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  • On AI and The Arts: Human Authorship in an Automated World 

    AI and The Arts – Authorship in an Automated World

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  • No Cause For Celebration

    The long, terrible trek to selling The Hilltop has finally come to a close. The pain now has a terminal ending point. The uncertainty is over. There comes a degree of relief with this, but the sharp sting of pain is far more potent.  I don’t think any of us saw the campus being acquired…

    Read More: No Cause For Celebration

  • What Will a Closed College Do With $75 Million?

    BSC’s sale, its afterlife, its administrative wind down, and financial questions.

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  • A Campus Without a College

    A Campus Without a College The Hilltop has finally found a buyer. One who can actually afford to close, that is.  After months of vacancy, speculation, and the slow ache of watching our beloved campus sit silent, The Hilltop will soon echo again with footsteps.  But they will not be the footsteps of students hurrying…

    Read More: A Campus Without a College

  • THE AUTHOR IN THE DARK: Why the Shakespeare Authorship Mystery Endures

    There are certain questions that survive their answers. They slip the noose of proof, glide past the scholars who stack documents like sandbags against a rising tide, and drift unbothered into each new century. The Shakespeare authorship mystery is one of them, a soft, persistent whisper at the edges of literature, asking not merely who…

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  • The Hilltop That Haunts Us

    The Hilltop That Haunts Us: Memory and the Moral Cost of Losing Birmingham–Southern College It begins, for me, with a simple walk across The Quad on a late-autumn afternoon. The air is cool, the sun is low, the shadows are long. Students are scattered on blankets; a professor gestures wildly in conversation with a senior…

    Read More: The Hilltop That Haunts Us

  • Hello world!

    Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start writing!

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Everyone says they want to live forever… Do you?

Does your consciousness die along with the rest of your body?

If you preserve your body, do you also ensure your consciousness never dies?

In *Do You Really Want to Live Forever*, the scientists of the future have discovered reanimation technology which can bring your cryo-preserved body back to life.

But, when dead-you is “awakened” by the technologies of the future, is it really you behind the eyes?

Can your consciousness sit dormant for decades along your dead body?

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Born the youngest of twelve to humble German immigrants, Otto's journey begins on a frozen Minnesota farm during America’s Great Depression. From the frozen fields of the Midwest to the bustling promise of Oakland, California, Otto chases dreams of love, belonging, and purpose in a country struggling to find its own.

But when the morning skies over Pearl Harbor ignite in fire and smoke, Otto’s world — and the nation’s — is changed forever. In the crucible of war, this quiet farm boy becomes a man who answers history’s call with courage, sacrifice, and honor.

“OTTO” is an intimate, epic portrait of one young man’s transformation from ordinary American to timeless hero — a story of friendship, family, love, and the indomitable spirit that defines a generation.

Dedicated to the heroes of Kaneohe Bay and Pearl Harbor…

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The Dark World Saga is an epic, five-part science-fiction saga following Professor Edmunds on his rollercoaster interstellar journey to "The Dark World," a tidally locked world located in the distant regions of our galaxy divided into two polar halves - The Light and The Dark.

On The Dark World, Professor Edmunds discovers that, for everyone on Earth, there is another you — an "Other" you.

For Edmunds, a bitter, brilliant man whose wife died in a tragic car crash ten years ago, the discovery of The Dark World is not only proof of humanity's eternal existence - it is a chance to see his wife again.

When Edmunds and his expeditionary crew touch down on The Dark World, they discover that the aliens on The Dark World do not only look like us… They are us.

Edmunds, his delinquent son, Ford, and the band of Wyand Corp. cyborgs (half-human, half-robotic beings with unknown, ulterior motives) crash on the dreaded Island in The Water, the great sea which separates the two worlds within this world.

Edmunds meets his own Other, the Other of his dead wife, and his son's Other - Kal - a boy hellbent on saving himself, his mother, and leading his people out of The Dark and into the promised land of The Light across The Water.

Their ship destroyed, Edmunds and company are forced to fight for their lives against the undead Islanders and the nameless, nefarious secrets of The Island.

Edmunds and company must uncover the sinister secrets of The Island, unravel The Dark World's mysterious cosmic connections to Earth, and take sides in the age-old civilizational conflict between the oppressed people of The Dark and the opulent elite of The Light in this thrilling sci-fi showdown of galactic proportions.

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Grayson Godwell, a regular boy from Brookville, South Carolina, has spent his whole life attending New Day Christian Sanctuary.

Grayson lives a normal existence, but he begins to discover sinister secrets hidden behind the façade of the cheery church he has always called home.

Grayson’s comforting cast of friends, youth group leaders, and family become deadly enemies as Grayson’s world turns upside down.

After his discovery, nothing will ever be the same again for Grayson.

No matter how hard he tries, Grayson cannot un-see what he has seen.

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JR Ballentine, a hard-working eighteen-year-old boy from a small town in Tennessee outside of Nashville.

