Publishing is the process of production and dissemination of literature, music, or information — the activity of making information available to the general public. In some cases, authors may be their own publishers, meaning: originators and developers of content also provide media to deliver and display the content for the same.

Traditionally, the term refers to the distribution of printed works such as books (the "book trade") and newspapers. With the advent of digital information systems and the Internet, the scope of publishing has expanded to include electronic resources, such as the electronic versions of books and periodicals, as well as micropublishing, websites, blogs, video game publishers and the like.

Publishing includes the stages of the development, acquisition, copyediting, graphic design, production – printing (and its electronic equivalents), and marketing and distribution of newspapers, magazines, books, literary works, musical works, software and other works dealing with information, including the electronic media.

Neale Donald Walsch (born September 10, 1943) is an American author of the series Conversations with God. The nine books in the complete series are Conversations With God (books 1-3), Friendship with God, Communion with God, Conversations With God for Teens, The New Revelations, Tomorrow's God, and Home with God: In a Life That Never Ends.

Walsch was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on September 10, 1943, and brought up as a Roman Catholic by a family who encouraged his quest for spiritual truth. He informally studied comparative theology for many years. He says his books are not channelled, but rather that they are inspired by God and that they can help a person relate to him from a modern perspective. The God in his books, for example, says that "there is nothing you have to do." Walsch believes in a panentheistic God, who tries to communicate himself as being "unselfish". Walsch's vision is an expansion and unification of all present theologies to render them more relevant to our present day and time. He created Humanity's Team as a spiritual movement whose purpose is to communicate and implement his New Spirituality beliefs, particularly that we are all one with God and one with life, in a shared global state of being. This state can be achieved, Walsch argues, by the act of helping other people: "The fastest way to apply anything in your life is to help others to apply it... The fastest way to use any wisdom that resides in your soul is to help someone else... Because we are all one.". Walsch has nine children.

Glenn Herbert Gould (September 25, 1932 – October 4, 1982) was a Canadian pianist who became one of the best-known and most celebrated classical pianists of the 20th century. He was particularly renowned as an interpreter of the keyboard music of Johann Sebastian Bach. His playing was distinguished by remarkable technical proficiency and capacity to articulate the polyphonic texture of Bach’s music.

Gould rejected most of the standard Romantic piano literature and, after his adolescence, avoided Liszt, Schumann, and Chopin. Although his recordings were dominated by Bach, Gould's oeuvre was diverse, including works by Beethoven, Mozart, Haydn, Brahms, pre-Baroque composers such as Jan Sweelinck, and such 20th-century composers as Paul Hindemith and Arnold Schoenberg. Gould was well known for various eccentricities, from his unorthodox musical interpretations and mannerisms at the keyboard to aspects of his lifestyle and personal behavior. He stopped giving concerts at the age of 31 to concentrate on studio recording and other projects.

Sviatoslav Teofilovich Richter (Russian: Святослав Теофилович Рихтер Sviatosláv Teofílovich Ríkhter, Russian pronunciation: [svʲjətəsˈlaf tʲɪəˈfʲiləvʲɪtɕ ˈrʲixtər], Ukrainian: Святослав Теофілович Ріхтер; March 20 [O.S. March 7] 1915 – August 1, 1997) was a Soviet pianist well known for the depth of his interpretations, virtuoso technique, and vast repertoire. He is widely considered one of the greatest pianists of the 20th century.

Richter was born in Zhytomyr, Ukraine. His father, Teofil Danilovich Richter (1872–1941), was a German expatriate pianist, organist, and composer who had studied in Vienna. His mother, Anna Pavlovna (née Moskaleva; 1892–1963), was from a landowning Russian family, and at one point had been a pupil of her future husband. In 1918, when Richter's parents were in Odessa, the Civil War separated them from their son, and Richter moved in with his aunt Tamara. He lived with her from 1918 to 1921, and it was then that his interest in art first manifested itself, although he first became interested in painting, which his aunt taught him.