Bugs of the Future Primitive: A Colouring Book by Ian Pyper-
A fine art colouring book from artist Ian Pyper, featuring Future Primitive drawings of bugs in various evolutionary and transformative states, collectively and individually, rendered beautifully in black and white and awaiting their metamorphosis into vibrant works to hang upon the wall.
The Crazy Creatures Colouring Book by Liz Parkinson-
The Crazy Creatures Colouring Book, a fine art colouring book from artist Liz Parkinson, features an imaginative slant on Australian animals. These wonderfully creative black and white drawings make perfect colouring pages for little hands and big hands alike.
Mr. Abobaziz & The Nancy by Edward R. Beardsley-
A cautionary tale of eroticism, innocence and corruption, and trickery told in 137 drawings. Mr. Abobaziz & The Nancy began life as a storyboard for a film, was transformed into a graphic novel, and is presented here, finally, in paperback form.
Codex Ocularis by Ian Pyper-
Codex Ocularis is the Log Book of a lone Astronaut/Psychonaut/Holonaut in a holographic exploration through space and time to an extremely large planet in the distant recesses of an unknown galaxy. Mimetic in character, it has focused its gaze on the Earth and its water and has consequently created weird and wonderful organisms in its vast internal fluid-filled centre.
Garden Prayers: Winter by T.M. Givens-
Garden Prayers: Winter is a collection of 20 drawings made at the Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden in Claremont, California. These are “conversations with the living things in this living place,” says artist T.M. Givens.
Garden Prayers: Spring by T.M. Givens-
Garden Prayers: Spring is the second collection of drawings made at the Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden in Claremont and in Cambria, California. These are “still part of the meditation I experience while looking at or experiencing or talking to or wondering about or thinking of these living places,” says artist T.M. Givens.
Garden Prayers: Summer by T.M. Givens-
Garden Prayers: Summer is the third collection of drawings made at the Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden in Claremont and in Upland, California. These are, as artist T.M. Givens states, “still based on the idea that they are prayers ... what about if I don’t have enough good words to let you know what I believe or that I’m thinking ... can you understand that well enough?”
Garden Prayers: Fall by T.M. Givens-
Garden Prayers: Fall is the fourth collection of drawings made at the Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden (now the California Botanic Garden) in Claremont and in Upland, California. Artist T.M. Givens asks, “how do you learn to read when there are no words to express what you are thinking? Well, I think that’s what I was up to in these four books with drawings of my prayers.”
Photos of People at the March on Washington August 28, 1963 by T.M. Givens-
Photographs of people at the March on Washington, August 28, 1963. Taken by D. Dean Givens, these photographs focus on the people gathering at the Capitol and on the National Mall in preparation for the Civil Rights March. This beautiful volume features commentary and observations from artist TM Givens, the photographer's son.
Fiction
Right of Capture by Isadora Deese-
Practically overnight, shape-shifting creatures and deadly portals have appeared, made possible by an otherworldly energy inside two children, Roan and Judge Gorey.
To Judge, his sister is a selfish hack who deserves some payback. Roan thinks Judge is nothing more than a mistake that needs erasing.
The answer to the mysterious origin of the Gorey children must be found - or constructed. Are the children a product of Nature, or a side effect of experiment? Will Roan and Judge destroy the world before being given the chance to save it?
Riven's Path by Isadora Deese- Riven’s Path is the thrilling sequel to 2016's Right of Capture. On this adventure, Judge follows a trail of breadcrumbs to a reclusive physicist while Roan finds herself the unwitting star of a traveling road show. Judge and Roan discover new instincts—and new horrors—along a path that leads them from the poisoned hollers of Pennsylvania to Iowa farms infested by superweeds. The freedom to explore their powers along the way locks Roan and Judge into a dangerous arms race, creating shock waves that could either save our planet, or give it the final shove over the edge.
Tales of the Mer Family Onyx: Mermaid stories on land and under the sea by Susan I. Weinstein- Mythical Mer creatures often reflect humankind's ambivalence about nature. Tales of The Mer Family Onyx explores their worlds through the magical household of Neptune and Glendora, stewards of the seas. Like L. Frank Baum's Oz and E. Nesbit's Five Children and It, this is a 'family book' for adults and mixed age groups of children.
This new edition features updated content and wonderful illustrations from the author.
Jex Blackwell Saves the World by P. William Grimm- Jex Blackwell Saves the World is a Dadaesque homage to Donald Sobol’s Encyclopedia Brown series, or perhaps a Sobolesque homage to the Dada movement. The main character is a sixteen-year old punk with a secret genius for medicine and an equal passion for music; but life in her native Los Angeles home - filled with dark, gritty city streets and strange, sometimes desperate characters - is not easy. Trying to cope as a not-quite-adult in a massively adult world, Jex may not be able to save herself, but she is determined to at least save the world.
