Sleepovers


Ashleigh Bryant Phillips - 2020
    We meet a runaway teen, a mattress salesman, feral kittens, an elderly bachelorette wearing a horsehair locket, and a little girl named after Shania Twain. Here, time and memory circle above Phillips’ characters like vultures and angels, as they navigate the only landscape they’ve ever known. Corn reaches for rain, deer run blindly, and no matter how hungry or hurt, some forgotten hymn is always remembered. “The literary love child of Carson McCullers and John the Baptist, Ashleigh Bryant Phillips’ imagination is profoundly original and private," writes Rebecca Lee. Sleepovers is the winner of the 2019 C. Michael Curtis Short Story Book Prize, selected by Lauren Groff.

Nepantla: An Anthology Dedicated to Queer Poets of Color


Christopher Soto - 2018
    Now, Nepantla will appear for the first time in print as a survey of poetry by queer poets of color throughout U.S. history, including literary legends such as Audre Lorde, James Baldwin, June Jordan, Ai, and Pat Parker alongside contemporaries such as Natalie Diaz, Ocean Vuong, Danez Smith, Joshua Jennifer Espinoza, Robin Coste Lewis, Joy Harjo, Richard Blanco, Erika L. Sanchez, Jericho Brown, Carl Phillips, Tommy Pico, Eduardo C. Corral, Chen Chen, and more.

Project Semicolon: Your Story Isn't Over


Amy Bleuel - 2017
    This book from suicide-awareness organization Project Semicolon chronicles the global phenomenon of the semicolon tattoo, combining photos of individuals' tattoos with their stories about struggling with suicide and mental illness.

The God of War


Marisa Silver - 2008
    In this desolate, forgotten place, government fighter planes and helicopters make training runs by night using live ammunition. When an anonymous dead body floats in from the sea, Ares, on the cusp of his adolescence, is inspired to enact elaborate fantasies of mortal combat. But it is his troubled family that makes Ares a casualty of a different kind of war. His brother, Malcolm, is mentally handicapped, and his mother, distrusting authorities, chooses not to do anything about it, leaving the burden to Ares to protect his vulnerable brother from a world that sees him as "a retard." As he fights to define himself and to see a future for himself outside of the suffocating box of his home, Ares befriends a dangerous older kid, and what was once play becomes terrifyingly real as violence changes his life forever.

Emma of Crooked Creek


M.K. McClintock - 2014
    Emma Hawkins is a dedicated doctor in the little town of Crooked Creek, Montana Territory. Casey Latimer is a wounded soldier in search of a new home and a new beginning. When Casey, battered and bruised, quite literally falls at Emma's feet, she is duty-bound to help him. What happens next is something Emma never expected.EMMA OF CROOKED CREEK is the first short story installment of the Crooked Creek series set in post-Civil War Montana.From the AuthorA little background on Crooked Creek . . .Emma of Crooked Creek was originally written for a short story contest, but while writing it, I realized that I had the makings of a new series that I very much wanted to write. Set in post-Civil War Montana Territory, the characters, time period, and setting came alive, and I'm looking forward to adding to this collection over time.Most of the stories in this series will be short stories or novelettes, but there will be at least two full-length novels, one of which will be a Christmas novel, and another an exciting battle-and-romance-filled western adventure.You'll have a chance to meet many characters from this unique Montana town, but for now, I hope you enjoy this little glimpse into Crooked Creek.

The Immortal Soul Salvage Yard


Beth May - 2021
    The topics may vary widely, from love to mental illness to the most recent "Florida Man" headline, but it's all in the same handwriting. Welcome to The Immortal Soul Salvage Yard.

Stolen Lives: The Heart Breaking Story of a Trafficking Victim


Brandy Sullivan - 2014
    I didn't struggle with anyone after that. My nose was broken and I was covered in blood and filth from the men who came to the room…. I had survived my first day as a captive, well my body had survived, something broke inside me…my soul, my spirit, whatever you want to call it. I lost my ability to hope and dream. ********** Mark's chair scraped across the floor and fell with a loud bang as he jumped back from the table. He ran to the sink feeling nauseous, but all he could do was dry heave. Was all of this real? He just couldn't believe what he was reading….. The girl with the blue-eyes, eyes so filled with agony he almost couldn't bear to look at them, had entrusted him with her secret. She had looked to him to save her. Mark felt lost in a whirlwind of emotions as he realized he might be her only hope of survival.

