Lyrical Writings Radiate Mother’s Grief and Illuminate Paths Toward Healing
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There may never really be closure when a loved one passes on, but there can be gentle nudges toward healing and, eventually, toward the forgotten fringes of happiness.
In Blown Into Now: Poems for a Journey, Mylo Schaaf carries readers from deep sadness and loss to comfort and support, finally edging toward joy. Her melodic words become a guidebook, allowing those who grieve to witness a spectrum of responses, to understand what might give relief, and to know how to look for the signposts that will guide them down the path toward healing.
Each of Schaaf’s 45 remarkable poems is paired with a striking photograph taken by her mountaineer son, Alex Lowenstein, who passed on unexpectedly in his twenties. Schaaf’s personal journey through grief became this book.
To those who must endure such a shocking new reality, she aims to bring compassion, beauty and spiritual connection.
Her poems reveal a mother’s great heart and the love she shares with her son for granite peaks and untracked desert. Each photograph provides a pause from grief and allows us a glimpse of something we want and cannot name.
About the Author Mylo Schaaf trained as a journalist, editor and physician, before taking a left turn into poetry. Before everything changed, she was a faculty member at the University of California, San Francisco, mentoring and teaching students in international, low-resource settings. Her commitment to global health grew out of her work and connection with India, the Americas, Liberia, Haiti and China. Then one day, a shocking phone call collapsed this pursuit of engagement and action. Her 24-year-old son, a mountaineer/peace-and-conflict scholar/veteran, had passed away. Poems demanded to be written. They brought relief and healing, as did warm, grassy hills, tree spirits, and arms of sky. Years wandered past. Poems continue to emerge, as the tangles of our days slip into light.
For more information, please visit https://www.myloschaaf.com, or follow the author on Instagram at writermyloschaaf.
Blown Into Now – Poems for a Journey Publisher: Blue Light Press ISBN: 979-8-9864093-0-6 (softcover, available now) Available from https://www.blurb.com/b/11208355-blown-into-now Hardcover and eBook editions coming soon (For updates on these additional formats, please visit https://www.myloschaaf.com).
Trish Stevens Helen Cook Senior Publicist Ascot Media Group, Inc. Post Office Box 2394 Friendswood, TX 77549 281.333.3507 Office 903.654.0938 Direct [email protected] www.ascotmedia.com.
43 Years Later, the Unseemly Saga of Spectacular Bid is Revealed
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In an era of spectacular thoroughbreds, Spectacular Bid may have been the most exalted racehorse of them all. In 1979, he won the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness — and transcended his sport on a run of 12 consecutive stakes victories. But his quest for the Triple Crown was lost with a third-place finish in the Belmont Stakes due to a series of bizarre events that have never been accurately reported.
In The Fast Ride: Spectacular Bid and the Undoing of a Sure Thing, author and journalist Jack Gilden tells the story of what really happened the day “the Bid” lost the biggest race of his life. Along the way, Gilden introduces readers to a cast of characters from the gilded age of late twentieth-century horse racing, from Bid’s owners, the renowned Meyerhoff family, to Grover “Buddy” Delp, the fast-talking trainer, to teenage jockey Ronnie Franklin, whose meteoric rise to fame aboard Spectacular Bid came at the cost of his innocence and well-being. “I came into the story as Franklin lay in an East Baltimore hospice gasping his last breaths,” Gilden writes in the introduction. “I was aided and abetted by one of his friends who had decided it was time that the truth came out.”
Also present in Gilden’s narrative are four of the era’s magnificent Latino riders, Ángel Cordero Jr., Jacinto Vasquez, Georgie Velasquez and Ruben Hernandez. They all felt the sting of rejection and bigotry during their long careers, even as they found their way and raised the level of competition to a feverish pitch.
Underlying Spectacular Bid’s saga was the thin line between hard work and excess, including substance abuse, animal manipulation, doping and race fixing. Hardly anyone in the horse’s circle made it out unscathed or undamaged.
The Fast Ride is the story of a great racehorse, unfulfilled dreams, the exhilaration and steep price of striving at all costs, and an American era in which getting everything you ever wanted could be the most empty and unfulfilling sensation of all.
Jack Gilden is the author of Collision of Wills: Johnny Unitas, Don Shula, and the Rise of the Modern NFL (2018). His editorials, columns and articles have appeared in Orioles Magazine, the Baltimore Sun, the Evening Sun, Chesapeake Life, Style magazine and the Baltimore Jewish Times. He has written about the anti-Semitism of H.L. Mencken, the literary life of Bernard Malamud, the lost legend of “Swish” Nicholson, Joe Louis as civil rights hero and the profane genius of Earl Weaver. He scripted the Orioles 40th Anniversary Video, narrated by the legendary Jim McKay. Gilden lives in Baltimore with his wife, two children, two step-children, and his dog.
For more information, connect with the author on Twitter at @JackGilden, or visit www.williamsonlit.com.
The Fast Ride: Spectacular Bid and the Undoing of a Sure Thing Publisher: University of Nebraska Press ISBN-10: 1496230507 ISBN-13: 978-1496230508 Available from Amazon.com, BN.com and other online retailers
Trish Stevens Ben Marshall Ascot Media Group, Inc. Post Office Box 2394 Friendswood, TX 77549 [email protected] www.ascotmedia.com 281.333.3507 Phone
‘Stand Firm’ and Other Insights for End-Time Preparations
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The concept of the rapture looms over believers, instilling hope in some but fear in many others. After all, no one knows exactly when it will happen or how long any tribulation will last.
