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DECEMBER 2008
poems by Ellen Waterston ISBN: 978-1-877655-60-9 , LCN: 2008934447 first trade paperback, 6 X 9, 106 pages, $14.00 Cover art: Ingrid Lustig Author photo: Carol Sternkopf Cover design: Kristin Summers, redbat design "The music of Ellen Waterston's language in Between Desert Seasons is touching and vibrant, fiery raw and refined, reined in and set free. The endings of so many of these poems are startling and perfect, compelling re-readings just to experience again the turn of logic and imagination that created them. I'm grateful for the open voice of this book that has allowed me to enter places, meet people, and experience ebvents I might otherwise have missed." --Pattiann Rogers, author of Wayfare "The poems in this collection search for a way beyond loneliness of self first by naming that loneliness and then by threading connections to the multi-layered world beyond the self...In Between Desert Seasons Waterston has found a way to "plant words strong enough" to do the work of describing what it means to be human." --Wendy Mnookin, author of The Moon Makes Its Own Plea "The men and women in these poems travel diverse landscapes from Oregon to Baja in search of love, solace, and the meaning of a touch. Ellen Waterston creates vivid, singular moments that shine beyond the words on the page." --Kent Nelson, author of The Touching That Lasts "The truth is: Ellen Waterston's poems arrive. They situate themselves naturally, to proceed in compelling, telling ways. Each poem leaves something behind." -- Lawson Fusao Inada, Oregon Poet Laureate and author of Legends from Camp "Ellen Waterston's new poems come from years of living in a desert of high revelation...[Her] poems create an oasis for all of us--a clear, remote, and vital spring, a woman's life beyond any macho western settler's museum or mirage." --George Venn, General Editor of the Oregon Literature Series and author of West of Paradise As a New Englander who married and moved to the ranching West, Waterston grounds her writing in both of those cultural and geographic landscapes. Her award-winning essays, short stories and poems have been widely published in numerous journals and anthologies. Her memoir, Then There Was No Mountain, Rowman and Littlefield publisher, was selected by the Oregonian as one of the top ten books in 2003, and nationally was a Foreword and WILLA finalist earning her an appearance on Good Morning America with Diane Sawyer. Her collection of poetry, I Am Madagascar, was awarded the WILLA Prize in Poetry in 2005. She is the winner of the 2007 Obsidian Prize in Poetry, the 2008 Oregon Quarterly Essay Award and the author of two childrfen's books, Barney's Joy and Tea at Miss Jean's, Roberts Rinehart publisher. Waterston is the recipient of numerous writing residency followships and honors, including the 2005 Fishtrap Writer-In-Residence, a 2003 Special Literary Fellowship for Women Writers given by Oregon's Literary Arts, and a 2007 honorary PhD in Humane Letters from Oregon State University/Cascade Campus for her work as an author and in support of the literary arts. She is the founder of the Writing Ranch www.writingranch.com , which supports writers through seminars and retreats, and is director of The Nature of Words www.thenatureofwords.org, an annual literary event held in Bend, Oregon the first weekend of November. Where the Crooked River Rises, a collection of personal and nature essays on the High Desert is slatedfor publication in 2009. She is working on a novel. Waterston received her Bachelor's degree from Harvard University and Master's degree from the University of Madagascar.
