got right

[00:15:47] now called statesville after dark that tells you about all the unsavory folks that came out

[00:15:52] of statesville that really kind of replicates the ghost tour that he does in downtown statesville

[00:15:59] and he's got a new facility that's going to open pretty soon that has all of his collection there.

[00:16:04] It's great but he's one of those COVID guys that he said during COVID he sat down and wrote this

[00:16:11] thing and lined it out and brought us a prototype of it and it was just, it was perfect. He is,

[00:16:18] he is probably one of our most perfect authors because he brings it in, Rave Gav.

[00:16:23] And we had a lady from RoadHist who during COVID she took decades old cassette tapes of interviews

[00:16:33] with people who were in their 80s and actually wore out several old cassette tape players.

[00:16:39] She came by and off eBay as she transcribed all of these things and from that we have a 600

[00:16:45] and some hot page book called Weaving the Heart Threads of a male village. And it's about

[00:16:51] RoadHist and I think every resident in RoadHist bought it. Wow, that was a good payday.

[00:16:57] It's been a hit well, the best thing about it was is the payday went to the town of RoadHist

[00:17:03] because Rick, what's just, Rick Justice bought the books wholesale and took them down to the

[00:17:12] city hall and pedaled them out of there and they were able to build some cash for things that

[00:17:18] they wanted to do that was outside the venue of any control by the state or the town or anybody

[00:17:23] like that. So, Todd just Smith. He's a husband but another right one thing that's important

[00:17:30] is in the contract process. We make sure from day one people understand we are three people

[00:17:36] and a half time graphic designer. We do not have a marketing and publicity staff. I typically say

[00:17:42] you're not going to be on the today's show tomorrow and that we absolutely need to have this

[00:17:47] be a partnership. We don't want you just selling 12 books to your family and friends so we don't

[00:17:52] require them to buy 75 or 100 books but we do ask them to have a plan on how you plan to sell 75

[00:17:58] or 100 books because then it gets us back into the black. Well, it's a best build board for their

[00:18:03] book because they're the author and they know it and that sort of thing. But he was talking about

[00:18:07] that, Rick Justice in the town of Rodious because they're getting ready to do big things but it

[00:18:13] was an odd setup because it's revenue back to a municipality just as the sales of our books are

[00:18:20] revenue back to the community college and kind of a non-state source of income from school.

[00:18:27] Yeah, you know, you think about this program. I think our eighth or not the year of existence

[00:18:34] and I say this is a compliment because I'm a part of this group but you are the island of

[00:18:40] misfits. So what people at this campus say and I'm right there in the middle of you. What are

[00:18:47] the challenges that this type of initiative that you're facing when we're trying to stay afloat

[00:18:54] and stay productive during even challenge and financial times? Exhaustion. Yeah, because we've got

[00:19:02] so, you know, the big thing in my opinion is we're just so different from what the college does

[00:19:09] that it has taken a while and it's an ongoing process to kind of help people understand

[00:19:15] what it is we do and why we do it. Because you get a lot of people, that's just a little

[00:19:20] way to the college resources but we've also had people rather influential folks that said

[00:19:25] we think this is a good use of the taxpayer dollar to be doing this to educate people outside

[00:19:29] the classroom by reading one of our books. And if you're a real collaborator and a brain stormer

[00:19:36] you can always start thinking about what can we do to help other departments on this campus.

[00:19:41] Takes a special person to start thinking about it. We're really good at brain storming.

[00:19:46] So if someone comes in here and has a seat of an idea before they leave, you know, they've got

[00:19:51] marching words. Oh, they're overwhelmed. We have overwhelmed more than one person who says,

[00:19:56] my goodness, I've got a list of things to do. And we learn that from you. You're such a meadow dude.

