Marking a decade since the release of their first Top 40 single, “Best Day of My Life”, American Authors brought that same unadulterated joy to their latest album, Best Night of My Life.

The band is calling it “the most American Authors album we’ve ever done”, saying that it was a conscious decision to bring more feel-good songs to a world that has seen a great deal of devastation over the last few years.

While they continue to pen undeniable anthems, there is a growth and maturity that shows throughout the 10-track LP.

“We wrote and produced this album completely ourselves, just the three of us, because at the end of the day, no one knows Authors more than we do,” vocalist and guitarist Zac Barnett said. “We’ve written with so many talented people in the past that this time we wanted to keep it all in-house; to bring as much truth to our music and brand as possible.”

The band spent just two weeks writing, recording and producing the album in Barnett’s living room in Las Vegas. By taking the reins, they were able to make this album completely, authentically an American Authors album.

“We wrote and recorded this album in two weeks so it was a looooot of challenging long nights,” Barnett said. “In that time, we did about 20 songs then cut [them] down to our favorite 10. We would start writing around 10 a.m. and usually work until midnight. While it was definitely a lot of work, we’re all so passionate about our writing and genuinely love working together, so we were always having fun.”

The title track comes as a full-circle moment to the single that kickstarted their popularity. It is less of a follow-up and more of a nod to their love of spirited, captivating melodies.

Throughout the album listeners will hear impressive harmonies, handclaps and whistling infused with acoustic guitars, banjos and a harmonica that was actually Postmate’d to the studio. These songs touch on human connection, love, loss and knowing the best is yet to come.

“We hope people can listen to this album and feel great about themselves and the future,” Barnett said. “We always keep a strong message of hope in our songs and we want to portray truth and positivity. Put this album on and get ready to seize the day and live your best life.”

Southern-California based author and journalist Steve Baltin has lived a life most writers dream of. With bylines in Rolling Stone, Billboard, Playboy and more, he has had the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to interview many music legends.

His latest book, Anthems We Love: 29 Iconic Artists On The Hit Songs That Shaped Our Lives, examines anthems from The Temptations to My Chemical Romance and answers the question: what transforms a song into an anthem?

Interviews with these artists reveal their creative processes, making the reader feel as though they were sitting in the room during a writing session or backstage at a show. While it offers a behind-the-scenes look at the songs, it mostly shares how the song grew in popularity and how fans made them personal. Songs are meant to transport someone back to a certain time - a wedding, a high school graduation, a first love - and reading about how these artists watched their songs grow into something beyond their imaginations is fascinating.

“If you’ve ever bounced along to TLC’s ‘Scrubs’ in your car on a girls’ night out, acted out a three-act play in your head to My Chemical Romance’s ‘The Black Parade,’ or swooned to Barry Manilow’s ‘Could It Be Magic,’ and wondered, How did these anthemic songs come to be? - join the club!” singer-songwriter Deborah Gibson wrote as praise for Anthems We Love. “Steve Baltin so brilliantly takes you deep into an insightful journey of these songs from inception to recording and beyond… So many fascinating artists and songs that are woven into the soundtrack of our lives in a new and unique way that will leave you hungry for a next edition. This book resonates with me as a songwriter, but more importantly, it hits home for the music fan that lives in all of us!”

In the foreword written by fellow journalist Cameron Crowe, he shares his belief that most great anthems start as a want to please everyone, and when that backfires, a song emerges that was meant for one person but instead resonates with the world. Having a song that means so much to someone is widely discussed, whether they are sharing the song with their friends or seeing the song performed live while standing next to a group of strangers, but hardly ever have the artists delved deep into what it was like for them to watch fans make those songs their own.

“I have done thousands of interviews over the years and one of the most common refrains, no matter how big the artist, is songs are like children,” Baltin said in a press release. “Anthems is what happens when those songs have grown up. All 29 of these songs have gone into the world and been a huge part of people’s lives, whether they’ve been played at weddings, funerals, births. And my favorite part of writing this book was hearing from the artists how they’ve been moved - and even shocked - by the way these songs have become part of the fabrics of listeners’ worlds in ways the artist could never have imagined. Anthems proves that when a song leaves the nest, it becomes the world’s.”

In the superhero universe of A LA BRAVA, Latinas of different upbringings fight against female injustices.

The creator and founder of the series, Kayden Phoenix, comes from the film industry and has a background in screenwriting and directing. One of the first things she noticed in her field was the character generalizations that didn’t reflect her own background, and gave her the idea of wanting to bring a Latina superhero to the big screen.

As a third generation Chicana based in Los Angeles, her first real superhero was her mother. She was the inspiration behind the first in the series, Jalisco, named after the place her grandmother was born. This Mexican Latina superhero is a blade-wielding folklorico dancer that uses her culture as her weapon.

The second in the series, Santa, is also heavily influenced by her family. Inspired by her family members with military backgrounds, this SJW Latina superhero is a brawler that takes down the ICE detention centers.

Loquita, a Boriqua/Cubana Latina superhero, is a teen detective in the supernatural world. Loquita is an ode to Phoenix’s childhood memories of ghost stories told at family gatherings.

Ruca is a Chicana Latina vigilante dispensing justice. Her story pays homage to Phoenix’s hometown and the overplayed stereotypes of Boyle Heights, Los Angeles.

Bandita is the last in the series, who is a Dominican Latina, gun-slinging cowgirl based in modern-day New York.

