MSI Press Blog

  Excerpt from Surviving Cancer, Healing People  by Sula -  One of Fr. Jerry’s homilies was so very interesting that I had to get up out of the pew and go down and listen to him. He was talking about the animals and what they brought to the baby Jesus. He talked about what the donkeys brought and what the camels brought and what the sheep brought and what lots of other kinds of animals brought. That homily interested me much more than any other homily I had heard from Fr. Jerry although all his homilies are good. All the people who take care of me agree, which is almost everyone when you count all the people who love and pet me. But, he did not say anything about what the cats brought! That made me very curious. I wanted to know what the cats brought. I wanted to hear more of the homily. I wanted to hear it clearly. I really wanted to hear what the cats had brought to Baby Jesus. So, I walked up to where Fr. Jerry was standing and talking and sat down in front of him, eager to hi

  The following excerpt comes from Saints I Know by Sula, Parish Cat at Old Mission. Appropriate for Caturday -- the book is "written" by a cat. Appropriate for this season -- Frasncistide is right around the corner. St. Francis of Assisi 1181-1226 Writing about St. Francis’s life is more a matter of deciding what to leave out rather than what to include. St. Francis did so much in his lifetime and became so meaningful to so many people that it is hard to fit him and his larger-than-life experiences onto just a page in a saints’ book. So, I will try to choose carefully. Though he became a favorite saint for many people, including the current pope who took his name, he did not start out as someone likely to become a saint. Like Deacon Van said in the prologue, perfection is not required for sainthood. Many imperfect people became saints. St. Francis exhibited a range of imperfections. Born into a wealthy family in Assisi, St. Francis grew up in an area of Italy that was at w

Today's fortune cookie is associated with Tale of a Mission Cat (Sula).  Read more about Sula and her books  HERE . Get a copy at  MSI Press webstore . Sign up for the MSI Press LLC newsletter Follow MSI Press on  Twitter ,  Face Book , and  Instagram .   Interested in publishing with MSI Press LLC? Check out information on  how to submit a proposal . Interested in receiving a free copy of this or any MSI Press LLC book  in exchange for  reviewing  a current or forthcoming MSI Press LLC book? Contact editor@msipress.com. Want an  author-signed copy  of this book? Purchase the book at 25% discount (use coupon code FF25) and concurrently send a written request to orders@msipress.com.  Want to communicate with one of our authors? You can! Find their contact information on our  Authors' Pages .    

  Today's fortune cookie is associated with Surviving Cancer, Healing People: One Cat's Story ( Sula). Read more about Sula and her books  HERE . Get a copy at  MSI Press webstore . Sign up for the MSI Press LLC newsletter Follow MSI Press on  Twitter ,  Face Book , and  Instagram .   Interested in publishing with MSI Press LLC? Check out information on  how to submit a proposal . Interested in receiving a free copy of this or any MSI Press LLC book  in exchange for  reviewing  a current or forthcoming MSI Press LLC book? Contact editor@msipress.com. Want an  author-signed copy  of this book? Purchase the book at 25% discount (use coupon code FF25) and concurrently send a written request to orders@msipress.com.  Want to communicate with one of our authors? You can! Find their contact information on our  Authors' Pages .    

  Sula c 2005- August 24, 2022 Sula, parish cat at Old Mission San Juan Bautista, "wrote" six books for parishioners on religions topics. They were well received, and Sula made the news cycle now and again and was featured in national magazines and in online publications. Examples: All Creatures and Guideposts. Today, parishioners and visitors walked past her grave at the Mission and asked to know more about her. Today, the decision was made by the parish to create a 2024 calendar with her charming photos. It should be available for sale soon. The picture above was posted on her Face Book page today in memory of what she brought to the Mission. (photo by Stacey Gentry) For more info, pictures, and book excerpts related to Sula, click HERE .

  Today's fortune cookie is associated with Dia de Muertos by Sula. For more posts about this book and its author, click HERE . Sign up for the MSI Press LLC newsletter Follow MSI Press on  Twitter ,  Face Book , and  Instagram .   Interested in publishing with MSI Press LLC? Check out information on  how to submit a proposal . Interested in receiving a free copy of this or any MSI Press LLC book  in exchange for  reviewing  a current or forthcoming MSI Press LLC book? Contact editor@msipress.com. Want an  author-signed copy  of this book? Purchase the book at 25% discount (use coupon code FF25) and concurrently send a written request to orders@msipress.com.  Want to communicate with one of our authors? You can! Find their contact information on our  Authors' Pages .    

