Whatever your age, the book StarWords: Inspirational Conversations with Extraordinary Monterey Peninsulans will inspire you to follow your dreams and show you, by example, how to realize your goals and fulfill your life’s purpose.

Veteran journalist Susan Cantrell hand-picked these most inspiring 62 people, who overcame rejection and hardships to become famous nationally or internationally in 10 fields of endeavor: Acting, Invention, Sports, Comedy, Fine Art, Literary Art, Aviation, Business, Spirituality, Partnership. And they all chose to live in the Eden we call the Monterey Peninsula. 

The book starts with Clint Eastwood, who worked in a pulp mill and as a lumber jack to put himself through acting school after his father told him acting was "all dream world stuff." 

Other interviewees who dared to dream include:

• The original radio voice of Tarzan, who rose from the ashes of Hollywood's Black List, and from his sick bed as a child, to realize his dream: directing Hollywood's top stars.
• A diver who swam with sharks, developed the slurp gun and designed aquarium exhibits around the world, including the Monterey Bay Aquarium's.
• A Pulitzer Prize Winner who speaks her mind.
• A Guinness World Records athlete who did 20,100 sit-ups in 11.5 hours - without a bathroom break - to raise money for the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
• A man who migrated with his family of 11, Grapes of Wrath-style in a Model B Ford from Oklahoma to Salinas, California where they all worked in the packing sheds.  He is now the CEO of one of the largest packers in the world and was one of the founding board members of The National Steinbeck Center.
• A Chinese woman who escaped the civil war in China, bundled in swaddling in her mother's arms.  While living in a bamboo hut in Thailand (sometimes blown down by typhoons) she dreamed of a harmonious global environment. With too many degrees to name, this perspicacious poet now works toward that end as the first female and first Asian president of the Monterey International Institute of International Studies.
• A woman who escaped Nazi Germany went on to write a best-seller, was named one of the greatest thinkers of the 20th Century, and now travels the world with her genius/author husband, teaching partnership versus domination to individuals and governments.
• A mountain climber who helped form a foundation that builds schools and hospitals for Tibetan children, and who prefers to sleep bare-footed on a mat on the floor of his Carmel home, just like many sherpas who visit him.
• A Grammy-winning record producer, after countless rejections, who was the first to send music to the moon.  His 1,200 hours of taped interviews with the world's first astronauts are housed at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum.

This is but a small sampling of the awe-inspiring Monterey Peninsulans you will read about in Starwords.  Their stories of courage and enterprise will encourage you to reach for and finally realize your own dreams.  You will also learn that these seeming Super Beings are very human, humorous and vulnerable and suffer from the same foibles, insecurities and mistakes we all do.

Click on Interviews for sample interviews.  Also enjoy Susan Cantrell's monthly web columns Mental Pause®, a humorous account of aging: and Monterey Peninsula Tours for inspiring walks and bike rides around the Monterey Peninsula.