The leaves that fell in August |
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Dorothy Parker once said ... |
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Creativity is a wild mind and a disciplined eye.
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Jay-Z once said ... |
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A poet's mission is to make words do more work than they normally do, to make them work on more than one level.
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Reverie Love once said ... |
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I want to shine light in the dark corners in this world, I want people to know that they are not alone.
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Carolyn R. Russell |
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Oilskin
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"I look into his eyes, and they tell me what he spent money on besides the hat." Carolyn R. Russell's latest story, "Oilskin," was recently published by Bending Genres.
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Common once said ... |
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Maybe I write because I’ve learned to show certain parts of my heart on the page that I still struggle to capture in speech.
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Howard Lovy is a book editor, journalist, and author with forty years of experience at newspapers, magazines, and news services, where he has covered everything from nanotechnology to the Mideast conflict. His commentaries and interviews have appeared in Publishers Weekly, Longreads, The Jerusalem Post, and a range of other publications. Howard is also news and podcast producer for the Alliance of Independent Authors and served as executive editor of Foreword Reviews from 2013 to 2017. He lives in Traverse City, Michigan.
His novel, Found and Lost: The Jake and Cait Story, will be published in April 2025.
Rachael Wesley's first concert was Paula Abdul. Since then, she's seen over 1,000 shows. She attributes much of her identity and place in the world to discovering this magical music community. A proud former East coaster, she now calls Denver home, where she’s spoiled by its music scene. If she’s not at a show, she can be found hiking, with her nose in a book, or ogling all the doggies. She’s thankful every day for second chances and is always on the lookout for those signs from the Universe.
Her memoir, Second Set Chances, will be published in April 2025.
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Steve Zettler's third novel, Tick... Tick...Tock! (working title), will be released in March 2025.
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Carolyn R. Russell
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"Some of my characters are diabolical and that reinforces this notion; they may have heinously warped ideas, but they are striving nevertheless, no matter what the cost." Carolyn R. Russell discusses her forthcoming book, Death and Other Survival Strategies, how books played a role in her life and writing, and more in a recent interview with Roz Morris.
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Jeff Billington
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"I think about 75% of the country that's full of little abandoned towns and empty farms. I just want to focus there because I think there's so much hope for a lot of those areas." House of Books' Catherine Beeman recently interviewed Jeff Billington, where they talked about his background, his two recently released and very different books, and more.
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Jennifer Lang |
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"Yoga becomes a metaphor for Lang’s quest for balance as she and Philippe bounce around between Israel, Paris, New York, and California. Drawn to yoga, she gets certified as a teacher and cultivates this practice and community as a method of rooting herself." Cristina Deptula recently reviewed Jennifer Lang's Places We Left Behind for Compulsive Reader.
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Faith Baldwin once said ... |
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…there is a clarity about September. On clear days, the sun seems brighter, the sky more blue, the white clouds take on marvelous shapes...
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Check out our top-rated all-time bestsellers & other recommendations: |
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by Melanie Brooks |
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A Hard Silence
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In the mid 1980s, Canada's worst public health disaster was unfolding. Catastrophic mismanagement of the country's blood supply allowed contaminated blood to be knowingly distributed nationwide, infecting close to two thousand Canadians with HIV. Among them was Melanie Brooks's surgeon father who, after receiving a blood transfusion during open-heart surgery in 1985, learned he was HIV positive.
A Hard Silence is an intimate glimpse into Melanie's memories of coping with the tragedy of her father's illness and enduring the loneliness and isolation of not being able to speak. With candor and vulnerability, Melanie opens her grief wounds and brings her reader inside her journey, twenty years after her father died, to finally understand the consequences of her family's silence, to interrogate the roots of stigma and discrimination responsible for the ongoing secret-keeping, and to show how she's now learned to be authentic.
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by Jennifer Lang |
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Places We Left Behind
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When American-born Jennifer falls in love with French-born Philippe during the First Intifada in Israel, she understands their relationship isn't perfect.
Both 23, both Jewish, they lead very different lives: she's a secular tourist, he's an observant immigrant. Despite their opposing outlooks on two fundamental issues—country and religion—they are determined to make it work. For the next 20 years, they root and uproot their growing family, each longing for a singular place to call home.
In Places We Left Behind, Jennifer puts her marriage under a microscope, examining commitment and compromise, faith and family while moving between prose and poetry, playing with language and form, daring the reader to read between the lines.
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by Mark E. Leib |
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Image Breaker
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Tristan Wishnasky seems to have it all: a successful career as a cynical novelist in love with the Void, a romantic relationship with a formidable woman, and admission to the parties and revelries of the glitterati. But just when he’s confident nothing can stop his stupendous rise, he begins to hallucinate mysterious messages telling him he’s wasting his life.
But the messages don’t stop, and he turns to his atheist lover, his oracular psychotherapist, and an ingenious female rabbi for guidance and direction. Where has he gone wrong? How should he be living?
In his search for self-knowledge, Tristan lurches from the art galleries of the famous to the homeless shelters of the abandoned; from the arms of college dean Vanessa to the bed of struggling actress Barbara; from a career that ignores every claim beyond ego to the company of people trying to rescue the imperiled Earth.
As he learns to destroy every false image that’s ever laid claim to him, he begins to think possible a life that deeply, truly matters.
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by Joanne Nelson |
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My Neglected Gods
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We all have our rituals and talismans to protect us from the unknown, but will we admit what they are?
Tarot cards, speeding cars, several saints, and old dogs make appearances in Joanne Nelson’s new collection of prose and poetry. She unravels the secular deities giving shape to her days, not only on planes, but in summer crowds, at conferences, and in long post office queues. Whether it’s a bandaid in a pocket, the backup pen in a purse, or a hidden $20 in a wallet for just-in-case, Nelson explores what we carry for comfort. She delves into the Mercury retrograde conundrum and examines the significance of kitchens as holy places. Beer runs through it. There will be coffee.
Join Nelson, author of the memoir, This Is How We Leave, in this humorous and heartfelt journey through life’s often-ignored quiet moments. Ignored until, plate of cookies in hand, they come begging for a chat. All the while, the kids move out, the house gets put up for sale, and loved ones age.
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