The Prince of Orange County by Kareem Tayyar-
It’s the summer of 1986 in Orange County, California, and ten-year-old Thomas Kabiri’s father has just left for Iran to attend a funeral. With no school in session for the next few months, and Thomas’s mother working two jobs to keep the family afloat, Thomas can live like Fountain Valley’s answer to Huck Finn, spending his unsupervised days playing basketball at the local park, where an assorted cast of local characters come to shoot hoops, argue about pop culture, and tell tall tales so grandiose they would put Walter Mitty to shame.
The Prince of Orange County is a work that captures the sometimes funny, sometimes painful, always colorful experience that is growing up, and it does so with an unwavering affection for its large and diverse cast of characters.
Calls for Submission by Selena Chambers- Selena Chambers’ debut collection guides readers out of space and time and through genre and mythos to explore the micro-cosmic horrors of identity, existence, and will in the face of the world’s adamant calls for submission. Victorian tourists take a virtual trip through their (and the Ottoman empire’s) ideal Orient; a teenage girl learns about independence and battle of the bands, all while caring for her mesmerized, dead mother; a failed Beat poet goes over the edge while exploring the long-abandoned Government Lethal Chambers. Visceral, evocative, and with a distinct style that is both vintage and fresh, Calls for Submission introduces a glowing, new writer of the weird and strange.
Footprints in Wet Cement by Peter Wortsman- These Footprints in Wet Cement are just that: stories some experienced, some homespun, some dredged from the fertile detritus of dreams; impressions gathered and ruminations fermented over the past decade or so—the fleeting imprint of a life left to harden in the tenuous mold of language. Straddling the tenuous borderline between the narrative and the poetic, they are all the product of a pressed aesthetic.
Tales of a Minstrel by Tala Bar-
Tales of a Minstrel follows the adventures of a minstrel named Finbar as he travels from village to village telling his stories. Throughout his travels he encounters a wide variety of intriguing characters and fantastic settings including a family of magicians (some ignorant of their powers), a mother and daughter who become animals, and an epic battle with evil featuring Ofara the Witch, an intriguing character who calls upon Finbar to help defend the world and save magic from destruction.
Rain After Midnight by Don Skiles- Most of the pieces in Rain After Midnight can be thought of as filmic, as “long story short.” The shortness of the form works, like the compression required in a good poem.
There are four distinct groupings or sets of stories: One set has to do with film, cinema, movies; a second springs from thinking about writing, what is involved; pieces connected with England make a third grouping; and the fourth is the past, that great well.
As the French film director Godard said, when a reporter asked him if he thought that a film should have a beginning, middle and end, “Yes. But not necessarily in that order.”
The Princess of Herself by Roberta Allen- With dark humor, the recurring characters in Roberta Allen's stories see themselves and others through distorting mirrors. The pain of never quite connecting is thrown into shadow as they go about their everyday lives and try to recapture their youth.
Across the Street From the Ordinary by Don Skiles-
Across The Street From The Ordinary is a collection of recent short fiction. The stories here move through a wide variety of settings, characters, narratives - all not quite conventional.
The Lonely Young & the Lonely Old by Tim Miller- The Lonely Young and the Lonely Old is a collection of lyrical fictions. Told in the words of unnamed narrators, each story gives voice to the easily dismissed, speaks from the center of an almost paralyzed intensity, desperately searching for articulation and belonging, beautifully capturing simplicity and generosity with poetic brilliance.
The Feral Boy who lives in Griffith Park: Extended Second Edition by Tim Kirk-
Tim Kirk writes and edits a collection of stories set in a world where “The Feral Boy who lives in Griffith Park” exists. The largest urban park in the nation, dwarfing New York's Central Park by five to one, is the fertile ground where new myths and legends grow. A murderous Western Swing guitarist, a golf caddie turned tabloid writer, a pair of tweakers at their first parent support group, a suicidal father taking his last hike, and other stories span decades of life in Los Angeles.
This expanded second edition features new stories from Annette Zilinskas, Matt Oswalt, and Hadley Meares as well as original stories by Rob Zabrecky, Steve Newman, Josh Lawson, Tim Davis, Patrick Cooper, David Carpenter. And two new stories by Tim Kirk.
99 Miles from L.A. by P. David Ebersole-
A hard-boiled crime story with a bi-sexual love triangle peppered with double-crosses. A music professor, an unhappily married woman and a Mexican bartender band together to steal a buried fortune.
The Posthumous Papers of Sidney Fein by Robert Wexelblatt- The imaginary author/teacher/father Sidney Fein (1942-1984) was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Fein published three books as well as a quantity of verse and fiction, much of it unpublished and some published under pseudonyms.
Pseudonymity is just one of the themes of the collection but its scope is wide and unpredictable. Among the thirty-five pieces are a keynote address, short stories, poems, essays on a variety of philosophical and literary subjects, including the work of other imaginary authors.
Each piece is accompanied by remarks from the scholar who, at the behest of his daughter, has edited the papers left behind by Fein on his death at the age of forty-two. The book includes a preface from the actual author and a postscript that includes a retrospective essay on Fein’s work by an imaginary critic along with notes for the new book Fein was just beginning when he died.
