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The earth continues its journey around the sun, the air gets cooler, football is on TV, leaves fall.  Picnic give way to tailgaters, and our coffee and food is imbued with everything pumpkin-coffee, milkshakes, lattes. October wraps around us like a warm blanket.

September was a busy time for me writing-wise. I signed books at the Gainesville B&N and then gave a well-received talk at the George Mason Branch Library in Annandale, Virginia. I also decided to change the cover of “Hotwire” from one that I loved. But I admit it may have been too inflammatory—Lady Liberty shoved in handcuffs across an ICE vehicle. The new one represents the book better, a beat-up plane in the desert. Book sales have picked up, so I think I made the right choice. I am running a giveaway on GoodReads this month. Enter here to have a chance to get a free book!

Submerged continues to do well! October marks the seventh month in a row that is ranked #1 in its category on Amazon and it is now #1 in two categories!

At the talks I give, people are really interested in the hidden world of submarines, and also in their history and future. I talk about how pivotal subs were in the Pacific War—the submarine force comprised 2% of the Navy but sank 55% of the Japanese shipping sunk. Hitler started the war with 59 submarines, and with those, he came dangerously close to starving England into submission. For the future, submarines are the only warships that can take the fight to our potential enemies, China and Russia. China has hypersonic missiles for which we do not have a reliable defense, restricting surface ships to the “Second Island Chain” (around Guam). They cannot proceed westward without being subjected to hypersonic missile attack. Russia is fielding Yasen-class submarines with Zircon missiles, also hypersonic. Subs will be the defining factor in, God forbid, a war with Russia or China.

I also made progress on my new novel, tentatively titled “Google Maps Handicap”. The external story is about two gearheads who invent a racing app that forces the US Government to turn off all the GPS satellites. But it is the subject of the internal story that I think will captivate readers more: the growing polarization in America today, both the economic divide and the ideological one.  I have written about 30,000 words of the first draft. When ready, I will post a few chapters on the website.

I have heard from a few readers in the past month and yearn to hear from more! I respond to everyone and that is why I write, to create a reaction in people. Hopefully positive, but negative is fine too. Let me know what you think!

October will be another busy writing month for me. I will be hosted on a podcast early October, when that hits, I will post a link here. Oct 23 I will be giving a talk at Rust Library in Leesburg. And on Oct 19 I will find out the result of the Writers Digest Writing Awards, the top of which is a five-figure cash award, and an all-expense-paid trip to their 2026 convention. So if you live anywhere in Noeth America and hear a primal yell coming from West Virginia on that day, you will know my memoir won.

Until next month! Thank you for reading, and, as always, peace.

First, the good, no, make that fantastic news: My memoir, Submerged, was awarded first place in published nonfiction at the 2025 WriterCon! I am writing this in a Quality Inn in Russellville, Arkansas, on the way back from that convention, held in Oklahoma City. I am deeply honored and humbled by this award. There were world-class authors there, some of whom are on the NY Bestseller list. The award was not a “gimmee” or participation trophy, which makes being awarded it all the sweeter. More on WriterCon in a moment.

August started out with a splash. I was invited to be a guest speaker at the Virginia Writer’s Club Annual Symposium held in Ashland, VA. I spoke about how to get a manuscript approved by the DoD Office of Pre-Publication Security review (DOPSR). I had to get Submerged approved by DOPSR, and so does anyone else who has held a security clearance. Like all things government, it is daunting, bureaucratic, and time-intensive. But having learned the ropes, I felt honor-bound to help other vets in my shoes. I feel quite strongly that we should tell our stories; if not, they will be gone when we are. My second book, How to Hotwire an Airplane, has many stories from my father, who served as a Hospital Corpsman with the US Marine Corps 65-67 in Vietnam. He never wrote his story, so I did it for him.

The second week of August, I learned that Submerged had been selected as one of the top 11 all-time submarine books by a book review site, Tales and Text, which was very gratifying. You can check out the other books they recommended here.

18 August found me giving a talk on submarines to a library group in Alexandria. One of the attendees was a 98 year-old woman who had been an Air Force pilot! Boy, did she have some stories.

