"The universe is made of stories, not of atoms."
—Muriel Rukeyser
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From Page to Screen: The Cloud Hits Hollywood | Robert Rivenbark Interview


Robert Rivenbark discusses his novel The Cloud, themes of AI and surveillance, and a Hollywood film adaptation.


In this video, host Jorah Kai sits down with Robert Rivenbark, author of the sci-fi thriller The Cloud, to talk about its journey from novel to screen. 

Robert's debut novel The Cloud is not only an award-winning story but is also in development as a feature film. In this insightful interview, we cover: Inspiration behind The Cloud – How a big “what if?” and real-world tech trends sparked this thrilling story.

Creative writing process – Robert’s writing routine, from daily word counts to turning first drafts into polished prose. Hollywood adaptation journey: How The Cloud caught Hollywood’s attention and the role of legendary literary manager Ken Atchity in its film development. 

Transmedia storytelling – Expanding the story universe beyond the book, and what it means to take a tale from page to screen (and beyond). 

Modern writing landscape – Insights on being an author today, from working with a literary agent to navigating publishing in the digital age. 

Whether you’re an aspiring writer, a passionate book lover, or a fan of film adaptations, this conversation is packed with tips, inspiration, and behind-the-scenes stories you won’t want to miss.



Via Jorah Kai, Existential Detective

@jorahkai


 AVAILABLE ON AMAZON




NEW FROM STORY MERCHANT BOOKS! Mr. Irrelevant Presents Irrelevants Who Rocked the World!


 📖 Meet some of the 'Irrelevants' who refused to stay in the shadows:

✔ Brock Purdy—The last pick in the NFL Draft who led the 49ers to a Super Bowl.
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Taylor Swift—Once dismissed by the industry, now one of the most influential artists of all time.
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Michael Jordan—Cut from his high school basketball team, now a global icon.
✔ 
Bethany Hamilton—The one-armed surfer who defied all expectations.
✔ 
Colonel Sanders—A broke and rejected entrepreneur at 65 before building a billion-dollar empire.
✔ 
J.K. Rowling—A single mother on welfare before becoming the world’s best-selling author.
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Susan Boyle—Laughed at before she even sang, yet stunned the world with her voice.
✔ 
Joan of Arc—A teenage peasant girl who led an army and changed the fate of a nation.
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Cat Cora—The first female Iron Chef, who shattered glass ceilings in a male-dominated industry.

For every person who has been underestimated, ignored, or made to feel like they don’t belong—this book is for you. It’s proof that success isn’t reserved for the privileged or the chosen few. It belongs to those who refuse to quit.

If you’ve ever doubted yourself, felt out of place, or needed a reminder that greatness is possible, 50 Irrelevants Who Rocked The World will inspire you to step forward, take your shot, and prove the world wrong.

📖 Read this book and rediscover the fire inside you.

🔥 If you love books like GritCan’t Hurt Me, and The Obstacle Is the Way, this is your next must-read.

🔹 Perfect for readers who enjoy motivational success stories, biographies, and self-improvement books.

📢 Dare to be relevant. Dare to rewrite your story.

👉 Get your copy of 50 Irrelevants Who Rocked The World today!

Stealing Time for Your Dream in 2025 - Part 4: Where Does the Time Go?


  

Where does the time go? 

The nonproductive dreamer: "I don’t know where the time goes. 

Once your Mind’s Eye takes over: "It doesn’t go anywhere; time’s in your face all the time! It’s knowing what to do with it that counts." 

For me, keeping track of time started at Rockhurst High School in Kansas City, where the Jesuits taught us to schedule our activities in precise Accountant segments. A page from the daily list I kept for four years looked like a space-launch checklist. Every single ten-minute period all day was chockfull of activities, starting from the moment of awakening to the last minutes of making the next day’s list. 

At the end of each daily agenda, which was written in pencil, was "tomorrow's to do list": At 10:50 P.M. I allowed myself eight minutes to work on the next day’s agenda. All day I’d been jotting down notes in pencil to remind me of things that had to be scheduled for the next day. During the eight minutes at the end of the day, I created the agenda for next day. All but one of the individual items on the daily agenda are items of "micro management" (defined as what to do on the Accountant's clock when—or “objectives”). The eight minutes at 10:50 P.M. are "macro-management" --considerably less than 1% of the time available to me. 

Though it served me well as a foundation for future productivity, it’s immediately obvious that an adult living in our new millennium, in a life filled with interruptions and immediate demands, can’t live sanely for long with this excessively disciplined approach. But accurate description precedes effective prescription. 

