RARWRITER PUBLISHING GROUP PRESENTS

CREATIVE CULTURE JOURNAL

at www.RARWRITER.com

--------------------"The best source on the web for what's real in arts and entertainment" ---------------------------

Volume 2 -2017

MUSIC BOOKS FINE ARTS FILM THE WORLD

ARTIST NEWS THIS EDITION ABOUT MUSIC MUSIC REVIEWS BOOKS CINEMA FASHION FINE ARTS FEATURES SERIES MEDIA ESSAY RESOURCES WRITTEN ARTS POETRY CONTACT ARCHIVES MUSIC LINKS

What happened to the list?

As the CCJ transitions to a model better geared to leverage social networks, we are moving away from our past use of email notification services. If you would like to be added to our internal email distribution, please send your request to Rick@RARWRITER.com.

You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter, which we will use to keep you notified of new features and news articles.

ABOUT RAR: For those of you new to this site, "RAR" is Rick Alan Rice, the publisher of the RARWRITER Publishing Group websites. Use this link to visit the RAR music page, which features original music compositions and other.

Use this link to visit Rick Alan Rice's publications page, which features excerpts from novels and other.

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RARADIO

Use the RARADIO link to go to our radio page, where you will hear songs you are not likely to hear elsewhere.

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MUSIC LINKS

"Music Hot Spots"

LOS ANGELES

SAN FRANCISCO

NEW YORK CITY

NASHVILLE

CHICAGO

AUSTIN

DENVER-BOULDER

MINNESOTA

SEATTLE

NEW ORLEANS

PHILADELPHIA

BOSTON

PORTLAND

DETROIT

MEMPHIS

PACIFIC NORTHWEST

FLORIDA

ARIZONA

INTERNATIONAL LINKS

UNITED KINGDOM

EUROPE

JAPAN

SCANDANAVIA

AUSTRALIA

CANADA

ASIA

Rick Alan Rice (RAR) Literature Page

ATWOOD - "A Toiler's Weird Odyssey of Deliverance" -AVAILABLE NOW FOR KINDLE (INCLUDING KINDLE COMPUTER APPS) FROM AMAZON.COM. Use this link.

CCJ Publisher Rick Alan Rice dissects the building of America in a trilogy of novels collectively called ATWOOD. Book One explores the development of the American West through the lens of public policy, land planning, municipal development, and governance as it played out in one of the new counties of Kansas in the latter half of the 19th Century. The novel focuses on the religious and cultural traditions that imbued the American Midwest with a special character that continues to have a profound effect on American politics to this day. Book One creates an understanding about America's cultural foundations that is further explored in books two and three that further trace the historical-cultural-spiritual development of one isolated county on the Great Plains that stands as an icon in the development of a certain brand of American character. That's the serious stuff viewed from high altitude. The story itself gets down and dirty with the supernatural, which in ATWOOD - A Toiler's Weird Odyssey of Deliverance is the outfall of misfires in human interactions, from the monumental to the sublime. The book features the epic poem "The Toiler" as well as artwork by New Mexico artist Richard Padilla.

Elmore Leonard Meets Larry McMurtry

Western Crime Novel

I am offering another novel through Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing service. Cooksin is the story of a criminal syndicate that sets its sights on a ranching/farming community in Weld County, Colorado, 1950. The perpetrators of the criminal enterprise steal farm equipment, slaughter cattle, and rob the personal property of individuals whose assets have been inventoried in advance and distributed through a vast system of illegal commerce.

It is a ripping good yarn, filled with suspense and intrigue. This was designed intentionally to pay homage to the type of creative works being produced in 1950, when the story is set. Richard Padilla has done his usually brilliant work in capturing the look and feel of a certain type of crime fiction being produced in that era. The whole thing has the feel of those black & white films you see on Turner Movie Classics, and the writing will remind you a little of Elmore Leonard, whose earliest works were westerns. Use this link.

EXPLORE THE KINDLE BOOK LIBRARY

If you have not explored the books available from Amazon.com's Kindle Publishing division you would do yourself a favor to do so. You will find classic literature there, as well as tons of privately published books of every kind. A lot of it is awful, like a lot of traditionally published books are awful, but some are truly classics. You can get the entire collection of Shakespeare's works for two bucks.

