{"id":1056,"date":"2016-10-30T15:11:42","date_gmt":"2016-10-30T20:11:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/alumninewsletter\/?p=1056"},"modified":"2016-10-31T15:39:45","modified_gmt":"2016-10-31T20:39:45","slug":"check-it-ot-alumni-spotlight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/alumninewsletter\/2016\/10\/30\/check-it-ot-alumni-spotlight\/","title":{"rendered":"Check It Ot: Alumni Spotlight"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"billzahren\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Bill Zahren, a 1986 graduate of Morningside College, majored in mass communication with a double minor in English & history. Zahren\u2019s new novel Paper Trail <\/em>was released by Mill City Press in late September. Paper Trail<\/em> continues with the story of the lead\u00a0characters from Zahren’s debut novel, Officer Involved<\/em>:\u00a0Assistant Woodbury County Attorney Hillary Reed and Sioux City Sentinel-Leader<\/em> reporter Tom Kingman.<\/em> The fictional Kingman is a Morningside College alumnus.<\/p>\n

Officer Involved<\/em> was published in the fall of 2015. The characters Kingman and Reed were inspired by Zahren’s time as a journalist for the Sioux City Journal from 1<\/em>988 to 1995.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>\u201cIt\u2019s fun to be a sort of super-reporter in print with Tom Kingman,\u201d Zahren said. \u201cSome of the stuff he does, real reporters probably wouldn\u2019t or couldn\u2019t do for various reasons. But some of the stuff that ran through my head \u2014 but didn\u2019t come out of my mouth \u2014 during my years as a reporter continues to show up in my books.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both of Zahren\u2019s novels were influenced by his time at Gateway Inc. from 1995 to 1999.<\/p>\n

\u201cWorking at Gateway was one of the best jobs I\u2019ve ever had. I still feel camaraderie for my former colleagues. In fact, the book is dedicated to all my co-workers at Gateway. I hope they enjoy the nuances in the book that were inspired by the big cow-spotted building in North Sioux.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Paper Trail<\/em>, characters Kingman and Reed stay a week in Kingman\u2019s hometown of Council Bluffs so he can go undercover at Cryptotech, a technology-oriented corporation in Omaha.<\/p>\n

Another focus of Zahren\u2019s novel is faith.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>\u201cHillary is a serious Christian and Tom is a serious skeptic, so their exploration of each other\u2019s beliefs or lack thereof will continue to be an element in my books,\u201d Zahren said.<\/p>\n

Zahren\u2019s goal is to make Tom Kingman Morningside’s most famous fictional alumnus. He has two more manuscripts featuring Kingman and Reed in varying stages of editing with plans for a fifth. He hopes to publish the next book, Avenging Angel,<\/em> set back in Siouxland, in the fall of 2017, followed by Tipsy House,<\/em> set in Okoboji, a year later.<\/p>\n

Signed copies of Paper Trail<\/em> are available at Sioux City Gifts<\/em>, 1922 Pierce St., Sioux City. Both\u00a0Paper Trail<\/em> and Officer Involved<\/em>\u00a0are available on Amazon.com, on BN.com, \u00a0or\u00a0through any Barnes and Noble bookstore.<\/p>\n

Learn more at billzahren.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bill Zahren, a 1986 graduate of Morningside College, majored in mass communication with a double minor in English & history. Zahren\u2019s new novel Paper Trail was released by Mill City Press in late September. Paper Trail continues with the story of the lead\u00a0characters from Zahren’s debut novel, Officer Involved:\u00a0Assistant Woodbury County Attorney Hillary Reed and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":968,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52909],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1056","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-volume-1"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/alumninewsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1056","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/alumninewsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/alumninewsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/alumninewsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/968"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/alumninewsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1056"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/alumninewsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1056\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1092,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/alumninewsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1056\/revisions\/1092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/alumninewsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/alumninewsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/alumninewsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}