R. Overbeck

Our debut author comes to Heroic Teacher Press with quite a pedigree, both in education and in writing. Dr. Overbeck is a veteran educator who has devoted more than three decades to the service of children as a teacher, college professor and administrator. He has worked with thousands of teachers, custodians, secretaries and administrators in schools, large and small, rural and suburban. He knows schools and his writing has vividly captured the drama of the world of education.

For his educational leadership and advocacy for children, Dr. Overbeck has won recognition from state and national organizations. Over the past two decades he has been chosen to serve on numerous state educational committees and as a national consultant to ACT. He has earned professional honors including the National Teacher Leader Award in 2003 from Reading Recovery Council of North America (RRCNA) and the Ohio Teacher-Leader award in 2006 from the Ohio Council of Teachers of English and Language Arts (OCTELA).

For the past twenty years, Dr. Overbeck has also been a sought-after speaker, presenting to small school staffs as well as to huge conference halls of attendees. His speaking experiences run the gamut from serving as a keynote speaker at a national conference to an invited guest speaker at state legislative sessions to a participant in a federal policy debate at an educational conference. Over the years, thousands of educators, parents, politicians have been educated, informed and entertained by Dr. Overbeck on such varied topics as politics and education, maximizing student achievement and teachers–the real American heroes.

An accomplished writer, the name “R. Overbeck” can been found in the credits as a contributing author for professional texts, a byline for newspaper articles and a writer of professional journal articles. His words have been published in venues as varied as the International Reading Association Press and the Dayton Daily News and Cleveland Plain Dealer. His most recent article, “What Difference Does Reading Recovery Make–For a District?” is featured in the Spring, 2010 edition of the Journal of Reading Recovery. HTP is thrilled to have obtained the rights to R. Overbeck’s first work of fiction, Leave No Child Behind.

Dr. Overbeck is also a husband of thirty-plus years, a father of three (all grown now), and dotes on his seven beautiful grandchildren who are scattered throughout the country. When he is not leading school districts or on the speaker circuit, he enjoys traveling (mostly to visit the grandkids), jogging (he logs 500 miles a year), golfing (he’s not very good) and, of course, writing. He is currently at work on his next novel, Harsh Lessons, a mystery about a rogue drug that kills students in a middle school.  http://heroicteacherpress.com

 

PageOneLit.com: Where did you grow up and was reading and writing a part of your life? Who were your earliest influences and why?

R Overbeck: Believe it or not, I was a city boy, born and raised in Cincinnati but I spent much of my adult life in small towns--which I have enjoyed--and have chosen to locate my narratives in small town settings. As an English teacher and administrator, reading and writing was always a major component of my work and my life. To tell the truth, though, I was so busy raising a family and teaching and later administering, that writing fiction did not really become a part of my life until the past ten years or so. When I was young, writing novels was always a dream, to entertain and mesmerize people with my words. It just turned out I had to wait a few decades to realize my dream.

 

PageOneLit.com: Why do you write?

R Overbeck: True authors write because they have something to say, hopefully something important. For me, writing has become a way to share some important truths and insights from life. For a great many years, I have worked alongside dedicated, hard-working, really heroic teachers, and have witnessed them transforming thousands of children’s lives over that time. These incredible educators serve children year after year without fanfare or notice, nurturing and supporting students and helping young people realize their dreams. Writing provides me a means to pay tribute to these unsung heroes and allows me to weave a few of these remarkable true stories into what I hope are compelling, fictional narratives.

 

PageOneLit.com: Tell us a little about Leave No Child Behind?

R Overbeck: Leave No Child Behind is an exciting thriller about a terrorist takeover of a rural high school and one teacher’s heroic stand against the intruders. It is a novel that pits an “everyday” high school teacher and her volunteer partner against a small cell of ruthless international terrorists in a setting readers will find quite familiar, and yet newly terrifying at the same time. The novel transports readers not only to the classrooms and lunchroom of a typical American high school but also inside the Al Quaida training camps in Afghanistan as well as the situation room at the White House. In this novel readers meet and come to know, and even understand, heroes and cowards, villains and victims, politicians and government servants.

PageOneLit.com: Leave No Child Behind is told through carefully interwoven tales of multiple narrators - Explain.

R Overbeck: When I crafted this story, I made the decision to tell the narrative from multiple perspectives to provide the reader with a tale of greater depth, insight and realism. The primary narrator, Dee Dee Sterber, is a young, dedicated high school teacher and most of the story is seen through her eyes as it unfolds in the school and town around her. But I also wanted to create antagonists that had both complexity and authenticity, to give the readers some understanding of the beliefs and motivation behind individuals who would commit such heinous crimes. For this reason, segments of the tale are told from the perspectives of two terrorists, Yassim, the cell leader, and Rashid, the young student recruit. Finally, to provide a national perspective, the government “inside story” as it was, the efforts of government agencies to first uncover and then deal with this terrorist threat are relayed through the viewpoint of Harold Samson, Director of Homeland Security. Together, it is my hope that these four perspectives enrich the reader’s experience with tales that intertwine--teacher, terrorists, government--and eventually collide as the story advances.