OCTOBER 2008
WHITE JADE & OTHER STORIES, seven short stories and a novella by Alex Kuo ISBN: 978-1-877655-61-6, LCN: 2008928198 first trade paperback, 6 X 9, 186 pgs., $13.95 Cover design: Kristin Summers, redbat design Author photo: Zoe Filipkowska "Alex Kuo's writing refuses to be pinned down, traveling from playful wit and searing sarcasm in eastern Oregon, to sorrowful tragedy in Shanghai. While the stories are dizzyingly smart and mischievous, the novella illuminates the depth of Kuo's talent for humanizing historical circumstances with fiercely vivid characters. 'White Jade' deconstructs and re-imagines the purpose and power of the literary autobiography." -- Aimee Phan, author of We Should Never Meet "I first fell in love with American literature through the poems and stories of Alex Kuo. This gorgeous and intelligent book confirms that love. I'll be reading Alex until the end of days." -- Sherman Alexie, author of Flight and Indian Killer “For Kuo… language is always political. As an Asian-American writer, Kuo has spent a career writing and living in China and the American West. The tension in his fiction is the anger, humor, irony and confusion you feel when you come from two worlds, neither of which really accepts you…and Kuo tells it with the steady gaze of a poet and with great empathy.” – Richard Wallace for The Seattle Times "Writer Alex Kuo challenges the perimeters of Asian American identity in his collection of short stories, “White Jade and Other Stories.” In this latest publication, Kuo’s characters offer a fresh perspective on the aftermath of transplanting one’s ancestral roots, from a recent Washington State University (WSU) graduate, ill-proficient in wielding chopsticks and unable to speak any Chinese dialect, to a promising student from 1920s Shanghai who flees to California amidst political unrest in her homeland. Given the wide divergence of each character’s historical and cultural reference points, the common thread of their Chinese heritage provides a focal theme, albeit with unexpected variations." Nancy Young Kwon, International Examiner Volume 35, No. 22 Alex Kuo has been an administrator and a teacher of writing, literature, ethnic and cultural studies at several American universities. He has also taught writing, translation and American literature in Chinese universities. He has three National Endowment for the Arts awards, and grants from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the United Nations, Artist Trust, and the Idaho, Pennsylvania and Washington state arts organizations. He has been awarded a Senior Fulbright, a Lingnan, and a Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio residency. He has also held the positions of Writer-in-Residence for Mercy Corps and the Distinguished Writer-in-Residence at Knox College. In 2008 he was invited to be the Distinguished Writer-in-Residence at Shanghai's Fudan University. More than three hundred-and-fifty poems , short stories, photographs and essays have appeared in magazines and newspapers. HIs most recent books are This Fierce Geography (poems/1999), Lipstick and Other Stories (2001) which received the 2002 American Book Award, and The Panda Diaries (novel/2006).
AUGUST 2008 SMALL PRESS REVIEW PICK, Sept./Oct. 2008
John Middlebury Murry by Linda Lappin ISBN: 978-1-877655-58-6, LCN: 2008925492 First trade paperback, 6 X 9, 228 pgs., $15 Cover photo by Linda Lappin Cover design by Kristin Summers, redbat design " Lappin has built on textual evidence from journals, letters, and diary entries in order to adhere to “an overall sense of truth” which she renders as her own mosaic. Her writing style, with its rhythm, flow, and sensual detail, richly evokes the significant social scene of a vanished era. " Joyce J. Thompson, Rain Taxi "A dramatic retelling of a story about an artist oppressed by the odds, [Katherine's Wish] gives narrative to the chaotic last years of [Katherine Mansfield's] life. Lappin draws from letters and other historical documents to bring the last years of Mansfield's life into bring, making Katherine's Wish an intriguing and highly recommended piece of writing." --The Midwest Book Review "Katherine's Wish is a beautifully observed novel [that] reveals a core truth: that Mansfield's was not so much a creative life cut short as one that flourished so long against all odds." -- Alexandra Johnson, author of The Hidden Writer "Katherine's Wish, fifteen years in the making, is a dazzling bit of fictional sorcery, conjuring to life the bright and talented swirl of modern society in the 1920s... This novel is a must read, whether you have historical interests per se or only enjoy a story so compelling and moving that there's no putting it down. I certainly couldn't!" -- David Lynn, Editor, the Kenyon Review "The author of two critically successful historical novels, Prisoner of Palmary and The Etruscan, Linda Lappin turns her gifted hand to fictional biography in Katherine's Wish... Like the 'new biography' of Lytton Strachery and analogous fiction by Virginia Wolff, Lappin's fictional life of Mansfield recreates the ineffable, 'rainbow-like' essence of a human being from the inside perspective of three people: Mansfield herself, her traveling friend Ida Baker, and [her husband, John Middleton] Murry." -- Wayne K. Chapman, Editor, The South Caroline Review LINDA LAPPIN READING FROM KATHERINE'S WISH (MP3s):
