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Young Mungo: A Child Is Abused

8/12/2022

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A WRITER'S WIT
I hate those men who would send into war youth to fight and die for them; the pride and cowardice of those old men, making their wars that boys must die.
​​Mary Roberts Rinehart
Author of ​The Circular Staircase
​Born August 12, 1876
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M. R. Rinehart

My Book World

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Stuart, Douglas. Young Mungo: A Novel. New York: Grove, 2022.

Think about the worst things that happen to you before you turn sixteen. None of the disasters most people experience are as bad as what young Mungo faces in his squalid life in Glasgow, Scotland. And as readers, we live it with him, the mother who both loves and neglects Mungo, the bright sister who has a chance to escape the “housing estate” where they all live in a certain squalor, the bully older brother who tries to toughen up Mungo so that he can survive this life without a father. The mother, whose intentions are not entirely clear, because she is often drunk, sends young Mungo on a weekend trip with two known sex offenders, one old and one in his twenties. This is the strand of the story that perhaps grabs our attention most. In alternating chapters, author Stuart seamlessly weaves this story with Mungo’s falling in love with a neighbor boy his age. The scenes in which they engage are some of the most authentic I believe I’ve ever read concerning adolescent love. Mungo is Protestant, and his friend James is Catholic. Their differences threaten to tear them apart at several points. Mungo’s appellation is no accident. He is named after Saint Mungo, and he is often called to the front of a classroom to read aloud about the myths of Saint Mungo. His favorite myth is the one in which Saint Mungo brings a robin back to life. It is this motif that is reflected later on in young Mungo’s own story, but I’ll let readers discover it for themselves as they devour this important novel about who the weak and the strong really are.

Coming Next:
TUES: AWW | Ted Hughes
WEDS: AWW |
Herta Müller
THURS: AWW | Nicole Krauss
FRI: My Book World | Muriel Spark's The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

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A Writer's Wit: Alex Haley

8/11/2022

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I look at my books the way parents look at their children. The fact that one becomes more successful than the others doesn't make me love the less successful one any less.
​Alex Haley
Author of Roots: The Saga of an American Family
​Born August 11, 1921
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A. Haley
Coming Next:
TOMORROW: My Book World | Douglas Stuart's Young Mungo
TUES: AWW | Ted Hughes
WEDS: AWW |
Herta Müller
THURS: AWW | Nicole Krauss
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A Writer's Wit: Suzanne Collins

8/10/2022

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I think it's very uncomfortable for people to talk to children about war, and so they don't because it's easier not to. But then you have young people at eighteen who are enlisting in the army, and they really don't have the slightest idea what they're getting into.
​Suzanne Collins
Author of ​The Hunger Games
​Born August 10, 1962
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S. Collins
Coming Next:
THURS: AWW | Alex Haley
FRIDAY: My Book World | Douglas Stuart's Young Mungo
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A Writer's Wit: Philip Larkin

8/9/2022

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Perhaps being old is having lighted rooms
Inside your head, and people in them, acting.
People you know, yet can’t quite name.
—from "The Old Fools"
​Philip Larkin
Author of ​A Girl in Winter
​Born August 9, 1922
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P. Larkin
Coming Next:
WEDS: AWW | Suzanne Collins
THURS: AWW | Alex Haley
FRI: My Book World |Douglas Stuart's Young Mungo
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The Tedium of Suffering

8/5/2022

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A WRITER'S WIT
Conversation . . . is the art of never appearing a bore, of knowing how to say everything interestingly, to entertain with no matter what, to be charming with nothing at all.
​Guy de Maupassant
Author of "The Necklace"
​Born August 5, 1850
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G. de Maupassant
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Price, Reynolds. The Promise of Rest. New York: Scribner, 1995.

