Reprint. 25,000 first printing.

    It springs spontaneously from the lofty hearts and makes its own way to unite with its generous reciprocators. At times, it becomes dry and seeks the abundance of a big-hearted lover. In other scenarios, the river gets frozen and looks for the warmth of a passionate soul. And in some cases, it may just be ready and waiting to leap forth from its humble abode. All it takes is just a little stroke of fate for that river to unleash itself and flow in its full glory.'Unleash That River' is an anthology of six short stories of love and contemporary romance.1) Keys: When Dhyey returns home to meet his mother after several months, he discovers that she has started sharing the house with a beautiful tenant, Nishita who not only holds the key to his house, but to his locked heart as well.2) Dot Every 'i' And Cross Every 't':Varun and Puja met for the first time through an arranged marriage proposal. However, in order to make sure that they are the ones who can really complement each other for the rest of their lives, they must take a step out of their comfort zones, and do something unprecedented and outright crazy.3) Why Not:Neel and Rashi both have miserably failed at their first romantic endeavor. Will they keep cursing their rotten luck and ask why? Or will they reclaim the charge of their lives to embrace the second chance and say why not?4) Immeasurable Nouns:Aditi and Kartik are the academic stars of their class and each other’s arch rivals. Aditi hates boys. But Kartik secretly loves her. To win her heart, he must wait for the right moment and make every move cautiously. One day, during an English class, that moment presents itself in its full bloom.5) Madly In Marriage:Swayam and Soniya have not left any stone unturned to avoid marrying each other. But their families see this union as a match made in heaven and are hellbent to see it through. 6) Hearts And Ice-creams:Tushar is obsessed with finding his childhood crush who disappeared out of his life without a clue. Fifteen years later, will he be able to move on or destiny has yet to play its last trick?

    The result is an extraordinary, complex portrait of "white girls," as Als dubs them—an expansive but precise category that encompasses figures as diverse as Truman Capote and Louise Brooks, Malcolm X and Flannery O’Connor. In pieces that hairpin between critique and meditation, fiction and nonfiction, high culture and low, the theoretical and the deeply personal, Als presents a stunning portrait of a writer by way of his subjects, and an invaluable guide to the culture of our time.

    But for some, like Tracy, the shy, intelligent young boy at the center of this enthralling collection of linked stories, they are simply home. Set in the mid-1980s and taking readers up to the point of the destruction of the infamous Cabrini-Green housing projects—a set of buildings similar in design to Stateway Gardens to the south—this collection gives an intimate look at the hopes, dreams, failures, and fortunes of a group of people growing up with the deck always stacked against them. Through Jasmon Drain’s sensitive and often playful prose, we see another side of what we have come to know as “the projects.” Stateway’s Garden is a coming-of-age story told in short stories, through the lens of a childhood made rough by the crush of poverty and violence, with the crack epidemic a looming specter ahead. And yet, through the experiences and ambitions of Tracy and other young characters, Drain reveals a vibrant community that creates its own ecosystem, all set in a series of massive, seemingly soulless concrete buildings. Not shying away from the darkness of life for his characters, Drain shows the full complexity of their human experiences. Exquisitely detailed and novelistic in scope, this collection of stories will linger in your mind long after you have turned the final page.

    Four stories. Each one set in the enchanting world of the South. These are the kinds of stories your grandmother told you from a front porch swing. Ice Melts in Spring by Linda W. Yezak When Kerry Graham's boss forces her to return to the Gulf of Mexico where her husband drowned years ago, she feels only spring's chill and not the warmth of the Texas sun. Can the joy of a reclusive author and the compassion of a shrimp-boat preacher thaw Kerry's frigid heart? Lillie Beth in Summer by Eva Marie Everson With the untimely death of his wife, Dr. James Gillespie believes God has abandoned him. He also believes he's never met anyone like the young widow Lillie Beth, whose beloved Granny lies dying at home, and who sees a God who sweeps hope through a farmhouse window. Can a young woman whose husband died in Vietnam restore a faith that is all but dead. Through an Autumn Window by Claire Fullerton Because her larger than life mother Daphne Goodwyn is dead, forty-year-old Cate returns to Memphis with one thought in mind: something always goes wrong at a Southern funeral. But surrounded by the well-mannered society that raised her, the nostalgic rites of a three-day, autumn mourning bring the unexpected gift of the end of sibling rivalry. A Magnolia Blooms in Winter by Ane Mulligan With Broadway stardom within her reach, Morgan James returns home in winter to help an old friend. Maybe it s just nostalgia, but when she sees him again, an old flame rekindles. When she s called back to NYC to take the lead in a new musical, will fame be worth losing the man she loves?