“People are already reacting with fear. … I think it’s an important topic to deal with because so many — I mean, many — really do not have a grasp of the scriptures that talk about the end-time,” Bible scholar David S. Heeren said in a recent interview.
Heeren has written extensively on the topic of end-time prophecy, and in his fifth book on the subject, End-Time Living: Despite Conflict and Hardship, All Is Well, he trains his focus on the preparations necessary prior to the end-time and the power of redemptive love to minimize any tribulation. “Through the sacrificial life and death of Jesus, all believers have access to the unconditional love and forgiveness of God,” Heeren said. “When things get tough during the end-time, He will be pleased with us if we display the same kind of compassion for those who hate us and are active enemies. This will glorify the risen Christ.”
In End-Time Living, Heeren draws his messaging from the second half of the Bible, featuring details from relevant sermons of Jesus (Matthew 5-7, 24 and Luke 21) and the eight chapters of the beautiful allegory, Song of Songs.
Included are 15 points of emphasis presented as keys to a God-honoring lifestyle; the true story of a 12-year-old Christian boy who openly expressed love for the man who beat his mother to death; the story of the enduring legacy of missionary Richard Wurmbrand and his underground ministry; and Heeren’s deeply personal account of his wife, Joan, and her tremendous capacity for love.
Despite the perilous end of days setting that forms the backdrop for End-Time Living, Heeren centers his narrative on the reasons why believers should remain hopeful that any tribulation will be short-lived, and the rewards for those who stand firm for Him until the end will be everlasting.
“We should be happy and hopeful because we are headed for a victorious finale, the Second Coming of Jesus, which will be a cause of celebration to millions upon millions of people who will meet Him in the air,” Heeren says.
David S. Heeren is an award-winning journalist and author of 17 books. A personal prayer identical to that of Isaiah (Is. 6:8) led him to change his career emphasis from sports writing to Christian writing in 2007. Since that time, he has published nine books with Christian themes, five of which deal with biblical end-time prophecy. His previous book, The High Sign, which identifies the most likely sign of Jesus’ Second Coming, received a double-four-star (perfect) rating from the Online Book Club — the highest rating awarded by the club.
His upcoming Christian novel, Year of Our Lord, has been praised by literary critic David Dickerson as “by far the most exciting in the In His Steps series.”
End-Time Living: Despite Conflict and Hardship, All Is Well Publisher: URLink Print & Media, LLC ISBN-10: 1647538955 ISBN-13: 978-1647538958 Available from Amazon.com
Trish Stevens Helen Cook Senior Publicist Ascot Media Group, Inc. Post Office Box 2394 Friendswood, TX 77549 903.654.0938 Direct 281.333.3507 Office [email protected] www.ascotmedia.com
20 Tenets to Help Women Lead Purposeful, Successful Lives Revealed in The Woman Code Morning Joe Host & Author of Know Your Value, Mika Brzezinski, Pens Foreword
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The pandemic forced everyone to pivot and re-prioritize, and for many women, that meant putting themselves last. Now, more than ever, women need to know their value, recognize their worth and fill their own cups first.
“Women are the soul of what keeps the world going. We keep our families, our companies, our communities and our nations intact,” explains Sophia A. Nelson, acclaimed journalist and author of The Woman Code: 20 Powerful Keys to Unlock Your Life (April 2021, Health Communications).
Named one of the most inspirational books by Woman’s Day in 2015-2017, this transformative book is updated with new insights about the profound economic and societal shifts that have changed our world since the pandemic. Nelson guides women through living out a powerful life Code that will lead them to purposeful, meaningful and authentically successful lives.
Every woman lives by a Code, whether she realizes it or not. It informs how she treats herself and others and how far she is willing to go in order to find success. Nelson calls on women to examine whether the Code they’re living by is truly helping them create the lives they desire. A senior columnist for USA Today and a frequent commentator on CNN, Nelson reveals 20 powerful Codes including:
● Know Your Value ● Be Resilient ● Choose Your Thoughts and Words Wisely ● Lift Other Women as You Climb ● Practice Love, Laughter, Loyalty
With life quotes from philosophers and poets, mystics and her maternal grandmother, plus her experience as a Black woman rising through the ranks of a male-dominated news industry, The Woman Code is an essential tool of transformation for women to enjoy in reading groups, retreats and Bible study groups. It will help women honor themselves while navigating the demands of work, home, family and friendship no matter what their age or stage in life.
About the Author Sophia A. Nelson is an award-winning American author and journalist who appears regularly on CNN’s Inside Politics and Newsroom as a legal and political analyst. She is an adjunct professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religion at Christopher Newport University in Newport News, Virginia.
Nelson covered former First Lady Michelle Obama at the White House from 2010–2012. The author appears frequently on CNN and has been a contributor to MSNBC, NBC, Fox News, the BBC, ABC World News with Diane Sawyer and the Today show. She writes for The Huffington Post Healthy Living and The Daily Beast. She has also contributed to USA Today, Essence, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and The Washington Post. She is the author of The Woman Code, Black Woman Redefined, and E Pluribus ONE.