For each story, a very real social justice issue is depicted. From femicide and government detention centers to suicide, human trafficking and domestic violence, Phoenix makes sure that Latinas are not only represented but heard.

“I hope that [readers] get a good story, because you are reading a book and learning about a new superhero,” she said. “And then also maybe to create change themselves; whether it’s the social justice issue that they’re learning about or just something in the community that they care about themselves.”

Although her main reasoning for creating this series was representation, she was informed during the middle of the series that A LA BRAVA is the first Latina superhero team in comic book history.

She wanted to make sure representation was found in all forms of the comics, including the designers. Several artists were a part of the story’s creations, from penciling and inking to coloring and lettering.

“I have so many amazing artists,” Phoenix said. “They’re all Latina artists. I’m so lucky I found them, all on Instagram and Twitter.”

After putting a call out online for Latinas artists to help a Latina writer create Latina superheroes, Phoenix received nearly 100 portfolios. Since then, she has been able to create a team of artists that specialize in all forms of illustration.

The importance of the A LA BRAVA series is much more than a typical superhero story. They tackle real-world problems with real-world solutions, and do so with a still-underrepresented community. This series is meant to spark conversation and bring forward a new kind of hero.

While Jamie Gehring was writing her memoir, Madman in the Woods: Life Next Door to the Unabomber, she never once identified the book as part of the true crime genre.

Gehring grew up in Lincoln, Mont. next to a self-sustaining hermit that she only knew as Ted. Despite his odd behavior, Ted was the man that gave her painted rocks, stayed over for dinner and even held her as a baby. Imagine her surprise when, 17 years later, her neighbor was identified as Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber.

“It's such an interesting, outside perspective to have experienced something like that,” Gehring said. “For me, personally, it just really motivated and pushed me to not only really understand our interactions and our lives and how they intersected but also knowing him and wanting to really understand what created him.”

Although her book was originally laid out as a set of short stories, Gehring knew she wanted to make it much more personal. More than five years later, she had researched every aspect of Kaczynski’s life, including illness as a baby, advancements in school and isolation he chose throughout his childhood and teenage years. Much like an actor immersing themselves in a role, Gehring immersed herself in the life of Ted and his family to get a better understanding of how the man behind the monster came to be.

There were a few instances where she would take a 24-hour period of time to lock herself in a hotel room and fully immerse herself, allowing her to feel not only Kaczynski’s pain but the pain his family had to endure. Her empathy is present in the book, because as a mother and as a sibling, she can understand what it felt like to be related to someone who was lacking that same kind of empathy.

“It was a rollercoaster of emotion because I would write something particularly in that scene with [Kaczynski’s mother] Wanda and her baby and having to leave him in the hospital, and then a couple of months later I would write a scene about the additional research I had done finding out that he poisoned my dog,” Gehring said. “I'm feeling empathy and then I'm feeling this intense anger as well.”

Gehring was able to develop a strong relationship with Ted’s brother, David Kaczynski, who she first met during the production of the Netflix documentary, “Unabomber - In His Own Words”. She was transparent with him from their first email interaction, saying that she was writing about how her childhood was affected by Ted and how she’s learning to cope with that as an adult. He was transparent with her in return, offering her reference material and stories of his own as well as reading the first draft of her memoir.

“He really thanked me for trying to connect with Wanda because her voice can no longer be heard; she's passed away and for me to spend the time really trying to tell her story as well was really important and was very appreciated by David,” she said. “He was so incredibly supportive and complimentary, not only of my writing style, but also of the story I was telling. Getting his approval, somebody who's this close to the story, was a huge moment for me as a new author.”

Despite getting the approval of those closest to the story, there were still a thousand moments of thinking ‘never mind’ while writing Madman in the Woods. Not only did it take a lot of emotional energy to write about several disturbing topics, but having to learn just how close it was to the safety of her own family was hard to fully grasp. There was also the thought in the back of her mind that there would probably come a time when Ted would read the book and have something to say about it.

The most important aspect of the book is the conversation it starts. For true crime fans, this is much more than some previously unknown facts about the man that went from mathematics professor to domestic terrorist. This is about those that knew him and were also affected by his actions.

“It makes you realize the ripple effect of somebody's violence,” Gehring said. “Because of the duration of his violence, so many lives were affected. The nation was terrorized for 17 years.”

Gehring feels like the finished product of Madman in the Woods is everything she wanted it to be. It is much more than a true crime story; it has nature writing, complex themes of grief and connection, and personal essays of life outside of being Kaczynski’s neighbor.

There is one takeaway she hopes readers get, especially those who have similar stories.

“That is one thing that I really do find empowering and appreciate about the process, that I've been able to give more voice to my experience,” she said. “There's plenty of other people out there that have experienced some type of violence and it's affected their lives, and maybe that will inspire them to tell their own story, whatever that looks like.”

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At the height of the 2000s, MTV was at the forefront of pop culture. The network expanded from music videos and live performances to pimping rides, tours of celebrity homes and choosing a date based on the items in their bedroom. While the music aspect of MTV slowly disappeared, the artists did not.

The Pop 2000 Tour has been traveling the country since 2018 with artists that best represent the early aughts. The most recent lineup includes O-Town, LFO, Ryan Cabrera, David Cook and *NSYNC’s Chris Kirkpatrick as the host.

Not only do fans get the opportunity to see these musicians perform the best songs of that era, but they can also purchase meet and greet packages that allows them to watch soundcheck, get photos and autographs, and even sit on stage during the show.