    Soviet buildings crumble, wind scatters sand from the far south, and political protesters flood the streets with song.In this atmosphere of disquiet, an American teacher navigates a life transformed by the discovery and loss of love. As he prepares to leave the place he’s come to call home, he grapples with the intimate encounters that have marked his years abroad, each bearing uncanny reminders of his past. A queer student’s confession recalls his own first love, a stranger’s seduction devolves into paternal sadism, and a romance with another foreigner opens, and heals, old wounds. Each echo reveals startling insights about what it means to seek connection: with those we love, with the places we inhabit, and with our own fugitive selves.

    Each volume’s series editor selects notable works from hundreds of magazines, journals, and websites. The guest editor then chooses the best twenty or so pieces to publish. This unique system has made the Best American series the most respected – and most popular – of its kind.This special e-book sampler contains eleven selections from the 2011 editions.From The Best American Short Stories® edited by Geraldine Brooks:Housewifely Arts by Megan Mayhew BergmanPhantoms by Steven MillhauserFrom The Best American Essays® edited by Edwidge Danticat:Chapels by Pico IyerThere Are Things Awry Here by Lia PurpuraFrom The Best American Mystery Stories edited by Harlan Coben:A Crime of Opportunity by Ernest J. FinneyFrom The Best American Science and Nature Writing edited by Mary Roach:The Killer in the Pool by Tim Zimmermann, Jr.The Whole Fracking Enchilada by Sandra SteingraberFrom The Best American Sports Writing edited by Jane Leavy:The Surfing Savant by Paul SolotaroffNew Mike, Old Christine by Nancy HassFrom The Best American Travel Writing edited by Sloane Crosley: My Year at Sea by Christopher BuckleyMiami Party Boom by Emily Witt

    Eleven unique short stories that stretch from a rural Canadian Mennonite town to a hipster gay bar in Brooklyn, featuring young trans women stumbling through loss, sex, harassment, and love.These stories, shiny with whiskey and prairie sunsets, rattling subways and neglected cats, show growing up as a trans girl can be charming, funny, frustrating, or sad, but never will it be predictable.

    The prequel to G-Spot, the #1 bestseller that established the Urban Erotic genre. Meet the Man and the Myth...the Kingpin and the Killer...The Lover and the Legend...The Gangsta who put the G in the G-Spot...The TRUE King of Harlem! "I didn't come to Harlem ridin' shotgun. I came packin' one!"--GRANITE MCKAY. WARNING! This here ain't no romance, it's an urban erotic tale These gutter plots I drop will have you biting off your nails! A menace has arrived, a terror Harlem’s never seen He started from the bottom and turned a dollar into a dream! Before the ballin and the stuntin and the sexin and the flexin, Brutal vision and ambition is how this gangsta manifested! So let’s stand up and salute the ruthless boss who paved the way Let’s go back B4 the G-Spot to: The Legend of GRANITE McKAY!

    Since its founding in 1997, Brevity: A Journal of Concise Literary Nonfiction has published hundreds of brief nonfiction essays by writers around the world, each within that strict word count. Over the past 20 years, Brevity has become one of the longest-running and most popular online literary publications, a journal readers regularly return to for insightful essays from skilled writers at every stage of their careers. Featuring examples of nonfiction forms such as memoir, narrative, lyric, braided, hermit crab, and hybrid, The Best of Brevity brings you 84 of the best-loved and most memorable reader favorites, collected in print for the first time. Compressed to their essence, these essays glint with drama, grief, love, and anger, as well as innumerable other lived intensities, resulting in an anthology that is as varied as it is unforgettable, leaving the reader transformed.With contributions from Krys Malcolm Belc, Jenny Boully, Brian Doyle, Roxane Gay, Daisy Hernández, Michael Martone, Ander Monson, Patricia Park, Kristen Radtke Diane Seuss, Abigail Thomas, Jia Tolentino, and so many more, The Best of Brevity offers unparalleled diversity of style, form, and perspective for those interested in reading, writing, or teaching the flash nonfiction form.

