Story Salon is celebrated for its unique blend of storytelling and community engagement. It features a diverse range of narratives that highlight personal experiences and cultural insights, showcasing the power of words to connect individuals. The collection emphasizes the importance of sharing stories in a supportive environment, inviting readers to explore various perspectives and emotions. Through its captivating tales, it fosters a deeper understanding of the human experience and the art of storytelling itself.
“I was a writer before I knew what a writer was.” -Joseph Dougherty Joseph Dougherty has been a successful playwright and television writer, producer, and director for more than thirty years. He’s written for breakthrough series that have changed the way we look at television drama, from thirtysomething to Pretty Little Liars, winning everything from Emmys to Teen Choice Awards along the way. In A Screenwriter’s Companion, Dougherty offers insights and advice both practical and nonpractical to writers and would-be writers. Dougherty’s voice comes off the page with anecdotes about the writing process, hard-learned tips for survival in “the business,” and reflections on the influences that head led him to a successful career. Honestly, entertainingly, without cynicism, he gives readers permission to embrace the writer they want to be, so they can experience the rewards and satisfactions of writing. Beyond an insider’s take on story and structure, dialogue, action and outlining, A Screenwriter’s Companion is as much mentor as it is manual. With every insider observation about how to keep a potential producer reading till the last page of a script, there’s encouragement to explore your thoughts and memories, things a writer needs to embrace in order to become more than “a pro.” In short, to see writing not as merely a career, but as a way to greater self-understanding.
"No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own . . . " And so H. G. Wells opened his thrilling The War of the Worlds in 1897. Since then millions of readers have shivered and shrieked at his depiction of a Martian invasion of Earth. The tale has become part of our cultural memory, but Wells didn't tell the whole story. He never gave us the Martian side of the conflict. Now, Joseph Dougherty, the Emmy-winning writer, reports on the invasion of Earth from an up-close-and-personal Martian point of view. Dougherty views Wells's epic battles from an all new, painfully modern perspective. Our narrator is Vvv, a reluctant conscript on board The First Cylinder to reach Earth in the invasion. Vvv is the Martian incarnation of all reluctant warriors, from Yossarian in Catch-22 to Billy Pilgrim in Slaughterhouse-Five. War is hell . . . for aliens and humans alike. Sardonic and heartrending, tragic and comic, The First Cylinder is a breakout science fiction novel in the tradition of Kurt Vonnegut, Ray Bradbury.
This book investigates one of the most successful liturgical reforms in
Catholic history. Only a century ago, faithful, practicing Catholics received
Holy Communion only once a year; now, among American English-speaking
Catholics, Holy Communion is a routine, weekly devotional practice. This book
explains how and why this ritual sea-change happened.
I did come to Daytona Beach, Florida, in 1947. My mother woke my brother and me one night and said, "We are running far away from your father." He was very abusive and would beat her black and blue many times. Mom was afraid that he would kill her one day when he would come home drunk. She saved us all. To all you boys, please remember that a good man will never strike a woman or hurt her in any way! Many of these experiences are taken from my early years in Daytona and Ormond Beach. Harold is my lifelong friend. Susan is my cousin. She never had any of these experiences. I just think she is a great girl, and I wanted to include her as a main character to share in this story. Please, I do not recommend that any of my young readers try to catch snakes or alligators. These are wild things. To my older readers, what are you thinking? They are extremely dangerous and can and will kill you. Do not do it! Growing up in Florida was great. We had no air-conditioning and no TV. We had just a radio, and the mystery stories came on at night. That was our only entertainment. The movies cost nine cents, popcorn was ten cents, and sodas were five cents; and you could earn extra money by collecting cola bottles for the two-cent deposit. We only wore shoes when we went to church and school.
