THE UP-SIDE OF *DOWN* IS AUTHOR EXPERIENCE!

BeWrite Books today (May 25) releases Mark Adam Kaplan’s new novel, DOWN. And the book shows just how much an author’s personal experience really can count … even in fiction.

For decades Kaplan has been working with at-risk youngsters and those whose tough childhoods scarred them and blighted their future. In the 1980s, he taught creative writing in a maximum security prison in Michigan, he was a public high school teacher in New York City for four years (including a stint as dean in a Brooklyn high school), and nine years later he taught in an East Los Angeles middle school.

He’s been around the block a time or two.

As an at-risk kid himself in his childhood and youth, Kaplan understands the challenges facing inner-city young adults today, both from their point of view and that of those appointed to care for them. He brings this unique blend of life-from-both-sides experience to bear in his second novel, DOWN.

Here’s what it’s all about …

***

Leon Mendoza starts the school year badly … with an electronic ankle monitor and a court date.

He’s determined to stay out of even deeper trouble. But the chances are slim with the pending charges against him, his probation officer breathing down his neck, a father in jail, a mother sunk in deep depression, and the local homeboys pressuring him to quietly take the rap and save their skins.

Will the attention of an attractive girl, the support of a caring teacher and a part-time restaurant job be enough to save Leon, or is he destined to follow in his father’s dead-beat footsteps and spend his life in and out of prison?

It all hangs on one fateful night; a night when Leon must risk his own life and the lives of others to break free of the streets or succumb to the violence and passions poised to drag him DOWN.

***

Author Mark Adam Kaplan

Kaplan is a husband and father, an internationally produced screenwriter, and a children’s book author.

He earned his Bachelor’s in English from the University of Michigan, a Master of Fine Arts from The American Film Institute’s Center for Film and Television Studies, and a Master of Arts in School Administration from California State University, Northridge.

His first novel, A THOUSAND BEAUTIES, was published by Bewrite Books in 2009. Kaplan released his first children’s book, MONSTERS DO UGLY THINGS, in 2011, and is the co-founder with Glenn Scano of MONSTERS UNBOUND. You can find more information about his work with a visit to HIS WEBSITE.

DOWN is now available in all digital formats from all online ebook stores for reading on all electronic platforms from PCs and laptops, through the full range of ebook-dedicated devices, tablets and smart phones. It’s also available from the BeWrite Books BOOKSTORE.

There’s a free forty-page DOWN browsing brochure, including chapter one, HERE.

For those interested in the detail – Author: Mark Adam Kaplan. Editor: Hugh McCracken. Cover, text design and technical preparation: Tony Szmuk. Distribuition: BeWrite Books Digital Distribution Division. Additional input: The BeWrite Books in-house team.

Best wishes for good reading and a happy weekend. Neil, Tony, Hugh, Sam et al at BB

LOVE THE STUFF OR LOATH IT, LAP UP THE A-Z OF MARMITE

Maggie Hall’s Mish-Mash Marmite: A-Z of Tar-in-a-Jar is released today (May 18) by BeWrite Books. And if you’re one of those rare folks who've never even tasted Marmite, you can win a specially minted collectors’ ‘royal’ jar in the fun BB contest below.

But for the initiated, whether your mouth waters at the very thought of a Marmite treat or you hold your nose in disgust at the subject ‘matter’, we have good reason for this uniquely courageous publishing eccentricity. You see ...

From New Zealand’s Waikikamoocow to Yum Yum, Tennessee (yes, these places actually exist), there’s little as iconically English as the humble Marmite jar.

But as in the case of other gourmet specialties like haggis, stewed sheep’s eyeballs and grits, the planet’s seven billion souls are sure to be immediately and clearly divided in their taste … in Marmite’s case statistics gathered over its 110 years of existence suggest exactly 50-50, with 3.5 billion lovers and 3.5 billion loathers.

So it takes an intrepid – if none too impartial – globe-trotting reporter of decades’ experience like Maggie Hall to stick her nose into that pot of thick black goo and spell out Marmite from A-Z. Her book is a mish-mash of facts for lovers and loathers alike.

It’s jam-packed with gems of information from vital scientific research proving amazing health properties in the product – a simple yeast extract made from brewery waste that could improve or even save countless lives – to hilarious trivia about the Marmite shrine she discovered in Antarctica, NASA’s admission that Marmite has been squirreled aboard its spacecraft at least twice, that it’s a Hollywood set painters’ trade secret for lending an antique brush-stroke to scenes in historical movies, that the British royal family fiercely guards its Marmite recipes … and even how it’s ingeniously used behind drawn bedroom curtains to spice up love lives.

Whether you find the black stuff a delicious treat or gag at the very thought of the world famous tar-in-a-jar, Maggie’s illustrated encyclopedia is perfect to dip into for bite-sized chunks of the utterly fascinating and the downright whacky world of Marmite. Use her findings as justification of your addiction ... or as a weapon against the Marmite goo-rmets.

