Bill Johnson's writing workbook has three sections, each designed to help new and experienced authors alike to better understand the craft of storytelling. A Story is a Promise explores the mechanics of how a story transports an audience. Deep Characterization explores what happens when story characters are an extension of authors. The Spirit of Storytelling suggests techniques for authors to create characters with fully realized inner lives; characters who are vibrant, dynamic, and resonate with readers. The book includes an outline of The Lovely Bones and detailed reviews of Romeo and Juliet (the play), The Heidi Chronicles (play), The Shawshank Redemption The Usual Suspects (movies), and The Exorcist (novel). These reviews are meant to help writers understand the underlying process that creates popular stories. From author Carolyn J Rose, "Bill's work made me take a longer look at what matters to readers - and what matters to me as a reader - at the emotional core. I feel my characters are deeper and more memorable because of what I learned."
The Virgin's Promise demystifies the complexities of archetypes and clearly outlines the steps of a Virgin's Journey to realize her dream. Audiences need to see more than brave, self-sacrificing Heroes. They need to see Virgins who bring their talents and self-fulfilling joys to life. The Virgin's Promise describes this journey with beats that feel incredibly familiar but have not been illustrated in any other screenwriting book. It explores the yin and yang of the Virgin and Hero journeys to take up their power as individuals, and includes a practical guide to putting this new theory into action.
"Witty, wise, and full of heart, Gail Storey’s winning memoir of her hike on the Pacific Crest Trail at the age of fifty-six is a book for every one who ever dreamed of taking the road less traveled. I Promise Not to Suffer is as inspiring as it is hilarious, as poignant as it is smart. It’s one of those oh-please-don’t-let-it-end books. I’d carry it in my backpack anywhere.”—Cheryl Strayed, author of Wild CLICK HERE to download the first 50 pages from I Promise Not To Suffer (Provide us with a little information and we'll send your download directly to your inbox) With comfortable urban lives in Houston, Texas, and career and life goals mostly accomplished, Gail D. Storey and her husband were in their fifties when they decided it was time to test themselves on a new path—a 2,663-mile path known as the Pacific Crest Trail, which stretches from Mexico to Canada. I Promise Not to Suffer is Gail's light-hearted yet heart-felt memoir about her and her husband's adventures and misadventures, deepening marriage, and reflections on being irrevocably changed by life on the trail. She was a novice hiker, while he was an experienced outdoorsman. Removed from their usual routines and living outside in the wilderness for months exposed hidden intricacies in their relationship. Hiking 20 miles a day over mountains, thirsting in the high desert of California, forcing frozen feet into icy socks and boots each morning in the High Sierra, stumbling through lava fields in Oregon—Gail was required to meet the elements on their own tough-love terms. From an encounter with a mountain lion to her mother's battle with cancer at home, she confronts each challenge with wit and brave style. While a dangerous loss of weight forces Gail to leave the PCT after 900 miles, she regains strength and later rejoins her husband on sections until he triumphantly reaches the northern terminus in Canada. Humorous yet honest, this journey of harrowing hilarity and reluctant revelations will be loved by active hikers (appendices include details of their unique ultralight gear and other essential how-to information), fans of female adventure stories, and armchair travelers alike. Want to know more about author Gail Storey? Head to her website today. Praise for I Promise Not To Suffer: “At times wrenching memoir, at times hilarious, I Promise Not to Suffer pulls no punches and has a wicked sense of fun. Storey reminds me again of what is possible with a big imagination, a dose of scrappy courage, and a lot of love.” --Peter Heller, author of The Dog Stars and Kook “Some have called Gail Storey the Nora Ephron of the wilderness. With her own unique wit, Storey shares Ephron’s commitment to creating and tending a long, nourishing marriage. I Promise Not to Suffer is a portrait of a union that does not fray or break under pressure but is forged, toughened, and tenderized.” --Sara Davidson, author of Leap!, Loose Change, and The December Project “Of the many books that I have read about hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, none have captured the trail experience from so many different perspectives.Single hikers, couples, and those who stay behind will all enjoy Gail Storey’s account of the challenges, the beauty, and the PCT community found along the way.” --Liz Bergeron, Executive Director and CEO, Pacific Crest Trail Association Winner of the Nautilus Awards 2014 "Better Books for a Better World" Silver Award! Winner of the Colorado Books Awards 2014 in the Memoir category!
This book is an experiment in systematic theology. It is an attempt to see if a particular interpretation of Christian narrative speaks to the situation of Christians in affluent western cultures, a context in which Christian identity is increasingly problematic. Stroup's work purposes to determine if the use of narrative in theology casts any new light on what Christians mean by Òrevelation,Ó the doctrine some Christian theologians have appealed to as the basis for what Christians know and confess about God.
