pre-March update: What We are Loving

Life at Parisian Phoenix Publishing has been busy– with Darrell Parry’s new edition of Twists: Gathered Ephemera coming out, The Phulasso Devotional nearing its official launch, work underway on Larry Sceurman’s sophomore release, fiction anthology Coffee in the Morning, and new authors pitching their works and return clients asking for editorial support. That’s all great, because late winter brings tax season, professional organization renewals and new titles which require printing costs.

It’s certainly a balancing act.

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Late Winter News

We’re aiming to have our March newsletter out around the tenth, so for those of you looking for updates on releases and events, you can find that now on Substack. We’ll be using Substack in conjunction with this blog for those readers and writer who would like access to our resources, updates and anecdotal wisdom, can subscribe there.

Updates and Events:

• The Phulasso Devotional is on track for a March 17 release.
• Darrell Parry’s expanded second edition of Twists: Gathered Ephemera is available now.
• Darrell will be hosting the Jean Corrie Poetry Reading and Ice Cream Social at Lafayette College at 4 p.m. March 30 in the college’s Farinon Center, Marlo Room.
• We have ordered postcards featuring the art of Maryann Riker as it appears on the covers of Twists and The Phulasso Devotional. We will be selling these at events or as add-ons with mail order book purchases for $1 each. We will also have a cartoon postcard by Larry Sceurman, images will be released soon.
• Angel Ackerman, Gayle Hendricks, and Nancy Scott will deliver a private presentation for the Apex Writers Group March 20. They were invited to speak to the group by Tammy Burke, whose work appeared in Not an Able Bodied White Man with Money.
• Larry Sceurman, author of The Death of Big Butch, and Joan Zachary, our staff photographer, will be attending the Greater Lehigh Valley Writers Group conference, The Write Stuff, March 23-25. Larry will be attending as a writer, and Joan will be on hand to take author headshots. Larry plans on using her services, so expect a new headshot on his upcoming anthology of fiction, Coffee in the Morning.

• Angel Ackerman is volunteering with the marketing committee of the Lehigh Valley Book Festival which will occur March 24-26 at the Bethlehem Area Public Library. Look for her in an upcoming TikTok from the book festival.
• Independent Book Store Day is April 29, which corresponds with the Arts Community of Easton Arts Tour. This implies that downtown Easton, Pa., will be the Lehigh Valley’s most creative place to be that weekend. We also anticipate that Book & Puppet Co., our Easton-based indie, will have something going on that day. (If not, maybe they’ll reach out to us, we have ideas.)
• Speaking of Book and Puppet, they are the vendor for the Greater Lehigh Valley Writers Group Write Stuff conference book fair. They will be on hand selling books related to the conference and by GLVWG members, which includes several Parisian Phoenix titles.

Attending GLVWG yesterday

Yesterday, Angel Ackerman, Darrell Parry and Larry Sceurman attended the Greater Lehigh Valley Writers Group monthly meeting to hear Judy England-McCarthy Speak on “The Art of Communicating.” Judy, like Larry, has been a storyteller in the Lehigh Valley Storytelling Guild and spoke about clear communication, perspective and left brain vs. right brain.

One of her exercises included a crossword puzzle, some of the audience given one with complex clues while the remaining people had simple clues for the same answers. Our contingent all received the harder puzzle, where cat was referred to as “feline mammal” versus the easy clue, which was “animal that says meow.”

In a perspective test, attendees had to decide whether this was an old woman or a young woman, and Angel Ackerman saw the young woman first and then the old woman. In the line drawing of this test, the scarf warn by both women (in Angel’s view) could be seen as a giant lizard eating the woman– so what does that say about perspective?

And this program also reminded Angel how stress-inducing she finds crossword puzzles.

What We Are Loving

• Barbara Sceurman’s raisin bread. One of the benefits of being a small craft publisher that works closely with their authors is when the author’s wife serves you fresh baked bread on a cold day while you are working on edits. Are you jealous, Simon & Schuster or Penguin Random House?
• Jody J. Sperling’s first novel, The Nine Lives of Marva DeLonghi, which carves a complex narrative with characters that slowly gain depth. It’s hard to describe the first person noir style mystery novel without spoilers, but it was a read that still haunts.
• Apple TV’s Ted Lasso. Angel Ackerman recently sprung the $7 to renew Apple TV for a month upon hearing that Anthony Stewart Head has a guest starring role as the philandering ex-husband Rupert. Anthony Stewart Head played another, more prominent Rupert, Rupert Giles on the nineties classic, Buffy The Vampire Slayer. The characters in the show have delivered a few surprises throughout the first season.
• Almond Butter KIND breakfast bars. They have eight grams of protein versus the five in the honey oat or peanut butter flavors. They also have a weird creamy texture that is less cookie and more dessert.