Episode 207: Sal Amato – Hidden Powers

A conversation with actor, writer, and producer Sal Amato about his upcoming debut science fiction novel, Hidden Powers.

Website
salamato.com

Facebook
@hiddenpowersofficial

X
@HiddenPowersUSA

Instagram
@hiddenpowersnovel

TikTok
@hiddenpowersofficial

About Hidden Powers

Investigative journalist Sarah Moore has exposed government corruption for years. Still, nothing prepared her for what killed her father: $47 trillion in unaccounted federal spending hidden across seventy years of black budgets. 

Her father, David Moore, a government accountant, discovered the pattern in 2009—the same representatives approving secret budgets, the same shell corporations receiving them, the same suppressed technologies that would have eliminated scarcity. He died of a “heart attack” at fifty, alone in his office at 2:17 AM.  

Sarah follows the money to 127 phantom corporations, 6,000 coordinated elites, and 847 murdered researchers whose discoveries would have freed humanity from controlled resources. Then Victoria Sterling contacts her with the answer: 

In 1954, world leaders agreed with an extraterrestrial species called the Greys—not for technology, but for permission to manage humanity as property.  Sterling, a former architect of this control system, explains there’s no grand conspiracy—just thousands of people worldwide who believe they own everyone else, coordinating through a shared worldview rather than direct communication. They’ve suppressed cures, buried innovations, and murdered whistleblowers, all while convincing the “owned” to defend the systems harming them. 

The cruelest part: people have been taught to root for their oppressors, by becoming ‘fanatical’ in trusting the shiniest marketed bulbs.  

On October 17, 2026, Sterling stands at the Washington Monument and reveals everything with irrefutable documentation that will change the course of humanity. 

About Sal Amato

Sal Amato

Sal Amato is an actor, writer, producer, and now novelist whose career has been defined by an insatiable curiosity about human nature and the stories we tell ourselves. With a long career that included attempts to develop streaming media platforms in the mid-’90s to 2000s, and a music industry insider with moderate success, Sal has never felt he’s achieved what he set out to do, but that has never stopped him.

As a performer, Sal began his journey in 1978 doing a Betty Crocker commercial. From there, he’d move on to movies (Bad Boys 1982) as well as being one of the youngest members ever at The Second City, one of the most prestigious comedy institutions in the world where he would learn the craft under the late, famed Don DePollo As time went by, Sal developed his voice performing stand-up and improvisation, learning to read audiences and craft narratives that resonate. With very odd jobs along the way, including a DJ, broadcasting, and working at grocery stores, Sal continued to try to find his way, never giving up. This foundation led to a moderate success in acting in both film and television, with appearances in The Untouchables, My Best Friend’s Wedding, Chicago Overcoat, Where It Gets You, Chicago Fire, The Big Leap, and numerous other productions, including commercials.

As a creator, Sal expanded beyond performance into writing and producing. His animated series Bakers In The Burbs, a project blending comedy with social observation, has been optioned by a production company actively seeking placement on major streaming platforms.

When not writing, Sal continues to work in entertainment, bringing stories to life across multiple platforms and as an analog-to-digital transfer specialist.

Episode 206: Alan Smale – Burning Night (Apollo Rising: Book 3)

A conversation with Sidewise Award-winning novelist (and former NASA astrophysicist) Alan Smale, talking about Burning Night, Book 3 in his Apollo Rising alternate-history science fiction trilogy.

Website
alansmale.com

Facebook
@alan.smale

BlueSky
@alansmale.bsky.social

X
@AlanSmale

About Burning Night

On July 4, 1983, Vivian Carter and her NASA crew of seven set off on an audacious double flyby of Venus and Mars, a two-year mission with repurposed Apollo technology that will push their ingenuity and resourcefulness to the limit. Meanwhile, superpower conflicts escalate on Earth, mirrored by a dangerously unstable arms race and battles for valuable mineral resources on the Moon. Full-up lunar military actions and treacherous sneak attacks decimate Vivian’s friends, allies and colleagues on both sides of the Iron Curtain and threaten everything she has worked to achieve.

Vivian’s odyssey is a high adventure that will bring mankind new knowledge and unimagined insights … just as the risk of worldwide nuclear war has never been greater. Now, on her triumphant return in 1985, Vivian Carter’s path inevitably brings her back to where she began: a desperate rescue mission with no NASA support and no safety net, to a dangerous, war-torn Moon where she will be hard pressed to tell friend from foe.

