Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Another Meridianite – Actress, Sela Ward




A Recent Article about Sela Ward

BIO:

Sela Ward was born July 11, 1956, in Meridian, Mississippi. The oldest of 4 children -- with a sister and 2 brothers -- Sela (pronounced See-lah, it's an abbreviated form of Hallelujah) is the daughter of an electrical engineer and a homemaker. Her childhood was nothing short of ordinary for a beautiful girl growing up in the South. While a student at the University of Alabama, where Sela Ward studied art and advertising, Sela was also a cheerleader for the football team, a sorority sister, and was elected homecoming queen. With her Bachelor of Fine Arts, Sela Ward headed to New York to pursue a career in advertising, but after the striking, statuesque brunette was encouraged to become a model, she decided to try her hand at modeling. Now on the other side of the advertising spectrum as a Wilhelmina Model, Sela appeared in television commercials, for products such as Pepsi and Maybelline. After gaining experience in more than 20 commercials, Sela dropped advertising and moved to Los Angeles to become an actress -- and lengthen her screen time.

In 2003, Sela Ward's book, Homesick: A Memoir detailed much of her growing up in Meridian.

Thursday, January 6, 2011

Meet Meg Pokrass and her Newest Book

Meg is a friend of mine and I am anxiously awaiting the release of her new book, Damn Sure Right. It is scheduled to be released this February, 2011. She is one of the brightest, funny women I have ever read... or known.









Meg Pokrass writes flash-fiction, short stories and poetry. Damn Sure Right is her debut collection of flash fiction. Meg serves as Editor-at-Large for BLIP Magazine (formerly Mississippi Review) and before that, for SmokeLong Quarterly. Her stories, poems, and flash fiction animations have appeared in nearly one hundred online and print publications, including Mississippi Review, Gigantic, Gargoyle, The Nervous Breakdown, HTML Giant, Wigleaf, The Pedestal, Keyhole, Annalemma, Smokelong Quarterly, elimae, Prime Number, Women Writers, and Joyland. Meg creates and runs the popular Fictionaut-Five Author Interview Series for Fictionaut, and consults with Writing MFA programs about online publishing. Meg lives with her small, creative family and seven animals in San Francisco, where she edits and teaches flash fiction privately.


To order a copy of her new book go here

Praise for her writing:

“Pokrass writes like a brain looking for a body. Wonderful, dark, unforgiving.”
– Frederick Barthelme
“Read Damn Sure Right, a collection of miniature tales sure to ruin your
waking hours the way you’ll want them ruined.”
— Kyle Minor, author of In the Devil’s Territory
“Meg Pokrass’ flash fiction conveys entire worlds that are touching,
haunting, funny, moving and strange in the most beautiful ways.”
— Jessica Anya Blau, author of Drinking Closer to Home
“Meg Pokrass is the new monarch of the delightful and enigmatic tiny
kingdom of micro- and flash fiction.”
— Brad Watson, author of Aliens in the Prime of Their Lives
“Meg Pokrass is the brewmaster of flash.”
— Sean Lovelace, author of How Some People Like Their Eggs
“No one this side of Amy Hempel is more capable of saying more with
a handful of well-chosen words… and no one is better at stretching
language into such brilliant new hallucinatory shapes.”
— Grant Bailie, author of Mortarville and Cloud 8
“I feel Pokrass thinking through her sentences, surprising herself, taking
chances. Some of her lines hover between the best stand-up comedy and
Dostoevsky.”
— James Robison, author of The Illustrator
“Pokrass’ unsettling, exciting approach to flash is indeed infectious.”
— Sam Rasnake, editor of Blue Fifth Review