Press releases are a way for companies to announce relevant news to media outlets, local and international. But the fact they are also indispensable selling tools cannot be overlooked. Press releases should always be written with one eye toward imparting information and one eye toward choosing the perfect terms to entice the reader into finding out more.
Below is a sample press release I wrote for a short story collection that is full of enticing information.
SAN DIEGO, California (May 27, 2009) – In her new short story collection, Not Love As Intended, author Eliste Anath illustrates her search for the truth about being in love.
Each tale is about how the feelings between lovers can wax and wane. The stories explore the effect of living and time on relationships, and delve into the perceptions and illusions that can undermine the best of intentions.
“Living was for goals, for accomplishments and to-do lists,” Anath says in the introduction to her collection. “Love for me was a steady background constant that was only brought to the foreground on special occasions. It was never to be made a fuss over, or to be examined, or to be questioned.
“It was this view that made for the stories in this collection. Some deep drive in me could not be suppressed, because I wrote again and again about love. Each of the stories have at their center a search for a perfect love that can never be. The thrill of the first blush of love sings through the first four stories, only to be dashed against the rocks like a shipwreck in increasingly complex and hopeless ways.”
The collection includes five stories. “Blood Relations” is the story of a woman who chooses the perfection of artifice over the everyday hard work of a real relationship (originally published in the online magazine Twilight Times).
The tale of a man deeply in love with a woman who is wasting away for her absent husband is told in “Lovesick.” Meanwhile, we are shown the lengths a woman will go to as she searches time and space for a version of herself that will make the husband she no longer loves happy in “Infinite Variety In A Single Dance” (originally published in the magazine Aoife’s Kiss).
“May The Season Bring You Joy” is a sweet story about taking the time for loved ones, and how much good that time does for them, and also for you. “The Shape of Wishing” is about a man’s fantasy endowing a woman with more power than the balance of the universe will allow her to keep (originally published in the online magazine MYTHOLOG).
Asher Black, Editor-in-Chief of MYTHOLOG, praised “The Shape of Wishing:”
“I like the way [it builds] this achingly slow romantic/erotic tension, never letting off of it, forcing the reader to ‘regulate his breathing’, so to speak — to slow down and not get too excited too quickly…It’s a series of slow, methodical strokes. Relentless, inevitable, and diabolical. Nicely done.”
Eliste Anath graduated from Stanford University with a BA in English with a Creative Writing emphasis, and has published short stories with the aforementioned publications as well as with Amazing Journeys Magazine and The Pedestal Magazine. The author is a recent divorcee who feels that she is finally beginning to understand what it means to be in a relationship. The collection is a journey through ten years of story writing and how her experience colored her ideas of love. Anath leaves us with the hope in love that she feels now:
“Lest you fear this collection shall depress you to the point of tears, the last story of the bunch is a quietly different animal altogether. In fact, in it I would say is the kernel of realization that love could be something wonderful and not something tragic.”
Not Love As Intended is available as a PDF e-book at LuLu.com. More information about the book and the author as well as contact information can be found at http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=4037909.
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