NEWEST ARRIVAL
Unlocking My Wordhoard: Poems, Prose and Illustrations
by Christopher Mead Armitage
Unlocking My Wordhoard
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Summary: Unlocking My Wordhoard: Poems and Prose with Illustrations is in plain formal English. Historical references are explained in notes below a poem as are sources of quotations. The title, Unlocking My Wordhoard, is modern English for the phrase wordheord onleoc meaning the poet “unlocks his word-hoard.” It recurs in Old English poems such as Beowulf, line 259, and Widsith, line 1. Old English is the English language used in Anglo-Saxon England prior to 1066 when the Norman-French conquest of England started a long process of modifying the language by absorbing French linguistic practices. They influenced the Middle English spoken and written by Chaucer and other medieval writers. Linguists consider that Shakespeare’s works represent Early Modern English. As the international language of the modern world, the English language is continually evolving.
The poems are in three divisions; the first is related to historical and public matters, the second, to famous poets or their work, the third, more personal, with some heartfelt poems, others jesting. Most of the poems are short and attempt to concentrate on the essence of events such as falling in love or the German invasion of Russia in World War II. The prose that follows explores such subjects as the author as a child exposed to war; studying with C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien; and participation in sports and theatrical productions.
About the author: Christopher Mead Armitage was born in Manchester, England, in 1931 and grew up in Sale, Cheshire. After graduating from St Edmund Hall in Oxford University in 1954, he emigrated to Canada to marry Pauline Brooks of Copper Cliff, Ontario, to whom he had been introduced at Oxford. They had three sons. After earning an MA in English and Canadian Literature at the University of Western Ontario and teaching there and at the University of Guelph, he and his family moved to North Carolina in 1964 where he completed a PhD at Duke University in 1967. For the next fifty-three years he taught in the English Department of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He lives in Durham, North Carolina.
Paperback
132 Pages
List Price: $14.95
978-1-945714-38-2
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Recent Arrival —
My Sock Market Crashed
by Dianne Ramsey
My Sock Market Crashed
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Summary: My Sock Market Crashed tells of a boy, Dylan, helping his grandmother sell the beautiful socks she knits. A venture into mass production is abandoned because Grammy could not knit fast enough to supply her popular socks for the demand, and the socks provided by the mass-production company were not nearly as desirable as Grammy’s. Dylan rescues the situation by redirecting Grammy’s socks to help children in the hospital. The book endorses public efforts to provide socks to the needy.
About the author: Dianne Ramsey lives in Asheville, North Carolina. She has three adult children and five grandchildren. This is her first book.
Paperback
48 Pages
List Price: $9.95
978-1-945714-56-6
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Award Winners
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I Have a Secret
by Andrew Barnett
I Have a Secret
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I Have a Secret, by Asheville child therapist Andrew Barnett, has been recognized as one of the year’s best independently published books. The author is a bronze medalist in the 25th Annual Independent Publisher Book Awards. The Jenkins Group and Independent Publisher conduct the “IPPY Awards” to recognize excellence in a broad range of subjects. In their words, “Independent spirit thrives on adversity, and it appears that pandemic-inspired introspection has made us stronger.”
Enhanced with exceptional illustrations by Andrea Fietta, the book provides an unusual presentation of compassion and understanding for children currently being abused. I Have a Secret honors the struggle of children who have felt they must not tell anyone about the abuse that has been done or is continuing to be done to them by adults. The author writes that when children are honored and respected in such pain, they have received their first invitation toward healing and wholeness.
Many, as they learned about this IPPY award, have expressed admiration for the judges who saw the value of this information shared in book form through the troubled eyes and thoughts of a little boy in a society in which the chronic sexual abuse of young boys is coming more to light. Grateful Steps prioritizes books that raise awareness of the devastation of childhood sexual abuse. Many of our books currently in process or recently published are focused on that goal.
Each year since 1996, the Independent Publisher Book Awards have identified a reading list of progressive, thought-provoking books, the kind that can touch lives, advance careers, and stretch our imaginations. With the tag line, "Recognizing Excellence in Independent Publishing," the IPPY Awards showcase the best books from throughout North America and the English-speaking world. Launched as the first unaffiliated awards program open exclusively to independent, university and self-published titles, the awards are presented each spring by publishing services firm Jenkins Group of Traverse City, Michigan, and IndependentPublisher.com, "THE Online Voice of Independent Publishing."
This book is the third volume in the Child-Centered Book Series focused on respecting children, and witnessing them in their difficult experiences.
Andrew Barnett, LCMHC, is a child therapist from Asheville, North Carolina, specializing in providing play therapy for children of all ages. Andrew has carried more secrets in this life than he would have preferred. He is grateful for the people he knows and loves who have listened to and been able to support him with the things he has felt he had to remain silent about. For more of Andrew Barnett’s work, go to Barnettchildtherapy.com.
Andrea Fietta is an artist who lives and works in Uspallata, Argentina. To check out more of Andrea’s work, you can find her on Instagram at the handle andrea.fietta. Andrea can also be reached at andreamfietta@hotmail.com.
iversityf Georgia in graphic design and did post-graduate study at the School of Visual Arts in New York, the
Paperback
54 Pages
List Price: $10.95
978-1-945714-43-6
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AWARD WINNER
Bent 31 Poems
by T.A. Price
Bent 31 Poems
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Bent 31 Poems, by T.A. Price, has been named a recipient of Honorable Mention in the 2021 New York Book Festival. Her book was displayed at the festival on the TABLE OF HONOR along with books of six other winners as well as online. One cannot belong to the table of honor unless the book has placed in an accredited international competition. According to the festival promoters, these books are the best of the best, certified by judges to be worthy of reader, publisher, retail and library attention.
