The Pearlsong Letter

Alternate Alaska stars in new paranormal romance novel

Astrologically based magic, shapechanging,
passion & rebellion steam in Fallen Embers,
first in a planned series by Anchorage author Lauri J Owen

NASHVILLE, TN—Alaska has a starring role in a new novel being released September 1—but it's a version of the 49th state that its residents may not recognize.

Anchorage attorney Lauri J Owen's first novel, Fallen Embers (Pearlsong Press, original trade paperback $19.95,  ebook $9.95),  is set in an alternate, feudal Alaska, one ruled by a class of decadent mages who have enslaved the shape-changing, indigenous peoples.

In this paranormal romance, Kiera, an Alaskan attorney, and her young nephew, Alex, are transported to the alternate Alaska, near a city coincidentally named Fairbanks, during an attack by a strange dog. Kiera soon finds herself fighting to save three children from an army—and to her astonishment, does so by summoning fire.

Before Kiera can find her way home, she must learn more about the local systems of magic and her own powers. Whom can she trust—Marco, the young mage she saves, or fierce and handsome Laszlo, the slave captain of ruling Lord Vayu's army? Kiera's path leads her deeper into Alaska, to joy and to heartbreak. Choosing to follow her heart may cost her everything.

"With wit and passion, Lauri Owen constructs a world both fantastic and familiar—a world of strong women and the occasional valiant and ethical man in a world of patriarchal poseurs and obedient drones," says Michael Kimmel, author of Manhood in America. "Like Dorothy in Oz, Kiera struggles heroically to be taken seriously by men—and to finally get home; unlike Dorothy, though, her adventures are morally complex, cleverly witty, and deliciously sexy."

Ms. Owen is a civil rights lawyer who grew up in Idaho's Treasure Valley and worked for more than a decade in law enforcement. In 2003, her passion for social justice led her to law school. After completing a Juris Doctorate at U.C. Berkeley, she moved to Bethel, a village in the Alaska Bush, where she fell in love with the people, the magic and majesty of her new home state. She now lives in metro Alaska with her elementary-school-aged son and is currently hard at work on the second novel in the Embers series, Blowing Embers.

 Ms. Owens  is promoting the book with a website  (www.lauriowen.com) that offers background on her alternate world, including how to use one's birthdate to gauge the type of mage or shifter one would be there. She is also planning  book signings in Alaska and the U.K.  and a September 12 teleconference call with her publisher, Peggy Elam, in which fans are encouraged to participate  (www.pearlsong.com/pearlsongconversations.htm).  A promotional video trailer can be viewed on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/user/olauri.

Fallen Embers is available at Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com and other online retailers, by special order at brick-and-mortar bookstores, and from the publisher's online store at www.pearlsong.com.  The book's media kit can be downloaded at http://www.pearlsong.com/newsroom/laurijowen/FallenEmbersMediaKit.pdf.

Click on the Bookbuzzr widget below to read the first chapter of Fallen Embers.

Author sheds low-fat standards to pen life-sized novels

Romantic comedy Bride of the Living Dead is latest offering from award-winning author Lynne Murray.

NASHVILLE, TN -- In Lynne Murray's newest novel the dream of a picture-perfect wedding becomes the stuff nightmares are made of -- that is, if nightmares were scripted by the Marx Brothers.

"I hate weddings," declares big, beautiful and rebellious Daria MacClellan, heroine of the romantic comedy novel Bride of the Living Dead. "If you had a sister like Sky, you would too."

Daria, an independent film critic, wants to marry the man she loves, but finds herself slipping on the rose petals on the road to matrimony as if they were banana peels. She's most comfortable in a monster movie poster T-shirt and blue jeans, but when family drama hijacks her engagement she's trapped into a formal wedding with her perfectionist, anorexic sister planning the whole thing.

Bride of the Living Dead is being published in original trade paperback ($18.95) and ebook format ($9.95) June 1, 2010 by independent publisher Pearlsong Press.

The first people who purchase a paperback copy of the novel from the Pearlsong Press website (www.pearlsong.com) will be eligible for a special promotion by the author and publisher.

Murray has donated 44 autographed first edition hardcover copies of her first novel, Termination Interview (1988, St. Martin's Press), as a giveaway for people who buy a paperback copy of Bride of the Living Dead and one other paperback book from the Pearlsong Press website. Those 44 customers will also receive a free booklet, "The Road to Life-Sized Fiction," in which Murray writes about her journey from writing novels with slim heroines (Termination Interview and its sequel, Death Flower) to writing sleuths--and independent film critics--of size.

