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Hi.

Welcome to This Awful/Awesome Life! My name is Frances Joyce. I am the publisher and editor of this magazine. We'll be exploring different topics each month to inform, entertain and inspire you. Meet new authors, sharpen your brain and pick up a few tips on life, love, entertaining and business. Enjoy and please share!

Next Month in This Awful Awesome Life (July 2018)

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Next month in This Awful Awesome Life we’ll be taking a look at Independence Day. How do you make the most of the holiday? Enjoy those fireworks, but keep things safe for pets, children and people with special needs.

Graduation has come and gone. The big graduation ceremony is over and the party photos have been posted and shared. It’s time for mom and dad to loosen the reigns a little as the graduate transitions to college or the workforce. We’ll be sharing some pearls of wisdom about what happens after the caps get thrown in the air and reality sets in.

For parents with younger kids, we’ll have some ideas on keeping them happy, busy and safe this summer.

It’s July and the beach is calling. Will you answer? Perhaps you relate more to the mountains or an urban setting complete with fabulous restaurants and the theater. Is it possible to fit in a few weekend getaways without months of planning?

July 18 is National Hot Dog Day. What’s the perfect condiment for your hot dog? Who has the best hot dogs in Pittsburgh? How do other states and countries top their hot dogs?

Linda Cahill will have some amazing summer recipes from The Pampered Chef and Corey Flynn will help us make the most of our active summer. Gail Neustadt will help us plan for a greener summer and Orlando Bartro will entertain us with something brilliant.

Join us to find out where Terry Kish will raise a glass (or a fork) to toast summer, and we’ll have more from Jim O’Brien and some other guest contributors. Look for some surprises, colorful pictures and of course our July quiz and summer reading lists. 

Answers to the June Quiz:

Book Titles                                      Author  & Country

The Captain’s Daughter                                     Alexander Pushkin/Russia

The Thorn Birds                                                     Colleen McCullough/Australia

Eye of the Needle                                                 Ken Follett/Wales                   

The Good Earth                                                     Pearl S. Buck/United States

Redwall                                                                  Brian Jacques/England

The Children Act                                                  Ian McEwan/England

Humboldt’s Gift                                                     Saul Bellow/Canada

Jude the Obscure                                                 Thomas Hardy/England

Midnight’s Children                                            Salmon Rushdie/India                     

The Lost Language of Cranes                          David Leavitt/U.S.A. (PGH, PA)

1984                                                                          George Orwell/British India

The Wonderings of Oisin & Other Poems     William Butler Yeats/Ireland

Excellent Women                                                Barbara Pym/England              

Whose Body?                                                       Dorothy L. Sayers/U.K.

The Magic Mountain                                        Thomas Mann/Germany

Parable of the Sower                                         Octavia Butler/United States                    

Charming Billy                                                    Alice McDermott/United States

Where the Wild Things Are                             Maurice Sendak/United States

Sonnets of Dark Love                                         Frederico Garcia Lorca/Spain

Sophie’s Choice                                                   William Styron/United States                    

The Diary of a Young Girl                                Anne Frank/Germany

A Suitable Boy                                                    Vikram Seth/India                     

What I Lived  for                                                 Joyce Carol Oates/United States

Howl and other Poems                                    Allen Ginsberg/United States                    

Body of Evidence                                               Patricia Cornwell/United States

Uncle Tom’s Cabin                                             Harriet Beecher Stowe/U.S.A.

The Village by the Sea                                     Anita Desai/India

The Social Contract                                           John J. Rousseau/Switzerland

The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man   James Weldon Johnson/U.S.A.                

A Street in Bronzeville                                        Gwendolyn Brooks/U.S.A.                          

 

 

Building a Team

May 2018 in This Awful Awesome Life