WRITERS BLOCK

Natalie Pantaleo is a Philadelphia-based marketing communications consultant, crafty storyteller, and now, first-time author. Her upcoming release, Lying Down with Dogs, presents an entertaining coming-of-age story exploring themes surrounding the unpredictable lifestyle that can occur from working in the service industry.

The fictional novella based on a true story follows main character, Valerie (Val) Imperato, a 19-yearold South Philly girl navigating her way as she transitions from a working college student to a profession within corporate America. When Val begins working at The Tavern, she navigates some harsh lessons revolving around money, love, power, and sex, and how the people she encounters handle them.

“To me, one of the most intriguing facets of my story is the serendipitous nature that led to its publishing,” Pantaleo says.

The concept for Lying Down with Dogs originated about 11 years ago when Pantaleo was out to lunch with former coworkers, laughing and recalling stories from their days as restaurant servers. One of the women suggested she write down the hilarious stories they shared. For entertainment purposes, Pantaleo jotted down a few vignettes that year, but it wasn’t until 2013 that the story started to transition into a coming-of-age tale based on her experiences.

“I didn’t intend for that to happen, but as I started to write, it came out of me,” Pantaleo says.

In 2015, she picked up the story, again, in an attempt to structure those vignettes into a cohesive tale. While on a retreat in Sedona last March, Pantaleo met a licensed therapist during a group activity. The woman introduced herself by holding up a children’s book written by her goddaughter, a publisher. Pantaleo told the therapist that she had written a couple of children’s books, as well, and the woman offered to contact her goddaughter about them. Pantaleo said she thanked her but dismissed it as a polite exchange. She knew how daunting the publishing process could be.

That June, Pantaleo received a call from a number in Arizona. She picked up the phone and a woman introduced herself as Lindsay Allison Dierking, the goddaughter… and publisher for The Awakened Press.

She caught Dierking’s attention and followed up by emailing her a resume and three writing samples. For kicks, she included a P.S. about her in-progress novella.

Two weeks after their call, Dierking and Pantaleo met via a Zoom call to talk about Pantaleo’s children’s books. Instead, Dierking was more excited about the novella and wanted to publish it.

Stunned, Pantaleo excitedly agreed and the two began to work on the process. “It had become my labor of love. It was a great hobby even though I haven’t touched it in years,” Pantaleo says.

The two did a beta test just before Christmas. Although the feedback was helpful, people loved the story. Pantaleo said she was humbled and exhilarated during the experience. “That was the most rewarding part so far - just for someone to relate to my words,” she says.

After the beta tests, they continued working simultaneously on the book proposals and completed the technical editing at the end of May 2022. On July 1, they had a completed manuscript and targeted July 15th as the launch of the book’s website.

“I can remember sitting in my office penning the first vignette – “The Frankie Story” – and never in my wildest dreams envisioned what’s become Lying Down with Dogs,” Pantaleo says. “This little book is growing arms and legs like crazy, and I feel very blessed.”

Lying Down with Dogs is set to release September 12th by The Awakened Press. Copies will be available in print, e-book, and shortly after, an audiobook version. Distribution involves 40,000 retailers worldwide, including libraries, schools, and universities, Amazon Worldwide, Apple Books, Kobo, Barnes & Noble and your local independent bookstores. PRH

Natalie Pantaleo

Lying Down with Dogs

The Awakened Press Publisher, Lindsay Allison Dierking and Lying Down with Dogs author, Natalie Pantaleo, in Scottsdale, AZ

by Rachel Porter

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Michael My father

by Josephine B. Pasquarello

They just don’t make them like this anymore!

My father Michael C. Pasquarello was born Friday, April 18, 1902. His mother gave birth to him in her bed in a tiny row home on League Street in South Philadelphia. He was my Nonna’s second child and she was to give birth to 10 more babies in that same bed. His education was to the 8th grade and he still excelled at making a good living. Taking care of his family was his main priWRITERSBLOCK ority. First, his sisters and brothers became his responsibility at the age of 14 years old. He became a huckster at the Italian Market and later opened a storefront on 7th Street. Down the block from our house on 6th & Hoffman Street. He married my mother in 1932 at Philadelphia City Hall and they immediately got extremely busy with having 12 kids of their own. I am their 10th! His life was all about family and all that he could and would do for them.

But, sad to say, my father died at a young age of 53 years old. On Monday, May 16, 1955.

