WHAT MAKES A HERO? WHO BETTER TO ANSWER THAT QUESTION THAN LEE CHILD...

'It's Lee Child. Why would you not read it?' Karin Slaughter

'I don't know another author so skilled at making me turn the page' The Times

In his first work of nonfiction, the creator of the multimillion-selling Jack Reacher series explores the endurance of heroes from Achilles to Bond, showing us how this age-old myth is a fundamental part of what makes us human. He demonstrates how hero stories continue to shape our world - arguing that we need them now more than ever.

From the Stone Age to the Greek Tragedies, from Shakespeare to Robin Hood, we have always had our heroes. The hero is at the centre of formative myths in every culture and persists to this day in world-conquering books, films and TV shows. But why do these characters continue to inspire us, and why are they so central to storytelling?

Scalpel-sharp on the roots of storytelling and enlightening on the history and science of myth, The Hero is essential reading for anyone trying to write or understand fiction. Child teaches us how these stories still shape our minds and behaviour in an increasingly confusing modern world, and with his trademark concision and wit, demonstrates that however civilised we get, we'll always need heroes.

Perfect for fans of Michael Connelly, James Patterson and David Baldacci!

About the Author

Lee Child is one of the world's leading thriller writers. He was born in Coventry, raised in Birmingham, and now lives in New York. It is said one of his novels featuring his hero Jack Reacher is sold somewhere in the world every nine seconds. His books consistently achieve the number-one slot on bestseller lists around the world and have sold over one hundred million copies. Two blockbusting Jack Reacher movies have been made so far. He is the recipient of many awards, most recently the CWA's Diamond Dagger for a writer of an outstanding body of crime fiction, the International Thriller Writers' ThrillerMaster, and the Theakstons Old Peculier Outstanding Contribution to Crime Fiction Award.

About the Author
Randy Olson was a tenured professor of marine biology at the University of New Hampshire before moving to Hollywood and entering film school at the University of Southern California. He has written and directed a number of films, including the acclaimed Flock of Dodos and he is the author of numerous successful books, including Don't Be Such A Scientist.

Magician and storyteller Taylor Hughes reexamines moments of his personal life through the eyes of wonder. It is a heartfelt and sometimes hilarious journey that will encourage and inspire you to chase wonder in your own life.

"Your life is not a puzzle to be solved, it is a mystery to enjoy!"

The ultimate guide to visual storytelling! How to make the audience feel the story while they are reading the story. Using his experiences from working in the comic book industry, movie studios and teaching, Marcos introduces the reader to a step-by-step system that will create the most successful storyboards and graphics for the best visual communication.

After a brief discussion on narrative art, Marcos introduces us to drawing and composing a single image, to composing steady shots to drawing to compose for continuity between all the shots. These lessons are then applied to three diverse story lines - a train accident, a cowboy tale and bikers approaching a mysterious house.

In addition to setting up the shots, he also explains and illustrates visual character development, emotive stances and expressions along with development of the environmental setting to fully develop the visual narrative.

About the Author

Spanish born Marcos Mateu-Mestre is a visual concept, traditional animation layout, and graphic novel artist whose film credits include titles such as 'Balto', 'The Prince of Egypt', 'Asterix and the Vikings' and 'Surf's Up' amongst others.
With an extensive experience of twenty years in feature animation, working mainly for Dreamworks and Sony Pictures, he has also been teaching drawing, illustration and visual storytelling techniques for twelve years.
His works as a film maker have mostly included both the design and cinematic aspects of film, taking care of frame composition, lighting and visual continuity of many key sequences in some major productions.

About the Author
Glen Weldon is an editor at the NPR Arts Desk as well as a film, television, and book critic. For the last decade he's been a panelist on NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour, a roundtable discussion podcast about the latest television, movies, books, and comics. A graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, he has received fellowships from the Ragdale Foundation and the Amtrak Writers' Residency Fellowship, among others. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Slate, and The Atlantic. He lives in Washington, D.C.

A stunning and timely creative call-to-arms combining four extraordinary written pieces by Neil Gaiman illustrated with the striking four-color artwork of Chris Riddell.

