Mom’s Choice Award: Winning Author Featured at Book Expo America 2012

Author and Songwriter, Roma Calatayud-Stocks will be signing her award-winning historical novel, A Song In My Heart, including CD with original musical score, at the Mom’s Choice Award booth at Book Expo America on June 6, 2012 – 3:00p.m. (Booth # 2267-2268) The book received the award in the Multimedia Experiences category, as well as recipient of a 2012 Midwest Book Award in the Arts category, and Finalist in several other book award competitions and categories including Historical, Multicultural, Romance, and Cross-Genre Fiction (International Book Awards).  
A Song in My Heart is an in-depth exploration of character, celebration of art and culture, and a musical journey.  

KirKus Reviews: "Well-written, the story is compelling  . . . this novel deserves to find a larger audience. The historical aspect is well researched and true to the period. The novel’s grand ambitions are evident in its packaging—it is both book and musical composition (CD included). The author intends this to be the first in a trilogy, and she has created enough momentum to build on. An auspicious debut."

Jim Barnes, Editor, www.IndependentPublisher.com: "Reading this book will put a song in your heart, and take you back to a time when classical music was the pinnacle of popular culture and entertainment. A talented composer herself, author Calatayud-Stocks shares her knowledge and passion for art and music with this compelling historical novel and accompanying original soundtrack CD. How refreshing this is-longing for a world of fine art and music with substance? A Song in My Heart is a great place to start."

Chan Poling, Emmy award-winning composer: "I have arranged and played many styles of music over the years. Roma's music has touched me always. Her new collection of songs for her story,  A Song In My Heart, are once again beautiful and lushly romantic, evocative of another time and place."

A Song in My Heart introduces us to Alejandra Stanford, the protagonist born into a privileged bi-cultural family in Minneapolis of 1902. Growing up, she and her artistic family experience the intermingling of American, Hispanic, and European cultural influences, as well as national events that challenge their lives; yet, Alejandra finds that music is the perfect expression of her own artistic inclinations, emotions, and ambitions. As a young pianist and budding composer, “Ale” is inspired by legendary composers and resolves to become a symphonic conductor despite the obstacles.

John Watson Milton, Award-Winning Author: “Calatayud-Stocks takes the reader on a compelling journey, from Minnesota and New York to México and across the continent of Europe, spicing her narrative with details that speak to her own powers of observation. It is a sparkling account, and we look forward to the sequel that is sure to follow. I enjoyed it immensely."  

Author and songwriter Roma Calatayud-Stocks holds bachelor and master's degrees from the University of Minnesota. After additional studies at the University of St. Thomas, and in line with her twenty-year work experience and life passion of honoring world cultures through history, music, and the arts, she turned to a professional career in music composition and historical fiction writing.

Ms. Roma Calatayud-Stocks is available for interviews, speaking engagements, and Arts Educational workshops on: Music history, Classical, Popular, Latin Music, Cultures, Music, Art and Traditions from Around the World, and Writing Historical Fiction.

Print Book/CD Package Featured at Book Expo America and available from Ingram, Baker & Taylor: ISBN 13:978-1-592983957 or Beaver’s Pond Books – 1- 800-901-3480

E-Book Available June 6, 2012 – Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or

http://www.RomaStocks.com

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJkb8Rw4NN0

http://www.facebook.com/pages/A-Song-In-My-Heart/213254872032893

https://twitter.com/#!/RomaStocks

http://whytheartsmatter.wordpress.com

A Hip, Funny, Irreverent Take on the City of Angels

G.J. Prager’s The Lesson Plan chronicles the story of Robert Klayman, a substitute high school teacher in Los Angeles who is facing a mid-life crisis after failing to achieve any hopes of a high salary, successful career, or life; this is a man who never got his “piece of the pie.”  Klayman “got down to business” and “thought up a career path you can’t find in one of those self-help guides at the local bookstore,” making the decision to become a private detective.  





Although it is an overtly suspenseful detective story, interwoven is the story of a mid-life crisis and portrait of life in Los Angeles. Prager’s observations are startlingly insightful, and through Klayman’s thoughts and musings, readers are left with deeper messages about life and humanity, for example:  “Life can play clever tricks on us mortals who wait desperately for dreams to come true, realizing only too late that it’s an end game and much too short at that.  Reaching middle age without accumulating a formidable bank account can leave a man bitter and emasculated, ruminating on every lost opportunity that ever came his way.”  Klayman stumbles through life, trying on careers, personas, and women—all in an attempt to find a deeper meaning and a sense of self. With each new job, Klayman tries to “find himself,” adopting personas that range from Humphrey Bogart to Jay Gatsby.