T.A. Price lives in Rutherfordton, North Carolina, where she has enjoyed a long career as a distinguished teacher and school administrator. A former feature writer for The Mountain Breeze, Price has also received first place awards for poetry in The Anuran and in Reflections literary magazines.
She has been published in WNC Woman, Rutherford County News, Survivor’s Review, The Advocate, Fictionique, Open Salon (Scupper) and Our Salon. Prior publications include two chapbooks, and one collection of verse, Perennial Heart.
The author has been touted as one of North Carolina’s best poets by writer of Bent’s Foreword, Ron Rash, author of Serena and many other popular books and poetry collections.
A reviewer stated: "Teresa Price’s deceptively slim new collection of Bent 31 Poems will make all who truly listen, grateful to be alive. The gratitude begins with an epigraph by Steven Maraboli: 'When we are born, the soul we are given is split apart and half of it is given to someone else.' And the poems, songs, and stories of Bent are all about that connection; I could even call it healing, of all our partial souls. . . . Price doesn’t tell. She doesn’t instruct. She evokes. So the gift of her poetry is a personal gift just for you. You read the poem, you think 'Oh . . .' then drift into your own thoughts, making meaning where you choose. But then you pause, take a breath, and what dawns in you is a feeling of 'Oh . . . oh wait . . . there is more here than I imagined.' And that’s when you realize you are in the hands of a poet who heals." Roger Wright, journalist (including for The New Yorker, New York Times, Huffington Post), university teacher, author.
Paperback
106 Pages
List Price: $9.95
978-1-945714-08-5
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Newly Released
Stone River: Keeper of the Keys
by Wilma Styles
Stone River
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Summary: In Stone River: Keeper of the Keys, Kaylee Shell has just taken her first job as a high school teacher. But she is actually a private investigator. She is sent to Stone River to check out Jake Boone, a man who has been dead for over one hundred years. But even her training as an investigator has not prepared her for the mysteries waiting to be unlocked regarding the Hillmar Estate. Who is the Keeper of the Keys? Who can unlock the history shrouded in secrecy, protected by the Stone River community?
When Martin Cullman asked his dearest friend, Kaylee Shell, to go to Stone River to investigate a stack of old letters that his mother, Clara Aims, had written before and after his birth, Kaylee said yes. She traveled to Stone River, North Dakota, to take a job at Fairmont High School as a senior history teacher.
Upon arrival, Kaylee thought she had rented five rooms in a big house but instead ended up living in the Roy Hilmar Mansion. Kaylee did not anticipate the likes of the late Ellen Hilmar. In addition, she was astonished when she met the mysterious guardian of the house. Early in her investigation, the discovery of a century-old murder of two Lakota Indians sent Kaylee into a maze of life-altering events. With her life being threatened, Kaylee’s guides became anger, fear and confusion, which added to her determination to find truth, whether good or bad.
Murder, intrigue, passion and suspense keep the reader guessing. Just when you think you have it figured out, major transformations take place and send you right back to the beginning. The action is swift and electrifying as you encounter the nerve-racking history of Stone River.
About the author: Wilma Styles was born in Pensacola, North Carolina, to Jim and Willie King Harris. She is the middle child of their nine children. The family bought a thirty-eight-acre farm in Fairview, North Carolina, where many of her memories are still vivid. “I’ll never forget going up an old logging road on the property as if I were on an adventure to a distant land and time.
An old pear tree that stood right beside the trail produced the most scrumptious pears ever. After devouring a pear or two, I hurried on up the mountain to my private domain. There, I sang, danced and made up stories and acted them out on what I considered my personal stage. My audience was the trees, animals and those awful snakes. Above all, my Heavenly Father was always near to watch my many productions.
It was forty years later after the mountain that I wrote my first book with my daughter Deborah Stanaland, When I Am in His Presence. My husband Ray and I live in South Carolina. We have two daughters, three grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
Prior publications include Joy on the Mountain, Forbidden Heart and Angels of the Ages, Book I of a trilogy: The Beginning.
Paperback
Price: $13.95
456 pages
978-1-945714-47-4
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Mermaid Magic: An Enchanting Story of Secrets and Adventure
by JeanAnn Taylor
Mermaid Magic
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Summary: in this already very popular book, Mermaid Magic: An Enchanting Story of Secrets and Adventure, SparkleLeah, a mermaid, takes Michael, a human, on an adventure around the world—from Hawaii to France to the Arctic Sea . . . as well as to many other places. On the journey, Michael learns of the many secrets mermaids share. He learns mermaids exist in many more bodies of water than previously known, such as rivers. He learns that they have many skills beyond swimming, including flying and dancing.
About the author: Growing up in Florida, JeanAnn Taylor could swim practically before she could walk. Her infatuation with mermaids grew as she spent many summer days “playing mermaid” in the community pool. After a family trip to Weeki Watchee, Florida, to visit the mermaid tourist attraction, JeanAnn began imagining a world where mermaids were truly real. Mermaid Magic is the result of a fantasy that never went away.
Author JeanAnn Taylor is an independent writer of fashion, style, and life-reflections for local magazines. Her first children’s book, The Little Girl Who Loves to Twirl, was published in 2011 and is still being bought to fascinate new little ballerinas.
rsityf Georgia in graphic design and did post-graduate study at the School of Visual Arts in New York, the
Hardcover
84 Pages
List Price: $22.95
978-1-945714-20-7
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