For accurate consciousness of time-usage to arise, you must take control one way or another. As years passed, I learned I had to move on from the severe but satisfying monastic time-management methods of my Jesuit agendas. I experimented with macro management techniques --what I call "the Gordian knot style of time management": Cut through the busyness by doing the important matters first, and letting everything else take care of itself. 

The most familiar macro tool is the to-do list. It’s excellent for getting specific small objectives accomplished, but ultimately you’ll want to move on because using the to-do list to control your life ends up wasting too much time. Yes, you get the important little things done. But you can’t write, “become an internationally recognized architect” on your to-do list. The to-do list doesn’t motivate or inspire you because it doesn’t deal with goals and dreams, only with objectives. That’s why even the shortest to-do list often gets neglected, ignored, postponed, constantly "carried over" from one day to the next. There’s a rebellion going on inside you. Accomplishing the list may satisfy your Accountant, but your Visionary is longing for more and feeling cheated. 

I’ve developed two forms that can help you inventory your actual expenditure of time so that you can take charge of this most precious asset and attach it firmly to your dream plan. 

The Time Inventory Daily Work Sheet should be filled out at the end of each day, estimating the number of hours you spend on the various activities in your life. The example that follows belongs to an imaginary dreamer who wants to move from his day job as a bank teller to selling the nonfiction book he’s writing. 

When you’re filling out your own work sheet, don’t forget housework, church and/or volunteer activities, phone time, etc. If the categories here don’t sound right to you, alter them to suit your own life and activities. Don’t add up the totals beneath or to the right until the week is over. But at the end of the week, add them up. Our bank teller came up with 201 hours. Ninety percent of my career management students and clients end up with weekly audits far under or considerably over 168. 

What’s magical about the number 168? The accountant is right about this one: 168 is exactly how many hours are in the week for all of us--whether you’re the Pope, a figure skater, the President of the United States, a stock broker, a major league baseball player, a bank teller, or a hairdresser. 

The discrepancy between your count and 168 arises from your unawareness of the interaction among the three voices within your mind, the Accountant, the Visionary, and the Mind’s Eye. In his first week of keeping track, notice that our future published writer has recorded activities to fill 201 hours in the week. Where did the extra thirty-three hours come from? Now that he's admitted the discrepancy and recognized its magnitude, he's ready to get serious. Obviously he's more careful using the work sheet the second week, making sure he keeps closer tabs on where the time is going. 

Once you’ve used these work sheets for two weeks, you have an accurate enough idea of where your time is going to make use of the Actual Time Inventory Analysis Work Sheet. Fill out the Activity and Hours per Week columns using the results of your second Time Inventory Daily Work Sheet. 

Next we want to find out, on a scale of 1 to 5 (5 being highest), how much each activity serves your goals. This is its Visionary Quotient. And we’re not going to fool with "Sleeping" because the right amount of sleep is essential on all fronts. 

There’s nothing magical about filling out the Visionary Quotient column. Follow your gut reaction. 

The Accountant's Quotient column rates the activity’s importance to your physical, financial, and psychological welfare. Taking writing classes, as far as our banker’s onboard Accountant’s gut reaction is concerned, has minimal present value. Your paycheck from the bank is keeping the potatoes on the table. Obviously, on the other hand, this teller's Visionary hates his day job. But notice that neither his Visionary nor his Accountant is thrilled with the twelve hours weekly this man spends on errands. Although some might rightly regard "socializing" as a valuable activity, our example obviously doesn’t. His Visionary hates it as much as he hates his day job, and his Accountant rates it only a 2. If he’s going to do anything about his socializing, he should think about socializing with different people (exchanging the coffee shop in his neighborhood for the one where the social interaction might lead to useful networking. 

The third column, presided over by your Mind’s Eye, combines the two quotients. This man’s bank job is a pain in the neck to his Visionary, but it does pay the bills--an activity the Accountant values to the utmost. It receives a 0 in the Visionary Quotient column, a 5 in the Accountant Quotient column. But your Mind’s Eye acknowledges that any activity with a combined quotient of 5 or above will not be dropped or seriously reduced in time investment, thereby keeping both serpents happy. 

The blank Actual Time Inventory Analysis Work Sheet below is for your reassessment. Fill in the categories to suit your own life. 

