MSI Press Blog

  Excerpt from Old and On Hold   Eating through a Pandemic The food supply chain has been turned upside down, creating unusual problems wherein some farmers are tossing milk or burying vegetables while people are lined up at food banks without adequate supplies of food. As of this writing ,we are being told that meat processing has been affected by plant workers being struck with COVID-19. A threat of meat shortage can create food insecurity and the desire to hoard which, of course, requires a way to store larger quantities of food. People without means, including elderly on fixed incomes living in small spaces, can’t hoard. We can expect that grocers will put some limits on the amount bought just as stores did with toilet paper and paper towels. I thank my grocer every time I go in for the effort to provide and, in some cases, “police” our good intentions for the good of all. Stress and boredom are triggers for overindulging. Sugary and salty foods offer temporary satisfaction and com

(Bethany @ A Fish Who Likes Flowers)   As National Breast Cancer Month comes to an end, I wonder how many readers know about the following? Actual pink-colored pumpkins grown for breast cancer awareness. Check out this Huff Post article about farmers who grow these pink pumpkins. A company that sells pink pumpkin shirts. There are several styles. Check them out HERE . Finally, read an inspiring article about "The Power of Pink" at the blog, A Fish Who Likes Flowers, written by Bethany, who also designed the pumpkin in the image above. Seriously, worth a read -- and a good blog to follow. Blog editor's note: As a memorial to Carl, and simply because it is truly needed, MSI Press is now hosting a web page,  Carl's Cancer Compendium , as a one-stop starting point for all things cancer, to make it easier for those with cancer to find answers to questions that can otherwise take hours to track down on the Internet and/or from professionals. The web page is in its infancy

  Excerpt from Of God, Rattlesnakes, and Okra   MOMMA, DO SOMETHING! That would be my sisters complaining about me. They started dating when I was barely a school-age urchin. When their suitors called, Momma sent me out on the front porch to entertain them while the girls finished primping. Taking this duty seriously, I poured my heart into it. Sadly, my efforts were not always appreciated. One of Edith’s beaus was plagued with teenage acne, which left ugly pockmarks. Trying to make conversation, I asked if someone had shot him in the neck with buckshot. Sister Iris fell for a fellow whose notable feature was big tobacco-stained front teeth. As we sat on our porch swing making small talk, my beloved hound dog Ole Pup joined our waiting party. I noticed his teeth looked a lot like Pup’s. “Do you know that your teeth look like Ole Pup’s?” I asked him. He must’ve thought it funny because he laughed nervously. Iris failed to enjoy the joke. Geraldine’s first boyfriend was a lanky

  Omar Imady, author and poet, has produced a new book, The Celeste Experiment , to be published November 17 by Villa Magna Press. The book is available on pre-order from Amazon. We welcome this new book as an affiliate with MSI Press.  For more posts on Omar Imady, click HERE . For more posts on affiliated books, click HERE . Sign up for the MSI Press LLC newsletter Follow MSI Press on  Twitter ,  Face Book , and  Instagram .

  Dia de Muertos by Sula, Parish Cat at Old Mission is available for those who want to know more about and to celebrate Day of the Dead. This book has it all -- history, recipes, paper-making instructions, pictures -- inn a simple, easy read. Amazon has only one left, but MSI Press has a number available through its webstore . For more posts about Sula and her books, click HERE Sign up for the MSI Press LLC newsletter Follow MSI Press on  Twitter ,  Face Book , and  Instagram .

  A new affiliated book, but not a new book, for sure. Task-Based Instruction in Foreign Language Education is a classic and came out in 2005. It was co-edited by MSI Press author and managing editor, Dr. Betty Lou Leaver, with Jane Willis of England, well-known for her work in TBI. The book is published by Georgetown University Press and is universally available -- and used in many countries as a handbook, a textbook, and a manual of examples of how to teach task-based language courses in any language. There is also an impressive theory section, written by Jane. The book combines examples of a wide range of TBI programs from several countries and continents and has become a staple for faculty development in government institutions as well as private institutions. For more posts on Betty Lou Leaver, click HERE . To reach Jane Willis's website, click HERE . For more posts on language teaching, click HERE . Sign up for the MSI Press LLC newsletter Follow MSI Press on  Twitter ,  Fa

  In honor of National Work and Family Month, Julie Gentile, author of two health and fitness books, offers a one-minute motivation for working moms. Check it out HERE . For more posts about Julie and her books, click  HERE . Sign up for the MSI Press LLC newsletter Follow MSI Press on  Twitter ,  Face Book , and  Instagram .

