Congratulations to Bett Fitzpatrick whose new book of narrative nonfiction history, Hard Aground, will be released in Spring 2022 by Boulder Books, an independent publishing company in Newfoundland and Labrador. In the pre-dawn hours of February 18, 1942, three American warships zigzagged in convoy along the south coast of Newfoundland, heading for one of the worst disasters in American naval history. The USS Pollux and USS Truxtun, caught in a raging blizzard, ran aground on one of the most inhospitable stretches of coastline in the world. Fighting frigid temperatures, wild surf, and a heavy oil slick, a few sailors, through ingenuity and sheer grit, managed to gain shore—only to be stranded under cliffs some 200 feet high. From there, local miners mounted an arduous rescue operation. Having survived shipwreck, would the men survive their deliverance? Based on eyewitness accounts of survivors and rescuers, and corroborated by archival and historical research, Fitzpatrick uses alternating viewpoints—switching from the crews’ gruelling efforts to save themselves, to the miners who carried the survivors up the cliffs on their backs, and to the people of St. Lawrence who opened their hearts and their homes to the victims. Among them are 18-year-old Seaman Edward Bergeron who scaled the cliff and brought help, Lanier Phillips, the only black man to survive, Ena, who collected food and blankets with her toboggan and snapped the only pictures of that horrific day, and Clara, who took the last survivor home and nursed him through the night. This is a story…

The Soul’s Twins: Emancipate Your Feminine and Masculine Archetypes by Jean Benedict Raffa releases today, November 17, from Schiffer Books. A former television producer and college professor, Dr. Jean Raffa changed directions in midlife to discover and write about her passions. Informed by over 30 years of psychological and spiritual study, her books and teachings guide others to growth and self-empowerment. Humanity today is plagued by a loss of meaning and alienation from self and others. The result is unprecedented levels of divorce, depression, anxiety, addictions, suicide, and crime. Because societal institutions have failed to resolve these and other everyday problems, it is now the task of each individual to heal and unite their divided self: body and spirit, conscious and unconscious, feminine and masculine. Drawing on Jungian psychology and wisdom traditions from world religions, Dr. Raffa offers a self-guided journey to heightened self-awareness and compassion for oneself and others. A self-assessment tool called the Partnership Profile gives readers a personalized status report on their inner forces, including the maturity of four feminine archetypes, four masculine archetypes, and a newly emerging archetype of egalitarian partnership. This awareness, combined with suggested practices, empowers readers to address their imbalances and create the lives for which they yearn. This guide for all who desire greater self-fulfillment and freedom to be themselves describes four masculine and four feminine archetypes in everyone. Watch the book trailer here. Reviewer Linsey Stevens, editor of Iphelia: Awakening the Gift of Feeling, writes, “The Soul’s Twins is incredibly well…

As many of you may know, February is Black History Month. President Gerald Ford recognized it during the celebration of the United States Bicentennial in 1976, urging Americans to “seize the opportunity to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history.” Today, we at Swenson Book Development would like to take time to recognize one outstanding man, Carl T. Rowan, and his incredible achievements. Carl Rowan, born on August 11, 1925, was a journalist, author, and television commentator, and he is the only journalist to have won the Society of Professional Journalists’ Sigma Delta Chi medallion three years in a row. Growing up during the Great Depression, Rowan’s family was poor, and in his autobiography Breaking Barriers, he writes about having “no electricity, no running water, no toothbrushes, no telephone, no radio, and no regular inflow of money.” However, he didn’t let his impoverished circumstances stop him from getting an education. An article on blackpast.org states, “One of young Carl’s teachers encouraged him to read and write as much as possible, even going to the library for him because, as a black person, Rowan wasn’t allowed to check out books for himself.” Rowan graduated as valedictorian from Bernard High School in 1942, going on to enroll in the Tennessee Agricultural and Industrial State College with money that he’d saved up working at a hospital for tuberculosis patients. When the United States entered the Second World War, Rowan entered the Navy and became…