GIGMENTIA is a reflection on the raw, challenging, and gritty vocation of a blue-collar musician living in the Pacific Northwest; and the varied adventures of a hard-working, day-in-day-out rock band.

Introspective, insightful, and eloquently observed, Koep chronicles a summer season of fifty rock shows performed in small clubs, huge bars, and outdoor festival stages, to barns, backyards, and in the middle of the woods.

Between gigs, Koep writes of sword fights on the lawn with his young son, the challenges of building a household, of world travel, pop music, poetry, and the fascinating pursuit of the writer’s craft as he works toward completing his third novel.

As the summer wanes and he balances the rigors and joys of live performance, promoting his books, and being a father and partner, his mother descends into dementia and forgets the world around her, including her son.

Early Reviews:

“As an accomplished musician, poet, and novelist, Michael B. Koep is a modern day renaissance man, whose writing echoes his musical vocation:  he writes with lyrical intensity in the pulsing rhythm of a drumbeat.  In his new memoir, GIGMENTIA, this literary gift flourishes.  GIGMENTIA takes the reader on a riveting journey through band and musician life, fathering and marriage, caring for a mother who has acute dementia, and ultimately saying goodbye.  I highly recommend this book.”— Michael Gurian, New York Times Bestselling Author of The Wonder of Children and The Wonder of Aging

“This is a thoroughly original and deeply engaging exploration of the sometimes bizarre, often touching, but always fascinating public and private experience of working musicians — and a moving depiction of friendship, parenthood, biological and created families, and the losses and gains that constitute life lived intentionally and well.”— Michael B. Herzog, Author of This Passing World and Pilgrimage

“Koep captivates with spellbinding, lyrical prose. GIGMENTIA is a moving exploration of artistic process, of friendship and family, of memory, of grief and loss―joyful, nuanced, and heartbreaking.”— Nspire Magazine

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After years of cruel torture, enslavement, and rape, chance throws open a door and Brook finds an escape. But she will discover that freedom is more than breaking the chains of her captors. She must now face the monstrous injuries left upon her heart and mind, body and soul. Step by step, Brook rebuilds her life, her relationships, and her deeply wounded self. To survive she will slowly learn to trust, learn to love, and transform her torment and shame into a force for healing and education by becoming a guiding light for exploited survivors and the men that have hurt them, all over the world. This is a story of courage, of rebirth, and of hope. From out of the hellish darkness of her past, Brook shows us how she made her way to shame undone.

Dr. Brook Parker-Bello is a clinical counselor, author, advocate, actress, ordained minister, and founding CEO of Eval a new mental health tech company and More Too Life, Inc a non-profit, human trafficking and exploitation reduction and survivor empowerment organization.

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In Part One, psychologist Loche Newirth is hunted after he sees painting that opens a window onto the afterlife. A secret order seeking to control the art pursue him across the world, into madness and beyond. Loche’s journal is left behind for his mentor Doctor Marcus Rearden to interpret. It tells of William, a diagnosed manic depressive, swashbuckling swordsman who believes he is over six hundred years old; Basil, a stoned and prolific painter and his perilous work that he must keep secret; Julia, a beautiful business woman who abandons everything for a love she never expected.

In Part Two, Loche Newirth must face how his writing has shaped the lives of William, Julia and countless others. As a war breaks out between the immortals on earth and the inscrutable Albion Ravistelle, Loche seeks a path through death to find a way to end the conflict.

In Part Three, discredited mythology professor Astrid Finnley is summoned to a secret archaeological dig site to translate an ancient script where se uncovers an unthinkable nightmare―a woman buried alive for over a thousand years. Meanwhile, Loche Newirth’s assassination is ordered. But his former mentor Dr. Marcus Rearden wants him alive to torture, to command, to control. When Loche discovers his son is also a target, he flees and is vaulted back to the prehistory of his writings―to a time when a venomous army of gods lay siege to the City of Immortals, and his little boy stands in the balance.

Infused with intrigue and mystery, steeped in rich atmospheres and celestial horrors, saturated with twists and delightful intricacies, Koep’s offering is a final mythology for a rapidly evolving New Earth.

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In Candid, breast cancer survivor and journalist Kristina Lyman delves into the intimate side of breast cancer, keying in on seven issues women face, including relationships, self confidence, spirituality and loneliness. Few women talk about these personal matters. Instead, they battle them in private.
Through her own story and those of others, Lyman seeks to connect women through shared experiences. And through interviews with therapists, counselors and oncologists from around the country, she hopes to help lift the veil of silence so survivors can move forward in their journey stronger, happier and better.

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Painters have been known to spend hundreds of hours covering a canvas with white paint. These “White Paintings” have sold for millions of dollars.

The Hubble Space Telescope pointed at a patch of nothing in the sky for 100 hours. It stared into emptiness discovering 3,000 whirling galaxies.

Like a mirror, a void is filled by whoever stands in front of it and looks in.

If you stare at a blank page long enough, you will find it was never blank to begin with.

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The translator and editor of this only complete version of Chaucer’s great work, Michael B. Herzog, Professor Emeritus of  English, Gonzaga University, has devoted the first five years of his retirement to re-introducing modern readers to Geoffrey Chaucer and the wonderful art of Chaucer’s storytelling.  

Throughout history, believers of every kind have made pilgrimages to sacred sites.  In Medieval England, the most popular pilgrimage destination was Canterbury, the centerpiece of whose magnificent cathedral was an extraordinary, lavishly-decorated tomb that held the bones of St Thomas á Becket.  

In Geoffrey Chaucer’s late 14th century Canterbury Tales, a random collection of pilgrims who meet in London agree to make the three day horseback trip to Canterbury together and to tell stories to each other, with the best tale to be acknowledged by the reward of a dinner for the teller, at the expense of the other pilgrims.  