Prager offers perspectives on life in Los Angeles through his astute assessments, revealed through the musings and conversations of Klayman, who ruminates that it is a “cold hard fact that a man’s self-respect starts at around two hundred grand a year in the City of Angels,” his sardonic comment that he joined “AA… Actors Anonymous,” and his reflections that he lives in a “mindless” city where he is “just going through the motions” and “Everyone’s grabbing a piece of the pie and leaving me with nothing but crumbs.”  Prager interweaves Albert Hammond’s cynical lyrics to “It Never Rains in California” with the thoughts of Klayman, another broken Californian—which inevitably becomes the theme song readers will associate with the hero.

Klayman gets swept up investigating a criminal drug ring that is working out of the Los Angeles Unified School District, following a teacher, Ms. Briggs, who is murdered one week subsequent to her request to be transferred to another school.  Klayman believes Ms. Briggs came too close to the truth for the comfort of the well-respected man who lies at the center of the intrigue.  The Lesson Plan offers both an intriguing plot and the artistic rendering of a man flailing in his mid-life crisis, seeking desperately for a meaningful identity.  

Through his deep assessments of humanity and the city of Los Angeles, Prager offers readers insights and themes that are thought provoking and lend to the strength of the novel, coming to speak for both a generation and a city.

G.J. Prager currently lives in Los Angeles. A New York native, he's worked as an actor in film and on the stage, and teaches drama and literature at a Los Angeles high school. 'The Lesson Plan' is his first novel.

Acting Career

During the 1980’s, Prager worked in New York in the off off Broadway productions of ‘Beirut,’ ‘Line,’ ‘The Quare Fellow,’ and ‘Dial M For Murder.” In Los Angeles he co-starred as ‘Phil’ in ‘Hurlyburly,’ a play by Tony award winner David Rabe. Robert Koehler in the Los Angeles Times wrote of Prager’s performance – “There’s an immediate aura of devastation that hangs around Jerry Prager’s Phil”...Prager’s portrayal of Phil “makes for a  truly wonderful performance to witness. At times the whole drama is in Prager’s body, the ego and id duking it out to the finish.”

Prager went on to star in the Los Angeles premier of Rabe’s ‘Those the River Keeps.” The L.A. Weekly wrote “Prager’s performance carries the evening...”

Film Career

In 1984 Prager starred in an indie comedy called ‘Heaven Only Knows.’ He played a jaded stand-up comedian on a weekend respite in upstate New York who falls in love with a female seminarian on a mission to become an Episcopalian priest. In 1989, he played a businessman in a sci-fi movie called ‘The Suckling,’ a cult favorite these days, noted for being on some critic’s list of worst sci-fi movies. In 2010, Prager co-starred in a full length indie called ‘Notes From the New World.’ The film is adapted from a Doestoyevsky novella, and it is currently making the rounds of film festivals around the globe. It has already won best adaptive screenplay and best suspense movie in two different festivals across Europe.

Writing Career

G.J. Prager began his writing career in 2001 when he began work on ‘The Lesson Plan.’ He is currently writing a sequel to it, and has completed the manuscript for a coming of age novel called, ‘Street Shine,’ that takes place in New York in the late nineteen sixties.

The following is a review by Grady Harp, one of the top 50 reviewers for Amazon.com
 
“G.J. Prager is a name to watch. THE LESSON PLAN may be his first novel but it is so successfully written that it suggests we have a new burgeoning talent among us! On the surface this novel seems to be a first person narrated story shared by a frustrated Robert Klayman who is unemployed, living from paycheck to paycheck by serving as a substitute teacher in Santa Monica, California to pay the rent in a shambles of an apartment he shares with his faithful cohort dog Homer, unattached to a significant other and ever obsessed with physical attractions/encounters, whose dream it is to become a Private Investigator. But there is so much more. 

At story's beginning Klayman is working an assignment for one detective Cal Keller - following a blonde woman who Klayman succeeds in tracing only to be conked out when he discovers her dead, bloody body. Cal dismisses Klayman for a botched case forcing Klayman to continue his substitute of a life as an oncall teacher replacement. But Klayman's school jobs happen to introduce him to a fellow substitute teacher Sheila with whom he not only finally relates but also beds, only to be asked by the woman to drive to Arizona to deliver a package to her son who has been taken from her by her ex-husband. This leads Klayman into a quagmire of new problems - drugs, a shooting, being chased by police - until he escapes back to Santa Monica and the presumed boring quiet of his substitute life only to have eyes for a voluptuous student Maria who he involves in his pursuing a discovery that there is a drug ring active in the school system. It is this back and forth slamming from the boring life of a substitute teacher enhanced or compounded with an almost inadvertent entry in the role of a PI that drives this little novel home. 

