The Journal Keepers

Luann Budd offers to help you get started journaling, and she introduces you to the power of writing as a spiritual discipline through helpful tips and examples from her own journals.

This personal memoir “reminds us that there is no such thing as an ordinary moment, and certainly no such thing as an ordinary life.” —Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love The Journal Keeper is an openhearted, unflinchingly honest memoir of six years in Phyllis Theroux’s life as she ages into her sixties. Reflecting deeply on both her practice as a writer and her personal experiences, she culls from the journals she carefully keeps to create a compelling narrative describing the void left by the passing of her remarkable mother—as well as the joyful surprise of a new love. A natural storyteller, she touches on subjects that occupy us all: loss, loneliness, growing old, financial worries, spiritual growth, and caring for an aging parent. “[Theroux] excels at closely observed and elegantly expressed portraits of domestic life . . . a lovely writer . . . The best thing about The Journal Keeper is the way it leaves us hopeful—and expectant—about what will happen next.” —TheChristian Science Monitor “Theroux seems to possess a certain calmness and wisdom . . . [The Journal Keeper] is full of small, lyrical insights.” —The Washington Post

The frayed lives of an American man, and a young woman from Ukraine, both painfully impacted by the 9/11 attacks, converge in 2002, and do so again, fifteen years later, with the discovery of their personal journals.The inexplicable abandonment of these private stories poses a mystery to the finder, Ionia, a Canadian vacationing in Greece, who is hoping to overcome a deeply emotional loss of her own. A journal keeper herself, Ionia is hesitant to invade the privacy of Russell and Mishenka, but is unable to resist upon realizing a man often referenced in their entries is the man she just met.As Ionia delves into words written years earlier, they touch her in an eerily poignant way, echoing old wounds. It prompts her to behave erratically as she integrates these strangers' stories into her own life, both past and present.

It was 1978, and there had been no resident timber wolves in Wisconsin for twenty years. Still, packs were active in neighboring Minnesota, and there was the occasional rumor from Wisconsin's northwestern counties of wolf sign or sightings. Had wolves returned on their own to Wisconsin? Richard Thiel, then a college student with a passion for wolves, was determined to find out. Thus begins Keepers of the Wolves, Thiel's tale of his ten years at the center of efforts to track and protect the recovery of wolves in Northern Wisconsin. From his early efforts as a student enthusiast to his departure in 1989 from the post of wolf biologist for the Department of Natural Resources, Thiel conveys the wonder, frustrations, humor, and everyday hard work of field biologists, as well as the politics and public relations pitfalls that so often accompany their profession. We share in the excitement as Thiel and his colleagues find wolf tracks in the snow, howl in the forest night and are answered back, learn to safely trap wolves to attach radio collars, and track the packs' ranges by air from a cramped Piper Cub. We follow the stories of individual wolves and their packs as pups are born and die, wolves are shot by accident and by intent, ravages of canine parvovirus and hard winters take their toll, and young adults move on to new ranges. Believing he had left his beloved wolves behind, Thiel takes a new job as an environmental educator in central Wisconsin, but soon wolves follow. By 1999, there were an estimated 200 timber wolves in 54 packs in Wisconsin. This is a sequel to Dick Thiel's 1994 book, The Timber Wolf in Wisconsin: The Death and Life of a Majestic Predator. That book traced the wolf's history in Wisconsin, its near extinction, and the initial efforts to reestablish it in our state. Thiel's new book looks at how successful that program has been.

What makes this book unusual is that it explores journal keeping as an ongoing, growing dialogue with God. "No matter what reasons you might have for wanting to start a journal", writes Smith", consider this one reason: God wants to keep a journal with you".

A Playful Path, the new book by games guru and fun theorist Bernard De Koven, serves as a collection of ideas and tools to help us bring our playfulness back into the open. When we find ourselves forgetting the life of the game or the game of life, the joy of form or the content, the play of brain or mind, body or spirit, this book can help us return to that which our soul is heir.

Enter into a groundbreaking immersive experience, where ghosts and spirits come to life. Do you dare to step into this magical world? Welcome to SPRUNG, the Society for the Pursuit of the Reputedly Undead, Namely Ghosts Agamemnon White--SPRUNG Ghostkeeper and child prodigy--has gone missing. All that remains of him is his journal, which you now hold in your hands. Your task? To join SPRUNG, read Ag's journal, use the app to retrace his footsteps, and help rescue him. But beware: the moment you open this book, you will release the ghosts Ag trapped inside. It's up to you to recapture them and solve the mystery of his disappearance . . . without disappearing yourself Powerful Augmented Reality effects include on- and off-page animations of text, illustrations, and characters, leading you through a gripping story that comes together as the book and game unfold.

A straightforward guide to journal-keeping techniques, this handbook explores Dreamwork, Drawing, Dialogues, Unsent Letters, Problem Solving, Lists, Maps, and Mandalas. The book is meant for the absolute beginner as well as the seasoned diarist. A great tool and resource for artists, coaches, engineers, athletes, gardeners, roofers, hairstylists, therapists, students, teachers, dancers, dreamers, and practical folk.

Autobiography has seen enormous expansions and challenges over the past decades. One of these expansions has been in comics, and it is an expansion that pushes back against any postmodern notion of the death of the author/subject, while also demanding new approaches from critics. Drawing from Life: Memory and Subjectivity in Comic Art is a collection of essays about autobiography, semi-autobiography, fictionalized autobiography, memory, and self-narration in sequential art, or comics. Contributors come from a range of academic backgrounds including English, American studies, comparative literature, gender studies, art history, and cultural studies. The book engages with well-known figures such as Art Spiegelman, Marjane Satrapi, and Alison Bechdel; with cult-status figures such as Martin Vaughn-James; and with lesser-known works by artists such as Frédéric Boilet. Negotiations between artist/writer/body and drawn/written/text raise questions of how comics construct identity, and are read and perceived, requiring a critical turn towards theorizing the comics' viewer. At stake in comic memoir and semi-autobiography is embodiment. Remembering a scene with the intent of rendering it in sequential art requires nonlinear thinking and engagement with physicality. Who was in the room and where? What was worn? Who spoke first? What images dominated the encounter? Did anybody smile? Man or mouse? Unhinged from the summary paragraph, the comics artist must confront the fact of the flesh, or the corporeal world, and they do so with fascinating results.