Tag: Artists

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Like A Lot Of Days…

Elgon Williams, Author

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Like a lot of days here of late, waking up with nothing to do but wait for the clock to arrive at the appointed time, I’m alone. After shaving and taking a shower, I’ll bike off to work for a few hours to make a few dollar to pay rent, buy food and little else. My bet is a lot of you can relate. It would be a rut I’m in except I decided to get out of the that mire a couple of years ago, didn’t I?

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Overcoming, that is what we do in life. We prevail against our innocence about everything while learning the lessons of growing up. In the process we lose a lot of the magical aspects of being alive. Something every child knows instinctively is that life is to be lived to its fullest and enjoyed. And then reality sets in, oppressive and dominating.

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The world changes us, subtly at first but eventually we have to submit, yielding to the preponderance of depressing truth. If we are lucky, during our separate journeys through life we accumulate some friends, good ones not the fake, plastic kind that are as well as toys except that they treat us as their playthings. A couple of good friends is all anyone needs, though. Even with family there are a few dependable supporters and a lot of other well wishers who give lip service or what could be at best termed lukewarm encouragement.

Sobering facts – but it doesn’t need to be that way. The world is intended to be whatever we decide. We allow others to convince us to believe in their version of things, their warped illusions of what life is supposed to be about. Most people are miserable, so the world is recreated in their sorry, desperate image. They are the ones pointing fingers of blame, casting aspersions and doubt, offering disparaging commentary on everything and anything around them. They perceive all there is through a veil of negativity pulled over their eyes. We know better than to be around them. Still, we think they are our friends. We delude ourselves that their view of the muddled mess around us is accurate without understanding that on any given day it is our choice to see the daily rain as something evil or something good. It will dampen our spirits or give us life – if we let it.

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That’s where I’m at today in waking. It’s Sunday. I need the money so I work. Later on, when I come back to my rented refuge I’ll write something wonderful because that is what I want to do. Working is to allow me the space that I occupy while my mind takes a respite from the ordeal of surviving. There, on the inside, I can take a portion of the universe and bend it to suit my sensibilities and desires. I can populate it with characters and allow them to interact and tell me their story because that is what I’ve decided is my real purpose in life. By comparison. everything else I do amounts to nothing.

I understand that only a few are blessed to have their minds left connected to a childish point of view. We become the dreamers and artists, the musicians and entertainers, the comedians and inventors who dare to reshape the world with our words and music, art and ideas. We are the mistreated misfits who somehow persevere. We survive the taunting and jeers of others to emerge from the battle of conformity with some pretty radical ideas as our wild imaginations allow. We see through the fog. We know that the world is full of potential exists not he other side. If we will only believe in the possibilities, we can make anything real.

Like a lot of days the hope contained int his one is left up to me. I think I’ll choose to have some fun and maybe, in the process, I can turn someone else’s day around, pointing him or her in a better direction. If I can peel away the distortion, drawing back the curtains from their eyes, in some way I can let them know there is always two ways to look at things. Perhaps I can convince them to see things a different way.

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There is a reason most people dream with their eyes closed. The deception of what they think is their life around them is too pervasive for them to ignore. It is left to those of us who can dream with our eyes open to provide them with an alternative way to see.

#perspective #life #imagination #persevering #artists, #writing #creating

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Some Thoughts On Pricing For Art

Elgon Williams, Author

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Art is one of the few factors that defines us as human and distinguishes us from the other animals of this world. As far as we know, no other species can create substance from mere thought, a world from a dream, an artifact that will endure beyond our brief spans to entertain and amuse others for generations to come.

I believe everyone is born an artist but at some point in our childhoods we unlearn it, setting it aside for more practical things like settling down, having a family, getting a job to support them and, of course, paying our fair share in taxes – whatever that really means. Practical minded people run things. They may pretend to have culture and appreciate art, citing the evidence of the library they maintain or the pieces of art they collect. But when budgets are cut, the arts suffer first.

It’s little wonder that artists undervalue the worth of their work. You see, artists don’t measure their efforts in time expended as if it were a factor in earning a wage. Art comes from the soul, expressed through the heart. It’s hard to assign a value on such things. However, one thing is certain, art should not be given away.