In the concluding volume of Alan Smale’s highly acclaimed Apollo Rising series (“A nail-biting thriller.” – Publishers Weekly) humanity faces a stark choice: a bright new interplanetary future … or nuclear apocalypse on two worlds.

Praise for the Apollo Rising series

“A nail-biting thriller.”Publishers Weekly 

“I loved it. Great ‘hard’ science fiction with convincing space battles.”−Larry Niven

“Will delight and enthrall.”Library Journal

“A provocative science fiction novel.”Foreword Reviews

“Alan Smale is one of the brightest stars in the hard-SF firmament, and Hot Moon is his best novel yet. ”Robert J. Sawyer, Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author

“Intriguing, adrenaline-fueled, and engaging, author Alan Smale’s Hot Moon is the perfect sci-fi meets political thriller.”Anthony Avina

“A superb mind-expanding sci-fi novel!”Grady Harp (Amazon Hall of Fame Top 100 Reviewer)

About Alan Smale

Alan Smale

Alan Smale writes alternate history, historical fantasy, and hard SF. His novella of a Roman invasion of ancient America, “A Clash of Eagles,” won the Sidewise Award for Alternate History, and his novels set in the same universe, Clash of Eagles, Eagle in Exile, and Eagle and Empire (2015-2017) are available from Del Rey in the US and Titan Books in the UK and Europe. His “Roman baseball” collaboration with Rick Wilber, The Wandering Warriors, came out from WordFire Press in 2020, and Hot Moon, his alternate-Apollo “technothriller with heart,” set entirely on and around the Moon, was launched by CAEZIK SF & Fantasy in 2022, with sequel Radiant Sky following in 2024 and the grand finale, Burning Night in 2025.

Alan has sold more than fifty stories to Asimov’s and other magazines and anthologies, and his short story “Gunpowder Treason” earned him a second Sidewise Award in 2022. His non-fiction essays have appeared in Lightspeed, Journey Planet, and Galaxy’s Edge.

Alan grew up in Yorkshire, England, and earned degrees in Physics and Astrophysics from Oxford University. Until recently, he performed astronomical research into galactic neutron star and black hole binary systems at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, and served as the Director of one of NASA’s big-three astrophysical data archives.

Episode 205: Betty Jane Hegerat – Elephants in the Room

A conversation with award-winning Calgary author Betty Jane Hegerat about her latest collection of literary short stories, Elephants in the Room.

Website
bettyjanehegerat.com

Facebook
@bettyjh

About Elephants in the Room

Fourteen jewel-like stories unveil the tender chaos of lives unlived and loves unspoken

In Elephants in the Room, Betty Jane Hegerat masterfully uncovers the quiet fractures of ordinary lives—the unspoken regrets, the buried griefs, and the fragile threads of connection that bind families across generations.

From a devoted son’s frantic dash to help his mother glimpse the Queen to a reluctant father’s stunned reunion with the daughter he never knew, from a woman dressing her mother-in-law for an eternal rest to a boy’s guilty reckoning with a bully’s untimely death, these unforgettable stories illuminate the elephants in our lives we ignore at our peril.

With tender wit and unflinching insight, Hegerat explores the weight of what we leave unsaid: the ache of lost chances, the solace of small mercies, and the stubborn grit that carries us through. As poignant as a stolen glance, as resonant as a half-forgotten lullaby, the stories in Elephants in the Room whisper the unvarnished secrets of family ties—where regrets loom large, and small acts of grace light the way home.

Praise for Elephants in the Room

“Betty Jane Hegerat is a meticulous observer of the human condition, and the family in particular. The stories in Elephants in the Room are written with succinct, unadorned prose and a gentleness that belies the strength of their messages. With warmth, humour, empathy, and intimacy, her characters search for the connection and remembrance we seek in those moments of heartbreak that punctuate all of our lives. A most moving collection of short fiction.” – Lori Hahnel, author of Flicker and Vermin: Stories

Elephants in the Room is a gorgeously beguiling collection. Individual stories are beautifully paced, with a skilful interplay between past and present. Delightful.” – Peter Midgely, writer, editor, and translator

