Author & Soprano Join Forces to Perform
Newly Released Opera Novel "Gabriella's Voice"
April 8 at City Espresso

COMPANY PRESS RELEASE HOQUIAM, WA – 20 March 2001: Dead End Street^SM is pleased to announce that Tacoma author Michael J. Vaughn will celebrate the paperback release of his award-winning opera novel entitled GABRIELLA'S VOICE with a reading and performance at 7 p.m. on Sunday, April 8th at Campbell's City Espresso cafe. He will be joined by San Jose Opera diva Barbara Divis, who will sing some of the book's classic arias. Admission is free. The cafe is at 1820B Campbell Avenue.

For those who haven't heard about the story yet, GABRIELLA'S VOICE chronicles the life of Bill Harness, a man in his fifties who's been wandering the country in an old Pontiac and leaving generous checks with small-town opera companies to help support young singers with promising voices. Bill's journey ends outside of Seattle where he finds an extraordinary soprano, Gabriella Compton, performing "The Barber of Seville" on Bainbridge Island. The power of Gabriella's voice, and the strength of her compassion and friendship, help Bill slowly untangle the three family tragedies that propelled him to make the strange journey.

GABRIELLA'S VOICE was first released in February 2000 as an e-book. Due to its extraordinary popularity, the publisher decided to release it in paperback. Note: copies of the novel will not be available at the reading. The book is, however, available from deadendstreet.com and/or barnesandnoble.com. Free samples and the author's biography can also be found at deadendstreet.com.

About Michael J. Vaughn:

Michael J. Vaughn was born in Brunswick, Maine, where his father, a Navy pilot, flew P-3 Orion submarine runs over the Atlantic during the October Missile Crisis. His childhood in the military subsequently brought him to Pennsylvania, Whidbey Island, Washington State (just across the Puget Sound from Bainbridge Island, the setting of "Gabriella's Voice"); Hawaii, and San Jose, California, where he has lived since 1973.

Vaughn is a graduate of the now-defunct Peterson High School in Sunnyvale (one of his classmates was ice skater Brian Boitano), and earned a B.A. in Journalism with a minor in choral music from San Jose State University in 1984, singing tenor with the San Jose State Concert Choir. He has worked as a theater and opera critic since his graduation, mostly for Metro Publications in San Jose. From 1989-1992, he was publicity director for Villa Montalvo Center for the Arts in Saratoga.

Vaughn is the author of the choral novel "Frozen Music" (Northwest Publishing, Salt Lake City, 1995) and the illustrated storybook "An Agnostic Christmas" (Dragonfly Press, Chicago, 1999). For GABRIELLA'S VOICE, he received a 1998 Novelist Fellowship from Arts Council Silicon Valley. His poems have been published in more than two dozen literary journals, winning an Editor's Choice Award from Plainsongs literary journal (Nebraska) and an Honorable Mention in the Emily Dickinson Poetry Competition (Arizona). He also serves as fiction editor for the Montserrat Review literary journal.
Vaughn recently moved to Tacoma, Washington, where he works as a literary columnist for the Tacoma News-Tribune. Much of the background for "Gabriella's Voice" was inspired by soprano Jennifer Der Torossian and the Bay Shore Lyric Opera Company in Capitola, California.

About the Company:

Founded in 1997 by Ivan R. Black, John P. Rutledge and Fred M. Straughn, the company was originally named Dead End Street Publications, LLC. But, upon filing its servicemark with the United States Patent & Trademark Office, the company changed its name to Dead End Street^SM to maximize the value of its servicemark. It has grown from a pioneer in the electronic publishing industry to a leader in the field.

With unquestionably the strongest management team in the industry, Dead End Street^SM has become the prototype of a "branded" business. Synonymous with originality and high quality, the company is recognized as a prominent member of an industry still in its infancy. It has an extremely strong business model and intellectual property foundation. Its current stable contains authors with print publishing credits that include Random House, Dell, Simon & Schuster, Harcourt-Brace and Greenwood/Praeger. Clearly, the world is becoming one big Dead End Street^SM.

Investment inquiries should be directed to John P. Rutledge at: jrutledge@deadendstreet.com.