Author Interview With Larry Schardt

In this week’s episode, I interview Larry Schardt , author of My Runaway Summer – a coming-of-age and life adventure/memoir.

Larry Schardt’s Bio

“Larry Schardt (pronounced Shard) is on a journey of discovering and sharing the power of living a life of happiness and Success That Rocks! Larry’s passion is people. He teaches at Penn State, is a motivational speaker, and a best-selling author.

His latest book, released in May is My Runaway Summer. A story about the summer of 1970, when Larry ran away from home (at the age of 15) to escape alcoholism, violence, and rage. He hitchhiked from Pittsburgh to Ocean City, New Jersey. On the road, he is conflicted about his decision – happy he escaped, yet sad his mother would worry, and terrified he would get caught and sent back home. The Jersey Shore wasn’t what he expected. The story is a timeless and universal coming-of-age lesson. Larry learns the art of Peace, Love, and Forgiveness.

Step back in time and join Larry in this amazing runaway summer adventure. This spring Larry had a total of three works released. In addition to “My Runaway Summer,” he has a life lesson story, called “Career Magic,” in “Chicken Soup for the Soul: Your 10 Keys to Happiness,” and a romance story, called “The Gazebo at Silver Lake,” in the “Shell House” collection. Larry has 4 stories published in the “Chicken Soup for the Soul” series. He also has several stories in various anthologies. Although he doesn’t consider himself a sports writer, his book, “James Conner: The Triumphs of a Football Hero,” was named one of the “24 Best Sports Biography Books of All Time,” by CNN, Forbes, and Inc. He also co-coordinates the highly successful Mindful Writers Retreats.

Since 2015, Larry has been writing a daily Facebook blog to entertain, celebrate, share, and pay forward the good things in life. His effort to help as many people as possible starts the day on a positive note. In his writing and everyday pursuits, Larry’s passion for people, positive spirit, and zest for life shine through. He loves the outdoors, walking, reading, skiing, and music that rocks . . . from classical to Rock ‘n’ Roll!!!”

Grab a cup of coffee and listen to this fun interview with Larry Schardt! 

Hi, Kathleenguer here. Welcome to this episode of helping writers craft authentic stories with courage. And this week, we have a special guest and author, Larry Schardt. Welcome, Larry.

Thank you for having me on, Kathleen. And hello, people out there. Thank you all for taking the time to listen today. I appreciate that. And rock and roll. I love that. Rock and roll. Rock and roll. Thank you.

And instead of me, Larry sent me a wonderful write-up about himself, which I will share in the podcast notes so you can read it yourself. But I would really like to tell you how I met him and then let him introduce himself a little more so he gets to do more talking.

I actually just met Larry a couple of weeks ago at a writers conference, the West Virginia Writers Conference in Ripley, West Virginia, where I attended two of his awesome, amazing workshops thank you. That I got so much out of, and it was just like, really a mindset thing, wouldn’t you say? That’s what you’re talking about, like, in the success one was so much about mindset.

Yes. I believe so. Yes. Good call on that. Yes. Yeah.

And the last workshop that I attended of his was the last workshop. I was at the conference because I had to leave early. I was taking responsibility for myself because they had not provided the gluten-free food for me that they had promised at the conference. But that was just the hotel, the staff there. That was nothing to do with the conference personally, but I enjoyed those sessions so much, so I wanted to have Larry on this podcast to talk a little bit about his many writing projects, specifically the newest one.

. But why don’t you introduce yourself, Larry, and tell us a little bit about yourself for the listeners?

Well, hello, everybody. Hope you’re doing good. My name is Larry Schardt, like Kathleen said, and I’ve been on this writing journey since I was a teenager, I was always in love, and I shouldn’t say was, I am always in love. And I started off writing poems, love poems, lovesick poems, always in love with somebody. And then I started writing short stories and then I’ve always written on the side and then I kind of put it on hold.

When I grew up, and I hate to say grew up for that brief period of time where I hit the corporate world and actually I was still a hippie in the corporate world, I just didn’t avoided the corporate part of corporate world, but that took all of my time.

