IN THIS ISSUE: --Power
Kills Observes Nobel Finalist --JUST FOR FUN
J. Tracksler Does It Again! Winner of two Arizona Literary Contest and Book Awards!Llumina Press is proud to announce that J. Tracksler has won another the Arizona Authors Association First Place Award for Published Novel 2004 with The Ice Floe.
Llumina Press Wins Award
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The Feminine Influence in Business Publication: March 2004 Author: Michael Lehr Hardcover Paperback ISBN: 1-59526-319-5 ISBN: 1-59526-318-7 Pages: 432 Pages: 432 Price: $34.95 Price: $22.95 Size: 6 x 9 Size: 6 x 9
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FORT LAUDERDALE, SEPTEMBER 2004:
The Ruins of the Soul
Ancient Style, Age-Old Questions
Can the questions people have posed for centuries be answered?
The Ruins of the Soul is a mirror of the physical and existential condition of
humanity. The first half of the book reflects fears, miseries, hopes and pain,
bringing about an awareness of the whole of humanity through these shared
experiences. The second half analyzes the philosophical problems of free will in
condensed thought through poet/philosopher Omar Khayyam's Rubaiyat, a
challenging form of rhyming quatrains through which poetic meaning is expressed.
Hamed Vahidi is an information technology specialist living in the United
States. From a great interest in science, philosophy and literature, he has
published the articles “Why Does Something Exist Rather Than Nothing?” and “A
Brief Analysis of Mysticism.” This is Vahidi’s first collection of poetry.
The Ruins of the Soul Publication: August 2004
Author: Hamed Vahidi
Paperback
ISBN: 1-59526-295-4
Pages: 52
Price: $9.95
Size: 6 x 9
Available from Llumina Press, Ingram, and Baker & Taylor.
Toll Free Orders Line: 1-866-229-9244
Or on the web at
orders@llumina.com
Contact Person: Deborah Greenspan
Address: P.O. Box 772246; Coral Springs, FL 33077-2246
Telephone: (866) 229-9244
Fax: (954) 341-7978
Email: dgreenspan@llumina.com
URL: www.llumina.com
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FORT LAUDERDALE, SEPTEMBER 2004:
Poetry of the Soul
There are times when topics such as AIDS, depression and
suicide touch our lives in unexpected ways. Before we realize it, they become
pieces of the puzzle that is the reality of our existence, distorting the
idyllic vision of life we strive to maintain.
Poetry of the Soul deals with subjects such as death, internal turmoil, AIDS,
lost love, hope, and healing. The verse and its images and feelings evolve
throughout the collection. In the process, the beliefs and haunting impressions
of our lives disperse and regroup, sketching a new spectrum of existence.
Darkness dilutes into light, revealing new beginnings possible on paths filled
with peace and hope. Yet, we still wonder…
A. N. Oswald is a freelance writer and photographer based in New Jersey,
published under her real and pen name. Her works have appeared online and in
print; A & U, Enlightened Practice, Writer’s Digest, and SP Quill quarterly
poetry magazine are just a few examples. Poetry of the Soul is her first book
and poetry collection.
Poetry of the Soul Publication: August 2004
Author: A. N. Oswald
Paperback
ISBN: 1-59526-185-2
Pages: 72
Price: $9.95
Size: 6 x 9
Available from Llumina Press, Ingram, and Baker & Taylor.
Toll Free Orders Line: 1-866-229-9244
Or on the web at
orders@llumina.com
Contact Person: Deborah Greenspan
Address: P.O. Box 772246; Coral Springs, FL 33077-2246
Telephone: (866) 229-9244
Fax: (954) 341-7978
Email: dgreenspan@llumina.com
URL: www.llumina.com
by Deborah Greenspan, Publisher
Babies and books: They don’t look the same; they don’t sound the same, and
they sure don’t smell the same. (Although there are critics who might debate
that.) But these two disparate entities do have a couple things in common: They
are both the result of creative acts that usually begin in a moment of joy, yet
are born into this world in travail and pain.
Babies start out in a surge of joyful submission to the infinite. But turning
that momentary joining into something real takes a long time. Inside the mother,
the baby grows and changes moment by moment. First it has a tail and flippers.
Then it loses them and grows feet and hands. It’s in a constant state of flux
until it finally begins to assume its finished shape. Over and over, DNA and
environment “rewrite” the physical being until it becomes a tiny human being.
Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny. But now it has to get out into the world; it
has to separate from its mother. In blood, sweat, and tears the baby is born.
And after that, there’re months of feeding night and day, and nine months to a
year before the child can walk independently.
Books too start on wings of inspiration, but finishing one is a long, grueling
process. First you’re overwhelmed by the vision you have, and you scribble it
down on paper as quickly as you can. Then you write it again, throw away half of
it and start over. On the next read-through you wish you’d never started. You
think you must be crazy to imagine you can be a writer; it will never look like
that vision you had at the start. But you rewrite it one more time, and then go
over it again, every time finding more things to fix. It’s a never-ending job
until that magical day when the whole thing is done, finished, beautifully
defined: Your vision in the flesh. You type “The End.”