Burnt by Tim Kirk-
Burnt is a dark multi-generational drama that spans a century of intrigue, murder and good daughters of bad guys. It was originally written as an online serial. Chapters were published weekly between January 2010 and February 2011. Three interwoven stories, like threads in the rope of a noose, that spans a century of intrigue, murder and good daughters of bad guys.
Jesus Christ, Boy Detective by J. Bradley-
Trapped in the body of boy detective extraordinaire Timmy Hightower, Jesus Christ is forced by his father to solve mysteries no mortal should ever solve. With the help of Timmy's uncle, a fourth generation circus knife thrower/acquitted serial killer Leopold Franz, they search for answers and for a way home.
Cold Earth Wanderers by Peter Wortsman-
Cold Earth Wanderers is a science fiction novel set in a completely built-up world where vertical values are prized while all horizontal tendencies are suspect.
16 year old Elgin Marble has had enough of a world that is decidedly vertical. When his father, an upstanding elevator man, is marked for disposal, Elgin joins an underground group called the Crabs. This illicit group tirelessly digs tunnels in the hope of one day breaking through to the outside. But who are the Crabs, and can they be trusted? Elgin's mother, Ellen, is worried sick about her son. The ruthless school principal, Mr. Orion, warns her that Elgin is in big trouble and blackmails her for sexual favors. Together they go underground to search for the boy. Meanwhile, agents of the IVT (Institute for Vertical Thinking) are also hot on his trail, and the Crabs are feeling the heat.
Heiberg's Twitch by Robert Wexelblatt-
The fourteen stories in Heiberg's Twitch were not selected for their resemblance to one another, but for their differences in character, tone, and form. The aim is to deploy imagination and invention to furnish tales about the variety of human conditions, the scope of thought, the diversity of experience. Settings range from a Scandinavian island to ancient Chinese courts, from the streets of Hyde Park in Boston to the galleries of midtown Manhattan, from Southern California to Eastern Europe, from Africa to South America—in one story, both continents at once. The stories are populated by schoolboys and poets, dictators and delinquents, college girls and composers, businessmen and scientists. Each tale conjures its own world, has its own language, aims to illuminate a distinct experience, a unique situation. Like human life, the stories in Heiberg's Twitch are comic, sad, pathetic, perplexing, and tragic.
Christ Never Showed Up by Tim Kirk-
Joe is sixteen years old and the star of his church's puppet play team. Then he gets hit by a bus and has emergency surgery, but he's not worried -- his hero will meet him at the Pearly Gates. Nope. Too lazy. Back among the living, Joe sets out to break every rule, commit every sin, and watch John Candy movies. His journey takes him to LA where he seeks the guidance of an incarcerated former puppet play master, meets a pretty Goth and her friends at Forest Lawn, drives a taco truck, becomes a viral sensation and hangs out with Jimmy Caan!
The Mirror & The Monkey by RS Deese and Chuck Wadey-
The story of a king and queen, a priest, a dragon, a courageous monkey, and a wily girl who lives in the wilderness.
Best Microfiction 2024 by Meg Pokrass, Gary Fincke, and Grant Faulkner, editors-
The Best Microfiction anthology series provides recognition for outstanding literary stories of 400 words or fewer. Co-edited by award-winning microfiction writer/editor Meg Pokrass, and Flannery O’Connor Prize-winning author Gary Fincke, the anthology features Grant Faulkner serving as final judge, and eighty-four of the world's best very short short stories.
Best Microfiction 2021 by Meg Pokrass, Gary Fincke, and Amber Sparks, editors-
The Best Microfiction anthology series provides recognition for outstanding literary stories of 400 words or fewer. Co-edited by award-winning microfiction writer/editor Meg Pokrass, and Flannery O’Connor Prize-winning author Gary Fincke, the anthology features the award-winning author Amber Sparks serving as final judge.
Best Microfiction 2022 by Meg Pokrass, Gary Fincke, and Tania Hershman, editors-
The Best Microfiction anthology series provides recognition for outstanding literary stories of 400 words or fewer. Co-edited by award-winning microfiction writer/editor Meg Pokrass, and Flannery O’Connor Prize-winning author Gary Fincke, the anthology features Tania Hershman serving as final judge.
Best Microfiction 2019 by Meg Pokrass, Gary Fincke, and Dan Chaon, editors-
The Best Microfiction anthology series considers stories of only 400 words or fewer. Co-edited by award-winning microfiction writer/editor Meg Pokrass, and Flannery O’Connor Prize-winning author Gary Fincke, the anthology will have the well-known novelist and short story writer Dan Chaon serve as final judge. The inaugural edition, Best Microfiction 2019, features eighty seven of the world's best very short stories.
Best Microfiction 2023 by Meg Pokrass, Gary Fincke, and Deb Olin Unferth, editors-
The Best Microfiction anthology series provides recognition for outstanding literary stories of 400 words or fewer. Co-edited by award-winning microfiction writer/editor Meg Pokrass, and Flannery O’Connor Prize-winning author Gary Fincke, the anthology features Deb Olin Unferth serving as final judge.
