Kilowatt, a 2007 novel set in community radio station KVMR in Nevada City, Calif., is now available in paperback.
The story revolves around two KVMR journalists investigating an energy company with a revolutionary process for generating clean, affordable electricity, reports the Union newspaper in Grass Valley, Calif. “The book Kilowatt itself — with some characters loosely based on KVMR personalities from the ’90s era — becomes a suspenseful page-turner as the two KVMR reporters go to Texas to track down possible corporate corruption and end up getting involved with ruthless Russian mobsters, Texas oil men and dedicated reformers,” according to the newspaper.
Author Joe McHugh is a past member of the station’s board of directors, and producer/creator of a series of family stories, “The Telling Takes Us Home.” He’s appeared on Morning Edition and is “a longtime advocate of live radio theater in the old-time tradition,” the newspaper notes.
McHugh’s daughter, Anna, produced a KVMR special, “The Public Defender,” while she was in high school that won a 2000 national Golden Reel Award for best local documentary from the National Federation of Community Broadcasters, which Current covered here.