Yes, this is a solid and well constructed story that once started makes the reader stay with it until the end (even an all-nighter in this reader's case!). But what the too brief synopsis does not reveal is a writer who happens to be one of the best to describe the Southern California life - weather, traffic on the freeway, loose livers, drugs and other digressions, and the apparent inability to follow a dream successfully. In the author's words: 'Life can play clever tricks on us mortals who wait desperately for dreams to come true, realizing only too late that it's an end game and much too short at that. Reaching middle age without accumulating a formidable bank account can leave a man bitter and emasculated, ruminating on every lost opportunity that ever came his way. Nothing I ever did made me money; lady luck's a discriminating bitch that won't invite just anyone up to her room.' And in addition to being a painter of landscape and figurative canvases as well as anyone writing today he maintains an extraordinarily fine-tuned sense of humor, no matter how desperate a situation he is describing. Readers will attach themselves to this social malaprop and see the madness of the world through his distorted vision, identifying with those contemporary frustrations and maladjustments he somehow survives, and stand and root for him all the way: there is a dollop of Robert Klayman in each of us - at least in Southern California. Think of his circle: Christopher Isherwood, Charles Bukowski, Raymond Chandler, Matt Groening, Evelyn Waugh - and add a comedy vein of gold. Welcome G.J.Prager!”

- Grady Harp, April 11

Check out www.thelessonplannovel.com
www.twitter.com/bestlawriter

Top Writing Courses Offered by Colleges

Students looking for colleges with great writing programs have a wide variety of options, both at the undergraduate and graduate level. Although students may have a set preference for a writing program, they can vary significantly and it's important to ensure that the program suits ones needs.

Going to a traditional college or university may not be a feasible option for aspiring writers. Many people who wish to earn a degree may live too far from a traditional school or have work or family obligations that prevent them from receiving further education. For people in the situation, online education may be a viable option. A great place to start looking for online programs would be Accredited Online Colleges.org.

College students also need to consider other factors associated with the school, such as the location, class size, faculty, and cost before applying to the program. CollegeTimes recently shared what they think of as the top programs.  Here is a list of great writing courses offered by colleges across the country:

• Emory University – Emory University is often considered one of the best schools for writers. Emory’s programs are highly flexible; the only required course for Emory’s English majors is poetry. English majors at Emory can also double major in creative writing through their undergraduate creative writing program. Their highly regarded creative writing program offers instruction on various genres of literature, including poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, play writing, screenwriting. Writing classes are also highly personal, as classes keep the limit of 15 to 25 students.
• Hamilton College – Hamilton College is known for its high-quality options for English majors. Their academic quality and highly regarded writing center are both great resources for writing students. Hamilton College also allows their English students to concentrate their studies on either English literature or creative writing. Their creative writing program consists of poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and playwriting courses.
• Johns Hopkins University – John Hopkins University is one of the most highly regarded universities in the nation and their English department has a long history of producing successful writers. Although the university offers courses in creative writing, the focus is more on literary writing, critical analysis, and education of literature in order to improve writing skills. The programs at John Hopkins University are best for students who want to become masters of the English language, but not for those who would like to have the opportunity to take part in writing workshops. The school also boasts a highly regarded faculty and small classroom settings.
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology – While Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is most well known for its engineering and computer science programs, it also offers a unique writing program that prepares students for their careers. Instead of having a single English department, MIT has two different departments that cover writing and literature individually. Their writing program instructs students on creative writing, science writing, and digital media. Faculty within the departments consist of people from a variety of fields such as historians, scientists, biographers, novelist, and more.
• New York University – New York University (NYU) is another acclaimed institution whose English program has a variety of concentrations students can take. Creative writing graduates from NYU look forward to a prestigious career as their program is highly regarded with award-winning faculty and a variety of courses.
• Washington University – Washington University’s creative writing programs offer unique courses like the short-short, sudden fiction and microfiction, literary journalism, and stories from the suburbs. The program also emphasizes the use of workshops and critical reading in order to produce writers who are experts in the craft. Washington University's Master of Fine Arts (MFA) program is often ranked near the top of collegiate MFA programs each year.
• University of Iowa – The University of Iowa’s creative writing MFA programs are often labeled as the best to study fiction writing and poetry. The school has successful graduate and undergraduate writing tracks for its students. Core subjects include fiction, poetry, nonfiction, playwriting, translation, and new media, so students looking for diverse experiences will find something in their program.
• Columbia University – Many great writers have come from Columbia University's writing programs. Langston Hughes, J.D. Salinger, Eudora Welty, and Hunter S. Thompson are just a few examples. Columbia is generally known for its journalism program, but they also have a great program for creative writing. The program has intensive writing workshops and seminars, studying literature at a writer's perspective. Their graduate MFA program is often the best range programs every year.
• University of Michigan – The University of Michigan also offers undergraduate writing programs for their English majors. Faculty encourages students to practice creating effective analytic arguments while also encouraging creative writing.
• Colorado College – Colorado College’s English program allows students to concentrate in various subjects like creative writing for film studies. Their creative writing concentration allows students to review each other's work and collaborate on projects. Those within film study focus on story development and film writing.