[00:20:06] Yeah, here's what you need to do. Here's what you need to do. There's nothing to do with

[00:20:08] that direction or detail. Well, but that allows us to create it. But see you trust us with

[00:20:14] what the agency to do that ourselves. And that's part of a collaboration is being able to trust

[00:20:19] your partner in what you're doing and know that they're going to deliver. And that's just

[00:20:25] that's how you get a misfit toy to fit. Yeah, that's exactly. Yeah, it's to give them the creative

[00:20:30] outlet they need to say, well, you know, we can build this thing from scratch and now we're as you

[00:20:36] say in our eighth, ninth year we're doing pretty good. And we still have to pinch every penny in

[00:20:41] on every. Oh, every paper, clear. But there's a there's a two-pronged aspect of this too when

[00:20:47] Patty mentioned, you know, helping out, you know, different programs and things like that.

[00:20:53] Originally we had five or six textbooks that were designed specifically for specific courses

[00:21:01] for our stakeholders, our students. And we've recently lost those because of the

[00:21:07] language relationship, we'd like to get those back if anything because they're scaffolding

[00:21:17] kind of mechanisms that help students understand more about what the course is expecting of them.

[00:21:24] And you even said yourself when you saw the very first one that if you had something like that

[00:21:29] in college that kind of outlined from A to Z, what the course was going to be about, what it

[00:21:35] expected from you, it would have made your time in classroom a little easier. Yeah, my GPA

[00:21:41] wouldn't definitely been hers and a well, and I'm about it. And I think those books that we

[00:21:47] that we did, I think they did that. And so I'd like to get back to that because again,

[00:21:53] here's another revenue stream for instructors because they make rollities on the books.

[00:21:59] They also are vested in the books because they're going to our printers and they're printing these

[00:22:08] supplemented shows. Yeah, things out at a high rate of printing cost when we can do them

[00:22:17] at a very small cost for the students to pay for them. And then the students have invested in it

[00:22:23] that they'll just not throw away. It's something important to them and it's professional looking.

[00:22:28] Plus it gives the instructor another opportunity to try to get across the information and the

[00:22:34] his or her way of teaching it in a different, you know, a different avenue than the classroom

[00:22:42] instruction because the way the instructor is teaching it, as Robert has pointed out before,

[00:22:47] his different than say an instructor in Iowa or some other state that gives them the focused

[00:22:53] opportunity to say to students, this is how I think you can learn it best and the book is just

[00:22:59] another way to do that. Well these projects that he take on yesterday was such an emotional

[00:23:07] moment for me when one of our maintenance guys brought me his book and it was, you know, you

[00:23:15] think about all the different connections that were making and the value that we're creating

[00:23:20] for people. Tell me about some of the most significant things that we've done through red

[00:23:28] heart publications locally nationally. What are your most proud of? My vote would be the

[00:23:35] Dr. Jones book because when we did the Untouchable's documentary and we had a whole day for that

[00:23:42] and the town of Hickory had a untouchables day, that was a great project in itself,

[00:23:49] but what it led to was one of the children of one of the Untouchables reaching out and saying thank you

[00:23:54] and that developing into a relationship and she having the connection she did was able to bring

[00:24:00] us Dr. Clarence Jones who had done, I mean, I think this was his third book, second third book

[00:24:07] and couldn't find a New York publisher for it which is just shocked us and when she said

[00:24:13] would you guys be interested in it? We said yes please and that has been in terms of prestige

[00:24:19] because he just won presidential metal freedom and that sort of thing. And 93 year old man who was

[00:24:24] Dr. King's lawyer and Confidant and Protector in terms of speech writing and that's what

[00:24:29] to think. That's to me, he been the book I am most proud of because his Robert's pointed out

[00:24:36] that adds to our understanding of the civil rights era by some of the information in that book

[00:24:41] that we didn't have before. I was just thinking about the moment I went to a book event with Dr.

[00:24:47] Jones in Atlanta and there were some folks from the Bay Area, he used to teach at Stanford

[00:24:54] and also US University of San Francisco and he's really snobby people from Stanford.