The Empty Hearth


Kitty Neale - 2006
    He's jealous when she shows us any affection.'Set in Battersea in the Fifties and Sixties, the Pratchett family have to contend with coalman Alfie Pratchett's obsessive jealousy. Although Alfie is a bully, his two teenage children, John and Millie, have learned to dodge him and his moods. The main concern of ugly duckling Millie - who looks nothing like her handsome brother John - is to protect their mum, Eileen.When a serious crisis occurs at the Pratchetts' home, Alfie is forced to watch his whole world gradually collapse around him. Their old life has gone forever, and a new one has begun - one in which rape, debt, alcoholism and insanity play their parts. And redemption is a long time comingKitty Neale is a storyteller of rare power, unafraid to uncover the dark secrets that lie behind the well-scrubbed doorsteps of family homes.

Reconstruction and the Rise of Jim Crow: 1864-1896


Christopher Collier - 1997
    This interesting volume describes the struggles following the Civil War to decide how to deal with the newly freed slaves, through the years of Reconstruction, Jim Crow, sharecropping, and segregation.

Playthings


Alex Pheby - 2015
    His house was not there.

The Service


Frankie Miren - 2021
    And Paula is a journalist whose long-term campaign against prostitution has brought her some strange bedfellows.After a shock change to the law, with brothels being raided by the authorities, lives across the country are fractured. As a threat from Lori’s past begins to catch up with her, the three women are increasingly, inevitably drawn into each other’s orbitThe Service is a powerful and challenging novel about women’s bodies, sex and relationships, mental health, entitlement, authenticity, privilege and power – as shocking as any dystopia, but touching and deeply humane.

The Yellow Wall-Paper


Charlotte Perkins Gilman - 1892
    This chilling account of postpartum depression and a husband's controlling behavior in the guise of treatment will leave you breathless.

The Passing: Stories


Ferrol Sams - 1988
    Now the stories alone are available for the first time in trade paperback.

Hornblower and His Majesty


C.S. Forester - 1940
    For his first command after escaping from France, Hornblower is given charge of the royal yacht - and he soon requires all his skill and instinct to prevent disaster!

Better, Not Bitter: Living on Purpose in the Pursuit of Racial Justice


Yusef Salaam - 2021
    So begins Yusef Salaam telling his story. No one's life is the sum of the worst things that happened to them, and during Yusef Salaam's seven years of wrongful incarceration as one of the Central Park Five, he grew from child to man, and gained a spiritual perspective on life. Yusef learned that we're all "born on purpose, with a purpose." Despite having confronted the racist heart of America while being "run over by the spiked wheels of injustice," Yusef channeled his energy and pain into something positive, not just for himself but for other marginalized people and communities.Better Not Bitter is the first time that one of the now Exonerated Five is telling his individual story, in his own words. Yusef writes his narrative: growing up Black in central Harlem in the '80s, being raised by a strong, fierce mother and grandmother, his years of incarceration, his reentry, and exoneration. Yusef connects these stories to lessons and principles he learned that gave him the power to survive through the worst of life's experiences. He inspires readers to accept their own path, to understand their own sense of purpose. With his intimate personal insights, Yusef unpacks the systems built and designed for profit and the oppression of Black and Brown people. He inspires readers to channel their fury into action, and through the spiritual, to turn that anger and trauma into a constructive force that lives alongside accountability and mobilizes change.This memoir is an inspiring story that grew out of one of the gravest miscarriages of justice, one that not only speaks to a moment in time or the rage-filled present, but reflects a 400-year history of a nation's inability to be held accountable for its sins. Yusef Salaam's message is vital for our times, a motivating resource for enacting change. Better, Not Bitter has the power to soothe, inspire and transform. It is a galvanizing call to action.