Fire a deep pass, sprint for a touchdown, or make a bone-jarring tackle. Capture the action and excitement on the football field by drawing yourself into the scene Produced in partnership with Sports Illustrated Kids."

How to plan and prepare for a long-distance hike on the Appalachian Trail Includes information on trail nutrition, culture, first aid, gear, weather conditions, and more Expert advice from an experienced long-distance hiker along with useful information for any long-distance trek

Other Appalachian Trail guidebooks tell you about notable scenery, trail history, or changes in terrain. This one tells you exactly what you need to know to prepare for and complete a long-distance hike on the A.T. From determining a budget, preparing an itinerary, and packing gear to resupplying, using bounce boxes, and staying on schedule, this book will help any hiker make certain their long-distance trek is a success.

You can hear an interview with Michelle Ray on how to prepare for your thru-hike if you click here.

The American Indian has figured prominently in many films and television shows, portrayed variously as a villain, subservient friend, or a hapless victim of progress. Many Indian stereotypes that were derived from European colonial discourse-some hundreds of years old-still exist in the media today. Even when set in the contemporary era, novels, films, and programs tend to purvey rehashed tropes such as Pocahontas or man Friday. In Native Americans on Network TV: Stereotypes, Myths, and the "Good Indian," Michael Ray FitzGerald argues that the colonial power of the U.S. is clearly evident in network television's portrayals of Native Americans. FitzGerald contends that these representations fit neatly into existing conceptions of colonial discourse and that their messages about the "Good Indian" have become part of viewers' understandings of Native Americans. In this study, FitzGerald offers close examinations of such series as The Lone Ranger, Daniel Boone, Broken Arrow, Hawk, Nakia, and Walker, Texas Ranger. By examining the traditional role of stereotypes and their functions in the rhetoric of colonialism, the volume ultimately offers a critical analysis of images of the "Good Indian"-minority figures that enforce the dominant group's norms. A long overdue discussion of this issue, Native Americans on Network TV will be of interest to scholars of television and media studies, but also those of Native American studies, subaltern studies, and media history.

Born at Christmas 1249 to Richard, Edmund of Cornwall was nephew to Henry III and cousin to Edward I. His eventful childhood took him to Germany when his father was elected king there. He was captured at the battle of Lewes and imprisoned for more than a year. Returning from crusade, he witnessed the brutal murder of his half-brother, which left him as heir to his father, the richest man in the kingdom. Throughout his life, Edmund played a crucial role in medieval England. As Regent of England, Earl of Cornwall and the richest man in the land, he was a leading force of the late-thirteenth century. This book considers Edmund's life, his use of his wealth to lend to the king and others and to be a major benefactor of religious houses. His piety saw him found two new religious houses, rebuild another and bring the Holy Blood relic from Germany to Hailes abbey. His record as Regent of England for three years is assessed. The wide spread of his lands, which included 13castles and more than 800 places in 27 counties, and his tenants are set out as is his place in the local community. The basis of his wealth and its sources, including money from his lands but also from tin mining and marine dues in Cornwall, is explored and his knightly affinity and his close associates and officials are considered. On a personal level, the book examines his unsuccessful, childless marriage with the sister of the Earl of Gloucester. Edmund was a key figure throughout Edward I's rein and the late-thirteenth century. In this insightful account, the man behind England's 'greatest king' is at long last brought to the fore.

The Allman Brothers Band and Lynyrd Skynyrd helped usher in a new kind of southern music from Jacksonville, Florida. Together, they and fellow bands like Blackfoot, 38 Special, and Molly Hatchet would reset the course of seventies rock. Yet Jacksonville seemed an unlikely hotbed for a new musical movement. Michael FitzGerald blends eyewitness detail with in-depth history to tell the story of how the River City bred this generation of legendary musicians. As he profiles essential bands alongside forerunners like Gram Parsons and Cowboy, FitzGerald reveals how the powerful local AM radio station worked with newspapers and television stations to nurture talent. Media attention in turn created a public hungry for live performances by area bands. What became the southern rock elite welded relentless determination to a ferocious work ethic, honing their gifts on a testing ground that brooked no weakness and took no prisoners. FitzGerald looks at the music as the diverse soundtrack to a neo-southern lifestyle that reconciled different segments of society in Jacksonville, and across the nation, in the late sixties and early seventies. A vivid journey into a crucible of American music, Jacksonville and the Roots of Southern Rock shines a light on the artists and songs that powered a phenomenon.