Just days after his Senior Prom — and shortly after reconnecting with his biological father who had spent sixteen years lost to drugs, booze, and heartbreak — JR’s world is turned upside down when that father dies in a car crash on the treacherous “Ridge.”

The exact circumstances of the crash on Ridgetop Road remain shrouded in mystery.

Eyewitnesses say the other driver had been drinking at a barbecue earlier that day…

No blood alcohol tests were administered. The driver’s girlfriend died on impact. JR died an hour later.

But JR’s mother, Lori Gregory, would not let the story end there. Her eight-year crusade uncovers a stunning truth: JR’s death was not only preventable — it was the result of a glaring loophole in public policy.

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Last Man Standing follows humanity’s last days told from the perspective of “the last man.”

The last man is doomed to battle against the unending forces of the machine apocalypse until he is defeated,

and the next “last man” fills the role in this never-ending game of man vs machine.

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We often wonder what is out there, in the stars…

Maybe we should start paying more attention to what is happening here, on Earth, stranded in “The Between”…

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They say every love story is a ghost story.

What if consciousness is like a radio frequency?

If you turn the dial to a different channel,

you get static. But sometimes the channels overlap and run together…

Trapped in Time tells the tale of lovers trapped in time – different times – tuned into the wrong station.

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What if, instead of expanding, our universe is collapsing, contracting upon itself like a giant, ravenous black hole?

What if the Big Bang had not been a “bang” but rather a breaking moment – a reset, a restart, a “reboot”?

What if this eternal cycle of creation and negation never ends? But what if it could come to an end?

From the war-ridden planet of Ingor Five, Sean Starling, a member of a rare species of Immortals, has lived thousands of lives. Sean is destined (or doomed) to live thousands more.

Like the other Immortals, Sean believes he is facing this fate alone.

But there are other Immortals out there, scattered across the universe, kindred souls like Sean who have seen everything and everyone they know and love die only to come back to life, again and again and again…

Sean and his kind cannot die. They do not “reboot” along with the rest of the universe.

The only escape for Sean is suicide. But even that will not absolve Sean from the bitch of eternal life. Sean has had enough. He wants out.

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Humanity’s ancient origins and the epic story a long time ago in our very own galaxy…

A tale of a time long ago before humanity settled on Earth and entered a neanderthalic dark age,

The Red Planet was once a crucial battleground populated by humanity’s warring factions which would decide the fate of the human race.

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Do you ever wonder what your life would look like if you had taken that job?

What about if you had married your high school sweetheart? What about if you had never met your best friend?

If, Then follows three friends and the alternate realities consequent of their choices (and their lack thereof).

In this world, choices – not time, not gravity – compose the fabric of the universe.

But, as the heroes of our story soon discover, every choice over the course of human history has left a complex butterfly effect far greater than even they – the visionaries who see through the veil and “crack the code” of existence – could ever imagine.

On his way home one day, Christian Camber, a newly minted professor at Georgetown University, sees something strange on the subway – himself.

Beginning to question his sanity, Christian wonders if he is seeing things or if there is actually another him wandering around – an alternate him from an alternate reality – a him who had made the choice he could never make but the choice he always knew he should have made.

This choice, as Christian soon learns, affects not only the course of his destiny, but the fate of his friends, family, and, possibly, all humanity.

“Big things have small beginnings.” – T.E. Lawrence

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Welcome to Clearscape, humanity’s last interstellar outpost, located in the far reaches of our solar system.

Here, sicknesses are “solved” before they even appear. Here, healthcare is a relic of ancient history.

Jaden Rue, a cutting-edge scientist and one of the creators of Clearscape, leaves Earth and everyone he knows behind.

Only a select group of people are allowed to reside on Clearscape and perpetuate the human race.

“Undesirable” genes (and the people who carry them) are left behind to rot away on a hellish Earth.

Jaden soon regrets his creation and decides to not abandon those back on Earth to despair and death.

Risking everything for what he believes is right,

Jaden finds himself in a deadly game of dangerous interstellar politics.

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Do you get "chills?" Most of us have encountered the strange sensation before.

Have you ever wondered what these "chills" are? Have you ever wanted to find out?

Two brothers – one son – one broken family – and an authoritarian society bent on crushing the creativity of the human spirit which threatens its rigid order.

Chills follows one boy's struggle to save his civilization, his family, and himself from a corrupt, post-apocalyptic world…

That will stop at nothing to conceal his gifts and stifle his spirit.

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Everybody asks what they would do if they lost their mind. Perhaps the better question is: what would you do to keep your mind?

With the advent of Alzheimer’s rising each year, some scientists speculate that cases of the disease could triple in the coming years.

What if there was a reason for this other than a natural one… In Moments, memory is the prized currency. In this world, one’s mental health is measured by how many memories one has access to.

The poor save their life savings to swallow a pill which allows them to briefly relive a cherished memory – the birth of a child, a wedding ceremony, a first kiss…

The wealthy have neuro-chips implanted into their brains granting them constant access to their complete collection of memories.

