MSI Press Blog

  Pictures and videos by Stacey Gentry. If it is Saturday, it just might be Sula day. And if it is Christmas, it might be Sula Santa. Have fun getting to know Sula better below. (The videos, unlike the pictures, are not embedded in this post; they are linked. You have to click on them to see them.)   Sula, beloved cat of San Juan Bautista (CA) parish and author of 6 books (5 in English and 1 in Spanish, never lacks for photographers, videographcrs, and artists to portray her and her adventures. Their efforts can be found in a number of  posts about Sula on this blog  -- and definitely spread across the  Internet . This Saturday-Caturday, we are sharing a short video of Sula, taken by Stacy Gentry. She is trying to get into Mass on a day when Mass canceled. Covid has taken a toll on Sula's ministry, as well as on the life of all the parishioners as Mass has had moments of being changed, canceled, moved on lone, and the like. See poor Sula's frustration HERE . Like seeing Sula in

  Today's book excerpt comes from  An Afternoon's Dictation  by Steven Greenebaum .                                                              Introduction These are hugely difficult times. When I began this book, COVID was loose and taking lives across the country and around the world as wars were raging and murdering so many innocents. Now, as wars continue, there are new diseases raging while many struggle to learn to live with “long COVID.” All this as people are at long last recognizing that the environment is in crisis yet continue to argue vehemently over what if anything to do about it. In the United States and much of what has been called the “free world,” the very nature of freedom itself is the topic of vehement and often virulent argument. The future of the Earth is in question. More personally, and for me of equal importance, the quality of life we are leaving for posterity is also in question. Even if, as I fervently hope, humanity at last rises to the occasion

  Being a publisher of language teaching and learning books (among other lines), we are always interested in what the language community is doing. One source of fascinating information is the National Museum of Language. In its most recent newsletter, it talked about its new normal in the era of covid.  At the Museum, our new normal is to not only continue to offer you the same great content you have seen throughout the years, but to add new and exciting concepts to our regular lineup. The Teacher's Corner has taken on a digital slant, focusing on what can be done now while many teachers remain teaching online to some degree, but with tasks and tools that can come back with you to the classroom. After the success of our first trivia night, we will be looking at another one coming to you shortly. Having virtual Speakers has increased our audience significantly and allows us to reach out to audiences we had never considered. And those are only what you have seen so far! Our new int

  Looking back on Carl's cancer, our cats' cancers, and cancers among friends and family, we should have seen the signs, which would have led to better decisions and, likely, better outcomes. But they were small changes, slow changes that we got used to gradually without thinking back to what things used to be like.  One day, Carl forgot where the brake on the car was and pushed the gas pedal instead. Scary! Could happen to anyone, right? That was a few months before his late stage 4 metastatic cancer diagnosis, with hypercalcemia (which really messes up the brain). A small sign, but we missed it. His growing tendence to leave dishes to do until the next morning of plants to water the next day. Lazy, right? That started maybe a year out before the cancer diagnosis, likely about the time his organs were being attacked and overwhelming his immune system -- and likely his energy. A small sign, but we missed it. There were more. If we even noticed them, we dismissed them all as  ag

FINDING OPPORTUNITY DURING THE PANDEMIC Making the Possible Possible We are older. We are vulnerable. We are taking our place as spectators of those younger and on the front lines of taking care of the ill and providing essential services. We are less able to see those who are working from home unless they appear in one of those boxes on the grid of people commenting on today’s news. We are missing being with some of our favorite people and doing some of our favorite things, but, for the moment, we’ve right sized our life during a pandemic to meet the needs of our unique selves and those for whom we care. No doubt we’ve had moments of what’s being called “quarantine fatigue.” A friendly grocery clerk likened it to the movie, Ground Hog Day , in which the same story repeats daily. Sometimes, we feel great progress is being made, and sometimes, we think it will never change. Depending upon the extent we’ve been directly exposed to the tragedy of COVID-19, we may be wonde

