Whispering Angel Books
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Last Day of our February Sale

Today marks the last day of our February sale on all Whispering Angel Books.

If you are interested in taking advantage of these great deals, please place your order on the Whispering Angel Books website by midnight tonight (Pacific Time).  

To order, go to www.whisperingangelbooks.com.

Whispering Angel Books: February Sale

As the month of February comes to a close, so does our sale. 

These special prices can only be found on our website: www.whisperingangelbooks.com.

Hope Whispers -- only $11.99  (Regularly $14.95)

Angel's Dance -- only $9.99  (Regularly $11.95)

Please make sure you place your order by 11:59 PM (Pacific Time) Sunday night. Remember, we offer free shipping with the purchase of 3 or more books.

LA Times Festival of Books

Whispering Angel Books will be exhibiting our books at this year's LA Times Festival of Books.  

We'll be in the heart of the action!

Our booth, located in Zone A, will be surrounded by the culinary stage, food court, children's and young adult area, an author signing area and the west side festival entrance.  It doesn't get better than that.  We will be out front and center promoting our books and our contributors to the over 130,000 enthusiastic readers and writers who attend the weekend event.

If you are in the Los Angeles area, please join us at booth #122 on the grounds of UCLA on April 24th and 25th.


Carolyn T. Johnson Blogs on “Intervention” and “A Sincere Letter of Gratitude”

Recently, my editor of Hope Whispers anthology asked all her contributors to submit a blog entry about what inspired them to write such uplifting pieces, to tell the story behind the story. I was thrilled with the idea, one, because it was something new to try for a virgin blogger like me and two, because it would help promote future sales of the anthology as well as create interest in my writing.

I sat, fingers poised above the keys of my computer, thinking this would be a simple task, only to discover I’d come down with an acute case of stage fright. Not writer’s block but actual bashfulness about revealing more of myself. I wasn’t sure how much more about me I really wanted to share with readers, some perfect strangers, some friends.

My poem “Intervention” concerned subject matter very close to the bone, very personal. So close, I couldn’t dwell on it long enough to create a full-length essay. Instead, I boiled it down to its bare essence, hit raw, emotional, salient points and moved on. I couldn’t dwell among the endless adjectives and metaphors reflecting the dark turmoil in my psyche.

But then sometimes, a poem couldn’t do justice to a specific topic. Therefore, to get my point across in “A Sincere Letter of Gratitude,” I was obliged to delve into a lengthy essay touching on three or four significant points in my journey through grief. I revealed small bits of my abusive past life, not to evoke pity or shock in the reader, but simple to provide hope to those who have walked in my shoes, those who were afraid to take a leap of faith and start over, those who couldn’t see life changing for the better.

My hesitancy, my shyness about blogging or not, in this case, was because I would be forced to expand on intimate circumstances. Some people found it easy to share their private thoughts on social networks like Facebook or Twitter, from comments about the weather and what’s for dinner to requests for three flattering words to describe them. Some used it as a platform to further their personal views on sexuality, and politics, and some use it as a sales tool, or as a forum for posting happy hour pictures. I was shocked at what people would indiscriminately disclose to searching eyes. Reading their diatribes was like slowing down to gawk at a carwreck, searching for blood but secretly hoping I wouldn’t see any.

My innermost thoughts, the real me, were carefully hidden among my words. I had a manager once say to me, “Carolyn, it’s what you don’t say that is so important.” His insights were keen because it  was so true. Publishing the real me would be like turning the tiny key in the lock of my little red diary and laying it open for the world to peruse. Thoughts could be taken out of context, misunderstood, unfairly judged.

So I stared at my blank computer screen, my blog yet to be disgorged from its safe hiding place among my personal thoughts. I didn’t want to disappoint my editor so perhaps I’d just blog a few juicy yet innocuous tidbits and hit send.

Hope Whispers is available at whisperingangelbooks.com, Amazon.com and BN.com along with most most online booksellers.

LA Times Festival of Books

Whispering Angel Books is going to the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books!

The 2010 LA Times Festival of Books will take place April 24-25 on the grounds of University of California: Los Angeles (UCLA). This event attracts over 130,000 enthusiastic readers and writers making it the largest book festival in the United States. Booksellers, publishers, literary organizations, non-profits sell and promote products related to literary, the arts, education, music, culture and more.

We will be located in the center of the action selling copies of our current books, Hope Whispers and Angel's Dance and promoting our upcoming anthology, Living Lessons.  Hope Whispers contributors Judy Kirk and Brandon Barr are scheduled to appear.  We will also be distributing a newsletter highlighting our books and the books of some of our author/contributors.

