http://awesomegang.com

Where Awesome Book Readers Meet Awesome Writers

1. The Scavengers - Mike Parker is an award-winning freelance writer, actor, director, novelist, playwright & screenwriter. A BA degree in Bible and Philosophy, a stint as an officer with the US Army Special Forces (Green Berets), a career as a stock broker during the great bull market of the eighties, and an entrepreneurial plunge into the uncertain world of television syndication have all combined to give him a unique outlook on the world. Blessed (or cursed) with an insatiable curiosity he is voracious reader, questioner, ponderer. He has authored three successfully produced stage plays including: "Fail-Safe: the stage play," "Oscar Wilde's DORIAN GRAY," and "Mark Twain Presents: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer." An accomplished stage and screen actor he has appeared in national and regional commercials, network television series such as "Nashville" opposite Connie Britton and "Outlaw Country" with Mary Steenbergen. His film work includes "Country Strong" with Gwyneth Paltrow and Tim McGraw, "Lukewarm" opposite Bill Cobbs and "Season of Miracles" opposite John Schneider. His debut novel, "The Scavengers," was endorsed by New York Times Best-selling author, G.P. Taylor (Shadowmancer; Mariah Mundi), who called it "The best book I have read in years."
   
2. MBA 2.0: Master the Most Innovative Ideas in Business - Can Akdeniz is an author, lecturer, and business advisor. He is the owner of cbebusiness.com, a website committed to improving the performance of professionals and organizations by gathering and sharing exceptional knowledge and ideas.
   
3. A Trip to the Hardware Store & Other Calamities - Barbara Venkataraman is an attorney and mediator specializing in family law and debt collection. She is the author of "The Fight for Magicallus," a children's fantasy, and two books of humorous essays: "I'm Not Talking about You, Of Course" and "A Trip to the Hardware Store & Other Calamities," part of a series entitled Quirky Essays for Quirky People. Her latest work is a humorous short story entitled "If You'd Just Listened to Me in the First Place..."
   
4. 6 Short Stories: Learn Tarot in a Day - Ian Eshey is an entrepreneur, software consultant and tarot enthusiast. His published work includes two non-traditional books on tarot: "6 Short Stories: Learn Tarot in a Day" and "Tarot Spreads for Love, Career and More: Get Your Questions Answered". Beside being aboard a sailboat somewhere on Mediterranean any time he can or occasionally competing in long-distance swimming, he's an avid reader of evolutionary psychology and of books on modern communication skills. Ian is also rumored to grab a Sci-Fi novel now and then, just to end up reading the complete works of the author - if the book was any good.
   
5. The 15 Best Breast Lifting Exercises for Women - Rachel Howe is a personal trainer, author and competitive triathlete from California. She holds a master of science degree in exercise and sport science in addition to a number of fitness industry certifications and accreditation.
   
6. This Land by L.S. Burton - L.S. Burton lives in St. John's, Newfoundland, where he works as a writer and freelance editor. Though his stories are diverse, they all revel in the music of words and celebrate imagination. In 2011, Burton was awarded the Percy Janes Award for Best Unpublished First Novel in the Newfoundland and Labrador Arts and Letters Competition for his novel 'Raw Flesh in the Rising.'
   
7. A Divide Beyond Reason - Biography Roger Emile Stouff is the son of Nicholas Leonard Stouff Jr., last chief of the Chitimacha Tribe of Louisiana, and Lydia Marie Gaudet Stouff, daughter of a Cajun farmer. He has been a journalist for more than thirty years and writer of the award-winning column "From the Other Side" in the St. Mary and Franklin Banner-Tribune. He was featured on the television show "Fly Fishing America" in 2006, and was writer and narrator of the documentary "Native Waters: A Chitimacha Recollection" on Louisiana Public Broadcasting in 2010. Based on his two memoirs, "Native Waters" and "The Great Sadness," the show is now showing on public broadcasting stations nationwide, was nominated for an Emmy and was recipient of a Bronze Telly Award. He writes extensively about his Native American ancestry in autobiography, fiction and short stories, including the connection the Chitimacha, "people of the many waters" hold to the ancestral waters of the Atchafalaya Basin. With co-author Kenneth Brown he has also authored science-fiction and epic fantasy novels, including the first two books of the series "The Allidian Saga."
   
8. The Darkness Binding: The Traitor of Aka - I spent the first fourteen years of my life in Zimbabwe before political turmoil forced me to immigrate to England to continue my education. I recently graduated from the University of Sydney where I studied Arts and Law, majoring in English Literature. My experiences have made me a confident, personable and passionate person who has an urge to write great novels that a wide audience can enjoy. Growing up in such drastically varied, often fantastical environments, it was not hard to find an almost infinite amount of unpredictable sources to fuel my imagination. My parents were involved in tourism and as a consequence I was often on safari viewing lions, wildebeest, elephants and other fascinating creatures in extraordinary landscapes. Throughout these experiences I was forever accompanied with severely worn novels by J. R. R. Tolkien and Mervyn Peake. I felt compelled to write and due to my surreal experiences, fantasy appealed to me instantly. During my immensely enjoyable time in England I submerged myself within English culture and emerged five years later with a strange fascination with football and a slightly more understandable accent. At school I studied English Literature and fell in love with a variety of gothic texts including the classics like Dracula and Frankenstein as well as Henry James's suspense filled novel, The Turn of the Screw. For my first major project I wanted to blend my two favorite genres and create a young adult, gothic fantasy novel that would be as terrifying as it was absorbing. I envisaged a book that would allow readers to escape into a fantasy world which might simultaneously thrill and intrigue them. Hopefully that novel is The Darkness Binding.