Our dynamic heroine, Ember Blaine, a common girl from one of the remote provinces with a knack for deception and getting herself into trouble, is recruited by a black-market group who hack “moments” by scalping society’s elite and selling their neuro-chip implants.

Ember enters another memory, another “moment”, but this one is different. Instead of taking out her target, Ember falls in love with him.

Instead of returning home, Ember encounters a world she never expected to find. Making formidable friends and fatal enemies, Ember finds herself flung on a rollercoaster quest to lead her people to freedom against a society bent on keeping them trapped in prisons of their own minds.

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In Too Deep is far from your typical love story. In this heart-pounding coming-of-age thriller inspired by my time as a student at a small liberal arts college in the South, the mundane world of a quaint college campus is transformed into a ruinous realm of torture and tantalizing, dangerous desire.

Here at Clearwater College, friends become enemies and lovers strangers.

No one is safe. Nothing is as it seems.

Kyle Bennett goes off to college, doing what so many young men his age do. Little does Kyle know that the place he will call his home for the next four years is a snare shrouded in innocence, a purgatory of peril, a creeping lair of sorrows, secrets, and shadows hell bent on swallowing him whole.

In this heaven soon to become Kyle’s own personal hell, the phantoms of the past and the specters of the future come to life. For Kyle, his fate comes in the form of a gorgeous female face.

Kyle meets the girl of his dreams, a beautiful, brown-eyed lover lying in wait for him – Sussie Bishop.

Tragedy soon strikes the star-crossed lovers. The tall, attractive, athletic poster students of Clearwater College are cast into catastrophe.

Kyle discovers lies, love, and lust. He makes friends, attracts and antagonizes enemies, gets into dramatic drunken brawls at fraternity parties, broods by the lake, and breaks up fights between roommates over territorial girlfriend disputes – all typical college-kid things.

But there is nothing normal about Kyle’s time at Clearwater.

During his final year of college, Kyle lives with a terrible, twisted secret only he and Sussie share. If revealed, the secret will doom them both.

But all paradises must come to an end, even Kyle’s star-crossed romance with Sussie Bishop.

When Sussie leaves Kyle, leaving him lost and alone, Kyle must bear the burden of the secret alone.

But Kyle soon discovers he is not alone.

You can bury the past, but you cannot always bury those in it.

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Terrence Turner turns sixteen and receives a death diagnosis: terminal cancer… Six months to live.

After Terrence’s left arm is amputated in a desperate attempt to stop the rapidly spreading cancer, Terrence’s dreams of playing professional basketball are shattered.

After a fateful visit from the mysterious hospital Janitor one night, Terrence begins to look at life differently. But The Janitor is not the only angel Terrence meets at Chicago Children’s Hospital.

Terrence’s first hospital roommate, the beautiful little Nicholas Carter, is also dying. Little Nicholas teaches Terrence all about life, love, and family during their stay together in the hospital.

But Terrence finds hope a hard currency to find when Nicholas succumbs to his mortal battle with lung cancer.

Terrence’s biological father, who had abandoned Terrence at birth, suddenly arrives back in his life. Terrence begins to spiral.

With only three months left to live, Terrence receives his “make-a-wish.” He and his best friend, JJ, attend a Chicago Bulls basketball game.

Meeting Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Phil Jackson and the rest of the legendary 1990s Bulls team, Terrence begins to feel the weight of his fading mortality and the limited time he has left. Terrence savors each precious moment he has left.

Terminal tells the magnificent, miraculous tale of one boy’s struggle to survive in the face of impossible odds as he chases his dream of becoming history’s first one-armed amputee NBA player.

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Betrayed BSC: Making Sense of Birmingham-Southern College’s Closure, a work of history, commentary, and investigative journalism, provides a comprehensive account of Birmingham-Southern College’s 168-year history and a close-up critical examination into the wide-ranging mechanics of The College’s regrettable closure.

Half of the proceeds from this project will go towards furthering activities which promote The College’s legacy.

Placing BSC’s closing in the national context of the rapidly vanishing liberal arts education, this work outlines a historical mapping and analytical overview of the various events, factors, forces, and decisions involved in the death of Birmingham-Southern College.

Birmingham-Southern College’s unfortunate fate is not a unique one. Many small, private liberal arts colleges struggle across the nation, forced to permanently close their doors due to financial constraints and lack of public sympathy and support for the classical educational model they offer.

The reverberations of Birmingham-Southern College’s death will be felt in the Birmingham community locally, in the South generally, and in our nation as a whole as we continue chopping away at liberal arts values.

Informed by the numerous insider accounts of faculty, board members, alumni, administrators, and others close to The College, this book tells the tragic tale (a cautionary one) of a small private liberal arts college in the American South (a dinosaur in our modern age of professional specialization) and its desperate quest to survive in a society bent on stifling its flame.

Forward, Ever.

“Cherished by us all forever,
Alma mater strong,
Hold our faithful hearts and minds
As we sing this song.”