In the short story collection Beautiful Blemish, Sampsell dives deep into the human psyche to reveal the layers of secret desire, loneliness and hope buried in our hearts. The stories in Beautiful Blemish display an American voice that mixes humor, experimentation, and unflinching pathos to full effect.

    Too many bad words and too much marihuana for the youth of brand-new neoliberal Chile. But looking beyond his dazzling style and controversial opinions, these stories are plain good literature.

    Drawing together horror theory and historical analysis, she outlines how neoliberalism, corruption, and drug trafficking—culminating in the misnamed “war on drugs”—has shaped the political landscape on both sides of the border. Working from and against this context, Rivera Garza posits that collective grief is an act of resistance against state violence, and that writing is a powerful mode of seeking social justice and embodying resilience.She states: “As we write, as we work with language—the humblest and most powerful force available to us—we activate the potential of words, phrases, sentences. Writing as we grieve, grieving as we write: a practice able to create refuge from the open. Writing with others. Grieving like someone who takes refuge from the open. Grieving, which is always a radically different mode of writing.”

    . . in its own eccentric way, [The Owl and the Nightingale] is every bit as enticing as Gawain . . . it is arguably the greatest early Middle English poem we have. ProspectA graceful, elegant translation. GuardianFollowing his acclaimed translations of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Pearl, Simon Armitage shines light on another jewel of Middle English verse. In his highly engaging version, Armitage communicates the energy and humour of the tale with all the cut and thrust of the original. An unnamed narrator overhears a fierce verbal contest between the two eponymous birds, which moves entertainingly from the eloquent and philosophical to the ribald and ridiculous. The disputed issues still resonate - concerning identity, cultural habits, class distinctions and the right to be heard. Excerpts were featured in the BBC Radio 4 podcast, The Poet Laureate Has Gone to His Shed. Including the lively illustrations of Clive Hicks-Jenkins, this is a book for the whole household to read and enjoy.

    The book, converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers now that it is out of copyright, consists of some fables and poems, most of which were aimed at children in their original form.

    

    She has a fine ear, a fine eye, and a magician's impeccable timing."—Judith Foosaner, Los Angeles Times"The day-to-day lives in The Lover of Horses are mined wth small, extraordinary moments of epiphany and unsettling insight."—Elizabeth Alexander, Washington Post Book WorldTess Gallagher's previous publications include Amplitude: New and Selected Poems, A Concert of Tenses (essays on poetry), and Moon Crossing Bridge. She lives in Port Angeles, Washington, where she has recently completed the introduction to No Heroics, Please, the first of two volumes of The Uncollected Works of Raymond Carver, edited by William Stull.

    Set largely in the small Newfoundland mining town of Black Rock, but straying as far west as Vancouver and as far east as China, these stories are subtle, stark portrayals of people alternately looking for or trying desperately to escape their place in the world.A young boy confuses love and allegiance, then stumbles into the complexities of adulthood; a brother and sister fall in love with the same woman; a frustrated wife protests her husband’s neglect by going on strike with the miners’ union; a lover’s drug habit reunites a woman with the sister she has lost.Anchor Books is proud to publish an expanded edition of Michael Crummey’s brilliant collection Flesh and Blood, which includes three original stories written just for this edition. Graceful, affecting, and generous of spirit, these stories are unforgettable.

    Each of these tiny stories was inspired by an event, an overheard conversation, a piece of art or just a fleeting glance of something worth thinking about further.Collected in one volume, Carson's postcards present a panoramic view of contemporary Belfast -- its coffee shops, streets and museums and airports -- and offer it to the wider world. Even as they seem to spring from a writer's solitary perspective, taken together, these observations and their distribution speak of human connectedness. Like a pleasant surprise in the mail, this collection reminds us how many friendships are born and strengthened in a story shared.Illustrated by Benjamin Phillips.

     Katie, Elizabeth and Hannah Schwartz are three sisters that love their Amish lives, but one by one they are tempted by the outside world and love. When their mother died Katie, the eldest, took it upon herself to take care of her sisters and her father. At the age of twenty-six Katie yearns to love and to have a family of her own but she isn’t sure her sisters will manage without her. In a twist of events, Elizabeth and Hannah plan a trick to prove to Katie that they can. Will Katie find love this Christmas after all? Elizabeth had always enjoyed the company of her bible but when the Bishop’s wife is in a brutal buggy accident, she offers to find their son. Jacob and Elizabeth had been friends before he left the ordnung, when Elizabeth finds him and takes him to see his mother, she can’t help but wonder if they will ever be friends again. Will the bishop’s wife recover, will Jacob revisit his decision to leave the ordnung? Hannah had always been the curious one, younger than Katie by almost ten years, she is excited to go on rumspringa. When Hannah disappears without a word, Elizabeth and Katie are grief-stricken. But what they don’t realize is that Hannah had returned and was hiding out in their barn with the help of their farmhand Paul. What happened to make Hannah hide from her family? Can Hannah reunite with her family in time to enjoy an Amish Christmas?

    It is time to rewrite the stories. We are no longer the hero’s love interest. Neither do we believe in happily ever after. We do not wish to dance to anybody else’s tunes. We choose our path. We make mistakes. We learn from them. We love. We lose. We age. We evolve. These are stories of women. Different women. For we cannot and should not stereotype women. These stories are of relationships. These stories touch upon social issues. These stories may inspire you. These stories make you feel like you are not alone. These stories may surprise you. These stories may entertain you. I hope everybody would be able to pick something they like.

    A simple touch sending currents of electricity flowing through a body. The feeling of coming home. Friends become lovers. Strangers become soulmates. The chemistry ignited when two people are falling in love is undeniable. Over the course of five short stories, follow these couples on journeys of passion and discover what happens when they decide to let sparks fly…

    This time there are no suave, wise-cracking good guys, no humorless, drug-addled bad guys. The story I want to tell you is all about how I learned to sleep at night, to close my eyes without seeing cold places and dead eyes… how I dragged whatever was left of me up out of the dark, finally. That’s the story I want to tell, because that’s the story I need to hear. I want to know how it ends..."Returning to normal life after his dark days in the depths of the Jianghu hasn't been easy for Randall Lee. With big changes coming in his future, though, Randall offers to help rehabilitate an injured friend, only to find that the need for healing goes far deeper than he ever expected. Bridging the events of Jianghu and the upcoming Randall Lee Mystery, The Art of War, Eating Bitter is a quiet story of resilience and perseverance, punctuated with Randall's trademark humor and self-deprecation.

    

    But he discovers that there is more than a ghost causing mayhem. The Mansion is a fast-paced supernatural story about 10,000 words long.