Open Forum in The Villages, Florida
This weekly podcast will cover in detail, people, clubs and activities here in The Villages, Florida. Each show will run 10-30 minutes. Become a Supporter of this show for $3/month. Supporters will have access to all episodes. Our newest Supporters will get a Shout-out during a show.
Open Forum in The Villages, Florida
Unveiling Talents in The Villages - Carolee Owen
Exploring Artistic Journeys: Carolee Owen
In this episode of the Open Forum in The Villages, Florida podcast, host Mike Roth delves into the rich artistic journey of Carolee Owen. Starting with her early days in Baltimore, where her drawing talent set her apart, Carolee shares her evolution from an illustrator to a writer. She discusses her first published book, 'Murder in the Haunted House,' and its unique aspect as an in-home play, along with her two children's books. Carolee reflects on joining the Writers for Kids group, which significantly honed her writing skills. She also talks about her passion for creating illustrations for her own and others' books, her experiences in writing and conducting improvised murder mystery plays, and her new project, 'Sock's Summer Vacation.' The conversation reveals Carolee’s creative process, her advice for writers, and her diverse hobbies. The episode wraps up with insights on the impact of social media on children's behavior and Carolee’s future writing aspirations.
00:00 Introduction to the Open Forum Podcast
00:28 Support the Podcast
01:31 Meet Carolee Owen: Author and Illustrator
02:15 Carolee's Journey and Inspirations
07:16 Carolee's Plays and Performances
11:22 Carolee's Hobbies and Ancestry
14:54 Writing Advice and Future Projects
20:14 Conclusion and Listener Engagement
Open Forum in The Villages, Florida is Produced & Directed by Mike Roth
A new episode will be released most Fridays at 9 AM
Direct all questions and comments to mike@rothvoice.com
If you know a Villager who should appear on the show, please contact us at: mike@rothvoice.com
Welcome to the Open Forum in The Villages, Florida podcast. In this show, we talk to leaders in the community, leaders of clubs and interesting folks who live here in The Villages to get perspectives of what is happening here in The Villages, Florida. We are a listener supported podcast. There will be shout outs for supporters in episodes.
Mike Roth:This is Mike Roth. Thanks for listening. And listeners, I'm thrilled to share with you this podcast, which is my passion project for you. This podcast brings you knowledge, inspiration, and a lot of things that people need to know about the villages and the people living here. Be sure to hit the follow button to get the newest episode each week. Creating this podcast is a labor of love. Even though it demands more time, I can easily spare. Now, here's where you come in. You can help us keep the podcast alive and thriving. How? By becoming a supporter.
Mike Roth (2):And click on the supporter button at the top of the page or the purple supporter box. Even a small donation of three to ten dollars a month makes a big difference and you can cancel your subscription at any time. Your support means the world to us. Stay curious, stay inspired, and keep those headphones on. This is Mike Roth on Open Forum in The Villages, Florida. I'm here today with Carolee Owen. Thanks for joining me, Carolee.
Carolee Owen:Thanks for having me.
Mike Roth:Carolee grew up in Baltimore. And first showed a talent for drawing. Only much later in her life did she begin writing. Her first published book, Murder in the Haunted House Is not only a story, but useful as an in home play. We'll have to talk more of that, about that Carolee. And Carolee has two children's books.
Mike Roth AI 9-11-24:Her Next book is tentatively called
Mike Roth:Sock's Summer Vacation. She's an illustrator as well. Have you illustrated the covers of your book as well?
Carolee Owen:Some of them.
Mike Roth:Okay, that's great. Tell us about where you grew up in Baltimore and what talents were nurtured there.
Carolee Owen:Originally in elementary school A lot of my drawings seem to be a little better than the rest of the children. And I would do, as growing up, I would do a lot of things for the other kids. I would make paper dolls for them to play with. And they'd always come up to the porch and I'd draw things. It was in maybe junior high that I first put together A comic book, actually, of worms.
Mike Roth:Let me see if I got that straight. Your first writing was a comic book about worms.
Carolee Owen:That's right.
Mike Roth:Okay, and where did it go from there?
Carolee Owen:It didn't happen quickly Too much as far as writing, but the artwork did. I carried it into my job by doing flyers and other things that you need in the course of office work. Banners and posters and different things.
Mike Roth:So you grew up and lived in Baltimore? Yes. When did you move here to The Villages?
Carolee Owen:Oh, about 13 years ago. Oh. 12 years ago
Mike Roth:You came here directly from Baltimore?
Carolee Owen:No, we I got married and got married late at 31 and was married 50 years before my husband died last year. And during that time we, we moved around because he worked for Westinghouse and we went from place to place. I've lived in Florida before in the 70s for a while. And I just recently moved back to Florida about 30, 35 years ago. But I didn't move here until retirement. Okay. Or my retirement.
