Intrepid Media is a 2nd generation social network and promotional site for writers and other artists. Founded in 1999, Intrepid Media has grown to over 1000 members around the world, including New York Times bestselling authors, writers represented by major agencies, novelists, journalists, freelancers, technical writers, bloggers, students, and everything in between. GREAT THINGS WILL HAPPEN TODAY: THE INTREPID MEDIA 2008 COLLECTION is a look at the last year like no other -- funny, biting, witty, insightful, thoughtful -- it's the best of Intrepid Media from an historic year in an historic edition. There something in here for everyone and a little something especially for you.

12 FREAKY MONTHS. 24 AWESOME WRITERS. 71 PHENOMENAL COLUMNS.It's 2009 as only Intrepid Media can bring it to you. In our third annual best of the best, you'll find unique looks back at the events that made up 2009 -- each one loaded with a combination of funny, witty, provocative, and truthful.And like a DVD but with more paper, each column contains a follow-up post -- exclusive commentary from the writer.

In 1794 England, the beautiful Sovay dons a man's cloak and holds up stagecoaches in broad daylight. Posing as a highway robber began as a lark to test a suitor's devotion. But when she lifts the wallet of one of England's most dangerous men, Sovay begins to unravel a web of deceit and duplicity. Acclaimed author Celia Rees' talent for romance and intrigue are sure to thrill a paperback audience.

Seeking comfort in traditional family culinary practices after the early deaths of her parents, twenty-six-year-old Asperger's patient Ginny struggles with her domineering sister's decision to sell the house, troubling secrets, and the ghost of a dead ancestor.

Poetry. Literary Nonfiction. Poetry History & Criticism. Introduction by Nick Flynn. From 2010 to 2012, Guggenheim Fellow and award-winning poet Lisa Russ Spaar was the poetry editor for the Chronicle of Higher Education's Arts & Academe and Brainstorm blogs, where every Monday she regaled an ever-growing audience with a brief commentary on a poem of her choosing. This book collects the best of these memorable micro-essays, demonstrating how a well-wrought poem speaks to our rich cultural and spiritual life. As the title essay reveals, Spaar's own father believed that "poetry was out to trick him" and in this collection, encompassing a range of crucial poets from the formal to the experimental, Spaar gently and lovingly debunks that notion, showing us the vital place that contemporary poetry can have in the life of the mind. This is an enthralling book for poets and non-poets alike. "For people who are a bit wary of poetry, this is the perfect antidote: the poems are amazing, and so are Lisa Russ Spaar's short essays. There s a sense of clarity about everything here (not that things aren't complex; not that Lisa's analyses aren't fascinating constructs themselves, insightful and inspiring, though not intimidating.) I'd think anyone who cares about an inner reality that might be somehow communicated nailed; set free; amplified; questioned would embrace the chance to read poems that elucidate so much about the mind and the heart, and to understand better the urges embodied in the process of constructing a poem, which always speaks from its structure of restraint. I loved every minute of reading this book." Ann Beattie "Lisa Russ Spaar has an intense and generous spirit. She loves poetry and honors the people who read and write it. Reading her you remember once again that there's no such thing as a bad poem or a bad reader. Time will tell which ones are better and best. This book follows many roads, some less traveled than others and Lisa has a wonderful eye for the wildflowers elsewhere." Jerome McGann Contributors are Kazim Ali, Debra Allbery, Talvikki Ansel, Jennifer Atkinson, David Baker, Jill Bialosky, Suzanne Buffam, Jennifer Chang, Ye Chun, Michael Collier, Randall Couch, Stephen Cushman, Kate Daniels, Kyle Dargan, Claudia Emerson, Monica Ferrell, David Francis, Gabriel Fried, Alice Fulton, Rachel Hadas, Brenda Hillman, Edward Hirsch, Jane Hirshfield, Mark Jarman, Laura Kasischke, Jennifer Key, L. S. Klatt, Joanna Klink, Hank Lazer, Paul Legault, Willie Lin, Maurice Manning, Cate Marvin, Heather McHugh, Erika Meitner, Carol Muske-Dukes, Amy Newman, Meghan O'Rourke, Eric Pankey, Kiki Petrosino, Carl Phillips, John Poch, Bin Ramke, Srikanth Reddy, Michael Rutherglen, Mary Ann Samyn, Philip Schultz, Sarah Schweig, Allison Seay, Ravi Shankar, Ron Slate, R. T. Smith, Larissa Szporluk, Mary Szybist, Brian Teare, William Thompson, David Wojahn, and Charles Wright."