If you are in the Los Angeles area, please visit us at the festival.

As additional information becomes available, we will be updating this blog and our website.

We're Having A Sale!

Whispering Angel Books is happy to announce that we are having a sale on our two current offerings, "Angel's Dance" and "Hope Whispers."  If you aren't familiar with either book, we've provided a brief synopsis below:

Hope Whispers is an inspirational anthology of short stories and poems illustrating the power of hope and faith in physical, emotional, and spiritual healing.  There are over 80 pieces written by some of the best writers in the country, including several Chicken Soup for the Soul contributors and Pushcart and Nobel Prize nominees.  Each piece demonstrates the resilient spirit of individuals coping with such devastating issues as chronic and life-threatening diseases, death, and the struggle to regain faith and pursue life-long dreams. Its inspirational and uplifting messages will touch your heart and fortify your desire to succeed over adversity.  The retail price for Hope Whispers is $14.95.  Sale price: $11.99

Angel’s Dance: A Collection of Uplifting & Inspirational Poetry, written by Lynn C. Johnston, contains over 45 poems on love, family, faith, friendship, encouragement, separation and more.  Each poem is prefaced with a brief introduction describing the events or philosophy that inspired each piece.  Angel’s Dance has been used by grief therapists to help their patients work through a devastating loss.  The retail price for Angel’s Dance is $11.95.  Sale price: $9.99

There is free shipping with the purchase of three or more books!  This offer is only available via our website.  So please stop by before the prices go back up.

                                                 

 

www.whisperingangelbooks.com

 

And keep your eye out for our next anthology, Living Lessons, due out later this year.  It will be an inspirational anthology dedicated to the people who taught us the positive life lessons that changed us for the better.  If you're interested in submitting, please go to our website for more information.  The deadline is May 31, 2010.  While the submission process continues, we are very excited about what we're seeing come in so far.  It promises to be as uplifting and inspirational as its predecessors!

Lynn C. Johnston shares her "Snapshot of Destiny"

Hope Whispers editor and contributor Lynn C. Johnston shares her “Snapshot of Destiny,” which was titled from the life-changing events of one Saturday morning. 

After stumbling into her kitchen, Lynn discovered something other than a cup of freshly-brewed coffee was about to jolt her awake.  Within moments, a loud, brash, and sassy cosmic voice, reminiscent of Tyler Perry’s “Madea,” spoke to her.  The message would wind up setting a new course in her life and reveal a new connection to her grandparents.

The voice, from deep inside, told her to write poetry – specifically uplifting and inspirational poetry.  Having been a writer from a young age, she understood the power of inspiration, but this was very different.  “I’d never experienced anything like it,” she said.  “I had felt moved to write before, but never to write poetry – and never by such a loud presence.”

“At the moment, I didn’t understand what had happened or why,” she explained.  “Later I learned through my grandmother that my deceased grandfather loved inspirational poetry.  It wound up changing my life and my relationship with both of them in a way I could never imagine.”

“I entitled my piece “Snapshot of Destiny” because that morning revealed my destiny to me and will always be seared in my memory like a photograph.”

Hope Whispers is available through Amazon.com, BN.com and www.whisperingangelbooks.com.

Sheryl L Nelms: Sunshine

Hope Whispers contributor Sheryl L. Nelms shares "Sunshine"


“twenty-two years old

black

and beautiful

 

face always smiling

 

sparkling

brown eyes say

he’s in there

with soul”

 

Thus begins her poem, "Sunshine."  After spending a week at the Iowa State School for the Mentally and Physically Handicapped in Red Oak, Iowa, Sheryl wrote this moving tribute to a young resident in the school.  “He was bed-bound and could move nothing except his eyes,” she said. “He could not talk.  The nurses who took care of him called him Sunshine.  He always had a smile on his face.” 

Sheryl is from Marysville, Kansas. She graduated from South Dakota State University with a B.S. in Family Relations and Child Development.

She has had over 4,500 poems, stories and articles published.  Some of the magazines, anthologies and textbooks that have used her work are: READERS DIGEST, MODERN MATURITY, KALEIDOSCOPE, CAPPER’S, GRIT, COUNTRY WOMAN, POETRY NOW, CONFRONTATION, Strings, This Delicious Day, TheAmerican Anthology and MenFreeing Men.