Mike Roth:Good. And what helped you most in your writing?
Carolee Owen:What has helped me most when I moved here to The Villages I'd say a year later I found Mark Newhouse's group, which was Writers for Kids, and I joined that group and found it very helpful in my writing. Most of what I'd start to write It would go to the people in that class and they would make comments on what they thought was good and what could be better. And it, invariably, how I started out my story, it would turn around and be something totally different starting out. In a way I feel like I've just mellowed and Developed into a different kind of writer, a better writer, I think.
Mike Roth:Mark's been on our show a couple of times. And what contributed to you being an illustrator of your own books?
Carolee Owen:Being in that class, because as people would read their different stories, Or chapters. I would have pictures in my head, and I would doodle them. And the first time, one, one girl was sitting next to me, and she saw me draw a mermaid from her book. She was talking about a mermaid. And she liked the drawing. She said, I've had a lot of people draw mermaids, but I liked yours best, that was the first book that I did, and now I have maybe almost a dozen that have followed that.
Mike Roth:Do you charge people to be an illustrator?
Carolee Owen:Of course.
Mike Roth:I don't know.
Carolee Owen:It's not much. It's not much? It's nothing to live on, but it's something.
Mike Roth:It's good to know we have an illustrator here in The Villages.
Carolee Owen:Oh, there's many of them.
Mike Roth:I was just talking to another author who told me she had her book illustrated by someone in Pakistan.
Carolee Owen:Oh my goodness.
Mike Roth:And she said it was very cheap. I said look at the results.
Carolee Owen:Now I understand they even have programs that'll do your illustrations for you.
Mike Roth:Oh yes, AIs will do your illustrations.
Carolee Owen:I've noticed that most illustrators have their own style. And I think for someone looking for an illustrator, I always tell them, I'll give you a sample of my work and see if it fits. What you have in mind for your book. Some people don't even have pictures in their mind when they're writing.
Mike Roth:So do you, do you use color illustrations or are they pure?
Carolee Owen:Some, if they Need color. It's more expensive to make color.
Mike Roth:Yeah. Black and white that works well when you're self publishing on Amazon, they charge a lot more when you're going to work in color.
Carolee Owen:Or if you have a chapter book and not a children's picture book you would use black and white children's picture book might use color.
Mike Roth:What do you think is your best book?
Carolee Owen:My best book my husband always liked A Wish for Algae, which is a children's book about a fish who has everything, but it's not enough for him. And he wants to be a bird, because he thinks that's fascinating. But when he becomes a bird, he finds out it's a lot different.
Mike Roth:I would have made him a flying fish.
Carolee Owen:But anyway, he be friends, a an owl who helps him solve his problems. And I won't tell you the end of the story.
Mike Roth:Okay. How many books have you written in total?
Carolee Owen:If you count the plays that I've written, and that's the murder mystery plays that I originally said was Murder in the Haunted House.
Mike Roth:How many plays are there?
Carolee Owen:I've played four, I've made four. Four plays. That I've played either in my house or in Country Club, Atmosphere.
Mike Roth:How many actors do you put into a play?
Carolee Owen:As many that come. If I have it in my house, if I have 24 people, I have 24 characters.
Mike Roth:Different parts? Different parts. So 24 scripts?
Carolee Owen:Absolutely.
Mike Roth (2):Okay. And it's word for word?
Carolee Owen:No, it's I give them what their character is like. Anything specific, if they're part of the murder mystery itself. Things that they have to do or say. But they are. Allowed to ad lib and do whatever they need to do to in The space of their character, It's an improvised play
Mike Roth:All right has it ever been have any of the.Plays that are improvised been produced and Shown to larger order larger audiences.
Carolee Owen:No just The audiences that I have in the country club atmosphere
Mike Roth:And how many people are there at the country clubs?
Carolee Owen:Oh, maybe a hundred. But not all of them are characters. Only in my home.
Mike Roth:And in the country club, how many characters did you have?
Carolee Owen:It would be Oh, close to twenty maybe.
Mike Roth:Twenty? And how many different plays are there?
Carolee Owen:Four.
Mike Roth (2):Four different plays?
Carolee Owen:Yeah. I even have one that's The Run for the Roses, and each, or not each person, but a number of people who come to the party they get to be the owners of one of the horses that's actually running in the in the Run for the Roses.
Mike Roth:Run for the Roses, okay. Yeah. That's pretty cool. Dean Corbett put on a play, an improvised play like that, and in every performance. There was a different perpetrator of the murder.
Carolee Owen:You could do that.
Mike Roth:And the thing that really made his play unique is he had Wayne Richards playing the part of the detective. And Wayne can break out into song and improvise a song that fits into the play. It was wonderful. It was wonderful. Carolee, are you working on anything new now?