As major universities and professional organizations like the Poynter Institute have begun to examine graphic nonfiction from a critical perspective, new courses are emerging that give student writers and artists the tools to tell their own nonfiction stories in comics form. Nonfiction Comics is the first textbook to bring these tools and techniques together in a single volume. Most novices who first attempt the form arrive at it from a background of journalism or art, meaning they arrive with at least one deficit in the required skill set. Journalists, for example, typically have had little training in illustration. Artists and designers may not know how to conduct interviews or to avoid the potential legal pitfalls of telling the personal stories of real people. This book aims to fill in the gaps providing student journalists, artists, designers, creative writers, web producers and others the tools they need to tell stories visually and graphically.

Based on the authors' popular team-taught nonfiction comics course, Nonfiction Comics teaches readers how to create a graphic nonfiction story from start to finish, providing guidance on:

• how to find the story and how to find and utilize appropriate facts and visuals;
• nonfiction narrative techniques
• artist's tools and techniques
• print, digital, and multimedia production
• legal and ethical considerations

Interviews with well-known nonfiction comics creators--showcased in the book and on the book's companion website--will discuss best practice and offer readers inspiration to begin creating their own work.

As major universities and professional organizations like the Poynter Institute have begun to examine graphic nonfiction from a critical perspective, new courses are emerging that give student writers and artists the tools to tell their own nonfiction stories in comics form. Nonfiction Comics is the first textbook to bring these tools and techniques together in a single volume. Most novices who first attempt the form arrive at it from a background of journalism or art, meaning they arrive with at least one deficit in the required skill set. Journalists, for example, typically have had little training in illustration. Artists and designers may not know how to conduct interviews or to avoid the potential legal pitfalls of telling the personal stories of real people. This book aims to fill in the gaps providing student journalists, artists, designers, creative writers, web producers and others the tools they need to tell stories visually and graphically.

Based on the authors' popular team-taught nonfiction comics course, Nonfiction Comics teaches readers how to create a graphic nonfiction story from start to finish, providing guidance on:

• how to find the story and how to find and utilize appropriate facts and visuals;
• nonfiction narrative techniques
• artist's tools and techniques
• print, digital, and multimedia production
• legal and ethical considerations

Interviews with well-known nonfiction comics creators--showcased in the book and on the book's companion website--will discuss best practice and offer readers inspiration to begin creating their own work.

This is the astonishing story of North Carolinian John McLean Harrington, a maverick journalist who before and during the Civil War handwrote up to a hundred copies of each issue of his own various newspapers. As cultural and military battle lines were drawn across the South, Harrington, while postmaster in Harnett County, "blogged" in longhand about everything from the plight of slaves to unrequited love, international relations, and technology. He became an outspoken dilettante journalist, a defender of press freedom, and one of the nation's most productive longhand journalists. Includes photos and accompanying transcriptions of two complete issues of Harrington's papers.

THE AUTHORS

Michael Ray Smith, Ph.D., is an award-winning journalist, photographer, and author of many articles and five books, including "FeatureWriting.Net." He has been quoted in the New York Times, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, USA Today, and Editor & Publisher. He teaches at Campbell University -- a few miles from the book's setting. Roy Alden Atwood (Introduction) is president and senior fellow of New Saint Andrews College in Moscow, Idaho. Quentin J. Schultze (Preface) is the Arthur H. DeKruyter chair and professor of communication at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

ENDORSEMENTS

"Smith has unearthed a gem of media history." -- Dr. Stephen Perry, editor of "Mass Communication and Society" and Professor of Communication, Illinois State U

"Thoroughly analyzes the context within which journalism's version of 'John Henry' was played out with nary a witness. Harrington's character is revealed humanly with neither romanticism nor cynicism." -- Dr. Richard K. Olsen, Chair, Communication Studies, U of North Carolina, Wilmington

"A well-researched and well-written story of a little-known but compelling aspect of the history of journalism, an ode to handwriting as a unique form of communication and a fascinating case study." -- Dr. Elliot King, Professor of Communication, Loyola U Maryland