  Toady's fortune cookie is associated with Christmas at the Mission by Sula. See more posts about Sula and her books HERE . Sign up for the MSI Press LLC newsletter Follow MSI Press on  Twitter ,  Face Book , and  Instagram .   Interested in publishing with MSI Press LLC? Check out information on  how to submit a proposal . Interested in receiving a free copy of this or any MSI Press LLC book  in exchange for  reviewing  a current or forthcoming MSI Press LLC book? Contact editor@msipress.com. Want an  author-signed copy  of this book? Purchase the book at 25% discount (use coupon code FF25) and concurrently send a written request to orders@msipress.com.  Want to communicate with one of our authors? You can! Find their contact information on our  Authors' Pages .    

  Well, this may be the shortest book back story yet. Easter at the Mission came about at Easter time after several other Sula (parish cat). Essentially, it was Easter. Sula had already written a popular book, Christmas at the Mission . Readers reported learning things about Christmas they had not known, and the hope was, with the help of the deacon, to do the same with he Easter book -- that hope seemed to have been realized even more in the Easter book than the Christmas book. For more posts about Sula and her award-winning books, click HERE . Sign up for the MSI Press LLC newsletter Follow MSI Press on  Twitter ,  Face Book , and  Instagram .   Interested in publishing with MSI Press LLC? Check out information on  how to submit a proposal . Interested in receiving a free copy of this or any MSI Press LLC book  in exchange for  reviewing  a current or forthcoming MSI Press LLC book? Contact editor@msipress.com. Want an  author-signed copy  of this book? Purchase the book at 25% disc

excerpt from Easter at the Mission (Sula) -  Life at the Mission Gift Shop The people I know best, those who take care of me, can be found at the Mission Gift Shop. There, I have quite a big staff. (You have heard that dogs have owners but cats have staff, right?) My staff is a group of wonderful people. Mary Anzar was the first person I met many years ago when I was called to my mission at the Mission. Benito Garcia used to work at the Mission Gift Shop but now works at the parish office; we are still attached to each other so I regularly walk over to the parish office to see my Benny. Stacey Gentry supervises my staff, takes good care of me, and most important, serves as my official photographer; you will see her beautiful pictures in this book. I have known Kaleena Scargill for many years. She used to clean the church, I would follow her around, and she would take pictures of me that ended up in some of my previous books. Marie Reed is very kind to me, and she makes sure that anyo

  Excerpt from Dia de Muertos by Sula -  ¿Dónde se celebra Día de Muertos? El Día de Muertos se celebró por primera vez en México, y todavía se celebra allí. Es una fiesta importante. Hoy se celebra en ·        toda América Latina, ·        Europa, ·        Estados Unidos y ·        otros lugares. No conozco todos los países donde se celebra, pero sí sé que se celebra en muchos países, especialmente en los lugares donde hay muchas poblaciones originarias de México.   Y, por supuesto, lo celebramos aquí en la Antigua Misión de San Juan Bautista y en mi ciudad, San Juan Bautista. For more posts about Sula and her books, click HERE . Father's day is coming up -- yikes, tomorrow already!  Now, there are kid dads, and that is a long tradition of honoring them.  But, what about cat dads? Should they not be honored, too? This link provides a wide range of ideas for gifts for Father's Day. And here is another idea -- find the best picture of "Dad" with "Cat(s)" an

  The story behind Dia de Muertos is pretty simpe, really. Sula, the parish cat at Old Mission San Juan Bautist a, already had published five books about the Mission and about Catholic customs and beliefs, all of them in English. The parish, however, was pretty equally divided between English speakers and Spanish speakers with two Masses each Sunday in each language and holiday and holy day Masses bilingual. (The community of San Juan Bautista is a pretty evenly divided bilingual community, as well.) Sula, the parish cat, was present at all Masses. She was beloved by all parishioners. The "Sula books" were written to help raise funds for a very expensive retrofit requirement. (The church sits atop the intersection of three major fault lines and has twice fallen from earthquakes high on the Richter scale). Although most Spanish speakers in the parish could understand English, they felt left out of the Sula project. They wanted a book that spoke to their community in their lan

   Christmas at the Mission came after other Sula books were written, the first being Surviving Cancer, Healing People, which won a Literary Titan gold award. The first Sula story was told in Guideposts Magazine  (and repeated two years later as the lead Christmas story in All God's Creatures Magazine ) as the lead story in the Christmas 2015 issue. So, it seemed a natural that one of the books in what become a 7-book series should be a book about Christmas. Not only did Sula photogenically place herself in just the right Christmas spots (the local newspaper got some of those shots, too), but it became clear that not all parishioners were familiar with all the concepts associated with the Catholic observation of Christmas. Sula's books have always tried to strike a balance between informing and entertaining. For more posts about Sula and her books, click HERE . For more book back stories, click HERE . (And yes, we know the timing is a bit odd -- Christmas as four months ago an