Main

Death Rides the Sky Rides High in the Press

2012-02-07T22:48:02Z

Death Rides the Sky: The Story of the 1925 Tri-State Tornado, published earlier this year by Black Oak Media, continues to make headlines as the author conducts an extensive book tour throughout the region affected by the tornado. Here is a sample of the most recent articles:

Angela Mason visits for book signing
January 23, 2012
By RORYE O’CONNOR

MT. VERNON — — Angela Mason visited Mt. Vernon Saturday to talk about her book, “Death Rides the Sky.”

“Death Rides the Sky” follows the path of the devastating March 18, 1925, Tri-State Tornado, which damaged and destroyed several Southern Illinois towns, killing hundreds of people from Missouri to Indiana.

Mason, a Calhoun resident, wrote the book in 1999 after the newspaper she worked for at the time ran a special section remembering the anniversary of the disaster.

Tragic Tales of the Tri-State Twister
Feb 04, 2012
By Melody Hagen

Flora, Ill. — On March 18, 1925, a storm like no other took to the sky.

Later known as the Tri-State Tornado, this twister killed 695 people and injured 2,027 in its 219-uninterrupted-mile path of destruction through Missouri, Illinois and Indiana.

Author Angela Mason, 49, of Richland County, was at the Flora Public Library, on Saturday, January 28, to promote and sign her book, “Death Rides the Sky: The Story of the 1925 Tri-State Tornado.”

Mason said that her account was the most comprehensive story of the storm available to date.

The storm, according to Mason, “Had the highest damage amount, $16.5 million, in 1925 dollars; the widest damage path, at one and one-quarter miles wide in Hamilton County.”

I Just Wanna Ride Makes Waves!

2012-02-04T19:03:31Z

Pastor Bob Kopp's interview by Corbett from WILK News Radio about his new book "I Just Wanna Ride".

Death Rides the Sky Released Today!

2012-01-17T05:07:48Z

We are happy to announce the release of Death Rides the Sky: The Story of the 1925 Tri-State Tornado by Angela Mason! On an ordinary spring day in 1925, folks in the Midwest were going about business usual: attending school, preparing the fields, mining coal, and tending their stores. Little did they know that between 1 and 4:30 p.m. on March 18, their lives would be changed forever in an event that defined the weather in the central U.S. From the hills of the southeastern Ozarks to the plains of the Hoosier heartland and across the developing communities of southern Illinois, the Tri-State Tornado destroyed cities, devoured whole farms, and set the record for the most deaths, injuries, and monetary damage, a record which remains standing to this day.

This is the story as told directly by nearly four dozen survivors and eyewitnesses, in the most comprehensive account of the Tri-State Tornado ever to be compiled. Many of the survivors were only children when that killer storm swept down from the sky and carved a path through the lives of thousands of individuals linked by this singular event.

Order today at Amazon.com
Barnesandnoble.com
Kindle Edition
Nook Edition

If you are a retailer, and would like to carry this book, please visit our retail page for more information. Do you have a radio show, TV show, magazine, or website and would like to interview these authors? Please contact us at info@blackoakmedia.org

I Just Wanna Ride (FTW) is Now Available

2012-01-06T20:15:33Z

We are happy to announce the release of I Just Wanna Ride (FTW) by Robert R. Kopp! I Just Wanna Ride is an Ivy League pastor’s search for authentic faith on a motorcycle after he couldn’t find it after years in academics, pulpits, or pews. From his immersion into biker culture since watching Easy Rider as a teenager, the author holds no punches in this provocative, edgy, and risky look at hogs and those who ride ‘em as a metaphor and challenge to believers and bikers. Too authentic for “church ladies” and too concerned about “faith” for secularists, this book demands reading by all of ‘em if any of ‘em still care about Who and what matter most sooner or later and definitely in the end.

Order today at Amazon.com
Barnesandnoble.com
Kindle Edition
Nook Edition

Two New Authors Join Black Oak Media

2011-11-30T00:21:19Z

At the beginning of 2012, we will be releasing the first two in a series of exciting titles: I Just Wanna Ride (FTW) by Robert R. Kopp, and Death Rides the Sky: The Story of the 1925 Tri-State Tornado by Angela Mason. Here is a little info about these fine authors:

Robert R. Kopp has been a pastor and a biker for more than 30 years. Currently, he is pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Belvidere, Illinois (which they call their Family of Faith), professor of preaching at Carolina Evangelical Divinity School now and then, police chaplain for the community and county, and for many years was president of a junior tackle football league. He is also an under-achieving husband and father. He rides a 2005 Harley-Davidson Road King.

Angela Mason spent a quarter-century of her life in the music and performance fields as a vocalist, musician, actress and on-air radio personality while living in Illinois, Indiana, the Gulf Coast, Eastern Seaboard states and even Germany. But the love of writing and of history prevailed and she has been published with or working for various newspapers, magazines and journals since 1992. “Death Rides the Sky” is her first full novel, and the creation of it helped her get over her fear of tornadoes, which was developed over several years of intense storms sweeping across the woods and fields of Wayne County, Illinois (where there haven’t yet been enough earthquakes to warrant a book and subsequent facing of that fear…yet). She resides in her beloved Southern Illinois with her husband Jack and a passel of spoiled cats, is mom to three beautiful adult kids and grandma to (so far) two of the most amazing granddaughters on earth.

Every Church in Town is Now Available!

2011-10-04T21:14:53Z

We are happy to announce the release of Every Church in Town by Jessamyn Luong! Every Church in Town chronicles the spiritual journey of an average Middle American teenage girl growing up in a community infused with religious fervor. Set in the early to mid-1990s, this young woman has a spiritual awakening in a charismatic church surrounded by glossolalia, holy laughter, youth groups, and Christian heavy metal. She plays in her high school marching band during the school year and attends Cornerstone, a Christian music festival, during the summer. While struggling to find her place in a rapidly changing world, she wrestles with many spiritual and intellectual questions, including how to hear God’s voice, whether it is wrong to date a non-Christian, whether one should go to college when the end of the world is imminent, and whether every Christian is obligated to be a Republican. In a small town with a deep socioeconomic divide, where everyone who wears plaid with stripes is suspect, this young woman searches for friendship, meaning, and salvation in a world full of plastic lecterns and Kool-Aid mustaches.

Order today at Amazon.com
Barnesandnoble.com
Kindle Edition
Nook Edition