MSI Press Blog

Mary Ann is producing my first short film and just launched the crowdfunding campaign today.  It is a female led horror short film about abandonment, familial resentment and a tentacle monster.  Take a look, and if you feel like you could help Mary Ann just a little, she -- and we -- would be grateful.  https://seedandspark.com/fund/ heartthrobmovie#story For more posts that include Mary Ann, 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. 

MSI Press staff is on the move -- south to San Diego for a conference. So, we stopped in Burbank, at Tallyrand Restaurant, for lunch with copyeditor Mary Ann Raemisch and author Andrwe Harvey (Tucker and Me). From left to right: Carl Leaver, typesetter & designer Betty Lou Leaver, managing editor Mary Ann Raemisch, copyeditor Andrew Harvey, author

  This week's blog post is the next in the series of book back stories and is the story behind Passing On: Preparing for the Afterlife  by Joanna Romer. From the publisher -  Joanna Romer, an author who had already written seven books for us and was, at the time, working on two others, Helping the Disabled Veteran and Life after Losing a Child (with Pat Young ), which were ultimately finished and published, came to me with a book proposal for a book on preparing for death. As a popular MSI Press author and retired professor of journalism, her books were well researched, and I was intrigued by how she might go about researching this one. But go about it she did, resulting in another popular book. Little did I know that she might have a very personal reason for writing this book. She passed away not longer after it was released, and her two final books were released posthumously, one with the help of one our copyeditors, who is already a developmental editor, Mary Ann Raemisch, and

  This week's blog post is the next in the series of book back stories and is the story behind Helping the Disabled Veteran (Romer). From the editor -  Little did Joanna know that this would be the last full book she ever wrote. (She published ten books with MSI Press.) In fact, the final chapter was written by Mary Ann Raemisch, one of our copyeditors who had edited Joanna's previous books. Joanna was in the process of revising the book (originally written on the broader topic of all veterans, then deliberately targeted toward one of the more forgotten groups of vets -- those who ended up disabled from their war experiences) when she died unexpectedly. The revision was complete except for the final chapter. A colleague of Joanna was able to find and download the book from Joanna's computer files. I approached Mary Ann, knowing that she was familiar with Joanna's style, given her extensive experience copyediting Joanna's work, and asked if she thought she could emu

Mary Ann Raemisch and Andrew Harvey discuss Andrew's book, Tucker and Me -- about a childhood spent in the South and Los Angeles and divided between parents; a child's view of different societies and growing up with divored parents. Listen to the podcast HERE .   

Dr. Andrew Harvey served in law enforcement for 25 years, the last 12 as a captain with a Southern California police agency.  He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in criminal justice from California State University at Los Angeles, and an educational doctorate in the field of organizational leadership from Pepperdine University.  He is a graduate of the FBI National Academy, the California POST Command College, the West Point Leadership Program, and is recognized in California as a master instructor. Dr. Harvey is an award-winning college educator, with two decades of college teaching experience at five different institutions, ranging from community college all the way through the university doctorate level. His book, Tucker and Me ,   is a delightful tale of a boyhood split between the South and the big city of Los Angeles. LISTEN TO MARY ANN RAEMISCH INTERVIEW ANDREW HARVEY ON  TUCKER AND ME  AND MORE Audio Player 00:00 00:00 Use Up/Down

  We have recently added an interview with Renyuan Dong ( Rainstorm of Tomorrow ), conducted by Mary Ann Raemish. His interview joins a growing list of others. Check out our author interviews HERE .  (Check back periodically as we will be adding more.)

  Excerpt from Chapter 6 I didn’t convert for marriage, but I think my husband’s soul was meant to convert with mine. The day that I met Travis, I was 16 years old and had just been elected all-school treasurer of our public high school. I was wearing khakis and a white short-sleeved blouse from Hollister to look “professional,” and my hair—which my Conair straightener pulverized every morning—laid totally flat against my head. He was a year older than I and had been elected school president. I never saw boys my age wearing suits and ties, so I was enamored with his sharp outfit. He had choppy, light brown hair and nerdy glasses. He reached out and shook my hand. I decided on the spot that I was in love with him.   Alas, Travis had a girlfriend already, so I spent the rest of high school being hopelessly in love with him (as in, the “crying while listening to Taylor Swift” kind of love). Sometimes, I pretended that I needed a lift to various student government events even though my mom

  Excerpt from Achieving Native-Like Second Language Proficiency PREFACE Contrary to popular thought in some quarters, learning languages to very high levels of proficiency, i.e. those very close to those of native speakers, is, indeed, possible. Not only is it possible, it is done on a routine basis by a number of learners, not only in other countries, but in the United States , as well. True, the numbers in the United States are not large, but they are sufficient enough to show that it can be done here, as well as in countries of Europe , Eurasia , Latin America , and elsewhere. Further, there are some very skilled teachers quietly producing these levels of proficiency also on a regular basis.       The problem is not the ability to teach to native-like levels of proficiency in direct instruction programs or the ability to learn to native-like levels of proficiency, given the appropriate help and experience. Rather, the problem lies in the all-too-pervasive mindset that high leve