The Change Guidebook: How to Align Your Heart, Truths, and Energy to Find Success in All Areas of Your Life
Written by Elizabeth Hamilton-Guarino
Most people would agree we would like to become the best we can be, but how many of us, are willing to put in the effort to achieve that lofty goal?
Guarino has made it possible by providing a simple framework to make it possible for us to grow and change as we move through life. She provides ten points of change in three phrases to help the reader become happier.
These three phases align our heart, our truths, and finally our energy. As one discovers herself, she must act. Guarino provides assessments that help us to think, write, talk, and finally, act. The reader learns to create power phrases and then complete exercises to practice implementing those actions. Practical suggestions help us manage our time and energy. For those who enjoy a challenge, a discussion quiz allows a way to gain certification in completion of the course in recognition of the arduous work and progress made on the path to change and true happiness.
Take the first step to becoming a better you.
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Publisher: Big Ideas Press | ISBN-13: 978-0645099805
I feel like I’m a piece, a fragment that’s missing all the good bits, but I don’t know where to find the rest … the parts I need to work properly. I bet they wouldn’t fit anyway. (Lexy, age 17)
Publisher’s Synopsis: Eight young people navigating high school and beyond, each struggling to hold on – to family, to friends, to a piece of themselves. Perhaps you know them. The bubbly girl who keeps telling you she’s okay. The high achiever who’s suddenly so intense. The young teen obsessed with social media. The boy challenged by communication. Every single day they, and others, are working hard to keep it together. So hard, they don’t see their friends are struggling, too. Through eight imagined stories, Fragments moves from a place of disconnection to connectedness.
The action of Fragments takes place in the minds and hearts of an ordinary group of young people. Their stories encompass anxiety, depression, neurodivergence, gender dysphoria, social media, bullying, family dysfunction, cross-cultural diversity, and more, culminating in a sense of hope. Although set in Australia, their stories could take place anywhere.
From the Playwright: Rarely presenting as neat packages, mental health issues often involve feelings and behaviors with jagged edges and blurred origins. Fragments embodies the theme that stress at home, at school, and in life is challenging young people beyond their usual coping abilities, leaving them disenfranchised and vulnerable. So much of adolescent life is spent looking inwards that it’s perhaps not surprising that mental health issues are often internalized. I wrote Fragments to start a conversation. It’s only when we speak openly about mental health issues – without fear or judgment – that we can chip away at the stigma that prevents many people from seeking help. It is my hope that the work will find its way into schools in Australia and overseas. The publication includes a comprehensive Study Guide, detailing activities and curriculum links for English, Drama/Arts, Health & PE, Civics, and more.
A powerful and timely mental health resource for young people and their families. Essential reading for high school.
Maura Pierlot is an award-winning author and playwright who hails from New York but has called Canberra, Australia home since the early 1990s. Her writing delves into complex issues including memory, identity, self, and, more recently, mental health. Following its sellout 2019 season in Canberra, Maura’s debut professional theatre production, Fragments is being adapted for the digital space, supported by artsACT. The work is published online by Australian Plays Transforms and in print by Big Ideas Press.
Maura is a past winner of the SOLO Monologue Competition, Hothouse Theatre for her play, Tapping Out. Her plays have been performed in Melbourne, Canberra, Sydney, Brisbane, and Hollywood. A former medical news reporter and editor of Australian Medicine, Maura also writes for children and young adults. In 2017 she was named winner of the CBCA Aspiring Writers Mentorship Program, and recipient of the Charlotte Waring Barton Award, for her young adult manuscript, Freefalling (now True North). Maura’s debut picture book,The Trouble in Tune Town won the 2018 ACT Writing and Publishing Award (Children’s category) along with international accolades.
Maura’s poetry, short stories, microfiction, and essays appear in various literary journals and anthologies. Maura has a bachelor’s degree, master’s degree, and doctorate, each in philosophy, specializing in ethics. When she’s not busy writing, Maura visits schools and libraries as a guest reader and speaker, serves as a Role Model for Books in Homes, and contributes reviews for the Children’s Book Council of Australia’s online magazine, Reading Time.
The giveaway begins September 6, 2021, at 12:01 A.M. MT and ends October 6, 2021, at 11:59 P.M. MT.