This brings me to WriterCon, which I mentioned I am just returning from.  It is a gathering of authors, agents, and editors for an intensive three-day series of lectures, workshops, meetings, and sharing. I remember meeting a woman at Oshkosh who told me she gets her “aviation batteries” recharged at that annual convention; well, I felt this same way here, for writing. I learned so much, I will spend the next few days retrieving my notes and putting them in order. Plus, the vibe was supportive and collegial. I made new friends and met people with whom I had only conversed via email before.

That’s it for this month. I promised not to spam you, only send a newsletter once a month. As I write this, it has turned 1 Sep on the East Coast, which means that Submerged has now spent a WHOPPING SIX MONTHS on the Amazon bestseller list in its category! For everyone who bought it, thank you!

One of the exercises at WriterCon—a contest actually–was to write a 100-word story, subject “End of the World”. Here is my entry, which I thought was pretty good, but the woman who won it had a much better story, to be honest. As I said, the writers there were top-notch.

Until next month, peace, and I wish good things for everyone.

Henry Rausch

Missile Drill

“Set Condition 1SQ for Missile Launch”

The order rang through the submarine, accompanied by the familiar gong-gong-gong of the general alarm. 160 sixty pairs of feet hit the deckplates on the way to missile launch positions. Men trundled out of racks, ditched meals.   When he got word that stations were manned, the XO of USS Oklahoma clicked the bezel of his stopwatch and assessed the results. 66.6 seconds, nearly a new record. He was pleased; hundreds of launch drills had paid off. It wasn’t until the missiles left the tubes that the crew realized it was not a drill.

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when I got this check in the mail yesterday. Laugh, because I got the same check last year, same amount, same reason. Cry, because it is a symptom of how broken and inefficient medical care in our country is.

To back up, last year the doc ran some blood tests as part of my physical–the standard ones, glucose, fats, HDLs and LDLs, the whole alphabet. Then I got a bill for $38, which I questioned, because under ObamaCare physicals are supposed to be at no charge. Except, the clinic told me, these tests aren’t covered. Really? The doc has been doing the same tests for years, and they were always covered. I call the hospital where the tests had been done, same story, Called the insurance company and after speaking to 3 people found someone who said, “Oops, we made a mistake.” A $38 check arrived 4 months later (I had paid the (admittedly trivial) charge before, so I would not be hunted down in the wilderness fleeing debt collectors.)

That was last year. This year, same checkup, same blood tests, same $38 bill. Called the same people, this time noting that we had been on this merry-go round the year before. Discussions with the insurance people were more difficult, more uncertain, so I wrote off the $38. Until this arrived in the mail yesterday.

In total I spoke to five people, one at the clinic, one at the hospital, three at the insurance company–let’s assume conservatively that for each one I spoke to there was a person in the back doing something on a screen–that’s ten people–amounting to what must be hundreds of dollars in manpower to adjudicate a trivial charge.

As is widely known, the US spends double the cost per person in health care of the OECD and for that is ranked in piddling middle of all nations for health outcomes. I am sure there are lots of reasons, but this check fiasco is one: We waste way too much money on overhead. Back in the day, I would go to my regular doc for minor ailments–cut out an ingrown toenail, stitch up an incision arising from a poor choice of tools when fixing my bike. Now, those visits require a specialist, accompanied by reams of electronic paperwork, all fiddled into the screen by a person. What once took one person fifteen minutes now takes a dozen people, several hours, and maybe thousands of dollars in overhead manpower.

It’s a big problem and I don’t have all the answers. But a start would be getting rid of these middlemen. Blood tests are covered, just do them and pay them and dispense with the nonsense.

Any bets on how big the check will be next year?

Hi everyone. When I started writing and publishing, I did not realize that I would have to gain skills in, if not master, a wide variety of subjects that have nothing to do with telling stories. Hosting and building a website is apparently one of them. Up to now I have been sending my domain (henryrausch.com) to the Amazon author page, but it was impressed upon me that this does not suffice, hence this meager and halting attempt at a webpage which must look like first efforts back in 1996 if not sooner. Rest assured, it will get better! I am especially interested in establishing a dialogue with my readers, and I think this site will enable that in two ways: I have now an email address: author@henryrausch.com, and I think there is a comment feature on this site which allows people to make comments directly.

I will have lots more to write about in the coming days. I want to tell you about the two books I have published and the one I am writing now. Also, I fly alot, all around the country, and will be posting my thoughts and experiences about that as well.

For now, Hello, readers!

HR