"The world always seems brighter when you've just made something that wasn't there before."--Neil Gaiman

Drawn from Gaiman's trove of published speeches, poems, and creative manifestos, Art Matters is an embodiment of this remarkable multi-media artist's vision--an exploration of how reading, imagining, and creating can transform the world and our lives.

Art Matters bring together four of Gaiman's most beloved writings on creativity and artistry:

• "Credo," his remarkably concise and relevant manifesto on free expression, first delivered in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo shootings
• "Make Good Art," his famous 2012 commencement address delivered at the Philadelphia University of the Arts
• "Making a Chair," a poem about the joys of creating something, even when words won't come
• "On Libraries," an impassioned argument for libraries that illuminates their importance to our future and celebrates how they foster readers and daydreamers

Featuring original illustrations by Gaiman's longtime illustrator, Chris Riddell, Art Matters is a stirring testament to the freedom of ideas that inspires us to make art in the face of adversity, and dares us to choose to be bold.

About the Author
Matthew Dicks is a bestselling novelist, thirty-six-time Moth StorySLAM champion, and five-time GrandSLAM champion. In addition to his widespread teaching, writing, and performing, he cofounded (with his wife) Speak Up, which produces sold-out storytelling performances throughout Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New York at least once a month. He lives in Newington, Connecticut.

About the Author
THE MOTH is an acclaimed not-for-profit organization dedicated to the art and craft of storytelling. Inspired by friends telling stories on a small-town Georgia porch, The Moth garnered a cult following in New York City, and then rose to international acclaim with the wildly popular podcast and Peabody Award-winning weekly public radio show The Moth Radio Hour (produced by Jay Allison and presented by PRX.) The Moth is a celebration of both the raconteur, who breathes fire into true tales of ordinary life, and the storytelling novice, who has lived through something extraordinary and yearns to share it. At the center of each performance is the story, and The Moth's directors work with each storyteller to find, shape, and present it. Since its launch in 1997, The Moth has presented tens of thousands of stories, told live and without notes, to standing-room-only crowds worldwide. The Moth received a 2012 MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions, and The Moth: 50 True Stories (Hachette) was an international best seller. themoth.org

About the Author
Prince Rogers Nelson remains one of the most popular and influential musical acts of all time. Known for his style and range, Prince's prolific music career included an ever-evolving sound that blended pop, R&B, hip-hop, jazz, and soul. Prince sold more than 100 million albums worldwide, making him one of the bestselling artists of all time. He won seven GRAMMY(R) Awards, a Golden Globe Award, and an Academy Award(R) for the film Purple Rain. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004, the first year of his eligibility. Prince tragically passed away at his Paisley Park home on April 21, 2016. His legacy lives on through the timeless messages of love in his music and the countless ways his work has touched lives.

About the Author
Mike Rowe is best known as the executive producer and host of the hit shows Dirty Jobs, Somebody's Gotta Do It, and Returning the Favor, for which he won an Emmy. He also hosts the podcast The Way I Heard It, a collection of short stories for the "curious mind with a short attention span." As CEO of the mikeroweWORKS Foundation, Mike has led the effort to close America's widening skills gap and facilitated the granting of millions of dollars in work ethic scholarships.

About the Author
THE MOTH is an acclaimed not-for-profit organization dedicated to the art and craft of storytelling. It is a celebration of both the raconteur, who breathes fire into true tales of ordinary life, and the storytelling novice, who has lived through something extraordinary and yearns to share it. At the center of each performance is the story, and The Moth's directors work with each storyteller to find, shape, and present it. Since its launch in 1997, The Moth has presented thousands of stories, told live and without notes, to standing-room-only crowds worldwide. The Moth received the MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions in January 2012. CATHERINE BURNS is artistic director of The Moth and the editor of The Moth: 50 True Stories and The Moth Presents All These Wonders.

