Books with author Michael D. Fortner

Life can be cruel for a servant girl in 1850s London. Fifteen-year-old Abi is a scullery maid in Greave Hall, an elegant but troubled household. The widowed master of the house is slowly slipping into madness, and the tyrannical housekeeper, Mrs.Cotton, punishes Abi without mercy. But there's something else going on in Greave Hall, too. An otherworldly presence is making itself known, and a deadly secret will reveal itself---a secret that will shatter everything Abi knows.

This gripping sequel to Forgotten City is a twist-filled survival adventure that’s Mad Max for tweens. Everything Kobi once believed was a lie. Not only are there other survivors of the Waste that devastated the world thirteen years ago, but beyond the wasteland of Old Seattle lies a gleaming new city where thousands are desperate for a cure. To put an end to the Waste—and bring justice to those responsible–Kobi and his new friends will have to return to the heart of Old Seattle, where the outbreak began. It’s a dangerous journey. But Kobi knows what lies ahead. And he’s ready to fight. Nail-biting suspense and nonstop thrills make this action-packed adventure perfect for young readers who love survival adventures like Gary Paulsen’s Hatchet or dystopian series like Jeanne DuPrau’s City of Ember.

An action-packed tale of honor, glory, and epic battles in ancient Greece.Lysander, a young Helot slave, knows little about the mysterious pendant he wears around his neck except its name―the Fire of Ares. But when the pendant is stolen, he must fight to retrieve it and fulfill its powerful destiny before it is too late. "Ford includes plenty of thrilling fights and footraces as he propels his story toward a sequel. Blood and sweat enhance the book's appeal." ―Kirkus Reviews "Middle-grade boys who love action and vividly depicted battles will seize upon Ford's children's book debut, and they'll encounter a large number of interesting facts about ancient Greece along the way." ―Booklist

I originally read the KJV, then as a teenager I loved the NIV, but I was troubled by footnotes that said some verses are not found in the "oldest and best" manuscripts. But I believed that the "experts" knew what they were doing. Several decades later, as a researcher, journalist, and historian, I learned that most modern Bibles were translated from a Greek master-text different from the Greek text used for the KJV. The KJOnly (KJO) group accuses modern Bibles of being corrupt because they remove many words and phrases and even whole verses, removing enough text to equal 1st and 2nd Peter, and make many other changes. So I investigated the issue. The question I set out to answer was, are the claims of the KJO group accurate, or are the modern Bibles more accurate than the KJV? I have never been a KJV advocate, and actually prefer the wording of modern Bibles, especially the NIV, and have used it as the primary text in several of my other books. But it is plagued by the same issues as most other modern Bibles; many words, phrases, and whole verses removed and even more changed. For those of you who are just learning about this subject, I will present a concise history of how we got the KJV and our modern Bibles, what textual criticism is and how the textual critics often engage in faulty reasoning.Westcott and Hort, the creators of the corrupted Greek New Testament text, were both liberal Anglican bishops who despised evangelicals and their literal view of Scripture. I have many quotes from them proving their unbelief. Hort, especially, was an unbeliever who said there was more truth in Greek philosophy than in "revelation," meaning the Bible. Though they were officially Anglican bishops, they were actually secret Unitarians because only members of the Church of England could be college professors or hold a government job. So they kept their liberal unbelief a secret, but it was revealed after their deaths by the publication of their private letters. Their purpose was to produce a liberal Bible that Unitarians, then and today, love. The advocates for the modern Bible versions want us to believe that all the modern Bibles are the authentic Words of God, even though they are all different. The modern translations pretty much include or leave out what they want, since that was how the Greek master-text was created. One Bible includes a particular verse, another Bible leaves it out, one says one thing another says something else. It causes people to doubt the reliability and veracity of the Bible, and to doubt the truth of Christianity. Apparently, God cannot make up his mind what he wants to say, so he says whatever these "experts" want him to say, and it changes with each new edition of the Greek master-text, and each new translation that comes out.Some people have actually lost their Christian faith because of it (examples are given). Even though supporters of the corrupted Bibles dominate the field, a few scholars with multiple degrees have written against the WH text for 150 years, but their words have been ignored by the Christian seminaries and Bible publishers. Therefore, I am compelled to write yet another book on the subject, because it is of eternal importance. I never expected my investigation to turn into a book, because there are already several books supporting both sides. However, my skill-set is thinking outside the box and figuring things out, as seen in my other books. As such, I have some new insights and surprising discoveries to offer. The reader will learn that the TR is not as corrupt as we have been told and that modern Bibles are far more corrupt than you would have ever imagined.

<p>In the early 1970s photographer and documentary filmmaker Michael Ford left graduate school and a college teaching position in Boston, Massachusetts, packed his young family into a van, and headed to rural Mississippi, where he spent the next four years recording everyday life through interviews, still photographs, and film. The project took him to Oxford (in Lafayette County), as well as to Marshall, Panola, and Tate Counties, a remote area north of Sardis Lake. His efforts resulted in the award-winning documentary film <i>Homeplace</i> (1975), but none of the still photographs from this time were ever published. With this illustrated volume, those photographs are now available and offer a valuable window onto the rural, local culture of northern Mississippi at that time.</p><p>These moving photographs illustrate Ford’s experiences as an apprentice to blacksmith Marion Randolph Hall, his visits to Hal Waldrip's General Store in Chulahoma, a day spent with AG Newsom and his crew making molasses, and Othar Turner's barbecues accompanied by traditional African American fife-and-drum music. They also capture the evocative landscape of the Mississippi hill country and the everyday lives of its residents. In 2013 Ford returned to his adopted homeplace, camera in hand, only to find that most everything had changed—or was gone. This photo essay project juxtaposes the rural Mississippi of the 1970s and the mid-2010s with Ford’s personal reflections drawn from his journals, interviews, and archival notes.</p>