Murray is the award-winning author of four fat-positive mystery novels featuring Josephine Fuller, a sleuth of size who doesn't apologize, as well as the earlier mystery series and three ebooks of encouragement for writers.

The first of her Josephine Fuller novels, Larger Than Death, won the Distinguished Achievement Award from the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance, but the novels are now out of print.

Murray wonders if "books with a lower fat content," particularly where female characters are concerned, sell better. But she just can't write books in which all the characters are thin.

"I don't live in a world like that, and the idea of such a narrow range of humanity saddens me," she writes in "The Road to Life-Sized Fiction." "My friends and neighbors and the people I love and hate come in all sizes. In my fictional world, at least some of the fat characters have to stand up and face the issues that real fat people deal with every day of our lives."

And so does Daria in Bride of the Living Dead.

Bride of the Living Dead is available at Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, and other online retailers, and by special-order at brick-and-mortar bookstores, as well as from the publisher's online store at www.pearlsong.com.

Murray is promoting the book with a blog tour and a June 9 teleconference call with her publisher, Peggy Elam, in which fans are encouraged to participate (www.pearlsong.com/pearlsongconversations.htm). Details of the blog tour can be found at http://brideofthedead.blogspot.com.

West Virginia writer slays inner demons in rubenesque romance The Giving Season

Librarian by day, horror writer by night -- author surprises with sweet first novel

Rebecca Brock loves all things zombie, tentacled creatures and horror. But the author of short stories in the zombie-fiction anthologies The Best of All Flesh and History Is Dead has cast her first novel as a sweet holiday-themed love story with nary a monster in sight -- unless you count the plump heroine's inner demons.

"Romance novels and zombie stories. I am a complicated woman," laughs Brock, director of the Chapmanville, WV public library.

In The Giving Season, just released by Pearlsong Press as an original trade paperback, it is Jessy Monroe's self esteem issues -- not the undead -- that jeopardize her chances of achieving happily ever after.

Stranded at a Minnesota bus stop during a blizzard, Jessy cautiously accepts Michael Forrester's invitation to spend the holidays with his family. Her insecurity flares when Michael's ex-wife appears -- alive and gorgeous, not re-animated and shambling, thank you very much.

Will Jessy be able to learn how to let Michael -- and his family -- love her just as she is?

It's a romance novel. What do you think?

Brock's first novel has earned praise from other authors of rubenesque romances.

"Ms. Brock handles the heroine's self esteem issues regarding her weight with sensitivity, and yet with a realism with which many readers will be able to identify, says Judy Bagshaw, author of At Long Last, Love,  Love By the Pound, Big Fat Lies and other romantic fiction with full-figured heroines.

"The Giving Season will grab you from the very first page," says Pat Ballard, author of Dangerous Curves Ahead, Nobody's Perfect , five other rubenesque romance novels and two inspirational nonfiction books.

Don't worry, though. No brains are eaten in this novel.

The Giving Season is available from Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, and other online retailers, as well as from your favorite brick-and-mortar bookstore. (Ask for it -- they'll special-order it for you if they don't have it in stock.) It can also be purchased directly from Pearlsong Press at http://www.pearlsong.com/thegivingseason.htm.

And if you're still wondering how and why a zombie loving horror writer came to write a romance novel, join publisher Peggy Elam, Ph.D. next Thursday, November 12 as she chats with Brock in an hour-long free teleconference call, one of the Pearlsong Conversation series. Get more info here, or get call details by emailing pearlsongconversations @ pearlsong.com.

Update 12/4/2009: The date of the Pearlsong Conversation with Rebecca Brock has been changed to Thursday, November 12, 2009 (still at noon Eastern/11 a.m. Central) due to a scheduling conflict. The call-in number and access code remain the same.

Online serial becomes novel romance for the fat & fabulous

Authors create fat-topian fantasy to entertain and empower

NASHVILLE, TN--In 1997 Rebecca Fox and William Sherman coped with the stress of near-weekly visits to her ailing mother by creating a soap opera set in a size acceptance organization. Their imaginings became a cyber-serial in Dimensions magazine online. Now the couple's sudsy story has been polished and published as the novel Measure By Measure (Pearlsong Press, June 15, 2009), taking on new life as a fat-positive Tales of the City .

