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So far SPR has created 585 blog entries.

Review: Can’t Forget the Motor City… by Joseph Nicks

Can't Forget the Motor City by Joseph Nicks

The tradition of travel writing in America is a long and proud one, but travel poetry doesn’t have the same mainstream following. However, in Can’t Forget the Motor City…, a new collection of poems from Joseph Nicks, the genre gains a strong voice that anyone who has longed for the open road will appreciate.

These poems span four decades of a life spent wandering and wondering, always looking for something new and invigorating. From musings on repetitive youth in the Great Lakes to the sluggish, sunny pace of California, these poems exude a hunger for elsewhere, with the poet […]

2020-08-24T09:10:53+02:00May 20th, 2019|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: , |

An Interview with Ottavio Lepore: Author of The Fractured Mind

Ottavio LeporeBorn in Mola di Bari, Italy, Ottavio moved to America with his family in 1996 and now resides in New York. Ottavio has had a passion for writing from a young age which he developed from his love of reading books. Ottavio published his first novel The Fractured Mind in 2019.

Why did you want to write a book?

I began writing as a child, I fell in love with the construction of stories and different worlds which could be anything I wanted. Once I had my plot in mind i wrote and passed it to some friends who gave […]

2019-05-17T09:41:16+02:00May 17th, 2019|Categories: Interviews|

An Interview with Eyad H. Yehyawi: Author of Crimson Arrows

Eyad H. YehyawiEyad H. Yehyawi has been bowhunting for nearly thirty years, traveling across the United States, Canada, and Africa. A naturalist long before he was a bowhunter, Eyad’s passion for the outdoors dates as far back as he can remember. While majoring in biology at Quincy University, he worked in conservation and wildlife management before deciding to pursue interests in health care. Many of these stories and photos have appeared in magazines including Bow & Arrow Hunting, Bowhunter, Bowhunt America, and Outdoor Life. Eyad currently lives in Iowa with his wife and children, where he practices optometry.[…]

2019-05-13T13:59:45+02:00May 13th, 2019|Categories: Interviews|

Review: Snapshots: Say Cheese! The World is Watching by Cara Cilento

Say Cheese! The World is Watching by Cara Cilento

Poems and short prose pieces are mated with vibrant photos in the emotive collection Snapshots: Say Cheese! The World is Watching by debut writer Cara Cilento.

The two dominant themes are Cilento’s acceptance of herself as a lesbian, and her decision to adopt two boys, a bold move, especially as both children are African American. Cilento is of Italian descent, this made clear as she describes messages (“The Facts”) from her upbringing:

…I was made from two parents

who went to school to get out of the ghetto

who tried to forget their last name had too many vowels in

[…]
2019-05-03T13:09:47+02:00May 2nd, 2019|Categories: Book Reviews, Lead Story|Tags: , |

Review: Colored Armpits: Poems for Social Justice by James Kityo Ssemmanda

Colored Armpits: Poems for Social Justice by James Kityo Ssemmanda

Ugandan born poet Ssemanda casts light on critical issues that we all need to explore in the collection of personal, political, and perceptive works, Colored Armpits: Poems for Social Justice.

Ssemanda’s book of verse is divided in three sections – “The Mzungu,” “The Armpits,” and “The African African.” Each touches on different aspects of the human condition, and particularly, the condition of African and other third world people in connection or confrontation with first world denizens and value systems.

Mzungu is the African language term used in Uganda and elsewhere to designate white people – whether they be colonialists, […]

2019-06-03T08:46:18+02:00May 1st, 2019|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: |

Twitter’s New Design Isn’t Going to Be Great for Book Marketing

If you’re in the Twitter bookspace at all, you know that authors like to post their book covers. A lot. Twitter is going to have an upgrade and it’s changing the way images are displayed. Instead of variable sizes of images, there is going to be one main size – which isn’t conducive to book covers.

Here’s an example from author Neal Asher’s Twitter account:

Twitter Book Cover

And here’s what it looks like in new Twitter. It’s taking a small image and blowing it up horizontally, which means old posts are not going to be rendered very well:

New Twitter

Currently, not everyone […]

2020-02-21T07:44:32+02:00April 18th, 2019|Categories: News|Tags: |

An Interview with Maxx Powr: Author of The Promise

Maxx PowrMaxx Powr is a husband and father. He loves dogs. His dream situation would be a huge rescue farm taking in strays.

Tell us about your book.

The Promise is a fun sci-fi space opera romp. It has action, humor, adventure, romance and a little sex, but not erotica. The main characters have been DNA enhanced and possess special abilities, useful in fighting the invading alien Klix. They are well trained, but untested. They are brothers, sharing the same DNA and history, trained at the Piecer Academy. A trusting humanity has become complacent, believing in a false truce. When the […]

2019-04-18T10:00:34+02:00April 18th, 2019|Categories: Interviews|

Self-Publishing: What Not to Do

There is some degree of impatience that goes along with self-publishing. Why wait around for a publisher when you can have a book now? That’s one of the bigger fallacies of the industry, because if you choose to do everything yourself it can (and should) be more work. Writers are still driven to cut corners because it can be so difficult to handle every side of the business. So long as you understand there’s difficulty every step of the way, you will hopefully give each step in the process the attention it deserves.

Here’s a primer on the common […]

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