About the Author
Maggie Elliott, senior vice president, Creative Development Administration; Eli Erlandson, principal concept architect; Peggie Fariss, executive, creative development; Paula Dinkel, principal lighting designer; Karen Connolly Armitage, Concept Designer; Katie Olson, Principal Color Concept Designer; Becky Bishop, area development executive; Pam Rank, principal show lighting designer; Lynne Macer Rhodes, producer; Kathy Rogers, executive show producer; Julie Svendsen, concept show designer; Tori Atencio McCullough, Director (interior design)

About the Author
Adam Gopnik is a staff writer at The New Yorker; he has written for the magazine since 1986. Gopnik has three National Magazine awards, for essays and for criticism, and also a George Polk Award for Magazine Reporting. In March of 2013, Gopnik was awarded the medal of Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters. The author of numerous bestselling books, including Paris to the Moon, he lives in New York City.

About the Author
Mike Rowe is best known as the executive producer and host of the hit shows Dirty Jobs, Somebody's Gotta Do It, and Returning the Favor, for which he won an Emmy. He also hosts the podcast The Way I Heard It, a collection of short stories for the "curious mind with a short attention span." As CEO of the mikeroweWORKS Foundation, Mike has led the effort to close America's widening skills gap and facilitated the granting of millions of dollars in work ethic scholarships.

About the Author
Robert McKee, a Fulbright Scholar, is the world's most sought-after author and lecturer in the art of story. His writing seminars have earned him an international reputation. The cornerstones of his teaching are Story and Dialogue. Translated into 23 languages, these singular works have defined how we talk about the art of storytelling. Over the last 35 years, he has mentored screenwriters, novelists, playwrights, poets, documentary makers, producers, and directors. The list of McKee alumni includes the winners of over 70 Academy Awards, 250 Emmy Awards, and 100 Writers Guild of America Awards, as well as recipients of the Pulitzer, Booker, Olivier, and other major prose and playwriting prizes.

A new, interactive approach to storytime, The Whole Book Approach was developed in conjunction with the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art and expert author Megan Dowd Lambert's graduate work in children's literature at Simmons College, offering a practical guide for reshaping storytime and getting kids to think with their eyes.

About the Author

Megan Dowd Lambert is an instructor at the Center for the Study of Children's Literature at Simmons College, where she previously earned her master's degree in children's literature. She writes about books and parenting for the Horn Book Magazine, has sat on a Caldecott Committee, and worked at the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art for many years before writing A CROW OF HIS OWN, her first picture book.

The Truth is Right Here in Our Stories

Immigration has long been a controversial issue in American politics and remains one of the country's most pressing issues, dividing the nation along political, economic, moral, and ethical lines. Critics have long distorted the view of immigrants, depicting them as criminals who corrupt our neighborhoods, depress our wages, overpopulate our prison systems, and drain our economy. This misshapen narrative persists in our present time.

The Truth in Our Stories presents twelve compelling stories that highlight the immigrant experience and hopefully begin to change that perception. The testimonies are unapologetically honest and reveal the horrid conditions and crippling fear that continue to characterize the lives of immigrants. We learn, for example, that immigrants cannot obtain a driver's license in most states and that they have unequal access to health care; they receive no benefits and work multiple jobs for unscrupulous employers who frequently exploit them. Yet, there is hope because these stories challenge the public narrative about immigrants and dismantle the myths that lead to their persecution. While the stories shared in this book are full of hardship, the immigrants who share them shine with resilience and fortitude. They reveal, for instance, that immigrants are entrepreneurial, create jobs, pay taxes, and build infrastructure, thereby improving the economy.

As the fight for immigrant rights continues to unfold, we hope this book will help restore a sense of shared humanity with the immigrant community. Listen to these voices; the truth is right here in our stories.

About the Author
Margot Leitman founded the storytelling program at Upright Citizens Brigade and is a five-time winner of The Moth and a winner of the Moth GrandSLAM, achieving the series' first ever score of a perfect ten. She has performed on Best Week Ever and Late Night With Conan O'Brien, and her stories have been featured on The Moth podcast, RISK!, and NPR's Good Food, and Unfictional. Her storytelling workshops at corporations, theaters, and comedy groups are popular on both coasts.

About the Author
PHILIP PULLMAN is one of the most acclaimed and best-selling writers at work today. He is best known for the His Dark Materials trilogy: The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass, which has been named one of the top 100 novels of all time by Newsweek and one of the all-time greatest novels by Entertainment Weekly. In 2004, he was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire. He lives in Oxford, England.