To the frustration of modern readers, Chaucer had finished perhaps only three-quarters of his masterpiece when he died in 1400.  But then, in 2015, a miracle.  In an archeological dig near London’s Westminster Abbey the book you now hold in your hand was found, the only complete version of the Tales.  

Here, for the first time ever, readers can meet all thirty fascinating, raucous,  endearing, unabashed pilgrims, enjoy each of their intriguing, surprising and uncensored tales; and discover to which of them the Host awards the prize for telling the best story.

Reviews:

“Having already reimagined the life of Geoffrey Chaucer as historical fiction in This Passing World, Michael Herzog turns his considerable talent to the Canterbury Tales, translating this cherished collection of stories into accessible modern English while also filling in the missing tales. What emerges is a splendid mix of scholarship and literary invention.” — Jess Walter, New York Times Best Selling Author

“Herzog’s expansion of Canterbury Tales is wonderfully readable. His use of contemporary language makes Chaucer accessible to new readers and non-specialists, while his deft storytelling will delight scholars of all casts. The addition of new tales and new interactions among pilgrims mirror the humor and subtlety of Chaucer’s original material. Indeed, there is a seamless flow from beginning to end. The functions, titles and roles of these travelers might seem antiquated to contemporary readers, but their tales, both Herzog’s and Chaucer’s originals, reveal something universal about vice and virtue, about human nature and human sexuality, about the power of stories where the truth will out. Herzog has achieved his purpose in this completed Canterbury Tales: to help readers “appreciate the genius of this medieval poet.”” — Janis Haswell, Ph.D., Professor Emerita of English

“After 600 years, Michael Herzog has completed the unfinished Canterbury Tales in a style entirely consistent with Chaucer’s work. Surprising, entertaining, poignant, imaginative, and delightful. This translation brings a rich new coloring and texture and energy to the original and lures us into what Chaucer, better than anyone, reveals about the human psyche. Bravo!!!:” — Patrick Burke, Ph.D., Professor of Philosophy

“The idea of Pilgrimage is terrific, and it is executed with real skill. I admire the inventiveness and reach of combining the extant tales with the new ones.. Very impressive; a genuine pleasure to read.” — Chris Anderson, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of English

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Discredited mythology professor, Astrid Finnley believes gods and immortals once battled for a place in Creation–for a place of their own on the earth. When she is summoned to a secret archeological dig site in Northern Idaho to translate an ancient script, she uncovers an unthinkable nightmare: a woman buried alive–for over a thousand years.

Psychologist Loche Newirth’s assassination is ordered to prevent him from rewriting history. But his former mentor, Dr. Marcus Rearden wants him alive to torture, to command, to control. When Loche discovers his son is also a target, he flees, pursuing a lead that promises to end what his writing has started. Instead, the path vaults him back to the prehistory of his story–to a time when a venomous army of gods lay siege to the City of Immortals, and his little boy stands in the balance.

The Newirth Mythology Trilogy is a wholly original, imaginative and remarkably inventive approach to the thriller genre. Koep’s final installment, The Shape of Rain is a poetic, action packed and existential page turner that will leave you haunted and wowed.

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In the spring of 1918, young William of Leaves knows only of remedies, herbs and his mother’s kindness. When he is forced to watch at she is dragged to witch’s pyre by a mob led by the Bishop of London, the mysterious immortal apothecary, Albion Ravistelle, promises the boy a chance at vengeance.

In the summer of 1972, Helen Storm is a stoned groupie on the sunset strip with a very special condition: she is immortal. When her life intersects with a famous guitar player, she is introduced to her future as a deadly and remorseless assassin.

In present day, psychologist Loche Newirth and Julia Iris mut come to terms with Loche’s prophetic writings that have changed the course of history and shaped the lives of William, Helen, and countless others. As war breaks out between the immortals on earth and Albion Ravistelle, Loche must accept the realities he has authored and cross over into death – the must enter again into Basil Fenn’s paintings to find a way to end the conflict.

In Part Two of the Newirth Mythology, Leaves of Fire, Koep entwines these lives and lifetimes as he explores myth, memory, revenge and the hope of forgiveness.

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Psychologist Loche Newirth wonders if it was his fall: the fifty foot drop from the rocky cliff to the icy water below. Is this why he has been hallucinating? Or is it because one of his clients is dead, or his mentor has gone mad, or that his wife is leaving him? He can’t bring himself to believe what h has been seeing. Insane things like a massive, searching eye. he sees it in the water below the cliff. he sees it in mirrors, on walls: a massive, crystal blue iris and fathomless pupil there in the center of his life, looking at him.

To find the answer, Loche pens the recent events of his life into a book and leaves the work behind for his mentor Doctor Marcus Rearden to interpret. As Rearden reads he plunges in to the harrowing depths of Loche’s reality: his loss of a client, the discovery of an unkown past, an ancient conflict over possession of the human condition, the awesome reality of gods walking among us, and the crimes of humanity invading the hope that lies beyond the grave.

And along the way, Loche tells of unforgettable characters: the torn and manic house-wife that teeters on the edge of sanity, and a depressed, swashbuckling swordsman that believes that he is over six hundred years old, the stoned and prolific painter and his perilous work he must keep secret, and the beautiful business woman that abandons her life’s work for a love she never expected.

Koep’s story sweeps from the mountain lakes of North Idaho to the Italian Riviera and the ancient waterways of Venice – a milieu of fine art, fine food, secret lovers, sharp steel mafia, ancient languages and the loud music of classic vinyl LPs.

The Invasion of Heaven, part one, by emerging author Michael B. Koep is the story of how one man’s manifestation alter the fate of the world and what comes after.

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