Are you hooked on reading and love reading new authors?

Are you hooked on reading and love reading new authors whose writing is exciting and easy?

Here is a storyteller like VC Andrews, reminiscent of Andrews' Attic books / Dollanganger series with amounts of intrigue, a strict father figure, as an attractive stranger's exciting and easy sexuality touches on very sensitive subjects as family dynamics change and become a dangerous and deadly affair.

Read Neale Sourna's Hobble.

Print version cover

http://hobble.neale-sourna.com/

Ebook version cover

http://hobble.neale-sourna.com/

AWARD-WINNER NEALE SOURNA’S AFRICAN AMERICAN / AFRICAN DIASPORA FICTION

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
29 September 2019
CONTACT:
Neale Sourna
ns@neale-sourna.com
216-772-1302

AWARD-WINNER NEALE SOURNA’S AFRICAN AMERICAN / AFRICAN DIASPORA FICTION
_Novels, game narratives, short stories, nonfiction, and more. Contemporary, Historical, Erotica, etc.

Cleveland, Ohio – Award-winning author Neale Sourna has been writing, editing, and publishing quality fiction and nonfiction since 2002 through Sourna’s publishing company, PIE: Perception Is Everything, based in Cleveland, Ohio, USA and other publishers, too. Sourna’s PIE-Percept.com is both African American owned and woman owned; plus, its author-editor-owner has won narrative Best of Quality awards for novel fiction, pc game narratives, and screenplay writing; starting with first novel, “Hobble”, which won the Best of Year Award for Romantic Erotica from BlackRefer.com.


Sourna’s storytelling includes sensuality, humor, and unique characterizations; because good characters rule the emotional part of the best stories we love; characters who makes us love, hate, or love AND hate them. Sourna’s characters are often “mixed race” or biracial, whether in a dangerous contemporary sexual triangle in the romantic erotica thriller “Hobble” (with Sourna modeling on cover); the erotic exploits of a biracial teen “Tad”, who is in love with his dark-skinned English professor, while another student seeks Tad’s affections, too; or the coming romantic historical adventure tale of “Becca DuMaurier”, a brown-skinned noble born a commoner and living in Charles II’s Restoration Britain of the late 1600s among black pirates, amorous kings, and revolution.

Sourna’s growing catalog also includes works for game companies such as Sex and Glory / Passion based in Moscow or Orchid Games; including adult game narratives based on Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing”, Lovecraft’s “Re-animator” and other horror tales, and a Fran Miller “Sin City”-styled detective tale, and fully original stories for casual women gamers, such as: “Heartwild Solitaire, “The Secret of Margrave Manor”, “Margrave Manor 2: The Lost Ship”, and more. Plus, Sourna has intriguing nonfiction about such things as oral lovemaking. http://www.neale-sourna.com/scriptgateway.html

 

Neale Sourna wants “readers (including history and literature professors, and their students) to experience is love, fear, and the romantic adventure that is life; feeling the fears, loves, confusions, and clarity that come with loving ourselves and in loving another. Also, that we of African Descent didn’t just appear in history to be slaves, or to invent the Harlem Renaissance, or riot in American cities. We have built and lived in great, legendary cities such as Timbuktu, have traveled the world for adventure like others have, and that so many of our grandparents were born as Europeans and Americans because of love, not just rape. 

 

"In seeking Black Europeans, they are hard to find; but we do know that Henry VIII in the 1500s had a black trumpeter entertainer he paid highly, not owned, and that he also had a black captain of his guard, a fine warrior whom he later knighted and whose descendants became Russian nobility. We know that the French king in Becca’s time had a black daughter who became a famous nun. And that a black man became a great samurai; so, to me, that says let’s write something fresh and exciting!”

 

About Neale Sourna
Neale Sourna lives, writes, and publishes from a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio, USA and is a member of WGA West Games.

http://www.neale-sourna.com/

http://www.pie-perceptioniseverything.com/

http://www.writing-naked.com

-END-

Video games bring older family members’ individual history to life; September 18, 2019 12.06pm EDT

https://theconversation.com/video-games-can-bring-older-family-members-personal-history-back-to-life-123065?utm_source=pocket-newtab

It is one thing to learn about history in a classroom. But as any visitor to a living museum or historic site can tell you, a fantastic way to learn is to make a personal connection.