Carolee Owen:Yeah, several things. Besides illustrations, which I just finished one of Mark's books, as a matter of fact. And I have two more books that I'm going to illustrate coming up. But I've been working on several Books, one of them is a murder mystery, one of the ones that I had made as a play. I'm going to do the same thing as this Murder in the Haunted House, where I write the story. And then at the end, I give all the things that you need to put on the play in your house. Everything that you need to give out to the people that are going to come. Invitations. And anything else? Certificates. You always need a certificate if somebody's, guess the right
Mike Roth:Great. We're going to take a short break now and listen to a Alzheimer's tip from Dr. Craig Curtis. This is Mike Roth and Dr. Craig Curtis. We're talking about Alzheimer's disease. Let's talk about the omega 3 and omega 6. How should people get that from their diet?
Dr. Craig Curtis:Well, primarily, you should get that through beans and nuts and legumes and fish. You can take a supplement of omega 3, omega 6s. However, don't eat them. Overdue the supplementation of omega 3 specifically. There was a large study published by the American College of Cardiology a few years back that seemed to show that people that took too much omega 3 might have an increased risk of a heart arrhythmia. So my recommendation is if you buy omega 3 supplements, take it as written.
Warren:With over 20 years of experience studying brain health, Dr. Curtis's goal is to educate The Villages community on how to live a longer, healthier life. To learn more, Visit his website, CraigCurtisMD. com or call 352 500 5252 to attend a free seminar.
Mike Roth:Thank you, Dr. Curtis. Carolee Off the subject of writing for a moment. What's your favorite pastime or hobby here at The Villages?
Carolee Owen:I have many. Which means? As far as crafts, I like to crochet when I'm watching television. I like to do ancestry. I've done that for quite a number of years. And of course I go to bingo, play cards. I play golf when I can.
Mike Roth:What's something you discovered about your own ancestry that surprised you?
Carolee Owen:I guess that some of my family came from Denmark. I didn't realize that. I thought it was mostly English and German. But I also, the name my maiden name is Russell, and I understand that's French. That came from William the Conqueror. They came over to Great Britain at 1066. Yeah, and there were people named Rousseau that brought the name Russell over.
Mike Roth:Okay. Now, if you could have one superpower. What would that be?
Carolee Owen:I'd like to have a magic wand like Harry Potter and be able to zap things.
Mike Roth:Some people know I'm an amateur magician. In some place in the house I have a couple of magic wands.
Carolee Owen:It would be nice.
Mike Roth:Yeah, they are very magical when you use them correctly. Now, you've been a writer for what, 12 years?
Carolee Owen:I started my murder mysteries back in the mid 80s.
Mike Roth:Oh, in the mid 80s.
Carolee Owen:Yeah, I'm very slow at doing things, until the point that they're due, and then I have to do them very fast. And it's curious how I started to do that. I'm a very shy person, and I could never talk in front of a crowd. And in Pittsburgh, where we were living, my husband got us involved in, to a murder mystery play that we, that was held at a local pub, and I was one of the characters. I made myself sick, thinking about it, until I finally decided that Okay, I'm not me, I'm the character, so I can do anything I want, and don't care if people laugh at me, Which my character was one that they'd laugh at, and found out how much fun it was to go up to somebody that completely unaware and ask them a question like, are you here for the bride or the groom, and put them on the spot, and then I wound up having the best time of my life. And so when I came back home, I said, this can't be hard to do, I thought, and that's when I wrote Murder in the Haunted House, where they have a seance involved in the play, which is fun. And during a blackout, you hear a gun go off, you hear a person scream, you hear a thud on the floor you hear a lot of things, and when the lights go back on. A person has been stabbed.
Mike Roth:If one, if someone wants to get a copy of your play, or plays, there are four of them, or your children's books, how do they do that?
Carolee Owen:You can go to Amazon. Type Carolee Russell. You can type Carolee Owen. You can go to Amazon.
Mike Roth:So the books are on Amazon?
Carolee Owen:You can find them. I, I don't know how. My publisher is Trafford. At the time, they were the only ones that I knew that did the print on demand books, and they'd pretty much print your book. Except for things they didn't want in it, which I wouldn't put in anyway. And at the time, I just wanted to have a book in my hand, and it was marvelous to see something in print with my name on it.
Mike Roth:Carolee, if you could give advice to the 30 year old Carolee, now, from your vast store of knowledge. What advice would you give to the younger Carolee about writing?
Carolee Owen:I might try to do it earlier, but I wasn't in the frame of mind at that age as I am now, or was when I wrote my first book. But I was involved in a lot of things. I still have a lot of projects going on that sometimes I can't make room for other ones. But I like to keep busy.
