Through Aracelis Girmay's lens, everything is animal: the sea, a jukebox, the desert. In these poems, everything possesses a system of desire, hunger, a set of teeth, and language. These are poems about what is both difficult and beautiful about our time here on earth.Aracelis Girmay's debut collection won the Great Lakes Colleges Association New Writers Award. A Cave Canem Fellow, she is on the faculty at Drew University and Hampshire College. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

    Critics call him a "haiku-like imagist" and his poems have been compared to Chekov's short stories. In Delights and Shadows, Kooser draws inspiration from the overlooked details of daily life. Quotidian objects like a pegboard, creamed corn and a forgotten salesman's trophy help reveal the remarkable in what before was a merely ordinary world."Kooser documents the dignities, habits and small griefs of daily life, our hunger for connection, our struggle to find balance."-PoetryTed Kooser is the author of eight collections of poems and a prose memoir. He lives on a small farm in rural Nebraska.

    Alex has been interviewing celebrities and hangers-on long enough to know all that glitters isn’t gold, so she’s determined to get the real scoop. Still, it’s not going to be easy to get past the wives’ gilded cages... Beth Saddlebrook, wife of aging rapper Z. They have three beautiful boys and a seemingly endless supply of cash. But Beth spends her days trying to keep Z off drugs and fielding calls from women hollering she’s just a “small-town white bitch” and claiming to be carrying Z’s baby. Only one person understands what she’s going through... Kipenzi Hill, multiplatinum-selling R&B artist and Beth’s best friend. Her relationship with rap star and record label president Jake is an open secret in the industry. She knows Jake loves her, but he’d rather break up than publicly acknowledge it. Now she has learned that the newest (and much younger) R&B sensation Bunny has been signed to Jake’s label. Josephine Bennett, wife to Jamaican singer and Überproducer Ras Bennett. Josephine doesn’t just want to spend her husband’s money, she wants to contribute. Her fashion company is finally starting to get media attention when her husband admits to something she’s suspected all along — he’s fallen in love with another woman. Cleopatra Wright, every man’s dream girl, a video vixen with a story to tell and scores to settle. Cleo’s got that thing no one can put a finger on and no man (or woman) can resist. Some would call her evil or misguided or both, but Cleo always moves with a purpose and she’ll stop at nothing to get what she wants...Alex realizes she may have more in common with these women than she’d like. What if this is a glimpse of how her life will be if Birdie finally gets signed to a major label? Stuck between her loyalty to this newfound sisterhood and her obligation to write the truth, Alex is forced to rethink everything she knows about work, friendship, and love.

    With no grown-ups around to take care of them, the other kids simply spend their days drinking Silly Juice while playing meaningless games without a care in the world. But unlike them, she has never felt like she has truly belonged. It is not until Harmonia discovers a secret like none other that her life changes forever. For on the far side of the sun sits a planet like none other, a place called Eidos. Joined by runaways from Sky, along with the infamous Captain Jessi and her makeshift crew, they set off across the endless seas of space.Yet before they can reach Eidos, a long journey awaits young Harmonia and her friends. Between a broken planet, a maniacal woman bent on bringing them back, and the sheer boredom, they have a long journey ahead of them. But in the end, Harmonia just might find a place she can finally call home.

    But in the aftermath of 9/11, Flynn leaves his wife and children, resigns his teaching position and heads west, only to get lost in his guilt and in the mountains of Colorado. When he ends up stuck overnight in a snow drift during a blizzard on the Continental Divide, he realizes he needs to remake himself into the kind of man his children need him to be. With wit and insight, David Hicks turns a compassionate but unblinking eye on what it means to be human—to be lost while putting yourself back together again, to be cowardly while being brave, to fail and fail again on the way to something that might be success.With wit and insight, David Hicks turns a compassionate but unblinking eye on what it means to be human—to be lost while putting yourself back together again, to be cowardly while being brave, to fail and fail again on the way to something that might be success.

    Instead, he finds himself more distracted by his mate than ever before. Astrid isn’t sure what she’s more in denial about: that fact that she’s falling for Erik, or the possibility that she’s pregnant.

    When unleashed, it leaves total destruction in its wake, and cannot be subdued by normal human methods, but only by the power of God. The Cold War saw “Leviathan” snarling at his gate, salivating to be let loose, when humanity was treading ever closer to nuclear holocaust. During this period, American servicemen went into the breech to stand against whatever form “Leviathan” took, and like the American warriors of past years they held strong to their faith in God to see them through. Such a warrior is Daniel O’Kean, a World War II UDT/OSS veteran and commissioned naval officer, turned covert deep-penetration maritime CIA specialist, who has only his faith to see him through his own encounters with “Leviathan.” His first test is a pre-invasion, reconnaissance mission behind the lines of Inchon Korea, where the threat of capture by North Korean invaders is around every corner. Later he leads an assignment into Latvia with near disastrous consequences. Then called upon again, into the steaming jungles near Haiphong Vietnam, while attempting to retrieve evidence of active Soviet intervention in the war, he uncovers an unusual and vital turn of events that leads to a twisted plot in the streets of London England. With each step he takes he sees God’s hand guiding him closer to a fate he does not fully understand, but follows faithfully. While O’Kean is battling an evil he cannot see, the captain of the nuclear submarine USS Seadragon, LCDR Renzo MacKenna has his own faith challenged in another form of “Leviathan” as he and CDR David Heidleman of the USS Permit coordinate to foil a Soviet plot to end America’s involvement in Vietnam. One wrong move by them and “Leviathan’s” bite could go nuclear.

    But there are some things Annabeth isn't prepared for, like the constant presence of Noe's new boyfriend. Like how her relationship with her mom is wearing and fraying. And like the way the secret she's been keeping hidden deep inside her for years has started clawing at her insides, making it hard to eat or even breathe.But most especially, she isn't prepared to lose Noe.For years, Noe has anchored Annabeth and set their joint path. Now Noe is drifting in another direction, making new plans and dreams that don't involve Annabeth. Without Noe's constant companionship, Annabeth's world begins to crumble. But as a chain of events pulls Annabeth further and further away from Noe, she finds herself closer and closer to discovering who she's really meant to be—with her best friend or without.

    Some readers noticed his nimble blending of humor with painful truths reminded them of George Saunders. His creativity and fresh voice reminded others of Wells Tower's Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned. But with his new collection, Jodzio creates a class of his own.Knockout is the unified collection of stories that create flawless portraits of deeply flawed figures on the edge of the American Dream. A recovering drug addict gets tricked into stealing a tiger. A man buys a used sex chair from his neighbor. A woman suffering from agoraphobia raises her son completely indoors. An alcoholic runs a bed and breakfast with the son from his deceased wife's first marriage. These people will admit that their chances have passed them by. These people know they were born on the wrong side of the tracks, and their dreams will remain unreachable, but that doesn't stop them from dreaming. Yet readers won’t be fooled by the funny premises —Jodzio steers these stories into deeper places, creating a brilliant examination of those on the fringes of modern life.With its quirky humor, compelling characters, and unexpected sincerity, Knockout by John Jodzio is poised to become his breakout book, drawing a wide readership to this provocative and talented young writer.