[00:25:02] I couldn't think of a better way to put it. They came to Dr. Jones's table and they picked

[00:25:07] this book and they're like oh this is good looking, it's a nice who published it and I'm like

[00:25:11] we did, we were you with right out of publications where are you from? Community College in North

[00:25:16] Carolina and it was like the whole thing was like they couldn't believe we did this and I'm like well

[00:25:20] you know you guys could have but he came to us that way and I agree with the Dr. Jones

[00:25:26] but probably being the Jim Stone in our crown but you just mentioned a book by one of our

[00:25:37] E. Campbell, well mind if I tell a little bit of his story his book is called Walking Out the

[00:25:43] Bible and it is kind of like a little primer on how to live a spiritual life and I suggested

[00:25:51] that he do this one more and earlier in the year everything had lost his wife she passed away

[00:26:00] and I was worried about him every day he would come in and he would give me a count down

[00:26:06] it's been so many days and so many hours since I lost Karen and I said you need something to

[00:26:11] take your mind off of this. So the next day I get this kind of outline for this thing he'd

[00:26:19] like to do and over the course of about a month he writes this book and he's probably been one

[00:26:26] of the best sell and writers we've had because of his own self promotion and so many people

[00:26:33] you know he wrote a book and I'd go like why is that surprising? Of course he did and he knows

[00:26:39] his stuff and that probably is one of my favorite things to have published that and one of the

[00:26:49] sanctuary literary journals that we did back before COVID that was a lady who was 74 years old

[00:26:56] who came by to pick up her complimentary copy and she said I didn't know I was a poet and

[00:27:05] I said well you're in there I don't page 29 and she opened it up and she looked and she began to cry

[00:27:11] and I said well ma'am are you okay and she said I just never knew that that I was a poet

[00:27:17] she said my husband and I both have come back to school because we just got tired of the negativity

[00:27:21] on the TV we just threw the TV out and we just said we're going to go take some classes

[00:27:26] so I took this class this English class or a pretty writing class or something and you guys pick

[00:27:33] my poem and she was so touched by that one page of poetry and I thought this is what you do this

[00:27:41] for it's not for the money it's not for the prestige it's not for the pictures in the paper it's

[00:27:47] because this lady touched a part of herself that she didn't even know she had she didn't even know

[00:27:53] she existed in her she 74 years old and that's the stuff I like well I think that's the essence

[00:28:01] of what we do you think about the depth of the connection you make with the people that engage with

[00:28:08] you and it's exceptional and it will pay dividends like we may never all of us may be going before

[00:28:14] those dividends are realized but it is definitely a huge eternal investment when we make a difference

[00:28:21] in a person's life in terms of how they feel about themselves or just getting their thoughts out

[00:28:26] and having it structured and seeing it in print it's amazing but I got a question for you Richard

[00:28:32] because this is a little a little bit different but how did this what started all this?

[00:28:40] What happened?

[00:28:43] I was coming off the peedmont Airlines book and I wanted to do something that was more

[00:28:51] localized and I you know in looking back on all the historical events has happened in Katapa County

[00:28:57] I came to the conclusion that the polio epidemic was the largest single thing that we could talk

[00:29:04] about from which Katapa County can be justly proud and I began to think about it from not only a

[00:29:11] historical point of view such as history but also a sociological point of view and all these

[00:29:15] other ways and I have a colleague that teaches law and there was a court case associated with it so

[00:29:22] I began to like talk to these people to say could we research the miracle and that's what we

[00:29:27] returned to it first but I knew I needed a partner and so I went to my favorite English instructor

[00:29:34] and said help because again the people were starting to pull this stuff in and they had questions

[00:29:40] about grammar and an organization and on that kind of stuff and I knew that I couldn't do it

[00:29:45] and so I went to Robert and said I got this project would you be interested in editing it for me

[00:29:52] and we didn't even at the time say we'll see where it goes but I mean that was the just of it