With Kirkpatrick as the host - “taking you way back to the second time slap bracelets were popular” - it is a guaranteed comedy show on top of musical performances. During the tour’s stop in the Chicagoland area, Kirkpatrick not only hyped up the crowd in between sets but came out to perform alongside his tourmates. He performed Jimmy Eat World’s “The Middle” with David Cook and sang a few classic *NSYNC songs with O-Town (“Bye Bye Bye” dance moves included).

Starting off the show was Cook, who rose to fame after winning the 7th season of American Idol in 2008. His stage presence is haunting, from the gravelly vocals to the richly textured guitar. At one point he requested the house lights be turned off, and illuminated just by the audience’s phones, sang fan favorite “Light On” in a beautifully intimate setting.

Ryan Cabrera took the stage next, sharing a story about how he was one of the first people to sing outside with the crowd surrounding the TRL studios. He shared several stories throughout his set, giving the audience the feeling of catching up with an old friend.

When O-Town took the stage, the audience immediately time traveled to their former teenage selves. They knew every dance move, sang every lyric and were decked out in their finest O-Town merch.

Halfway through their performance, they brought out Brad Fischetti of LFO. Fischetti is the only remaining member of the hip hop band, losing Rich Cronin and Devin Lima to cancer in 2010 and 2018, respectively. He honored his friends in many ways, wearing their names on his shirt and bringing out a mic stand that held a pair of red sneakers and white sneakers to honor them. Alongside O-Town, he sang the band’s hit songs and spoke about how he will continue to keep the LFO legacy alive.

Something each performance had was cover songs and mashups. In addition to “The Middle”, Cook also sang Backstreet Boys’ “I Want It That Way”, Cabrera covered The Goo Goo Dolls and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air theme song, and O-Town spun Nelly, Maroon 5, Missy Elliott and more into their songs.

Many residents of Oklahoma believed that the Oklahoma City Bombing of 1995 was the deadliest act in their history. When the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building was demolished, as well as dozens of cars and more than 300 nearby buildings, 168 people perished and several hundred were injured. The FBI’s official website states, “No stone was left unturned to make sure every clue was found and all the culprits identified.”

The same cannot be said for the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921.

According to author Susan E. Atkins, Oklahoma State Representative Don Ross had to correct reports that the 1995 bombing was the worst disaster in Oklahoma history. Atkins, a Tulsa resident for 30 years, a graduate of the University of Oklahoma and professor at the University of Tulsa, had never heard of the 1921 race massacre. For almost 100 years, this tragedy was swept under the rug, and that infuriated her.

Atkins dove into as many scholarly sources as she could find about the massacre. Historically accurate, well-annotated books were right at her disposal, yet history books were notably absent of any trace of this piece of history. This inspired her to write a historical fiction account of the massacre called Never Again!

With six pages of bibliography, Never Again! brings a fictionalized account of what occurred between Black man Dick Roland and white woman Sarah Page, beginning inside an elevator of the Drexel Building on May 30, 1921. On May 31 and June 1, 1921, thousands of drunk, armed and newly deputized white citizens invaded Tulsa's thriving Greenwood District, murdered an estimated 300 Blacks, tortured thousands more and incinerated 35 city blocks of homes, businesses, churches and other institutions.

“The Greenwood community was known as ‘Black Wall Street’, but the Tulsa Tribune, which was a big player in this whole thing, were just fanning the flames of what a cesspool of drugs and [sex workers] Greenwood was,” Atkins said. “They just totally ignored the fact that there were brilliant doctors, lawyers, fine jewelry shops, churches, and all of it was burned to the ground over the course of two days.”

Atkins created two fictional characters to help move the story forward to present day, including Hattie Johnson Rogers, daughter of Roland and Page, and her best friend, Lucy Ann Barnes. They meet when entering Booker T. Washington High School, and become lifelong friends who eventually become part of the conversation of fighting for reparations. The book speaks of the real 2005 case appeal that the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear, and how real people Representative Don Ross and Senator Maxine Horner helped commission a report to get real answers.

As of May 2022, the plaintiffs in a lawsuit seeking reparations for the massacre are finally moving forward. An extensive curriculum was introduced to Oklahoma school districts. President Joe Biden became the first sitting president to visit the area. A free, public exhibit is offered by the Tulsa Historical Society and Museum. Progress has been made, but is not finished.

“I truly want people to be able to learn about this story and history,” Atkins said. “What people forget about something like this is that the wealth that could have been passed on to subsequent generations, and wealth could have accumulated through generations. [Those who survived] fled, never to return. It was a tragic loss for the city of Tulsa and the community of Greenwood.”

For best-selling novelist Ibi Zoboi, her writing journey began during her adolescence.

She kept her stories to herself, jotting them down on the blank pages of notebooks left over from the school year. She didn’t read many books herself - the culture of borrowing and returning books in a classroom or library either did not exist yet or did not exist in her struggling community - but instead immersed herself in magazines, which were more accessible and cheaper to buy.

It was easy for Zoboi to fall in love with writing. Poetry first, then journalism. Her poetry became short stories. Those short stories became novels. Whatever she was writing, she knew she wanted the audience to fall into the young adult category.

“I decided to write for young people simply because I love speculative fiction,” she said. “I thought I could try my hand at fantasy and sci-fi, and those were the first stories that I started to write.”

