Welcome! We hope you enjoyed the April issue of This Awful Awesome Life. Many thanks to our incredible writers and guest contributors! If you missed it, all issues of the magazine are on our site – scroll to your hearts content!
Our goal is to inform, entertain, and add to this awful awesome life in a positive way. Whether it’s a hack for organizing, one of Linda’s handy cooking tips, fitness or nutrition advice from Corey or a restaurant review from Terry, we’re here to help. We’re also here to keep you on your toes with a little dash of history, some reading recommendations, a quiz or two and as always a thought provoking piece from Orlando about one of your favorite books or authors.
We’re celebrating Personal History Month, spring and the coming of summer. Ann Howley is back to give us a few tips about writing a memoir. Jim O’Brien shares a touching story about saying goodbye to his daughters’ (and granddaughters’) crib, and moving on to the next phase of life, and don’t miss his heartfelt remembrance of Pittsburgh sport’s hero Bruno Sammartino.
Happy Mother’s Day to all you moms out there! Mothers come in all ages, shapes and sizes – some moms are single parents; the mom you celebrate may be a step parent, beloved family member, or a dad doing double duty. Linda Cahill has some delicious recipes to make your Mother’s Day special and enjoy Gail Neustadt’s family story about nicknames.
Don’t miss Terry Kish’s review of Coal Tipple Brewery, pick up a few tips to keep boredom away from your summer and Corey Flynn has some great ideas for eating healthy with colorful seasonal vegetables and getting your family moving.
Find out how Zentangle differs from doodling in this month’s issue. We’ll be discussing Zentangle with Paulette Harvey and Orlando Bartro has an interesting article about doodles by famous authors.
Please welcome our special guest contributor, Robin Barefield. Robin is an Alaskan Wilderness mystery author and an expert on Alaskan wildlife. I know you will love her article about Alaskan wildlife complete with amazing photos by her husband, Mike Munsey. Be sure to read my review of her book, Murder over Kodiak and visit our Author Page to see other works by Robin Barefield. You can purchase one of her books or any of the books on the Author Page by using the Amazon purchase buttons provided for each title.
May is such a special month, we decided to celebrate it with a collage. We liked the idea so much we decided every awesome month of the year should have a collage. If you are an aspiring author, try to visualize it as a writing prompt and see if one picture (or the whole collage) is really worthy thousand words. Good luck and if you send me a copy of your story (fg83cj@gmail.com – subject line May 1,000 for 1) we’ll consider printing it in an upcoming issue. Your story can be from 150-1,000 words. Please tell us which photo you selected or if you were inspired by the collage as a whole. Good Luck!
Check out my recommendations for memoirs, biographies and autobiographies for adults and young readers and don’t for get to take this month’s quiz, “Believe it or not.” Test your knowledge of actual memoirs/biographies, fictional works and hoaxes.
Happy Reading!
Fran
