NEW YORK (AP) — After co-writing the best-selling adult novel of 2018, Bill Clinton and James Patterson have teamed up for another political thriller. “The President’s Daughter” will be released in June 2021, the book’s publishers announced Thursday. As with the million-selling ...

Writers can be a strange bunch. Some want to share their work while others would rather not because it’s for their eyes only. Such a shame. I used to work with a guy who said he was a writer. I told him my background and he asked me some questions about writing. They were questions that ...

In today’s culture one can listen to almost any genre of music. It’s a good thing and bad thing. The good thing is that a wide variety of music is there for listening. Imagine listening to your favorite satellite radio station with its subchannels. There is a vast amount of music to be ...

Tim Tigner loves the creativity and self-reliance of being an author. You could say it’s what attracts him to writing. “I decided to become a writer because there was nothing I loved more than reading a really good thriller,” the author said. Tigner began his career in Soviet ...

If you walk, you have probably experienced it. The same goes for talking. And if you play a musical instrument, then you have experienced it. It helps propel music. It helps propel words, phrases and sentences. It’s a part of our lives and most don’t realize that it is ...

NEW YORK (AP) — As the coronavirus spread in March, poet Ada Limon struggled at first to write, feeling “flattened and silenced” by a pandemic that had shut down much of the world she knew. “I could call nothing to me. I’d think of a sound, a word, a subject and it was all ...

We know that musicians and authors release their works as one big collection. Musicians release an album containing several songs while authors release books with several chapters or short stories, depending on what kind of book it is. Musicians sometimes release an extended play (EP) with ...

The pandemic has transformed Christina Blanch, owner of Aw Yeah Comics, into a nightly TV host. Nine times a week, Blanch leads a livestream from the store she lives above in Muncie, Indiana, to sell some comics and interact with regulars. She holds up issues one by one, usually for $5 or ...

As the pandemic keeps all nonessential businesses shutdown in New York state, a dance teacher keeps educating her students through email. Jill Keating doesn’t hold dance classes at her studio, but rather, she makes a video of each recital dance, and then emails it to each student. “This ...

Before I committed any words to a page, I was thinking of words to write. Ironically I could not draw on anything — not one thing. Maybe because I knew nothing. I was out of ideas. I didn’t know how to get the words to the page or what words to go on the page. I have rarely been in this ...

Although it wasn’t the album release she’d been dreaming of, country artist Ruthie Collins launched her new record “Cold Comfort” in a special way with her fans. In fact, if it wasn’t for the global pandemic, Collins wouldn’t have had the unique experience of releasing her album ...

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — All it takes is a few words from a storybook to connect kids over the crackle of an AM radio station. It’s not 1950s entertainment, but a nostalgic way children in even the most remote Alaska communities — many with unreliable internet — can overcome further ...

NEW YORK (AP) — Just like the rest of us, celebrities are largely confined to their homes to wait out the coronavirus pandemic. Unlike the rest of us, however, many of them still have that need for the spotlight. And for that, Harvey Levin is grateful. The impresario of an online and ...

LONDON (AP) — Prince Harry has recorded a special message to celebrate the 75th anniversary of children’s favorite Thomas the Tank Engine. The Duke of Sussex introduces a new program called “Thomas and Friends: The Royal Engine,” which has a storyline that includes Harry’s father ...

As an English teacher, she was used to reading both her students’ papers and the books that went along with each class. She didn’t write all that much. Now, nine years into her retirement, Deborah Madar can’t stop writing and has released her second novel, “Dark Riddle.” She ...

You have heard the saying “the world is your oyster.” For aspiring musicians who want to be heard, now is the time. Let’s start with an idea. You have had the idea in your head, and you tinkered with the melody and chords, but now you want to commit your ideas to a file, so you can ...

FREWSBURG — The night sky is filled with many stars. Bringing those stars into focus is what Martz-Kohl Observatory does for its members. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the observatory is not open to its members or to the public. According to Gary Nelson, observatory president, the ...

This past Saturday I had some extra time on my hands. With restrictions that go along with COVID-19, you probably did too. So I visited with some old friends. No, I didn’t go to anyone’s residence or even use a social media application. I stayed at my computer. The idea I had been ...

Rachael Ray had big plans for the quarantine break at her home in upstate New York. She envisioned “a Renaissance time,” rereading the classics, resuming her Danish lessons and studying Italian. “I was going to get more serious about my painting. I had all these lofty goals ... and ...

PARIS (AP) — Notre Dame Cathedral stands crippled and isolated, locked in a dangerous web of warped metal scaffolding one year after a devastating fire gutted its interior, toppled its famous spire and horrified the world. Some of the 40,000 bars — erected for an earlier renovation ...