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When Larry Chang presented his 3500 page double-spaced manuscript to those publishers and agents whose interest he had been able to attract, the universal response was that it was too massive and needed to be reduced considerably; 270 printed pages was the maximum they would be willing to consider. His retort was that he would be unable to represent fairly five millennia of the world's wisdom in such a slim volume. They were adamant, he was stubborn. He decided to quit his day job and publish it himself.
Thus was born Gnosophia Publishers. The name is a coinage of two Greek words from gnosis knowledge and sophia wisdom, hence the knowledge of wisdom. The quirky silent G subsumed in the vocal N suggested itself as the colophon with the G bearing the steady flame of wisdom. A nod to contemporary culture is given in the ubiquitous question, who knew? as a tagline but using the idiosyncratic spelling gnu.
With the aid of Dan Poynter's Self-Publishing Manual and his experience as an editor and graphic designer, Larry was able to produce Wisdom for the Soul: Five Millennia of Prescriptions for Spiritual Healing with comparative ease and some measure of success, based on the acclaim received. The book was first released April 28 at the New Living Expo in San Francisco and exhibited at Book Expo America in Washington, DC the following month. It was named Winner - Non-Fiction Anthologies in the Best Books 2006 Awards.
Wisdom for the Soul of Black Folk, was released October 2007. This was to have been followed by Wisdom for the Soul of Queer Folk, and Wisdom for the Soul of Young Folk to complete the Folk Series but these have been deferred indefinitely. A Jamaican language text under the Chuu Wod imprint is due to be released in May 2014. The question of publishing other authors is open. Foreign rights are available. For permissions and inquiries contact admin.
A number of independent bookstores in the DC area, Gnosophia's home base, stock our titles, available to the trade from Baker & Taylor, Ingram, and New Leaf Distributors. Online orders may be placed here.
Each man has his own vocation. The talent is the call. There is one direction in which all space is open to him. He has faculties silently inviting him thither to endless exertion. He is like a ship in a river; he runs against obstructions on every side but one; on that side all obstruction is taken away, and he sweeps serenely over a deepening channel into an infinite sea. This talent and this call depend on his organization, or the mode in which the general soul incarnates itself in him. He inclines to do something which is easy to him, and good when it is done, but which no other man can do. He has no rival. For the more truly he consults his own powers, the more difference will his work exhibit from the work of any other. His ambition is exactly proportioned to his powers. The height of the pinnacle is determined by the breadth of the base. Every man has this call of the power to do somewhat unique, and no man has any other call ... By doing his work, he makes the need felt which he can supply, and creates the taste by which he is enjoyed. By doing his own work, he unfolds himself.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson ~

 

A SoulVenture

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