- Local author Skip Allen's new book Requiem for the Phoenix (the sequel to Out of the Ashes) is now available. Click here to learn more about his book, browse a chapter or order your copy.
- Local author Afsane Noori (Change Thrivers) has revamped her website to reflect her new career as a motivational speaker. Here's her press release.
- Former local author (recently moved to Alabama, I believe) Kimberly Llewellyn's new book Real Women Don't Wear Size 2 was reviewed in this month's Tampa Bay Illustrated magazine. I read this book this past weekend....WOW!
- Local author and beach expert David McRee has updated the "beach threats" info on his website www.beachhunter.net/ in response to Steve (Crocodile Hunter) Irwin's death.
- Local author and fellow blogger Joy V. Smith has a story titled Pretty Pink Planet in WomanScapes, a collection of alternative visions written by women about women, which is now available. The WomanScapes authors have donated their talent in order to benefit worldwide humanitarian relief efforts. WomanScapes is available as a free download after you make a donation of at least $5 to a non-profit organization that provides humanitarian relief. It is also available as a paperback from amazon.com: Amazon.com: WomanScapes: Books: WomanScapes Authors.
Wednesday, September 6, 2006
book news:allen, noori, llewellyn, mcree, smith
Tuesday, September 5, 2006
hot library smut
When I saw the subject line of this email from the president of the Florida Bibliophile Society, I thought "what on earth??" Book lovers, you MUST check out this hot library smut.
get "lit" in valdosta, georgia
No fair...my hometown (Valdosta, Georgia) waits until I don't live there anymore to start the Wiregrass Literacy and Literature Festival of the Deep South. It's only a 3 1/2 hour drive to Valdosta. Who's up for a road trip this weekend?
Monday, September 4, 2006
september meeting of the tampa writers alliance
From the Tampa Writers Alliance website:
Becky Salichova of Bouncing Ball Books will be our September speaker. Her topic will be “What a Publisher is Looking For,” which will cover the process of publishing, the process of writing, market vision, the advantages of being an independent publisher, and why this particular publisher focuses on children’s books and short story collections. Becky will go on to talk about the Miami Book Fair International on November 12 – 19. Then, along with TWA President Sandra Kischuk, she will kick-off a cooperative Tampa Writers Alliance/Bouncing Ball Books Short Story Collection Contest - the Grand Prize being a publishing contract. As always, all interested persons are invited to attend. There is no charge for admission.
bottles from the deep by ellen c. gerth
Local author Eric Sturm sent me information about Ellen C. Gerth, another local author who has written a book very different from the romance, poetry and mystery novels that usually cross my path. (Thanks Eric!) Read the press release below and tell me this book doesn't pique your interest:
by Ellen C. Gerth
Shipwreck Heritage Press
Publication Date: August 2006
$12.00, softcover, 112 pages, 95 color photos and 2 maps
ISBN-10: 1-933034-07-6 (ISBN-13: 978-1-933034-07-2)
7” x 7”, Antiques & Collectibles
New Book by Publisher of Shipwreck Stories Features Bottles from the Civil War Era Discovered 1,700 Deep in the Atlantic
This illustrated small book presents colorful examples from an amazing find of 19th-century bottles in a shipwreck in the deep Atlantic, 100 miles off the coast of Georgia. The bottles were en route to New Orleans in October 1865, just months after the end of the Civil War. They present a fascinating time capsule of popular goods of the times – from popular herbal “bitters” (with their astoundingly high alcoholic content) to quack medicines (Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup for Children) to condiments, hair tonics, writing inks, perfumes, beer and wine, and more.
The SS Republic was a side-wheel paddle-steamer that departed New York harbor in October 1865, bound for New Orleans. Along with some 80 passengers and crew, its shipment included a remarkable cargo: a reported $400,000 in gold and silver coins. The ship also carried other goods sorely needed in New Orleans, once the cosmopolitan jewel of the South, but by then depleted by years of war and Union occupation. But the steamship ran into a fierce hurricane and sank after two days battling the violent winds and high waves. Most of the passengers and crew were rescued from lifeboats in the days following the sinking, but the cargo was believed lost forever.
The remarkable discovery in 2003 and archaeological excavation into 2004 of the wreck on the Atlantic floor (as told in the recent book Lost Gold of the Republic, by Priit J. Vesilind, Shipwreck Heritage Press) by Odyssey Marine Exploration of Tampa, Florida, would eventually yield more than 51,000 coins. Today, those Civil War–era coins are worth many millions of dollars to collectors (perhaps as much as $75 million per appraisals).
Now this small companion book tells the tale of the intriguing array of bottles recovered from the deep-sea wreck: a total of more than 6,000 bottles, a cargo being carried to New Orleans to replenish merchants’ shelves. The diverse shapes and colors reflect a rich heritage of bottled goods in use in the mid-1860s. Amazingly, most of the bottles were found unbroken, some still even containing their original contents. Many, however, had their cork seals inside, pushed in by the tremendous water pressure at the depth of 1,700 feet.
Each specimen, hand-blown into a mold, is a work of art in itself. The stories these bottles tell speak to a time when virtually anything could be bottled, advertised, and sold, when manufacturers swindled the public with outrageous claims and when early victories of Prohibition had lost momentum.