Her latest novel, Okoye to the People, finds the Dora Milaje General going on her first trip to America with King T’Chaka. She has been tasked with joining other African leaders as a special envoy to the World Humanitarian Aid Council, but is thrown into conflict when she finds herself in a New York neighborhood that is struggling with gentrification.

As she gets to know the young people of Brownsville, Okoye uncovers the truth about the plans of a manipulative real-estate mogul pulling all the strings - and how far-reaching those secret plans really are. Caught between fulfilling her duty to her country and listening to her own heart urging her to stand up for Brownsville, Okoye must determine the type of Dora Milaje - and woman - she wants to be.

Zoboi found herself really connecting to the story of the Dora Milaje, who were based on the Dahomey, an all-female military regiment of the Kingdom of Dahomey in West Africa. As an immigrant of Haiti, she loved reading about and seeing photos of these women who learned how to protect their children and their villages.

She also immersed herself in the Black Panther comics, learning as much as she could about the Dora Milaje and Okoye.

“There’s a lot of gaps in the story and history of the Dora Milaje, so I had to rely on what’s already there,” Zoboi said. “Every time somebody writes about the Dora Milaje, they create a little something new. I had to rely on who she is as a character; as a character she’s fiercely loyal, so this book is about her loyalty versus her heart and her needing to help the kids that need it most.”

Okoye may or may not be the one who saves the day at the end of the novel, giving the reader the chance to question who they are as heroes and how they can create and affect change. Sure, there are superheroes, but what about everyday heroes?

Creating the story for Okoye to the People reminded Zoboi of a Rudine Sims Bishop quote that she tries to live by in her storytelling:

“Books are sometimes windows, offering views of worlds that may be real or imagined, familiar or strange. These windows are also sliding glass doors, and readers have only to walk through in imagination to become part of whatever world has been created or recreated by the author. When lighting conditions are just right, however, a window can also be a mirror. Literature transforms human experience and reflects it back to us, and in that reflection we can see our own lives and experiences as part of a larger human experience. Reading, then, becomes a means of self-affirmation, and readers often seek their mirrors in books.”

The young adults who read her novels may not feel seen or may not see themselves, so Zoboi hopes her books help them find that window, mirror or sliding glass door.

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From a green screen-covered basement to the stage of Chicago’s Auditorium Theatre, Trixie Mattel and Katya Zamolodchikova bring the chaotic energy of their World of Wonder web series UNHhhh to a live audience with Trixie and Katya Live!

Trixie and Katya Live! is a combination of pre-filmed skits and onstage banter that show the RuPaul’s Drag Race alum - including season six contestant Kelly Mantle, playing their manager, Sandy - as they prepare for the show. They switch viewpoints from stage performances of rhythmic gymnastics and lip-synched power ballads to backstage quips of several dazzling costume changes and relaxation techniques.

The show is sponsored by fictional Swedish fintech company Klarma, who in just four easy installments goes from innocent sponsor to threatening higher power. The advertisements sprinkled within the show get more and more threatening, and manager Sandy sports a new injury each time she appears on stage, claiming she was attacked by their people.

Except for her first appearance, when she came out with a neck brace and without hesitation blamed Will Smith for the injury. The widely-discussed Oscars altercation between Smith and Chris Rock happened just 24 hours before their Chicago performance, and both Trixie and Katya hilariously broke character as neither were expecting that response.

Along the way, the duo begin to clash over who has the better work ethic.

“If I wanted to micromanage you, I’d help you tuck,” Trixie says to Katya before intermission.

When they return, after a foreshadowing Klarma ad and musical number from Sandy, Katya gives a Tedxxx talk on the subject of being constantly interrupted. Using examples from various episodes of UNHhhh, the talk is (naturally) interrupted by Trixie who gives her own Tedxxx talk on always being right.

After they are both kidnapped by Klarma and Trixie concedes to their terms and conditions, the two put their anger aside to join forces and defeat the company-turned-cult.

The chance to see the chemistry of UNHhhh in a live setting, bloopers and all, fully elevates the experience of watching two friends bring out the best in each other. Audiences have taken joy in watching these two queens go from competitors to allies and feel a sense of togetherness with people they have never met before. Trixie and Katya Live! brings that sense of togetherness one step forward and gives their audience the chance to see that spark in person.

This review was sponsored by Klarma. Please don’t come for us.

Canadian R&B singer Myles Lloyd uses his vocal presence to create vulnerable, honest music that gives the listener a personal look into his human condition. That vocal presence is heavily felt in his sophomore album, Forever, Yours.

The eight-track release follows his 2019 album, Goodbye, which took a different approach of alienating the past and finally getting the strength to move forward.

“But how realistic is it to leave everything in the past and never think about it again?” Lloyd said. “To never wonder how life would be with a do-over? So many scenarios and thoughts can play in your head and it’s normal.”

This time around, Lloyd focuses on the real life events of physically leaving someone yet remaining emotionally attached to them. Each track bubbles in emotion that stems from love, sexual desire and the risqué parts of relationships.

“Forever, Yours is about how you can say goodbye but the memories, emotions, experiences and feelings will always be with me,” he said. “Some might think this goes into the toxic relationship realm but I just think it's real life. Some people go and stay away and some people you just can’t fully let go so you keep going back and forth to recapture that feeling."

The album opens with “Better With You”, a track just under a minute and a half. That minute and a half is all it takes for Lloyd to admit that he was wrong and is a better person when he is with them. That theme is also prevalent in “Running On You”, while tracks “Distraction” and “Monster” admit that he wasn’t always bringing out the other person’s best qualities.