In co-creating what became their 384-page novel, Fox and Sherman were inspired by both Armistead Maupin's San Francisco tales and their local chapter of the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance.

The couple are longtime NAAFA supporters and had established a chapter of the fat advocacy organization in Central Illinois in the 1990s. They created a fictional NAAFA in RADFAm (Respect And Dignity for Fat Americans). Memories of friends and conventions fleshed out their fictional characters with a Windy City flair.

The novel's opening scenes revolve around a RADFAm-sponsored dance. But there's more to Measure By Measure--and its size-accepting milieu--than frothy fun.

Fox's mother's childhood size issues had seeded a quarter-century of body hatred in Fox. After she and Sherman met at a wedding in 1982 and ultimately married, both embraced size acceptance. In subsequent years Fox and Sherman have jointly and individually authored romantic and fantasy fiction as well as critical essays and reviews on body esteem and pop culture. Fox has also spoken on size acceptance to college students and younger children.

The cross-generational transmission of fat fears and poor esteem that Fox experienced and transcended plays a role in Measure By Measure. "I pray now that, in reading this story, mothers and daughters can break the chain of self-loathing and embrace their unique personal power," Fox says.

Measure By Measure ($25, original trade paperback, ISBN 9781597190176) is available from Amazon.com and other online retailers, as well as directly from the publisher at www.pearlsong.com.

Fox and Sherman will chat with Pearlsong Press publisher Peggy Elam, Ph.D. in a free teleconference call (one of a series of Pearlsong Conversations) at noon Eastern/11 a.m. Central on Wednesday, June 10, 2009. Email pearlsongconversations @ pearlsong.com or go to www.pearlsong.com/pearlsongconversations.htm for details.

"Pro-health laws" lead to size acceptance sanctuary in new novel FatLand

New Jersey author Frannie Zellman's fantasy inspired by current events

NASHVILLE, TN--In the near future "anti-obesity" initiatives in the United States become so oppressive that people seeking freedom over their bodies establish a new country, Fat Acceptance Territory Lease Accession Non Dated--FATLAND. Or they do in the novel by that name just released by Pearlsong Press.

In FatLand, life is good and scales are forbidden. Free from the hatred and discrimination of the Other Side, FatLanders have built productive lives. But as the book (first of a planned trilogy by New Jersey author Frannie Zellman) unfolds, a group of FatLanders and freedom fighters on the Other Side face forces threatening the health and happiness of all.

FatLand may be fantasy, but its premise is reflected in real-world news. In 2008 alone, anti-fat initiatives in the U.S. have included Mississippi state legislators sponsoring a bill forbidding restaurants from serving fat people and Alabama's State Employees' Insurance Board approving a plan to charge $25 more a month for insurance to "overweight" employees who fail to "progress" in losing weight. Meanwhile, Japan launched a waistline-measuring campaign in which those larger than the narrowly defined ideal and have "weight-related" conditions are given dieting advice and "further re-education" if they do not lose weight.

As Zellman noted in a recent interview with Pearlsong publisher Peggy Elam, Ph.D., all these and other "anti-obesity" initiatives have been enacted even though there is no safe, effective, permanent means of making fat people thin. Such initiatives have increased the stigma and discrimination experienced by fat Americans and further stressed people of all sizes struggling with eating disorders.

Frannie Zellman received her M.A. in creative writing from Boston University in 1980. She is a member of the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance (NAAFA) and has taught writing workshops for people of size. FatLand ($19.95, 212 pages, original trade paperback) is her first novel.

FatLand is available from Amazon.com and other online retailers, as well as directly from the publisher at www.pearlsong.com.

Pearlsong Press seeks inspiring seniors -- call for nominations

Pearlsong Press calls for nominations for its “Splendid Seniors Among Us” program celebrating people whose post-65 activities can inspire all ages.

NASHVILLE, TN— Pearlsong Press is seeking nominations for our year-long “Splendid Seniors Among Us” program.  The award is given monthly to living seniors who have accomplished an inspirational goal or action after the age of 65.  The goal can be related to creative work, charity work, community involvement, political action, or any inspirational accomplishment.

Honored seniors receive frameable certificates  recognizing their “Splendid” status, as well as autographed copies of Jack Adler’s book Splendid Seniors: Great Lives, Great Deeds, published by Pearlsong Press in March 2007. The award is  announced at the Pearlsong Press blog (www.pearlsongpress.com) and website  (www.pearlsong.com), and the senior’s hometown  media and mayor’s office are notified of the honor.