Categories in the book Bottles From the Deep include patent medicines; bitters; wine, beer, & spirits; food bottles; hair products & beauty aids; and ink bottles. The range of products and their containers — from bear-grease pomades to French perfumes, from hot pepper sauces to beer and wine, from century-old peaches or pineapples to quack medicines of all sorts — convey a delightful and often quirky glimpse of a long-gone era, discovered in the beautiful translucent shapes of bottles from the deep.
Ellen C. Gerth, author of Bottles From the Deep, is Curator of Collections for Odyssey Marine Exploration, the shipwreck recovery and marine archaeology company that discovered the wreck of the SS Republic in 2003. She lives in Tampa, Florida. Ms. Gerth is a graduate of Bowdoin College and George Washington University with a degree in Cultural Anthropology and Museum Studies. Her previous experience includes research and writing for the Smithsonian Institution, the National Geographic Society, and Time-Life Books.
For more on Shipwreck Heritage Press and the SS Republic story, as told in the 2005 hardcover book Lost Gold of the Republic: The Remarkable Quest for the Greatest Shipwreck Treasure of the Civil War Era by Priit J. Vesilind (“An excellent history of a notable piece of deep-water archaeology.” – ALA Booklist), visit http://www.lostgold.net/.
Bottles From the Deep:Patent Medicines, Bitters, & Other Bottles From the Wreck of the Steamship Republic
by Ellen C. Gerth
Shipwreck Heritage Press
Publication Date: August 2006
$12.00, softcover, 112 pages, 95 color photos and 2 maps
ISBN-10: 1-933034-07-6 (ISBN-13: 978-1-933034-07-2)
7” x 7”, Antiques & Collectibles
BOTTLES FROM THE DEEP
New Book by Publisher of Shipwreck Stories Features Bottles from the Civil War Era Discovered 1,700 Deep in the Atlantic
This illustrated small book presents colorful examples from an amazing find of 19th-century bottles in a shipwreck in the deep Atlantic, 100 miles off the coast of Georgia. The bottles were en route to New Orleans in October 1865, just months after the end of the Civil War. They present a fascinating time capsule of popular goods of the times – from popular herbal “bitters” (with their astoundingly high alcoholic content) to quack medicines (Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup for Children) to condiments, hair tonics, writing inks, perfumes, beer and wine, and more.
The SS Republic was a side-wheel paddle-steamer that departed New York harbor in October 1865, bound for New Orleans. Along with some 80 passengers and crew, its shipment included a remarkable cargo: a reported $400,000 in gold and silver coins. The ship also carried other goods sorely needed in New Orleans, once the cosmopolitan jewel of the South, but by then depleted by years of war and Union occupation. But the steamship ran into a fierce hurricane and sank after two days battling the violent winds and high waves. Most of the passengers and crew were rescued from lifeboats in the days following the sinking, but the cargo was believed lost forever.
The remarkable discovery in 2003 and archaeological excavation into 2004 of the wreck on the Atlantic floor (as told in the recent book Lost Gold of the Republic, by Priit J. Vesilind, Shipwreck Heritage Press) by Odyssey Marine Exploration of Tampa, Florida, would eventually yield more than 51,000 coins. Today, those Civil War–era coins are worth many millions of dollars to collectors (perhaps as much as $75 million per appraisals).
Now this small companion book tells the tale of the intriguing array of bottles recovered from the deep-sea wreck: a total of more than 6,000 bottles, a cargo being carried to New Orleans to replenish merchants’ shelves. The diverse shapes and colors reflect a rich heritage of bottled goods in use in the mid-1860s. Amazingly, most of the bottles were found unbroken, some still even containing their original contents. Many, however, had their cork seals inside, pushed in by the tremendous water pressure at the depth of 1,700 feet.
Each specimen, hand-blown into a mold, is a work of art in itself. The stories these bottles tell speak to a time when virtually anything could be bottled, advertised, and sold, when manufacturers swindled the public with outrageous claims and when early victories of Prohibition had lost momentum.
Categories in the book Bottles From the Deep include patent medicines; bitters; wine, beer, & spirits; food bottles; hair products & beauty aids; and ink bottles. The range of products and their containers — from bear-grease pomades to French perfumes, from hot pepper sauces to beer and wine, from century-old peaches or pineapples to quack medicines of all sorts — convey a delightful and often quirky glimpse of a long-gone era, discovered in the beautiful translucent shapes of bottles from the deep.
Ellen C. Gerth, author of Bottles From the Deep, is Curator of Collections for Odyssey Marine Exploration, the shipwreck recovery and marine archaeology company that discovered the wreck of the SS Republic in 2003. She lives in Tampa, Florida. Ms. Gerth is a graduate of Bowdoin College and George Washington University with a degree in Cultural Anthropology and Museum Studies. Her previous experience includes research and writing for the Smithsonian Institution, the National Geographic Society, and Time-Life Books.
For more on Shipwreck Heritage Press and the SS Republic story, as told in the 2005 hardcover book Lost Gold of the Republic: The Remarkable Quest for the Greatest Shipwreck Treasure of the Civil War Era by Priit J. Vesilind (“An excellent history of a notable piece of deep-water archaeology.” – ALA Booklist), visit http://www.lostgold.net/.