As it recognizes the unique power of both his Accountant’s and his Visionary’s perception of time, our teller’s Mind’s Eye knows that the yin of Accountant time and the yang of Visionary time are both valid, simultaneous, and equally important in their places and for their purposes. Telling them both that they're correct, and that they can take turns, his Mind’s Eye negotiates with the Accountant to allow a conservative, cautious amount of time during which the "success dreams" of the Visionary can be explored. Without the Mind’s Eye’s intervention, he was constantly conflicted over his use of time. With his Mind’s Eye’s help and negotiation, he begins to steal time for success, using his Goal Time Work Sheet to carve hours from the twenty-four hour clock and to mine, methodically, the breakthrough energy of the Visionary. 

Activities that rate less than a 5 in the M.E. column are subject to first-round negotiation. Let’s say you hate doing yard work, and give it a 0 Visionary Quotient and a 1 Accountant Quotient. Obviously, we’re going to find a way to get that particular activity out of your life. In our teller’s inventory, "Driving Errands" falls into this category. So he figures out a way of no longer doing errands. Instead of spending twelve hours a week on errands, he decides to do four hours of overtime at the bank to pay for someone to do the shuttle service for him. Or he moves closer to his day job. These revised decisions, which become "goals," are recorded in the Goal Time Work Sheet. Notice that by reducing "Driving/Errands" to two hours, and making a few other adjustments, he’s been able to increase Sales Calls from thirteen to twenty-four hours per week--which will inevitably advance his dream more quickly. At the same time, he’s managed to increase the percentage of time devoted to the pursuit of his dream from 16% (combining "Sales Calls," "Writing Classes," and "Reading") to 26% because he’s increased the time available to make those sales calls, but he’s also changed his way of socializing so that it serves the dream as well.

 

Time to schedule time

No time you spend is more important than the time you spend scheduling your time; and that needn’t be more than a tiny fraction of the time available to you. But scheduling your time is doomed to ineffectiveness unless you begin from the reality baseline of knowing what you’ve been doing with your time, and confronting your own lack of awareness about where your time has been going. 

The blank Goal Time Work Sheet helps your Mind’s Eye complete and memorialize its contract with Accountant and Visionary. 

Once your knowledge of your time usage has allowed you to make new goals and objectives regarding the use of time, how in this busy, busy, busy world do you enforce the objectives for yourself? How can you schedule a life that is one, long, endless shrieking, demanding interruption? After all, you can only turn off the phone for so long without losing your illusion of control, and all contact with reality. 

Next: How to make the clock of life YOUR clock.

 


Southern Literary Review Book Review of Talmadge Farm

Talmadge Farm” by Leo Daughtry

In a sweeping story set in eastern North Carolina, Leo Daughtry takes readers from 1957 to 1970, a time of convulsive societal change in Talmadge Farm (Story Merchant 2024). As the Vietnam War intensifies, the civil rights movement spreads across the South, reaching even wealthy bank president and tobacco farmer, Gordon Talmadge. North Carolina’s Research Triangle has its birth, accelerating the industrial development of farms and the decline of tobacco. Another blow to the tobacco industry comes from the Surgeon General, who warns of health risks and mandates warnings on cigarette packs.

Buffeted by changes he resists, Gordon badly misplays his hand. Alternating between defiance and compliance, he treads a crooked path, using alcohol and denial to avoid the challenges he faces. While his wife Claire shows kindness to the farm’s two sharecroppers and their families, Gordon exhibits enough arrogance, disregard, and bigotry to earn readers’ distain.

With sensitivity and attention to detail, Daughtry tells the story of Gordon Talmadge, along with his family members. Interwoven are two other families, those of the sharecroppers who work the fields. Each family has its own demons and secrets. The sharecroppers live in poverty, toiling in ways that benefit the Talmadge family but not their own. One of the sharecroppers —the White one—bootlegs and drinks himself into trouble. The kindly Black sharecropper and his equally kind wife suffer from their inability to protect their three children from threats and influences beyond anyone’s control but that of Gordon and his near-clone of a son, Junior.

One of those sharecropper children, Jake, is forced to flee the farm:

 He “squeezed himself into the bed of Mr. Allen’s truck. He was completely surrounded by baskets of summer crops: tomatoes, beans, okra, watermelon, peaches. He couldn’t help feeling as if he, too, had been plucked from the earth, uprooted from everything he’d ever known.”