At the end of the promotional period in March of 2008, the 12 honorees of the “Splendid Seniors  Among Us” program will be included in a special Adobe PDF ebook that can be downloaded for free at the Pearlsong Press website.

There is no fee for nominating a senior for the “Splendid Seniors Among Us” program. 

All nominations can be mailed to Pearlsong Press at P.O. Box 58065, Nashville, TN 37205, emailed to splendidseniors @ pearlsong.com,  or faxed to (615) 352-4222.  More information  on the “Splendid Seniors Among Us” award, as well as information about Pearlsong Press itself,  can be found at the company’s website at www.pearlsong.com/splendidseniorsamongus.htm.

Press release written by Pearlsong Press intern Rachel Pitt.

Honoring the past and nurturing the future keeps retired schoolteacher Evelyn Lawrence busy

Marion, Virginia resident honored in national "Splendid Seniors Among Us" program recognizing people whose post-65 activities can inspire others at all life stages.

Pearlsong Press is honoring Evelyn Thompson Lawrence of Marion, Virginia as the "Splendid Senior Among Us" for June 2007.

Lawrence retired as a primary school teacher in 1985, but now in her 80s still actively serves all ages through tireless community and church work. She continues writing and producing children’s plays and operettas, including a recent production with about 30 seven-year-olds celebrating Jamestown, Virginia's 400th anniversary.

The town of Marion honored her last year by declaring July 22, 2006 the first "Evelyn Lawrence Day," and in May 2007 she spoke to the community during "An Evening with Evelyn Lawrence" hosted by the public library.

“You know, as a black person, I’ve had all sorts of things that I had to overcome,” Lawrence says. "But no matter how much you lose, do the best you can with what you have. Stick with it -- good will come out of it."

Lawrence serves as director of the project transforming the old Mt. Pleasant United Methodist Church building in the Historic District of Marion into an African American Museum. She was choir director and organist at the church for most of her life.

"I was born into Mt. Pleasant," she laughs. Her maternal grandmother Sallie was one of the founders of the church.

Sallie had been born into slavery. In the 1840s, when Sallie was five, her family was sold to a slave-owner in another county and she was sold to a Smyth County man who wanted a caregiver and companion for his ailing wife. Sallie coped with her pain and loneliness by sharing her tears with a big white oak tree in her owner’s yard. The tree the child wrapped her arms around is still standing, and has been honored as one of the Remarkable Trees of Viriginia. (See http://www.cnr.vt.edu/4H/remarkabletree/detail.cfm?AutofieldforPrimaryKey=1398 for a photo of Sallie’s Crying Tree.) Lawrence nominated her grandmother's Crying Tree for the honor.

Lawrence taught in Marion's traditionally black Carnegie High School until that school was closed in 1965 when the public school system integrated. At that time she moved to Marion Primary School, where she was a popular teacher.

She’s proud of the work she did at both schools, but many in the African American community are especially grateful for her influence at Carnegie. “I just wanted to see that our children had an opportunity to show their talent and be heard,” she says.

As a local historian she compiled a book documenting every child who ever attended Carnegie High School, thereby saving a segment of history that might otherwise have been lost. She still coordinates regular Carnegie reunions, where alumni report that the loving attention given them by “Miss Thompson,” as she was then known, and the other Carnegie teachers prepared them to step confidently into and succeed in the larger world.

After Mt. Pleasant United Methodist Church closed, Mrs. Lawrence joined both Grace United Methodist Church and Greenwood United Methodist Church. She plays the piano at Grace United Methodist, provides music for community weddings and funerals, and recently represented both churches as a delegate to the Holston Conference.

She has served on the board of directors of Smyth County Community Hospital and has been chairperson of the Cultural Relations Committee of the Smyth County Branch of the American Association of University Women.

As the “Splendid Senior Among Us” honoree for June 2007,  Lawrence receives a certificate and an autographed copy of Splendid Seniors: Great Lives, Great Deeds by Jack Adler (original trade paperback published by Pearlsong Press in March 2007).

Pearlsong Press is sponsoring the year-long “Splendid Seniors Among Us” program in conjunction with publication of Adler’s book, to honor seniors who are living inspirations. For more information about the “Splendid Seniors Among Us” program, see the Pearlsong Press website at www.pearlsong.com.

