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Monday, March 28, 2005



Stories remind us of who we are and from where we came. They mark the trajectories of our lives; they show us our loves; our hopes; our obsessions; our fears. Most of all, our fears. Children understand fear better than adults, perhaps because the fears of childhood are darker and more primitive. Fear of being abandoned, like Hansel and Gretel. Fear of loss. And fear of the beast - be it wolf, dragon, ogre - which is, of course, the fear of adulthood and, lurking inevitably behind, the fear of death... A significant, secret part of us still wants to believe in magic that can change lives; love that can save us; heroes and heroines who can overthrow the ogres of our fear.

The debate about The Da Vinci Code has generated a great deal of interest in the life of Christ and the origins of Christianity. The two men who changed the course of history are the focus of this documentary Jesus and Paul: the word and the witness

Art of Living & Literature Across Frontiers: Seeking Sister, Self, and the Spirit
I didn't expect it to become a book

It is not uncommon for someone to respond to the death of a loved one by attempting to understand that person's life better, or trying to find "God," or trying to find out more about one's self. In Julie Mars' A Month of Sundays: Searching for the Spirit and My Sister (Greycore Press, due out in mid-April), the author manages to do all three when, following the death of her beloved older sister from cancer, she embarks on a pilgrimage of going to Church every Sunday for 31 weeks.


In terms of writing, if not life, this was virgin territory for me. But the biggest challenge (and scariest problem) for me was cutting and editing. Cutting this text felt different than editing fiction -- more bloody and far more painful, but, in the end, I had to pick up my pen and go at it. After a while, I realized I was equating editing with lying, with making the story prettier or more hopeful than it really was, disrespecting the project I had assigned myself.
Pilgrimage of spiritual equilibrium [Unwanted Memories of Aga's grave Ageless Aga ; It's not about drugs, definitely. The drugs are there but the story is about Maria and to show the people that this story can happen to anybody. It's so close to you that you don't even know Maria Full of Grace ]
• · A powerful, unflinching story that opens a window on an unknown aspect of a little-known war - the experiences of Chinese POWs held by Americans during the Korean conflict 'War Trash' Wins PEN/Faulkner Prize ; Nearly half of teachers have suffered from mental illness Stressful job
• · · Debutante balls are thrown by doting fathers who want to shore up their class-standing Rites of Passage; To be able to do something positive is a great motivator Risking Social Siberia.
• · · · We travel most ... when we stumble and we stumble most when we come to a place of poverty and need (like Haiti, perhaps, or Cambodia); and what we find in such confounding places, often, is that it is the sadness that makes the sunshine more involving or, as often, that it is the spirit and optimism of the place that makes the difficulties more haunting Sun After Dark: Flights into the Foreign ; Let him who is without sin cast the first stone A time to return to the true path
• · · · · Poverty can be hard to tackle if you can't define it Why poverty persists - even in the boom times ; Book Fairs: Show Off Promotion leading everyone into temptations
• · · · · · Dan Brown's once-humble life has been turned into a paperback circus Decoding Dan ; 19 Entertainment owns the format rights to Pop Idol, here known as American Idol, and pulls in an estimated $1 billion annually in merchandising, ad sales, sponsorships, etc." along with a simple personal message,"WOW! What's a hit worth?