The album title is a nod to Michael Jackson’s 1975 album, Forever, Michael, which was a staple in Lloyd’s childhood. The album is still one of his inspirations when it comes to making music, with its mix of soul sounds and funk elements.

Photo courtesy of Chicago Humanities Festival/DT Kindler

The Chicago Humanities Festival started as a single day celebration of the humanities and quickly became a year-round festival of arts and ideas. They present more than 100 annual events in venues across the Chicagoland area, including a recent event to support the release of actor, comedian, writer, director and producer Bob Odenkirk’s memoir, Comedy Comedy Comedy Drama.

“CHF is first and foremost a Chicago institution,” Chicago Humanities Festival Executive Director Phillip Bahar said. “Our programming often brings leading artists, authors and thinkers to Chicago. But, we’re also very much committed to highlighting the incredible voices that come from Chicago and celebrating our city’s home-grown talent and creativity. Bob Odenkirk began here in Chicago, from the stages of Second City to so many other comedy clubs. Bringing him home to celebrate his career and the city’s legacy in comedy felt like a great way to start the year. Plus, we knew it would be great fun.”

Odenkirk started his Illinois portion of his book tour at the historic Music Box Theatre with fellow Saturday Night Live alum Tim Meadows. With Meadows as the moderator, the two discussed their time working together both in New York City and Chicago, as well as some of the stories mentioned in Comedy Comedy Comedy Drama.

When Meadows asked what made Odenkirk decide to write a memoir - “What made you think that anybody cared?” - he named several show business-related memoirs that he enjoyed. He also mentioned his interactions with legendary actor, writer and teacher Del Close.

Odenkirk ran into Close in Chicago during his college years and asked to interview him. A two-hour conversation transpired from that question, where Odenkirk heard him “ramble about his career and it inspired me so much, that interaction, [that] maybe I could do the same thing for some young people.”

“He made it seem possible,” Odenkirk said. “I never met an older person who was excited about what they were going to do next. I remember looking at him as he was telling me this and thinking [that] I’ve never seen anybody his age tell me what they were going to do in a way that sounded like it might be cool or great and that they were excited about it. There was something about his excitement and I just thought maybe I could borrow that labored action and build on it to write a book.”

Another interaction Odenkirk wrote about in his memoir is with actor and comedian Chris Farley. He said there were two things that he attributed to having cared so much about Farley during the time they worked together: growing up with an alcoholic father, which he said made him empathize with those struggling with alcohol abuse, and the fact that Farley shared so much of his soul with everyone he encountered.

“Chris had an effect on everybody that worked with him,” Meadows said.

Photo courtesy of Chicago Humanities Festival/DT Kindler

Suffering daily humiliation at the hands of three bullies, four high school friends take it upon themselves to accidentally open a portal to another dimension. What started out as an evening activity of live action role playing turned into a deadly creature terrorizing their small Arkansas town.

American literature professor, award-winning screenwriter and accomplished science fiction and horror novelist Brett Riley debuts his action-packed YA series with Freaks. Friends Micah Sterne, Jamie Entmann, Gabriella Davison and Christian Allen have been consistently picked on by school bullies Kenneth Del Ray, Brayden Sears and Gavin Cloverleaf for years. Their hatred for these bullies grows into an unhealthy obsession with seeking revenge, especially once the open portal not only releases other-worldly creatures but gives the four of them super powers.

The bad news? Kenneth also stumbled into the side effects from the portal while he was lurking outside in an attempt to bully them in their own backyards.

Even more bad news? One of the creatures released from the portal, a Go’kan named Na’ul, has its eyes set on the teenagers and destroying everything they love.

The novel is chalk full of beloved science fiction tributes, from Stranger Things and Supernatural to X-Men and The Goonies. What it lacks, however, is the same amount of depth. Opportunities to expand upon the creature’s background, the origin of the book of spells and the friendship of the characters were missed in the first book of this series.

This fast-paced, easy read does leave unresolved conflicts among this friend group as well as with one of their bullies. Although they all share this new life and the repercussions of what they have done, they can not seem to put the past aside to deal with the bigger conflict of what else was let into their world.

The ending also asks the question of how well they will continue to work with one another, with careful concern over Micah. He was already exhibiting major behavioral concerns, and the trauma he experienced over the course of this novel is not doing him any favors.

The second novel in the Freaks series, Travelers, will be available August 2, 2022.

Photo courtesy of Shervin Lainez

Music historian, critically acclaimed author and regular Wall Street Journal contributor Marc Myers takes on the task of sharing the stories of those who made rock music what it is today in his latest book, Rock Concert: An Oral History as Told by the Artists, Backstage Insiders, and Fans Who Were There.

Decades after the rise of rock music in the 1950s, the rock concert retains its allure and power as a unifying generational experience - and as an influential multi-billion dollar industry. Rock Concert presents a 360-degree account of live rock’s emergence by weaving together groundbreaking stories from those who were on stage, in the wings, behind the scenes and in the audience.

Rock Concert begins with the blossoming of R&B concert circuits in the 1950s. From Los Angeles auditoriums to Memphis fairs, industry veterans share where they played their music and the importance of radio.

The hippie gatherings of the 1960s brought less rock ‘n’ roll and more folk and pop. The emergence of FM radio majorly impacted how musicians found their audience while musicians also used their voices for political activism. Concert promoters, sound system engineers and music festivals were born, with a lot of trial and error to follow.