“McMahon unfurls a whirlwind of suspense...Combining murder mystery and coming-of-age tale with supernatural elements, this taut novel is above all a reflection on the haunting power of memory.” –Entertainment Weekly A woman’s past and present collide in terrifying ways in this explosive debut by New York Times bestselling author Jennifer McMahon. Forty-one-year-old school nurse Kate Cypher has returned home to rural Vermont to care for her mother, who's afflicted with Alzheimer's. On the night she arrives, a young girl is murdered—a horrific crime that eerily mirrors another from Kate's childhood. Three decades earlier, her dirt-poor friend Del—shunned and derided by classmates as "Potato Girl"—was brutally slain. Del's killer was never found, while the victim has since achieved immortality in local legends and ghost stories. Now, as this new murder investigation draws Kate irresistibly in, her past and present collide in terrifying, unexpected ways. Because nothing is quite what it seems . . . and the grim specters of her youth are far from forgotten. More than just a murder mystery, Jennifer McMahon's extraordinary debut novel, Promise Not to Tell, is a story of friendship and family, devotion and betrayal—tautly written, deeply insightful, beautifully evocative, and utterly unforgettable.
Psychiatry that recognizes the essential role of community in creating a new story of mental health • Provides a critique of conventional psychiatry and a look at what mental health care could be • Includes stories used in the author’s healing practice that draw from traditional cultures around the world Conventional psychiatry is not working. The pharmaceutical industry promises it has cures for everything that ails us, yet a recent study on antidepressants showed there is no difference of success in prescribed pharmaceuticals from placebos when all FDA-reported trials are considered instead of just the trials published in journals. Up to 80 percent of patients with bipolar depression remain symptomatic despite conventional treatment, and 10 to 20 percent of these patients commit suicide. In Healing the Mind through the Power of Story, Dr. Mehl-Madrona shows what mental health care could be. He explains that within a narrative psychiatry model of mental illness, people are not defective, requiring drugs to “fix” them. What needs “fixing” is the ineffective stories they have internalized and succumbed to about how they should live in the world. Drawing on traditional stories from cultures around the world, Dr. Mehl-Madrona helps his patients re-story their lives. He shows how this innovative approach is actually more compatible with what we are learning about the biology of the brain and genetics than the conventional model of psychiatry. Drawing on wisdom both ancient and new, he demonstrates the power and success of narrative psychiatry to bring forth change and lasting transformation.
A guide to the art of personal writing, by the author of Fierce Attachments and The End of the Novel of Love All narrative writing must pull from the raw material of life a tale that will shape experience, transform event, deliver a bit of wisdom. In a story or a novel the "I" who tells this tale can be, and often is, an unreliable narrator but in nonfiction the reader must always be persuaded that the narrator is speaking truth. How does one pull from one's own boring, agitated self the truth-speaker who will tell the story a personal narrative needs to tell? That is the question The Situation and the Story asks--and answers. Taking us on a reading tour of some of the best memoirs and essays of the past hundred years, Gornick traces the changing idea of self that has dominated the century, and demonstrates the enduring truth-speaker to be found in the work of writers as diverse as Edmund Gosse, Joan Didion, Oscar Wilde, James Baldwin, or Marguerite Duras. This book, which grew out of fifteen years teaching in MFA programs, is itself a model of the lucid intelligence that has made Gornick one of our most admired writers of nonfiction. In it, she teaches us to write by teaching us how to read: how to recognize truth when we hear it in the writing of others and in our own.
"At the Same Time" gathers 16 essays and addresses written in the last years of Sontag's life, when her work was being honored on the international stage, that reflect on the personally liberating nature of literature, her deepest commitment, and on political activism and resistance to injustice as an ethical duty.
Elie Wiesel is a master storyteller with the ability to use storytelling as a form of activism. From his landmark memoir Night to his novels and numerous retellings of Hasidic legends, Wiesel's literature emphasizes storytelling, and he frequently refers to himself as a storyteller rather than an author or historian. In this work, essays examine Wiesel's roots in Jewish storytelling traditions; influences from religious, folk, and secular sources; education; Yiddish background; Holocaust experience; and writing style. Emphasized throughout is Wiesel's use of multiple sources in an effort to reach diverse audiences.
FOREWORD BY GUY KAWASAKI Presentation designer and internationally acclaimed communications expert Garr Reynolds, creator of the most popular Web site on presentation design and delivery on the Net — presentationzen.com — shares his experience in a provocative mix of illumination, inspiration, education, and guidance that will change the way you think about making presentations with PowerPoint or Keynote. Presentation Zen challenges the conventional wisdom of making "slide presentations" in today’s world and encourages you to think differently and more creatively about the preparation, design, and delivery of your presentations. Garr shares lessons and perspectives that draw upon practical advice from the fields of communication and business. Combining solid principles of design with the tenets of Zen simplicity, this book will help you along the path to simpler, more effective presentations.