Linda Lappin is the author of The Etruscan (Wynkin de Worde, Galway, 2004) hailed by critics as a new classic in American writing about Italy . Semi-Finalist for the 2000 Three Oaks First Novel Prize awarded by Story-Line Press, in Oregon, The Etruscan was selected as a Book of the Week by Book View Ireland and praised by the Literary Review as "compelling, haunting, intriguing," and by Prairie Schooner as "gorgeously detailed, wickedly fun." She is also the author of Prisoner of Palmary, an experimental historical novel set in 18th century Italy, short-listed for the Mid-List First Novel Award in 1999. Her essays, poetry, reviews and fiction have appeared in a wide avriety of US publications, from the Kenyon Review to the Kansas City Star. She has twice been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. The last chapter of Katherine's Wish was short-listed for the Eric Hoffer short fiction award in 2007 and was published in Best New Writing 2007. She teaches Creative Writing for the U.S.A.C. Study Abroad program in Viterbo. She also directs the Writing Center of Centro Pokkoli www.pokkoli.org Her forthcoming books include Signatures in Stone, a mystery novel set in Bomarzo, Italy, and Spirits of Place, a creative writing textbook. Linda Lappin's websites are www.lindalappin.net and www.theetruscan.com
JULY 2008
CRAZY LOVE, stories by Leslie What ISBN: 978-1-877655-59-3, LCN: 2008921844 First trade paperback, 5.5 X 8.5, 200 pgs., $13.95 Cover art: "Wallpaper," Jessica Plattner Cover design: Kristin Summers, redbat design "'Queen of Gonzo' What (Olympic Games) drags love out of its gooey, schmaltzy rut and takes it for a joyride in this exuberant collection of 17 stories... No matter how brief or long, no matter how bizarre, each tales in this collection grabs readers and demands they rethink how they see all the myriad forms of love." -- Publishers Weekly Starred Review "An ace at the new weirdness defined by the anthology, Feeling Very Strange (2006), What uses it to be creepy, polemical, and funny, all at once or in various blendings. These 17 stories progress from grim to laugh-out-loud ludicrous without ever derogating their common subject, love, though they do depict it as fairly insane." --The Booklist Starred Review (July 2008) "Leslie What's wild and risk-taking fantasy tales have been largely overlooked, but her latest short story collection offers a great opportunity for wider attention. "Babies" is a blistering allegory of motherhood that fuses together bug exterminators, marital problems and obsessive solicitude in 13 pitch-perfect pages. The story's heroine carries the "extra weight" and protective quality of human pregnancy, while mothering cockroaches that "always came to her side whenever the bugman sprayed the landlord's kitchen." "Paper Mates" is a clever story in which paperwork quite literally reproduces like rabbits. What's stories, like Ray Bradbury's and Richard Matheson's, rely on high concepts to carry the narratives forward, but her prose works best when it is concise. Nearly every tale offers an unexpected surprise, but never feels too gimmicky. This is a universe in which one should never underestimate a woman in a ratty gorilla suit, even if her ability to "speak" with gorillas may very well be her only means of communication." -- Edward Champion, Washington Post Book World (Oct. 12-18, 2008)
"Ironic and uncompromising, Leslie What's collection is also unfailingly humorous and boldly creative, frequently outlandishly so. What has written an enlightening examination of the most crazy-making endeavor in which our species obsessively engages. It drives us crazy-Crazy Love." --R.A. Rycraft, Pif Magazine "If unbearable guilt makes you wish to suffer vicariously, and professionally, for others; if you suddenly find yourself the father of thousands and thousands of children; if your ambition is to occupy the Chair of Hermit Studies at the University of Oregon, or to be a ghost in a hot-air balloon, or if you have considered wearing a gorilla mask while having an abortion -- Crazy Love is your operating manual. These seventeen achingly funny and hilariously sad stories will give you invaluable advice on how to love, how to be crazy, how to be human." -- Ursula Le Guin, author of Lavinia and The Left Hand of Darkness "Crazy Love is crazy good! Leslie What's brain is evidently crowded with strangeness, awfulness, wonderfulness, wildness, madness of all kinds...and love. Lots of love. How lucky we are that her imagination runs deep, runs true, runs onto the page in crazily beautiful stories -- and lucky, so very lucky, to be holding those stories right now in our hands." -- Molly Gloss, author of Dazzle of Day and The Hearts of Horses "Count on Leslie What to give you something you never counted on. Original, delightful, and always, always surprising." -- Karen Joy Fowler, author of The Jane Austen Book Club and Wit's End Leslie What (Glasser) is a Nebula Award-winning writer and the author of a novel, Olympic Games, and a short story collection, The Sweet and Sour Tongue. She has worked as a charge nurse in a nursing home, in an unlocked psychiatric facility, as a manager for a low-income meal site, and as a maskmaker and artist. She currently teaches in The Writers' Program at UCLA Extension. Her work has been published in a number of anthologies and journals, including Parabola, Asimov's, The MacGuffin, Realms of Fantasy, The Clackamas Review, SciFiction and Midstream. Called "The Queen of Gonzo" by Gardner Dozois, her work has been translated into German, Italian, French, Japanese, Russian, Greek and Klingon.