The first official history of the legendary aircraft carrier that fought in World War II and Vietnam and continues to serve as a major air and space museum in New York City The USS Intrepid is a warship unlike any other. Since her launching in 1943, the 27,000-ton, Essex-class aircraft carrier has sailed into harm’s way around the globe. During World War II, she fought her way across the Pacific—Kwajalein, Truk, Peleliu, Formosa, the Philippines, Okinawa—surviving kamikaze and torpedo attacks and covering herself with glory. The famous ship endured to become a Cold War attack carrier, recovery ship for America’s first astronauts, and a three-tour combatant in Vietnam. In a riveting narrative based on archival research and interviews with surviving crewmen, authors Bill White and Robert Gandt take us inside the war in the Pacific. We join Intrepid’s airmen at the Battle of Leyte Gulf, in October 1944, as they gaze in awe at the apparitions beneath them: five Japanese battleships, including the dreadnoughts Yamato and Musashi, plus a fleet of heavily armored cruisers and destroyers. The sky fills with multihued bursts of anti-aircraft fire. The flak, a Helldiver pilot would write in his action report, “was so thick you could get out and walk on it.” Half a dozen Intrepid aircraft are blown from the sky, but they sink the Musashi. A few months later, off Okinawa, they again meet her sister ship, the mighty Yamato. In a two-hour tableau of hellfire and towering explosions, Intrepid’s warplanes help send the super-battleship and 3,000 Japanese crewmen to the bottom of the sea. We’re next to nineteen-year-old Alonzo Swann in Gun Tub 10 aboard Intrepid as he peers over the breech of a 20-mm anti-aircraft gun. He’s heard of kamikazes, but until today he’s never seen one. Swann and his fellow gunners are among the few African Americans assigned to combat duty in the U.S. Navy of 1944. Blazing away at the diving Japanese Zero, Swann realizes with a dreadful certainty where it will strike: directly into Gun Tub 10. The authors follow Intrepid’s journey to Vietnam. “MiG-21 high!” crackles the voice of Lt. Tony Nargi in his F-8 Crusader. It is 1968, and Intrepid is again at war. Launching from Yankee Station in the Tonkin Gulf, Nargi and his wingman have intercepted a flight of Russian-built supersonic fighters. Minutes later, after a swirling dogfight over North Vietnam, Nargi—and Intrepid—have added another downed enemy airplane to their credit. Intrepid: The Epic Story of America’s Most Legendary Warship brings a renowned ship to life in a stirring tribute complete with the personal recollections of those who served aboard her, dramatic photographs, time lines, maps, and vivid descriptions of Intrepid’s deadly conflicts. More than a numbers-and-dates narrative, Intrepid is the story of people—those who sailed in her, fought to keep her alive, perished in her defense—and powerfully captures the human element in this saga of American heroism.