Growing arena tours in the 1970s was exactly the kind of overhaul that the rock concert needed. After the violent events of The Altamont Free Concert on December 6, 1969, it took a while for arenas to ease resistance on letting rock artists perform at their venues. Image, media and branding became essential to promoting music, inspiring the cover of The Beatles’ Let It Be, Chicago’s first nine studio albums and the iconic Hot Lips logo for The Rolling Stones.

The 1980s is where visual branding reached its peak. MTV began broadcasting on cable TV on August 1, 1981. For the first time, audiences could see artists on their television playing their music live or in the form of a music video. It encouraged album and concert ticket purchases, the latter becoming computerized for the first time.

Throughout the book, readers get to hear first-hand accounts of Elvis Presley’s superstardom, Beatlemania, the Grateful Dead’s free-flowing psychedelic jams and Pink Floyd’s operatic, live production of The Wall. Drawn from his original, in-depth interviews with 94 wide-ranging sources, Myers combines tales from iconic performers like Joan Baez, Bob Weir, Alice Cooper, Steve Miller and Angus Young; stories about disc jockeys who first began playing rock on the radio such as Alan Freed; audio innovators who developed new technologies to accommodate ever-growing rock audiences and venues; music journalists such as Cameron Crowe, who went on to create Rolling Stone magazine; and the roadies, tour managers, regional promoters and festival organizers who orchestrated concerts to create a rounded and vivid account of live rock’s stratospheric rise from 1950 to 1985.

Over the last decade, Brett Newski has travelled the world as a touring musician. He’s been featured on NPR and Rolling Stone, supported acts such as Pixies and Violent Femmes, and his music has seen rotation on radio stations across the Midwest. His latest endeavor, however, involves a bit more than a few new songs.

It’s Hard To Be A Person: Defeating Anxiety, Surviving the World and Having More Fun was inspired by drawings Newski posted to social media several years ago as a humorous way to tackle his own anxiety and depression. He didn’t expect his audience to respond in a positive way, but the more they requested new drawings, the more he realized he was on to something bigger.

Seeing that positive feedback was the push he needed to try something new creatively, as he had been feeling the effects of long-term touring and pressure to be constantly releasing new music.

“Burnout had set in and I needed to do something other than music for a bit,” he said. “Touring and songwriting can be incredibly exciting missions, but after doing it awhile, I needed a new creative project that would challenge me and kick my ass in a new way.”

Despite the initial excitement of finding a new way to be creative, Newski found the process of creating a book to be incredibly taxing.

“Making the book was a long battle within my own brain,” he said. “It wasn't actually that much fun to make because it was so challenging. Unlike a music album, I made the book for others, not for me. Now I'm entering the fun part of the process where the book is done and I get to show it to people and tour it around the country.”

The Milwaukee native says that the city he calls home is a tremendous basecamp for a working artist. Between its affordability and proximity to Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, Milwaukee has been the perfect place to stay creative and stay relevant.

“If I would've moved to NYC or LA for the arts, I likely would've derailed my career by going broke and falling into the traps of comparison,” he said. “There are too many people and too much talent in those places, so it's easy to feel disposable and irrelevant.”

It’s Hard To Be A Person is Newski’s way of exploring how humor has been a form of therapy for him and hopefully can be to others. He shares this book with the world as a way to encourage readers to keep the conversation going.

His advice? Just stay in the game. Keep creating. Make good decisions and move on. Don't get hung up on any one thing for very long.

What if Rapunzel’s mother drank a potion from the wrong flower?

In the latest from the Twisted Tales series, author Liz Braswell returns to share a new version of the Tangled storyline in What Once Was Mine. This is her sixth novel of the series, having previously shared twisted versions of Aladdin, Sleeping Beauty, Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid and Peter Pan.

Desperate to save the life of their queen and her unborn child, the good citizens of the kingdom comb the land for the all-healing Sundrop flower to cure her... but someone mistakenly picks the blossom of the Moondrop instead. This shimmering flower heals the queen and she delivers a healthy baby girl - with hair as silver and gray as the moon. But with her mysterious hair comes dangerous magical powers: the power to hurt, not heal. For the safety of the kingdom, Rapunzel is locked away in a tower and put under the care of the powerful goodwife, Mother Gothel.

“I was really intrigued by Rapunzel's inner life,” Braswell said. “What kind of person lives mostly alone and imprisoned for almost 20 years… and comes out not only sane, but optimistic about the world? Exploring her psyche, going more deeply into the way her mind worked was a fascinating journey.”

Trying to figure out how a believable character could go through what Rapunzel did and conveying that realistically to the reader was both rewarding and challenging. Braswell also had difficulty in describing the movement of Rapunzel’s hair. What works in an animated movie doesn’t always work in a YA novel, she said. One of her favorite aspects, however, was twisting the story of Maximus, Flynn Rider’s horse.

Readers are also introduced to a new character: a would-be outlaw named Gina.

“While fans (myself included) would probably be happy with 500 pages of Flynn and Raps, the story really needed a third character for them to shine off of, to share secrets with, to grow along with,” Braswell said. “Flynn and Rapunzel are Heroes with capital H; Gina is one of the heroes who is quietly instrumental in the happily ever afters arriving safe and sound.”

Before she can reach her happy ending, Rapunzel learns that there is far more to her story, and her magical hair, and her future than she ever knew. Her mental discipline is one of Braswell’s favorite characteristics of Rapunzel, and is something she wishes she had in her own life.