[00:29:57] and we put that book together and we had a a accompanying documentary but it's sort of like

[00:30:04] when you first got here I'd said if you'll get me some video editing equipment because that's

[00:30:10] again my life before the CVCC I will get you a documentary and that was the Piedmont documentary

[00:30:16] so it was easier to do the polio documentary after that but we had book and documentary together

[00:30:23] and then I think somewhere in that process we said well if we can do this you know we can do

[00:30:29] other stuff too especially once we cleared the hurdle of a community college being a publisher

[00:30:35] because we needed legally remember that those means yeah we we need to get that settled

[00:30:40] and once we found out that we could do that because what is what is a book but education in

[00:30:46] some you know way shape or form that we could begin doing other things and we worked with the

[00:30:53] foundation to get funding for the Newton then and now and that's when we brought in our photography

[00:30:59] instructor in Stortenair, Joe Young and said can you get your students to you know this be a

[00:31:05] class project and it just sort of began to snowball right yeah and he comes to me then let him

[00:31:12] shirt your coat and he comes to me because he knows that I'm one I'm like him I can't stay in my own

[00:31:17] lane and and and I had made that about you guys I had that's where you just had I had made all the

[00:31:26] people mad that he had made me yeah I don't have that from John and I like every every

[00:31:35] like the end of every semester I'm in Dr. Hinch all's off it's going look how much FTE I

[00:31:40] generated and I get a raise and he would go like oh yeah okay bye yeah but anyway and it did it kind

[00:31:47] of turned into this little little this little poetry book about the Henry of Mill Village

[00:31:51] that we were working with Joe Young until Peele on and then the Newton book came in and all of

[00:31:57] us stuff and and again COVID was a big was the COVID lockdown was a big part of it because it gave us

[00:32:03] time to really put things together and there was a huge learning curve our poor business office

[00:32:10] had to learn how to deal with these people who wanted to do things that they never that had never been

[00:32:14] done before and poor West much you know trying to understand but they've all been troopers they've all

[00:32:21] been wonderful people and now they you know when I talk to them they're just like okay I'll see if

[00:32:26] I can get that done and they'll they'll ask our business he is and even Jennifer Ham reminded me

[00:32:32] one day I make sure you make a profit on everything that you say oh yeah we're getting that tattoo

[00:32:38] to our because it took a lot of our funds that we had retained to do the Dr. Jones

[00:32:44] because we were we were printing four thousand copies of this book all at once from a national

[00:32:51] printer and that we distributed through UNC press so that was new territory for us to there

[00:32:56] were times when you know Patty would say can I get a stapler and I've got I don't have any money to

[00:33:01] buy your stapler I mean we're going to have to go to a thrift store and see if we can find one that way

[00:33:06] but we can't earn money back so yeah we sold it and we built it all back up and things are you

[00:33:14] know kind of they're still tight but but you know it still works but again but speaking to us

[00:33:20] being the Allen misfit toys that's why Patty is absolutely essential because where we she's

[00:33:25] losing out our rough edges and can go what they really meant to say was this and build bridges that

[00:33:32] and broaden us sometimes unknowingly have burnt yeah I've ever seen it see not to I mean that's just

[00:33:40] my makeup and you know I'm 62 years old and I was I was diagnosed with you know as burger

[00:33:47] syndrome when I was in my mid 40s and I said so that's what's been wrong with my ability to have

[00:33:53] interpersonal relationships I never knew that so I've learned a lot of skills since then that I didn't

[00:33:58] have before so you'll notice that I don't cause nearly as much trouble as I used to well I've decided

[00:34:03] that Patty said you got a hundred thousand times I hear it out to me because I'm college so thank

[00:34:12] you Patty for everything today yeah will you pay for my zanix so so this is a continuously

[00:34:19] evolving type of thing like any any entrepreneurial idea does it has things that's been all for

[00:34:26] telling me a little bit about the riders workshop and why you're starting to offer that