The circumstance of Jake’s ultimate return is one of the poignant comeuppances of Gordon Talmadge, whose power and wealth turn out to be a house of cards. As Gordon struggles to keep from losing the farm, his bank flounders. In crisis, as he “pulled out of the employee lot, he noticed the workmen had finished installing the new bank sign. Waiting at the stop sign for traffic to clear, he watched them hurl the old lettering from Farmers and Merchants into the back of their truck, probably headed for the town dump.”

Gordon mellows into a character who is more insecure than imperious, and far more vulnerable than powerful. Forced to watch underlings succeed as he fails, Gordon emerges as the most transformed figure in this engaging saga.

Talmadge Farm serves as a timely cautionary tale about prejudice, greed, and resistance to change. It also serves as a reminder that human kindness can transform and resurrect lives going off the rails. It is a rebuke of privilege and a testament to Southern grit.

Leo Daughtry

Leo Daughtry is a first-time novelist who grew up in the tobacco fields of Sampson County, North Carolina. A graduate of Wake Forest University and its law school, he established a private practice and also served as a member of the North Carolina House and Senate for twenty-eight years. Still practicing law, Daughtry especially enjoys time at Atlantic Beach with his wife and daughters.

 

Nicole Conn Chats with Dr. Mother Love!

Inspired by her mother, a classical-trained pianist who lived, recorded and worked in Morristown, NJ and Randolph, NY, LA filmmaker and author Nicole Conn decided to turn her attention from the big screen to pen Descending Thirds,










In the high-stakes world of classical music, Alexandra von Triessen, a gifted but insecure pianist, navigates the cutthroat International Ketterling Piano Competition. Dazzled by the charming Sebastian D'Antonio, she finds herself drawn into a web of intrigue surrounding his enigmatic and estranged brother, Conrad. Just as Alexandra's star begins to rise, a shocking discovery sends her world crashing down, exposing secrets and lies that threaten to destroy everything she's worked for.

Descending Thirds is a gripping story of ambition, betrayal, and the blurred lines between artistry and integrity. This page-turner explores the sacrifices we make in pursuit of our dreams and the devastating consequences of hidden truths. With two shocking twists that will leave you reeling, this unforgettable novel will resonate with anyone who has ever dared to reach for greatness.

The Great Midwest Book Festival Honor Nicole Conn's Novel Descending Thirds.




In the high-stakes world of classical music, Alexandra von Triessen, a gifted but insecure pianist, navigates the cutthroat International Ketterling Piano Competition. Dazzled by the charming Sebastian D'Antonio, she finds herself drawn into a web of intrigue surrounding his enigmatic and estranged brother, Conrad. Just as Alexandra's star begins to rise, a shocking discovery sends her world crashing down, exposing secrets and lies that threaten to destroy everything she's worked for.

Descending Thirds is a gripping story of ambition, betrayal, and the blurred lines between artistry and integrity. This page-turner explores the sacrifices we make in pursuit of our dreams and the devastating consequences of hidden truths. With two shocking twists that will leave you reeling, this unforgettable novel will resonate with anyone who has ever dared to reach for greatness.

 

Wake Forest Magazine Interviews Leo Daughtry

Harvesting Home

Double Deac Leo Daughtry draws on memories of his childhood tobacco farm to write a historical novel about the South.



Leo Daughtry (’62, JD ’65) drew inspiration and many of the characters for his historical novel “Talmadge Farm” from his years growing up on a tobacco farm in eastern North Carolina in the 1950s.

Daughtry, 84, grew up in rural Sampson County, about an hour southeast of Raleigh, on a farm owned by his father. He weaves a story of the wealthy Talmadge family and two sharecropper families — one white, one Black — whose lives intertwine against the backdrop of socioeconomic and racial changes sweeping the South that upend their lives in different ways. He draws from boyhood memories of dove hunting, moonshiners, segregation, the backbreaking work of harvesting tobacco and sharecroppers scraping to survive at a time when tobacco was king in North Carolina.

One reviewer described “Talmadge Farm” as a “stirring novel” with a “big, complicated portrait of family, place, race, class and greed.” The novel won first place in historical fiction in the 2025 Feathered Quill Book Awards and was named a finalist for the 2024 Goethe Book Awards for late historical fiction.

Daughtry and his wife, Helen, live in Smithfield, North Carolina. His granddaughters, Katherine Riley (’20) and Hannah Riley (’24), are also alumni.