"Smith explores Harrington the reporter, poet, political commentator, and wit, illuminating a corner of Civil War era North Carolina that few have visited." -- Dr. John P. Ferre', Associate Dean of Arts & Sciences, U of Louisville

"Smith's careful reading of North Carolina's freehand publisher extends our understanding of how the news got out in a time of unparalleled national peril." -- Dr. Bruce J. Evensen, Director, MA in Journalism Program, DePaul U

"This wonderfully written story captures Harrington as a citizen journalist, aggregator, poet, politico, and scribe. It will be of lively interest to historians of communication, newspapers, the Civil War, and Southern culture." -- Dr. James T. Hamilton, Charles S. Sydnor Professor of Public Policy, and Director, DeWitt Wallace Center for Media and Democracy, Duke U

"A fascinating and comprehensively documented discussion of North Carolina newspapers handwritten by a maverick, Civil War era journalist. Smith perceptively analyzes the underappreciated value of print journalism without a printing press." -- Dr. Douglas S. Campbell, Lock Haven U of PA, author "The Supreme Court and the Mass Media" and "Free Press v. Fair Trial"

"Highly readable and reveals a part of American journalism that needs to come to light. Harrington's free press shows the spirit of a vibrant medium with the power to shape America's future." -- Dr. Dennis E. Hensley, Director, Professional Writing Division, Taylor U

"The book shows that Harrington's papers are an early form of blogging and New Journalism which involved the readers in bridging the oral and literary traditions in the two-year prelude to the Civil War." -- Dr. Paul Alfred "Alf" Pratte, Emeritus Professor of Journalism, Brigham Young U

More than 10,000 known caves lie beneath the state of Tennessee according to the Tennessee Cave Survey, a nonprofit organization that catalogs and maps them. In Hidden Nature: Wild Southern Caves, Taylor tells the story of this vast underground wilderness. Besides describing the sheer physical majesty of the region's wild caverns and the concurrent joys and dangers of exploring them, he examines their rich natural history and scientific import, their relationship to clean water and a healthy surface environment, and their uncertain future. As a long-time caver and the author of three popular books related to caving - Cave Passages (1996), Dark Life (1998), and Caves (2000) - Taylor enjoys (for a journalist) unusual access to their secretive world. He is personally acquainted with many of the region's most accomplished cave explorers and scientists, and they in turn are familiar with his popular writing on caves in books; in magazines such as Audubon, Outside, and Sports Illustrated; and on websites such as those of the Discovery Channel and the PBS science series Nova. Hidden Nature: Wild Southern Caves is structured as a comprehensive work of well-researched fact that reads like a personal narrative of the author's long attraction to these caves and the people who dare enter their hidden chambers.

"A common Huntsman spider is caught in the world of a little human girl."
"Will the Huntsman spider survive?"
Children are too often taught to quickly rid their world of pesky, scary spiders.
"A Huntsman Spider in My House" is an imaginative and engaging story of a Huntsman spider and a little girl, designed for young children all over the world.
The delightfully simple style and vivid graphics will entertain and inspire children to appreciate the world in which they live.
"A Huntsman Spider in My House" is the first in the Little Aussie Critters children's book series.

Are you ready to be the leader of your own life? We live in a time of unprecedented economic and social turmoil. In the face of uncertainty and fear, we look to our jobs for security and to our leaders for inspiration. We aspire to a prosperous, stable future and strive to remain optimistic, but the stress of simply surviving-financially, professionally, and emotionally-can seem a relentless struggle. Consequently, we doubt ourselves and our capacity to be the leaders of our own lives-often opting for the status quo-because staying stuck is easier than creating change. We overlook this simple truth: If we remain true to ourselves, we can control our own reality. Lead Yourself First! is filled with engaging stories and advice to help people everywhere live life to the fullest and take the lead in any work or personal challenge. By applying Michelle Ray's simple, powerful life-changing lessons, you will discover how to influence and improve the quality of all your choices. Michelle Ray's "One-Two Punch" approach will inspire you to: Address the fear of success and eliminate the fear of failure; Rise above toxic behavior and situations; Gain new insights into your values about money, opportunity, and success; Discover your dream career or business and live it!