[00:34:32] top of of initiative through Redhall publications part of it as I mentioned earlier because I was

[00:34:40] looking at my um I guess ratio of what we accept versus what we reject whether it's a kind reject or

[00:34:47] outright reject and we thought we're an educational institution if we want to get these authors to

[00:34:54] get better let's provide a very targeted workshop specifically for folks who have expressed interest in Redhall

[00:35:02] that does not mean that they're greenlit that does not mean we're publishing them but we are helping

[00:35:07] them with a professional who has taught the class before get their work in better shape and to

[00:35:13] create a work group so that workshop you could tell from day one when they started they are bonding

[00:35:20] they're probably going to end up kind of becoming their own little private work study group

[00:35:26] where they do peer review one another they're they're just good to go so we see it as a way to kind

[00:35:32] of streamline the process of getting them to get better manuscripts and to do some peer reviewing

[00:35:37] submitting it so that's kind of it but like I say the idea to continue to grow writers in this area

[00:35:46] you can't put a number on that that's that's an amazing opportunity that we're giving these adults

[00:35:52] yeah I'm back to some of the fact that that you're seeing the relationships being built because

[00:35:58] to me that's the core of any successful entity or initiative is seeing those dots get connected

[00:36:06] though those that particular workshop was filled before the press releasing hit the newspaper

[00:36:12] the word of math our tentacles are spreading and in the guys know this but we've got

[00:36:18] champions throughout the state of some darn well regarded authors you know Ron Rash loves what we do

[00:36:25] he sings our praises Carter Monroe on the east coast he just he brags about us to any

[00:36:32] and everyone we've got a bunch of poets and Pittsburgh that adore us I mean so it's it's kind of

[00:36:38] interesting one of my favorite books that we did well I don't know if it's my favorite book but it was the most

[00:36:45] interesting was the Dr Howard's book you want them in fact and this is a

[00:36:51] yeah yeah we all were yeah yeah yeah that came to me like an midnight and October two years ago

[00:37:00] the doctor in Manhattan who was puts on boots on ground in Manhattan during COVID he wanted

[00:37:06] to have his first book out on COVID he wanted to be the first so he kind of rushed us a little

[00:37:10] bit but by God it was it was the first book out we were concerned because of he had a target list

[00:37:18] of public officials we didn't want him to do that thanks to allston allston allston all right I

[00:37:24] yeah you talk about your tentacles I'm like us and we had a bonafide attorney you can give us advice

[00:37:29] yeah I mean to his credit he's like you know what I had a chance to read your contract three or four

[00:37:34] times you will not lose in court will he be soon yeah yeah you could but at the same time let's see

[00:37:41] what we can do to minimize it so he was very helpful and the book came out and that was the very

[00:37:47] first book where when we came back to work on Monday we had like orders for 600 books and it was like

[00:37:53] all hands-on deck we were all ridiculous never had anything like that before and they were going

[00:37:58] literally all over the country all over the world all over the world we had like nine nine countries

[00:38:03] we're ordering them from all and through through a Amazon and Amazon's distribution network

[00:38:08] when I was getting the royalty sheets in I was having to convert from you know Franks and euros

[00:38:15] and australian dollars and all of this stuff to into and that was also our first five figure

[00:38:21] royalty payment everyone quarter to Dr Howard well you know you just mentioned nine different

[00:38:28] countries nine different countries know them this little community college and hit

[00:38:33] careers because of the work the red hall publications is a little bit of a big idea

[00:38:39] yeah one of our graphic designing students actually created the cover for that book

[00:38:44] yeah and I remember showing her like going to sit talk back then it was tiktok and like

[00:38:49] and some German guy in German is showing the book and he's you know doing a review of the book

[00:38:55] and I'm like here book is being shown in German in Germany and she was so proud I actually

[00:39:02] like yeah she was she was great that's also she was a great state yeah because we also have employed