Since I was six years old, I celebrate his special days in my mind and heart. I go to Holy Cross Cemetery to bring him flowers and talk with him. And I remember all the beautiful stories my mother passed on to me. That’s how I have so many heartfelt and humorous stories about this wonderful man called my father. www.josephinebpasquarello.org

PRH WRITERS BLOCK

Traveling through time

In his 1895 novella, The Time Machine, H.G. Wells introduces a vehiclelike device that transports his main character back and forth through time. Not sure if H.G. realized it at the time but his creative effort changed science fiction forever. The story was a commentary on social class and economic inequality, but it is best known for popularizing the concept of time travel by mechanical devices. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that 14 years earlier, Edward Page Mitchell wrote a short story about a

broken clock - when wound it caused the clock’s hands to move in reverse. Lightning ensued and the main character was transported back in time. Doc Brown’s DeLorean DMC-12 WRITERSBLOCK was infinitely cooler than the clock atop of the Hill Valley courthouse in Back to the Future, so Mr. Wells for the win. In fiction, automobiles, phone booths, cosmic treadmills, police boxes and even a hot tub have been used to send characters forward through time, but in reality, all that has ever been needed is to be aware of the fact - that we are. According to Google, time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. So, welcome fellow travelers as we hurdle ourselves together through space and time on completely separate journeys into the future.

Buckle up humanoids as our bodies are the vehicle-like device that transports us back and forth through time. Our transports are as wonderfully unique as a fingerprint and as individual as any random snowflake, but that does not stop us from constant improvement, modifications and upgrades in an effort to make this voyage a more comfortable and enjoyable one. When we are young, the world around us creeps slowly along as we take time to process everything anew. Our onboard computer, the brain, uses memory not unlike data files to help guide decisions and chart a course forward as we grow. Those experiences, once recognized, engage and hurl us forward towards the most reasonable outcome, thus speeding everything up. Some might say everything goes faster the older we get; we are constantly comparing our past experiences to better understand what’s right there in front of us.

Most stories have a destination. H.G. Wells used fiction to talk about social class and economic inequality. This story is my way of saying that we are all on this trip forward through life together. Our time machines are beautifully different, inherently flawed and if allowed, easily remotely controlled. With so many people venturing into the future all at the same time, it would sure be nice if we were given some assurances for that comfortable and safe ride, but time travel isn’t an exact science. No matter how much we learn from the past to better prepare for the future, tomorrow’s roads aren’t always smooth, and in many cases, not paved at all.

At the end of Back to the Future, Marty gets out of bed unsure as to what had just transpired. For the first time in the movie, he slows down and takes a moment to exist in the present. As a direct result of his past actions, his life has changed. It’s subtle, but Marty takes that moment and allows the world around him to soak in before he celebrates the victory with a kiss. Life, as it always does, catches up to him with Doc Brown’s frantic plea to rush forward, once again. The doors of the DeLorean close and away they go. Our journey continues each day in a hurricane of emotions and memories of the past that help to shape and predict a safe path forward through time and into the future. Life is about moving forward – but we do possess an ability to pump the brakes and slow it all down. The trick is to spend as much time fully engaged as we can, in the present. PRH

Que Sera, Sera

by Jim Glidea

“It’s a bizarre but wonderful feeling, to arrive dead center of a target you didn’t even know you were aiming for.”

Lois McMaster Bujold

One spring afternoon, before I tackled whatever disquieting and disconcerting features that the evening news was about to throw my way, followed by the therapeutic predictability of JEOPARDY! and the calm calculations of Philadelphia’s Ryan Long, I had cannonballed into the fun and frothy world of YouTube. The last set of clips that filled my computer screen was compiled and collated by WatchMojo, labeled “The 20 Best Movie Ending Songs.” Each of the highlighted numbers played as the end credits rolled across the screen, squarely mirroring and echoing the themes and messages of the films, such as “Stand by Me” by Ben E. King in Stand by Me and “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” by Simple Minds in The Breakfast Club.

However, the song “Que Sera, Sera,” written by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans and sung by Doris Day, in Alfred Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much, seems to stand in contrast to the 20 songs listed by WatchMojo. In this 1956 Oscar-winning song, questions about what might happen in the future are met with a tender but perhaps unsatisfying response: There’s no way to foresee what’s going to happen – and there’s nothing to do about it. Yet, surrounded by all the espionage and intrigue that the film’s villains were serving up, Doris Day’s character sits at a piano and sings “Que Sera, Sera” – as a signal and ploy for her captive son, a device that is crucial in rescuing him. “Whatever will be will be.” Isn’t it ironic that a song about the inability to plan and predict the future is, in fact, used to accomplish exactly that?

I tend to side with Livingston and Evans, for I have attempted to avoid most fatalistic and set-in-stone theories, as I also champion and gravitate toward the unplanned and uncharted marvels and magic that serendipity affords us. Oxford Languages defines serendipity as “the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way.” Serendipity goes beyond “Que Sera, Sera,” enticing us with not knowing what’s around life’s corners – as we grow excited about what’s in store as we negotiate those turns. Retrospectively, we now cherish persons, places, and events essential to our happiness that we didn’t even know we once were looking for – or needed. PRH

Meet me at the Penrose

Food for thought

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20th & Penrose Avenue Philadelphia, Pa. 215.465.1097

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