MSI Press Blog

  Excerpt from Depression Anonymous DEPRESSION AS A DRUG  All of us feel blue from time to time. After all, sadness, sorrow, and grief are natural reactions to the loss of persons and things that are important to us. Feeling sad, we withdraw into a cocoon to soothe ourselves and adjust to the change in our life. We withdraw to nurse the wound of the loss. Feeling the pain, we inwardly search for its meaning, looking for a way of making sense of it. In this grieving process, we slowly let go of all the energy we used to put into what was lost and come to accept the void in our lives. If we do not succumb to the temptation of bitterness, the accepted pain of sorrow opens our hearts to new life and to empathy for others.  But sometimes the loss can seem unbearable and the sorrow overwhelming. The sadness reaches to the core of our being and a black cloud envelops us. We cannot escape the darkness. Our bodies, minds, and spirits become possessed. We cannot sleep or e...

             San Juan Books is the hybrid division of MSI Press LLC. It allows first-time writers to become published in a traditional way through the reduction of risk by sharing publication costs. All other publishing features are traditional in nature, and most SJB authors go on to be offered traditional contracts for their subsequent books. SJB publications are available as paperback, hard cover, and e-book versions. SJB authors' books very much hold their own against their contemporaries in the traditional publishing division. Indeed, a number of them have outsold their traditional compatriots. Today, San Juan Books presents authors Kris Girrell and Candace Sjogren. KRIS: Kris Girrell is an author, speaker, and executive leadership coach on a global level. His education spans the disciplines of psychology, theology and coaching. Kris has lectured, presented and coached clients in the Americas, Europe, Africa and Asia/Pacific. A father of three and...

  \ Excerpt from Damascus amid the War Ramadan Ramadan this year passes With no colorful lanterns Lighting up the holy nights in Cairo, No ziker 7 breaking the silence of The sacred Damascene nights. Baghdad stores are closed, Streets of Tripoli are empty, Gaza is under attack, Iraq is in flames. The World takes a nap While the Arabs Argue over who should have won The World Cup matches.                                                             7.20.2014 ***   No water, no electricity, no coffee!   So I decide to wander around the city.   As I pass our neighbor’s door, I hear the wind whistle through the key hole.   The door rattles as i...

  We indeed have books about cats -- a number of them -- and welcome more. Here are some cat lovers might enjoy: How My Cat Made Me a Better Man . Jeremy Feig Book of the Year Finalist Kops-Fetherling International Book Award Legacy Award for Humor 25% discount with code FF25 at msipress.com/shop Intrepid Carl and Betty Leaver 25% with code FF25 at msipress.com/shop Sula series -- there are six books (five in English and one in Spanish) in a series of books "written" by Sula, Parish Cat at Old Mission                                         Sign up for the MSI Press LLC newsletter                           Follow MSI Press on  Twitter ,  Face Book , and  Instagram .

  Excerpt from Communicative Focus : Why is the language performance of native and non-native speakers different?       On the face of it the answer to this question is quite easy. The difference in language performance between native and non-native speaker can be explained by the degree of their command of the language. Native speakers have excellent command of the language and non-native speakers, poor command of it. But why is this so?                                                                   In his book The Native Speaker: Myth and Reality, Alan Davies (2003) defines 6 factors which make a person a native speaker. The most im...

  Today is the feast day of St. John the Baptist, and Sula, Parish Cat at Old Mission, has a book that is perfect for the day. The cover of Sains I Know shows the statue of St. John the Baptist in Sula's hometown of San Juan Bautista (St. John the Baptist). Here is Sula's description of SJB. St. John the Baptist Early first Century A.D. The town of San Juan Bautista (St. John the Baptist), where our Mission is located, was founded on the feast day of St. John the Baptist, June 24 (the reason that most of my books have been released on June 24), and named after him. Our Mission was founded on that day, too. In the beginning, the two were very connected. St. John the Baptist is one of the best-known saints, even to non-Catholics. Even so, his exact birth dates are not known. He was born six months before Jesus, whose coming he foreshadowed, and was murdered in the last year of Jesus’s ministry, so we do know the approximate dates—the first 30 or so years of the first century. He ...

  Excerpt from Clean Your Plate!  Be Nice to Your Friends [ILLUSTRATION 6, CHAPTER 6 WARNING GOES HERE] As anyone who has ever talked to a toddler can tell you, toddlers can be brutal. Like, soul-crushingly, life-ruiningly frank. There’s a lot of truth to the Internet meme that says “if a woman calls you ugly, she’s jealous; if a man calls you ugly, she’s flirting, but if a kid calls you ugly...you’re ugly.” Kids have absolutely no sense of social niceties. They also occasionally spaz out with small bursts of poorly-controlled demonic meanness of unknown origin. (No, it’s not just your kids. It’s all of them.) Why We Say It The fact that parents across the globe tell their kids to be nice to their friends is entirely unsurprising. We’re terrified our little monsters will alienate their peers and doom themselves to a life of social isolation and misery (sticking us with the therapy bills). However well-meaning this parental plea for our kids to exercise their still-...