Since art in general is undervalued in the marketplace – if you don’t believe that, watch someone create a painting, a sculpture, a piece of music or a novel – I’m all in favor of artists making a little more money on each piece of art they produce. Having lived around artists for most of my life and having been a musician as well as an author I think I have a fair amount of expertise one the subject of fair pricing. Artists are the last ones paid when a work of art is marketed and distributed, and so, the margin upon which they are paid is thin at best. Those artists who are independent struggle more to get recognition but they can operate on higher margins for lower price points because of the reduced overhead.

When an artist is not well known, having not established a brand, they tend to use low price points to stimulate trial. Some times they will use a free promotion to gain interest from potential buyers. There is a potential flaw in this strategy, that any author’s core audience is attracted to free promotions. Think about it, if you are an artist do you want to always give your stuff away? Those who are attracted to free deals are no one’s core customer. They are fickle and will only response to the word FREE while you the artist will be working for free, giving your stuff away for the rest of your life.

Since my chosen art is writing, I’m paying attention to a couple of current trends in publishing regarding eBook pricing. They appear to be contradictory – going in opposite directions. Yet I understand why one is going down and the other is going up. You see, authors who have established a brand would like to earn a living from selling their art. And Authors without an established brand are shouting out with a low price to gain attention.

With the introduction of eBooks several years ago the concept was that the books could be discounted and sold as essentially software to use on a reading device. Since the up front price of the device was fairly high, the price of the books became the significant selling point – that over time one could accumulate hundreds of books at a considerable savings over buying a physical book. With hard covers running north of $30 and trade paperbacks prices at roughly half that, a $5 eBook was like a pretty good deal.

Regarding authors using publishers, eBooks allowed for slightly higher margins and royalties even at the lower retail price when compared to the much higher production and distribution costs of paper books. So it was a win/win situation all around. But with the grown in eBook popularity over the past few years a paradigm in the publishing business shifted. Many more authors are self-publishing. The stigma usually associated with that label in the past are evaporating as several indie authors have established a brand and following of avid fans for work that is on a par with many of the big five publishers offerings. Those authors are beginning to raise their prices to be on a par with the big publisher’s offerings and, guess what, they are selling books because of their supportive fan base. Also the authors are earning high royalties than if they had used a traditional publisher with their characteristically lower royalty percentages in lieu of their high editing, production and distribution costs.

The present situation is of considerable interest to anyone looking to publish a book. Do you and your manuscript off to one of big five and hope to wing he lottery? Do you self publish, forking over the money for a quality editor and quality cover artist as well as serving as your own publicist and book distributor? Do you opt for one of the many small publishers who offer carried levels of service and support, sometimes for a fee, sometimes for a contract again revenues after the sale? Often it comes down to what amount of work after the creation of the manuscript the authors is will to perform in reaching the potential reader. There simply is not right or wrong answer for an author faced with these choices. There are valid reasons for someone going with either one of the alternatives. However, as the publish paradigm has changed so have many of the basic concepts of promoting books.

In the past when the big publishers dominated the marketplace even mores than at present, they would heavily promote a new book at launch and follow through for 30 to sixty days afterwards. The book was launched in major markets with media support and advertising, advance reviews and interviews all targeted on the critical launch date. If the book did not sell well, bookstores would remove it from shelves to make room for the next great thing in the pipeline. For the author this meant that the book that took a one, two or more years to write was a done deal a month or two afterwards. It was relegated to the bargain racks or returned to the publisher for disposal.

With eBooks, the critical shelf space factor is removed. Books now enjoy a much longer window of opportunity for promotion and sale – out to two years and beyond. This means that an author of multiple titles can earn a decent income from the royalties not he sales of his or her books. All the time a fan base is maintained and enlarged as word of mouth generates around an author’s work. With multiple promotion periods scheduled through the year, a book can experience a series of peaks or spikes and each time the residual effect may maintain a slightly higher level of sales after the promotion. Each time a new book is released and promoted, the authors existing titles have experience coat tail effects from the new books sales as new readers want to catch up on an authors prior work.

The leveling out of the sales over an extended period may not be reflected int he algorithms used to arrive at best sellers, but the aggregate sales over a two years period for a book may actually exceed those of a book that flashed as a best seller for a month or two. The revenues may be the same and, in the case of the indie or small publisher author the book may continue to generate royalties at a higher daily level than the former best seller.