[00:39:07] some of our better you know our upper level students from the graphic arts program and so

[00:39:14] anyway that we can incorporate other disciplines on this campus and helping get these books out

[00:39:20] yeah last semester we had an intern a young man named Jeremiah who was a business student here

[00:39:27] and he was our first business intern that he basically came in and we kind of taught him

[00:39:32] how the publishing business works and we put him to work on fixing some of our paperwork

[00:39:39] you know how we report P&Ls for the month how we track rollties and you know he got class credit

[00:39:47] for that but at the same time he came out on the other end both he and his instructor were very

[00:39:54] pleased with what you know I can't remember his instructors name really nice guy but he said

[00:40:01] I didn't know that that there was a business on campus young or actually a business so that's

[00:40:07] like oh yeah that's what that's what we're doing here it's called entrepreneurship it's building a

[00:40:13] business inside of an institution that's not used to having that kind of thing inside of it so

[00:40:19] that's the kind of can do sort of thing that a community college can do I mean that's why you named

[00:40:24] the the book about CVCC nimble international because we're both the the institution is both

[00:40:31] but we're also we live by that credo as well no question about it you know I look at this

[00:40:38] type of thing and y'all seen me do crazy stuff throughout my 18 years here but this is one of those

[00:40:43] hey y'all watch this time yeah we might be the craziest but we live with that that's okay yeah

[00:40:51] and that's I love it because look at the depth of things that you've talked about this morning

[00:40:58] in terms of the connectivity that you're creating inside the college that you're creating

[00:41:03] in the community that's creating nationwide worldblood that's not well we would have never

[00:41:10] have been able to done it without you did I'm telling you if you hadn't had our backs on this

[00:41:15] we would have never and it's and it's not been an easy have our backs either you've been kind of

[00:41:22] demanding show me show me results show me this and anybody out there listening who thinks we get

[00:41:27] anything we want that's not true we don't get everything but it is like the Rolling Stones

[00:41:37] you do give us what we need yeah sometimes it's a SmackDown well it's a challenge because

[00:41:44] we're he's he's I'm putting words in your mouth in your inner room I think you want us to grow

[00:41:50] and you can take a different perspective than we can here in the trenches and say

[00:41:55] here's how you need to grow and we've we've taken those marching orders seriously and tried to make

[00:42:00] them work yeah I just I look at this whole this whole process and and what we've been able to

[00:42:08] accomplish with it and I always look at things from our turn on investment aspect and this has created a

[00:42:15] huge return on investment for me personally because it has built relationships out in the community

[00:42:21] that I can then go capitalize on whether it's political figures whether it's donors whether it's

[00:42:28] of you know building collaboration or partnership with different entities and it's it's amazing

[00:42:34] to me how many times I hear about well we did this right all publications we really think that's

[00:42:39] great well good now let's do this and let's take it a set further and I think that's an

[00:42:44] important aspect of people underestimate yeah and we really like being the the door that opens

[00:42:50] to the community college to say if you can do this you want to see all the other stuff we're

[00:42:54] doing absolutely absolutely yeah because there's all kinds of great stuff going on on this

[00:42:59] campus it's been like that since you've been here thinking outside the box I mean I don't

[00:43:04] know the first email I ever got from you after I was hired in 2007 full time was come think with me

[00:43:10] you know thank with me what are some ways that we can we can create revenue

[00:43:15] that we can do what we want with it and at the same time improve you know the place where we live

[00:43:22] and it took a few years but this is this is from that yeah I think I think it's just understanding

[00:43:29] what each individual strengths and weaknesses are and then how you get the people that can take

[00:43:35] those weaknesses and build them in the strengths that's the critical part of all of our development

[00:43:41] and that's where when we're working together we can be successful and sometimes we don't work well

[00:43:47] together that's when we fail when we are pulling in the same direction and we're focused on the same

[00:43:54] things and impact in our community this little college does some amazing things out there

[00:44:00] that people are replicating all over the country now. Well I will say between the three of us we

[00:44:05] were very blessed very fortunate that we do get along very very well you know we're like siblings.