Best Microfiction 2020 by Meg Pokrass, Gary Fincke, and Michael Martone, editors-
The Best Microfiction anthology series provides recognition for outstanding literary stories of 400 words or fewer. Co-edited by award-winning microfiction writer/editor Meg Pokrass, and Flannery O’Connor Prize-winning author Gary Fincke, the anthology features the award-winning author Michael Martone serving as final judge.
The House of Grana Padano by Meg Pokrass and Jeff Friedman-
The House of Grana Padano is a collection of tragi-comic, fabulist microfiction by two modern masters of the form, each story a world unto itself.
Bodies in Recline by Michael C. Keith-
Bodies in Recline contains micro-fiction tales that probe the experience and struggle of humans as they attempt to retain their sanity in a world that frequently conspires against their effort to do so.
Hold Still Fast by Sean Pravica-
“Hold Still Fast” is a collection of 200 short vignettes of 50 words and under, prose snapshots of a wide range of colorful characters. Moments of reckoning and realizations of loss, sensual celebrations of the physical world and mysteries whose answers lie barely out of reach, these stories are complete in their telling yet rich in implication. They are the stories we tell when we see more than we say, when we feel more than we know. Immediate. Intimate. Fast stories with time held still.
Autobiography Without Words by Peter Cherches- There’s a thin line between memoir and fiction, and Peter Cherches walks it in Autobiography Without Words. We follow the main character, variously known as Pete, Mr. Cherches and Peter Cherches, through the big and small adventures of life, from childhood crimes and punishments to trips to India and Mars. A departure from the cool minimalism of Cherches’ previous collection, Lift Your Right Arm, this book will break your heart, mess with your head and have you rolling on the floor, all at once.
Lift Your Right Arm by Peter Cherches-
The five sequences of Lift Your Right Arm are minimalist novels of sorts—thought-provoking, mostly deadpan prose that is often darkly humorous. From the stark relationship studies of "Bagatelles" and "Dirty Windows" to the wry observations of "Mr. Deadman" and "A Certain Clarence," the stars of these pieces are Peter Cherches’ unique takes on Everyman and Everywoman—dead or alive—navigating a world in which very little is what it seems.
California Continuum, Volume 1 by Grant Hier and John Brantingham-
California Continuum, Volume 1: Migrations and Amalgamations is a non-chronological look at little discussed aspects of California history. Hier and Brantingham look as far back as California’s geologic past, fast forwarding to the age of the mastodons, to when only Native Americans inhabited this land, to the present age.
The Dog Seated Next to Me by Meg Pokrass- Meg Pokrass’s sixth collection of flash fictions represents best in class of the short literary form; miniature stories that will jump into your lap and let you stroke them, fierce stories that will frighten you, snarl and bare their teeth. For those who don’t like dogs, there are love-struck cockroaches, six-foot spiders, blue-tongued skinks, Margaret Thatcher-like spouses, horny night bugs. Meg Pokrass’s stories are about the necessary animals sitting next to all of us.
The Corridors of Longing by Gary Fincke-
The Corridors of Longing is a widely varied collection of flash fiction, not only through voice and situation, but also through distinctively different forms.
A Modern Way to Die by Peter Wortsman- First published in 1991, and now issued in a second edition, comprising short short fictions most written in the Eighties, A Modern Way to Die, by Peter Wortsman, “predates the in-vogue term flash fiction, but it's surely one of the cornerstones of the tradition,” (according to short form pioneer Peter Cherches). As Wortsman notes in the book’s original foreword, these texts appeared “in the absence of big things to say […] guided only by the precarious optimism of the pen.” Conceived as a disjointed compendium of narrative treatments of life’s common denominator, death, the book’s spare hit and run aesthetic gravitates from enhanced neon hyperrealist reportage to nightmare parable to plummet the surreal substrata of the American Dream.
The History of the Baker’s Dozen by Gary Fincke-
The History of the Baker's Dozen features a distinctly voiced collection of flash fiction, including two full-length stories constructed from fourteen inter-connected, but originally stand-alone flash fictions.
Before. During. After. by Philip Charter-
Before. During. After. explores the themes of family, inequality and loss in modern American society. Across a series of twenty interconnected stories, characters in a small town navigate events that will change their lives forever.
Agave Blues by Ruthie Marlenée-
SECOND EDITION
Mix together a little family, drama, ghosts and Tequila, and you get a hell of a cocktail!
Other Places, Other Times by Robert Wexelblatt-
Other Places, Other Times is a collection of historical fictions. Half are set in Sui China, half in a variety of times and locations.
Stumbling Out the Stable by Sean Pravica-
Stumbling Out the Stable is an irreverent trip down the turbulent backroads of early adulthood. Seamus, a college student with aspirations to hitch hike aimlessly after graduation, grows increasingly unsettled with the vagueness of the future. His friend Jamie, on the other hand, revels in its unpredictability. Together, they party with colorful characters, raise hell at their anarchistic workplace, and wax philosophic about life's hidden glitches. After a series of accidents intersect their lives, the boys stumble to find their footing as it becomes clear that not everything in life can be avoided.
