I’m writing weekly blog posts, stories and some interesting press releases for an auto insurance website in Chicago.

The idea is to have informative stories and posts that readers and potential customers will see as helpful to their daily lives and will return to the site for more information and to buy auto insurance there.

Here are links to some of the stories I’ve written for Active Insurance, so you can see the type of work I do:

Where to find good food trucks in Chicago.

The worst intersections in Chicago.

Vehicle insurance requirements.

How to buy low liability auto insurance.

Dangerous Chicago intersections for pedestrians.

I’m continuing writing for Active Insurance Agency in Chicago about auto insurance and related issues. Today the site started a blog, which I’ll update weekly, and the first entry was about where to find good Chicago food trucks.

I’m also writing original weekly stories for the website in an effort to attract readers and customers who will want to stay on the site and read and learn more about cars, and will hopefully buy auto insurance there.

I think it’s a good way to publicize your business: Providing quality online content that will draw in people and get them to stay there and learn more about what you sell.

Whether in high school or college, too many people either skip reading the important works of the Greeks (The Odyssey, The Iliad, Antigone, etc.) because the books are either too long, complex or intimidating reading. There are translations that make them much easier to read, but by the time people get out of college, if they haven’t already read them, it’s unlikely that they will.

But maybe later in life they realize what they’ve missed, and all of the deep thinking that is in them and how these books can help them learn the meaning of life — or at least give it a good try. Newer translations of the books can make them easier to read, and worth reading — even if it’s the second or third time you’ve tried to read them.

Richer Resources Publications has a list of 10 Classic Books to Read Before You Die, in order to make such books less intimidating for people who have always wanted to read them but didn’t get around to it. With a new year approaching and resolutions in the air, now is the time to put down that remote or laptop and start reading.

Let me know if you need more info. I can provide interviews with a publisher and translator of such books.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Top 10 Classic Books to Read Before You Die

Did you find the Greek Classics and other masterpieces of Western literature too daunting to even begin in high school or college?

Richer Resources Publications is making reading the Classics a lot easier with translations that make the books accessible, especially to readers who found earlier versions too difficult, but still want to read the great works of literature. As NPR said, the translations by Richer Resources’ Ian Johnston of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey make the epic tales more accessible to an audience less grounded in the classics.

Here is a “bucket list” of Classics you always wanted to read but were afraid to try that Richer Resources Publications put together and recommends as a holiday gift package. The translations by Richer Resources make the books easier to read than what you may remember from high school or college:

1. The Iliad by Homer. Full or abridged version.

The story of the Achilles and other warriors in the tenth year of the Trojan War is the oldest and finest epic poem in Western culture. The poem tells of the famous quarrel between Agamemnon and Achilles and all that resulted, the extraordinary battlefield accomplishments of the world’s most famous warriors and the final encounter between the Trojan Prince Hector and Achilles.

2. The Odyssey by Homer. Full or abridged version.

The Odyessey tells the story of famous Odysseus, hero of ancient Greece, and his 20 year wandering return from the Trojan War. Beset by heartache and diversion, Odysseus’ story is one of adventure, glory and despair of one man’s determination to return home and of the times in which he lived. Timeless in the telling, it depicts an age when mythology and truth merged into reality in literary form. The translation remains very close to Homer’s text, yet the modern English idiom is extremely fluent and clear, with a rhythm well suited to the speaking voice.

3. Oedipus the King by Sophocles.

This is Sophocles’ finest play and the purest and most powerful expression of Greek tragic drama. The new verse translation by Ian Johnston captures the compelling tension of Sophocles’ drama in one of the great masterpieces of Western literature.

4. Antigone by Sophocles.

The story of Antigone begins soon after Oedipus’ downfall and the ensuing quarrel between his two sons over who should rule Thebes, a conflict which leads to a battle in which the two sons kill each other.

5. The Oresteia by Aeschylus.

One of the most popular plays of all time, The Oresteia is a sequence of three plays that can’t be matched for tragic power and has lessons for the ages.

6. Bacchae by Euripides.

The story holds up a desperate view of human experience, a vision that led Aristotle to call Euripides “the most tragic of the poets.” Here the royal power in the polis, represented by the young king of Thebes, Pentheus, is quite incapable of dealing with a political crisis in an effective way, and the god who has initiated the crisis, Dionysus, a son of Zeus and a cousin of Pentheus, displays a selfish, arrogant, and unforgiving malice which leads him to destroy in the most horrific way the oldest human royal family in Greek legend because he believes he has been insulted by the citizens of Thebes. Whatever hopes men entertain for a peaceful harmony between the gods who rule the world and the human beings who live in it are here exposed as futile and cruel delusions.

7. Birds by Aristophanes.

The play celebrates the extraordinary character of Athens in a manner that is at once robust, lyrical, satiric, and full of ironic resonance. In the play, two Athenians, Pisthetairos and Euelpides, seek to escape the aggressively quarrelsome climate of Athens by hiking up into the mountains to seek advice from the birds about where they might find a more peaceful place to live, a city where they can relax and enjoy life. But once they begin interacting with the birds, the Athenians cannot resist persuading the creatures to organize themselves into a city state, so that they can exert pressure on the gods above and men below in order to gain power over them (for example, by controlling the gods’ access to human beings). The impromptu scheme escalates, and by the end of the play, Pisthetairos has supplanted the gods and now rules everything, an occasion which they all celebrate by eating a meal of cooked birds.