    Defying simplistic conservative and liberal arguments about why the black underclass persists, Dash puts a human face on their struggle to survive despite both disastrous personal choices and almost insurmountable circumstances.The book spans a half-century of hardship, from Rosa Lee Cunningham's bleak early life in the Jim Crow South to her death from AIDS at age fifty-nine. Rosa Lee gave birth to her first child at fourteen, was married at sixteen, and ultimately bore eight children whom she had no legitimate means of supporting. When her welfare checks proved insufficient to feed her family, she turned to prostitution and selling stolen clothes and drugs. Yet Rosa Lee maintained a flickering desire to do what was right. Two of her sons did escape the ghetto to enter mainstream life, and after Dash's series of articles ran in The Washington Post, she made public speeches, hoping to encourage other people to avoid her destructive choices.Rosa Lee is the worthy successor to such works as Jonathan Kozol's Death at an Early Age. It offers no easy answers, but is instead challenging, thought-provoking, and utterly unforgettable.

    Seventeen of the best young adult authors across the queer spectrum have come together to create a collection of beautifully written diverse historical fiction for teens. From a retelling of Little Red Riding Hood set in war-torn 1870s Mexico featuring a transgender soldier, to two girls falling in love while mourning the death of Kurt Cobain, forbidden love in a sixteenth-century Spanish convent or an asexual girl discovering her identity amid the 1970s roller-disco scene, All Out tells a diverse range of stories across cultures, time periods and identities, shedding light on an area of history often ignored or forgotten.StoriesRoja - Anna-Marie McLemoreThe Sweet Trade - Natalie C. ParkerAnd They Don`t Kiss at the End - Nilah MagruderBurnt Umber - Mackenzi LeeThe Dresser & the Chambermaid - Robin TalleyNew Year - Malinda LoMolly`s Lips - Dahlia AdlerThe Coven - Kate ScelsaEvery Shade of Red - Elliot WakeWillows - Scott TraceyThe Girl with the Blue Lantern - Tess SharpeThe Secret Life of a Teenage Boy - Alex SanchezWalking After Midnight - Kody KeplingerThe End of the World as We Know It - Sara FarizanThree Witches - Tessa GrattonThe Inferno & the Butterfly - Shaun David HutchinsonHealing Rosa - Tehlor Kay Mejia

    The fiercely devoted one she uses for her best friend, the one of a lover and confidant to her fiancé, and the real one she keeps reserved for looking in the mirror and battling her inner demons. Life is fairly normal for Vixen until her verbally abusive mother reenters her life, dredging up traumatic childhood memories, and bringing a handsome stranger into the mix with her devious antics causing Vixen to reprise her role as caregiver and bread winner.Gino Romano is infamous for many reasons: his notoriety for being one of the youngest king pins in New York City, the cold manner in which he handles business, and the notable political ties he's managed to create along the way through "profit sharing." However, the most prominent thing he's known for is the ice fortress he's built around his heart. Because of his past, Gino keeps women at an arms length, believing it hard to find one who could accept the scarred past he comes with. Until he lays eyes on Vixen.Brought together for all the wrong reasons, Vixen and Gino find a common ground that not only develops into a budding friendship, but sparks a love affair. From the moment they become one they must fight to protect their love from those who plan to destroy it by any means necessary, one of which being the very reason Vixen ran away from home ten years ago in the dead of night.Will the forces determined to see Gino and Vixen destroyed win? Or will their love prevail? Set in a spicy Brooklyn backdrop, A Brooklyn Love Affair brings to life pain, forgiveness, and the never ending possibility of finding love.

    From horror master Rick Wood, author of The Sensitives and This Book is Full of Bodies, comes twelve horrifying stories to spook up your Christmas season! From a sadistic secret Santa gift, to a murderous telekinetic fairy, to a nativity full of the undead… you’ll find a horror treat for all twelve days of Christmas! This anthology includes the following stories: The F**ked Up Fairy Twas the Night Before Murder The Nativity of the Living Dead The Christmas Card Trap Secret Santa for the Sadistic Track Santa parts 1, 2 and 3 Elf on a Shelf The Mince Pie The Christmas Cannibal A Christmas Carol: The Aftermath Download now and bring a sprinkle of horror to your festivities.

    There is plenty to see, hear and smell, from the oppressive heat and pungent smell of row upon row of tobacco, to the mobile library that brought air conditioning and the aroma of paper, glue and binding each week of the summer. The author grew up in a functional family, but with different interests than his siblings, particularly ones that offered unknown prospects. As the road from the farm widens, readers encounter firebrand preachers, snake-handling churches, guns, baseball, Baptists, Coca-Cola, Elvis, suicides, mysterious deaths, PTSD, houses inhabited by haints, pork barbecue, tea cookies, cornbread, fishing, arrowheads, ice hockey and basketball.