Have a Magical Day

These are not feel-good, happily-ever-after stories like Disney movies, nor are they dark or violent. Each story is from a different perspective (tour guide, PR staffer, detective, fantasy author, housewife, state patrolman, and businessman among others) and gives insight into life in 2024 at a huge theme park and large entertainment corporation. It is not adoring of Disney, or scornful, but the stories include a variety of characters you might meet if you spent a little free time in the park, and they offer a variety of perspectives about the role of fantasy and of Disney in modern American culture. Stories included are Have a Magical Day, Space Mountain Getaway, Stealing his Heart, Slapping a Mickey, Afternoon Snake, Detective's Tale, Garbage Duty, Downpour, Attic Bride, Just Ashes, Cocktail Party, Small World Problems, If the Shoe Fits, and It is what it is. All were written in 2023 or 2024. It is the author's eleventh volume of short stories.

$4.79 + shipping, Amazon paperback
$1.99 on kindle
free on kindle unlimited
acx audible coming

Prairie Leveretts

A plains pioneer biography

True story of one of a homesteader who fought in the Civil War, and survived both. His brother had died of cholera which he got on a steamboat; this book tells his story and that of his family. Like me, he bounced around the plains, going where he could best educate his children.

https://www.amazon.com//dp/B0DCV2DND1

On kindle, kindleunlimited, and paperback

Harvardinates

Now on ACX, narrated by Anne Charlotte:

:

(Har-VAR-di-NAH-tays) The Life and Times of John Leverett, first secular President of Harvard
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D893GHM9

Story of My Life

Now on ACX, narrated by Bill Andersen
https://www.amazon.com/Story-Life-Autobiography-Treasurer-Hillsdale/dp/B0CWPQ579X

The Story of My Life: Autobiography of the Treasurer of Hillsdale College, 1862-1877
by Lorenzo Reynolds

I found this manuscript among my genealogical papers. In short, Lorenzo was a crotchety pioneer ancestor of mine who got injured before the Civil War, became adept at handwriting and the writing arts, wrote a guide to Hillsdale Michigan among other things, and felt he'd been badly wronged by the leadership of Hillsdale College when he was ousted from the Treasurer's role in the late 1800's. It turns out that if your family has been here since before the Civil War then the story of its survival is the story of how it survived that war as so few actually did. But in his case being badly injured was enough to excuse him from service and at the same time made him driven to accomplish something with his life that he was uniquely suited to.

The College had a huge fire, and later his own building in downtown Hillsdale had a fire, and all this was recorded in this beautiful handwriting on old crinkly paper in my attic. Now I feel a little guilty, having it on Amazon, but I felt his story needed to be told. Now I can use this handwriting in the marketing, I guess; it would be a shame if nobody saw it.

Devour that Spaghetti

Now available on audiobook
https://www.amazon.com/Devour-That-Spaghetti-Other-Stories/dp/B0CPFXLZGX
Narrated by Bill Andersen

Harvardinates

Harvardinates (Har-VAR-di-NAH-tays): The Life and Times of John Leverett, first secular President of Harvard 1708-1724

Paperback (Amazon) $7.10 + postage
On Kindle $2.99
Free on Kindle Unlimited
Hardback $14.70 (coming)
On ACX (coming)

This book is a biography of John Leverett (1662-1724), first secular President of Harvard, who kept Harvard from becoming a Puritan Divinity School when that was what Cotton Mather and orthodox Puritans wanted. It was a very divided time in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and Mather had seen his unquestioned support fade after the witch trials of 1692. The story gives an overview of his illustrious grandfather, Governor of the Colony, a father who had trouble making a living, and deaths in the family, one after another, as was usual in a time of smallpox and other diseases, hard winters, inadequate water, and various other problems. Leverett designed Massachusetts Hall, which survives today as Harvard's oldest building, and holds its President.

September Tuesday

A hundred haiku from that one horrific day

$4.70 + shipping on Amazon
$1.99 on Kindle
Free on Kindle Unlimited