Pearlsong Press, founded in 2003 by psychologist and journalist Peggy Elam, Ph.D, specializes in books and resources that entertain while expanding perspectives on the self and the world.

Catherine Kottner follows her own advice for successful aging--stay connected, keep busy, and know who you are

New York City resident is "Splendid Senior Among Us" for May 2007

It seems only fitting that Catherine Kottner is being honored as an inspirational senior, since the 79-year-old New York City resident facilitates a weekly women's discussion group on "successful aging."

Her advice to others in or approaching their senior years? Stay connected. Keep busy, if that’s always been your way. But also take time, if need be, to figure out who you are.

“If you’ve always been busy and connected,” Kottner says, “take courses,” volunteer in the school system (a good way to “pay back” a public education), but also take time to think about yourself and your life instead of “just being busy.”

That’s worked pretty well for Kottner, who is the May 2007 “Splendid Senior Among Us” in the national program initiated by Pearlsong Press. Kottner was nominated by Patricia A. Kusnick, director of the Lenox Hill Neighborhood House Senior Center on East 70^th Street in New York City, where for the past 15 years Kottner has facilitated the women’s group as well as presented orientation programs dealing with relocation stress, national and international volunteerism, and “Where, When and How to Shop in New York.”

The women in her discussion groups “never tire of the topics that she introduces every week,” Kusnick wrote in her nomination letter. “She has the ability to work with women of all backgrounds and to draw out the humanity in all of them….Catherine has inspired me to be the best that I can be.”

In working with women from many different backgrounds, it probably doesn’t hurt that Kottner speaks six languages. In addition to the Serbo-Croatian she spoke at home as a child and the English she learned in school, she speaks French, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese. She worked for more than three decades as a United Nations executive in New York City, and helped establish the first UN Child Care Center (“a labor of love,” Kottner says).

Kottner’s interest in helping others was apparent even in elementary school, when she organized and headed a toy library for children unable to buy their own playthings.

She encourages other senior women not to focus on whether they have a man in their lives, how often their children or grandchildren visit, or whether they have children at all. There’s no reason to be lonely or unhappy even if single, widowed or childless, she says.

A good way to feel loved and nurtured is to give love and nurturing to others. There’s no trick to meeting other people, she says—“you meet people while doing things you enjoy.”

As the “Splendid Senior Among Us” honoree for May 2007, Kottner receives a certificate and an autographed copy of Splendid Seniors: Great Lives, Great Deeds by Jack Adler (original trade paperback published by Pearlsong Press in March 2007).

Pearlsong Press is sponsoring the year-long “Splendid Seniors Among Us” program in conjunction with publication of Adler’s book, to honor seniors who are living inspirations. For more information about the “Splendid Seniors Among Us” program, see the Pearlsong Press website at www.pearlsong.com.

Pearlsong Press, founded in 2003 by psychologist and journalist Peggy Elam, Ph.D, specializes in books and resources that entertain while expanding perspectives on the self and the world.

The Queen of Rubenesque Romances to reign at Brentwood, TN Borders bookstore Saturday, May 12, 2007

After nearly dying from an eating disorder in her teens, Pat Ballard fought her way to self- and body-esteem. Now, as the Queen of Rubenesque Romances, the Nashville, TN author encourages women of all sizes to love themselves.

NASHVILLE, TN--Pat Ballard will appear in full regalia as the “Queen of Rubenesque Romances” at the Brentwood Borders bookstore at 2 p.m. Saturday, May 12 in conjunction with the publication of her latest book, the romantic suspense novel The Best Man.

Ballard’s books and short stories feature “plus sized” heroines and are written to inspire self-acceptance and self-care in all women, as well as to entertain. Ballard herself almost died from an eating disorder in her teens, and continued dieting/starving herself  for years until resolving to eat normally and learning to love the body that resulted.

In addition to signing copies of The Best Man, just published by Pearlsong Press, Ballard will chat with
the public and pass out ribbons imprinted with her “10 Steps to Loving Your Body (No Matter What Size You Are)." She is expanding the steps into a nonfiction book tentatively scheduled for publication by Pearlsong Press in 2008.

Ballard is also the author of Dangerous Curves Ahead: Short Stories, Wanted: One Groom, Nobody’s Perfect, His Brother’s Child, A Worthy Heir, and Abigail’s Revenge. She maintains a website at www.patballard.com.