But is the completion of the book really the end? Or is it more like the
beginning?
If birth is the process of separating a baby from its mother, then publishing is
the process of separating a book from its author. Many writers seem to think
that once they hand the book over to the publisher, all the major work has been
done. They wrote it; they poured their hearts and souls into it. They were the
translator of inspiration into flesh. But when it gets into the publisher’s
hands, it still has a long way to go. Often the text has to be edited and
polished, then “dressed up” in a style that complements the naked words. ISBNs,
CIP#s, distribution, barcode, formatting, cover design, webpage, uploading,
downloading, endless emails between publisher and author, all these stages have
to be gone through. Sometimes, just like the tail and flippers, parts are
discarded and begun again. A cover may be off the mark completely; the back
cover copy may need rewriting. There are always computer glitches and
communication difficulties and problems agreeing on what’s what. This goes with
the territory.
The point of this comparison is that publishing, like writing, like baby-making,
like any creative endeavor, is above all else, a process of perfecting
something. It takes time. Writers don’t finish books in a day, mothers don’t
rush the births of their babes, and publishers need time to do the job properly.
Just as in everything else there are those who strive for excellence and those
who push things out ready or not because that’s all the work the budget will
bear. Publishers should be artists as well as business people, because they are
responsible for giving the final polish to the book, the shine that attracts the
eye of the audience. So when choosing a publisher, think about this: like
writing, publishing is an art, and as artists we should be aiming for perfection
every time. If your publisher is rushing the job, you may have cause for
concern.
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Scare or Dare: A Comparison of Adventure and Horror
By Joanna Skevis
The scene is gruesome, dim-lit with blood everywhere. You’re fighting for your life. Then suddenly you are stabbed from behind and something slithers through your veins. Your mind starts to blank and you know this is the end. A thing steals your body and attacks your friends, seeking to make them into yet more zombies.
What could be more frightening? Fiction thrives on conflict, but one would think only horror could embrace such a terrifying antagonist. Yet this also describes several episodes and a movie of Star Trek involving the Borg, and Star Trek is not horror. So what makes adventure, and what makes horror? To answer, I compare two popular works of science fiction: Star Trek and The Faculty. True, these are film, but the differences between adventure and horror span different media.
On occasion, the intrepid crew of the starship Enterprise encounters a powerful interstellar menace: the Borg, a collective of flesh-machine cyborgs, each a part of the group mind controlled by the Queen. They inject people with nanomachines that turn them into more Borg. Several times the Enterprise becomes a battlefield as crewmembers try to repulse the drones.
The Faculty, on the other hand, is set on Earth, at a high school, in the present. Slimy, tentacled aliens infiltrate the school, turning students and teachers into more of themselves. Once the school is saturated, who knows whom they will strike next? A few kids find out, but everyone refuses to believe them.
Why is the latter horror, and the former not?
The first factor is the ratio of the protagonist’s power to that of the antagonist. Common to adventure and horror is a powerful antagonist, and high stakes-people's lives to the fate of the world. But in The Faculty, the protagonist is an ordinary teenager, and the only help he has are his friends—all of whom are vulnerable. They are alone and helpless. That they might win seems impossible. In contrast, the protagonist of Star Trek: First Contact is Captain Picard, and he and his crew are trained, resourceful space explorers who have faced danger many times. And they have technology of their own. It’s not us, not Joe and Jane Average fighting for the fate of humanity. We have a heroic defender. The same is true of fiction involving superheroes, or the military.
The second is the nearness of the threat. Star Trek battles with the Borg are, with the exception of First Contact, far out in space. We care, but our worry is for the Enterprise, the familiar crew. The threat to Earth is there, but indirect. In The Faculty, the setting is a school that could be our school, a town that could be our town. The enemy is already here. It's we who are fighting, and our lives at stake.
Another factor is visceral effect. How much blood spatters the walls? What does the invader look like? We think visually, after all. The aliens in The Faculty are ugly in the extreme, all tentacles and orifices. They look like octopus-monsters out of a primitive nightmare. The Borg, on the other hand, are humanoid, and part machine. Their skin is pasty white, the implants are lumpy and black with loops of wire sticking out, but machines were not present when we were hunter-gatherers. Instinct often dictates the strength of our fears: lots of people are afraid of snakes, but few fear electricity, though the latter now causes far more deaths in developed countries. The Faculty takes advantage of our instinctive fears; Star Trek does not.
Closely related is the nature of the struggle. In horror, and adventure at its highest suspense, the action is physical, guns going off, blows being exchanged, someone running or fighting for their life. The teenagers try to run from the aliens. But in Star Trek, much of the battle consists of figuring out how best to fight. Which doesn't destroy the tension—all rests on a few decisions, and the clock is ticking. But to our primitive mind it does not look like fighting. Our cognitive minds are engaged and the methods of struggle become as interesting as their outcome. In addition, in Star Trek the conflict is often ship-on-ship rather than one-on-one.