[00:44:10] I'm just shocked with that. I'm just shocked with these things.

[00:44:15] That was seriously it really goes back to what you just said strengths and weaknesses we

[00:44:20] we all know where we fit in and we all know our strengths and weaknesses and there are times

[00:44:24] I am grateful for him because I'll be able to point me. I'm pointing at me because I was talking

[00:44:31] to because I drive her crazy and she drives my crazy to me absolutely we've got that said

[00:44:38] everyone's in a while we need to do a good cop bad cop with the writer for example and

[00:44:43] it's like well it's time for Robert. So I'm for the bad cop to come over here. I'm so excited

[00:44:49] I've tried to be nice it's not working Robert. Yeah and again I don't I don't mean to brag

[00:44:54] but their this whole program is like an incubator of how to do business right how to do collaboration

[00:45:02] drawing and as I have told you before I think I even wrote up an entire report that I researched back

[00:45:08] several years ago that the art of collaboration and the agency that Richard Ellard gives us to do

[00:45:14] our job seem does not microman and she does not ride your cop tails to check every tea in every

[00:45:20] eye. You know that you know what you're supposed to do so you let you do it. That's where I'll learn that

[00:45:26] if you have a question you go to him and he and he gets you what you need. We were working on the

[00:45:32] polio books some years ago and somebody down at the Historical Association had had had basically

[00:45:39] scanned some pictures but they had scanned the whole plot of the scanner and I said I told Richard

[00:45:44] I said I can't use these pictures. I need each one scanned and he just takes the pictures and

[00:45:50] takes off and I went like well he drove all the way down the Newton scan those pictures

[00:45:56] and brought me the scans back on the flash drive and I thought nobody does that. He just dropped

[00:46:03] what he was doing to get me what I needed where I could do my job. I said wait a minute that's

[00:46:09] what good leadership is. Well I think that's the best the key Robert is I don't think that

[00:46:16] I don't think that I'm my crew manager. Anybody because I believe in the talent that we have

[00:46:23] when we have to let that talent flourish you can't do that if you're trying to control it and that's

[00:46:28] one of the most frustrating things as a leader that I see even with the institution from time to time

[00:46:34] is people trying to control the things that they don't need to control they need to throw fuel on

[00:46:39] fire let that fire burn because that's when we have our biggest impact. I know we've got a close

[00:46:46] down this morning but just real quick what advice would you give somebody who's seeking to get

[00:46:52] published with an interim to independent press? Keep writing, keep writing, keep writing please make

[00:46:59] sure you have somebody peer review which you've written you wouldn't believe how many people come in

[00:47:06] they show me their manuscripts and like well whatever your friends say family say mentor say no one's

[00:47:11] ever read it so yeah submit something that you've written that someone else is read giving you some

[00:47:17] notes submitted to us there's no guarantees but you know what we give notes so if we don't accept

[00:47:23] it we'll still it you know what you can do to improve upon it and we're willing to work with you

[00:47:28] so that's what I have about the process of getting published here. Mine would be and I just

[00:47:33] discovered this recently but I thought it's such great advice once you've written something and you're

[00:47:38] waiting to see if it can get published write something else because if you channel all your industry

[00:47:43] in your energy into waiting to see if it gets published it'll drive you crazy so what you need is to

[00:47:49] continue that creative process and kind of like you said about people pouring gas on the fire to see

[00:47:57] work guys it doesn't always go where you want to now because when I first said to you if you can

[00:48:02] get me editing equipment I get you a documentary on UNC TV which I didn't know if I could do

[00:48:06] for not but it turned out that I had to happen it's been here but we would never have conceived

[00:48:13] that we would be here now talking about this and so it morphs in all kinds of strange but interesting

