The Playdough Poem

Does special creation by an awesome God explain how people got here, or does evolution make more sense? Is God real, or is chance in charge? Many people talk about God but struggle to answer important questions such as: Who is God? Why should people trust him? Does God care? Now, The Playdough Poem illustrates how a handful of modeling clay can help everyone understand answers to these questions. Author Sandra Edwards’ unique approach makes learning and sharing fun.
The playdough didn’t get here by evolving from something else, and it won’t transform into anything in a million years all by itself. Readers will be amazed at how a simple object lesson can teach children and adults alike that nothing—including planets, plants, animals, and people—could make itself by accident, even if the process continued for a million years. God truly is the Creator of the universe!
This simple poem’s rhyming text refutes the Theory of Evolution quickly and easily. It’s easy to memorize and share, pointing out that the playdough can only be produced by careful measuring, mixing, and cooking of selected, prepared ingredients according to a specific recipe, so a Designer–God–must have been required to make living, functioning, reproducing creatures. Multicultural paintings and complete chapters for English, Spanish, and French illustrate that God has one message for all of humanity: He created the universe, and He is in charge. Bonus poems show how Creation is connected to the Christian gospel.

Sandra Edwards

God has gifted me with lots of artistic interests and talents, among them knitting, scrapbooking (both cut&paste and digital), sewing, quilting, and furniture painting; this is my first book illistration project. I enjoy teaching children in Sunday school, VBS, and Awana Club settings, and wrote a Creation vs Evolution workshop to give teachers resources to share God’s truth creatively. Feel free to share anything from this site: just credit www.theplaydoughpoem.com.
Once upon a time my husband & I had 5 children, ages 0, 2, 4, 6, & 8…now they’re 15, 17, 19, 21 & 23! I appreciate their support & enthusiasm over all these years, & look forward to mandatory family fun at speaking engagements and book-sending sessions for a long, long time.

Coach: A Story of Amateur Sports

Do you know that a healthy, athletic student life leads to a more productive and engaged adult life? The late Lowell Biddulph shared this belief in his lifetime.

 

His legacy was to impart to his students the importance of an active and physically rigorous young life to have a more fulfilling and accomplished professional life. In this book, author Howard Lowell Biddulph opens the book of life of the great sports coach Lowell Biddulph in the inspiring biography, COACH: A Story of Amateur Sports.

Find crucial answers as to the value of athletic participation in the lives of students that are beyond physical benefits. Discover how, through rigorous physical training, students can be better prepared for the demands and challenges of adult life and made more apt to apply themselves and attain higher levels of achievement. Learn from his doctoral dissertation how athletic participation benefits the student’s overall academic and social development and commitment. This book offers priceless insight into the personality and mind of a winning coach who rejected many of the methods of conventional coaches.

Howard Lowell Biddulph

Howard Lowell Biddulph attended Ricks College (1953-1955) and graduated with high honors in Political Science at Brigham Young University in 1959. He received a Masters Degree and Ph.D. from Indiana University in 1966, as well as a Certificate of the Russian and East European Institute at Indiana. He filled fulltime teaching appointments in Political Science at Rutgers University in New Jersey and University of Victoria in Canada, where he also served as Chairman of the Department of Political Science. He was also a visiting professor of politics at Brigham Young University in Provo, the Kyiv National Shevchenko University and several other universities in Ukraine, and the China Foreign Affairs University in Beijing. Howard Biddulph was the first President of the Ukraine Kyiv Mission of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1991 until 1994.

Bold Venture by James Exparza

About the Book:

Mark Williams must go through an agonizing and totally unexpected divorce. Quitting his job and moving back to his birth home in Buffalo Gap, South Dakota, he must resolve his divorce, and his infatuation with Alice, a beautiful Vice-principal of the local school. Alice’s background, which is part Native American Sioux, adds consternation to the story. Mary, his first wife, is portrayed as a selfish, carousing individual who loses all. The relationship between Mark and Alice adds romance, conflict, and comedy. Dennis, the youngest son, continually adds embarrassment to Mark, Alice, and himself. Mark eventually finds himself in an enviable position, which will enable him to develop his hybrid Bison-blend cattle.

4 Tips to Reconnect With That Novel You’re Writing

After months or even years of burying your head and heart into your evolving novel, you may suddenly feel the urge to delete every word you ever typed. You loathe every character and hate every word. First piece of advice: Don’t erase anything. You wouldn’t be a real writer without bouts of writer’s block and insecurity. Keep believing in your work and find inspiration with the following ideas:

Yoga

Seek out repose from the pages of your book by escaping to your mat and re-energizing your soul. Whether you join other yogis for a reinvigorating practice or roll out your mat in a the corner of your bedroom, stretch out writer’s block and engage in pranayama to inhale new ideas. Moving the body and practicing mindfulness can offer opportunities for mental clarity, spiritual awakening and activation for unlocking new passions. Let go of any dead-end frustrations in Warrior 1 pose, and embrace deep introspection by bringing hands together at your heart chakra.

Coffee Date

Wake up early one day—before the sun rises—and head to your favorite local coffee shop with nothing but an open mind and some money to pay for a frothy latte, a pen, a blank notebook. It’s a coffee date for just you and your head space. Cozy up in a corner chair or table outside without any distractions, and just be. A coffee shop is an environment full of electrifying scents and sounds that can arouse your creativity. Soak in the energies surrounding you, from two chatty friends catching up to steamed milk pouring into a mug. You just may provoke the theme for your next incredible chapter.

Hair

Get a new look for a new you and new perspectives. Chopping bangs à la Zooey Deschanel or dyeing your locks from mocha brunette to honey blonde is a risky and exciting change. Allow the excitement to engulf your essence and perhaps inspire a thrilling alteration to your plotline or new character development. As women, our hair is a big deal—and for the girly and creative writer-type, bangs and dyed tresses can have profound inspirational effects. Even a messy braid or hair chalk can help unleash hidden creativity.