Specifically with books lower price points signal lower quality to the potential reader. This is not always true, but the major of lower prices books on the market are or lower production quality. The writing may be adequate but the editing and cover design are expenses some authors cannot afford, especially if it is a beginning effort. It is hoped that the Free deal followed by a 99 cent and then a $1.99 price point for a book listed at $2.99 will get the book into a maximum number of hands. As an author you must ask if the time you spend writing your novel worth so little? As a reader, such a low price begs to ask: what is wrong with this book or this author? What have you gained as an author if you have given your book to ten thousand people who probably will not read it?IMG_0233

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Wrestling With the Inspiration to Write

Elgon Williams, Author

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Sometimes, I dream and when I wake I remember. Immediately upon waking I used to jot those down those things I dreamed lest I forget them until I realized the ones worth keeping and turning into stories tend to be the ones I remembered despite whatever the reality of the waking world throws at me. The best dreams, the ones that make the best stories of all, are those I dream many times, and sometimes while I’m still awake.

The problem with dreams and dreamers is that neither are accepted as part of the adult world, yet it is the dreams of dreamers that bring change to the mundane world around us. As I see it, there are a couple of wrong assumptions out there that are the source of the confusion. They are truisms that aren’t really true, at least not as they are traditionally applied. Both have their origins well before their or even the prior century. One is British and the other is American.

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The British one comes from Kipling’s famous poem, about dreaming and not making dreams your master. Not being controlled by one’s dreams will make you grown-up. There is a lot of truth in this one that conceals the lie – which is always the flaw in accepted truths. It is not about dreaming or even choosing which dreams you will follow. What is intended to be taken front he poem is that we choose to be adult and in doing so we set aside our childlike innocence and belief in dreams. Although this is absolutely true if one wants to behave as a responsible adult, it also conveys why responsibility hinders one’s creativity, distancing us from our dreams and inspiration. Pursuing practicality, very often, is the reason we do not realize our creative potential. We listen to others and their conventional wisdom in lieu of what we know, deep inside of us, that is our true destination.

The second conventional wisdom is a saying taught to us in school: if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. The saying originated in the 18th century, in colonial America and maybe other places as well. It is attributed to a school teacher in the early 19th Century who wrote it into a lesson plan that was widely used. His intentions were good, challenging students to no give up in the process of learning. It’s  the fundamental concept is flawed. You see, telling someone to try establishing trial as good enough for a goal and that even in the face of failure, trying remains good enough. That is why people give the excuse, “But I tried” for each instance of failure.  It’s crazy to try and continue to try because doing something the wrong way will never lead to success. The seemingly harmless saying to engage students to never give up sews the very seeds of accepting effort as good enough in lieu of success.

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A classic demonstration of this fallacy of trying is challenging someone to try to do something simple. They will, invariably, fail to try by actually doing. You see, as adults  we skip over the word specific instruction to merely ‘try’ in that challenge because we hear the  stated goal. Fro example, drop your keys on the floor and then challenge someone to try picking them up for you. When they hand your keys back to you, they have failed to try by succeeding in doing. Success comes when you fail to try anymore and simply decide to do things.

Believing these misleading truisms defeats the process of acquiring natural inspiration. The artist inside every child dies a little bit each time he or she deviates away from their dreams. Whenever challenged to adopt something of the adult world, distance is created between the child and the innocent belief in infinite possibilities. The few who emerge from the process of maturation with the creative connection in tact have been allowed to dream and pursue inspiration in all its various forms. The connection, though strained by the challenges of conforming to what adults call reality, has not be severed. Those who choose to suppress their creative impulses are rarely satisfied with their lives. The substitute other things, acquiring material evidence of success by society’s definitions. But in the background of their routine lives there is a longing to return to childhood, finding a way back to the idyllic simplicity of waking up each morning with he only objective being to enjoy everything about life.

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Writers, like other artistic types, can reconnect with the inner child. They can draw inspiration from those parts of the world that practical, adult-minded people overlook.  Whole most people  do not have the time to appreciate the value of life and living it to be happy, those who can connect to the childlike dreamer inside can be happy in the process of expressing his or her creativity. While everyone else suffers in various degrees of misery, someone who pursues life as the adventure it is intended will find fulfillment.

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About Dreaming Dreams and Living Life

Elgon Williams, Author

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People don’t stop dreaming; they just grow up. What a sad and sobering thought that is! But it’s mine and I’ll bet its yours, whether you had it before or are just dealing with it the same way as the rest of us. I’d like to think that it’s a choice whether to follow a dream. I’m saddened that so many of us give up on our visions before they come to fruition. Yet, it isn’t a matter of not being able to go back and start over, just the difficulty of remembering what it’s like to be as idealistic as you once were as a child.