PageoneLit.com:Who is Dee Dee Sterber?

R Overbeck:When I’m speaking to audiences, I’m often asked this question. The short answer is the character I’ve created is actually a composite of several real teachers I have known, worked with, and respected. Dee Dee is, in many ways, a very typical teacher. She is idealistic, hard-working and fiercely dedicated to her students. Although she possesses courage and inner strength, she has no “super powers” and she and her partner must use their courage, wit and perseverance to defeat the terrorists. Like many great teachers, she puts the needs of her students before her own and is willing to sacrifice for them, even if that means giving her own life to save them. In many ways, even though her actions are played out on a much larger and more terrifying stage, the character of Dee Dee Sterber represents the many talented great teachers whose small, heroic deeds and sacrifices for their children everyday in this country so often go unnoticed.

 

PageoneLit.com: Leave No Child Behind would make a great film. If Hollywood called and asked you to cast the characters , who would you cast and why?

R Overbeck:A number of readers (and reviewers) have made similar comments about the cinematic potential of Leave No Child Behind. There are many great actors and actresses who I believe would bring the story to life on the screen. But my first choices would probably be Rachel McAdams (recently from the film “Morning Glory”) for Dee Dee, Donnie Wahlburg (starring in the hit series “Blue Bloods”) for Jerod and J.K. Simmons (starring in the the series, “The Closer”) for Harold Samson. In order to maintain the authenticity of the tale, the actors for the terrorists would likely be native Arab actors. Altogether, I beleive these actors whould make the story come alive as a really exciting film and would be fun to watch.


PageoneLit.com: The reviews for Leave No Child Behind have been wonderful -- explain a little about how your professional background helped write this novel.

R Overbeck: One of the primary rules of good writing is to write what you know. For more than 35 years, I have served children as a teacher, a college professor and an administrator. In other words, I know schools and school people. Because of this experience, I was able to bring a level of authenticity to the narrative that the reader will recognize. Numerous readers have commented that the setting and characters reflect exactly what they remember of their high school experience. Also, in my teaching and administrative positions, studying research was often a very necessary responsibility. To make sure that other aspects of the story (i.e., terrorist training camps, White House politics and operation, the Koran, the functioning of prisons) carried the same level of authenticity, I needed to draw upon those same research skills. Also, beyond the usual research avenues, I was fortunate to have the expert assistance from other individuals who have professional knowledge of these other areas of the tale. Taken together, these skills helped me put together an exciting thriller readers and reviewers seem to enjoy.

PageoneLit.com: What advice do you have for other authors working on their first novel?

R Overbeck: In a word, persevere. Successful writing is a difficult and arduous process. To get it right and to get to your best work, you need to write and revise and re-write and revise and edit. This almost always means outside help. The manuscripts of this novel was reviewed by several groups of critique readers who gave me insight and ideas on how to strengthen the narrative. In all, Leave No Child Behind was edited several times, including the skilled work of a professional editor, and went through SEVEN different revisions over four years to arrive as a published work. There are numerous stories of famous authors who persevered through numerous rejections and rewriting, so take heart. Keep working at it and don’t give up on your dream.

PageOneLit.com: What do you hope to achieve with Leave No Child Behind?

R Overbeck:My first hope is, I think, what every writer wants--that my writing is read, enjoyed and appreciated. But beyond that, my wish is that the novel can become a vehicle for readers to perhaps see teachers in a new light, can help readers recognize and appreciate the lengths dedicated teachers will go to to protect their students. Fortunately, in my years of educational experience, I’ve not seen any teachers in the kind of mortal danger or death like the characters in Leave No Child Behind; but I have witnessed innumerable events of sacrifice, generosity and commitment by teachers similar to Dee Dee in the story. Even though the story is fictional, I believe the characters are very much like those readers can see for real, probably in their hometown high school and I’m hoping my writing will bring readers closer to realizing that.

PageOneLit.com: What was the last book you read?

R Overbeck:That’s a hard question to answer. I find that I enjoy books from different genres including thrillers, mysteries, historical fiction and am often enjoying more than one book at a time. For example, on the plane this week from California I just finished a paperback copy of The Persuader by Lee Child, I’m listening to Night and Day by Robert Parker while driving and the book on my nightstand is The Brass Verdict by Michael Connelly. As a writer, when I read fiction, I am reading with a different eye. I am trying to learn something from each author, i.e., dialog, plotting, character development, pacing.

PageOneLit.com: What's next?

R Overbeck: Another book, and then some. My next manuscript, a whodunit entitled Harsh Lessons, is completed and ready to enter the extensive editing process. A couple of publishers including Heroic Teacher Press have already expressed interest in this mystery, but the manuscript is not quite ready yet. My third novel (as yet untitled) is partially completed and I hope to finish writing that manuscript later this year. Oh, and I have developed an opening chapter and an outline for my fourth novel. Stay tuned! The best is yet to come.