Book Betrayal

Escalate your brain functioning by going on a writing hiatus and picking up a good book to read. Reading a gripping new book can heighten brain connectivity and neurological changes, according to research from Emory University. Measurable changes occurred in the left temporal cortex, which is the part of the brain associated with language receptivity and sensory motor. Neurons in this area of the brain trick the mind into believing it’s doing something it’s not. Biologically, reading a book can cause you to “become” the protagonist and experience heightened connectivity for days after.
Reread Wilson Rawl’s “Where The Red Fern Grows” or pick up “A Girl of the Limberlost” by Gene Stratton-Porter. If you can’t commit to an entire novel, read short stories from “The Portable Dorothy Parker” or excerpts of Rumi’s poetic works. Order in Thai food and stock up on a couple bottles of pino. Pull down the shades, light a candle and indulge in a great story.
You’ll be writing again in no time.

Publishing and marketing a book has become an easy job

The writers who are interested in telling their stories to their readers have a good opportunity in front of them now. Even the businessmen who needs to share some information, some valuable tips and ideas for the business lovers can do it easily by writing a book of his own, followed by publishing it himself as self publishing is an ideal choice. The self publishing process is not too complicated, but simple. You can publish your book in a digital front, called the eBook. The making of eBook becomes easy due to the process of ebook formatting and covers design. The fixing of the price of the eBook can be much flexible for you, as you can price it with a lesser amount than a paperback. This in turn makes the selling of your eBook being easy. There is always a chance that you may encounter with your friends and family members, who are already a part of the ‘eBook brigade’. It is obvious that there will be lot of competition in the ‘virtual book selling space’.
The self-publishing process is of the following steps:

1. An appropriate size of the book has to be decided.
2. You need to write the contents of the book
3. You need to format the ‘source word manuscript’.
4. You need to create a suitable cover for your book in the ‘Photoshop’.
5. You need to get a conversion of the original book document into a PDF file.
6. The last step must be uploading your book to the self-publisher of your own choice

When you want to market your self-published book, you will encounter with several options for it. The mostly ignored marketing methods are the process of ‘direct mail marketing’. But, this is the process that requires lower cost but at the same time can reach your sales prospects within a short range of time. Unfortunately, many self publishers have forgotten about this book marketing strategy or otherwise don’t believe or think that it’s worth for a ‘tech-savvy self publisher’. Once the online and social media had also been used as one of the marketing strategies, but have now been also replaced by many. Thus, you can realize by all these facts that the direct mail marketing is the most successful and complete marketing plan.
You do not need to move out your ‘comfort zone’ for marketing your book. You do not even need thousands of press releases and any ‘high tech solution’. You just need to relate to the real world. You just need to do whatever you do with your friends, family, colleagues or any new individual you encounter with. Just keep all those questions in mind that they ask you, and what you answer in return, because your audience will be interested to know about your personal feelings while writing and this way you may get great topics for the blog for marketing your book. It is known to all of us that the readers, as well the audience, love to peep inside the heart and mind of the author writing the book.

How to Use Social Media to Flesh out Your Characters

You’ve come up with the base for a great story. Your fingertips are dying to get started and have been anticipating the daily work that will be your creative outlet for the next several months. To prepare yourself for sorting out the details, you’ve decided to do a little homework on your characters. To discover their personalities, intricacies and idiolects, you’re ready to delve into whatever means you can.



As social media is one of the greatest ways to discern the likes and interests of people, tapping into the numerous online outlets out there can help you in your homework. Here are a few ideas to help you use social media to flesh out your characters:

Reddit

Take advantage of the subreddit for fictional characters. Here you can post about any of the characters you are having difficulty creating. The characters have to be of your own making and not any that you’ve simply read about. You’ll be able to post a brief history, and then others can comment and ask questions to your character directly.

If you use this social media avenue, it’s very important to keep track of it faithfully. With people asking your character questions, your character – you, at this time – will have to respond quickly to create any sort of back and forth communication.

Pinterest

This is another great way to hash out your story’s leading people. Create boards for each of your characters by asking yourself how he/she would live out his/her life. What kind of food would they eat? How would they decorate their home? If they compiled a board of inspirational quotes, what would they say and why?
You could also try making a writing inspiration board where you can pin anything that will be of use and inspire you in your writing.

Facebook

Using Facebook as a means to create and expand your characters can be extremely insightful. However, there is one small snag in this idea: it’s against Facebook’s terms of use.

Don’t let that stray you from this idea. Instead, consider how your character would fill out their profile, without actually doing it. Would they care to mention their hometown, or have they moved too many times to think of one place as relevant? Would they set up a lot of security restrictions to keep their photos, posts, or videos private? Would they have a picture of their family on their cover photo or a Mustang grille? If you were to look at their Facebook feed, what sort of things would you see and who would they be from? This method can really help you develop your characters in ways you wouldn’t normally think of.

Twitter

If your characters are modern, imagine whether or not they’d be the type to send out tweets on their own Twitter account. Decide if your character is the type to do the mobile device and app thing, and go from there. If you feel they are, decide if they’re addicted to it in their usage. What sorts of things would your character be likely to tweet about? How would they respond to current trends or interact with others on Twitter? Who would they follow most religiously? Who would they follow but pretend they don’t?
By trying your pen on a few of these social media outlets, you’ll be sure to create characters that are full of depth and easy for readers to understand. In so doing, you’ll be creating the world you so anxiously are penning into being.

Adrienne Erin is a freelance writer and designer obsessed with social media. She loves finding ways to combine her passions and stretch her creative muscles!

BEA Bookexpo America