THE MESSENGERS, updated in 2020

Click on the image above for a HI-Rez view!
The new cover art for THE MESSENGERS features a subtle change for ease of differentiation! 

In the fall of 2020 I took over the rights for two of my books, and I'm now self-publishing 'em. This was a really important moment for me, and this new responsibility feels right. 

I spent a lot of last fall cleaning up the text of The Messengers. The back cover of this book reads: "New edition, revised and updated for 2020." There were some lingering typos, and now they're all scrubbed! I added a few short accounts, and cleared out a few redundant passages. I feel strongly this is now a much better reading experience. 

The companion book, Stories from The Messengers, has also been revised, although there were very few typos to clean up. 

Both these books are now published under the imprint: Beneath the Stars Press. Just so you know, there isn’t an office tower in Manhattan with multiple floors full of busy editors under that name. I made the it up, and it’s all me. When reviewing the books I was aware at how many accounts involve me sleeping out alone under the stars. Thus the name.

The spine of the new books feature the publisher logo

Here is an excerpt from the final page of the recently revised book:

About the updated 2020 edition

This book was an obsession poured onto the page. Its creation wasn’t a conscious decision, it was more like being pulled downstream. I’d been writing a lot on my blog about owls and UFOs, and those posts were all-consuming. That chapter of my life was a blur of listening to people and trying to document their experiences, as well as my own. I never said, “I will write a book,” it was more that I woke up one morning and said, “Oh, I guess I’m writing a book.”

Once started, I gave myself over completely, and before this book was finished, I knew there would be a second. That companion book, Stories from The Messengers, came out in 2017. After that came Hidden Experience in 2019. These follow-up books were more formal in their creation, and I learned a lot about writing in the process.

In early 2020 I began working with Michael Hacker, the voice artist who read The Messengers as an audiobook. This meant going back through the initial manuscript and finding the points where it addresses “the reader” and changing those to “the listener.” During this review, I’d catch an awkward phrase, clean it up, and keep looking. At some point, I started at the beginning and scrutinized every sentence. When done, I started again with a more determined eye. 

I’ve had experiences with owls that’ve played out like dreams, and I’m not alone. I’m now friends with a lot of the people in this book, and their experiences have continued. Some of these new developments are  in this second edition, but otherwise it’s essentially the same book that was published in 2015. 

The text has been streamlined, some points have been clarified, and a few stories have been told more completely. I feel strongly it’s now a better read.

I am astonished at the power of the experiences told within these pages. It has been an honor to give life to so many amazing stories. I am enormously proud of this book.

—Mike Clelland, September 2020

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