You’re Invited … Relax and Enjoy!
Illustrated by Laurie Triefeldt
Adult coloring books are taking the publishing world by storm—or perhaps it would be better to say, by a calming wave.
As a meditative refuge from the modern world of constant overstimulation, 24/7 activity schedules, and incessantly blinking and beeping electronic devices, coloring books are giving adults a new way to relax, explore their creative sides, and focus their minds.
Coloring book fans are invited to ease their tensions and invigorate their creativity in the immersive world of Elegant Tea Party Coloring Book. Hand-drawn by acclaimed artist Laurie Triefeldt, these 70 absorbing illustrations of cups, saucers, teapots, muffins, and flowers will give colorists hours of calming focus.
Triefeldt’s illustrations range from intricate geometric patterns on fine bone china to fluid, organic shapes of floral prints, cut flowers, and even a kitten in a tea cup. These complex images offer colorists endless opportunities to create personalized works of art through use of color and shade. And the tea party theme adds a special touch of civilized comfort and relaxation that immediately calms a busy mind.
Elegant Tea Party Coloring Book is especially designed to provide a high-quality coloring experience, using thick paper, printed only on one side, to offer a smooth, firm coloring surface with no bleed through.
Like a rich cup of tea, Elegant Tea Party Coloring Book is a relaxing and stimulating break in one’s busy day.
Audience: Adult coloring book fans.
About the Illustrator: Laurie Triefeldt was born and educated in Toronto, Canada. She is a graduate of the Ontario College of Art and the University of Windsor. Triefeldt is the creator of World of Wonder, the award-winning syndicated weekly illustrated newspaper feature exploring the educational themes of history, science, nature and technology, appearing in more than 100 newspapers worldwide. Triefeldt is also the author and illustrator of World of Wonder: Plants and Animals, World of Wonder: People and Places, and the forthcoming
Boudoir Coloring Book, all available from Quill Driver Books.
$14.95 ($18.95 Canada) • Trade Paperback • 8½” x 10″ • 144 pages (70 illustrations)
ISBN 978-1-61035-284-0
Field Notes on Foul-Mouthed Babies, Disenchanted Women, & Careening into Middle Age
by Kara Martinez Bachman
Life doesn’t end at 40. It just gets really, really weird. In Kissing the Crisis, humorist Kara Martinez Bachman takes on middle age with a kick-ass Generation X attitude and a willingness to try anything. Bachman’s comic essays recount her many absurd adventures in her forties, presenting a decidedly female approach to the midlife crisis.
Written for every woman who knows that turning 40 is no reason to become respectable, Kissing the Crisis is the field guide you need to blaze your own unconventional trail through the jungle of middle age. Bachman reports from the front lines of the battle to stay awake after 9 p.m., and her adventures will make you scream with laughter, cringe with embarrassment, and vow to tackle your own midlife crisis with a can-do attitude and a tasty cocktail.
Kissing the Crisis tells of Bachman’s fearless exploits such as searching for a child-friendly bar and grill for a parents’ drinking night; reigniting her rock ’n’ roll lifestyle by founding the world’s greatest ukulele-harp goth band; futilely trying to shush a foul-mouthed toddler shrieking obscenities in the grocery story, while everyone judges her for being a bad mother; overcoming her lifelong beliefs about gun control to learn target shooting—and absolutely loving it; and her many other wild attempts to live life after 40 to the fullest, even in the face of the harshest mommy judgment.
Bachman is a fresh, new, irreverent voice in humor, the spokeswoman of today’s middle-aged people, Generation X, who long ago lost the media’s attention but have been quietly redefining middle age as a time of freedom to be yourself without apologies. Kissing the Crisis is an inspiration to all of us living with a youthful spirit that says “Yes!” to adventure and a middle-aged body that says “Meh … let’s get ice cream instead.”
