Alphar Publishing supports unique and innovative authors.

Ben Olson                                   Thomas Moore

Drew Stepek                      

BEN OLSON was born and raised in North Idaho, in a small mountain town of hillbillies, realtors, and hippies.

Wanderlost was written on the go, during a month-long train trip around America. Though a work of fiction, the book is based heavily on factual events and observations.

Olson writes for an independent weekly newspaper called The Sandpoint Reader where portions of this book were first published as a series of four articles called, "Notes From the Rails."   He also works freelance commercial production in Los Angeles several times a year to pay for rent and booze.

After dropping out of Colorado State University in his third semester, he fled to Los Angeles and lived there for three years - working on television commercials, documentary films and music videos as a production assistant. In 2004, he was hired to produce a fine art photography book by renowned director/photographer Mark Story called Living in Three Centuries, a book of portraits of some of the oldest people living in the world. For the next year, he wandered around the country searching for "supercentenarians" - people 110-years-old and older - to be photographed for the book. He is also an inveterate traveler, spending time sailing in the Caribbean, volunteering for disaster relief in Thailand, hitchhiking down lonely highways, backpacking through the canyons of southern Utah, and shooting roman candles at drunks in the streets of downtown Seattle. 

 Ben now lives in a small cabin in North Idaho where he divides his time between writing and swatting bugs, taking long and worthless road trips, and drinking in dive bars throughout the West.   

DREW STEPEK:                                                    

A revolution in the world of eating disorders is at hand and Drew Stepek, long-time, successful writer is causing the uprising.  Based on real life events, but classified as fiction, Drew takes an honest, but very different approach in his first novel titled Godless.

  Drew shares his viewpoint and experience of male bulimia that has many people up in arms.  Seen as blasphemous by religious groups, the book, in truth was not meant to disrespect, but rather to openly shine light on the mysterious world of male bulimia. Although an atheist, Drew is somewhat obsessed with religious artifacts, and is keenly interested in the inverted crucifix found on the cover of his book, which some one-sidedly perceive as satanic.  In truth, the crucifix is about St. Peter believing he was not worthy of being killed in the same manner as Christ.  In support of Drew's work, lead singer of Ministry, Al Jourgensen, is writing the book's forward.  

Drew Stepek has worked as a writer in all areas of the entertainment industry, including television, print and the Internet.  After moving to LA in 1993, Drew began his career as a writer for Larry Flynt and eventually moved on to work for major shows writing, producing and directing online and on-air initiatives for The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Late Night with Conan O'Brien, Saturday Night Live, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Profiler, The Pretender, TNBC and ESPN.  Other major accomplishments include receiving 200,000 downloads of the Godless eBook on Storybay in less than two months.  What's more, he wrote and edited for several LFP Publications including Film Threat, PC Laptop, Hard Drive, CD Rom Power, Sci-Fi Universe, Wild Cartoon Kingdom and many more.

  Adding to his long line of credits, Drew was the winner of the Ministry eCard competition, won the 1999 Standard of Excellence "Web Award" both for Saturday Night Live, as well for The Tonight Show and received honorable mention in an NBC Writing Contest.  He took 1st Place in a poetry contest and received the highest award for Brushings Literary Magazine.  He has also been featured in Rolling Stone, USA Today, The Industry Standard and Details, as well as CNN, The Today Show and NBC News. 

Intrigued readers are shocked by Drew's realistic portrait of the world.  Now, in Godless, Drew paints a portrait of a character named D, who views reality in a confused world.  Attempting to come to terms with a dilemma that most would be terrified to face, the primary character in Godless makes an agonizing attempt at overcoming a vicious struggle with bulimia, alcoholism and drug abuse.  While some take offense at Drew's distinctive openness in sharing his truth, through his desire to deal with a very painful addiction, Drew's readers cannot help but to be drawn into an unknown and unspoken territory that affects countless individuals.  

 BRIAN CALDWELL

Brian's short fiction appears in numerous magazines, including, THE THRESHOLD, THE TRANSCRIPT, and THE BROWNSTONE REVIEW. WE ALL FALL DOWN is his first novel. He currently lives in Salem, Massachusetts, with his wife and two young sons, and is an outstanding English teacher. The theme of WE ALL FALL DOWN is that we effectively use an assortment of lies and delusions to hide the truth about ourselves, both from the world and ourselves. God sees through all of those lies, and if we are to become close to God, we must break through our delusions. Our comfortable, conventional ideas about ourselves are actually lies we have told ourselves. 

 In constantly setting up expectations by use of multiple genre, tone, and structure, and then reversing those expectations, Mr. Caldwell's novel not only speaks to that truth, but creates the SENSATION of having those lies exposed. Like all cutting edge work, from Miller to Camus to Buroughs to Bukowski, Mr. Caldwell's skill will initially be rejected and vilified by some. Don't be fooled, though, if you read this book, you are reading the beginnings of one of the next greats.

DR. THOMAS MOORE is the author of four novels: Upland Road, Hillary, The Trons go to America, and The Progress of Man. Dr. Moore worked in California, publishing poetry, non-fiction, and technical research articles before turning to write fiction full time back on his ranch, husbanding the land and sea he was raised upon.

TOM writes about acommunity of addiction, greed and abuse...  conflicted through relationship with troubled people.

DR. MOORE takes us on an exploration of the nature of forgiveness, and its healing power. He is an experiential and comedic author with a sweeping impressionistic style. Dr. Moore's novels address the theosophical inner self, confounded by a community of addiction and greed, taking us on a hilarious exploration of the nature of conflict and integrity.