Past and present Northwest faculty members recently released books with topics ranging from Wicca and occult religions to helping education graduates find jobs.
Emeritus English Professor Carrol Fry recently wrote a book, titled, "Cinema of the Occult: New Age, Satanism, Wicca and Spiritualism in Film." He wrote the book to inform people about the backgrounds of occult religions and how films adapt them.
Fry said he first became interested in occult religions when he produced a five-part documentary, "Creeds in Conflict," for KXCV-FM, the University's public radio station. He was also a big fan of horror films, which increased his interest in occult religions and how people do not know how many are out there.
"You just don't know occult religions are there until you see their footprints," Fry said.
While Fry taught at Northwest, he taught film study for many years. He began to notice how films based on occult religions presented the belief.
Fry notices that many Hollywood films presented Wicca in a negative way, he said. These films include, "Practical Magic" and "The Witches of Eastwick."
Fry began the manuscript for the book in 2003, but marketing the book took the longest, he said.
"You have to kiss a lot of frogs until you find the prince," Fry said.
The book is intended for anyone interest in the study of film and occult religions, he said.
"I don't think the book is for high school kids," Fry said.
The book is also intended to educate people about the many religions that occur in the world.
"We think of this country as predominantly Christian, but I think my readers will be interested in other religions," Fry said.
The book was finally published in December 2008 and is available for purchase through Amazon.com.
Current Northwest faculty members did not write a book about occult religions, but it is important to the teaching society.
Educational Leadership Department Professor and Doctorate Program Professor Frank Grispino and Educational Leadership Department Assistant Professor Kristina Alexander recently wrote a book , titled, "Finding, Hiring & Keeping the Best Teachers & School Staff: Methods and Management in a Time of Shortage."
The book focuses on helping school personnel who do hiring on finding and keeping good teachers, but mostly targets graduating seniors on how to find jobs.
Grispino and Alexander decided to write the book because they believed it was an important topic that was not covered a lot throughout the years.
"This is a topic that didn't have a lot out there on it, and it was an interest in our department," Alexander said.
Planning for the book came after a set of presentations about the subject, and the editor of the publishing company that the book was published by heard the presentation and thought it would be a good idea for a book, Grispino said.
Before the presentation, however, Grispino and Alexander knew it was an important topic to cover.
Pro>Active Publications released the book in December 2008 after 2 years of work writing the book, Alexander said.
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Be Well.