About the Author: Kara Martinez Bachman is a New Orleans-based freelance writer. Her work has appeared in the New Orleans Times-Picayune, NOLA.com, The Writer, Funny Times, NPR’s State of the Re:Union, Ellipsis, Magnolia Quarterly, the 10-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina retrospective, Katrina Memoirs, and numerous other publications.
$14.95 ($18.95 Canada) • Trade Paperback • 6″ x 9″ • 146 pages
ISBN 978-1-61035-290-1
And Other Stories of the Bizarre
by Robert W. Bly
Classic science fiction is back, in the hands of masterful writer Robert W . Bly. Bly’s new short story collection Freak Show of the Gods and Other Stories of the Bizarre takes readers on a mind-expanding trip into the unknown in the spirit of Ray Bradbury and The Twilight Zone.
The stories in Freak Show of the Gods combine bold imagination and big ideas with personal-scale stories of human beings in their most emotional moments, entertainingly brought to life by a master storyteller.
Freak Show of the Gods presents thought-provoking stories that explore the human condition through the lens of the fantastic with stunning science fiction ideas and surprising ironic O. Henry twists.
Freak Show of the Gods presents 34 encounters with the bizarre that uncover unsettling strangeness in the midst of everyday life, including:
- “Freak Show of the Gods”: When the Gods of Olympus show up at a county fair in New Jersey, an
ordinary single dad is forced to reveal his most dangerous secret. - “Van Helsing’s Last Stand”: The vampire hunter and his great enemy have one last battle … over book
royalties, movie rights and merchandising. - “Early Retirement”: An aging superhero is denied Social Security benefits … with tragic results.
- “Tax Time”: A genius inventor’s plan to build a time machine can be stopped by only one force in the
universe … an IRS audit. - “The Emancipation of Abraham Lincoln XL-3000”: The Abraham Lincoln automaton at Disneyworld
begs his creators to set him free.
And 28 more strange, offbeat and bizarre tales.
About the Author: Robert W. Bly, a full-time freelance writer since 1982, is the author of eighty books, including The Ultimate Unauthorized Star Trek Quiz Book and The Science in Science Fiction.
$16.95 ($19.95 Canada) • Trade Paperback • 6″ x 9″ • 262 pages
ISBN 978-1-61035-263-5
Famous Film Scenes and Their Italian Locations
by Romina Arena
Three Coins in a Fountain. Roman Holiday. Eat Pray Love. In many of the greatest movies ever made, the biggest star was Italy itself. Where Did They Film That? Italy is a unique travel guide that invites the reader to explore the beauty and cultural riches of Italy through the universal language of cinema.
Where Did They Film That? Italy shows readers where to find the exact locations where many of the most famous movies set in Italy were filmed — plus nearby attractions, museums, restaurants, shops, and must-experience slices of Italian life. The beautiful and historic sites immortalized in great films are the reader’s keys to experiencing the best in Italian travel, art, dining, and living. Special sections highlight romantic Italian sites that are perfect for scheduling weddings and other special events, and the book includes recipes for dishes from famous films and authentic Italian regional specialties.
Where Did They Film That? Italy gives readers in-depth knowledge of the behind-the-scenes details of great films by placing their locations within the full context of their history and meaning to Italian culture. Guided by celebrated Italian popera star Romina Arena, readers will discover the real Italy as Italians know it.
An irresistible combination of film history, travel guide, and the zest and seductiveness of la dolce vita, Where Did They Film That? Italy is a new kind of travel guide that will turn Americans’ love of movies to a love of travel and new experiences.
Audience: Travel readers, film history readers, and Italian culture readers.
About the Author: Celebrated as “the Queen of Popera,” Romina Arena is an award-winning Italian international pop opera recording artist and songwriter who has performed before President Bill Clinton, Pope John Paul II, and many other world figures. Arena has sold over four million records worldwide and has received many major honors, including a Global Citizenship Award from the United Nations in recognition of her humanitarian support for the children of Haiti. Where Did They Film That? Italy is her first book.