The Anarchist's Girlfriend by Susan I. Weinstein-
Both mystic and blank canvas, The Anarchist's Girlfriend’s encounters reflect her society—art, politics, business, religion. Inspired by Dostoyevsky's divine “Idiot,” the AG is a clairvoyant Brooklyn Go-Go Girl who designs clothes of the future. Delightfully retro and powerfully prescient, the novel satirizes New York’s bohemian underground and the America of any time.
As passion and hypocrisy erupt in a cloud of dust, character becomes destiny in this novel of ideas. The AG must save her imperiled city. And in the end, innocence is not lost but transcended.
Football by Don Skiles-
Football is a powerful character-driven tale using football as a framework in which to examine teenage life in 1956 in Western Pennsylvania. This thoughtful story follows Larry Simmons through several life-changing events as 1957 looms on the horizon. Should he continue his athletic aspirations? Will he be inspired by more poetry? What does high school mean to him? And what is happening with Cameron Mitchell?
Fingerless by Ian Donnell Arbuckle-
Fingerless is an engaging story featuring a dynamic transgender protagonist. This compelling novel examines the frustration and confusion in her life as well as an insightful and compassionate exploration of gender, relationships, family, and friendship
Petrichor by David Scott Ewers-
Stevie Ludich stumbles upon an isolated, word-covered dry lake bed in this cerebral and adventurous novel. Petrichor is a well-paced black comedy with a paranoiac dose of science fiction washed over with ruminations on identity, language and the composition of reality.
Paradise Gardens by Susan I. Weinstein- PARADISE GARDENS is an Orwellian dystopia set in a near future world, where the Federal government has dissolved amid ecological breakdown.
Suspended between the settings of 2250s on the Earth’s surface in NYC and 3011s underground, chapters alternate with a revolving cast of characters. At stake, is the reset of the planet. In this cautionary near-future, Upton Sinclair’s classic It Can’t Happen Here, has already happened. It is a vision at once strange and familiar. The recognition it brings is a dark pleasure.
Ultimate Resort by David Scott Ewers- An artists community is planning something big for this year's gathering - something to put them back on the map. The sudden influx of capital piques the interest of a couple of investigators searching for the mysterious benefactors.
Thousands of miles away Avery Krizan and Aisha Sandoval recount their journey through Primera, their encounters with the local color, and what exactly led them to this place. Was it the search for a book? Wanderlust? Some sort of conspiracy? “Build you and the world will come” and in time all three things - the dream, the dream-come-true, and the memory - will merge.
Let Me Tell You How It Isn't by Justin J. Murphy-
Let Me Tell You How It Isn’t follows the life of 22-year-old Justin Murphy as he searches for his estranged Lebanese father through London. Raised primarily by his Irish Catholic grandparents in Los Angeles, Justin struggles to identify with a Middle Eastern heritage he knows little about and refuses to accept. As a result, he embarks on a booze-fueled journey of self-discovery—but he isn’t alone. His Jain girlfriend—a vociferous critic of his drinking—is along for the ride that leads them across Europe and down into the depths of their own relationship.
Let Me Tell You How It Isn’t is a story of culture clash, identity, and love—all of which can tear a family apart and bring them back together.
Layla and the Lake by Marcia D. Ross-
Layla brings her two children to visit her former in-laws at a lakeside cottage in rural Maine. She is greeted with wariness, and there she discovers love and trouble across the water.
Set in the early 1980s, Layla and the Lake exposes the harsh fallout from a failed marriage and a quest for writing with courage in the midst of a doomed affair that itself takes place amid a family crisis.
Layla and the Lake is the story of a family that is no longer a family. Its narrative mines the riches of the written word, the awakening of conscience in even the very young, and the inexplicable beauty of natural existence.
A Hairpiece Named Denial by S. Sal Hanna-
Alice, a writer of comic prose, is an elderly widow with no heirs who had kept her wealth a private matter. A HAIRPIECE NAMED DENIAL explores her unique plan to give away seven million dollars. Set in a small town on the Great Plains in the 1980s, the story captures Alice’s offbeat humor as she interacts with a young man who holds a B.A. in Philosophy and wears an Elvis-pompadour hairpiece. A HAIRPIECE NAMED DENIAL, the debut novel by S. Sal Hanna, is a comic work that harbors serious insights into the human condition.
Circa by Adam Greenfield- “Circa” is a dark comedy featuring Henry Colmes, a high school sophomore trying to find his place in school and life. In alternating chapters, it is also the story of Henry as a thirty-something cub reporter trying to track down an elusive cult leader in order to interview him for the man’s own obituary.
At once heartfelt, tragic, and surreal, “Circa,” the debut novel from author Adam Greenfield, looks at the pivotal moments in a person’s life that lead them to make the decisions they can never take back and, ultimately, never forget.