About the Author
August Wilson was a major American playwright whose work has been consistently acclaimed as among the finest of the American theater. His first play, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, won the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for best new play of 1984-85. His second play, Fences, won numerous awards for best play of the year, 1987, including the Tony Award, the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award, the Drama Desk Award, and the Pulitzer Prize. Joe Turner's Come and Gone, his third play, was voted best play of 1987-1988 by the New York Drama Critics' Circle. In 1990, Wilson was awarded his second Pulitzer Prize for The Piano Lesson. He died in 2005.

About the Author
Akash Karia is a professional speaker who has trained thousands of people worldwide, from bankers in Hong Kong to yoga teachers in Thailand to senior executives in Dubai. He is an award-winning trainer who has been ranked as one of the Top 10 Speakers in Asia-Pacific. He is currently the Chief Commercial Officer of a multi-million dollar company in Tanzania, in which capacity he heads the sales, relations and marketing departments of the organization. "Akash is THE best coach I've ever had!" Eric Laughton, Certified John Maxwell Trainer, United States Akash writes books on public speaking and success, sharing proven tools and techniques to help people achieve peak performance. What separates him from other authors is that his books are based on hundreds of hours of intensive scientific research. All these tools are delivered in a simple, easy-to-read, step-by-step format that you can implement immediately. "If you want to learn presentation skills, public speaking or just simply uncover excellence hidden inside of you or your teams, Akash Karia is the coach to go to." Raju Mandhyan, Organizational Strategist, Philippines If you'd like Akash to speak at your next event or to train your employees, you can contact him through his website: http: //www.AkashKaria.com "A rare talent who has much in store for you as an individual, and better yet, your organization as a whole." Sherilyn Pang, Writer at Malaysia SME, Malaysia

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Master storyteller and bestselling author Richard Van Camp on how to tell a good story

About the Author
Richard Van Camp is a proud Tlicho Dene from Fort Smith, NWT, and the author of over twenty books, including the Eisner-nominated graphic novel A Blanket of Butterflies. His bestselling novel The Lesser Blessed is a movie that has received critical acclaim. He lives in Edmonton, Alberta. You can visit Richard on Facebook, Twitter, and at www.richardvancamp.com.

Aristotle's Poetics (Greek: Περὶ ποιητικῆς; Latin: De Poetica; 1] c. 335 BC 2]) is the earliest surviving work of dramatic theory and first extant philosophical treatise to focus on literary theory. 3] In it, Aristotle offers an account of what he calls "poetry" (a term that derives from a classical Greek term, ποιητής, that means "poet; author; maker" and in this context includes verse drama - comedy, tragedy, and the satyr play - as well as lyric poetry and epic poetry). They are similar in the fact that they are all imitations but different in the three ways that Aristotle describes:

Differences in music rhythm, harmony, meter and melody.
Difference of goodness in the characters.
Difference in how the narrative is presented: telling a story or acting it out.

In examining its "first principles", Aristotle finds two: 1) imitation and 2) genres and other concepts by which that of truth is applied/revealed in the poesis. His analysis of tragedy constitutes the core of the discussion. 4] Although Aristotle's Poetics is universally acknowledged in the Western critical tradition, "almost every detail about his seminal work has aroused divergent opinions". 5] The work was lost to the Western world for a long time. It was available in the Middle Ages and early Renaissance only through a Latin translation of an Arabic version written by Averroes.

Listen in as professional storyteller Phyllis Blackstone shares stories about her family, career, musings and life. These heartwarming tales provide a breath of fresh air that offers comfort and stimulates our own reflections, while the universal truths they convey encourage further exploration through discussion with others.

You'll find yourself laughing one minute and crying the next as you enjoy Blackstone's gift as an observer and communicator of the human condition in all its beauty, foibles and sadness.

Join this master storyteller as she shares tales that will amuse you, inspire you, connect you to shared experiences, and challenge you to consider how your life has meaning beyond your own understanding.

About the Author
Annette Simmons is founder of Group Process Consulting, specializing in helping organizations build more collaborative behaviors for bottom-line results. A popular speaker, community activist, and author of Territorial Games and A Safe Place for Dangerous Truths, she lives in Greensboro, North Carolina.

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