    Excerpt from The Pandemic and Hope by Dr. Dennis Ortman -- PROLOGUE “There is no fear in love, for perfect love casts out fear.” I John 4:18 The Coronavirus has swept across the earth, not respecting national borders. It is truly a universal, global event. No social class is immune: the old and the young, the rich and the poor. The death toll rises each day. Its numbers are in the tens of thousands. Government leaders around the world are mobilizing their forces to fight this invisible enemy. COVID-19 has become a common enemy, surprisingly uniting countries with hostile relationships. Indeed, the media mantra rings true:”We are all in this together.” It appears to me that we are facing two invisible enemies: the Coronavirus and the fear virus. Both are equally pernicious and contagious in their own ways. The Coronavirus can kill the body. Fear can destroy our mental/emotional and spiritual wellbeing. It can lead to despair, and even suicide. We are witnessing today a worl

  In March, Carl was diagnosed with advanced stage 4 (metastatic) cancer of unknown primary. In August, he died.  When we got the diagnosis, we had to choose a detour from our normal life. There was no way to move straight ahead with life as usual because, you see, there was this big obstacle, called cancer, straight ahead. So, the question was to detour to the left and choose a treatment option, hope, and focus on the living or detour to the right and let nature takes its course, choose to accept the situation at face value, letting nature take its course, and focus on the dying. To fight or to surrender? There was no logical superiority of either path, not knowing what lay behind the cancer tree and how long was the path for it  continued out of sight. We decided not through reasoning but through conditioned reaction to fight. That is what we had done all our adult lives, as we successfully navigated life for four children, two with rare birth defects, and three grandchildren, two wi

  No, not from writing. She is, in fact, right now working on her next book, Sula and the Franciscan Sisters, due out mid-February. She is retiring from full-time work at the Mission. Her cancer has returned (fourth bout), and while she has great veterinarian care, the combination of the gift shop and Mission being closed most of the week because of covid and Sula's need to heal, she now works only on Sundays. Not at Masses because none are open to the public right now; they are streamed until covid dissipates. She works part-time as a retiree at her gift shop home. You can follow her activities at her Face Book page HERE . If you want, you can like her and become part of her fan club. Posts about Sula, her life, her Mission, and excerpts from her books, with lots of photos are HERE .

  MSI Press is happy to report the release of Life, Liberty, & Covid (Dr. Dennis Ortman)  as an e-book. The paperback version was released in December 2021. Congratulations to the two authors! To read posts about this book, including excerpts, and its authors, click  HERE .

  Life, Liberty, and Covid-19 (Ortrman) will be available for free through Kindle promotions Sep 22-Sep 26. For more posts by and about Dennis Ortman, 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 .

  As the subject line says, Life, Liberty, and COVID-19 is on pre-order sale at our webstore. Check it out HERE . And, as a follower of this blog, take an additional 25% off the sale price by using the coupon code FF25. (This discount code can be used on any book in our inventory.) For more posts about Dr. Dennis Ortman and his books, click HERE .

   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 asks, very simply, what of the standard advice to authors is still viable, given the many changes in the book industry and life in general during and post-covid? Let's look at various pieces of advice that most authors have received from their publishers or from online writing sites. For books to sell, you need a lot of reviews.  Over 100 reviews is the recommended quantity. That is the classic advice. However, we have had hot-selling books that have had nearly no reviews. In those cases, there has been word of mouth "selling," in which influencers have recommended the book, book clubs hav

  Excerpt from Porn and the Pandemic  by Joshua Shea My introduction to the world of journalism came as a high school senior in August 1993 when I was hired in the sports department of the Sun Journal in Lewiston, Maine.  With the exception of short breaks here and there, I have exclusively made my living as either a journalist or editor since then. I was never the journalist who dreamed of being dropped into a war zone or into the thick of a presidential race. I saw no reason to go to Fenway Park to cover a Boston Red Sox game. It seemed just as easy to watch the game on television and get the same quotes every other writer did in the post-game news conference. And while armed stand-offs may be exciting to read about or watch in a two-minute news clip, I’ve been to them in real life. It’s mostly sitting behind your car waiting for something exciting to happen. Spoiler: It never does. I found my niche in research. I went to my share of five-alarm fires, and there certainly is a morbid