This is the story of a gutsy journalist who challenged power-and succeeded. Wanda Jablonski was an investigative reporter, publisher, and power broker who came to wield exceptional influence on twentieth-century geopolitics by shedding light on the secretive world of oil from the 1950s through the 1980s. Jablonski unveiled many mysteries of the oil club, an elite group of Western executives who once controlled the international petroleum business. Nicknamed the midwife of OPEC, Jablonski undermined Big Oil's dominance by exposing the vulnerabilities of the major oil companies and encouraging the rise of oil nationalism. Her scoops, commentaries, and private networking helped shape the debate that led to the creation of OPEC, the oil shocks of the 1970s, and the largest transfer of wealth in history. Tenacious and glamorous, Wanda-as she was known in the oil world-coaxed her way into exploration sites in Middle Eastern deserts, drilling camps in the Venezuelan jungle, male-only boardrooms in New York and London, and the king's harem in Saudi Arabia. She survived threats, boycotts, and suspicions of espionage as she elicited information and insight from CEOs of the oil giants and political leaders, including the shah of Iran. Working for the Journal of Commerce and other New York publications, Jablonski defied the prevailing view that a woman reporting on business had no credibility. In 1961, divorced and suddenly jobless, she took a big gamble by starting her own newsletter, Petroleum Intelligence Weekly, which was soon dubbed the "bible" of the oil world. Today, when conflict in the Middle East and climate change cause us to reexamine our reliance on oil, Jablonski's prescience-whether about oil dependency, cultural insensitivity, or market manipulation-proves remarkable. Anna Rubino, who reported for Jablonski in the 1980s, uses scores of interviews, exclusive access to her private papers, and newly declassified information to tell the dramatic story of this journalistic pioneer and the power of information.

"As much as Scalzi has the scientific creativity of a Michael Crichton, he also has the procedural chops of a Stephen J. Canell to craft a whodunit with buddy-cop charm and suspects aplenty—most of them in someone else's body." —USA Today John Scalzi returns with Head On, the standalone follow-up to the New York Times bestselling and critically acclaimed Lock In. Chilling near-future SF with the thrills of a gritty cop procedural, Head On brings Scalzi's trademark snappy dialogue and technological speculation to the future world of sports. Hilketa is a frenetic and violent pastime where players attack each other with swords and hammers. The main goal of the game: obtain your opponent’s head and carry it through the goalposts. With flesh and bone bodies, a sport like this would be impossible. But all the players are “threeps,” robot-like bodies controlled by people with Haden’s Syndrome, so anything goes. No one gets hurt, but the brutality is real and the crowds love it. Until a star athlete drops dead on the playing field. Is it an accident or murder? FBI Agents and Haden-related crime investigators, Chris Shane and Leslie Vann, are called in to uncover the truth—and in doing so travel to the darker side of the fast-growing sport of Hilketa, where fortunes are made or lost, and where players and owners do whatever it takes to win, on and off the field. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

"In A Passion for Mars Andrew Chaikin, who covered Mars exploration as a science journalist and took part in the first Mars landing, chronicles this epic quest and the enduring dream of going to Mars. Based on first-person interviews and animated by the author's own passion, this is the story of Earthbound explorers and their robotic surrogates caught in the irresistible pull of the Red Planet." "A Passion for Mars is illustrated by spectacular photographs - many rarely seen and presented in unprecedented quality - sent back by four decades of robotic explorers, and visionary artwork that renders our Martian future."--BOOK JACKET.

Empower Your Writing Through Craft and Community! Writing can be a lonely profession plagued by blind stumbles, writer's block, and despair--but it doesn't have to be. Written by members of the popular Writer Unboxed website, Author in Progress is filled with practical, candid essays to help you reach the next rung on the publishing ladder. By tracking your creative journey from first draft to completion and beyond, you can improve your craft, find your community, and overcome the mental barriers that stand in the way of success. Author in Progress is the perfect no-nonsense guide for excelling at every step of the novel-writing process, from setting goals, researching, and drafting to giving and receiving critiques, polishing prose, and seeking publication. You'll love Author in Progress if... • You're an aspiring novelist working on your first book. • You're an experienced veteran looking for ways to enhance your career and connect with your writing community. • You've finished your first draft and want to know the next steps. • You're seeking clear, effective advice about publication-from professionals who are "down in the trenches" every day. What's Inside Author in Progress features: • More than 50 essays from best-selling authors, editors, and industry leaders on a variety of writing and publishing topics. • Advice on writing first drafts, conducting research, building and fostering community, seeking critique, revising, and getting published. • An encouraging approach to the writing and publishing process, from authors who've walked this path.