Tag: Essays

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When the Shoe Fits…: Essays of Love, Life and Second Chances

Inspiring. Empowering. A resounding memoir of reinvention.

When a hard fall from a tall horse landed Mary T. Wagner—then a freelance writer and a soccer mom with four young children—in a body cast for three months with a broken back, she didn’t take it as a sign to ease back on the throttle. Instead, she changed careers, went to law school, took a job as a criminal prosecutor, and bought her first pair of spike heels. And THEN she started writing again.

More than a dozen national and regional writing awards later, Wagner has compiled this “best of” collection of her inspiring and empowering essays from her first three books, and added a few more for good measure. Wagner’s earlier books, “Running with Stilettos,” “Heck on Heels” and “Fabulous in Flats,” earned recognition for humor, inspiration and memoir, and their kudos included both an Indie Excellence Award and a silver IPPY. Two were finalists in ForeWord Review’s Book of the Year Awards. Her legal experience has been similarly eclectic, ranging from handling speeding tickets to arguing cases before the Wisconsin Supreme Court…sometimes in the same week!

In essays ranging widely from “Turbo Dating—the Year in Review” to “Riding Pillion,” “The Limoncello Diaries” and “Angels in the Snow,” Wagner’s signature writing style combines humor, insight, and grace under pressure. Whether reflecting on subjects as diverse as motherhood, the view from the back of a Harley, the impending loss of a parent or the therapeutic effects of a post-divorce bonfire, Wagner’s inspiring and empowering essays resonate with universal experiences of love, life and reinvention. A must-read for any woman who’s asked herself “is there at least one more dream I can reach for?”… and then answered “YES!!”

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Emotional Rescue: Essays on Love, Loss, and Life–With a Soundtrack

What songs have made up your life’s soundtrack? Which have captured your every mood and deepest sentiments? Pop music, like no other form of entertainment or art, is capable of articulating our feelings, desires, joy, and pain. In a few soul-grabbing minutes, artists from every genre―from Little Richard to Lou Reed, Willie Nelson to Wu-Tang Clan, Sly and the Family Stone to the Rolling Stones―can help us understand our place in our own lives.

This collection of short, sharp essays by New York Times bestselling author Ben Greenman (Mo’ Meta Blues), organized around a thematic playlist of songs, serves as a reminder of the lyrical power of songwriting and the sonic ability of pop to capture the human experience. Greenman’s wit, insight, and honesty are as sweet and satisfying as the hits (and the deep cuts) at the center of each essay.

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Emotional Rescue: Essays on Love, Loss, and Life – with a Soundtrack

What songs have made up your life’s soundtrack? Which have captured your every mood and deepest sentiments? Pop music, like no other form of entertainment or art, is capable of articulating our feelings, desires, joy, and pain. In a few soul-grabbing minutes, artists from every genre – from Little Richard to Lou Reed, Willie Nelson to Wu-Tang Clan, Sly and the Family Stone to the Rolling Stones – can help us understand our place in our own lives.

This collection of short, sharp essays by New York Times bestselling author Ben Greenman (Mo’ Meta Blues), organized around a thematic playlist of songs, serves as a reminder of the lyrical power of songwriting and the sonic ability of pop to capture the human experience. Greenman’s wit, insight, and honesty are as sweet and satisfying as the hits (and the deep cuts) at the center of each essay.

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Emotional Rescue: Essays on Love, Loss, and Life–With a Soundtrack

What songs have made up your life’s soundtrack? Which have captured your every mood and deepest sentiments? Pop music, like no other form of entertainment or art, is capable of articulating our feelings, desires, joy, and pain. In a few soul-grabbing minutes, artists from every genre―from Little Richard to Lou Reed, Willie Nelson to Wu-Tang Clan, Sly and the Family Stone to the Rolling Stones―can help us understand our place in our own lives.

This collection of short, sharp essays by New York Times bestselling author Ben Greenman (Mo’ Meta Blues), organized around a thematic playlist of songs, serves as a reminder of the lyrical power of songwriting and the sonic ability of pop to capture the human experience. Greenman’s wit, insight, and honesty are as sweet and satisfying as the hits (and the deep cuts) at the center of each essay.

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Inspiration in Small Doses: Uplifting Short Stories and Essays

Inspiration in Small Doses: Uplifting Short Stories and Essays rests upon a promise it makes to its readers, “This book is an offering to help you find those elusive keys that unlock the doors to richer living.” In assembling and grouping a collection of brief pieces, Michele K. Synegal, a renowned teacher and consultant in the field of human development, offers a ten-part resource to help individuals achieve more than they thought possible.

In its short stories and essays, Inspiration in Small Doses looks at a variety of topics: work, money, and success; perseverance; change; gratitude; grace, love, and forgiveness; discovering one’s higher self; intention; expectation and faith; prayer; and dominion. The brief chapters in these sections use stories and reflections to explore various facets of the topics and to point the way toward locating the keys that unlock the doors to new possibilities. Each chapter ends with an affirmation that lifts up the theme of the chapter and points out the way forward.

Many people face today’s world and feel weighed down by the volume of threats and challenges that stare back at them. Inspiration in Small Does: Uplifting Short Stories and Essays suggests an alternate perspective. When you focus upon the deep and inexhaustible sources of inspiration that reside beneath us all, you will find your hand grasping the key that opens the door to the possibilities of doing more than you had dreamed you could achieve.

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More Psychopaths and Love: Essays to insipre healing, empowerment and self-discovery for survivors of psychopathic abuse (Volume 2)

Understand the psychopath. Understand yourself.

This book is the second collection of writings from the insightful and unique blog, Psychopaths and Love. The essays within will insipre healing, empowerment and self-discovery for survivors of psychopathic abuse.

There are two sections. The first section, YOU, focuses on understanding and healing. The second section, THE PSYCHOPATH, focuses on the psychopathic mind and will help you avoid being victimized again.

You can find the first collection of writings in the book, Psychopaths and Love.

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Walt Disney, from Reader to Storyteller: Essays on the Literary Inspirations

Walt Disney, best known as a filmmaker, had perhaps a greater skill as a reader. While many would have regarded Felix Salten’s Bambi and Carlo Collodi’s Pinocchio as too somber for family-oriented films, he saw their possibilities. He appealed to his audience by selecting but then transforming familiar stories. Many of the tales he chose to adapt to film became some of the most read books in America. Although much published research has addressed his adaptation process–often criticizing his films for being too saccharine or not true to their literary sources–little has been written on him as a reader: what he read, what he liked, his reading experiences and the books that influenced him. This collection of 15 fresh essays and one classic addresses Disney as a reader and shows how his responses to literature fueled his success. Essays discuss the books he read, the ones he adapted to film and the ways in which he demonstrated his narrative ability. Exploring his literary connections to films, nature documentaries, theme park creations and overall creative vision, the contributors provide insight into Walt Disney’s relationships with authors, his animation staff and his audience.

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Philosophy of Life: A Collection of Philosophical Quotes, Poems and Essays

Hope, hope, where have you gone, our work is not yet done? Hope, hope, rise again, light up again . . . In this book through a variety sort of some of my philosophical essays, poems and quotes (a small fragment from a large collection), I have written and continue to write, I share with you and with everyone my interpretation of my observations and experiences of life good and bad, some of my own and others of the lives of others whom I have known and not known; in hopes that my words can shed some light to you and many others and help you find some comfort.