Bernard Ryan, Jr.

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Bernard Ryan, Jr.

What you'll find here . . .


The purpose of this web site is to introduce you to a writer who has a wide range of interests and writing experience and who offers work that is interesting, informative, and entertaining. This Home page will also tell you about how I may be helpful to you if you are looking for writing services.

Click on My Works (in blue banner at top of page) to discover the variety of books I've written and to find out where to get them.

To read sample paragraphs from some of the books and see what some reviewers have said about them, as well as to look over their tables of contents, scroll right to Selected Works and click on the books' titles.

To read the full text of some of my many published essays and to review a list of others that I hope you may want to read, click on My Essays at top of page.

Site's most recent update: September 6, 2009.

Copyright 2009 Bernard Ryan, Jr. All rights reserved.

Welcome

Don't miss my novel, The Poodle at The Poodle, a semi-finalist in the 2008 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest. This book fits right into the current interest, led by TV’s "Mad Men" on AMC, in the advertising business in the 1960's.
To get details and see Midwest Book Review's enthusastic review, click on "My Works" (above).

Also on the "My Works" page you'll find my latest, a fun-to-read memory book: A Boy at The Four Corners: Looking into Small-town America in its Prime.


Before publishing The Poodle at The Poodle, I authored, co-authored, or ghost-wrote 35 books, including fantasy, biography, early childhood education, community service for teens, career guides in the fields of advertising and journalism, courtroom trials, and personal financial planning. My feature articles have appeared in Advertising Age, Air & Space Smithsonian, American Way, Atlantic Flyer, Boys' Life, Country Home, The New York Times, Notre Dame Magazine, Parents, Private Pilot, Your Money, and other national periodicals. I've also written extensively in the world of advertising, publicity, and collateral corporate materials.

Some of my favorite earlier published books:

My Tyler's Titanic is the story of what happens when an enterprising boy and his dog find a way to visit the great wreck on the ocean floor. For more details, click on "My Works" above and on Tyler's Titanic under "Fantasy" in right-hand column on this page.

The Wright Brothers: Inventors of the Airplane invites the reader to live the times during which the genius brothers astonished the world not only with their inventiveness but with their common sense. My The Poisoned Life of Mrs. Maybrick is the biography of an American woman who, in Liverpool, England, in 1889, was not only the principal in one of history's great murder trials but (according to recent research by experts) was probably the wife of Jack the Ripper. My Helping Your Child Start School is an introduction to kindergarten for parents. Simple Ways to Help Your Kids Become Dollar-Smart, co-authored with financial planner Elizabeth Lewin, helps parents teach children, ages 7 to 18, how to handle money.

You can use this website to find out more about these and some other books I've written. Just click on MY WORKS at top of this page.

Shorter pieces

I've written many shorter pieces for magazine and newspaper publication, and as a newspaper columnist I regularly turn out essays on This 'N That. For samples, click on MY ESSAYS at top of this page.

For three other short pieces that are interesting and fun, scroll down the MY WORKS page to see "Letters from Resistant Editors," "Twenty-nine Hours in Washington," and "Three e-mails About Intentions," all published by Amazon Shorts and yours for only 49 cents each.

Book doctor

If you would like to take advantage of my experience as a book doctor--experience that includes ghost-writing six published books--please send me an e-mail description of the book project you have in mind . . . not too long, but long enough to tell me what it's all about. Just click on the "E-mail me!" link (on the right on each page).

Writing/​editing services

My wide background includes writing for a range of clients in such areas as corporate brochures, publicity, and direct mail. If you need help with the creation or editing of written work, please e-mail me your description of the job at hand. Click on "E-mail me!" link (right-hand column, each page).

Thank you! . . . Bernie Ryan

Selected Works

Fantasy
Tyler's Titanic
104-page chapter book for all ages: How a boy and his dog manage to visit the shipwreck, what they do and whom they meet.
Biography
The Wright Brothers: Inventors of the Airplane
Two who (in their own words) "lived together, played together, worked together, thought together"
The Poisoned Life of Mrs. Maybrick
Life of the principal in one of the world's great murder trials, who may have been the wife of Jack the Ripper.
Hillary Rodham Clinton: First Lady and Senator
Life story of the U.S. Secretary of State in the administration of President Barack Obama.
Condoleezza Rice: Secretary of State
Contemporary biography of one of President George W. Bush's closest advisers.
Finance/Parenting
Simple Ways to Help Your Kids Become Dollar-Smart
125 Dollar-Smart Tips for Today's Busy Parents
Parenting Guide
Helping Your Child Start School
A practical and thorough guide that gives parents a preview not only of what happens in kindergarten but why it happens.
Teenage Volunteering
Community Service for Teens (8 volumes)
Eight books covering opportunities for teens to perform voluntary community service
Trials
Great American Trials, Great World Trials, and Sex, Sin and Mayhem: Notorious Trials of the Nineties
Three major works reporting courtroom trials throughout history and in our time

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