Local Publisher Authors Book: The Fall of Brad Hawley

Jasper, AL—Blanton Media Group owner and publisher of 78 Magazine, Al Blanton, has been busy in his spare time. For the last three years, he has been working on a biography of Brad Hawley, a Birmingham resident who suffered a traumatic brain injury while working out at a local gym. The book, The Fall of Brad Hawley, was recently released and is now available for purchase on Amazon and Kindle.Blanton started his publishing business on June 20, 2011, and for the last five years has published the local biography magazine, 78 Magazine, highlighting people and places in Walker County. But Blanton says one of the purposes in going into publishing in the first place was to write books. “I loved the thought of a magazine, but in the back of my mind, I always wanted to be an author,” he said. “The magazine has been a great vehicle to build our audience and our brand. Now hopefully that audience will be interested in buying a book.”Specializing in short-form biography, Blanton says that his book is a mere extension of his focus for the last several years. “I love to learn about the human experience,” he said. “Everyone has a story. I’ve probably written close to five hundred articles, and many of these have been profiles of a wide variety of people. From sports stars to janitors, I’ve enjoyed them all. This book is simply a longer-form version of what I’ve already been doing. It takes a little more patience, but is no less interesting.”On August 27, 2012, Hawley was working out at a Birmingham gym, performing an exercise called Toes to Bar. He was on his thirty-first rep when his fingers slipped and he went crashing to the floor. Hawley was rushed to the hospital, where doctors performed emergency brain surgery.Blanton says that the book is more of a psychological profile than anything else. “I was very interested in the human mind—what made Brad tick,” Blanton said. “This book began as a story about a man falling at a gym, but as the story continued to unravel, I discovered there was something much deeper, more profound. This is a story about a man so obsessed with building an image of worldly success that he loses his balance.”The Fall of Brad Hawley by Al Blanton is available on Amazon and Kindle. For more information about the book, please visit www.thefallofbradhawley.com.To purchase the book, please visit https://www.amazon.com/Fall-Brad-Hawley-Al-Blanton/dp/0692790349/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1510172648&sr=1-2&keywords=the+fall+of+brad+hawley