Your dreams never leave you. You’ve just misplaced them behind all the other things that get in front of them and crowd them out, pushing them to the back of the importance queue. And when you’re battling it out in the adult world, surrounded by other grown-ups who have also set aside their dreams for the sake of practicality it’s hard to ignore what everyone else tells you is important, what needs to be your priority and what you long ago adopted as your ambition. In order to do what seems the craziest thing to everyone one else, you have to start thinking like you did when you were a kid. You need to believe everything is going to be alright – just like your father and mother used to tell you. You’ve got to believe that everything and anything is possible.

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Reality is pretty persistent in grabbing your attention, though. That’s not your fault except that you accepted it at some point. It all started with your formal indoctrination – you know, that twelve or more years you spent in school. That’s when you’re taught how to play the game, when others groom you for success by their terms, force-feeding you the tenants of their faith in the illusion they believe. You adopt all the things they think are important. But there is always that piece of you that remains inside. It’s a part of your youthful nature that wants to do something else, the unexpected something – except that everyone around you would certainly believe you’ve gone mad.

So you continue in your daily quest for whatever it is that the money you earn affords you – seeking a comfortable life and the security of a steady paycheck to make the installments on your overly-mortgaged existence. You’re indebted to the system you’ve co-opted. But you think about it, don’t you? What could life have been like if only…

I’ve decided that the artistic temperament comes from our dreams. It’s stronger or closer to the surface in some than in others, but it’s always there. Unless you’ve allowed others to kill it – or perhaps you executed it yourself. You can find your way back, though. You see, you’ve distanced the adult you from the inner child. That’s all. Supposedly that was necessary in order for you to succeed in the adult world. Isn’t that what they say? That’s the lie, though. Being a part of the grown-up world, wearing big boy and big girl pants, is all about conformity. The system must keep the masses walking on the sidewalks and never straying off into the grass. We’re taught to worry about what others will think, what the neighbors are going to say while, all along the way, the distance continues to grow between us and other true aspiration. There’s always another thing that gets in the way, isn’t there? It distracts us from our hearts desire and our real potential.

Joyce, Genette and me in 1957

You can’t believe in possibilities when you’re beset with fires to fight and problems to solve. You’ve brought all of that on yourself, though. You decided to take on responsibility because others, well-meaning people you trust, told you that’s what you needed to do. And you forgot about being a model, an actor, a painter, sculptor, musician or a writer.

You look at artists with pity or disdain, thinking they’re a bit off and certainly not normal. Secretly you envy them, though, for their ability to escape the reality you suffer and daily endure. Still, look at all the marvelous things you have to show for you hard work. They don’t have the fancy car, the big house. That all comes from towing the line and doing what you are supposed to do. The material aspects of your life, the things you have acquired, are the evidence of your triumphs. They define the level of your success.The achievements you’ve earned through discipline and obedience have been substituted for your dreams. It’s why you don’t press the snooze button when the alarm clock goes off at 4 AM. It’s why you put in over sixty and sometimes seventy hours a week for the past twenty-five years of working for someone else, contributing to their success in business in exchange for your salary, bonuses, stock options and whatever else they used in their sales pitch to gain your cooperation.

Genette at wedding reception with Joyce, Jay, Mom, Dad and Me

Yet, you wonder about what makes those crazy artists different. How is it that some of them succeed and appear to love what they do? How can they be like that? How can they be satisfied with their lot in life without all those things that define your existence? But in the quiet of night you ask yourself if maybe you took the wrong path. You’re not really all that happy in your life despite all the trappings of success.

People aren’t supposed to be happy – that’s what you decided as you went along chasing someone else’s goals that you substitute in lieu of all the wonderful dreams you had. Each year it grows more and more difficult to find your way back to the path that, once upon a time, made sense to you when you were six or seven-years-old. The world was teeming with possibilities then, when you were naive enough to believe int he magic of the world around you. What wouldn’t you do to be that innocent again? If you’re lucky, enough of the dreamer remains within you that you might get the chance to visit your imaginary friends, reconnect with their world and experience what you lost in the process of growing up.

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That, my friends, is what Fried Windows (In a Light White Sauce) is about. Forty-six days until launch and I can’t wait to share the story and adventure with you.

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What’s Impossible Anymore?