So my writing kind of got put in the backseat and then about, I don’t know, ten years before I decided to take it early out, I started writing again. I started writing every day, fell back in love with writing and I really didn’t know when it would be time to leave my job because I actually ended up working in a great job.

I worked with an organization called Community Partnerships and we linked the arts with local communities and we did a lot of natural resources type of work. It was a great job and I was at the point where do I stay with my job or do I write?

And I’m also a public speaker or a motivational speaker. So I didn’t know when it was going to be time to leave my first job, becoming a motivational speaker and a writer because initially I wanted to write a book called Success at Rocks, which is the name of my speaking program and I said that I actually have that book 95% written, but I started in on this memoir piece.

Okay, anyway, back before I continue down the wrong road here, I prayed for when it would be time to leave my job and I ended up getting a boss – we didn’t see eye to eye at all. Our priorities were different. She was a numbers person and I’m a people person and that just doesn’t work. Part of my job has to do with reporting to the government and she was 2 hours away and she micromanaged and it just made for a terrible situation because I’m really good on my own. I’m an independent rebel kind of a person.

writing career

So I decided to take it early out and start my writing career, my speaking career, which took off and is doing very well, thank the Lord. But then I started to write success at Rock. So then I got involved with an online writing group. We sign in every morning at 07:00 called Ramona’s Writing Club and I started signing in at 07:00 and we write together in spirit all over the world, dozens of people, and it’s just a commitment to get together that signing in gives you that responsibility. So I started signing in and then Ramona went away for a while and asked me to take over. So I took over, and I was the one running the Ramona’s Writing Club for a while. So I started there, and I thought, while I’m doing this, other people besides Ramona were on my site because I have friends on Facebook, and that was almost eight years ago. I decided that I’m going to take this somewhere and I’m going to make it. I want to put a positive out into the world every day. That’s my goal.

positive into the world via facebook

Every day, every morning on Facebook for the past almost eight years, I’ve put a positive out there because there’s enough negative. We need to fuel the world with positive. So I started on that, and then when I was doing that, every once in a while, I was telling a story, to tell a crazy event that happened in my life. I’ve been lucky to have crazy stuff, to be able to actually make the crazy stuff into stories. I guess that’s the best part, because we all have crazy stuff. We all have fun stuff, but I love to make it into stories, so every once in a while to tell a story.

my runaway summer origins

And a couple of years ago was the anniversary of when I ran away from home when I was 15 to escape violence. And I thought I would do like, a three days’ worth of post on running away. What ended up being a month and a half, I got a lot of feedback from people on my story, and I had a publisher who wanted to publish my story. So I took that story and I made it, and I added the parts that I didn’t put online.

I didn’t include the violence from my father because the bottom line is, even though we had some really rough times and growing up, we did never side. I still love my father, so I was torn inside. But anyway, I included that in the book, and so that’s why I ended up publishing the book. I don’t know if I answered the question.

The name of my book is My Runaway Summer. Also the subtitles peace, love, and rock and roll. But that’s really just more me. But My Runaway Summer is about when I ran away when I was 15, 1970, hitchhiking from Pittsburgh to Ocean City, New Jersey, and I hitchhiked up and down the coast. Looking for a job and finding places to sleep was really kind of my toughest thing to do because you got to do something with your body at night, and there’s police everywhere. And I was so paranoid about the police. I didn’t want to get caught and sent back home because I was so afraid. But I love my family.

I was torn because I love my family, and I missed them. Oh, my gosh. I was homesick when I ran away from home. I missed my mom and I missed my brother and sister, but the fear of going back to my dad was just horrible. So this book is basically about conflicts and trying to stay alive. But actually finding food, of course, was another big issue. But at night, it was just that at night, you can’t be walking around the streets. In Ocean City.

New Jersey is a family resort. There are no bars, so it’s very family oriented. Thank heaven I ended up there. I don’t know why God sent me there, but that was a good thing because I wasn’t at some place where there were a whole lot of bad things happening. There were things, but God, I think, I don’t know, send some angels down and get me protected for part of that time. But I learned a lot of lessons.