Mountain Lion Blues by Adam Greenfield-
Struggling to find some meaning in his life, Duncan Beldon’s world gets turned upside down when he’s forced to confront — in his relationships and at work — the inexhaustible hunger of a real life mountain lion living inside of him.
Whistler's Mother's Son by Peter Cherches-
Whistler’s Mother’s Son collects over 100 prose pieces of varying length and styles—from minimalism to satire to noir to children’s tale to abstraction to surrealism. Featuring a cast of characters includes Hamlet, Gertrude Stein, Amelia Earhart, Fred Flintstone, Mr. Mondrian, a little girl whose mother takes up with a smelly old man, embattled aunties and uncles, a man with two mustaches, several hard-boiled dicks, and an eternally confused Peter Cherches.
Everything Happens to Me by Peter Cherches-
This episodic novel chronicles the trials and tribulations of Peter Cherches, an obscure Brooklyn writer who suffers the slings and arrows of outrageous tormentors, most notably his next-door neighbor. Cherches’s world is overrun with doppelgängers, doppelgängers’ doppelgängers, malevolent technology, masks, doubts, and unreliable mirrors. Think of this as a kinder and gentler Book of Job, with New York attitude and borscht belt humor, as well as echoes of Kafka, Borges, and Serling. Rarely has one man’s misery been so much fun.
Nonfiction
Closing the Book: Travels in Life, Loss, and Literature by Joelle Renstrom-
Closing the Book: Travels in Life, Loss, and Literature explores the intersection of literature and life in personal essays about traveling, teaching, reading, writing, living, and dying. Each essay's narrative arc is formed and informed by the act of reading literature that makes a reader feel like the book she's reading was somehow written specifically for her to read in that exact moment.
How to Behave by L.M. Rainer-
These essays will provide you with the wisdom of the ages - the insights of Wilde, Austen, Milton, Shakespeare, Cavavfy, both Brontës and all the ancient Greeks. You will know how to dress, talk, organize, decorate and comport yourself in every possible situation, especially in cafés. You will be smart, kind, witty, compassionate and have fabulous glossy hair. Yes, reading books makes your eyelashes longer and makes you look far more worldly and mysterious. Oh yes, this book will help you appear worldlier and more mysterious with many important facts you can drop into casual conversations and work meetings. Just carrying it will improve your posture, and see how well it coordinates with your outfit! You look smarter already.
MASS: A Sniper, a Father, and a Priest by Jo Scott-Coe- On August 1, 1966, after murdering his wife and mother at home, Charles Whitman climbed the clock tower at UT Austin and ordained himself high priest of the first televised mass shooting and “domestic terror” spectacle in American history. Without realizing it, Whitman replicated a twisted version of the Catholic rituals he had learned as an altar boy, in a culture where he saw how priests and fathers could get away with almost anything. This gruesome liturgy has continued to repeat on TV and in headlines for more than half a century. In MASS: A Sniper, a Father, and a Priest, Jo Scott-Coe uncovers a buried story to probe the hidden wounds of paternal-pastoral failure and interrogate our collective American conscience. Contains extensive supplementary materials, including author’s notes and sources.
Louder Than Goodbye by Allen Callaci-
Louder Than Goodbye: Reflections and Remembrances from Kurt Cobain to Mary Tyler Moore to the Most Sinister Man to Ever Walk the Earth is a collection of meditations on the passing of pop culture figures and the personal connections to such figures, and reflections on how the loss of a larger than life figure can act as a barometer and unwitting spiritual guide through the different phases of one’s own existence.
100 Cassettes by Dennis Callaci-
100 Cassettes take the reader through a series of impressions of possible music releases over the last fifty years through the eyes of musician/label owner Dennis Callaci
Self Empunishment by Brian Walsby-
Self Empunishment contains 34 conversations with self-reliant, self-employed, and otherwise self-motivated musicians, technicians, and artists. The interviews, conducted by Brian Walsby, are revealing discussions about what has led these artists to where they are now, what choices have guided their journey, why they do what they do, and how they have made it work for them. Also, plenty of talk about individual successes, failures, lawsuits, rivalries, obstacles, friendships, and memorable events along the way.
Self Empunishment by Brian Walsby, beautifully illustrated by the author and featuring an introduction by Bob Durkee, presents this series of interviews in one densely-packed, story-filled volume.
Pomona A to Z by David Allen-
David Allen takes an alphabetical tour through 26 uniquely entertaining aspects of Pomona, California with this delightful series of newspaper columns that first appeared in the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin. This 10th anniversary edition, the first time in book form, includes updates, commentary, a foreword by broadcast journalist Steve Julian, and a new introduction by the author.
Getting Started by David Allen-
To mark his 20th anniversary at the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, David Allen goes back to the beginning to survey his first four years of columns, when the valley was new territory for him. After unpacking endlessly, he reports for jury duty in Chino, attends a Mexican wrestling match in Pomona and pays attention to movie dialogue about Rancho Cucamonga.
