In order to achieve the American Dream, Chris must either choose being ethical and getting fired or crossing to the other side and keeping his job. Tired of living paycheck to paycheck he decides to play the corporate game. This decision will not only affect his professional life but his personal life as well.Silicon Valley is home to several Technology and PharmaceuticalBiotech corporations. Chris moved to Silicon Valley in 2000. He has been fortunate to have worked for various prestigious corporations. He has been handling data for these companies for well over ten years. His work ethic and morals have kept him employed. During his tenure at a Fortune 100 company, he is offered a position at a small Biotech. It is not too long after taking this new position that he is promoted to Management. The IT Director who Chris reports to gives him the choice of playing the corporate game or getting fired. Chris must either choose being ethical and getting fired or crossing to the other side and keeping his job. Honesty and integrity have hampered him from achieving the American dream. Though employed, Chris does not have a house, nice cars or a family. He realizes that he is part of the ninety-nine percentile. Tired of living paycheck to paycheck he decides to play the corporate game. This decision will not only affect his professional life but his personal life as well.

Jaclyn has always known her family was unusual. Her mother is a witch and her father, well, he's been dead for almost 600 years. On her 23rd Halloween, family secrets will be revealed that change everything.Jaclyn has always known her family was unusual. Her mother is a witch and her father, well, he's been dead for almost 600 years. On her 23rd Halloween, family secrets will be revealed that change everything.(1st in the Season of the Witch series)

This is the mostly true account of Victor surviving an afternoon/night fishing trip in a creek. It’s an action-packed thriller filled with adrenaline pumping events that will entertain and scare you. His artful rendition of escaping several near-death fabricated “boogers” are sure to delight those looking for heart-throbbing suspense and unbelievable mysteries.Going fishing isn’t supposed to turn out this way. Occasionally stopping to fish, Victor makes his way to the mouth of the creek where it meets the Lake. Making warm memories along the way, he is mesmerized with the fishing possibilities. Not noticing the sun was setting until it was, basically, too late, the adventure starts on his way back to the truck. Only the reflections on the water and the hum of the electric motor kept him from going insane between bouts of riveting horror as his mind runs amuck with terror-induced events. The consecutive frightening experiences demonstrate the fear one can conjure up in an overloaded and panicked human mind.

This richly colored memoir chronicles the exploits of a flamboyant Jewish family, from its bold arrival in cosmopolitan Alexandria to its defeated exodus three generations later. In elegant and witty prose, André Aciman introduces us to the marvelous eccentrics who shaped his life--Uncle Vili, the strutting daredevil, soldier, salesman, and spy; the two grandmothers, the Princess and the Saint, who gossip in six languages; Aunt Flora, the German refugee who warns that Jews lose everything "at least twice in their lives." And through it all, we come to know a boy who, even as he longs for a wider world, does not want to be led, forever, out of Egypt.

This is an epic poem and was written in 1975, hidden away for 37 years. At that time there was no avenue for anything that referred to same sex love.THIS IS NOT EROTICA.It was written in a loose iambic pentameter, octave rhyme, as a form of cloaking the subject matter. It was written as a catharsis and for an English class -- the Professor rejected it. Because of the subject matter.It is a story poem of disaster on a Navy ship, and the display of spiritual love of one man for another. It is being told by myself. It is what I saw.

THERE were a many singers on the hill-top. They twittered in the gorse; they whistled from the old hawthorn tree, amid the white may; they sprang to heaven, shaking off melody in their flight; and one, russet-clad, lay at his length against the green slope, murmuring English in his throat.

Henry Danvers, like most people, doesn't want to die. In fact, he'll do anything to keep on living. Unfortunately, according to the book of Fates, his number is up. Can he outwit Death, herself? What is a picture of Calu's old flame doing in his closet drawer? And, what does Jaclyn's Uncle have to do with all of this? (Fifth part of the series)A few months ago, Henry Danvers, an accomplished food critic, published a scathing article dismissing Midwestern America as a "cultural wasteland". Restaurant owner, Raymond Mooreland took umbrage to this and called Danvers' bluff. Unfortunately for Henry this trip to Ohio has been set in the Book of Fates for some time. Or has it?Henry Danvers, like most people, doesn't want to die. In fact, he'll do anything to keep on living. Unfortunately, according to the book of Fates, his number is up. Can he outwit Death, herself? What is a picture of Calu's old flame doing in his closet drawer? And, what does Jaclyn's Uncle have to do with all of this?