Fourteen collections of her poetry have been published. Some of them are:

Their Combs Turn Red InThe Spring, The Oketo Yahoos,Strawberries and Rhubarb, Rural America, Land of the Blue Paloverde,Friday Night Desperate, Aunt Emma Collected Teeth, Secrets ofthe Wind, Howling At the Gibbous Moon, Greatest Hits 1978-2003 and Bluebonnets, Boots and Buffalo Bones.

She has taught writing and poetry classes at conferences, colleges andschools in Texas, OklahomaArizona and South Dakota.  She recently taught workshops at Amarillo College, The University of Texas at Dallas, Abilene Christian University, Tarleton State University,the Society of Children’s Book Writers Conference in Arlington,Texas and at the Tarrant County College.  She was a Bread Loaf Contributor at the BreadLoaf Writer’s Conference, Middlebury, Vermont.

She was the Editor of OAKWOOD, the SDSU literary magazine.  She was a Contributing Editor to BYLINE, a national writers’ magazine and to STREETS, a national literary magazine.  She was the Editor of CRAWFORD’S CHRONICLES,an insurance trade publication.  She has been a Staff Writer for several newspapers and magazines.  She is currently the Fiction/Non-FictionEditor of THE PEN WOMAN MAGAZINE, the national magazine of the National League of American Pen Women.

She is a member of the National League of American Pen Women, The Society of Southwestern Authors and Trinity Writers Workshop.

She makes a living as an insurance agent. She is also a painter, a weaver and an old dirt biker.

Hope Whispers is available through Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble.com and www.whisperingangelbooks.com.

 

Marguerite Guzmán Bouvard finds “Renewal”

“After months of raw pain and no sleep

when each day rises above me

like a precipitous mountain,

suddenly my spirit returns.”

 

These uplifting words begin Marguerite Guzman Bouvard’s poem, Renewal, which appears in Hope Whispers.  Renewal reveals that living with chronic illnesses teaches a person to rejoice in the moments of feeling well,” she said. “In other words, it teaches us that true happiness is made of perspective; it comes from within and is related to suffering.”

Marguerite Guzmán Bouvard is the author of numerous articles on illness and spiritualityand six books of poetry.  Her latest poetry book, The Unpredictability of Light, was published in 2009 with blurbs by Nahomi Shihab Nye and Floyd Skloot.  She has also written 11 non-fiction books in the fields of human rights, grief, illness and women’s issues, including Mother inAll But Name: Grandmothers, Aunts, Sisters, Friends, Strangers, Nannies and Healing: A Life With Chronic Illness, whichwas published by University Press of New England. She is a Resident Scholar atthe Center for Research on Women, Brandeis University.

Hope Whispers is available through Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble.com and www.whisperingangelbooks.com.

Cherise Wyneken helps her husband come "Back From The Brink"

In Hope Whispers, Cherise Wyneken shares her inspiring and heart-wrenching story of her husband's near-death experience.  A simple procedure became a life and death struggle with no one expecting him to pull through.  Her short story was inspired by a poem she wrote about these events:

Something Holy

Two hour surgery, lasted six.
Two night stay – two months.
Complications snowballed
like dust mites without a ray of sun.
Multi-system organ failure.
No chance with surgery, but they’ll try.
Terror snatched me from my robin’s nest,
grabbed my throat with its beak,
and squeezed my breath away like water from a sponge.

Prayers flew up from many faiths
to the God they knew.
Doubt crept in behind and see-sawed in my echo chamber.
Next week – same scene.
No time to stop the gurney, grinding toward
OR, for me to give a good-bye kiss.
Tubes in his side for nourishment,
tubes in his throat for air,
tubes to his veins recycling blood.

We are together in this room – 
a walled-in box, filled with monitors 
and IV bags dripping blue solution.
We are together in this room, 
yet we are far apart.
I cannot see inside your head.
I cannot hear your thoughts.
Your voice is trapped within.
I am here beside you – alone.

May crept into June.
July brought plans for a nursing home
readied with a respirator – possibly for life.
Refusing to give up, Nurse Debby
disconnects the oxygen, watches as he breathes.
Three weeks later, unplugged, 
learning to use his legs,
able to swallow soup and applesauce,
I brought the car around for a man alive.

Cherise also authored a powerful novel of forgiveness entitled, "Freddie."  It can be purchased through www.PublishAmerica.com or www.Amazon.com by following this link.  http://tinyurl.com/yejobt7


To get the latest information of Cherise and her books, please go to:

Hope Whispers is available through Amazon.com. BN.com and www.whisperingangelbooks.com.

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