Meet The Pitch Week VII Finalists

Meet The Pitch Week VII Finalists

Mary Build, Freedom Flights: Breaking the Silence

Mary Build photo- cropMary Build is an FAA Designated Pilot Examiner who has found success later in life. She didn’t start flying until she was 47. It would have been impossible for her to be successful prior to that due to neglect and sexual abuse she experienced as a child in an alcoholic home. Instead of accepting her fate in life, she worked to uncover and share her experiences and learned who she really was. A woman in a man’s world as a seaplane pilot, she flourished. Her story is filled with passion for what she does and the great deal of gratitude she has for those who have seen that passion and encouraged her to continue improving even though she didn’t think she was worthy of such great accomplishments. Come with her on her flight to Alaska to see the world from her point of view as she shares it with a friend.

Beverly Burgess, Out of the Box

Beverly Burgess photo- cropStuck in a system that breaks his spirit and obstructs his learning, Patrick is abandoned by public school education.  Diagnosed with Tourette’s Syndrome at the age of five, he sits at the mercy of a system that fails not only him, but his entire family. Once his parents withdraw him from public school to homeschool him, they create a learning environment that saves him, and their once-struggling child blossoms in knowledge, self-awareness and self-confidence. In the years that follow, Beverly, Patrick’s mom, shares the anticipation, fear, hope, excitement, frustrations and pure joy of watching her children thrive and grow while learning at home and as they move on to college. Through her ten years of homeschooling experience and personal memoirs, Bev tells of her own journey and helps you put a plan in place for yours.

Renshi Lisa Magiera, Are You Gonna Get Up?

Lisa Head Shot- croppedRenshi Lisa has been immersed in the martial arts since she was twenty-five. She has spent over 15,000 hours on the dojo floor as student and teacher of thousands of children and adults at her school, Bushido Karate Dojo, in Casco, Maine. Are You Gonna Get Up? is a guide to Renshi Lisa’s secrets to becoming a black belt. The backdrop is martial arts. The lessons are universal. Like Yin and Yang, there are two main concepts that determine a person’s level of achievement: how you think and what you do. Mastery is a process. Are You Gonna Get Up? uses stories to illustrate the correlation between attitudes and habits, and the colored belt system in a traditional karate school. It is possible to possess high level brown belt skills and yet to blame others for your failures like a middle-ranked green belt.  When positive mindset and proper action are combined, the answer to Are You Gonna Get Up? is a resounding “Yes!”

Sally Newhart, Mule Tales from the French Quarter

Sally Newhart photo- cropSally Newhart was born in Pennsylvania and grew up in Bucks County in a stone farmhouse built in 1746. The love of history has always been part of her life. New Orleans is where she has found the home for her soul. Her first book, The Original Tuxedo Jazz Band, More than a Century of a New Orleans Icon, describes the early days and growth of traditional jazz by following the history of the world’s oldest continually performing jazz band. Mule Tales from the French Quarter presents a concise history of the mule in the city of New Orleans, throughout the state of Louisiana and the United States.  It is interspersed with stories told to Sally by the carriage drivers of New Orleans who spend their days, and nights, driving locals and tourists to the Cemeteries, the Garden District and around the French Quarter. It is an adult, sometimes inebriated, version of “Kids Say the Darndest Things.”

Shifra Malka, Dare to Matter: Lessons in Living a Large Life

Shifra Novograd photo- cropMay I wish you a week filled with clarity, sound health, and a deep sense of purpose.” With these words, Shifra Malka sent her weekly Sunday night radio audience into the new week. The world as we know it is unraveling. Politically, economically, morally. That makes building our personal world all the more urgent. In this unfolding climate, how do we live with a deeper, ennobled, promising sense of purpose? An extraordinary life is one that matters.  Even when individual circumstances appear to be unremarkable, it is Shifra’s assertion that the creative life of a growing person is anything but.  As creators of our lives, we have a voice in how we wish to matter. Dare to Matter: Lessons in Living a Large Life is intended to energize people with the desire and power to meaningfully fashion their lives. This book articulates the message that we are not only worthy of our own best efforts, we are responsible for them.

Cynthia Lee Sheeler, The Phantom of Daisy Moon

Cynthia Lee Sheeler photo- cropCynthia Lee Sheeler has worked as a Human Resources professional in the corporate world for the past 16 years. She’s seen her fair share of office bullies, company politics, and the unrelenting, soul-squashing demand to fit into a corporate image. As a survivor of school bus torment and teenage social anxiety, she was able to immerse herself, and take the reader, into the mind and body of a character plagued with those same experiences. In The Phantom of Dasiy Moon, new and old ghosts mingle, as a gauzy figure appears, a shadow with no substance, lurking, clinging to the walls of Daisy’s life. Daisy is forced to confront the woman she’s become, the girl she’d been, and the horrific events she’d rather forget. In the end, she is transformed in ways she never could have imagined.