In early 2019, media entrepreneur Mati Kochavi and his daughter Maya brought the stories of Eva Heyman, a Hungarian Jew who was murdered in Auschwitz, to social media with the simple question, “What if a girl in the Holocaust had Instagram?” “Eva Stories” was a one-day project told through Instagram stories that amassed 200,000 followers before the morning it began and reached 1 million by its end the next day.

Regular people care about the past, and can now engage with it in new ways. As a researcher of games and aging, I’m noticing a trend emerging that has the potential to build even more powerful emotional connections with its audience, through the crackling voices of people who lived through important historical times and events. My fellow game designers and I refer to it as “gaminiscing” – using the tools of video games to share personal history. 

These projects, including my own, combine audio recordings of their subjects with modern gameplay, letting players explore a virtual environment to hear – and sometimes even experience – meaningful life stories that are told to them by the older adults who lived through them.

Connecting generations

In general, few video games portray older characters accurately. Often they’re presented as a cartoon, or an over-the-top caricature or in a dehumanizing way. Before gaminiscing, there was almost no opportunity for older people to use their own voices to tell authentic, personal stories.

An early trailer for ‘Grandma Game.’ 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JXslq_6Muc#action=share

“Grandma Game” is the working title of an intergenerational game by brothers and media artists James and Joe Cox, in collaboration with their grandmother, Barbara. The game is a walking simulator, a popular genre of video games in which players trigger stories by exploring 3D environments. In “Grandma Game,” players find themselves inside the watercolor paintings done by Barbara and her grandsons, while hearing her tell stories of what the images and places mean to her.The game intentionally limits a player’s interaction, to make it more fun for Barbara herself to play it. 

“We want the game to be playable (and enjoyable) to her, so we have to design the controls and play around what she can understand and handle,” James told me in an email. “She sees it as a way to preserve her family’s history and as an opportunity to share skills with, and learn from, her grandchildren. Both our watercolor painting sessions and audio recording sessions have given us the chance to spend … quality time with our grandmother – time focused on creating work together as artists.”

Looking at history

Other games have emerged that take on more expansive historical topics, though still using very personal experiences. 

“Memories of Manzanar and Tule Lake” is the working title of a game aiming to recreate the stories of the game designer’s Japanese American grandparents during their time in an internment camp following the bombing of Pearl Harbor. In the game, players will be able to direct their own journey, interacting with other internees and learning about personal experiences with pivotal events in history, like the infamous loyalty questionnaire, and joining the U.S. Army.

Similar to the Cox brothers, game designer Brent Shiohama wishes to honor his grandparents, the bravery of interned families, and the Japanese Americans who served in the 100th Infantry Battalion/442nd Infantry Regimental Combat Team.

A virtual reality game explores one boy’s experience of World War II in France.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6tqg__x2P0#action=share 

“La Peur Bleue” tells the stories of the creator’s grandfather in World War II France. The artist states, “By focusing on specific, emotional moments from my grandfather’s past, you are given the opportunity to experience the context of the war and empathize with the emotions my grandfather felt.” Players interact with objects in recreated locations and hear a grandfather reminisce about his past, adding another layer of historical immersion by using virtual reality rather than just a computer screen.
My own game, the forthcoming “Brukel,” uses recordings of my grandmother’s own voice, to tell stories of her childhood growing up on an occupied farm in Belgium during World War II. 

As the player, you enter the Brukel farmhouse equipped with your smartphone camera and a vague list of topics that your grandmother told you about. By photographing items that match well with each topic, you unlock audio recordings in which she reveals her past to you. 

However, when it eventually gets dark, you find yourself trapped in the house as the ghosts of the past come to life. Through a series of survival-based vignettes, you must try to outlast some of the horror stories that my grandmother lived through as a teenage girl, while slowly learning about how the war deeply affected everyone in the family.

A Belgian grandmother tells the story of her childhood in ‘Brukel.’

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9P-alvHXGnc#action=share 

A welcoming response

Even before the release of “Brukel,” I have been able to showcase it, most notably at an event at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in early August 2019. So far, playtesters have told me they appreciate its ability to engage the player through the use of modern technology.