Book Reveals a Complete Guide for Gold Investing

Don Durrett’s How to Invest in Gold and Silver has arrived at the perfect time, because individuals are beginning to realize the importance of gold & silver as a hedge against uncertainty. In a national economy that is plagued by a severe financial crisis, the time has come to look at gold and silver as an investment alternative. Currently, less than 2% of Americans own gold or silver, therefore, help is needed to show people how to navigate this opportunity.

From guiding investors on portfolio management and when not to trade, to educating them on the types of risks they should and shouldn’t take, and How to Invest in Gold Silver is a full-fledged reservoir of relevant advice that seeks to instill confidence in the investor. Don Durrett covers an array of investment categories, including, but not limited to, bullion and coins, Exchange Trade Funds (ETF’s), put and call options, and mining stocks. One undeniable strength of the book is its clear explanations detailing how to invest in each investment category.

Also, this book is especially worthwhile because it is not coming from the perspective of a financial analyst or an industry insider. Instead, Durrett is a real world investor just like the potential audience to which he is catering. He has been investing in gold since 1991 and in silver since 2004. As a testament to his abilities, his objective is to attain a five hundred percent return when he cashes out—for his mining stocks. There is enough information in this book so that you, too, can achieve this goal. Another inside fact he shares as a stock trader, is how to identify relatively low-risk, high-reward gold & silver stocks.

The key, Durrett explains, is not to purchase an assortment of subscription services and newsletters, but to learn “how” to identify the right stocks; this is essential to successful investing. Although Durrett touches on many different aspects of stock trading, How to Invest in Gold and Silver is primarily geared for beginners and intermediate investors. He states in his introduction that this is the book he would like to have had when he was starting out.

Overall, Durrett’s text is clear and easy to follow. He writes in a style that is easy to understand, and his years of experience as an accomplished author show through. For beginners, How to Invest in Gold and Silver is a real treat from a real-world investor who has been through practical situations, and as such, is an ideal fit for guiding you on your journey to investing in gold & silver.

Don Durrett has created his own unique rating system for valuing stocks. With this rating system you can have a goal of returning 500% long term on your portfolio. Don will teach you this rating system in his book and on his web page. It will take about 1-2 years to master the system if you are new to mining stocks, although you can you use it immediately. With this system you will be better at valuing stocks than most professionals who have been doing this for decades.

Don is currently using this system to identify 10 baggers, and for re-balancing his portfolio. He always knows the upside potential of every stock he owns. From his system, he feels that his analysis is as good or better than any professional. Using his ten step approach, you will feel very confident in your stock selections. 

Find out more: http://www.goldsilverdata.com/book/
Listen to this interview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tC9ERCR4NSE&feature=player_embedded
Twitter: www.twitter.com/GoldSilverData

Baseball, Meet Mystery and Romance

The Last of the Seals: A Sam Slater Mystery by Greg Messel is a page-turning novel, chronicling the story of Sam Slater, a minor league baseball player who becomes a private eye after the San Francisco Seals are disbanded to make way for the Giants.  This first installment establishes Messel as a master of the mystery adventure genre, proving that he is as talented at keeping readers in suspense as he is at capturing their emotions, as he did in such novels as The Illusion of Certainty.

Slater’s new career immediately launches him into the middle of a mystery; his best friend and would-be business partner was murdered just before delivering photos to a client, making it evident that someone definitely did not want the photos to be seen and would go to any lengths to suppress them.  As Sam begins to unravel the mystery, he is threatened and bullied and someone leaves an ominous message for him at his apartment.  The only bright spot for Sam is his new girlfriend, Amelia, a glamorous TWA flight attendant, who is endangered by Slater’s new career.  When it becomes evident that the mob is involved in his partner’s death, Amelia and Sam must flee San Francisco together.

As the story unfolds, Messel keeps readers on the edge of their seats, anxiously turning pages.  Messel captivates readers with his colorful cast of baseball players, TWA flight attendants, mobsters, socialites, philanderers, and murderers.

The Last of the Seals interweaves the story of Sam and Amelia’s romance, as well as a nostalgic account of life in the Bay Area in the 1950’s, into the series of mysteries that Sam must solve.  This spellbinding story will inevitably leave readers anxious for the next release in the Sam Slater trilogy, The Deadly Plunge, which will be available in early 2013.
www.gregmessel.com