“Betty Jane Hegerat tells her stories with intense care and in a soft-voiced, clear way that is lean on descriptions, explanations, and emotional fireworks. Even the passages of dialogue are kept short. The stories range from family members struggling to deal with everyday problems familiar to most of us that are nevertheless inescapable and painful, to the heart-shattering issues in the aftermath of broken marriages, to what to do with the willfully (or not) unfailingly incompetent family members of whom most families have at least one, to the deep love for friends whose suffering one is helpless to alleviate. In this collection, Hegerat examines with admirable restraint the serious and mostly unanswerable questions about living the ordinary life with dignity and kindness. This is a book to be loved.” – Sharon Butala, award-winning author of Leaving Wisdom

About Betty Jane Hegerat

Betty Jane Hegerat

Calgary author Betty Jane Hegerat was a social worker in a long-ago life. The stories she has written since she left that career behind reflect an ongoing need to make sense of conflict and chaos in relationships, and to find moments of laughter and even glimmers of redemption.

That seriousness aside, she loves the Calgary writing community. She has taught at the Alexandra Writers’ Centre, the Fernie Writers’ Conference and for Continuing Education at the University of Calgary, and was Writer in Residence for the Calgary Public Library. In 2015 she was honoured to receive the Writers Guild of Alberta Golden Pen Award for lifetime achievement in writing

Betty Jane’s stories have been published in anthologies and magazines. She has five previous books: a novel, Running Toward Home (Newest Press), a collection of stories, A Crack in the Wall (Oolichan Books), another novel, Delivery (Oolichan Books), and two YA novels, Odd One Out (Oolichan Books) and The Boy (Oolichan Books). The Boy is a French braid of investigative journalism, fiction, memoir, and meta-fiction. The book was shortlisted for the Calgary Book Prize, the High Plains Book Awards, and the Alberta Writers Guild Wilfrid Eggleston Non-Fiction Award.

Episode 180: Erna Buffie – Let Us Be True

A chat with author Erna Buffie about the new edition of her critically acclaimed debut novel Let Us Be True, just released by Shadowpaw Press.

Website
ernabuffie.com

Facebook

Amazon Links for Let Us Be True
Amazon.ca
Amazon.com

About the Book

Finalist for the Margaret Laurence Award for Fiction and Eileen McTavish Sykes Award for Best First Book, 2016 Manitoba Book Awards

From the killing fields of Europe to the merciless beauty of the Canadian prairies, Let Us Be True tells the story of three women whose lives have been shaped and damaged by secrets—their own and those that stretch back through time, casting their shadow from one generation to the next.

Pearl Calder, a woman in her seventies, has thrown away her past and kept it a secret from her daughters. But as Pearl confronts her own mortality, she begins to understand what her dead husband, Henry, always knew: Secrets are like dark and angry ghosts. And they don’t just haunt you. They haunt everyone you love.

With a life that spans the Great Depression, the Second World War, and the deep conservatism of the postwar boom, Pearl’s secrets are rooted in events over which she had no control: the death of her mother; a father destroyed by war; a brother who adores her but who dies on the beaches of Dieppe, and a sister who abandons Pearl to save herself.

Alternating between the past and present, and between Pearl’s voice and those of her family members, both living and dead, Let Us Be True explores how all of our lives, to a greater or lesser degree, are shaped by secrets: our own as well as ancestral secrets we may know nothing about, but which affect who we are and who we become

Praise for Let Us Be True

Let Us Be True is an engaging story with a cast of complex characters about how the secrets we keep can have repercussions for years to come . . . A wonderful book that deserves more readers.”  – Consumed by Ink

“. . .  Let Us Be True remains vital, present and taut throughout. A story as starkly beautiful as a prairie landscape.”The Globe and Mail

“. . . deliciously vivid prose . . .” CBC Books

“Buffie has crafted a stunning addition to the Canadian literary canon . . .”The Calgary Journal

About Erna Buffie

Erna Buffie

Short stories by Erna Buffie have appeared in Room, Prairie Fire, Pottersfield Portfolio, and The Vagrant Review of New FictionLet Us Be True, her first novel, originally published by Coteau Books in 2015, was nominated for the Margaret Laurence Fiction Prize. 

Erna is also an awarding-winning documentary filmmaker who has worked for  CBC’s The Nature of Things and a variety of other national and international broadcasters. Her film Smarty Plants won “Best Direction” at the Canadian Screen Awards and aired on PBS’s Natureunder the title What Plants Talk About