RE-RELEASE: Between Darkness and Light by Brianna Hawthorne

A new cover for the the re-release of Brianna Hawthornes Fantasy... 

Shi’ahn and her brother William find themselves transported into a realm beyond anything they could have imagined. Where they had once been powerful individuals, they are now almost inconsequential - at first. Soon though, they discover something monumental, and everything begins to change. Reality is not what it had seemed. As Shi’ahn and her brother follow where events are leading them, it becomes evident that both are destined for greater things. Shi'ahn does have one advantage that is exceedingly rare - she can hear and manipulate the song of the Universe.

As Shi’ahn and William embark upon their new journey they must survive intrigue, danger, and their growing relationship with the foundations of the Universe itself.

This is the first book in the Universe Cycle.

Brianna Hawthorne has been a tree farm laborer, a choir director, a restaurant worker, a telemarketer (She lasted one day), a transportation planner, a small business computer support worker, a printing specialist, computer help desk technician, a firewall and server administrator, computer security manager, an emergency preparedness coordinator, and now, finally, an author. It's been one heck of a ride...

But the stresses of her profession and all the political. stuff it entailed eventually drove her to write. After many more years and frustrations, she ran away to the mountains where, aside from trips to the Island that inspired the creation of Shiral, she wishes to remain until the end of her days. Before the responsibilities of parenthood overtook her, she loved to play role-playing games and being a weekend historian in the Society for Creative Anachronism. Now she concentrates on providing the healthiest home environment for her family as possible. She enjoys growing her own organic foods and herbs, and listening to a wide variety of music.

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COVER REVEAL: The Alexandria Winter Anthology 2013

It is the time of year where the best feeling in the world is to give and the writers at the Alexandria Publishing group have a great gift to be unwrapped today! November has been a busy month for all of you writers with NaNoWriMo and for everyone who is finishing projects to launch in time for the holidays. Here at The APG, we  have our own project launching just in time for e-stock stuffing! But first...

We're proud to present the cover of the new release which has been created by the wonderful Renée Barratt:

The Alexandria Publishing Group is an eclectic group of writers, and we've pooled together our talents again this year to create another exciting Winter Anthology.

By Valerie Douglas - A Home for the Holidays - Family isn't always the one you were born to...

By D Kai Wilson-Viola - Low winter, Blood Moon - Merridian's last night in Edinburgh is meant to be a time to grieve...but when she finds herself running for her life in Holyrood park, a null magic area, all she knows is she's being chased by a big, angry werewolf...

By Denise McGee - Full Moon Christmas - When a reclusive werewolf finds a lost child too close to the full moon, he must fight the change or live with the knowledge that he killed an innocent.

By Mary-Ann Peden-Covellio - Cynophobia - One very small dog and two not-so-angelic girls give Santa Claus a Christmas he'd rather forget.

By Paul Kater - Our Ghostly Winter - A young boy learns that there is more between earth and heaven, and that it can take the shape of a snowman.

By Terry Simpson - The Gifts - 12 Gifts will change a young boy's life forever.

By D Kai Wilson-Viola - Silent Fright - Jess knows that the boys are planning a big surprise and to go along with that, Jess decorates...but the lights attract more than just other survivors and for the first time in months, the walls are overrun with zombies.

We'll be back with you as soon as the new release is available. On behalf of all our writers and other artists we thank you for being with us, and we wish you a wonderful festive season. Till then from all our writers, artists and support staff may your holiday season from here on in be exciting and fun!

Just in case you missed last years, our Winter 2012 Anthology is still available from Smashwords and Amazon.

As soon as it is released we will let you all know so you can stuff everyone's e-stockings with some festive holiday joy for you and your friends and family! from all our writers, artists and support staff.

Official Launch Page:

bit.ly/APGWinter2013

Alexandria Publishing Group is a writers’ collective made up of individual authors with proven talent. Each has shown dedication and skill in creating and producing amazing books that compel and create a strong, solid reading platform.  Quality is a key and critical factor in inclusion on the group’s’ roster, alongside writers with a true passion for writing.

“I’ve always written,” says Kai, “and it really appeals to me to work with other indie authors and providers to pool our resources. Working as an editor with the group too, really means I can be sure that I’m investing in like-minded individuals and have the support I need for my own books. And while I can offer a lot as a writer, I’m also keen to help indies reach a broader audience.”

To discover more selections of some of the best indie books in print or e-books from the authors above and others in the APG please explore the rest of the website, subscribe to our newsletter, check out more from our authors, or join us over on our Facebook page!

Zombies Skating up the Glass Hill

School principal, Verenice Gutierrez, has decided that a peanut butter sandwich is racist. It is not enough that people can be racist, but now our food is racist. Everything we eat now has a vicious connotation and Ms. Gutierrez is making sure that teachers in her school take a sensitivity course so that they are not subtly racist.

What?