Even if you follow David Allen's current work in your daily newspaper, you probably never saw these columns, or if you did, forgot you read them or repressed the memory. Here they are again, with all the duds removed (we hope), and with a candid introduction by the author about trying to establish himself when he was just - wait for it - getting started.
On Track by David Allen-
Humorous and local-interest newspaper columns from the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin (Ontario, Calif.) written by David Allen and published from 2001 to 2005. Topics include Jack Benny, George Putnam, “The O.C.,” Fred Willard, Raymond Burr, University of La Verne and Cal Poly Pomona and cities cited include Rancho Cucamonga, Pomona and Ontario.
100 Years of the Los Angeles County Fair, 25 Years of Stories by David Allen-
25 years of stories about the Los Angeles County Fair written by columnist David Allen.
My Bariatric Year by Tim Hatch-
My Bariatric Year is an insider's look at author Tim Hatch's weight-loss surgery. With entries dealing with tough topics like self-image and self-evaluation, this is a fascinating look at coping, reflection, and relearning the process of living.
Heart Like A Starfish by Allen Callaci-
Allen Callaci is a librarian, rock and roll singer, and heart transplant recipient. Heart Like a Starfish is his account of that death-defying journey and the healing that follows for both himself and those around him. A portion of the proceeds of the book will be donated to Cedars-Sinai Heart Research Institute where the procedure was performed.
Crossed Paths: Desperation Squad and the Age of Fortuitism by Kevin Ausmus-
Crossed Paths documents and explores a slice of the underground art and music scene in the Pomona Valley of California, beginning in the early 1980s and moving into the 21st Century with a particular focus on The Desperation Squad. Highlights include stories from The Warped Tour, America's Got Talent, and lead singer Kevin Ausmus's run for mayor of Pomona (the "Rock and Roll Mayor").
My Father's War Stories As Told By Toys by Tom Ahern-
The house was small, built on the GI Bill. In its knotty-pine kitchen, beneath the gaze of countless wooden eyes darkened by cigarette smoke, “My dad told war stories.”
Scores of war stories, for endless hours, for years, in unusual detail.
Tom's dad was a 1919 flu-epidemic orphan. Survived the Great Depression. Survived combat in World War 2. Survived a lifetime in a factory. Survived a son who turned on him, as the Vietnam War drifted into “nuts.” Survived a wife who rose to the management of a daily newspaper, then killed herself. This is one insider’s perspective.
Lunch with Lizabeth by Todd Hughes-
Obsessed fan -- gay filmmaker Todd Hughes -- meets his idol, noir queen Lizabeth Scott, for lunch and a twenty-year friendship ensues, filled with ups and downs.
Chaos and Ash by Kendall Johnson-
Chaos and Ash records one consultant’s views from the inside of some of the largest critical incidents over the past twenty-five years—many front page headliners, that stand out in the nation’s memory.
From 1987 to 2012 Kendall Johnson served as traumatic stress consultant to emergency service agencies and the military—in various settings—often in the field. It is within the extremes of life experience that important lessons can be learned, that character comes to the fore, and that human nature—for better and for worse—is most clearly revealed.
Epiphany of a Middle-Aged Pilgrim by Peter Wortsman-
In Epiphany of a Middle-Aged Pilgrim, Essays in lieu of a Memoir, author Peter Wortsman, best known for his prose fiction and plays, takes stock of life in late middle age.
How to Outsmart Your Cat by Bill Helmer-
How to Outsmart Your Cat is a manual for cat owners who wish to inject a little levity into their relationship with their feline friend.
Poetry
La Commedia Sotterranea della Macchina da Scrivere by Marc Zegans-
La Commedia Sotterranea della Macchina da Scrivere, commonly referred to as Felt’s First Folio from The Typewriter Underground, is a gathering of verse fragments and collages describing and illustrating the life of the Typewriter Underground, a spontaneous sub-cultural phenomenon that appeared with near simultaneity in a variety of cities and smaller locales across the globe in the late 20th and early 21st Century.
Surf Music by R.S. Deese-
The poems in Surf Music are all pretty short, and some of them are funny. Their subjects include being at the beach, believing people, believing things, losing people, encounters with plants & animals large and small, rain, machines, rocks, and sunlight.
The Underwater Typewriter by Marc Zegans-
The Underwater Typewriter immerses us in the ritual of finding and expressing voice, bestowed by grace, in the face of cruelty, chance, betrayal and loss. It arrives as a collection of weathered shards, gathered and turned, through which light and by implication love, bent and at times nearly occluded, passes kaleidoscopically. The Underwater Typewriter's shifting patterns reveal the variety and range demanded of a poet traversing brutal terrain, tempted by but refusing bitterness. Zegans' poetry inverts Browning, finding human possibility in the broken, and discovers life beyond Joseph Cornell's wistful memory compiled in the collage of remaindered things. Listen closely as you read, for sound travels great distances under water.