My Runaway Summer Just to highlight that with my runaway summer yeah.

And I think one of the amazing parts of your story is you went from one fear to a totally different kind of fear, but the fear didn’t go away because you left home because of fear of your father and the violence. But you got to where you thought you wanted to be, because I’m reading your book now, and it’s like there’s this constant sense of anxiety and fear.

Even in between being around your new friends with the music playing and everybody laughing, you always enter into that musing, your inner musing of like, are the cops going to come? Am I going to have any food to eat? Where am I going to sleep tonight? So you were homeless, so you had a whole new fear.

In your workshop you showed a picture of your family home, and it was beautiful. So it was like you weren’t leaving your home because you didn’t have a nice place to live. (Larry) -That’s for sure. That’s right. (Kathleen)- And you weren’t leaving your home because you didn’t love your siblings or your parents. You were leaving your home because of fear. But you just went into another kind of fear.

That’s right. Definitely right. Yes. As a 15-year-old, and actually years before that, too, I thought of running the sweetness of to me, that was the answer, because I was afraid to go home. I mean, I was literally afraid to go home every night and every day because I never knew when my dad was going to snap and beat the crap out of me or I’d have to run down the park for safety, run to a friend’s house for safety, and I just never knew.

So that constant fear and then kind of what sparked all this was back in that time period. That was just three years before that was the Summer of Love. Hayes Ashburn. San Francisco. Right. And it was in Time magazine and Life magazine. And I saw this, and I’m like, oh, my gosh, these hippies, man, they’re such cool people. If I could only make it to San Francisco, I would be taken care of and I live this great life and even maybe you meet Grace Slick, which it was always. I’ve always loved Grace Slick and Jefferson Airplane. For those of you who might not know, Jefferson Airplane was a rock band, a psychedelic rock band in the Grace Slick was their lead singer.

summer fantasy

But anyway, so that was kind of the fantasy in my mind, not realizing there’s a whole lot more to life than that. And when I ran away from home, I went the opposite direction. I went east and San Francisco was west. But I realized that and ultimately my goal was to get to Ocean City, live the summer there, send money home because my mom needed money. My dad was without a job for 20 years. I don’t know how we ended up living in that beautiful house. I grew up and I was so blessed.

But anyway, that was my goal, find a job. And then I actually met a guy named Mark, who’s in the book. I don’t know if you got that far yet. And we were going to hitchhike out to Hayde Ashbury. That was the ultimate goal. But I think I should probably let the book tell the story of what ultimately happened, right?

Well, let me ask you this question, though, just for somebody who is thinking, hey, I want to get this book, what would be your teaser? Or what message would you give them that they’re going to get out of reading this book?

Thank you for asking that. It’s actually a coming-of-age story. So my target audience well, actually when I wrote the story, it was just a memoir piece, but my target audience is people, anybody who wants to know the history of the still considered the 60s through the eyes of a 15-year-old who lived it as a person seeking freedom, seeking the rock and roll peace and loving the whole thing.

So I wrote it. It’s kind of a memorabilia piece for people who are baby boomers, the love generation. And I also wrote it as a historic piece because I added the historic part because I really worked hard to make it historically accurate. And that was a real challenge because I don’t remember the price of things back in those days.

Yes, your peanut butter and your bread that you bought in that store were like, what?

I tried to make it so that’s a history part with Jackson met with the Ocean City Historic Society and they helped me. I went to Ocean City to do a lot of this research and what a great place to go do research.

So anyway, you asked me about the target audience and who I wrote it for, and then I also wrote it for young people to try to let them know that running away from stuff is not a way out. And I don’t know if this is a spoiler or not, but the message is forgiveness. The whole theme by the end of the book is about understanding and forgiveness.

peace,love, rock ‘n’ roll, and forgiveness

Well, actually, it’s all about peace, love and rock and roll. I don’t know if you noticed this, or I’ve had quite a few people notice, but every chapter is named after a rock and roll song that was out at that time. Right. I had to make sure it was historically accurate because there’s been billions of songs that have gone through my heads over the years. So I checked them all out and tried to find some fun.