Because of my own research, I had anticipated that older gamers would appreciate “Brukel” for its meaningful engagement and mature story. Those are two qualities that my research has shown are paramount to older gamers. In particular, for my qualitative work, I met a number of older adults who deliberately sought out games that would meaningfully contribute to their interest in the post-World War II era.

For example, an 82-year-old Belgian man told me, “I barely remember the Second World War but I was a child back then. What I remember is extremely vivid, though. The lights, the bombings, the noise. Airplanes flying over our house and being shot down. I can still see it. It was an adventure, and I relive that adventure by playing games about it.”

Similarly, another Belgian man, aged 62, explained, “I recently went to Normandy; it is amazing to visit places in games that you can later on visit in real life. You have never been there but you know the place from the game. They can be so realistic.”

However, I had not expected the response that “Brukel” received from children. At the Smithsonian event, people from all age groups – including pre-kindergartners and octogenarians – played “Brukel.” As a group, pre-teens turned out to be most engaged with the game, spending the most time playing it and even returning multiple times over the two-day event to play it again.

When I spoke with the parents of these young gamers, the general theme of their response was that they loved how engaged their children were with “Brukel” while learning about history. One parent told me, “They’re going to play video games regardless, so it’s great that they’re drawn to something educational.” 

Another parent who said his child was on the autism spectrum with trouble concentrating in school praised “Brukel” for its ability to engage his son. He said his son was more comfortable learning through playing the game because he was familiar with using a keyboard and mouse, which he found far less stressful than being in a classroom.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that many of these gaminiscing projects are centered around war. The 75th anniversary of the end of World War II will be in 2020; as those who faced its terrors firsthand die, the stories of their experiences are fading away. The risk – and my concern – is that society collectively will forget the lessons and the promises of “never again.”

[ Like what you’ve read? Want more? Sign up for The Conversation’s daily newsletter.]

Neale Sourna's COOL MUSIC VARIETY (eclectic radio)

Neale Sourna's 
COOL MUSIC VARIETY (eclectic radio)

Migrated station to Shoutcast, end of May 2019.

Great music with great voices: singers, rappers, instrumentals! Timeless music variety, eclectic classics both old and new; from beginning of recording - 1920 to 2018.

Classic oldies, classic hits, & classic new hits: pop, R&B / R & B / rhythm and blues, rock, hip hop, American country, jazz, swing, film music, symphony, world music, humor, & protest; plus newbies, song originals, & song covers. American Songbook. 

Rock n Roll Hall of Fame / Rock Hall Inductees and future inductees.

Programming Questions and Answers

LISTEN FREE @:
https://streamingv2.shoutcast.com/CoolMusicVariety

https://www.radioteka.org/cool-music-variety

or just find us how you like us through your favorite search engine and online radio streaming service: 

"Cool Music Variety"

LISTEN to 
Cool Music Variety 
at 
https://directory.shoutcast.com/Search 

and search for 
Cool Music Variety 
with visible song titles / artists
LISTEN to
Cool Music Variety
at 
https://www.pickradio.net/cool-music-variety
with visible song titles / artists
 LISTEN to
Cool Music Variety
at 
https://www.radioteka.org/cool-music-variety
with visible song titles / artists
LISTEN to
Cool Music Variety
at 
https://streamingv2.shoutcast.com/CoolMusicVariety

Shoutcast mobile version 
includes visible song titles / artists
LISTEN to
Cool Music Variety
at 
https://streamingv2.shoutcast.com/CoolMusicVariety

play in free media players, like:
ITunes 
or VLC Media Player

Neale Sourna's HOBBLE recommended by Cushcity.com on Facebook

Neale Sourna's HOBBLE recommended by Cushcity.com

https://www.facebook.com/224139454301266/photos/a.394927907222419/2368183583230165/?type=3&theater

Awarded Best Romantic Erotica by BlackRefer.com, author Neale Sourna's latest book, "Hobble," features a healer caught up in a compulsive sexual and love entanglement. Medical professional Bennet Gillepsie, who is half Native American, thinks he could be falling in love with Day, a knife-happy African American innocent. Either it's love or the "hottest sex he's ever had." But Day's stepfather is keeping his stepdaughter as his sex slave and could send her back to lockdown far away from Benn. Available at Amazon: https://amzn.to/2LCo9wI