Mike Roth:What are your top three recommendations for writers?
Carolee Owen:Listen to other people. Number one. I would say have someone else read your work to you or you read it aloud because your work is too close to you that when you proofread it you know what's going to be there so you don't see if there's a mistake. And let's see, third, I would say Just make sure it sounds right to you. I'm a, what they call a seat of the pants writer. I would recommend, though, that you have an idea of where your book is going. And, as Mark would always say aim for the arrow, or aim your arrow at the target. And Which I have a little problem doing.
Mike Roth:Then use a pistol instead of a crossbow. It's much easier. It gets there faster. Yeah, the Shooter's Club, we have to get someone off from the Shooter's Club.
Carolee Owen:That's true. I've not tried the Bow and Arrow Club either.
Mike Roth:Yeah, they've got a nice couple of air gun clubs here. As well as the Pistol Club, which, Shooting Club, which has probably got four or five thousand members in it.
Carolee Owen:There are a lot of groups in The Villages that tend to help writers and Marks is just one of them and that's for children plus now because if you've written a book for children and then want to do an adult book, we're very happy to help that person along with that.
Mike Roth:I've been told there are 17 writing clubs here in The Villages.
Carolee Owen:I bet there's more than that, but there's one for about every genre you can imagine.
Mike Roth:Wow. Okay. And, so is there a question here? in today's show that you wish I had asked you, but I failed to ask that question?
Carolee Owen:No, I think you've covered everything. Except that I I didn't really answer your question about what I'm doing next. I've been writing what you called Socks's summer vacation. Socks is a cat, and he has Adventures with a bully.
Mike Roth:A bully cat?
Carolee Owen:A bully cat. Oh boy. And And as it turns out, he doesn't believe this bully is a bully of the heart. Yes. He thinks that he would prefer not to be a bully. And although This bully has accidentally broken his leg. He's still willing to help the bully get out of some trouble.
Mike Roth:The bully broke Sox's leg?
Carolee Owen:Yes. Oh. In a baseball game. Cats can play baseball.
Mike Roth (2):That's why you're a writer. You've got that imagination to put things together that most people wouldn't think of. Cats playing baseball.
Carolee Owen:I do have one problem with children's books. And that is I write as an adult too much. I need to think as a child. That happens a lot. It happens a lot.
Mike Roth:Why do you think that is?
Carolee Owen:Because we're adults, we've forgotten what it's like to be a child, and how we spoke at that time. And a lot of the children these days are a lot older than they were when I was their age. They act older.
Mike Roth:Oh, you mean a child of 6 or 7 might act as a child of 9 or 10?
Carolee Owen:Okay. Yeah, and that's because of television and, yeah, the environment.
Mike Roth (2):Television and social media. All of those things add up. If there's one thing you could have done different in your writing career, that you think would have made it a better career, what would that have been?
Carolee Owen:I think I would have written my murder mysteries a lot earlier. And put them in book form, because I'd been thinking of doing that for a long time. 20 years, maybe longer.
Mike Roth:They're not in book form today?
Carolee Owen:One of them is.
Mike Roth:So you have three that haven't been turned into books yet?
Carolee Owen:Three have been One is in galley form. But I need to go through it, rewrite it, and correct things. So it's not ready yet.
Mike Roth:So one book is available through Amazon?
Carolee Owen:Yes, that's Murder in the Haunted House. And, I'd love to hear from people if they've purchased it and tried the play at home, how that turned out, whether that worked for them.
Mike Roth:How do they get a hold of you to tell you?
Carolee Owen:I do have a website that I have neglected terribly, which is one thing I probably should correct. And,
Mike Roth:What is the website name?
Carolee Owen:It's Carolee Russell. Or, It's C A R O L E R U S E L And,
Mike Roth:Dot com?
Carolee Owen:Dot com, yes. I forget that. And I have another one that's A Russell Riginal. No O in the original. Just A Russell Riginal. Riginal. Dot com.
Mike Roth:We're good. Carol, thanks for being on the show with us.
Carolee Owen:Thank you. My pleasure.
Donna:Remember, our next episode will be released next Friday at 9 a. m. Should you want to become a major supporter of the show or have questions, please contact us at mike at rothvoice dot com. This is a shout out for supporters Tweet Coleman, Ed Williams, Duane Rommrich, Paul Sorgen, Kathy Loving, and Dr. Craig Curtis at K2 in The Villagesss. We will be hearing more from Dr. Curtis with short Alzheimer's tips each week. If you know someone who should be on the show, contact us at mike at rothvoice. com. The way our show grows is with your help. Text your friends about this show if you enjoyed listening or just tell your friends about the show. We thank everyone for listening to the show. The content of the show is copyrighted by Rothvoice 2025. Our rights reserved.