MSI Press Blog

Excerpt from  GodSway   (Keathley): Daddy’s Girl (part 1)             Did you ever think about jumping off a building? No, I don’t mean in a suicidal way. If that’s what you’re thinking, you should call a crisis helpline immediately, seek professional guidance, and then finish reading this book. What I mean is, have you ever thought about the circumstances in which you would consider doing something so irrational, illogical, and yes, dangerous, that you would never do it under normal conditions? Like stuntmen in a movie, you’d want to know there was something there to catch you, say a net. And you’d have to trust the people on the ground enough to be assured they would hold on to the net tightly, not to let you hit the ground, right? It would help to know they’d had lots of practice and had successfully held the net for other jumpers. And you’d probably want to talk first-hand to those guys, or at least read up on what the...

  ROMAN PILGRIMAGE   I had only one wish on my bucket list—to visit Rome. I lived there as a student nearly fifty years ago, and had never been back. Now was the time. I was excited by the prospect of visiting my old haunts. I wondered what I would discover, not so much about the eternal city, but about myself. How have I changed in those fifty years? The real journey, I realized, was inward. For the most part, I would be alone touring the city for two weeks. I expected the time to be a personal retreat, a spiritual pilgrimage. What it turned out to be was beyond my expectations.   I stayed at an airbnb near the Coliseum, in the center of the old city. Coincidentally, it was around the corner from the Hotel Forum where my mother stayed when visiting. The hotel became my landmark. Everything of interest to me was within walking distance. I had no agenda for each day and did not follow a guidebook. A fellow classmate had given me some suggestions of typical tourist sites, w...

Name: Patricia Young Book: Life after Losing a Child   Date of Interview: August 5, 2018 Who are you? What do you want readers to know about you? Pat Young has written for the Daytona Beach News Journal, South Bend Tribune, Flint (Michigan) Journal, Clarkston (Michigan) News, New Mexico Magazine, Silver City (New Mexico) Life Magazine, and other publications. She earned numerous awards for her writing, including National Newspaper Association and Michigan Press Association awards. She earned two media awards while at the South Bend Tribune. One of her stories (Giant Wind Harp in Tune with Nature) in New Mexico Magazine was chosen for inclusion in SIRS Discoverer data bases. Why are you qualified to write this book? Pat, and her late co-author Joanna Romer, are both widows. Though neither has lost a child, both women understood the painful bereavement process one goes through after the loss of a loved one.   What is th...

  Today's tip for parents from two talented teachers comes from  365 Teacher Secrets for Parents  by Cindy McKinley Alder and Patti Trombly.                                                                   #111   /  Too Tough   One's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes   We’ve all picked up something to read at one time in our lives and have thought, “Whoa! What? This it too tough for me to read!” Possibly even as an adult, you have put something down because it was just too tough to understand. Of course, this happens to children much more often, especially very young readers. Idea #71 shared with you the “Rule of Thumb.” The idea was that your child should begin to read any random page of a new book she is thinking o...