Elgon Williams, Author

Mom and me around 1964

I recall that when I was a little guy my Mom had a whole lot of sayings that were largely rooted in her childhood. Some were about impossibilities and skepticism. One expressed the absurdity of men being on the moon. And then, the summer I was thirteen years old, she had to stop using that one.

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Today is my mother’s birthday. She’d have been 97 today. A lot of things changed in her lifetime, and a lot more since. I’m not sure things are better or worse – or even if I’d call it progress. It occurs to me that everything is according to balance, taking some bad with some good as we advance through time if not in the acquisition of wisdom. What I came to realize on July 20, 1969, was that what’s impossible in the here and now may not always be so in the future. A lot of that has to do with setting goals and being determined to achieve them.

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I’m pretty sure John F. Kennedy knew that. When he set the ambitious national goal of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely he had to know it was possible. He had expert advisors after all. Was it a stretch? Certainly it was. No one had ever done anything like it before. In theory it was possible. Working out the details was an expensive undertaking that pushed technology further in the span of one decade than ever before. Any number of things that are common place in our daily lives today came from those advancements – non-stick cooking surfaces, dehydrated foods and the microprocessor come immediately to mind.

Kennedy would be 97 on his birthday this year as well. I recall he and my mother shared the same birth year. They were certainly born under different circumstances, worlds apart in a way, and yet the America they shared was a land of lofty ambitions, golden opportunities and a bunch of innovative dreamers.

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I guess I’m thinking about all this because I decided to watch a movie yesterday called Gravity. In case you lived under the same rock I have been for the past few months and missed it. it won a lot of awards for it cinematic achievement. It’s about a disaster in orbit. It has a lot of the undercurrent themes about technology pushing the boundaries of reason, humans at the edge of their ability to cope and mankind’s penchant to self-destruct.

There is an accident in space. Apparently a spy satelite malfunctioned and a missile was sent to destroy it. But in space things like that can produce a pinball reaction on a cosmic scale. The debris started taking out other satellites, knocking out communications with the world and also destroying the means of returning home…and everyone else aboard a shuttle except for two astronauts.

What impressed me the most about the movie was how realistic things looked. It was easy to escape reality and feel immersed in the situation, sharing the struggle with Sandra Bullock. Afterward I wondered what can be imagined that somehow we can’t create at least in a movie if not in real life?

With the advent of the personal computer, which came from the investment in the technology to put men on the moon in the 1960’s, and the Internet, which came from the need for a communications network that could survive a nuclear war, we now have the ability to publish and distribute the products of our imaginations in ways no one would have believed possible only twenty or so years ago. If you can dream it and express it, then why can’t be become a reality – at least on the real or virtual pages of a book?

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Billions of people produce millions of artists inspired to capture and express their visions, sharing them with the rest of the world. Any of the billions who might care to see, hear, feel the dreams of those of us inspired to create, has instant access to art in its various forms. What a wonderful time to be alive as an artist. And yet, each of us still struggles as artists apparently must in order to sense and respond to what it is about the universe that makes us different.

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Multi-Talented Artist Alisse Lee Goldenberg: Author, Actress and Painter

Elgon Williams, Author

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Recently I had the chance to ask Alisse Lee Goldenberg some questions about her writing, acting and painting. Alisse is an author of Horror and Young Adult fantasy fiction. Her book Sitnalta (that’s Atlantis spelled backwards) was published last fall through Pandamoon Publishing. She has her Bachelors of Education and a Fine Arts degree, and has studied fantasy and folklore since she was a child. Alisse lives in Toronto with her husband Brian, their triplets Joseph, Phillip, and Hailey, and their rambunctious Goldendoodle Sebastian.

 

Q: Imagine for a moment that you’re a famous, bestselling author. They’re making a movie out of your last book. What do you do next to top what you’re already achieved?

 A: First of all, that would be awesome! As for what I’d do next, I don’t know anything could top that! But I’d definitely keep writing and at the very least try to match it. Maybe write a screenplay?

 Q: Creative people tend to be spontaneous. In particular, most people think that writers are at least a little crazy. Tell us the most unusual thing you have done in your real life that doesn’t directly relate to writing.

 A: It’s a little hard to choose! If I were looking for the most adventurous thing, that would be cliff jumping. That entails literally jumping off a cliff into a body of water. I would say that the most unusual thing I’ve done had to have been when I was asked to play the role of Jack in a production of Into the Woods. I don’t think many women have ever gotten that opportunity. The costume was uncomfortable for many reasons (mainly to do with breathing!)

