These inspiring and profoundly hopeful letters, written from a father to his deceased son, comprise an elegant tale of deep feeling, of growth, of a father's unconditional love, and, ultimately, of a journey to peace.

"Few American musicians have touched more people in more ways than has Robert Shaw. A minister's son whose early preparation and temperament seemed to destine him for the pulpit, Shaw instead turned his faith and eloquence to the service of music. From his days as a youthful member of the Fred Waring Glee Club, he went on to achieve fame as conductor of the Robert Shaw Chorale. Today he is the musical director of the Atlanta Symphony. Joseph Mussulman deftly places Shaw and his career against the backdrop of developments in American musical history. He documents the renaissance of the choral tradition, the flowering of the community orchestra, the rise of the recording industry, the role of live radio broadcasts, and the widening recognition of twentieth-century American composers--whose music Shaw has always courageously championed. Mussulman also describes the problems involved in developing new avenues of artistic patronage, and the delights and difficulties of touring. Part III, 'A phoenix in Atlanta,' has a dual focus: it examines the south's reentry into the mainstream of American musical life and reports on Shaw's often stormy tenure in Atlanta. But what emerges most powerfully from this biography is the character of Shaw himself. In his capacity as director of numerous ensembles, Shaw has addressed his musicians--many of them part-time non-professionals--in hortative letters that open with the salutation 'Dear people.' These messages not only express his deeply held beliefs about the spiritual values of great music but also reveal his warmth, wit, and irrepressible humor. Dear People ... Robert Shaw chronicles the career of a remarkable man and a gifted musician, whose foremost conviction is that 'to be an artist is not the privilege of a few but the necessity of us all.'"--Dust jacket.

Impoverished young Americans had no greater champion during the Depression than Eleanor Roosevelt. As First Lady, Mrs. Roosevelt used her newspaper columns and radio broadcasts to crusade for expanded federal aid to poor children and teens. She was the most visible spokesperson for the National Youth Administration, the New Deal's central agency for aiding needy youths, and she was adamant in insisting that federal aid to young people be administered without discrimination so that it reached blacks as well as whites, girls as well as boys. This activism made Mrs. Roosevelt a beloved figure among poor teens and children, who between 1933 and 1941 wrote her thousands of letters describing their problems and requesting her help. Dear Mrs. Roosevelt presents nearly 200 of these extraordinary documents to open a window into the lives of the Depression's youngest victims. In their own words, the letter writers confide what it was like to be needy and young during the worst economic crisis in American history. Revealing both the strengths and the limitations of New Deal liberalism, this book depicts an administration concerned and caring enough to elicit such moving appeals for help yet unable to respond in the very personal ways the letter writers hoped.

Before Starting Over is an informal chronicle of several important developments in English-language poetry during the nineties and the turn of the century, most importantly Asian American poetry, digital poetics, and the changing face of poetry's "experimental" wing. There is nothing pious about the approach: one chapter is a distillation of conversations and controversies that occurred on the internet via the author's blog, Free Space Comix, while another is largely composed of playful and polemical "poetics" statements geared toward a popular - i.e. non-elitist or -insider - audience. Consquently, nothing is taken for granted, whether it be the efficacy of a central literary Tradition, or the primacy of the "marginal" or aesthetic "lineages" that are valorized in smaller writing communities identifying with either the "avant-garde" or ethnic minorities (or both). Included are several book reviews by the author that attempt to create a language for discussing the most "difficult" poetry of the past fifteen years energetically and engagingly, in a manner that is neither sugared up nor requiring a doctoral degree to decipher. Several interviews discuss strands of "digital poetics" that were not discussed in the author's Fashionable Noise: On Digital Poetics, especially notions of "hacktivism," internet publishing and the poetics of the anti-war blog Circulars. All in all, the experience of reading Before Starting Over is in which the reader is invited to disagree, to argue, but most of all to feel as passionate, troubled yet optimistic about poetry as the author, one of the more active and intelligent (uh huh) poets and critics to mobilize both the internet and journalistic print publications to examine and champion emerging strands in writing.

A real life love story of twin flames. A True Story: Grace decides to stay behind her pen name to share her real life story truthfully.Grace had lived through some tragic life events. Her beauty worked as a curse. After being abused since she was a child, she learns to keep her head down to avoid unnecessary attention. Then, she faces a death sentence brought by rare type cancer and she negotiates with the universe, "if you let me live, I won't fear for anything. I want to experience the kind of love that will change my life and the world" BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR. Grace meets Robert and everything changes. She wonders if Robert was the force that brought her from the opposite side of the globe. Serendipitous events bring them back together over and over as if they're destined to meet. Falling in love with Robert brings out her neglected wounds and insecurities. The Journey has awakened Grace spiritually to find her soul purpose, the meanings of true love and unconditional happiness.The book contains 20 signs of twin flame, her letter to Robert, and graphic illustrations of her memoir.

This correspondence, which encompasses Truman's courtship of his wife, his service in the senate, his presidency, and after, reveals not only the character of Truman's mind but also a shrewd observer's view of American politics.

These letters tell the story of a young American woman of Japanese descent who was stranded in Japan during World War II. They chronicle her turbulent life from her arrival in Japan through her experiences as a civilian employee of U.S. forces in the first years of the American occupation.

From playwright Sarah Ruhl, Dear Elizabeth is a moving, innovative play based on one of the greatest correspondences in literary history--the letters of Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Bishop. From 1947 to 1977, Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Bishop exchanged more than four hundred letters. Describing the writing of their poems, their travel and daily illnesses, the pyrotechnics of their romantic relationships, and the profound affection they had for each other, these missives are the most intimate record available of both poets and one of the greatest correspondences in American literature. The playwright Sarah Ruhl fell in love with these letters and set herself an unusual challenge: to turn this thirty-year exchange into a stage play, and to bring to life the friendship of two writers who were rarely even in the same country. As innovative as it is moving, Dear Elizabeth gives voice to a conversation that lived mostly in writing, illuminating some of the finest poems of the twentieth century and the minds that produced them.

Jonathon Bender had something to say to the world; unfortunately, the world wasn't listening, and didn't start until Jonathon committed suicide. Dear Everybody is his last will and testament: unsent letters addressed to relatives, friends, teachers, classmates, professors, roommates, employers, former girlfriends, his ex-wife, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, the state of Michigan, and a weather satellite, just to name a few, alongside the eulogizing reminiscences of his closest acquaintances. Michael Kimball fills in the story of Jonathon's life through his letters, bringing the reader to laughter and tears in an involving and sympathetically written work of fiction.