$18.95 ($21.95 Canada) • Trade Paperback • 6″ x 9″ • 144 pages
ISBN 978-1-61035-182-9
A Cultural Topography of a Land of Wonder and Weirdness
by Sam McManis
Sacramento Bee journalist Sam McManis spent five years on the road trying to find the real California. He discovered that there is more than one California, but every different California is equally weird and wonderful. Worlds collide and commingle: the neo-hippies with the rednecked farmers; the urban sophisticates with the quirky desert dwellers; the Hollywood power brokers with the Outsider Artists.
Brought together in a bouillabaisse of voices, Crossing California will make you see the state in an entirely new light.
From the briny scent of Fisherman’s Wharf to the fragrant sage scrub of Imperial County; from the otherworldly starkness of Death Valley to the crashing waves and flexing muscles at Venice Beach, Crossing California gives readers a first-hand experience.
McManis has stalked the tony aisles of the newly minted Broad Museum in gentrified downtown Los Angeles, and quick-footed it through the International Banana Museum along the desiccated shores of the moonscaped Salton Sea. He has inadvertently gotten his car stuck in a tree at a cheesy drive-thru giant Sequoia roadside attraction along the hemp highway between Mendocino and Humboldt, and witnessed, with both fascination and can’t-look-away horror, grown men and women, sans children and sans inhibitions, belt out full-throated versions of “Let It Go” at a Disneyland sing-along. All told, Crossing California is a trip.
Audience: Readers interested in California culture, history, oddities, and humor.
About the Author: Sam McManis is a former columnist and feature writer for the Sacramento Bee. He is a four-time winner of the Society of Features Journalism awards and three-time Best of the West honoree. He also has been a staff writer and editor at the San Francisco Chronicle and a sportswriter for the Los Angeles Times. His profiles and essays have appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and elsewhere. He lives and writes in Washington state.
$14.95 US • Trade Paperback • 6″ x 9″ • 280 pages
ISBN 978-1-61035-313-7
Beat by Beat to a Better Script
by Jim Mercurio
No one comes out of a movie talking about script structure. What audiences love and remember about a movie are great scenes, the meaningful moments in a film that reveal character and emotion.
While previous screenwriting guides emphasize story structure at the macro level, The Craft of Scene Writing: Beat by Beat to a Better Script is the first book for screenwriters that focuses entirely on the micro level of writing powerful scenes. Story structure alone does not make a successful screenplay; it is the detailed craftwork of scene writing that breathes life into a story.
In The Craft of Scene Writing, accomplished screenwriter and master writing teacher Jim Mercurio explains the nuts and bolts of how to write emotionally resonant scenes that will elevate a script from ho-hum to extraordinary.
The Craft of Scene Writing analyzes and systematizes the individual elements that create dynamic scenes: beats, conflicts, character moments, specific actions and lines of dialogue. Mercurio demonstrates that every single scene in a script needs to be a story in itself that creates a surprise or reversal. And when a scene incorporates both a twist in the plot and a change in the characters’ internal states, it has the greatest potential to profoundly engage an audience.
The Craft of Scene Writing cites specific examples from popular classic scripts, old and new, to show how great scenes reveal character and advance the story. The Craft of Scene Writing also gives readers practical tools to immediately improve their scenes and scripts.
Writing amazing scenes won’t just make a screenplay a better work of art. Great scenes also make a script more attractive to producers, directors and actors — making a script more likely to sell.
An incredibly detailed exploration of screenwriting technique, The Craft of Scene Writing will help beginning writers to write great scripts and experienced writers to gain a more complete mastery of their craft.
Audience: Professional and aspiring screenwriters, playwrights, fiction writers and other creative storytellers.
About the Author: Jim Mercurio is a writer, author, screenwriter and filmmaker. He has directed or produced five feature films and has helped countless writers as a teacher, story analyst and script doctor. Creative Screenwriting magazine ranked him as one of the top screenplay consultants in the country.
$18.95 US • Trade Paperback • 6″ x 9″ • 400 pages • Index
ISBN 978-1-61035-330-4
Updating…