Marmite lovers’ reactions to this book … 

Black magic personified! A-Z author and journalist Maggie Hall

I have a new respect for that jar in my kitchen cupboard. R. Oldroyd. Amazon

Marmite haters’ reactions to this book ...

Like Marmite, Maggie is English. Unlike Marmite, I like Maggie. Imagine putting hundreds of anchovies in a blender, adding salt and axle grease, pureeing, pouring the contents on an asphalt roofing shingle, baking under a hot sun for several weeks, then scraping off a black, gooey precipitate and eating it. That is Marmite … My toast carefully Marmited, I took a bite and immediately felt as if I’d been hit in the face by an ocean wave, a wave befouled by oil from a sinking tanker, oil that had caused a die-off of marine birds and invertebrates, creatures whose decomposing bodies were adding to the general funkiness of the wave that had found its way inside my mouth. John Kelly. Washington Post.

(His lengthy review, praising the book but bad-mouthing Marmite, resulted in such an avalanche of passionate letters from Washington Post readers in both love-it and loathe-it camps that his prestigious newspaper had to open a special column for them. Kelly was so battered that he was forced to write a follow-up article to claim he was only joking.)

A pot pourri of weird and wonderful tales about Marmite’s history, its influence on some of the key events of our times and the antics of some of the lovers (and haters) of the spread ... best digested in book form. Tim Fletcher. Burton Mail

Author Maggie Hall

MAGGIE HALL has always fallen into the ‘love Marmite’ category. But until she spied one of the first connoisseurs’ special edition solid silver lids many years ago she had no clue as to the huge hold the black goo has on her home country of England. Her immediate thought was: What’s going on here? Now having researched for years to assemble Mish-Mash Marmite: A-Z of Tar-in-a-Jar she knows that it’s a bizarre, serious, zany, wholesome, off-the-wall, carry-on.

A retired Fleet Street reporter – who started life in Cleckheaton, Yorkshire but ended up in the heady New York bureau of one of the world’s biggest newspaper groups – she now divides her time between Washington DC, Whitby in Yorkshire and traveling as a writer and researcher. So none of what she discovered on this voyage around the world of Marmite should have surprised her.

But it did. And it will surprise you, too!

A free 35-page browsing brochure for Mish-Mash Marmite: A-Z of Tar-in-a-Jar is HERE.

The book’s available in all digital editions from all online ebook stores for reading on all electronic platforms. Digital editions are also available from the BeWrite Books BOOKSTORE. Paperback edition by Revel Barker Publishing is also available from online stores.

So, never tasted the stuff? Interested? Here goes … the wittiest email messages to BEWRITE BOOKS, comments to this blog or to BeWrite Books’ FACEBOOK EVENTS PAGE – for or against Marmite – will get a free ebook edition in the format of choice. The outright winner can look forward to a package in the post containing a jar of Ma’Mite, a swanky new collectors’ edition produced by Marmite to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II this year. (HRH gets a commemorative jar, too, but one can expect that direct from Marmite and not from BeWrite Books, unless one cares to join the fun.)

The runner-up (to risk the ire of our [so-far] friends Down Under, who go out to bat for it at every opportunity) will get the consolation prize of a jar of Australian Vegemite … the real thing’s pale pretender. But for once, all hate mail is welcome, as long as it’s good for a laugh.

For those interested in the detail – Mish-Mash Marmite: A-Z of Tar in a Jar. Author: Maggie Hall. Illustrator: Dave Jeffrey. Cover art: Tony Szmuk. Editor: Neil Marr. Text design and technical preparation: Tony Szmuk. Digital distribution: BeWrite Books Digital Distribution Division. RBP paperback distribution: Ingram.

Happy weekend and bon appetit, folks. Neil, Tony, Hugh and Sam at BeWrite Books 

IN THE HARBOR OF ILL WILL, BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR

Few authors develop the rare knack of bridging a perceived gap between fact and fantasy; Phil Locascio has.

In his The Harbor of Ill Will, it’s not a matter of the reader discovering where reality is suspended and its alternative state takes over; not a question of where dreams end and nightmares begin. That would be too tough a call because Locascio has used his art to expertly smooth over the cracks where these very human perceptions of the world we inhabit meet.

A measure of its subtlety is that it could conveniently fit into many genre pigeon holes – psychological thriller, fantasy, war, romance, commercial intrigue, mystery and suspense – but the novel is a comfortable fit for none.

The Harbor of Ill Will is released today (May 11) by BeWrite Books in paperback and ebook editions. Here’s what its back cover text tells us …

***

In 1928 Demetri Davos discovers a mysterious crystal ball that has the power to grant him anything he asks.

But when two selfish requests result in the death of innocent people, the boy realizes the terrible price that must be paid for every vain wish and resolves never to use the globe again.

When the Nazis begin their march across France, though, the desperate half-Jew Demetri is forced into a life-or-death decision and has to break his vow to escape, regardless of the consequences.

