Adds to TV, radio career
By KEVIN CHIRI
Slidell news bureau
SLIDELL – A former Slidell journalist who began writing locally at the age of 13 has announced the release of two new books that are adding to a long media career which has covered everything from radio to TV to writing.
Eric Chambers began writing for the Slidell Sentry-News as a young sportswriter in 1976 when he was still a teenager, then after college and serving in the U.S. Navy, headed to California to follow his dream of a career in the media, something he accomplished in an amazing way over the past 46 years.
Chambers is a nine-time Emmy and Golden Mike Award winner from his career that includes red carpet interviews with all the big names in Hollywood, a nine-year TV show on the Word Network, a radio show currently airing in San Diego, and now two more books that are the start to a series of family history journals expected to continue throughout 2022.
The two book releases are called “Mama, I Want to Know You,” and “Daddy, I Want to Know You,” which is followed in the title by “A Living Journal of History Still in the Making.”
The books provide anyone with a way to chronicle the history of their loved ones, while they are still living so there will be an in-depth recording for generations to come.
“The idea came to me on February 21, 2017 when I was at the funeral of Laura Jane Lang, my 104-year-old cousin,” said Chambers. “Her obituary was just four short paragraphs, with one telling when she was born, how many children and grandchildren she had, and that was pretty much it.”
Chambers said he began to recall other important events in Lang’s life that could have greatly added to the story of her life, sparking the idea to write a book that could aid others in recording history of their loved ones.
The books offer dozens of questions that will help someone record the history and life highlights for people who are important to them. Along with detailing basic biographical dates and key events in their life, questions include things like: Describe the best day of your life. Describe the most challenging day of your life. What makes you feel loved? What are your fondest memories of Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter? How do you want to be remembered?
“The questions will help you dig deeper into your family history and learn more about your loved ones,” Chambers said. “The books are a tool that help you do it rather easily.”
Chambers said he plans to follow the first two books with others that provide questions for a son, daughter, aunt, uncle, grandparents and others.
The books also include testimonials from many of the famous people Chambers has crossed paths with throughout his career.
Chambers’ first two books were “The Love I Have For You: Breaking the Baby-Daddy Cycle with Fatherly Love,” and “Dining With The Ancestors: When Heroes Come to Dinner.”
He began attending college in 1980 at Southern University in Baton Rouge, and later got his Speech Communications degree from San Diego City College after he headed west. In 2013, he was bestowed an honorary doctorate degree from Next Dimension Bible University in California and is currently a board member for the school.
His professional career includes working with CBS in Hollywood, the NFL Network, DirecTV, ABC and other television assignments, while he also hosted “The Jazzspel with Eric J” on The Word Network for nine years, leading him to interview some of the biggest names in