New Playwrights Foundation Chairman Emeritus Travis Pike presenting a new book at the Festival of Books, April 22-23, at USC

April 13, 2017 - Travis Edward Pike, Chairman Emeritus of the New Playwrights Foundation of Santa Monica, California, will introduce his new book, "Changeling's Return," at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, April 22nd-23rd, at USC. The book contains his complete screenplay for a surrealistic musical adventure about Morgan, an American rock star, whose out-of-body experience, set in the contemporary Midlands of England, and in the supernatural realm of Morningstone, triggers a sudden and profound commitment to the environment and a dramatic change in his music, its lyrical content, and its purpose. The book features an introductory interview of the author by acclaimed music journalist and pop culture historian, Harvey Kubernik, a comprehensive multi-page section titled "His Secrets All Revealed," about the history, folklore, mythology and supernatural elements in the story, and a selected Bibliography.

According to Western folklore, a changeling is a fairy or troll child placed in a stolen human baby's cradle. In the screenplay, whether Morgan is an adult human being, taken and pixilated in the supernatural realm, or a changeling, reared by humans, and who, upon being returned to his otherworldly roots, is reawaked to his supernatural origins and returns to our world to fulfill his purpose is deliberately left clouded. The story works either way.

Pike knows the world of which he writes, having been a working singer-songwriter during the 1967 Summer of Love, recently rediscovered by Forgotten Hits, and his musical career between 1964-1974 is explored in his illustrated 2013 book, "Odd Tales and Wonders," reviewed in Ugly Things magazine, Winter 2016/17, #43. The latest New Untouchables UK compilation release, "Le Beat Bespoke volume 7," features his 1967 recording of "If I Didn't Love You Girl," and Pike will have two separate 45 rpm releases in the UK this summer, "If I Didn't Love You Girl"/"The Likes of You," and two songs from the movie, "Feelin' Good," originally released in Autumn, 1966, "Watch Out Woman"/"The Way That I Need You."

Pike will also be presenting Harvey Kubernik's "It Was Fifty Years Ago Today THE BEATLES Invade America and Hollywood," signed by the author, and published in 2014 by Pike's Otherworld Cottage Industries.

Other New Playwrights Foundation authors presenting and signing books at the NPF booth (#174), will be Alice Lunsford, "Secrets of the Bayou" and "If the Garfish Don't Bite;" Grace Bruno, "Shattered Intimacy;" Kendall Noxsel, "Love and the B2 Stealth Bomber, a Memoir," and D. R. Lunsford, "To Laugh, Think, and Feel." NPF board member, Phyllis Elliott, will also be working the booth, providing information and handing out literature about the influential non-profit organization.