Her other favorite characteristic? Her feet!

“Think about it: she's a person who has spent her whole life without actually touching the ground - yet she is more grounded in who she is and what she wants than Flynn. It's a nice metaphor for being enthusiastically head-in-the-clouds while staying in touch with who you are.”

For Eric Vattima, he has come to an understanding that second guessing his work as a songwriter is always going to be part of the process.

“When you’re an underground artist that not too many people know about, you have freedom to experiment,” he said. “Even if you lose some followers along the way, you never know who’s going to become a fan as a result of the changes that you make to your sound as an artist.”

During the creation process of this latest EP, fears., he remembers a specific moment where the song “Reality” was nothing more than a filler. The lyrics address the anxiety that comes with facing the reality of a situation, which in turn can give off more anxiety when it comes time to release it to the world. Despite its initial doubts, “Reality” ended up being the lead single.

Each song on the EP became mini therapy sessions for Vattima as well as a major learning experience. For starters, it helped him learn to take his mental health seriously and finally step back into the world of therapy.

“Writing this was truly therapy for me, so I found a lot of peace on these topics in writing my feelings out and building these tracks from the ground up,” he said. “This was the first project that I’d worked on where there was a cohesive idea that tied the whole thing together, and that’s given me a lot of motivation moving forward in tackling future projects that I want to create.”

By learning to take his mental health seriously, he was able to hone in on his skills as a songwriter and producer. He found a sound that he believes best represents him as an artist and has a stepping stone to his next body of work.

He also has many friends that contributed to fears., including Dallas Jack, Matt Wagner, Kory Shore, Nick Magasano, Christopher Rivera (Arquel), and his father, Michael Angelo Vattima. Thanks to them, the EP is everything he could have hoped for.

“The most rewarding moment of all was sitting back and hearing the entire project from start to finish as soon as I got the mastered files back in my possession,” Vattima said. “To hear it all finally together was incredible. In the end, I’m glad that I didn’t let anything keep me from releasing these songs, because the response that the project has gotten so far has been more than I could’ve ever hoped for.”

What he hoped for in releasing the EP was that someone would find a point of relation to it, and he did just that. Each song creates an open dialogue between friends, family, co-workers or strangers to tap into their emotions and find out that everyone has fears and they are valid.

“If you can get past your fears, then nothing can stop you from achieving anything that you want out of life,” Vattima said. “Don’t let a fear define you, just take your time and work through them as you’re ready to. Also, if you feel like it would work for you, therapy is what truly helped me confront and get past a lot of my own fears and self doubts. Life is full of uncertainty, so remember to be kind to yourself and to others, because you never know when someone is going through a rough time.”

No Stuffy has ever gone into the Darkness and returned...

In the second installment of the Stuffed series, Clark arrives at camp ready to learn more about the Monster world and how Stuffies protect kids from them. Once him and his friends, Catherine-Lucille and D.A., set foot on the campgrounds, they discover that something strange is happening.

The bunk beds are covered in something gooey. The adults are exhibiting bizarre behavior. Stuffies and dolls are disappearing right when they are needed most. Soon enough, Clark’s Stuffy, Foon, discovers that the Monsters are after Clark and him.

In the long tradition of Stuffies vs. Monsters, this one’s a battle for the ages - one that will certainly go down in Stuffy history.

Author Liz Braswell originally developed the idea of Stuffed more than 20 years ago as a video game. It evolved through many stages as a video game and even a graphic novel before becoming what it is today.

“This is where it belongs and I have a zillion rewrites to prove it,” she said.

Stuffed: Into Darkness had been forming in the back of Braswell’s mind for a while, but took only a year or so to write. The editing process was a bit different than usual, thanks to the global pandemic. The days felt endless but also incredibly short. Her children were around 24/7, which certainly wasn’t a bad thing, but made that balance of work life and personal life a bit difficult.

There were rewarding moments in creating the book that stick out in her mind, especially when writing about Clark’s evolving relationships with his friends or the travel scenes with Foon and his captive Monster, the Phlebbish. There were also challenging moments that in the long run became wonderful additions to the storyline.

“Creating Kris, who is a bully, but human - but ultimately a bully - was hard,” she said. “I didn’t want a made-for-TV-movie style redemption for him in the end or have him be irredeemable.”

When author Jen Calonita began the discussion for her latest Twisted Tales novel, Go The Distance, she immediately knew which moment of the Hercules tale that she wanted to twist.

“Zeus, as you know, is the guy in charge when it comes to Mount Olympus,” she said. “I always imagined if Hercules asked him whether he could stay on Earth with Megara, he would say no. Hercules spends the whole movie trying to prove he's a God and then when he does, he stays on Earth for love. Immediately I thought, what if Zeus said no to that request? What if Hercules had to stay on Mount Olympus and Meg, if she wanted to be with Wonder Boy, had to prove herself and become a God in order to stay with him.”

When creating the storyline, Calonita had a few questions she wanted to address throughout the plot. Can Meg put her past behind her and use her quick wit to defeat monsters and gods alike, including the nefarious Hades? Will she finally figure out her place and contribution to the world? Or will her fear of commitment have her running away from an eternity of godhood with Hercules?

She also wanted to include as many nods to Greek mythology as she could as well as expand upon some of the stories already known.

“I tried to pull from some of the classic The Twelves Labors of Hercules and have Meg tackle them,” she said. “It was so much fun to plot, but also difficult to figure out exactly how it would all work.”