Yeah, I noticed that because I’ve read one other book that did that, but it was with country songs, and it was Edie Wadsworth’s book. And she did that with country songs that her dad loved because it was similar. It was about her dad and forgiveness. So I don’t think telling them that the theme of the book is forgiveness is spoiling it.

There are so many things happening. And I would add that the genre that should read the book are young people who are interested in the music culture. Because I have a son who works in the music business now, and he talks about that all the time, how welcoming and loving this these concert people are whenever he’s helping with the concert. And there’s just a certain vibe that you don’t get. And I think that young people who are interested in all kinds of music would enjoy that. I know I’m going to get it for my son because he will love just reading about not only your story, but the history and all of those songs and what was going on because he’s there. I was like, Get your own music, son.

Well, thank you for that. I appreciate hearing that. Yes, music is a huge part of this. And actually, I’m going to put all this together on a playlist on Spotify, all the songs, because a lot of young people might not know these songs. They’re great songs. Of course, I’m saying that because I love them.

No, that’s good. I love that idea. That’s great. I think that you should put that on your Facebook page and everything whenever you do the write-ups. I’ve been reading yours now since I found out that you did that every morning. And then you’re doing, here’s where my book is, and here’s the music you could listen to while you’re reading it. And I love that idea.

And so to finish up, since this is a coffee break podcast, I don’t like to go longer than 20 to 30 minutes. Okay. And this will give you some time to talk. I’m not saying hurry up and talk, share any information. We’re just switching gears here. You think that our listeners need to know about you, your book, your website, et cetera, like this is your marketing time, tell us where to find you, where to find your book, and all that sort of stuff.

Thank you, Kathleen. Well, I do have a website, but I’m more active on Facebook, to be honest. Well, actually I’m always on. I didn’t need to add that on, but at least I tried to be. But anyway, every day I’m on Facebook, I interact with everybody. I answer every post, or at least if I miss one, it’s only because I somehow spaced. But I really like the idea of interacting. So Facebook to me is my favorite medium just to talk to people and even messaging.

That’s how you and I have been contacted each other more than anything because I had some trouble getting on here. You were right there, right on the messenger. So anyway, Facebook, and my Facebook is Larry Schardt and you can see my daily posts on there for the past eight years.

And actually, I do these “Stroll through the yard with Larry Schardt” several evenings a week and just kind of cool to watch the gardens progress throughout the summer. It’s a growth experience. It’s a really cool thing. And I’m on Amazon author central and I’m actively involved. Actually, I’m the coordinator of a group called Mindful Writers Retreats where we do these mindful retreats a couple of times a year. We get writers together and write together in spirit, stay together for a week in a beautiful setting in the Laurel Highlands of Pennsylvania.

And those are some of my main things. I love people. I love people any way I can interact with people. And I learned so much being around beautiful people and sometimes not beautiful people, but everybody inside is beautiful. I have to say that’s part of my hippie upbringing, that peace, and love stuff. But anyway, that’s the basics of where you can find me again on Facebook. I’m also on Twitter, I’m also on LinkedIn. Yeah.

And I’ll share that in the show notes. And his book is on Amazon and any major bookseller. And you can go to Amazon and find his book and then you can follow him because he also has stories in Chicken Soup for the Soul, like four different stories. So he’s a regular.

Yeah, and I have stories in a couple of anthologies too. And actually, my writing friends -we have a pretty tight-knit writing community, just a few of us who support each other in our writing. It’s kind of a mastermind type of thing. But they insist on me doing a follow-up to My Runaway Summer, which I’m going to do. But right now I’m working on a Christmas story. I wish they’d been telling me I love Christmas every day here when it’s 92 degrees. Kind of cool off, I guess

No, I understand. I have an Advent devotional out and it started out as a series of blog posts around Christmas and then it turned into a book, which, of course, I was writing in the summer because you don’t write a Christmas book at Christmas time like they do on the Hallmark movies. That’s not how it really works.