MARCH 2008 SMALL PRESS REVIEW Poetry Pick SPILLING THE MOON, poems by Matt Schumacher ISBN: 978-1-877655-57-9, LCN: 2008920991 First trade paperback, 6 X 9, 102 pages, $12 Cover art: "The Red Chair," Jessica Plattner Cover design: Kristin Summers, redbat design "Matt Schumacher's poetry challenges the reader to imagine a rich, dreamy world where the improbable is never impossible, and the impossible is brought to life by the author, a puppet master with convincing zeal for all that is alien about being human." -- Micah Zevin, www.newpages.com "These poems are travelers abolishing distances at every turn. The journey from mirage to mountaintop, from haunting to home-place, and from crime to new creation—all suddenly effortless now thanks to the gracious turns of SPILLING THE MOON." --Donald Revell, author of A Thief of Strings "Where language is audacious as a pterodactyl-esque wingspan and tight as the rhyme between astronaut and not, in Matthew Schumacher’s new book SPILLING THE MOON, Selene is an originating source: 'I ’m meeting with the moon all afternoon' Schumacher writes in 'Lunar Ghazal.' Schumacher’s poems are big-hearted, humane, filled with mad - mad love for this life and an abundance of wit. Meditations on symbolist portraits by Arnold Böcklin along with carnivalesque dances on the moon, rain, an aluminum fishing boat, an abandoned lighthouse on Lake Huron, all claim our attention and warrant revisitings. In SPILLING THE MOON for every blast beyond gravity’s architectonics there’s a counter-balancing measure, and '[we] . . . fall like rain gently back into our footsteps.'” --Robert Grunst, author of The Smallest Bird in North America "The imagination’s redemptive powers cartwheel and cavort in Matt Schumacher’s SPILLING THE MOON, a phantasmagoria of breathtaking verbal ingenuity, the non-stop astonishments heeding Keats’s advice to Shelley that every rift of the subject be loaded with ore. These poems render the daily extraordinary and the impossible vividly plausible, their multifarious speakers boasting audaciously tender braggadocio. Matt Schumacher’s poems, big-hearted and heartbreaking, amaze and delight." -- Aaron Anstett, author of Each Place the Body's SAMPLE 1: "A Brief Correspondence Between Halloween and the Aurora Borealis" (PDF) SAMPLE 2: "The Cruelty of Foosball" (PDF) SAMPLE 3: "In High Speed Pursuit of Romance"(PDF) Matt Schumacher possesses hard-earned degrees in poetry and poetics from the University of Maine and the Iowa Writer’s Workshop. His poems have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and have won a Willamette Writers Kay Snow Award and a Hayna Award. They’ve also been anthologized by Manic D Press and performed live by a punk rock band named the Iowa Beef Experience. Schumacher has taught writing, literature, and humanities at a cornucopia of collegiate institutions and correctional facilities in California, Iowa, Illinois, Maine, and Washington. He currently teaches at Eastern Oregon University.
SELF INTERVIEW: MARCH 2008 (PDF) NOVEMBER 2007
ISBN: 978-1-877655-56-2, 1-877655-56-2 LCN: 2007939345 First trade paperback, 6 X 8.25, 88 pages, $12 Cover art: "Journey" by Terry Gloeckler Cover design: Kristin Summers, redbat design Limited edition of 500 copies "Donald Wolff's Soon Enough is a book haunted by danger, affliction, imminent disasters, and his poems are talismans against this ferocious onslaught. With these poems, Wolff stares down catastrophe and peril, and celebrates the sheer wonder of our survival-- the glory of our sad, fragile, beautiful lives." —Gary Young, No Other Life "Soon Enough's landscape is western, cut through by canyons and rivers, populated by bear, even the bison. Reality arises from the details of a life fully lived there: fatherhood, work, memory and hope. The best poems in this collection are the darkest, the squirrel in the belly of a coyote, a man in the grip of his life." —Dorianne Laux, Facts About The Moon "Soon Enough is a remarkable book of poetry if only for its range, the control of many contemporary modes--prose poems, short lyric poems, long line ekphrastic poems, multi-sectioned symphonic poems--each one with authority and a mastery of craft. And throughout, there is a sure, accessible, and memorable voice. This is a book of grit and gravity, of grace pushing for all it can against mortality. Wolff risks a great deal personally and intellectually, and cuts down to the bone, to the essential meaning." --Christopher Buckley, ...and the Sea, Sleepwalk Sample 3: "Guilietta dogli spiriti" Donald Wolff lives and works in La Grande, Oregon. At Eastern Oregon University, he teaches courses in creative writing and applied linquistics, co-directs the Oregon Writing Project, and currently serves as Chair of the Division of Arts and Letters. He was born and raised in California, which informs many of his poems about the past, while life with his family in La Grande has so far guided many of his poems about the present. In May 2004, he was a resident writer at Fishtrap. His chapbook, Some Days, was printed in 2004 by Brandenburg Press.
SEPTEMBER 2007 SMALL PRESS REVIEW Poetry Pick
ISBN: 978-1-877655-54-8, 1-877655-54-6 LCN: 2007931228 First trade paperback, 6 X 8.25, 76 pages, $12 Cover photo: SManohar, courtesy bigstockphoto.com Cover design: redbat design Limited edition of 500 Paper Bird is Pamela Steele’s first full-length book of poetry, though she previously published a chapbook of poems (Other Rivers, Distant Song, Spring Tree Press, 1997). Pamela is a Fishtrap Fellow who recently completed her MFA from Spalding University of Louisville, Kentucky. While in the writing program there, she was honored with the Jim Wayne Miller Poetry Prize from the Kentucky Writers Coalition. A turning point in her career came halfway through the MFA Program when two mentors, separately on the same day, told her it was time she got honest and stopped writing around what she wanted to say. “Up to that point, I’d been using imagery to flirt with ideas, but I’d never written about the difficult topics I’ve since addressed.” Pamela was recently awarded an artist’s fellowship from Jentel Foundation and spent a month living and writing on a working cattle ranch in Wyoming. “That lifestyle attracts me,” she says, “especially the landscape of the West, so I started a chapbook of poems about my experiences on my partner's small horse outfit on the Umatilla Indian Reservation. My father was a West Virginia boy who came out to Oregon to be a horseman, so that's a thread of my life that I want to keep.” Pamela teaches at Hermiston High School and hopes to teach at the college/university level. Small Press Review "Pick" for Jan. - Feb., 2008, Vol. 40, Nos. 1 - 2, Issues 420 - 421. “Steele transforms the ordinary--cupping moments like the source of light in the palms of her hands. Here, she says, see beyond our time here. Paper Bird is a luminous collection of poems. Honest and spare, wistful and haunting.”
“Steele’s poems are honest and visceral. They get under the skin and instruct us on how to squeeze our eyes tight and still see real beauty in the world. An important collection of love letters to everything that bleeds.”
“Pamela Steele’s poems are compassionate and descriptive,
steeped with a quiet wisdom, opening doors to the profound insights
and sensualities of the ordinary. Her poems are both lyrical and
narrative, with an intelligent, introspective voice. They are infused
with a seductive music, and with duende.” “The heart of Pam Steele’s poems beats for all of us.”
Sample 2: "Tom Buzzard's Widow"
a postcyberpunk novel by David Memmott ISBN: 978-1-877655-53-1, 1-877655-53-8 LCN: 2007930089, September 2007 First trade paperback, 272 pages, $15 20% off $12 Cover art collage: Kristin Johnson & David Memmott Images for collage: www.bigstockphoto.com Cover design: redbat design
If you think the world is crazy now, just wait. Worldbenders are trained to re-invent the past. Benito Cortezar creates a perfect past only to find it haunted by forces he cannot control. A shadow at the core of Primetime threatens our very humanity. So many depend on Benito, even the dead. At the watershed of human and posthuman, in the clash between Dreamtime and Primetime, a gaggle of fractured heroes are caught up in a struggle between those yet to come and those waiting to come back. “Primetime gives us a future where the sun shines while mythologies and realities of the past and future collide thanks to the emerging technology. It’s a pleasure to read...Come to think of it, it also comes close to my fantasy of science fction that makes you want to get up and dance...”
Smoking Mirror Blues "This novel explores the battle between two notions of virtual reality, one meant to allow people to experience the “real”, the other opening directly onto the id and an individual’s darkest fantasies. Add in the complications of an alien presence, virtual joyriders, and different strata (and substrata) of the real (and the unreal), and you’ve got a sf novel that doubles as a philosophical meditation on the nature of human reality. Move over, Second Life: Primetime is here.”
"Memmott is intent on examining deep epistemological and ontological issues concerning the way humanity fashions its own reality, but he embeds his questions in a captivating thriller...This is philosophic SF at its best." -- Paul Di Filippo, "On Books" Isaac Asimov's SF Magazine, July 2008 "A dizzying debut novel explores an extreme near-future that explodes into a post-cyberpunk extravaganza... Primetime is, inarguably and admirably, ambitious...and it will be interesting to see where the author goes from here. " F. Brett Cox, scifi.com "In Primetime, David Memmott...gives us a post-cyberpunk novel that's both entertaining and thought-provoking. A world of virtual reality that is futuristic and complex [is] brought to life by dazzling description...Overall, it's heady stuff in more ways than one." -- Bobbi Sinha-Morey, The Specusphere SAMPLE 1: Chapter 3 -- Papa Art SAMPLE 2: Chapter 7 -- House of Revelations SAMPLE 3: Chapter 12 -- Random Acts SAMPLE 4: Chapter 13 -- Piano Man
David Memmott’s work has appeared in mainstream as well as genre magazines and anthologies. His genre credits include stories and poetry in Interzone, Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror, Nebula Awards 27, Airfish, Alchemy of Stars: An Anthology of Rhysling Award Winners, L’Uomo Duplicato, (an Italian science fiction anthology), Back Brain Recluse (England), 2001: An Anthology of Science Fiction Poetry, Star*Line, The Magazine of Speculative Poetry, New Realities, Works (England), Ball Magazine, and New Pathways into Science Fiction and Fantasy. He co-edited, Angel Body and Other Magic for the Soul, with Chris Reed of BBR Publications, selected as a finalist for the British Fantasy Award for best antholgy of 2003. He has published four books of poetry including The Larger Earth: Descending Notes of a Grounded Astronaut, and a story collection, Shadow Bones. His most recent book of poetry, Watermarked, published by Traprock Books (Eugene, OR, 2004), received four Pushcart Prize nominations. A short story received a Worldwide Writers, Inc., fiction award and essays have been posted on-line including an essay for Writers on the Job at Web del Sol which will be included in an anthology of the same name to be published by Hopewell Publications. An interview and novel excerpt will appear in Perigee, an online literary magazine. Memmott received a Fishtrap Fellowship for his poetry and three Oregon Literary Fellowships for excellence in publishing from Literary Arts, Inc., of Portland, Oregon, most recently in 2006. He is a member of the Writers Guild of Eastern Oregon and serves on the board of RondeHouse Media Arts Konsortium. He lives with his wife, Susan, in La Grande, Oregon. Primetime is his first novel and Book One of the trilogy, DREAMERS' ROUND. This title is also available through Ingram's, Baker & Taylor, Amazon.com and barnes&noble.com
July, 2007 Limited edition of 250 copies
Cover art by Jessica Soo Hyun Ni, Cover design
by Katherine James, “My fictions are tour guides to the multiverse; a stone is not merely a rock, but a small living mountain, a horse is karmic psychic energy, a cat is the Great Mystery, and the seidr-working shamaness is the one person who connects you with your own fate, that special place in the wheel of time which is uniquely yours. The meditative mythologies of Magpies and Tigers are meant to unleash us from the tethers of the mundane.”
“Misha Nogha’s poetry is like the good parts of life—and the good parts of life are often the most dangerous parts, if you’re paying attention. Most people are uneasily aware they’re gradually losing touch with something vital—Misha’s poetry will put you back in touch with that vitality.” — John Shirley, The Other End and Living Shadows “Misha Nogha knows not only the animal without but the animal within, and her words sing with this mystery.” — Annette Curtis Klaus, Blood and Chocolate and The Silver Kiss “Misha Nogha’s writings are a kaleidoscope of haunting images. As one poem says, “all realities are spoken here.” Small flashes of color reveal the wild immanence of nature; the image of a trotting wind-horse calls up the wideness of the world. Traveling territories seen and unseen, this poetry by a postmodern metaphysician speaks to readers in discordia concours of spectacular wordplay.”
— Carol McGuirk, Florida Atlantic University, “A true shaman of the written word, Misha Nogha reminds us of our true human creature selves and our natural heritage through vibrant language, signaling a hyper-reality woven from dreamstates, mythical places, and animal avatars.” — Richard Truhlar, The Hollow and Parisian Novels Misha Nogha is the award winning author of prose and poetry volumes, Prayers of Steel and KeQuaHawkas, and the novel, Red Spider White Web, winner of the 1990 Readercon Award, also a finalist for the Arthur C. Clarke award. Misha won the 1989 Prix D’Italia with her piece, “Tsuki Mangetsu,” performed by two Australian artists. In addition to writing prose and poetry Misha is an accomplished musician and has collaborated with several composers on librettos. The first of these was written in conjunction with composer and cellist Jonathan Golove. Its World Premiere was performed by Mr. Golove and Misha at the Festival of 500 years of Western Music in Buffalo New York in the winter of 2000. Misha is currently writing another set of librettos with composer Arie Van Schuterhoeff of Amsterdam. Misha is of mixed blood Metis, and Norse ancestry. The Reverend Nogha is an ordained minister and her spiritual practices reflect both heritages. She lives a full life as author, musician and farmer. She is also a Skywarn Severe Storm Spotter for NOAA and an official National Weather Service Co-op Observer. Misha recently finished her novel Yellowjacket, a humorous and bittersweet literary western, and working on her third and fourth novels, Jack Jinx and Alruna. True denizens of a modern horse culture, Misha and her husband composer Michael Chocholak, own and operate a small farm in Eastern Oregon where they raise beautiful Norwegian Fjord horses. Misha's website:
For other books by Misha published by Wordcraft of Oregon (Red Spider White Web and Prayers of Steel), see Speculative Writers Series FINALIST FOR SAN DIEGO BOOK AWARD FOR POETRY
perfectbound, 6 X 9, full-color cover, 80 pgs. ISBN: 978-1-877655-55-5, ISBN: 1-877655-55-4, LCN: 2007925640 July 2007 Limited edition of 500 This book was published in part due to a 2006 Literary Fellowship for Publishers, Literary Arts, Inc, Portland, Oregon Cover art: Harry Griswold
“Harry Griswold’s reality presses in from all sides. He speaks in a calm voice, quiet for the most part, but we sense the wildness just under the surface, pushing against the words.” — Joseph Millar, Fortune “Harry Griswold is the kind of poet you would like to sit down with. He’s weaving stories and he knows just how much to show, how much to tell. You won’t find a false step or easy theatrics. Camera Obscura is the work of an experienced, astute man, very worthwhile taking in. We need more wisdom in our poetry and Griswold delivers.” — Eloise Klein Healy, The Island Project: Poems for Sappho “Harry Griswold’s aptly-titled debut collection of poems, Camera Obscura, is filled with people—real and imagined—at times isolated in their grief and locked in silence. The poet gives voice to their yearnings, and solace in his plain-spoken words. This is a poetry deeply focused in its seeing, its way of knowing. From the seemingly mundane to the near extraordinary, these poems look at the dailiness of our lives, as in the camera’s darkened chamber, ‘right in the middle of things.’” — Natasha Trethewey, Native Guard, winner of the Pulitzer Prize A graduate of the MFA Program at Pacific University, Harry Griswold teaches poetry writing in a private workshop at Solano Beach, CA, and lives in San Diego. He is originally from Rochester, NY, where he graduated from Monroe Community College and the University of Rochester. His training was in computer science and experimental psychology. Camera Obscura is Harry’s first book of poetry. More info on Harry Griswold at his website
May 2007 Cover art: Suzie Hutchins In An Elevator With Brigitte Bardot is an irresistible collection of personal essays in which Michael Lee's characteristic humor and compassionate insight revolves around the experience of daily life in Cape Cod. Framed by broad-interest essays that travel far afield and far abroad, the appropriate center of these appreciations is a seasonal round informed by place. But Lee's sense of place is not provincial. He always finds the extraordinary in the ordinary, the universal in the local, narrows down soas to expand and open. Lee's achievement here in the short essay form is as remarkable as his achievement in short fiction with his debut collection, Paradise Dance, published by Leapfrog Press (2002). Read them both and marvel. Michael Lee has held an array of jobs that now seem standard in a writer’s profile: construction worker, shrimp peeler, commercial diver, short order cook, drummer in a useless band, bartender, and cemetery lawn mower. He began his writing career at age 16 with short humor pieces for Skin Diver Magazine. While serving with the Marine Corps at Khe Sanh in Vietnam, Lee also wrote dispatches for Stars and Stripes and his hometown newspaper in Framingham, Massachusetts. He holds a B.A. from the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth and an M.F.A. from Emerson College. Currently, Lee is the Literary Editor of The Cape Cod Voice and the director of the annual literary soiree, “New Works Weekend,” in Orleans, Massachusetts. Lee is a member of the Writer’s Guild and the National Book Critics