You do not need to buy a Kindle to take advantage of this low-cost library. Use this link to go to an Amazon.com page from which you can download for free a Kindle App for your computer, tablet, or phone.

Amazon is the largest, but far from the only digital publisher. You can find similar treasure troves at NOOK Press (the Barnes & Noble site), Lulu, and others.

IN THIS EDITION

There is a lot going on here with the RARWRITER Publishing Group enterprises. There are a ton of interesting stories recently published to the Creative Culture Journal (CCJ) at RARWRITER, and a great number of videos. That is one of the most interesting developments to take place over the decade-plus that the www.RARWRITER.com site has been published. We began as a big collector of MP3 performances, which we streamed from the site. But then YouTube became a powerful force in media and everyone began using videos to publish and promote their creative work. That has been fantastic, because watching artists perform their work live involves a whole lot more information than does listening to an artist’s MP3. I don’t know if that is good or not – there is something to be said for leaving the listener with their own imaginative image of who an artist must be - but it certainly brings Websites to life. At the Creative Culture Journal at RARWRITER.com, videos are used extensively, and there may be no other place in the world where one can take in the enormity of the music universe the way one can at www.RARWRITER.com. We are a place where you can find out about everyone from the Louvin Brothers to Cookie and the Cupcakes to Sick of Sarah. We are very proud of that.

We are also very proud of the articles that have been published on the site, created by contributing writers who have helped to make the CCJ what it is today. This message is really an invitation to additional writers to become involved with the RARWRITER Publishing Group. The site seeks to provide information and perspectives on general creative fields, and is organized into sections. We need writers/editors for the following sections (use the links to see what is on those pages presently):

Music (General interest)

We could also use general editors and Website developers.

If you are a writer looking for a place to park your work, the Creative Culture Journal at RARWRITER.com is a good place to consider. It never stops being yours, and you have the option to do as you will with it (post it forever, post it for awhile, etc.). We want writers who know their subject matter, see through work that is less than fresh, and enjoy the odd perspective. We love “how to” pieces written by people who know how to do stuff that other people are wondering about, like filmmaking, sound production, audio recording, choreography, fashion design, software development, and other. We want writers who can reveal the arcane details of creative pursuits.

These are immensely valuable cultural contributions. On the flip side, they don’t pay well.

The CCJ at RARWRITER.com is, first and foremost, a labor of love. Writers have contributed works involving subjects about which they are passionate, and having a platform for expression has been all the reward that anyone has received.

It doesn’t really need to be that way.

We could use sales and marketing people to help us grow our contact base and execute well-conceived strategies for generating advertising revenue. And we need other good ideas for brand promotion. This has not been a focus of the RARWRITER Publishing Group, because we just love what we do and are going to do it whether it turns a dime or not. Still, our arrangement with contributors has been that they can keep any revenue their pages generate. Along those lines, we could use beat reporters for all of the City Link sites. Given the nature of the beast that we have created, there is considerable potential for local, regional, and national advertising.

What I have always noticed about www.RARWRITER.com is that we can dramatically spike page views any time we want through outreach such as this. And when we do a consistent marketing effort the numbers go up exponentially, but we just haven’t had the horsepower to maintain that energy, and that’s why we are seeking help!

If you would be interested in publishing your articles with the RARWRITER Publishing Group, please contact us by sending an email to Rick@RARWRITER.com. Likewise, if you have ideas for areas of creative pursuit not presently being covered, please do let us know. And please feel free to forward this message to anyone else you might know who might be interested.

As always, thanks so much for your support.

Rick Alan Rice (RAR)

Publisher

Email: Rick@RARWRITER.com

Cell: (707) 290-0428

ARTIST NEWS THIS EDITION ABOUT MUSIC MUSIC REVIEWS BOOKS CINEMA FASHION FINE ARTS FEATURES SERIES MEDIA ESSAY RESOURCES WRITTEN ARTS POETRY CONTACT ARCHIVES MUSIC LINKS