Exactly. Yeah, Hallmark has liked the basic theme of Hallmark, but I think it’s crazy to leave a job you’ve been working all these years for because you met somebody a week later. The idea is fun. Yeah, the reason I just said I’ve made the mistake of rushing in. They say Fools rush in and I’m like, okay, well, I’ve done that. I’ve been there. So anyway, sorry, I just had it.

No, I totally understand. I’m the rushing-in type, too. And unfortunately, sometimes as an author, that can be like, really bad because you rush into 45 projects and you’re like, yes, I’ll finish this. And then I’ll write. And then you have five books. Like, right now I have three books written that are sitting there waiting for revising, which is fine, but I’m working on other things at the same time.

But you understand, it’s great to be an author. It’s a very creative thing to do and I love it, but I am one of the fools who Russians do too many things at once, I will tell you that. Well, thank you so much for being on the show today. And do you have any last words for someone who is still not owning the fact that they are a writer? I want you to tell them about the mug you showed me when we were chatting before we started.

I speak at writers’ conferences in some of my presentations, depending on which presentation I’m giving. I have several different I ask people, I kind of tricked them at the beginning. I asked, how many aspiring writers do we have in here? Inevitably, a bunch of hands go up and I will say, and I hate to tell people they’re wrong.

I don’t know how to approach it. But I say, no, you’re not an aspiring writer. If you write, you are a writer. Even if you write just a couple of words a day, you’re a writer. Writing is writing, no matter what. So look at yourself as a writer and introduce yourself as a writer and be a writer. If you have to put notes sticking around your house to remind you, I’m a writer. And I have this really cool mug that I drink my coffee out of every morning and it says, “I are a writer.” I really love it because it just reminds me, I am a writer. The more we remind ourselves up, but the more we talk ourselves up, the more it instills it into us.

I also do one of my programs is called “Live Your Passion as a Writer”- begin with Baby Steps. And those baby steps include just always think of yourself as a writer. And I started out with nothing, and now I have stories in Chicken Soup for the Soul. Actually,

I wrote a book about a football player, a Steeler named James Connor. It was an honor to write that book. I’m not even a sports writer, but I decided to expand my horizon. Since I love the Steelers, since I love football, I decided to write this book. That was a real challenge and a cool thing. And James Carmen is just a phenomenal person.

So little by little, hopeful as a writer, it’s all about I always say the six most important things about being a writer, are write, write well, read, and write, write in that order. Basically, you have to do a lot of reading. But I also say there are three more, and that’s improved, improve, improve. And the only way you improve is to take classes and continue to publish stuff and continue to get a good editor and things like that. Hopefully, that was a long-winded answer. I apologize for that. But I think there are so many important things about writing that I hope everybody out there just rocks it as a writer. And if anybody, by the way, anybody wants to email me to my email address, is there a friendly I love that.

I love that part so if you haven’t been to a writer’s conference, because I’ve had several authors that have been on the show say that, go to a writer’s conference. Yeah, it’s intimidating. It’s scary no matter what level you are. I mean, I have lots of books published, and it’s still scary to drive to a conference by yourself and show up.

But you know what? After you’ve been there for a couple of sessions and you start meeting people and you start talking, and then you’re like, these are my tribe, these are my people.

Improve, improve, improve, certainly. But just like you just said, Kathleen, you hit the nail. It’s really about networking. I hate the word networking. It’s about comradery. Networking sounds manipulative, and camaraderie. It’s about appreciating those other writers and hearing their stories. It’s a beautiful writer. I will take any chance I can to go to any writing conference I can. It’s just a fabulous experience.

And writers, like you said, for the most part, are just so open. And even the ones who I’ve idolized my entire life, there’s no barrier there, right? It’s just a beautiful thing.

Well, thanks again for joining me, and thank you, listeners, for listening -I will see you next week.

Larry@SuccessThatRocks.com, Facebook.com/Larry.Schardt, Amazon.com/author/larryschardt, Twitter.com/LarrySchardt, Linkedin.com/in/larryschardt, LarrySchardt.com

pin it: