A Forest Full of Roses
Money strapped Teresa Rose and her three-year-old twins are starting over…in enchanted Blue Jordan Forest, home to country hicks, magic and immortal beings۔
More info →Valeria’s Passport
In this coming of age love story, Valeria Ortiz has grown up without a father. She lives in a happy world all her own, cherishing old movies and reading too much. Her job as a maid, plus a little boozy help from her grandma, have gotten the Ortiz Family only so far. When her mom begins dating a college professor, Dr. Damon Mills, it’s a rude awakening when he falls for the wrong girl, and the wrong girl falls for a bullfighter.
More info →Persephone Underground
In this stand-alone sequel, a new generation of characters from A Forest Full of Roses return for a fairy tale set in a Hell, and best reached by boat.
More info →A Sampling of Life, One Taste at a Time: A Food Memoir
With insight, wit, common sense, and mouth-watering descriptions, comes a food memoir that takes place over many years, on different continents, and at kitchen tables across the Deep South and Midwestern America.
Part cookbook, part time machine, family recipes for Pig Pickin’ Cake, savory rib roast, hot sticky wings, Myesha’s Grape Salad and the stories behind them are shared – these are but a few of the dishes in a juicy repertoire that begins in the author’s childhood.
The former owner of a baking company, Wallace takes readers on flights to exciting destinations in Spain and Ghana; however, her life is far from being a cakewalk. Her memoir is interwoven with painful and poignant moments, like her mother’s death and disappearance of her beloved brother Tone Tone, who she’s still searching for in between bites, sips and chapters.
A Sampling of Life, One Taste at a Time invites the reader to prepare its dishes and sink their teeth into what it means to recreate wonderful meals shared with elders, siblings and friends…and if you happen to come across Tone tone, the author’s long lost brother, be sure to tell him there is an empty placeholder at Martha’s table.
Humans in the Wild: Reactions to a Gun Loving Country
Humans in the Wild: Reactions to a Gun Loving Country is a collection of flash fiction, poetry, art, personal essays and short stories about the many faces of gun violence, and how Americans grapple with over 15,000 deaths recorded by the Gun Violence Archive last year (2019) alone.
In the advent of Coronavirus, the number of mass shootings have sharply fallen; however, the pandemic has escalated racial tension, mental health issues, poverty and other systemic problems that create a perfect storm for either needing or running from guns.
A collection of over 30 works explore that tension from the point of view of teachers, soldiers, suburbanites, boys and girls, and sometimes the shooters themselves. They duck and cover in stories with titles like “Thoughts and Prayers” and “Balancing the Scales of Justice”.
Readers will identify with gut wrenching tales of parents, numb as they watch their child’s school fall into mayhem on T.V. They will identify with a protagonist rotting in jail for self-defense, a grief stricken man holding hostages at gunpoint, or the scared lady who frightens off a shooter by throwing a jar of loose change.
There are heroes, snipers, thieves and innocent bystanders — all demanding to know, in their own unique way, why the world is so messed up, and if it can ever be repaired.
And while some may pick up this book, thinking it’s an indictment of firearms, they are proved wrong by some of the poems and essays that acknowledge just how seductive guns can be.
Behind the smell of gun powder in these pages, are human admonitions of guilt over feeling the last mass shooting is just another Tuesday. The stories include those of reluctant, shell shocked teachers venting about the next active shooter drill — and not without droll humor.
This anthology was sponsored by MythicPicnic, an indispensable writers resource on Twitter. Friends of the “Twitterary” magazine include the author Kathy Fish, whose flash fiction, “Collective Nouns for Humans in the Wild” is the backbone of this book, and motivated many other talented writers and artists to answer Mythic Picnic/Swallow Publishing’s call for submissions.
More info →STRIVE for Greatness: Motivation in Your Own Image
Each day millions seek to emulate, keep abreast, and learn more about what makes certain people stand out and be successful. With focus and self determination, one can learn to stand out, and strive for their own greatness. S.T.R.I.V.E is comparable to intricate instruction on creating a rare and timely self-guided pathway to reaching your optimum goals in life.
More info →Being Human
Like looking through the lens of a documentary photographer, these stories depict themes of loss, love, hope, fear, deprivation, and redemption, universal to the human experience. Traditional Indian culture butts against modern technology, poverty meets tragedy and generosity, and the fantastic meets scientific explanation. At the core of it all is human relationship.
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