Price has created what, at times, seems like a tedious novel. And frankly, in one sense it is. The story of a young man suffering a slow death, from AIDS, is both tedious and yet breathlessly fleeting. Millions of lovers (in the parlance of that era) and family members (those who didn’t shrink from caring) in real life have experienced the same tedium that Price re-creates here, and yet once you begin the journey of Wade’s slow demise, you don’t want to leave him behind. Even though this story is over twenty-five years old, it seems transcendent, timeless. Wade’s mother and father who’ve separated. His lover, Wyatt, who kills himself. Wyatt’s sister, Ivory, her quiet yet affirming love for Wade. All of Wade’s aunts and uncles. Secrets! Oh, my, this novel is loaded with them, none of which I shall divulge, but all of them are woven together to create a narrative marking an era that has never really ended—merely shunted aside. 

Coming Next:
TUES: AWW | Philip Larkin
WEDS: AWW | Suzanne Collins
THURS: AWW | Alex Haley
FRI: My Book World | Douglas Stuart's Young Mungo

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A Writer's Wit: Helen Thomas

8/4/2022

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Everyone with a cell phone thinks they're a photographer. Everyone with a laptop thinks they're a journalist. But they have no training, and they have no idea of what we keep to in terms of standards, as in what's far out and what's reality. And they have no dedication to truth.
​Helen Thomas
Author of ​Listen Up, Mr. President
​Born August 4, 1920
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H. Thomas
Coming Next:
TOMORROW: My Book World | R. Price's The Promise of Rest
TUES: AWW | Philip Larken
WEDS: AWW | Suzanne Collins
THURS: AWW | Alex Haley
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A Writer's Wit: Steven Millhauser

8/3/2022

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So imagine a fire going—wood snapping the way it does when it’s a little green—the wind rattling the windows behind the curtains—and one of those Chopin melodies that feel like sorrow and ecstasy all mixed together pouring from the keys—and you have my idea of happiness. Or just reading, reading and lamplight, the sound of pages turning. And so you dare to be happy. You do that thing. You dare.
​Steven Millhauser
Author of ​Voices in the Night: Stories
​Born August 3, 1943
Coming Next:
THURS: AWW | Helen Thomas
FRIDAY: My Book World | Reynolds Price's The Promise of Rest
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S. Millhauser
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A Writer's Wit: Rose Tremain

8/2/2022

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I have likened writing a novel to going on a journey, with some notion of the destination I will arrive at, but not the whole picture—which emerges gradually as a series of revelations, as the journey goes along.
​Rose Tremain
Author of ​Islands of Mercy
​Born August 2, 1943
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R. Tremain
Coming Next:
WEDS: AWW | Steven Millhauser
THURS: AWW | Helen Thomas
FRI: My Book World | Reynolds Price's The Promise of Rest
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Amy Tan: Author of Opposites

7/29/2022

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A WRITER'S WIT
Certainly almost everything we do and think is colored in some way by memes, but it is important to realize that not everything we experience is a meme. If I walk down the street and see a tree, the basic perception that's going on is not memetic.​
Susan Blackmore
Author of Ten Zen Questions
​Born July 29, 1951
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S. Blackmore

My Book World

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Tan, Amy. The Opposite of Fate. London: HarperCollins, 2003.

The Opposite of Fate is a joy to read, I would venture, whether you’re a Tan fan or not. The celebrated author modestly shares her wisdom with readers. Wisdom derived from her childhood, the daughter of Chinese immigrants. Wisdom derived from a life marred with tragedy (family deaths, physical violence, and murder of a friend). Wisdom derived from her relationships, family and friends alike. Wisdom derived from her courage to try new things (from joining a rock band made up of other famous writers to escaping from a dangerous flood while camping near Lake Tahoe to traveling to China with her mother). Wisdom derived from her trial-and-error career in writing (as most writing careers may be). Wisdom about medicine as she suffers through a long (and undiagnosed) bout of Lyme disease. The book is composed of essays arranged in thematic sections, and some anecdotes or fragments tinkle like little bells of remembrance from one essay to the next, but you don’t mind the repetition because it demonstrates how interrelated all the parts of her singular life are. I wish I’d read it when it was published, but it is still a valuable document in understanding one of our most important American authors. 
Coming Next:
TUES: AWW | Rose Tremain
WEDS: AWW | Steven Millhauser
THURS: AWW | Helen Thomas
FRI: My Book World | Reynolds Price's The Promise of Rest