Daughtry was a Judge Advocate General in the U.S. Air Force before founding law firm Daughtry, Woodard, Lawrence & Starling in Smithfield in 1969. He served in the North Carolina House and Senate for 28 years, and was House majority and minority leader, until retiring in 2017. A past member of the Alumni Council and School of Law Board of Visitors, he has endowed scholarships in the college and law school. The law school named its North Carolina Business Court courtroom in his honor in 2018. The North Carolina Bar Association established the N. Leo Daughtry Justice Fund in 2022.

Kerry M. King (’85) of Wake Forest Magazine talked with Daughtry by Zoom at his office in Smithfield. Excerpts from their conversation have been edited for length and clarity.​

Kerry King: Before we talk about “Talmadge Farm,” I’m curious to know why you came to Wake Forest and what it was like when you were a student.

Leo Daughtry: My brother-in-law (Bill Peak ’48, MD ’51) went to Wake Forest, and I followed Wake Forest sports — Dickie Hemric (’55) and players like that. There was a tournament called the Dixie Classic (held in Raleigh from 1949 to 1960) where the Big Four (Wake Forest, Duke, NC State and UNC-Chapel Hill) would play four other schools, and we would go to at least one game to see Wake Forest play.

 Wake Forest had recently moved to Winston. Dr. (Harold) Tribble (LL.D. ’48, P ’55) was president. We had chapel on Tuesdays and Thursdays. There was no dancing on campus. If we had parties, we’d have them off campus. For football games, we all wore suits. If you were lucky enough to have a date, you always got her a mum or flower to wear.

Wake Forest was great for me. It allowed me to leave the tobacco farm and go to college and experience life in a different way than I had known before. And Wake Forest was very patient with me. I tried to be a good student, but I just didn’t have the background. It took me a while to get my bearings.

The Vietnam War was really becoming an issue. I went into the Air Force (after graduating from law school) and served in Turkey, assigned to NATO.

KK: Do you remember any particular professors, either in college or in law school?

LD: Dr. (John) Broderick in English, Dr. (Emmett Willard) Hamrick (P ’83) in religion, Dr. (David) Smiley (P ’74) in history and Dr. (Kenneth) Raynor (1914) in math. Dr. (Marcel) Delgado got me through Spanish. I didn’t have Dr. (Ed) Wilson (’43, P ’91, ’93) for a class, but I certainly knew and liked him. He was one of the finest guys and represented Wake Forest so well. I’ve gotten to  know his son (Ed Wilson Jr. JD ’93), who is a judge.

In law school, Dr. (James) Webster (’49, JD ’51, P ’81), Dr. (Hugh) Divine, Dr. (Robert) Lee (JD 1928, P ’55, ’68), Dr. (Norman) Wiggins (’50, JD ’52). They were all good teachers.

KK: You had a long career as a lawyer and in the General Assembly. What inspired you to write “Talmadge Farm”?

LD: It had been germinating a long time. I wrote it from an outline I did when I was in the General Assembly. We’d have some debates that I didn’t have to be involved in, so I had some free time. I knew the characters I wanted in the book. The reason I chose the name Talmadge is because I didn’t know anybody named Talmadge so I could make him the bad guy. (Gordon Talmadge, a banker and the owner of Talmadge farm, is the book’s central character.) I would write the outline and then change it, and then write it and change it. I knew where I wanted to start and where I wanted to end.

Leo Daughtry ('62, JD '65), author of "Talmadge Farm"

KK: What were the major themes you wanted to write about?

LD: Well, sharecropping for one thing, and the 1950s. My most impressionable years were the late ’50s and early ’60s because I was a teenager. I saw all the changes that were beginning to occur in the South. I went to a very small country school, where half of the students at least were children of sharecroppers. I had Black sharecropper friends and white sharecropper friends. They had one thing in common. They were poor as church mice, and they had very little hope of getting ahead. Most of the kids that I knew wanted to get off the farm. Farms had gotten bigger, tobacco allotments had changed, and migrant workers were replacing the sharecroppers. And automation enabled farmers to be more efficient, and that just eliminated the sharecroppers.

(I also wanted to write) about change, how people have to change, and some people can change better than others. Gordon could not figure out how to change. He got left behind because of his inability to accept change.

KK: How much of the book draws from your experiences and people you knew growing up?

LD: Almost all of it. Gordon was invented; I had to have a villain. Everybody knows someone like Gordon. He had everything going for him, but he wasn’t very smart (and wouldn’t adapt to the changing South). Black people lived in a completely segregated environment then. I wanted to make all the women really strong (characters) because there were no women doctors or lawyers then.