Years later in Chicago, he is rich and happily married – but a vengeful nemesis, aware of the globe’s power, now wants what he’s owed. And he’ll stop at nothing to get it.

When his family is put in peril, Demetri is forced to pay the piper for his past … and for wishes granted … time after time … after time …

From Europe to America, across the years, Phil Locascio’s The Harbor of Ill Will traces one good man’s struggle to combat his own inadequacies and resist overwhelming temptation in a deadly moral tug-of-war.

***

Author Phil Locascio

You can read on screen or download a free thirty-page mini-ebook brochure of Harbor of Ill Will including cover, author biography and picture, and the first chapter HERE.

Phil Locascio is the author of three novels, The Sins of Orville Sand, The Sorcerer of Hooterville and The Restoration of Josef Mundt. He is also the author of a collection of short stories, Howling Hounds, and has had dozens of short stories published in magazines and anthologies. Several of his tales have received Honorable Mention in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror. He welcomes comments from readers of The Harbor of Ill Will BY EMAIL.

The Harbor of Ill Will ebook editions are available in all formats from all major online stores for reading on all electronic platforms from PCs, and laptops, through the full range of ebook-dedicated e-ink devices and tablets, to smart phones (RRP $5.95). You can also buy any ebook edition format direct from the BEWRITE BOOKS BOOKSTORE. The paperback will be available from all major online retailers in a few days.

For those interested in the detail behind the book … Author: Phil Locascio. Editor: Hugh McCracken. Cover, internal text design and technical preparation: Tony Szmuk. Print: Lightning Source USA, UK and Australia. Print Distribution: Ingram. Ebook distribution: BeWrite Books Digital Distribution Division. Added input: The BeWrite Books team.

Happy reading and happy weekend, folks. Neil, Tony, Hugh and Sam at BeWrite Books

THE HARROWING OF BEN HARTLEY: AUTHOR STEVE ATTRIDGE'S FAR HORIZONS

The reader can only gasp in wonder at the talent, skill, productive energy and sheer scope of creative vision displayed by author Steve Attridge.

He’s written a dozen popular TV series including smash crime drama, The Bill, hit feature films, eleven children’s novels, a scholarly historical nonfiction book published by Macmillan, has picked up two prestigious BAFTA nominations, the Gregory Award for Poetry and the Royal TV Society Award for best drama with his Queen’s Nose. He recently completed a Science Fiction movie script. And, as anything but the archetypal Oxford Don, he has also lectured on literature and screen writing at universities throughout the UK, Europe and Asia.

Then Steve turned to novels with his debut, the hilarious but visionary Bottom of the List, published by BeWrite Books in 2011 ... and now to gritty fantasy with BeWrite Books release today (May 4) of his The Harrowing of Ben Hartley.

Here’s what his new adventure in psychologically-grounded fantasy is all about ...

***

THE HARROWING OF BEN HARTLEY

Timid Ben Hartley’s life is not easy. His mother’s boyfriend is a malevolent bully. School is a friendless ordeal. His sleep is increasingly hijacked by strange dreams ... and the world  becomes more real when he is asleep than when he is awake.

But when his mother takes him to a psychiatrist, things only get worse. Dark figures from his dreams start to leak into waking life, including the strange and uncompromising Wolf.

Ben learns that he has been assigned a seemingly impossible task requiring courage he does not possess. And when people around him start disappearing and dying, he must face the greatest ordeals of his life.

His enemies are legion – the Nomads, the Hunters, and the vague and destructive figure that is always just on the blurred edge of vision. His own friends and family are not to be trusted either.

Ordinary life is threatened by its mirror image, and as everything he knows crashes and collapses, Ben is forced to make life-and-death decisions to save humanity from a hellish twilight world where nightmares are both real and everlasting.
 
Award-winning screen writer and novelist Stephen Attridge’s ‘The Harrowing of Ben Hartley’ fantasy thriller reveals how the surreal dream world of an asthmatic, solitary and frightened teenager becomes terrifyingly real – for everyone.

***

Author Steve Attridge

The Harrowing of Ben Hartley is available now in paperback from all online stores and selected brick-and-mortar bookshops. It’s also released in low-price ebook editions for the full range of electronic reading devices and can be bought from any major online bookstore and from the BeWrite Books BOOKSTORE.

A free downloadable twenty-five page book brochure for The Harrowing of Ben Hartley, including cover, book description, author biography and photograph, and first chapter, is HERE and a similar brochure for Bottom of the List is HERE. (Please allow five seconds for these mini-ebook productions to download.)

For those who like to know the details ... Author: Steve Attridge (of Warwickshire, England and sometimes of Spain). Editor: Hugh McCracken. Cover, internal text design and technical preparation: Tony Szmuk. Publisher: BeWrite Books, Canada and USA. International print distribution: Ingram. Ebooks distribution: BeWrite Books Independent Digital Distribution Division. Added input: The BeWrite Books team.

Happy weekend and best wishes. Neil, Tony, Hugh and Sam at BB