September 9, 2025 • 13 mins
"If you're a fan of politically charged thrillers, or books that explore the human costs of policy decisions, this is a must-read." — Literary Titan
"Wrenching political novel that asks how long grieving parents can be ignored." -- booklife, Editors Pick
The Brushy Ridge Militia is about how the intersection of grief and helplessness leads a group of parents to become so enraged after a mass shooting to conclude that enough’s enough, compelling them to commit a major act of civil disobedience. It’s the fictional version “A Civil Action” meets “The Trial of the Catonsville Nine.’
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/arroe-collins-view-from-the-writing-instrument--1023245/support.
"Wrenching political novel that asks how long grieving parents can be ignored." -- booklife, Editors Pick
The Brushy Ridge Militia is about how the intersection of grief and helplessness leads a group of parents to become so enraged after a mass shooting to conclude that enough’s enough, compelling them to commit a major act of civil disobedience. It’s the fictional version “A Civil Action” meets “The Trial of the Catonsville Nine.’
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/arroe-collins-view-from-the-writing-instrument--1023245/support.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, Hi, is this Roger?
Speaker 2 (00:02):
This is Roger.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
How are you doing today, sir Doe?
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Fine.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
I'm so excited to share a conversation with you because
I love the way that you are bringing this story forward,
because these are the kind of stories that we don't
have in the headlines anymore. In other words, it'll it'll
appear somewhere and then all of a sudden it's gone.
And I love it. The way that you're bringing it
forward is this is a conversation starter.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Good. Great?
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Where did it come from? Because it had to enter
your heart, go through your fingers and now it's in
our eyes. Where did this story come from? And where
where was the inspiration coming from?
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Well? I had always been concerned, as everyone is, about
these school shootings and for years and after Parkland, there
was a big community meeting and you know, the politicians
were their congressman, senators, and there was a Q and
(01:01):
a at the end, and a teacher stood up and
she said, what militia was this young man? Part of
how is he well regulated? And that's certainly planted a
thought in my mind. And so what this book is about,
(01:23):
it's about what happens when the parents actually fight back
and you know, the unthinkable has happened to them, and
they do something unthinkable to try to get remediation. And
you know, so the school shooting happens in this town
(01:46):
of Brushy Ridge, Ohio, a fictional town. The parents get
that devastating phone call. Right to everyone else, it's thoughts
and prayers, but to them, it's a wound that they
have forever. And after they go through all the stages
of grief, they decide to lobby Washington for better, more
(02:10):
restrictive gun legislation so someone a mentally disturbed eighteen year
old can't get a gun, and they go to Washington.
They meet with some legislators. The most important is the
Speaker of the House, Fred Grantham, who controls what gets
onto the floor of the House for a vote. And
he won't meet with them, and they get very angry,
(02:33):
and they stand outside his office with posters of their
children that they lost, and he walks right by them,
and when they heckle him, he repeats those twenty seven
words that we've all heard for the Second Amendment, and
so they decide to take action.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
It's so every day, and to hear you speak of it,
it's more than just words on a page. And this
is the reason why I created View from the writing instrument,
is because it's time for the authors to have a
voice as well. And I mean you speak with so
much emotion.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Well yeah, I mean it's an emotional issue. It's not
easy to write about, you know. As I said, the
parents are parents end up doing something unthinkable because the
unthinkable has happened to them. So they get together. One
of the parents, Hank Patrick, is a lawyer, and he
(03:33):
sort of knows his constitutional law, and he says, you know,
the reason the Second Amendment, those twenty seven words were
worded the way they were was so that people back
then in the seventeen eighties could form militias to protect
their community, to fight tyranny. There was a you know,
there was a thought at the time that this new
(03:55):
federal government might evolve into a monarchy. So we have
to have the right to fight back. So the parents,
Hank Patrick convinces the parents that what happened to them
was tyrannical because the Speaker of the House would not
give them the time of day, but he would give
the time of day to a deep pocketed lobbyist. So
(04:20):
they decide to form their own militia, and they take
the speaker of the house hostage, and they make him
watch the video of the shooting and the morg shots
of the children until he agrees to bring legislation, safer
(04:41):
gun legislation to the floor of the house.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Are you shocked that this hasn't already happened?
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Well, it's well, no, it could happen. Yeah, yeah, And
you know, what do you do? You know, you're caught
between the intersection of grief and helplessness, you know, and
what actions can you take? And you know, those twenty
(05:11):
seven words that form the Second Amendment, they're you know,
they they've been sort of modified by court cases over
the last two hundred plus years, but do they really
you know, a well regulated militia being necessary to the
security of a free state. The right of the people
(05:33):
to keep in their arms shall not be infringed. Okay,
what does that mean? If you heard that for the
first time ever without you know, just without context, what
do you think that would.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
Mean in today's terms? People say, is that a Taylor swiftson.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
There? You go? No, But it's it's a set of
words that at very best is ambiguous, Okay, and matter
of fact in a big court case Heller versus DC
Justice Scalia basically said the first phrase doesn't count the
(06:11):
well regulated militia part, which you know just left it
with Basically, anyone can have a gun over a certain age.
