Words and Wine

Each month Kona Stories hosts an event with local and traveling authors. This event happens the First Tuesday evening of the month starting at 6 PM. Authors are available to talk story while you are getting your plate of appetizers and glass of complimentary wine. Authors then give a 15 minute talk about their book and themselves, the writing and publishing process or a short reading from the book. After all the authors presentations there is a time for individual questions and book signings with the authors. Expect 2 - 3 authors to attend each month and the evening to wrap up around 8 PM. Dress is Aloha casual wear.

February Authors are:

In 2011, Carol Kaemmerer’s business crashed. Her steady business client of twenty years changed to a retained, single-vendor for all their marketing communications, leaving her without projects. As she searched for a way to use her communication talent in another venue, Carol learned that ranking highly on LinkedIn is not a matter of luck. She learned about the levers that control the search algorithm and discovered the strategies which, when executed with skill, resulted in being found for other opportunities. Carol helped many unemployed friends get savvy about LinkedIn before realizing that teaching business leaders and entrepreneurs to use this essential business tool confidently was her ideal next career. Carol believes that your personal brand – well articulated on LinkedIn – is your best protection against business changes beyond your control. Carol, who lives in Minneapolis, has been an annual visitor to Kona for the last six years; this year she’s joyfully counting her time on the island in months instead of weeks.

About LinkedIn for the Savvy Executive

There are many how-to books about LinkedIn. This is not one of them. Rather, LinkedIn for the Savvy Executive provides strategies for using LinkedIn with authenticity, tact and power to:

• increase your visibility and influence, 

• engage with your ideal audiences and 

• cultivate your reputation as a thought leader.

LinkedIn is a powerful tool to reinforce and communicate your personal executive brand and reputation. Read this book to learn how to use it wisely, and thrive.

Alexander Rosenstein was born in the USSR in the Black Sea port of Odessa, a grandson of a decorated Red Army officer and WWII hero, a son of a renowned Soviet inventor and Jewish dissident.  In the 1970s, he emigrated with his parents and brother to the U.S. where he was able to realize his dream of higher education, at that time an unattainable goal for Jewish young people in the USSR.

Alexander graduated from the University of Minnesota with a combined degree in Engineering and Biology and earned an MD from the same institution. He obtained his Orthopaedic Surgery training at the University of California, San Diego, and completed postdoctoral studies at Oxford University. 

After 15 years of private practice in Southern California, Alexander returned to academe and eventually advanced to the rank of full Professor of Orthopedic Surgery and Professor of Biomedical Engineering.  He has lectured and performed surgeries worldwide, including Odessa, Ukraine, designed orthopaedic implants and instruments and been awarded U.S. and Canadian patents. Since immigrating to the US Alexander returned three times back to Ukraine and Russia. His second visit coincided with the events immediately presiding the fall of the Soviet Empire. Dr. Rosenstein has authored numerous scientific articles and a book on for arthritic patients.  This is his first novel.

Double-Edged Sword: During the last decade of the Soviet regime the Red Army and the KGB are engaged in a bitter struggle for dominance. The emblem of the KGB is a double-edged sword on a shield, signifying the two main functions of the agency: to strike down the enemies of the people and to shield the motherland and Communist ideals. The main character of the story is a KGB agent, Oleg Medvedev. The reader will follow Oleg from his idealistic beginnings with the most feared agency in the land, to his becoming a mature, resourceful and lethal agent, the edge of the sword. A sub-plot provides a glimpse of the plight of Soviet soldiers and the Afghani population during the Soviet invasion, and introduces another key character, the daring career Red Army officer Roman Lomov. A high-profile murder investigation takes Oleg from the halls of power in Moscow to the wild Carpathian Mountains. As he uncovers a complex plot inside the government, Oleg realizes the sword have a second, more sinister edge. The paths of Medvedev, now a rogue agent on the run from his former KGB masters, and the disenchanted army officer cross at the culmination of the tale when they join forces to foil a coup attempt.

The daughter of a law professor and a potter, Leslie Karst learned early, during family dinner conversations, the value of both careful analysis and the arts—ideal ingredients for a mystery story. She now writes the Sally Solari Mysteries (Dying for a Taste, A Measure of Murder, Death al Fresco), a culinary series set in Santa Cruz, California. An ex-lawyer like her sleuth, Leslie also has degrees in English literature and the culinary arts.

In her latest book, Death al Fresco Sally Solari’s life is already crazy busy, helping run her family’s two restaurants. But when the body of an old Italian fisherman is discovered washed up on the beach and Sally’s father is accused of allowing him to plunge to his death, her life heats up like a cast iron skillet over an open flame.