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August 2025
Welcome to the first issue of the Mary Parker Science Adventures Newsletter! Here you’ll find updates on new books, behind-the-scenes notes, and fun science snippets to share with your family.
Spotlight Story - Behind the scenes of Mary’s new website
When you arrive at the homepage, you’ll find a friendly starting point that leads you deeper into Mary’s world. The Books section introduces Mary’s first two adventures and even offers a sneak peek at the third story now in progress. Over on the Science Minute page, you’ll discover short, bite-sized explorations of everyday science. Topics range from weather and astronomy to geology, electricity, and even lightning. Each week, Mary takes a short break from writing to share one or two of these curious little lessons.
This past month has been an exciting milestone: Mary Parker’s very own website is now live! After weeks of planning and tinkering, the site is ready to welcome visitors — whether you’re exploring on a desktop at home or on your phone while on the go.
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The Extras section is a treasure chest for anyone who wants to dig deeper. Here you’ll find favorite figures and captions from the books, along with behind-the-scenes notes about how the stories and illustrations come together. You can even trace the growing “family tree” of characters, which reveals fun connections between Mary and her relatives and friends.
Every month, a fresh Newsletter will be posted online — with archives available if you’d like to catch up. And for readers curious about the author behind it all, the About page shares the story of how the Mary Parker series began. Finally, if you ever want to ask a question, share feedback, or just say hello, the Contact page is the perfect place.
It’s been a joy to bring this site to life, and we hope you’ll stop by soon to explore:
Mary’s Notebook - Notes from the author’s desk
Thank goodness for Wix………If you ever want to build a website, I recommend using Wix. This tool makes it super easy to create a website that’s organized and easy to navigate. Wix has all (most anyway) of the features people come to expect in a website. It takes a bit to learn the ins and outs of Wix (and I’m still learning, and forgetting, and relearning), but it has been fun.
I also need to mention ChatGPT. From helping keep things organized to answering questions about Photoshop, Chat has been a very big, big, very big, help. (Before I post this newsletter, I’ll ask Chat to take a look and offer some suggestions. So, I better say something nice about Chat, or I may get some feedback….JK…..). AI is under the microscope these days, but my experience has been 99% positive. The little picture of “me” working hard at the computer, building this website was generated by Chat. I used Photoshop to edit it a bit, add some color and so on, but it took a simple sentence to have Chat create the image. Saved me a ton of time. I don’t remember the exact prompt I sent to Chat but it was something like this……
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“Please create a black and white line-drawing of someone sitting at a computer working hard to generate a website”
I would be remiss (does that mean forgetful?) if I didn’t acknowledge KDP. Kindle Direct Publishing. This platform has made it so easy to publish. Hardcover, Paperback, E-book. After the word doc is ready and converted to a pdf, it’s uploaded to Kindle and voila!, a book is born. KDP links to Amazon and that’s where the public can find books that might interest them. Drawing attention to the books is a challenge, but since I enjoy the writing it’s not a big issue. Perhaps some crafty advertising will help gain more attention. We’ll see. Anyone reading this, let me know if you have ideas on how to promote books.
I’m using the “Hardy Boys” series as the model…….Over 50 books published in that series. The author of that series, Franklin W. Dixon, was a busy man. Actually, he had many (?) ghost writers following the prescribed storyline. I’ve written 2.5 books so far. I don’t intend to bring ghosts onboard, and I have several ideas for the future books. And remember, it’s fun.
A favorite image from “Invisible Light”, Mary arriving in Breverton, MA,. The Rainbow appearing. Setting the stage for all things “Light”.
Science Minute with Mary - Quick facts
Did you know there’s a total eclipse of the moon coming this weekend, Sept 7th. We plan to post several “Minutes” explaining how the earth, moon, and sun interact.
Watch for our post on Saturday, and if you capture a photo of the blood moon, share it with us!”
Lunar eclipse coming to a sky near you !
Thank you for being part of the adventure!
Visit our website at MaryParkerScienceAdventures.com for more stories, extras, and updates.
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