| The leaves that fell in December |
|
|
|
| Naguib Mahfouz once said ... |
|
|
Without literature my life would be miserable.
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Terri Guillemets once said ... |
|
|
This year's book, at midnight turns to footnote in the next.
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Jonathan Lockwood Huie once said ... |
|
|
Celebrate endings—for they precede new beginnings.
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Alan Humm |
|
|
Recent Diary Entry
|
|
|
"First, it's important to understand that I'm now sixty years of age and that I've wanted to publish a book for as long as I can remember," Alan Humm writes in his latest post about his unique educational and writing experiences.
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Ann S. Epstein |
|
|
Dripless
|
|
|
“'Why not wait to clean them/Until after the eighth night?'/Asks my exasperated/Scornful child." Ann S. Epstein's journey with poetry continues with her poem, "Dripless," recently published by Quill & Parchment. Her recent Learn History Through Fiction series and Survivor Story series include "We Are All Jews" and "Hidden in a Wardrobe"
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Anne Pinkerton |
|
|
Saltwater
|
|
|
"I didn’t believe him, but I knew my tears usually made him feel bad, even when he hadn’t caused them.” Anne Pinkerton's "Saltwater" was recently published by The Linden Review.
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Oprah Winfrey once said ... |
|
|
Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Nicole Zelniker (she/they) is the author of several books, including UNTIL WE FALL, which was a finalist for the Forward Indie Awards in LGBTQ+ adult fiction. She’s also the founder and editor-in-chief of the literary magazine Knee Brace Press. In her free time, Nicole enjoys re-reading her favorite books, listening to musicals, and bothering her cat. You can keep up with them on TikTok at @nicolewritesbooks or Threads and Instagram at @nicolezelniker.
Their first book will be released in May 2024 and their second in October 2025.
|
|
|
|
|
Jim Zervanos's novel, American Gyro, will be published in November 2025.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Anne Pinkerton
|
|
|
"Added to the predictable shock and heartbreak, I found the experience to be as isolating as any I’ve experienced. I hadn’t realized that society at large doesn’t think losing a sibling, especially as an adult, is a big deal," Anne Pinkerton recalls as she discusses her older brother's passing and subsequent book during a recent interview with Atmosphere Press
|
|
|
|
Cheryl and Charlie Young
|
|
|
"Intrigued since childhood by sleight of hand and the illusions of magic, Young became an ophthalmologist and raised his two children...in a magic-filled home on West 99th and Riverside." Paul Hond recently wrote a feature about Columbia alum Morris Young and his life-long fascination with magi and Harry Houdini for Columbia Magazine.
Morris's children, Cheryl and Charlie, also recently received a five-star review from the Detroit Free Press's John Kelly for their forthcoming book, Houdini’s Last Handcuffs.
|
|
|
|
|
| Anusha Atukorala once said ... |
|
|
A New Year has tiptoed in. Let’s go forward to meet it.
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Check out our top-rated all-time bestsellers & other recommendations: |
|
|
|
|
|
| Letter to the Shooting Stars Among Us |
|
|
by Dylan Thomas Doyle
|
|
|
Dear You,
Welcome to your love letter. A letter signed to the secrets and celebrations that brought you here. The found family, and the lost innocence, and the wanderlust, and the returning home again in ways you never thought possible. Not to mention the whiskey and the sobriety and the streetlights and the sweet sleepless nights you danced through on your way to this moment. Welcome to the love letter to your leaving and arriving again. Here.
Letter to the Shooting Stars Among Us is a concoction of music and poetry that pushes the boundaries of genre and expectation. Flowing from spoken word poetry and hip-hop roots, it’s a personal and powerful testament to the beauty and heartbreak of wising up and self-discovery. Examining everything from breakups, illness, crustaceans, immigration, supernovas, God, tomatoes, seedy motels, and all those other memories you locked up somewhere safe, this book is a reminder to love deeply, live boldly, and seek beauty in unconventional spaces.
|
|
|
| Dirty Suburbia |
|
|
by Sara Hosey
|
|
|
The stories in Sara Hosey’s stunning collection, Dirty Suburbia, trace the lives of girls and women struggling to live with dignity in a world that often hates them.
Dirty suburbias are working-class neighborhoods in which girls who are left to fend for themselves sometimes become predators, as well as affluent communities in which women discover that money is no protection against sexism, both their own and others’.
One young woman sets up her abusive, cheating boyfriend, hoping he’ll get arrested so that she can rescue him and win him back. A teenager arranges to meet up with an older man she’s met online playing video games; she brings a knife with her, just in case. A middle-aged divorcee attempts to rekindle a romantic relationship with her high school English teacher, who happens to be a former nun. A struggling academic falls in love with a Henry David Thoreau impersonator, and a well-adjusted grad student goes home for Christmas only to be repulsed by her family’s casual cruelty.
Despite the ugliness and injustice, they face, as well as the failures of their families and communities, these characters often find relief in friendship and connection, and sometimes, even discover meaning and cause for hope.
|
|
|
|
|
|
And congratulations to Linda, an enthusiastic 50 Give or Take supporter, for her new release!
|
|
|
|
| Final Touchstones |
|
|
by Linda M. Romanowski
|
|
|
Final Touchstones tells the story of four brothers leaving Sicily for America in the early 1900s. The author’s maternal grandfather is the seminal figure from age three through his later emigration to a new life—a decision that forever changed his family’s destiny.
The book includes a series of ninety-two short selections in prose and poetry, divided into three sections: Italian/Italian, Italian/American, and American/Italian. The pieces stand independently; together, they relate one story.
Final Touchstones is chronological, episodic, and historic. It appeals to readers interested in family histories and those who remember their grandparents from the Great Immigration wave of the early 1900s. Now is the time to reflect on the formative years of your ethnicity.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| The Shape of Normal |
|
|
by Catherine Shields
|
|
|
As a young suburban mother in the early 1980s, Cathy had a loving husband, a sweet toddler, and a vision of life laid out before her. Pregnant for the second time, with twins, she imagined creating the warm, affectionate home she’d craved as a child. Her family would flourish, and she would be the calm, unflappable mother at its center.
But the universe had other plans.
The Shape of Normal explores Cathy's intense denial and devotion as she struggles to face the challenges of raising a girl with cognitive disabilities. Convinced her diagnosis can be undone with just the right amount of single-mindedness, she turns it into a dark prophecy. But she'll have to overcome adversity and learn the lesson of acceptance before realizing her daughter was never broken.
Cathy was never on a hero’s journey to save her child. She needed to save herself.
|
|
|
| Life in the Dressing Room of the Theatre |
|
|
by Elinora Westfall
|
|
|
A woman’s soul is laid bare between these pages, eviscerated, sunk deep between ink and page. Life in the Dressing Room of the Theatre is a meandering journey of a heart both scarred and lonely and fierce and wild as it seeks itself in each new incarnation. It is stitched and pieced together with the blades of grass and faded-yellow ribbons that string themselves through each poem, following the thread of love, through grief and trauma, suicide and rose-tinted memories while traversing the vague and uneven road to self-rediscovery.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