So this is the parent's plea for justice for even
though they can't bring their children back, they can do
something about help other parents in the future or prevent
(06:35):
other parents in the future from having to take that
devastating phone.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Call please do not move. There's more with Roger Kyoki
coming up next. The name of the book Brushy Ridge Militia.
Let's get back to that talk with Roger Kyoki to
put this book together. First of all, I want to
know how did you build the characters, because each person
that you identify in this book has their own personality.
I can't imagine what you went through in developing the
(06:59):
individuality in this book.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
Well, you know, you have to go much as an author,
you have to go much deeper into the people's lives
than what's on the pages, right, and so.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
I create a little story for each of them. You know,
one's a well air Hank Patrick, the others a local electrician,
one is a receptionist, at a doctor's office. Another one
is an ex Iraq war vet who has PTSD, And
(07:34):
they each have their own story and they're each devastated
in their own way, and they what happens is this
whole situation, you know, the taking of the speaker brings
closure to each character in his or her own special way.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
How did you deal with the way of this book?
In other words, for you to go through these emotional
changes with each storyline and to build it up and
to really bring in the drama and the conflict. I
mean you had to as a writer have gone through
so many different emotional things.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Well, yeah, I mean I believe that when you write,
it has to be authentic. Yes, So writing the shooting
scene is only in the book. It's about a young
man who was bullied unmercifully, and writing that was tough,
(08:36):
and it was a fine line between overkill and not
making it realistic enough. So I tried to find that balance,
and most people think I did so. But it is
a tough scene to read. There are well, that's probably
(08:58):
the toughest part of the book to read. But the
rest is how do these parents, this disparate group of parents,
figure out how to kidnap in effect, the speaker of
the house. So one of the one of the parents,
(09:20):
the one who was an ex army that with the PTSD.
Unfortunately he was really good at undercover work. So he
finds out that the speaker has a special person he
visits twice a week without bodyguard protection. And from there
(09:43):
they put together a plot that that has a lot
of a lot of things have to go right in
succession for everything to work.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
Wow, what was your writing discipline? Did did you write
in the morning? I mean, because with something so heavy
you also had to do some researches, So so how
did you bring it all together? Was it ours?
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Was?
Speaker 1 (10:05):
What was the actual plan?
Speaker 2 (10:06):
I probably write a couple hours a day and it's
probably later in the day for me. And yeah, I
had to do tons of research. I had to do,
you know, research different cases for the Supreme Court. I
worked with an attorney for the because there is a
(10:27):
obviously the parents get apprehended at a certain point and
there's a trial, and I worked with an attorney on that,
and you know, had to research a lot about different
types of guns. I looked at footage of Parkland, I
read a lot about Columbine I live a half hour
(10:50):
from Sandy Hook, oh boy, And I remember what I
was working from home that day, and I remember the
Bolton coming up TV. And I remember Obama almost crying
when he talked that day. And so that happened, I
think on December fourteenth in twenty twelve. And on Christmas Day,
(11:14):
my daughter and I went to the site. You couldn't
get to the school, but there was a memorial site
downtown and we put some flowers there. So this is
something that's been on my mind for a long time.
And writing is my favorite pastime, so it's not that
(11:37):
hard for me to do it. But you know, it
comes in bits, and you know, let's say that it's
four hundred pages, I probably wrote two thousand. You know.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
Wow, that editing process, oh my goodness sakes, because I mean,
if you took out six hundred pages, holy crap, dude.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
Yeah. Well, I'll never get an accurate count because the
way you know, word processing works today, I just exit out.
But but now it's probably about that. And I've worked
I work with developmental editors, and you know, sometimes they
send me back to the drawing board, but I think
I'm really happy with the final product. Which came out
(12:17):
of all this work and research and back and forth.
So yeah, it's you have to love to write. You know,
you can't write a book because you want to make
a million dollars, which hardly anyone does unless you're a celebrity.
You write a book because you love to tell stories
(12:38):
and I love to tell stories.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
So wow, is it going to be a binge watch?
Or do you think you want it? You want to
turn it into a movie? Which one? What would you
turn it into?
Speaker 2 (12:47):
Well, I'd love to turn it into a movie, or
it could be a binge watch too. But from your
lips to God's ears.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
You know, where can people go to find out more
about you, Roger, to really dive into your hard work
and dedication.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
Well, the book has a website, Brushiridge Militia dot com
and it's also on Amazon. So just search Amazon, Brushy Ridge,
Militia and my last name Kyoki Chiocchi and you'll find it.