MY REVIEW OF FRAGMENTS:
FRAGMENTS: Journeys from Isolation to Connection
Written by Maura Pierlot
Fragments is a series of monologues that lend a voice to issues of mental health faced by teens all over the world today. In these monologues, readers follow the struggles of eight teens who seek hope as they fight mental health challenges. Each fight to maintain their connections to family, friends, and the community in which they live. The monologues are representative of the issues faced by youth and adults in the challenging times of which we live.
The actors represent young people around the world struggling with emotional, social, physical, and mental issues during their teenage years. As they reveal themselves, readers at once laugh, cry, feel their pain, and empathize with one or more of the issues described. The actors may appear to be disconnected, but in truth, they are seeking the possibility of connecting with one another.
The study guide included delineates themes, the background of characters, summaries of each monologue, and curriculum guide. While the monologues are matched to the Australian curriculum for high school studies, it can readily be adapted to standards used around the world.
Pierlot’s play provided her audience an opportunity to witness the problems and challenges facing youth today. Now readers of Fragments are given the opportunity to read and ponder the insights of these teens into the causes of mental issues and the realities they present for those who are suffering. Highly recommended read and discussion opportunity for teens and adults.
TOUR SCHEDULE
Monday, September 6, 2021The Children’s Book ReviewTour Kick-OffFragments: Journeys from Isolation to Connection
Publisher’s Synopsis: Need a killer monologue for an audition? Discover a wealth of fresh options in this detailed tome.
Sick of the same scripts being done to death? Looking for a soliloquy relevant to teenagers? Seeking material with a positive spin? Full voting member of the National Television Academy and Tonight Show sketch performer Mike Kimmel has been writing, acting, and producing for decades. Now he’s here to share a curated collection of one hundred of the best comedy and drama monologues.
One-Minute Monologues for Teens is the ultimate volume of family-friendly stage material to help you nail that college drama program audition or class assignment. With a range of topics applicable to young actors, these pieces require no costumes or props, and discuss ethical questions perfect for middle- and high-school minds to explore. And with literally dozens of gender-neutral and unique scenes to choose from, you’ll find the right piece to take you from zero to callback in no time at all.
One-Minute Monologues for Teens is the dramatic arts advantage you need in your next live performance. If you like fresh material, optimistic spins, and challenging ideas, you’ll love Mike Kimmel’s definitive resource.
Ages 13+ | Publisher: Ben Rose Creative Arts | ISBN-13: 978-0998151380
Mike Kimmel is a film, television, stage, and commercial actor and acting coach. He is a twenty-plus year member of SAG-AFTRA with extensive experience in both the New York and Los Angeles markets. He has worked with directors Francis Ford Coppola, Robert Townsend, Craig Shapiro, and Christopher Cain among many others. TV credits include Game of Silence, Zoo, Treme, In Plain Sight, Cold Case, Breakout Kings, Memphis Beat, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He was a regular sketch comedy player on The Tonight Show, performing live on stage and in pre-taped segments with Jay Leno for eleven years. Mike has appeared in dozens of theatrical plays on both coasts, including Radio City Music Hall, Equity Library Theater, Stella Adler Theater, and Theater at the Improv. He trained with Michael Shurtleff, William Hickey, Ralph Marrero, Gloria Maddox, Harold Sylvester, Wendy Davis, Amy Hunter, Bob Collier, and Stuart Robinson. He has a B.A. from Brandeis University and an M.A. from California State University.
As an educator, Kimmel has taught at Upper Iowa University, the University of New Orleans, University of Phoenix, and in the Los Angeles, Beverly Hills, and Burbank, California public school districts. He is a two-time past president of New Orleans Toastmasters, the public speaking organization, and often serves as a speech contest judge. Mike has written and collaborated on numerous scripts for stage and screen. His full-length historical drama on Presidents Lincoln and Garfield was a 2013 semi-finalist in the National Playwrights Conference at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center. He is the 2014 recipient of the Excellence in Teaching Award from Upper Iowa University. Mike is a full voting member of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (the Emmys).
Teens interested in acting or public speaking will find no better resource for audition material. These one hundred one-minute selections provide a plethora of material that is positive and uplifting as wells as modern and applicable to the world of today’s youth.
Topics include teen necessities like cell phones, school relationships and teacher crushes. They give voice to the thoughts on teen minds. At the same time, the subjects develop discipline in study habits and the short length allow for a rapid development of skills connected to deep focus of the topic.
Teens gain the opportunity to choose subjects that permit them to develop their humor and wit. But for those preferring serious topics there is an opportunity to explore tragedy and loss.
Each reader will find plenty of choices to maximize chances of success.
May 1, 2022
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