Available worldwide through Ingram's Lightning Source in print, epub and here, in print, epub, and kindle:  

 

https://www.facebook.com/PIE-Perception-ls-Everything-203407039830841/

https://www.ebookmall.com/author/neale-sourna

https://payhip.com/NealeSourna

http://www.neale-sourna.com/catalog.html

 

https://www.amazon.com/Neale-Sourna/e/B00601AL4C?ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_27&qid=1563388698&sr=1-27

National Black Book Festival / Cushcity.com: Neale Sourna's HOBBLE

National Black Book Festival / Cushcity.com

https://www.facebook.com/nationalblackbookfestival/photos/a.293422536041/10157670257956042/?type=3&theater

 Awarded Best Romantic Erotica by BlackRefer.com, author Neale Sourna's latest book, "Hobble," features a doctor caught up in a compulsive sexual and love entanglement. Medical professional Bennet Gillepsie, who is half Native American, thinks he could be falling in love with Day, a knife-happy African-American innocent. Either it's love or the "hottest sex he's ever had." But Day's stepfather is keeping her as his sex slave and has her on lockdown far away from Benn. Available at Amazon: https://amzn.to/2LCo9wI

 

Available worldwide through Ingram's Lightning Source in print, epub and here, in print, epub, and kindle:  

 

https://www.facebook.com/PIE-Perception-ls-Everything-203407039830841/

https://www.ebookmall.com/author/neale-sourna

https://payhip.com/NealeSourna

http://www.neale-sourna.com/catalog.html

New Black Historical Romantic Adventure Novel Coming Summer 2019 - "Becca DuMaurier" by Neale Sourna

http://becca.neale-sourna.com/

"Becca DuMaurier" by Neale Sourna
Book 1 
of the Black Rogues Series

Full Novel of Book 1 Coming Summer 2019

       It's 1688 AD, in the midst of the Glorious Revolution, a British civil war between Protestants and Catholics which has international players interested from France, Ireland, Spain, and the Netherlands, while the English king is absent from his throne, a huge invading force of sails and swords fills the Channel.
         However, royal favorite of Charles II's Restoration reign, the brown-skinned British courtier Lady Rebecca, has more personal cares; on the run from a forced marriage to a famous white-haired earl, she’s running home to the very edge of England, to her stormy Atlantic-tossed Cornwall, where pirates are stalking the tiny coves, villages, and homes of Cornwall's shores.
        And where Cornwall's rocky, treacherous coast is but a stepping stone for lively Becca, her ever persistent soldier fiancé, and an intriguing Irish Catholic pirate of many faces.

Historical Romantic Adventure Fiction / Novel
http://becca.neale-sourna.com/

black brit, new novel

Christopher Jackson, Barack Obama, Bebe Winans – One Last Time (44 Remix...

How's this for repurposing a text?

Cheat Sheet to Becoming a Successful Freelancer by Bethenny Carl

https://www.websiteplanet.com/blog/ultimate-guide-to-being-a-freelancer/

Our Ultimate Guide to Being a Freelancer

Bethenny Carl

If you’re thinking of becoming a freelancer, you’re probably bored with your day job and looking for new challenges in your life. Maybe you love the idea of being your own boss, or maybe you just need more flexibility in your work schedule. Either way, the freelance life could be perfect for you.

When you’re a freelancer, everything’s up to you. You can choose to work from the comfort of your own home, from your favorite cafe or from a shared office space. If you’re the adventurous type, you can even be a digital nomad, traveling the world with your trusty laptop. 

You can work for several clients at a time or find one reliable client who can provide you with regular work. You can work regular business hours just like the rest of the world, or sleep till noon and do your work during the wee hours of the night.

The most important thing is to determine what will work best for you, and find your own way to do it successfully. Because after all, that’s what freelancing is all about: finding your own way.

With all the different options out there, if you’re just starting your freelance career, things can seem quite overwhelming. But don’t worry – we’re here to help you figure it all out.

Your Cheat Sheet to Becoming a Successful Freelancer...