And it has a lot of really really good reviews
(13:25):
which you as matter of fact, as of today it's
all five stars, so very proud of that, and hopefully,
so hopefully you're right and somebody in Hollywood gets some
idea about it.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
Wow. Please come back to this show anytime in the future.
The door is always going to be open for you.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
Roger, Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
Will you be brilliant today?
Speaker 2 (13:51):
Okay, okay, you doo
Hello, Hi, is this Roger?
Speaker 2 (00:02):
This is Roger.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
How are you doing today, sir Doe?
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Fine.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
I'm so excited to share a conversation with you because
I love the way that you are bringing this story forward,
because these are the kind of stories that we don't
have in the headlines anymore. In other words, it'll it'll
appear somewhere and then all of a sudden it's gone.
And I love it. The way that you're bringing it
forward is this is a conversation starter.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Good. Great?
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Where did it come from? Because it had to enter
your heart, go through your fingers and now it's in
our eyes. Where did this story come from? And where
where was the inspiration coming from?
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Well? I had always been concerned, as everyone is, about
these school shootings and for years and after Parkland, there
was a big community meeting and you know, the politicians
were their congressman, senators, and there was a Q and
(01:01):
a at the end, and a teacher stood up and
she said, what militia was this young man? Part of
how is he well regulated? And that's certainly planted a
thought in my mind. And so what this book is about,
(01:23):
it's about what happens when the parents actually fight back
and you know, the unthinkable has happened to them, and
they do something unthinkable to try to get remediation. And
you know, so the school shooting happens in this town
(01:46):
of Brushy Ridge, Ohio, a fictional town. The parents get
that devastating phone call. Right to everyone else, it's thoughts
and prayers, but to them, it's a wound that they
have forever. And after they go through all the stages
of grief, they decide to lobby Washington for better, more
(02:10):
restrictive gun legislation so someone a mentally disturbed eighteen year
old can't get a gun, and they go to Washington.
They meet with some legislators. The most important is the
Speaker of the House, Fred Grantham, who controls what gets
onto the floor of the House for a vote. And
he won't meet with them, and they get very angry,
(02:33):
and they stand outside his office with posters of their
children that they lost, and he walks right by them,
and when they heckle him, he repeats those twenty seven
words that we've all heard for the Second Amendment, and
so they decide to take action.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
It's so every day, and to hear you speak of it,
it's more than just words on a page. And this
is the reason why I created View from the writing instrument,
is because it's time for the authors to have a
voice as well. And I mean you speak with so
much emotion.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Well yeah, I mean it's an emotional issue. It's not
easy to write about, you know. As I said, the
parents are parents end up doing something unthinkable because the
unthinkable has happened to them. So they get together. One
of the parents, Hank Patrick, is a lawyer, and he
(03:33):
sort of knows his constitutional law, and he says, you know,
the reason the Second Amendment, those twenty seven words were
worded the way they were was so that people back
then in the seventeen eighties could form militias to protect
their community, to fight tyranny. There was a you know,
there was a thought at the time that this new
(03:55):
federal government might evolve into a monarchy. So we have
to have the right to fight back. So the parents,
Hank Patrick convinces the parents that what happened to them
was tyrannical because the Speaker of the House would not
give them the time of day, but he would give
the time of day to a deep pocketed lobbyist. So
(04:20):
they decide to form their own militia, and they take
the speaker of the house hostage, and they make him
watch the video of the shooting and the morg shots
of the children until he agrees to bring legislation, safer
(04:41):
gun legislation to the floor of the house.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Are you shocked that this hasn't already happened?
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Well, it's well, no, it could happen. Yeah, yeah, And
you know, what do you do? You know, you're caught
between the intersection of grief and helplessness, you know, and
what actions can you take? And you know, those twenty
(05:11):
seven words that form the Second Amendment, they're you know,
they they've been sort of modified by court cases over
the last two hundred plus years, but do they really
you know, a well regulated militia being necessary to the
security of a free state. The right of the people
(05:33):
to keep in their arms shall not be infringed. Okay,
what does that mean? If you heard that for the
first time ever without you know, just without context, what
do you think that would.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
Mean in today's terms? People say, is that a Taylor swiftson.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
There? You go? No, But it's it's a set of
words that at very best is ambiguous, Okay, and matter
of fact in a big court case Heller versus DC
Justice Scalia basically said the first phrase doesn't count the
(06:11):
well regulated militia part, which you know just left it
with Basically, anyone can have a gun over a certain age.
So this is the parent's plea for justice for even
though they can't bring their children back, they can do
something about help other parents in the future or prevent
(06:35):
other parents in the future from having to take that
devastating phone.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Call please do not move. There's more with Roger Kyoki
coming up next. The name of the book Brushy Ridge Militia.