8. Clouds by Aristophanes.

Aristophanes, the greatest comic dramatist of ancient times, takes issue with the intellectual and moral depravity of his fellow Athenians, particularly with their thirst for radical innovations in traditional ways of thinking and for their unscrupulous self-interest. The play is particularly famous for its portrayal of Socrates, the target of much of the very robust satire.

9. On the Nature of Things by Lucretius.

The poem is a long, impassioned plea for a materialistic understanding of the universe and of human life, without reference to divine creativity or benevolence or to a future life.

10. The Metamorphosis, A Hunger Artist, In the Penal Colony, and Other Stories by Kafka.

Kafka’s fictions typically present an unusual, sometimes surreal story, in a deliberately flat prose, so that there is a wrenching gap between the weirdness, tension, humor, or horror of the events described and the apparently calm surface of the language.

All of these translations were done for Richer Resources Publications by Ian Johnston, who is available for interviews on how he made these 10 Classics easy to read and not as daunting for readers to enjoy. The publisher is also available for press interviews.

Starting Dec. 1, Richer Resources is giving away one copy of each of these 10 must-reads to its followers on Facebook and Twitter. Follow it on Twitter at @RicherResources and on Facebook at Richer Resources Publications. Richer Resources is also offering 20% discount off packages of Classic books to its Facebook and Twitter followers, who can get the discount code by following Richer Resources.

For other holiday gifts, Richer Resources offers books full of quotations of mankind’s wisdom on such topics as art, childhood, parenting, education, aging, gardening, music, poetry, the sea, and a roundup of mankind’s wisdom from Aristotle to Zimmerman. A 20% discount is also offered for a package of the quotation books.

For more information, contact:

Media Release Contact:

Aaron Crowe at aaron.crowe.consulting@gmail.com or @aaroncrowe

Richer Resources Publications Contact:

Patty Crowe – Publisher 1926 N. Woodrow Street Arlington, VA 22207

Phone: 703-276-9344 Toll Free:1-800-856-3060 Fax: 703-276-0193

email: PR@RicherResourcesPublications.com

Website: www.RicherResourcesPublications.com

Become a Facebook friend of the site or follow it on Twitter (@RicherResources) to learn much more in the coming weeks. Some interesting Christmas gift ideas for the reader on your list who has  a “bucket list” of books they want to read but is too intimidated to dive in.

Another press release for Moving Arts Dance, a Concord group I do public relations for:

PRESS RELEASE

MAD BAD Performance and Film Festival presented by Moving Arts Dance in collaboration with Motion Pictures San Francisco

MARCH 9, 2009 — CONCORD, CA – In celebration of National Dance Week, a dance and film festival featuring established and emerging choreographers in contemporary dance along with internationally acclaimed filmmakers will be held in late April and early May at Moving Arts Dance Theater in Concord.

The MAD BAD Performance and Film Festival will have a dance festival April 24-25, and May 1-2, at 8 o’clock on each night. The film festival will be on Sundays – April 26 and May 3, with shows at 4 p.m. and 8 p.m.

The event is an incredibly exciting environment where artists from all over get to meet and perform bringing a truly unique opportunity to Contra Costa County. It’s an amazing opportunity for the public to see some extremely talented, cutting edge choreography and film from award winning and emerging choreographers.

The MAD BAD Performance and Film Festival is a dance and film festival produced by Moving Arts Dance at the Moving Arts Dance Theater, in collaboration with Motion Pictures of San Francisco, which is the curator of the dance films. This is the fourth year Moving Arts Dance has put on the event, which this year will be at the Moving Arts Dance Theater, 1281-C Franquette Ave., Concord.

Advance tickets are $15 for adults and $10 for seniors and children 12 and under. Tickets on the day of the show are $25 for adults and $20 for seniors and children 12 and under. Call for Festival Package prices! For information go online to www.movingartsdance.org or call 925-825-8399.

The film festival on Apri 26 and May 3 will be an hour of short dance films and a 30-minute award winning film “The Rain” by Pontus Lidberg. The 8 p.m. showing will contain some nudity. The film “Glimpses” by Ben Estabrook will also be shown. For more information, go to www.motionpictures-sf.com.

This unique event in Contra Costa County will feature the work of 25 choreographers from Nevada, Arizona and from throughout California from Sacramento to Los Angeles.

Some of the award-winning and celebrated choreographers presenting their work will be Michael Lowe; Anandha Ray, Artistic Director of Moving Arts Dance; Judi Lomask of Capieator Dance Co.; and Greta Schoenberg.

The capacity of the Moving Arts Dance Theater is 90, and past shows have sold out, so don’t wait to buy your tickets to this exciting event that is part of National Dance Week and one of many Bay Area events celebrating National Dance Week.

The “MAD” and “BAD” in The MAD BAD Performance and Film Festival stand for Moving Arts Dance (MAD) and Bay Area Dance (BAD).

Moving Arts Dance is a 501(c)3 non-profit charitable arts organization. It is a dance company, school and theater, and has classes, workshops and shows throughout the year.

Motion Pictures is a San Francisco-based collective of independent artists exploring dance on camera. Choreographers, filmmakers and photographers create dance specifically for the camera.

For more information, contact:

Scott Belding, Moving Arts Dance: 925-825-8399 or e-mail: info@MovingArtsDance.org

Aaron Crowe, public relations: aaron.crowe.consulting@gmail.com

I’m happy to report that the Concordian, a free monthly newspaper sent to every home and business in Concord, CA, put one of my clients on its Feb. 28 cover.

Moving Arts Dance is a modern dance company and school in Concord that I’ve been writing press releases for since December 2008. I’m writing a few press releases for them soon and will post them here, along with sending them out to various newspapers and other Bay Area media.