From the insidious indoctrination of children with Common Core educational materials to sensitivity training for teachers so that they do not inadvertently traumatize a child by using a peanut butter sandwich as a racist teaching tool, it is obvious that we have gone off the deep end.

Have you ever seen someone tie himself into knots over not mentioning a scar or obvious handicap or a woman yelling at a deaf man so she can be heard? It can be funny, but not so funny in today's world as people become pretzels navigating the intricate and treacherous waters of Politically Correct language -- and now food.

What I have seen is that the more we bow to these made up conventions the more we fall into error and abuse. It's no wonder so many people are on drugs and why they put their children on drugs. It is almost criminal to be unhappy or disenchanted or even a  rowdy child full of energy just bursting at the seams. I used to say, "If you have a problem, my mother has a pill," but what was a joke is now the default setting for society and it is nothing like the world we envisioned with the Jetsons, or even Willie Wonka, where a meal is contained in a pill form. It is so much worse. At this rate, there will soon be a pill to make everyone bland, inoffensive, and passive - or maybe it will be put into the air so a silent gas can make us either dead or Reivers like in  Joss Whedon's Firefly television show. That worked out so well.

Face it. People are going to use what is different about someone else during a heated discussion or a fight and the government and schools are going to remedy that natural inclination with drugs, indoctrination, and sensitivity training. No wonder people are tense and emotionally on the edge and feel that drugs are the answer. I can hear the conspiracy theorists winding up in the bull pen.

I would have used conspiracy nuts but I've no doubt that someone on the Thought Police will cite me for food racism or worse.

Who would have thought that hippies/flower children putting daisies in the gun barrels of National Guard reservists in the 1960s and 1970s would have landed us here in a world treading on egg shells? I certainly didn't. So much for anti-establishment hippies. They have become the establishment.

I envisioned a world where 1984 was just a book by George Orwell and Animal Farm was a parody of communism, Marxism, fascism, and government control. Instead I know that Big Brother is watching us and recording all of our private conversations, chats, emails, and communications and children are being indoctrinated to believe that the government is always right and they should never question the government because it is wrong. The next thing that happens will be that the Magisterium will arise on the scene locked and loaded to make a little cut to severe us all from our souls when we are children to keep the Dust from perverting us and making us individuals unwilling to go quietly into that good dark night, leaving us in a generation with soulless zombies unquestioningly obedient to the Magisterial government that cares for us from cradle to grave so that we need never know the thrill of victory or the agony of defeat.

Maybe you shouldn't buy that white bread to go with the peanut butter and blackberry jam for your kids' lunches. Stick with hummus and pita bread. You could use roasted termites. I hear they taste just like peanut butter.

No wonder there has been such a rise in the popularity of zombie fiction. Look in the mirrored surface of the glass hill you're skating up. The zombie may be you.

Free-falling Down the Slippery Slope

The future of this country as a free democracy is in dire peril.

I admit I am late coming to this discussion, but I am doing my homework. I have no children in school - my oldest is 40 years old - but my children have children in school and I worry about the indoctrination and fate of children throughout this country. The best way to implement communist, Marxist, and socialist government is to start with impressionable children. Hitler used the youth of Germany to watch, inform on, and cow the adult populace and look what happened there. Children in China and other communist countries begin indoctrination at the earliest levels and only now (in the past 2 decades) since the advent of access to the Internet have China's youths begun to fight back.

None of can afford to stand back and let our young children be subjected to this kind of insidious indoctrination. This is the creeping evil that has infected our country and has finally come to fruition with the election of Barack Obama and his continuation as President of the United States. It all comes down to his leadership and his constant campaigning and PR side stepping that is at the heart of this.

I know how this sounds, that I am a reactionary (big surprise), that I am old-fashioned (not a big surprise), and that I don't know what I'm talking about.  There, you would be wrong. I have read some of the educational materials and, though I do not have knowledge of the whole program, I am angry and shocked enough to continue to look for more information. I have been to no meetings and I have not listened to a speaker at a group. I read everything, pro and con, and I will, as always, make up my own mind, but at this moment I see danger and I fear for our children, for my grandchildren, and for the future. This is beyond economic problems and political differences, it is even beyond racial differences. We are all Americans, at least those of us not profiting from and intent on forcing yet another government program through the usual checks and balances, and as Americans we need to stand up and be counted. We need to stop this creeping plague before it gets a firm foothold in our future -- in our children. We as a people must come together and stop this if America is to remain a bastion of freedom and choice, the same democracy that once held honor and decency and strong moral values as sacred as the voice of the people in a democratic republic free of outside control.

I once memorized Patrick Henry's speech when I was in the 5th grade. It's last lines are burned into my soul. "...but as for me, give me liberty or give me death." I have been asked if there is anything worth fighting for, worth dying for. I say again, yes. The liberty and freedom of our children, our immortality and stake in the future, is worth fighting for, being imprisoned for, and, yes, even dying for. Those words mean a lot to me, but what do they mean to you when your children and your neighbor's children are at stake? Now is the time to answer that question.