Let's get back to that talk with Roger Kyoki to
put this book together. First of all, I want to
know how did you build the characters, because each person
that you identify in this book has their own personality.
I can't imagine what you went through in developing the
(06:59):
individuality in this book.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
Well, you know, you have to go much as an author,
you have to go much deeper into the people's lives
than what's on the pages, right, and so.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
I create a little story for each of them. You know,
one's a well air Hank Patrick, the others a local electrician,
one is a receptionist, at a doctor's office. Another one
is an ex Iraq war vet who has PTSD, And
(07:34):
they each have their own story and they're each devastated
in their own way, and they what happens is this
whole situation, you know, the taking of the speaker brings
closure to each character in his or her own special way.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
How did you deal with the way of this book?
In other words, for you to go through these emotional
changes with each storyline and to build it up and
to really bring in the drama and the conflict. I
mean you had to as a writer have gone through
so many different emotional things.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Well, yeah, I mean I believe that when you write,
it has to be authentic. Yes, So writing the shooting
scene is only in the book. It's about a young
man who was bullied unmercifully, and writing that was tough,
(08:36):
and it was a fine line between overkill and not
making it realistic enough. So I tried to find that balance,
and most people think I did so. But it is
a tough scene to read. There are well, that's probably
(08:58):
the toughest part of the book to read. But the
rest is how do these parents, this disparate group of parents,
figure out how to kidnap in effect, the speaker of
the house. So one of the one of the parents,
(09:20):
the one who was an ex army that with the PTSD.
Unfortunately he was really good at undercover work. So he
finds out that the speaker has a special person he
visits twice a week without bodyguard protection. And from there
(09:43):
they put together a plot that that has a lot
of a lot of things have to go right in
succession for everything to work.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
Wow, what was your writing discipline? Did did you write
in the morning? I mean, because with something so heavy
you also had to do some researches, So so how
did you bring it all together? Was it ours?
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Was?
Speaker 1 (10:05):
What was the actual plan?
Speaker 2 (10:06):
I probably write a couple hours a day and it's
probably later in the day for me. And yeah, I
had to do tons of research. I had to do,
you know, research different cases for the Supreme Court. I
worked with an attorney for the because there is a
(10:27):
obviously the parents get apprehended at a certain point and
there's a trial, and I worked with an attorney on that,
and you know, had to research a lot about different
types of guns. I looked at footage of Parkland, I
read a lot about Columbine I live a half hour
(10:50):
from Sandy Hook, oh boy, And I remember what I
was working from home that day, and I remember the
Bolton coming up TV. And I remember Obama almost crying
when he talked that day. And so that happened, I
think on December fourteenth in twenty twelve. And on Christmas Day,
(11:14):
my daughter and I went to the site. You couldn't
get to the school, but there was a memorial site
downtown and we put some flowers there. So this is
something that's been on my mind for a long time.
And writing is my favorite pastime, so it's not that
(11:37):
hard for me to do it. But you know, it
comes in bits, and you know, let's say that it's
four hundred pages, I probably wrote two thousand. You know.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
Wow, that editing process, oh my goodness sakes, because I mean,
if you took out six hundred pages, holy crap, dude.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
Yeah. Well, I'll never get an accurate count because the
way you know, word processing works today, I just exit out.
But but now it's probably about that. And I've worked
I work with developmental editors, and you know, sometimes they
send me back to the drawing board, but I think
I'm really happy with the final product. Which came out
(12:17):
of all this work and research and back and forth.
So yeah, it's you have to love to write. You know,
you can't write a book because you want to make
a million dollars, which hardly anyone does unless you're a celebrity.
You write a book because you love to tell stories
(12:38):
and I love to tell stories.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
So wow, is it going to be a binge watch?
Or do you think you want it? You want to
turn it into a movie? Which one? What would you
turn it into?
Speaker 2 (12:47):
Well, I'd love to turn it into a movie, or
it could be a binge watch too. But from your
lips to God's ears.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
You know, where can people go to find out more
about you, Roger, to really dive into your hard work
and dedication.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
Well, the book has a website, Brushiridge Militia dot com
and it's also on Amazon. So just search Amazon, Brushy Ridge,
Militia and my last name Kyoki Chiocchi and you'll find it.
And it has a lot of really really good reviews
(13:25):
which you as matter of fact, as of today it's
all five stars, so very proud of that, and hopefully,
so hopefully you're right and somebody in Hollywood gets some
idea about it.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
Wow. Please come back to this show anytime in the future.
The door is always going to be open for you.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
Roger, Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
Will you be brilliant today?
Speaker 2 (13:51):
Okay, okay, you doo
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