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A Writer's Wit: Malcolm Lowry

7/28/2022

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Success is like some horrible disaster
Worse than your house burning.
​Malcolm Lowry
Author of ​Under the Volcano
Born July 28, 1909
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M. Lowry
TOMORROW: My Book World | Amy Tan's The Opposite of Fate
TUES: AWW | Aldous Huxley
WEDS: AWW | Elizabeth Hardwick
THURS: AWW | Malcom Lowry
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A Writer's Wit: Elizabeth Hardwick

7/27/2022

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This the unspoken contract of a wife and her works. In the long run wives are to be paid in a peculiar coin—consideration for their feelings. And it usually turns out this is an enormous unthinkable inflation few men will remit, or if they will, only with a sense of being overcharged.
​Elizabeth Hardwick
Author of Sleepless Nights
​Born July 27, 1916
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E. Hardwick
Coming Next:
THURS: AWW |Malcolm Lowry
FRIDAY: My Book World | Amy Tan's The Opposite of Fate
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A Writer's Wit: Aldous Huxley

7/26/2022

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A bad book is as much of a labor to write as a good one; it comes as sincerely from the author’s soul.
​Aldous Huxley
Author of Brave New World
​Born July 26, 1894
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A. Huxley
COMING NEXT:
WEDS: AWW | Elizabeth Hardwick
THURS: AWW | Malcom Lowry
FRIDAY: My Book World | Amy Tan's The Opposite of Fate
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Bite-Sized Poems Are Good for the Soul

7/22/2022

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A WRITER'S WIT
Life's sharpest rapture is surcease of pain.
​Emma Lazarus
Author of The New Colossus
​Born July 22, 1849
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E. Lazarus
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​Summerfield, Ellen, Ed. Bite-sized Poems: An Anthology. Oregon: Independently Published, 2021.

This carefully curated and edited volume of poetry might be the beginning classroom teacher’s dream for teaching poetry. Summerfield, herself a poet, brings together over forty indeed brief poems (one as short as nine words but packed with meaning). Not only does she guide readers lovingly through each poem with thoughtful exegesis but she also provides at the end of each presentation references to YouTube and PBS readings of the poem or a poet’s website so that the curious persons might read on. However, not to limit the book’s appeal to an educational setting alone, it stands alone as one poet’s generous interpretation of a group of disparate but equally enchanting poems—each one a delicious chocolate lifted from the front cover of bite-sized delights: Emily Brontë, Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, Bertolt Brecht, as well as Edna Kovacs and Gwendolyn Brooks, make up just a few of the poets whom she anthologizes.

​Coming Next:
TUES: AWW | Aldous Huxley
WEDS: AWW | Elizabeth Hardwick
THURS: AWW | Malcolm Lowry
FRI: My Book World |
 Amy Tan's The Opposite of Fate

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A Writer's Wit: Sarah Waters

7/21/2022

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I wouldn't mind being a fly on the wall in a few Victorian parlours.
​Sarah Waters
Author of The Little Stranger
​Born July 21, 1966
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S. Waters
Coming Next:
TOMORROW: My Book World | E. Summerfield's Bite-Sized Poems
TUES: AWW | Aldous Huxley
WEDS: AWW | Elizabeth Hardwick
THURS: AWW | Malcom Lowry
0 Comments

