Dental Tribune U.S. Edition

Dental Tribune U.S. Edition | July 2013A8 Ad INDuSTRy NEWS Alan Winter's book ‘Savior’s Day,’ published by iUniverse, is available through www. iuniverse.com, www.amazon.com and Barnes and Noble. Photos/Provided by Dr. Alan Winter Periodontist, implantologist, entrepreneur — and novelist Dentist Alan Winter, the co-founder of Expert Dental CE, publishes his third work of fiction ing. Instead of taking a more traditional route and pursuing a biological sciences degree prior to dental school, Winter earned a history degree, graduating from Rutgers with honors and earning a fellow- ship nomination. But dental school beckoned, so he de- By Robert Selleck, Managing Editor Alan Winter, DDS, FACD, always want- ed to be a dentist. But throughout his 30-plus-year career, he hasn’t let that get in the way of his love for history and writ- clined the fellowship and studied dentistry at NYU and Columbia before ulti- mately founding his peri- odontal and implantol- ogy practice in Manhattan, which continues as his pri- mary work today. While turnng his practice into a thriving business, Winter started the dental journal Periodontal Case Reports, wrote two novels and helped start Expert Dental CE, an online learning community that’s centered on providing continuing education and other support to dental professionals throughout the world. And in June, his third novel, “Savior’s Day,” was published. The suspense thrill- er, rooted in historical fact, is available through major booksellers, including www.amazon.com, where it can be bought as a hardback, paperback or e-book. The book was more than 40 years in the making — not because of Winter’s abun- dance of other commitments and inter- ests — but because that’s how long he had ideas for the story bouncing around in his head before he finally realized the perfect way to present it. Interestingly, while the book has noth- ing to do with dentistry, the evolution of the story’s central theme is rooted di- rectly in Winter’s dental practice, where a friendship began with one of his patients, Hayim Tawil. As the two became more aware of each others’ interests, Tawil, a highly regarded biblical scholar and theological seminary instructor, shared with Winter his expan- sive knowledge about the Codex of Alep- po, the oldest known version of the Bible in book form (versus a scroll). At the time, MasterMedia had just pub- lished Winter’s first book, “Someone Else’s Son,” and that led Tawil to ask Winter about collaborating on a book about the Codex of Aleppo. Winter was intrigued, and the two met weekly on the project for the next two years. Winter's first effort with the material was to present the epic story, filled with 1,000 years of conflict and mystery, as a work of historical fiction. But Winter wasn’t satisfied with the result, so he re- cast it as a nonfiction history book. That caught the attention of an agent inter- ested in representing the project. But the agent, nervous about Tawil not being able ” See NOVELIST, page A9