Excerpts from her books, as well as archives of her monthly newsletter, “The Queen’s Proclamation,” are posted at her page on the Pearlsong Press website  (www.pearlsong.com/pat_ballard.htm).

At an age when most people retire, Jan de Goede picked up pen and paintbrush and began mining a new creative vein

Chicago resident honored as Pearlsong Press's "Splendid Senior Among Us" for April 2007.

At the time of life when most people think about retiring, Chicago graphic designer Jan de Goede not only kept working but started four new avocations: drawing, painting, writing poetry, and creating striking illustrated books.

By the time Pearlsong Press chose him as its “Splendid Seniors Among Us” honoree for April 2007, the 72-year-old de Goede had 66 paintings and 130 poems to his credit, as well as 20 books—all created since the turn of the millennium.

“I’m having fun,” he says.

The paintings and line drawings are created with traditional media such as oil paints and pen and ink. But de Goede’s books, including clever full-color parodies of guides to wines, art, and even religion, as well as collections of his line drawings and poems, are created on computer and assembled by hand after being printed on a $79 Canon printer.

His graphic design skill and nimble use of the Adobe Illustrator software program make the coil-bound books at first glance almost indistinguishable from commercially printed volumes. It’s only when looking at the “guides” more closely that their tongue-in-cheek nature becomes apparent, as exemplified by the lines on the front cover of The Book of Wines: “THE BEST GUIDE IF YOU DON’T WANT TO KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT WINES (ACTUALLY THE ONLY GUIDE)” and ‘IF YOU CAN’T FIND IT HERE, YOU’RE NOT DRUNK ENOUGH.”

Other of de Goede’s hand-assembled books are more serious, even poignant: Chicago Drawings, Talk to Me of Love (drawings and poems), Talu: A Childhood in the Tropics (an account of his childhood on coffee and sugar plantations in Indonesia). Then there are the fanciful illustrated “children’s books for adults”—The Book of Trains, The Book of Ships, The Book of Snakes, The Book of Towers, The Book of Taller Towers, and The Book of Squares and Cubes. (See http://tinyurl.com/2rdt8t for a PDF sampler of the work he publishes through his whimsically named company Penand, Inc.)

Thus far only one of de Goede’s books, Chicago Drawings, can be purchased in a public store (the shop at the Chicago Cultural Center). He sells the others on his own; email him at jan@degoede.net if you’re interested.

De Goede had drawn in high school and college, but never seriously thought of himself as an artist until picking up pen and paintbrush in his mid-sixties. Since then he’s displayed his paintings in a couple of shows and sold a few. “I’d like to find a gallery willing to take me on.”

De Goede has had his share of life challenges. It was divorce, for instance, that left room in his life for his new creative pursuits. His childhood idyll in Indonesia ended when the Japanese invaded during World War II; young de Goede then spent three years in Japanese concentration camps on Java. (Afterward, his family moved to Holland, where he studied shipbuilding and lived in Denmark and Sweden before settling in the United States to work as an engineer.

When de Goede no longer enjoyed shipbuilding he walked away from a lucrative career and became a graphic design apprentice—“a nobody”—because “I just wanted to do something I enjoyed doing.” He was miserable for a while “because I thought I’d screwed up my life,” but his graphic design work eventually won awards. He’s now glad he made the leap from engineer to graphic designer.

As the “Splendid Senior Among Us” honoree for April 2007, de Goede receives a certificate and an autographed copy of Splendid Seniors: Great Lives, Great Deeds by Jack Adler (original trade paperback published by Pearlsong Press in March 2007).

Pearlsong Press is sponsoring the year-long “Splendid Seniors Among Us” program in conjunction with publication of Adler’s book, to honor seniors who are living inspirations. The program honors 12 “Splendid Seniors,” one a month from March 2007 to February 2008. The year-long recognition culminates with publication of a special Splendid Seniors Among Us Adobe PDF ebook that will be available free of charge at the Pearlsong Press website (www.pearlsong.com).

For more information about the “Splendid Seniors Among Us” program, see the program's page at the Pearlsong Press website: http://www.pearlsong.com/splendidseniorsamongus.htm.

Pearlsong Press, founded in 2003 by psychologist and journalist Peggy Elam, Ph.D, specializes in books and resources that entertain while expanding perspectives on the self and the world.