Ultimately, the difference is distance—emotional, physical, mental. The heroic figure fights for us; the conflict is far away; the invader does not look viscerally repulsive; and the fight involves some thinking. These factors make adventure. Ordinary person fights; the battle is on our doorstep; the invader has as much animal ugliness as the writer can give it; and the fight is all run, hide, shoot. These factors make horror. Want to give your readers that I can't breathe now what'll happen feeling? Make your protagonist weak, the conflict as emotionally close as possible, and describe your villain well. Want readers to cheer a heroic adventure? Keep some distance.
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WRITING NEWS...
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CLICK HERE TO JOIN
TESTIMONIALS: WHAT THEY'RE SAYING ...
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Dear Ms. Greenspan,
I wanted to thank you and the entire Llumina team for expediting my
book project through the system. The book came out great (other than
a few ripped covers, I think from when they were stuffed into the
boxes) and the support and service from Llumina was first class. You
even beat your committed delivery date by over 1 week.
Again, thanks, and I look forward to continuing to do business with
Llumina for years to come.
Miles Arnone
American Capital
mailto:Miles.Arnone@AmericanCapital.com
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Dear Deborah:
I wanted to thank you and the entire Llumina Press staff for making publishing my novel a hassle-free and pleasurable experience. I researched my publishing options for eight months, and I’m delighted that I chose Llumina and Print On Demand technology.
Your staff worked hard to create a book for me that took just six months from contract to press. And special kudos must go to your graphics department. Kellie Warren enthusiastically sought my input on my cover design, which is exactly what I’d hoped it could be. Readers are forever commenting on how eye-catching my book is. And I have no doubt that the cover art boosts book sales.
I must also thank Robyn and Rhonda, my email buddies. Their patience and encouragement were invaluable to me throughout the publishing process. Finally, I appreciate the individual attention that you and your staff provide to your authors. I recently received an email from Ashlea, who thought my title would be appropriate for a national writing contest. I appreciated the vote of confidence as well as the heads-up.
I have recommended Llumina to several author friends, and I’m thrilled to tout POD publishing to other writers who want to make an informed decision when publishing their projects.
Thanks for making my first book a dream come true!
Sincerely,
Sandy
Sandy Henry
Something Borrowed, Something Blue
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Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest
2004 Results
She resolved to end the love affair with Ramon tonight . . . summarily, like Martha Stewart ripping the sand vein out of a shrimp's tail . . . though the term "love affair" now struck her as a ridiculous euphemism . . . not unlike "sand vein," which is after all an intestine, not a vein . . . and that tarry substance inside certainly isn't sand . . . and that brought her back to Ramon.
Dave Zobel
Manhattan Beach, CA
A 42-year-old software developer and former National Spelling Bee contestant is the winner of the 2004 edition of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. Dave Zobel of Manhattan Beach, California, won with his timely entry. An international literary parody contest, the competition honors the memory (if not the reputation) of Victorian novelist Edward George Earl Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873). The goal of the contest is childishly simple: entrants are challenged to submit bad opening sentences to imaginary novels. Although best known for "The Last Days of Pompeii" (1834), which has been made into a movie three times, originating the expression "the pen is mightier than the sword," and phrases like "the great unwashed" and "the almighty dollar," Bulwer-Lytton opened his novel Paul Clifford (1830) with the immortal words that the "Peanuts" beagle Snoopy plagiarized for years, "It was a dark and stormy night."
Runner-Up:
The notion that they would no longer be a couple dashed Helen's hopes and scrambled her thoughts not unlike the time her sleeve caught the edge of the open egg carton and the contents hit the floor like fragile things hitting cold tiles, more pitiable because they were the expensive organic brown eggs from free-range chickens, and one of them clearly had double yolks entwined in one sac just the way Helen and Richard used to be.
Pamela Patchet Hamilton
Beaconsfield, Quebec
Canada
To read winners in every genre you can think of, go to http://www2.sjsu.edu/depts/english/2004.htm
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ANNOUNCEMENTS...
Check Out Writer’s Digest for Tons of Great Contests!
http://www.writersdigest.com/contests
Writing-World.com Has a Searchable Database for Contests
http://www.writing-world.com/contests
Writer’s Market—A Writer’s Essential Resource
First Voice on the Web
First Voice is an interview show on the web in search of authors willing to do phone interviews discussing their nonfiction book. Authors can email a query to see if their book would be of interest to us. We deal with well-written nonfiction only; no children’s books, e-books or biographies. There is no charge to authors or publishers and interviews are in long format, pre-taped. Specifically, we're doing a series on alternative cancer therapies in October and astrology books in November. Find us on the web at: www.7to7.net
GALLEYS AVAILABLE TO REVIEWERS...
The following books are available as galleys for book reviewers:
This list is being updated.
If you'd like to review one of these books in galley,
please contact the publisher at Llumina Press.