CHAPTER I.STOLEN SWEETS.“Bouncers, Teddy! the roundest and the rosiest. Drop them, quick! My apron’s all ready for the darlings.”“It’s very well to say drop them; but it’s just as much as I can do to keep from falling myself. Don’t you see I’m holding on with both hands?”“What a fuss you do make! Come down, and let me try. I never saw a tree yet big enough to scare me.”“Who’s scart, Becky Sleeper? I ain’t—not by a long chalk. When a feller’s holdin’ on with both hands, he can’t be expected to pick very quick—can he?”“Wind your arm round that branch over your head. There; now you’re all right, Teddy.”“That’s so. What a hand you are to contrive! Now look sharp—they’re coming!”Becky Sleeper, in imitation of famed “Humpty Dumpty,” sat upon a wall, where she had no business to be, for the wall was the boundary of Captain Thompson’s orchard. But there she sat, her feet dangling, her hair flying, and her hands holding her apron by its corners, intent on catching the apples which her brother was plucking from the tree above her head.An active, wide-awake little body was the girl who was acting as accessory to the crime—a very common one—of robbing an orchard. Every movement of her sprightly figure belied the family name. Perched upon the wall, that cool October morning, she might have sat as a model for the Spirit of Mischief. A plump, round, rosy face, with a color in the cheeks that rivaled in brightness the coveted fruit above her, blue eyes full of laughter, a pretty mouth, with dissolving views of flashing teeth, teasing smiles, and a tongue never at rest; a queer little pug nose, that had a habit of twitching a mirthful accompaniment to the merriment of eyes and mouth, a profusion of light hair, tossed to and fro by the quick motions of the head,—all these combined to make a head-piece which would have delighted an artist, brightened as it was by a few straggling rays of sunshine, that darted through convenient openings in the mass of foliage above her head.Miss Becky’s costume, however, did not furnish a fitting finish to her face and figure, but, on the contrary, seemed much the worse for wear. A high-neck, blue-check apron showed unmistakable signs of familiarity with grape and berry juices; the rusty brown dress which peeped out beneath it was plentifully “sown with tares,” and had a rough fringe at the bottom never placed there by the dress-maker; a pair of stockings, once white, had the appearance of having recently been dyed in a mud-puddle, and a pair of stringless boots, which completed her attire, were only prevented from dropping off by an elevation of the toes.With her diminutive figure, her mischievous face, and her eager interest in the apple raid, she might have been taken for a thoughtless, giddy child. No stranger would have dreamed she was a maiden with an undoubted right to affix to her name, age sixteen.

The third story in a series by David Brining exploring life in post-Communist Russia, Sergey Priapin is beginning to hate his wife. Caught in the middle, his sons dream of a future in the USA, far away from the chaos and stress.The Priapin's marriage is beginning to crack. Sergey, a wealthy media mogul and possible Parliamentary candidate, and Tanya, a high-flying lawyer, barely talk, and when they do, it's to exchange barbed comments about each other's pasts. Caught in the middle, their sons Misha and Sasha, dream of a life in the USA, far away from the chaos and stress of Yeltsin's Russia, but Sergey's ambitions and Tanya's career threaten the stability of the family itself. Third short story in a series by David Brining exploring life in post-Communist Russia.

The New York Times–bestselling author of Find Me and Call Me by Your Name returns to the essay form with his collection of thoughts on time, the creative mind, and great lives and worksIrrealis moods are the set of verbal moods that indicate that something is not actually the case or a certain situation or action is not known to have happened . . .André Aciman returns to the essay form in Homo Irrealis to explore what the present tense means to artists who cannot grasp the here and now. Irrealis is not about the present, or the past, or the future, but about what might have been but never was—but could in theory still happen.From meditations on subway poetry and the temporal resonances of an empty Italian street, to considerations of the lives and work of Sigmund Freud, Constantine Cavafy, W. G. Sebald, John Sloan, Éric Rohmer, Marcel Proust, and Fernando Pessoa, and portraits of cities such as Alexandria and St....

The Screenwryter's Toolbox offers master level techniques in the art of screenwriting, teaching the reader how to write compelling dialogue, craft compelling action description, generate compelling characters, and compel in general.The guide discusses concepts such as: branding, high concept, character arcs, and how to win screenwriting contests, among others.

A Fairish and Goat tale. Sparkly the dragon eats some bad troll. Naturally, this leads to profound conversation. Unnaturally, Fairish is beginning to not entirely loathe the one-eyed goatherd she's bound to for all eternity ...On an alien world of giant insects, Rover strives to be like every other drone and mate with the queen. When he isn’t able to perform his drone duties, he struggles for acceptance and finds friendship and love in an unlikely place—among humans. Along Rover’s journey he finds he holds a key to helping humans overcome their infertility on his planet and offers a solution for uniting his people with the newcomers to his world.“The Day of the Nuptial Flight” is a 10,000 word science fiction novelette originally published in Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.

All people, all children, have adventures in fantastic, magical worlds of talking animals, living legends, and myth. But all children, eventually, grow up and forget.Anthony forgot.But stranded for the holidays at college, no longer a child and beset with adult problems and concerns, a visitor from his past reminds him.A Christmas story with GLBT themes, "Christmas in NeverEarth" follows the steps of Anthony a young man who finds that his past isn't as forgotten as he thought.All people, all children, have adventures in fantastic, magical worlds of talking animals, living legends, and myth. But all children, eventually, grow up and forget.Anthony forgot.But stranded for the holidays at college, no longer a child and beset with adult problems and concerns, a visitor from his past reminds him.A quest in more than once sense, "Christmas in NeverEarth" is a non-traditional holiday fable that touches on the themes of childhood projected against the needs of adulthood.

A whirlwind of intrigue, lies, politics, and adventure swirls around one woman—and the prize she's been sent to reclaim ... It was her talent for tracking magic that got Anna Zhdanov sent to catch a thief. A scholar's daughter sold as a bond servant, she has no desire to recover the Emperor's jewel for herself. But a chance to earn her freedom has driven her to the untamed Andelizien province, awash with warm breezes, lapping waves, and more danger than she could possibly guess. Within days her cover as an indolent noblewoman is in question, and it's clear there's more to Anna's task than she knows. Soon she's the captive of the unpredictable pirate captain Andreas Koszenmarc, hunted by the Emperor's guard, besieged by a brigand queen, and at odds with her only friend. She must trust someone if she is to survive. But when all that's certain is that everyone is hiding something, it's no simple thing to choose ... Praise for...