  Craigie, FC. Spirituality, resilience, and well-being in healthcare. Video interview as part of the “Anti-Wellness Retreat for Physicians; A Virtual Space to Reclaim Joy, Play, and Creativity,” sponsored by Sustainable Caring Cooperative. October 18, 2022.  See  https://www.rx-retreats.com/fredericcraigie . Craigie, FC. Spirituality, resilience, and well-being in healthcare. Video interview as part of the “Anti-Wellness Retreat for Physicians; A Virtual Space to Reclaim Joy, Play, and Creativity,” sponsored by Sustainable Caring Cooperative. October 18, 2022.  See  https://www.rx-retreats.com/fredericcraigie . Spirituality, Resilience, and Well-being in Healthcare See more posts about  language learning.                                         Sign up for the MSI Press LLC newsletter                           Follow MSI Press on  Twitter ,  Face Book , and  Instagram .

  Julie Gentile, author of  108 Yoga and Self-Care Practices for Busy Mamas  and  How to Stay Calm in Chaos , writes a very interesting blog on self-care. A recent blog post,  " This is what I want to be remembered by " is well worth reading. And it comes with a video!  For more posts about Julie and her books, click  HERE . Sign up for the MSI Press LLC newsletter Follow MSI Press on  Twitter ,  Face Book , and  Instagram .

  From  Think Yourself into Becoming a Language Learning Super Star WORK YOUR MEMORY  Just having a memory is not enough for good langauge learning. One just use it. Here are some ways in which you can use your memory.  Make rote memory your back-up, not your primary approach Learning "by heart" ids the least effective means of remembering anything. Yes, there are tools, such as flash cards. Yes, this is among the most popular approachces of traditional textbooks. And yes, relying on rote memory can set learners up for overload and failure. As a back-up, yes, it can provide a sense of support and be there when you need automatic and even unthinking recall, but as s business-as-usual approach to language learning, rote memory is not the business you want. Associate memory works better, and binnding works best. Take a look --    Rote memory Rote memory is what you learn without a whole lot of meaning attached. Just repetition. Of course, repetition is one of the ways to get inf

On October 8, MSI Press author, Arthur Yavelberg, author of A Thoelogy for the Rest of Us,   contributed an article to the Tucson Daily Star about...well, you can read it here and see what it is about: "A Rose by Any Other Name" by Arthur Yavelberg While I am not a Catholic, I've never had a problem with the Trinity. The idea that there is one essence that manifests itself in different forms in different contexts was no challenge to me. The same is true of Krishna in Hinduism, by the way. Depending on the seeker--the nature of the seeker and the surrounding culture--Krishna could take any form that would be positively received. When I was teaching in Chicago, it was not false humility to recognize, for example, that basketball great Michael Jordan and I could say exactly the same thing, but Jordan would get rapt attention while I would be lucky if there was a drowsy yawn. In the Bible, when Moses wants to know the name of God he should use when addressing the Israelites i

  It is Tuesday. Time to tall turkey. Monday's madness is over, and Wednesday will take us over the hump, so Tuesday it is--for some serious discussion with authors. Tuesday talks mean to address authors in waiting and self-published authors who would like to go a more traditional route or who would at least like to take their steps with a publisher by their side. Today's topic looks at how editors view incoming submissions from authors and what you need to do to get past the first cut. In my experience, very few first-time authors do what is needed (or know what it is they need to do, or, in some cases, want to do it), and, hence, only about 10% make it past our first cut at MSI Press LLC.  What authors who want to be taken seriously need to is quite simple and, at least for us, quite clear. Believe it or not, some authors miss the boat on all these not-so-hard things: Individualize the submission. Like many publishers. we accept simultaneous submissions. Duplicate submissions

  Today (October 24) is the anniversary of Madeline E. Ehrman' s death in 2015. It seems difficult to believe that seven years have passed since she was sitting with the MSI Press editor, talking about what would be her last (still unpublished, but posthumously planned publication) book, The E&L Construct -- an  instrument , copyrighted at the US Library of Congress in 2002,. The E&L instrumnt identifies neurodiversity preferences that she (the E) designed and validated with Betty Lou Leaver, MSI Press managing editor (the L), when they both worked for US government institutions. The E&L Cognitive Styles Construct is not the first posthumous book that MSI Press has published, nor is it likely to be the last. It is a tribute to Madeline, however, that interest in the instrument has grown and become such that a posthumous book is considered viable. Madeline worked her entire career at the Foreign Service Institute. After she died (from stomach cancer, likely resulting fr