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Q: Creativity comes in many ways – for example, painting, photography, sculpture, music and theater. What other things do you do or have you done that are examples of using your imagination or other artistic talents?

A: I do quite a bit of painting, mostly in acrylics, and I act on stage and on screen. I actually find that the acting helps my writing in that it allows me to get into the skin of other characters, and I get to meet so many fantastic people! As for my painting, I wish I had more time for it, but right now, the writing and my family takes up more of my time.

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Q: Family and relationships are important in peoples’ lives and so, it is little surprise that there are relationships between characters in books. How closely do the interactions in your books mirror your real life?

A: Considering that there are a few dysfunctional families in my books, I hope not a lot! However, there are also some amazing and powerful friendships, and those are definitely reflective of the wonderful support groups I have around me.

Q: When writing I’m sure you hit snags where characters aren’t behaving or the plot just isn’t working. When that happens to me I play video solitaire. What do you do?

A: It happens quite a bit! And for a plotter like myself, I find it especially irksome. When that happens to me, I pour myself a glass of wine, complain to anyone I can get a hold of, and watch The Avengers pretending that the Hulk is smashing the characters that have gone on a tangent.

Q: There is a point in every professional writer’s life when it stops being a hobby and starts being a vocation. When did that happen for you and why did you choose to pursue this career?

A: I think it’s always been a vocation. I’ve wanted to do this since the day I learned the squiggles in my books were words and told stories. I feel that I’d be doing this even if I didn’t make a single cent from my stories. My head and my heart are full of them, and I need to put them out into the world. I just hope people like to read them!

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Alisse Lee Goldenberg in print:

The Strings of the Violin is a fantasy adventure interweaving Eastern European folklore with modern characters.

Seventeen-year-old Carrie is lying in her backyard ignoring all the looming responsibilities in her life, when a fox makes a mad dash across the grass in front of her. After she manages to keep her dog from attacking the frightened animal, the fox turns to Carrie and seems to bow in gratitude before he disappears into the bushes. All Carrie knows in that moment is that something has unexpectedly changed in her life.

Carrie has been best friends with Lindsay Smith and Rebecca Campbell for years. During a summer when they should focus on choosing colleges, the girls suddenly find themselves swept away on the adventure of their lives. The fox reappears three days later and reveals to Carrie that he is Adom, emissary to the king of Hadariah. With his land of music and magic in peril, Adom has been sent to seek help from Carrie and her friends. In the blink of an eye, the three teenage girls go from living an average suburban life to being the champions of a world where they must contend with giants, witches, and magical beings. Will they ever make it home once more?

Sitnalta: Everyone in the land loves Princess Sitnalta of Colonodona. Everyone except her father, the monstrous King Supmylo, whose thirst for revenge and hideous cravings, have nearly destroyed the once peaceful kingdom. He cares only for power—the more the better—and he despises Sitnalta because she wasn’t born a boy. He wanted an heir, a prince, to grow his kingdom and fulfill his own father’s legacy. But now, his only choice is to join with a neighboring kingdom, and at the tender age of 15, Sitnalta is to be married to another king who is at least as old as her own father. 

But Sitnalta has other ideas. Before her father can come for her, she sneaks out of her bedroom window, scales the castle walls, and enters the magical forest that surrounds her kingdom. There she meets Najort, a kind-hearted troll, who was tasked by a wizard decades earlier to protect a valuable secret—with his life, if necessary. 

But King Supmylo has vowed that nothing will stop him from returning his daughter to Colonodona, and forcing her to go through with the royal wedding. With the help of friends from both kingdoms, Sitnalta and Najort flee ahead of the rabid king. For if they are captured, Supmylo will become so invincible, no one could stand against him. 

Bath Salts: The time is now, and a mysterious virus has infected much of the world’s population, turning them into flesh-craving zombies. As people die from what the media call “drug-fuelled Bath Salts attacks” one young mother sees what is truly happening beneath the lies, and with her good friends An and Olivia, takes matters into her own hands to keep her family safe. 

Day by day, Bath Salts tells of their escape to the arctic tundra, and their desperate attempt to survive the elements, zombie attacks, and armed bandits with their humanity intact.

Visit Alisse on the web at www.alisseleegoldenberg.com