KK: Alumni are sure to enjoy the tidbits you sprinkle in the book about Wake Forest, Winston-Salem, Old Salem and R.J. Reynolds. The book ends soon after one of the characters, David, graduates from Wake Forest. Was he based on you?

LD: No, but I really wanted David (the good son in the novel) to go to Wake Forest. I didn’t want the bad son (to go to Wake Forest). (One of the other characters) went to Bowman Gray (School of Medicine). And, I remember Christmas at Old Salem and those Moravian cookies.


Via Wake Forest Magazine

NEW FROM STORY MERCHANT BOOKS

 From Filmmaker Nicole Conn




In the high-stakes world of classical music, Alexandra von Triessen, a gifted but insecure pianist, navigates the cutthroat International Ketterling Piano Competition. Dazzled by the charming Sebastian D'Antonio, she finds herself drawn into a web of intrigue surrounding his enigmatic and estranged brother, Conrad. Just as Alexandra's star begins to rise, a shocking discovery sends her world crashing down, exposing secrets and lies that threaten to destroy everything she's worked for.

Descending Thirds is a gripping story of ambition, betrayal, and the blurred lines between artistry and integrity. This page-turner explores the sacrifices we make in pursuit of our dreams and the devastating consequences of hidden truths. With two shocking twists that will leave you reeling, this unforgettable novel will resonate with anyone who has ever dared to reach for greatness.






Renowned for her romantic lesbian-themed films, Conn's work includes the groundbreaking Claire of the Moon (1992), Elena Undone (2010), and "A Perfect Ending" (2012). She also earned critical acclaim for the award-winning documentary Little Man (2005) and the heartfelt drama More Beautiful for Having Been Broken (Nesting Doll) (2019).
Now, Conn brings her signature storytelling talent to the world of mainstream romance with Descending Thirds—a novel that transcends labels. Whether you're a longtime fan or new to her work, this story is for everyone to experience. Rich in drama, Descending Thirds also immerses readers in the competitive world of classical music and features original musical compositions.

Story Merchant E-Book Deal Richard Pena's Last Plane Out of Saigon! FREE March 17 - March 21!


Richard Pena’s compelling first-hand account, written in real-time, chronicles the last desperate year of this tragic war and the hasty departure of American troops from Vietnam.







LAST PLANE OUT OF SAIGON is a faithful reproduction of the journal of a draftee working in the operating room of Vietnam's largest military hospital during the final year of the war. Supporting historical and political context is provided by award-winning scholar, John Hagan.

Richard Pena’s entries were written in real time and, as they chronicle the last desperate year of this tragic war, present readers with a better understanding of the complicated final year of the Vietnam War from the inside, looking out. A year that tragically remains unfamiliar to most Americans.

This landmark book describes, in part, the hasty departure of American troops from Vietnam but is timely now as America again is challenged with multiple global conflicts. It is a gripping real-time account of the anger, resistance and resilience forged in one man by the horrors of Vietnam witnessed up close, in graphically human terms, touching on mistakes that were made then and which our country continues to make today. All Americans should read this important piece of history, bound to leave them with chills.

Richard Pena served in Vietnam as an Operating Room Specialist for the United States Army and left on the last day of American withdrawal. He is now a nationally renowned practicing attorney in Austin, Texas. He is a former President of the American Bar Foundation and State Bar of Texas and served on the Board of Governors of the American Bar Association.

John Hagan is the John D. MacArthur Professor of Sociology and Law at Northwestern University and Co-Director of the Center of Law & Globalization at the American Bar Foundation in Chicago. He has published nine books and more than 150 articles in nationally renowned magazines and journals.

New From Story Merchant Books Far From Longing by James Sard

Attraction is chemical. Love is elemental.



When two pharmaceutical reporters meet, he is overwhelmed by the impact of her presence. Appropriate to a fault, she is nevertheless unnaturally drawn to him. Neither could have imagined the fallout of that first encounter.

As their orbits close, they are plunged into a maelstrom of physical and emotional carnage. These paths cannot be random, yet they are unable to fathom the staggering evolutionary forces ensnaring them – or the tragic consequences that await.

Pulled deeper into a lethal game of industrial intrigue and swept up by the events driving the conspiracy, they must unlock its purpose while trying to decode whether anything they’ve felt is even real.

Set against the latest advancements in genetic engineering and the high-takes world of over-funded pharmaceutical interests, Far From Longing takes readers on a thrilling reset of literary mythologies, delving into the true costs of scientific breakthrough and the nature of love itself.