A Writer's Wit: Cormac McCarthy

7/20/2022

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Even if what you're working on doesn't go anywhere, it will help you with the next thing you're doing. Make yourself available for something to happen. Give it a shot.
​Cormac McCarthy
Author of No Country for Old Men
Born July 20, 1933
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C. McCarthy
Coming Next:
THURS: AWW | Sara Waters
FRIDAY: My Book World | Ellen Summerfield's Bite-Sized Poems
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A Writer's Wit: Ethan Canin

7/19/2022

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The historical background is one of the easier aspects of writing a novel. Far more difficult is dreaming up the smaller, character-based scenes, scenes that rise entirely from one's own imagination.
​Ethan Canin
Author of The Palace Thief
Born July 19, 1960
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E. Canin
COMING NEXT:
WEDS: AWW | Cormac McCarthy
THURS: AWW | Sarah Waters
FRIDAY: My Book World | Ellen Summerfield's Bite-Sized Poems
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Her Name Forever

7/15/2022

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A WRITER'S WIT
Fearlessness is like a muscle. I know from my own life that the more I exercise it the more natural it becomes to not let my fears run me.
​Arianna Huffington
Author of 
On Becoming Fearless...in Love, Work, and Life
​Born July 15, 1950
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My Book World

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Pellegrino, Charles. Her Name, Titanic: The Untold Story of the Sinking and Finding of the Unsinkable Ship. New York: McGraw, 1988.

I’ve been a fan of the Titanic’s story since I was a child. I read every magazine article, every book I could find on the subject—even as an adult I collected books. I watched every film, fiction or documentary. This book, though dated now in some ways, does combine two strands: 1) the eyewitness details left behind by those who were there to witness the sinking: passengers, crew members, children—always the more interesting narrative, to me. Pellegrino also unveils the thread of how oceanographer Robert Ballard locates the Titanic’s remains and visits them in a, for the time (1987), innovative “submarine” equipped with cameras.

​The most astounding part of Ballard’s story seems to be that he is so overcome with emotion on seeing the pristine quality of certain artifacts left behind—china, passenger shoes, and other memorabilia—that he has no desire to lift any of it for souvenirs. Rather, he disguises the exact GPS location from journalists and the world, so that the site might remain what it has been since it all came to rest in the icy North Atlantic floor in 1912, and that is a place of memorial. Of course, other parties do locate the ship and make a commercial venture of it, but Ballard’s stance must be the higher ground, in a manner of speaking.

Coming Next:
TUES: AWW | Ethan Canin
WEDS: AWW | Cormac McCarthy
THURS: AWW | Sarah Waters
NEXT FRI: My Book World | Ellen Summerfield's Bite-Sized Poems: An Anthology

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A Writer's Wit: Owen Wister

7/14/2022

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When you can't have what you choose, you just choose what you have.
Owen Wister 
Author of The Virginian
Born July 14, 1860
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O. Wister
TOMORROW: My Book World | Charles Pellegrino's Her Name, Titanic
TUES: AWW | Ethan Canin
WEDS: AWW | Cormac McCarthy
THURS: AWW | Sarah Waters

0 Comments

A Writer's Wit: Wole Soyinka

7/13/2022

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One's own self-worth is tied to the worth of the community to which one belongs, which is intimately connected to humanity in general. What happens in Darfur becomes an assault on my own community, and on me as an individual. That's what the human family is all about.
​Wole Soyinka
Author of 
Aké: The Years of Childhood
​
​Born July 13, 1934
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W. Soyinka
THURS: AWW | Owen Wister
FRIDAY: My Book World | Charles Pellegrino's Her Name, Titanic
0 Comments

A Writer's Wit: Pablo Neruda

7/12/2022

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I continue to work with the materials I have, the materials I am made of. With feelings, beings, books, events, and battles, I am omnivorous. I would like to swallow the whole earth. I would like to drink the whole sea.
​Pablo Neruda
Author of Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair
Born July 12, 1904
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P. Neruda
COMING NEXT:
WEDS: AWW | Wole Soyinka
THURS: AWW | Isaac Bashevis Singer
FRIDAY: My Book World | Charles Pellegrino's Her Name, Titanic
0 Comments