Calonita’s characterization is a mix of the characters Disney fans have fallen in love with and her honest portrayal of how she believes they would behave should this have been how the story went. It gives the reader the chance to dive more into Meg’s past, understand her frustrations and see an imperfect side to her that isn’t shown in the original film.

From being raised on Winnie the Pooh to the first family trip to Walt Disney World, Leslie Kay knew her adoration for Disney would easily transfer over into her adulthood. What she didn’t know was that one day she would be sharing that adoration with an entire community of fans.

She created a Tumblr account in 2011 to share her upcoming trip to Walt Disney World, her first visit since childhood. She was able to connect with other Disney fans and interact with them online as they shared their memories of the parks. One weekend, she decided to design outfits that resembled her favorite characters. She shared them on her blog, and suddenly her follower count skyrocketed. 300 followers turned into 30,000. Her direct messages were filled with requests to create more outfits. It started with Rapunzel, made its way to the other princesses, Mickey Mouse and more. The name she gave her blog promptly became a verb: Disney-bounding.

As DisneyBound grew in popularity, especially once Instagram became the trending social media platform, Disney itself was behind the scenes researching content for an upcoming fashion book. They came across Kay’s blog and reached out to her to see if she would be interested in being the author.

“It was crazy, the pressure was really on,” she said. “You want it to represent the blog, you want it to represent the community, but the community is so big and you can’t have a book that is a million pages long. I put a lot of pressure on myself but it was still really fun to work on and figure out the highlight reel of characters.”

DisneyBound: Dress Disney and Make It Fashion shares every step of the Disney-bounding process, from choosing items that complete an outfit to just how massive this community has become. As shared in the foreword by Disney Legacy Authority Jeff Kurtti, “Disney-bounding is a similar craft to costuming, but it’s a translation to another storytelling medium. It relies not on the making of a literal replica of a well-known wardrobe, but in the creation of nuanced visual cues in color, shape, texture, and materials; and the relationships of these to one another, in order to evoke a visual reminder or stimulate an emotional memory - even before any literal character connection is seen.”

It takes real time and effort to create each Disney-bound experience, and that time and effort is reflected throughout each page. Although Kay admits the hardest part of creating the book was the dread of someone feeling left out, she realized this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity was actually happening, and her dream was now a reality. Holding a physical copy of a book, a book with her name on the cover, was an indescribable feeling.

For the last decade, Disney fans from around the world have used Leslie Kay’s blog to explore the parks, resemble a beloved character and turn their love for Disney into fashion. Creating a book based on her blog was a bucket list item she didn’t know she had, but thanks to this ever-growing community, she has been able to share this dream with a whole new audience.

Although the last decade has lacked an album full of brand new Evanescence songs, the band has been hard at work concentrating on songs old and new.

They had spent the early months of 2020 working on four new tracks, and ultimately feeling like they were headed toward a sound that was both reminiscent of their hard rock roots and inspired by their love of the 90s grunge era. Needless to say, they were eager to see where the rest of the album would lead.

“The path starts making itself and you start following that road,” lead vocalist Amy Lee said at a media event to promote what is now their fifth full-length studio album, The Bitter Truth.

Unfortunately, there was no warning that a global pandemic would block their path.

The path back to one another took time, and when they found a safe way to get together and finish the album, that is exactly what they did. Except this time, they had a different perspective on the future.

The Bitter Truth goes deeper, darker and into more difficult themes than any of their lyrics have gone before. It’s a battle cry that speaks to a demographic far beyond the reach of their previous work, and shows a different, more vulnerable side of Lee.

“So much has happened,” she said. “There’s been so much to say, and we were already on that path when the world turned absolutely upside down, so it was hard to go to some of those places but it was healing for me. I don’t know what I would have done - I think I would have gone insane last year if we didn’t have this album to make.”

“Don’t you speak for me”, a lyric from “Use My Voice”, became a phrase that Lee found herself repeating while watching the news. Although the political climate wasn’t the original inspiration for the song, with its lyrics being half written nearly a decade ago, it soon turned into an anthem for injustice and how everyone’s voice matters.

Another song with powerful lyrics, “Far From Heaven”, was incredibly difficult to write. Lee said that the song is about questioning her faith, and the emotions that overcame that questioning after the passing of her brother in 2018.

“It was hard to admit the questioning and the real struggle that I have been facing,” she said. “But it’s so worth it when you break through.”

Lee said that she has learned again and again that it is not what happens to a person, but what they do with it. It’s about creating something good from something bad and giving it a purpose. That is what she wanted the album to touch on, and learning that lesson again made her realize that there would never be a time more perfect than now to release new music.

She also wanted to make sure that the album spoke to her bandmates as much as it did to her. Every album has had a slightly different lineup, but that didn’t deter her from making sure everyone’s personal taste and personality came out in each song. Lastly, she wanted to make sure the album spoke to its listeners.

“I have found over the course of my career and my journey with this band that our music is a very special place not just for us, but for other people, people that I don’t personally know,” she said. “Those stories and those experiences and those parts of people’s lives that our music has been there for them in, that’s all just become part of this bigger story that I feel like I’m a part of. It just makes it better. It just makes it bigger. It just makes it more precious and I’m just very grateful to have our fans after all this time.”

When Lee was asked what the bitter truth was, she said it was the driving force behind the album. Life is short. Time is precious. In order for things to get better, the truth must be accepted. Facing the bitter truth is what leads to a better place.