For Lack of Diamond Years by Caroline Beasley-Baker-
An idiosyncratic collection of short poems - most under 20 lines - where questions lead the way. The poems are a mixed set of free verse, unabashed counting forms like the Hay(na)ku and the Elfchen, and a very minimalist version of John Cage's mesostic form, along with a small number of poems based on colors, and a few that steal freely from traditional American songs.
Wayfarers by Katrinka Moore- Nomadic outsiders wander in a mythological world subject to chance, good or bad fortune. A family crosses the American Southwest in the 1920s. And a home dweller explores the mystery of familiar places. In these poems, tales told by multiple narrators, wayfarers move through a sparsely populated terrain, finding hardship, beauty, peril, the ineffable. Some are escaping events beyond their control, some choose to roam, and others stay in place, delving into the interior landscape.
Ariadne/Dark Dark Shine by Caroline Beasley-Baker- The poems in Ariadne/Dark Dark Shine are, as the starting poem says, “a lost/found/&repeat narration. The arcing-thread—a-whip/lifeline/way/the-magical-gift-given/odd-bit—discovered in an old sewing basket. (Who sews nowadays?) No enchanted sword or mirror—how much braver to pocket the spool of thread, head out, put your finger to a pulse and count. A puzzle sometimes, which simple thing reveals a boon.” The question posed, “labyrinth or circle?”.
Unfortunately, Thanks for Everything by T. Anders Carson- Unfortunately, Thanks for Everything is a collection of poems which follow the bicycle paths, travels, and familial challenges that have shaped the poet. These poems reflect the risk of exposing not only his autumnal trust in mankind but also the stratospheric darkness that befits those who have been exposed to suicide and orphaned young. He is a firm believer on the sun rising on us all.
Similitude by Grant Hier-
Similarity, relationship, and comparison thread this new collection by Anaheim Poet Laureate and Prize Americana-winning author, Grant Hier. From the tightly woven, stand-alone sonic knots of the opening poems, to the mirrored diptych full-poem pairings, on through to the final section of aphorisms and analogies, which are at once humorous and profound. The companion to Hier’s previous collection, The Difference Between, is thoughtful, well-wrought poetry that simultaneously connects the unexpected and reveals to us places of resonance.
The Difference Between by Grant Hier- The Difference Between is a collection of 66 poems that invite comparisons between seemingly disparate words, ideas, or things. While most these poems start with the anaphora, “The Difference Between,” by the end of the book it’s clear that this is as much a confirmation of our interconnectedness, an exploration of what Whitman calls the “vast similitude” that spans, holds, and encloses everything.
Diminuendo by Katrinka Moore-
From the entangled cosmos to our present quickening calamity, the central concern of Diminuendo is the making and unmaking of the world. We live in uncertainty, “between earth and sky ever- / cycling despair and hope.” Despite — or because of — this foreboding, Moore seeks to view the natural world in and of itself, beyond its relationship to humans. This work conceives a realm in which distinctions between animate and inanimate diminish and the boundary between physical and spiritual dissolves.
No. Wait. I Can Explain. by Brad Rose-
The peculiar speakers of No. Wait. I Can Explain. take liberties with standard colloquial speech, invent unusual similes, and employ unconventional variants of American idioms in order to offer quirky insights and unexpected moments of wisdom about the vagaries of contemporary American life.
Young Adult
Traveling the Twisting Troubling Tanglelows' Trail by Greg McGoon-
They exist in everyone's mind. The parts of us that twist and turn our thoughts into questions and doubts about ourselves. This is a guide through the messy thoughts we have from the day to day, showing us how to be kinder to ourselves and to others as we untangle their paths to a place of self-acceptance and understanding.
The Trampling Trembling Tanglelow Tale by Greg McGoon- Tension brews as a battle ensues within your mind. The Tramples and Trembles come face to face. These tricky types of Tanglelows know how to create a bit of chaos. Travel along the Tanglelows’ trail and work towards keeping our worries, doubts, and fears at bay.
Greg McGoon brings us the second installment in the ongoing Tanglelows tale exploring the inner-workings of children's emotions. With vibrant full-color illustrations by Jessa Orr and Greg McGoon's quirky rhymes, “The Tanglelows” is sure to open up wonderful conversations and meaningful explorations for years to come.
The Treacherous Tingling Tanglelow Trial by Greg McGoonWhat does it mean to love fully and free, when your wants and needs don’t always agree?
This tantalizing tale dives deeper into the mind to uncover a third Tanglelow.
The Tingles, the trickiest of all Tanglelows, are lost around love. Together these Tingles tackle their troubles, traveling the trail to this Tingling Trial. Travel along with the Tingles to track down love.
The Royal Heart by Greg McGoon-
Once upon a time in a faraway land, an heir to the throne is born. The King has a son to follow in his footsteps. But life might not be quite as it appears for this Royal Family. All will be revealed on their child's 16th birthday. Family love triumphs over doubt and together they grow stronger.
Join this Royal Family on the path to discovery, acceptance and celebration.
