PSU Alumni participate in book signing 

Alyssa Tyler editor in chief 

Books & Burrow, a local business in Downtown Pittsburg hosted their first adult book signing this past week. On Oct. 21 and Oct. 22, authors and Pittsburg State University alums, O. Gene Bicknell and Miles Schnaer.  

Both authors are under the same publisher, Ascend Books.  

“We are hosting a book signing in collaboration with the publisher Ascend Books for both Gene and Miles. They are PSU grads, they’re successful community advocates.,” said owner and founder of Books & Burrow Darcie Shultz. 

Bicknell wrote, ‘The Hermit,’ which has themes of isolation and its impact on the human mind throughout the novel.  

“The novel is called, ‘The Hermit’, and it’s relative to the isolation we’ve gone through with COVID-19. But it’s also because of the isolation and the effect on the human mind, I’ve done a lot of research in regard to how people are affected by being alone. And the basis of this story is a man who spends 15 years in the forest, living off nature, and not seeing another human being for 15 years. So, if you look at isolation in our research, we find that the human mind, all minds are different. Some are stronger than others obviously, but isolation affects different people in different ways. And all the characters in ‘The Hermit’ face isolation in some form. But the 15-year ordeal comes after being a prisoner of war but what we find with that individual he becomes insane at times, and he lives off of the nature. He makes friends and tames a couple of wolves and those become his family. And then you’ll read in the book, there’s a plane crash that a woman and her 13-year-old son survive. And he faces a decision making process that whether he will help them get back to or not. And he doesn’t want to be exposed so he has to go through quite a transformation in his thinking and his transformation reveals itself in this book and we see how that question is going over,” Bicknell said.  

Both authors started writing their books several years ago.  

“I started writing this several years ago, I was actually writing it for myself for a movie and then I got too old to play the part, so I turned it into a novel. I’ve done that with a couple of books. This required a lot of research and it’s a story line that most people who read it say they can’t put it down. The ending presents itself as now I almost have the sequel done. So, this may be a trilogy, we’re just waiting to see. But right now, it’s facing a sequel. There’s a number of people who have read it who are anxious to see the following,” Bicknell said. 

Schnaer’s book, ‘Take the Crown! 18 Core Principles to Grow your Business and Improve your Life,” has a forward written by former PSU president Steve Scott.  

“It took me awhile, Snodgrass who is my book publisher, it took him about 10 years to write this book. I didn’t think I had a story and that anybody that would buy a book from me would be my mother, and I’m going to give her one,” Schnaer said. 

Schaners book focuses on his life experiences and what he has gone through.  

“It’s not a book about me, it’s a book for me and there’s stories in there that I’ve talked about and that I was involved in…. It’s an opportunity, being here, it’s really cool,” Schnaer said.