'Structures of the World' Photography Exhibition

7/11/2022

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I am happy to announce that my photograph, "One World Trade Center," has been accepted to appear in the "Structures of the World, Works on Paper" Exhibition soon to open at the International Cultural Center Gallery, at Texas Tech University. Reception: Wednesday, July 13, 2022, 5:00 to 6:30 p.m. On display July-August. If you can't make it in person, you can view a slideshow of all the artists and photographers by way of clicking on the link here. Scroll down to see more. Thanks and hope you make it. RJ
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Picture
One World Trade Center — 2018
COMING NEXT:
​TUES: AWW | PABLO NERUDA
WEDS: AWW | WOLE SOYNKA
THURS: AWW | ISAAC BASHEVIS SINGER
FRI: My Book World | Charles Pellegrino's Her Name, Titanic
0 Comments

'Weird Pig' Talks

7/8/2022

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A WRITER'S WIT
I am prepared to believe that a dry martini slightly impairs the palate, but think what it does for the soul.
​Alec Waugh
Author of A Spy in the Family
​Born July 8, 1898
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A. Waugh

My Book World

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Foreman, Robert Long. Weird Pig. Cape Girardeau: SEMO P, 2020.

Reading this book is almost like perusing a graphic novel except, as with most reading, readers must imagine the cartoon images themselves. And it may be less scary that way, for Foreman tackles the satirizing of some tough subjects. Industrial farming, something about which a pig (if it could talk . . . and this one does) would have something to say. Creative writing and the publishing business—awash in their own absurdities. Gun violence—a germane topic right now. The character Weird Pig is basically an asshole, but for some reason, we like him and some of his antics. Why? He may give voice to some of our own discontent, some of our own worst impulses either to straighten out society or blast it all to hell. And eventually, Weird Pig does get his in the end, so you wouldn’t want to like him too much.

COMING NEXT:
MON: STRUCTURES OF THE WORLD PHOTOGRAPHY
TUES: AWW | Pablo Neruda
WEDS: AWW | Wole Soyinka
THURS: AWW | Isaac Bashevis Singer
FRIDAY: My Book World | Charles Pellegrino's Her Name, Titanic

0 Comments

A Writer's Wit: Eleanor Clift

7/7/2022

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Looking at female candidates today, other women are the hardest on them, especially older women who were brought up in a different culture.
​Eleanor Clift
Author of Madam President
​Born July 7, 1940
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E. Clift
COMING NEXT:
TOMORROW: My Book World | Robert Foreman's Weird Pig
MON: 'Structures of the World' Photography Exhibition TTU
TUES: AWW | Pablo Neruda
WEDS: AWW | Wole Soyinka
THURS: AWW | Isaac Bashevis Singer
FRI: My Book World | Charles Pellegrino's Her Name, Titanic: The Untold Story of the Sinking and Finding of the Unsinkable Ship
0 Comments

A Writer's Wit: Josh Elliott

7/6/2022

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I was a subscriber to Sports Illustrated like so many of us, and I was overwhelmed by a toxic mix of naiveté and arrogance, and just thought to myself, “I think I can write like this.”
​Josh Elliott
American Television Journalist
​Born July 6, 1971
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J. Elliott
COMING NEXT:
​THURS: AWW | ELEANOR CLIFT
FRIDAY: My Book World | Robert Long Foreman's Weird Pig
0 Comments

A Writer's Wit: Amy Jo Martin

7/5/2022

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Social media is the ultimate equalizer. It gives a voice and a platform to anyone willing to engage.
​Amy Jo Martin
Author of Renegades Write the Rules
​Born July 5, 1979
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A. J. Martin
COMING NEXT:
WEDS: AWW |JOSH ELLIOTT
THURS: AWW | ELEANOR CLIFT

FRIDAY: My Book World | Robert Long Foreman's Weird Pig
0 Comments
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