[00:48:19] ways I mean that's what Robert tells me keeps me sharp on my writing is always surprise you reader

[00:48:23] because if you if you do what they expect they're going to put your book down and it can go in so many

[00:48:30] different ways but you got a let it and I think that's what you're talking about with leadership

[00:48:35] here in you know every place else that you got a let it go because you know it's kind of like

[00:48:41] my dad used to say about Campbell soup if you ever saw how I'd made you never eat it there's

[00:48:46] some things that go on here that are extremely chaotic and it comes on come and that's the emergency room

[00:48:52] yeah but it does 16 projects going on at the same time and oftentimes we just get so confused

[00:49:00] we don't even know what we're doing things get misplaced and but my my advice is go to

[00:49:07] tasteful means coffee house I was just getting a safe let's go to take the beans right now because

[00:49:13] I got the best coffee in the world that Ethiopian if you have tried that Ethiopian coffee you need

[00:49:18] to get you a couple of pounds that take home but take your phone and download our submission standards

[00:49:24] from our website they are on there they are free you can download the misopedee f you can

[00:49:30] also download our catalog from there that we just got an updated catalog and you can buy

[00:49:35] our books on redhaulpublications.com which is another great way to develop your writing is to

[00:49:41] read other writers and see how they are doing it because I'm a book into Robert last week

[00:49:46] and said why do they do this to me if he gave me an answer to it to understand

[00:49:51] how the look of a publication supposed to go as well as the words to go into it yeah there are lots

[00:49:56] of old fashioned ways of presenting books and we're very fortunate that tasteful means

[00:50:01] actually does perform a retail album before us so we've got some of our books there for

[00:50:07] for reading stuff. We go to our events because we've had the events of tasteful being

[00:50:10] and you know listen to writers and say okay that's what they're doing because in my opinion

[00:50:15] that's the great thing about history is it gives you this sort of learning primer on how

[00:50:20] people have done it before so that you can figure out your own path. Yeah and you know

[00:50:24] perfect example of talking about tasteful beans in Scotto and so it's also one of our writers

[00:50:29] because he's a very prolific poet when we did the Hickory book and the Hickory book came out

[00:50:37] during COVID patty and I both were carrying cases of that book down there on a regular basis you know

[00:50:44] put your mask on of practice social distancing and Julian and Scott both had told me that you

[00:50:54] mean checks that were you know several thousand dollars he was selling copy after copy after copy

[00:50:59] after copy this thing and he and he told me when they're in passing he says like you know that

[00:51:03] that book kind of helped keep us in business during the COVID thing when he had to take out all

[00:51:08] of his tables and chairs and people weren't going out and people were afraid but that Hickory book

[00:51:14] along with the book that we stripped out of it Richards complete history of Hickory. Those things

[00:51:21] sold well enough to help them keep some money in the coffers so again you know saving local businesses

[00:51:28] and we have to take leave where you lay over that because he knows that happens yeah they all

[00:51:32] went in and we've published his memoir and the Hickory Furnged Mark and a historic home that

[00:51:39] he owned so it's all about those connections really it really is and congratulations on success

[00:51:45] that you all have always been. I think it's been it's been the work that you've done but we say here

[00:51:50] talked long enough it's time for y'all to get back to work because obviously we're going to

[00:51:54] do that. There's a group of people who got a report and it's in the coffer somebody much more important

[00:51:59] than we are to thank you Dr. Henshap. Thank you for coming in and thank you out there and put

[00:52:07] in podcast land for listening to Red Pop. Can you say that two times fast? Red Pop, Red Pop,

[00:52:13] yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah so Red Pop. Hey y'all watch you.

[00:52:23] And please please please tell your neighbors about us download us from your favorite podcast

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[00:52:35] of Red Pop, Red Pop, Red Pop, Red Pop. A podcast, Red Pop from Red Pop applications. Red Pop,

[00:52:42] Red Pop, Red Pop. Can you say that?