Circle, and his collection of short stories, “Paradise Dance,” was published by Leapfrog Press in 2002. He lives on Cape Cod with his wife Julia and is currently working on a novel. "Each essay is only a few pages long, yet each strikes the heart of its topic with a deft flick of the wrist. A teasury to savor a bit at a time, or all at once." -- Michael J. Carson, The Midwest Book Review "I see Michael Lee once a week for therapy. Believe me, I earn every dime." — Gordon Barney, MA, LMHC "MIke Lee writes with honesty, penetration, wit and the ability to surprise the reader with an unexpected turn from time to time that enriches the experience." — Norman Mailer "Michael Lee's In An Elevator With Brigitte Bardot is by turns melancholy and hilarious, sweet and bittersweet, a gift of hard-won wisdom and wry observation from a shrimp header, soundboard man, delivery driver, short-order cook, bricklayer, fisherman, soldier, back trap hauler and self-described dyslexic carpenter who is first and foremost a writer of enormous gifts. If there is such a thing as painful joy, Michael Lee is its voice." — Thomas H. Cook, Edgar Award winning author of Red Leaves, Peril, Into the Web, among others. "Gold, silver and bronze—Barry, Keillor, Lee—though not necessarily in that order. With In An Elevator With Brigitte Bardot, Mike Lee steps into the natioal circle of champs. He makes it look so easy—how the hell does he do it? He'll make you chortle and chuckle before surrendering the last of your cool in a boil of laughter all the while your mist-eyed heart sputters, He's right! He's got it! That just exactly it! More, Mr. Lee! More!" — Thomas E. Kennedy, The Literary Review "In swift language woven with sparkling metaphors, Lee's wry, sometimes zany observations dissect the human comedy in ways that are ironic but seldom bitter or satirical. Lee has a big heart, and he sees the good in almost everything; or if not the good, at least the humor. If there is one thing we need more of in this sadly fracturing world, it is laughter. Michael Lee's In An Elevator With Brigitte Bardot provides a whole lot of laughter and plenty of food for thought." — Duff Brenna, The
Law of Falling Bodies, Paradise Dance, short stories by Michael Lee, 216 pgs., 0-9679520-6-9, 6 X 9, $14.95/paperback original available from Leapfrog Press www.leapfrogpress.com FINALIST FOR FOREWORD MAGAZINE'S BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD FOR LITERARY FICTION
April 2007 Cover artwork by Andi Olsen It is no concidence that Thomas E. Kennedy's eighth novel, A Passion in the Desert, borrows its title from a Balzac story about mistrust and betrayal—for these are the themes at the heart of this unsettling story about a man stalked by guilt over a choice he made two decades before. Now small strange happenings begin to plague his days—somebody else's words in his journal, one too many flat tires, things out of place in his home, damning evidence in his laundry... Somebody, it seems, is after him, but who? A colleague? His own son? Or is it all just a reflection of the guilt, festering in his own heart? "Readers have been introduced to a very troubled mind which only exposes itself slowly as the book progresses." -- Rochelle Ratner for American Book Review, Line on Line, Volume 29, Number 3 "In A Passion in the Desert, Kennedy's exploration of the many modalities of love delivers us to the convergence of sex and death. I don't know of another fiction writer today whose craft is a match for his." — Robert Gover, author of One Hundred Dollar Misunderstanding "Spellbinding, at times terrifying, with prose that is heartbreakingly beautiful. Kennedy has written a story of the aftermath of an unforgettable passion, the cost of letting go, and then letting go." — Duff Brenna, author of The Book of Mamie "By the time readers finish A Passion in the Desert, they will know its central character, Fred Twomey, more intimately than they know the people around them, quite possibly even themselves.That's one of the powers of great fiction, and Thomas E. Kennedy possesses a special ability to explore the landscape of a man's inner world, exposing emotions and secrets he can barely admit to himself. Although Twomey's life is unique, caught up in its own particular drama, he is clearly one of us, and in discovering him, we discover ourselves." — Walter Cummins, The Literary Review Thomas E. Kennedy, a native of New York and American exjpatriate in Europe since the mid-1970s, is the author of eleven books of fiction, including two volumes in 2007--the novel, A Passion in the Desert, and story collection, Cast Upon the Day. Other recent novels are the four books of The Copenhagen Quartet (Kerrigen's Copenhagen, A Love Story, 2002; Bluett's Blue Hours, 2003; Greene's Summer, 2004; and Danish Fall, 2005). Kennedy's fiction has won numerous awards including the O. Henry, Pushcart, Gulf Coast, and European Prizes, the Charles Angoff Award, and the Frank Expatriate Writers Award. Other Wordcraft of Oregon titles by Thomas E. Kennedy Realism & Other Illusions: Essays on the Craft of Fiction The Book of Angels, a novel Unreal City, stories For more information on the author, see: www.thomasekennedy.com or www.thecopenhagenquartet.com FINALIST FOR THE SPUR AWARD FOR POETRY FROM WESTERN WRITERS OF AMERICA
by Thomas Madden This collection is centered around a group of poems which focus on the Battle of the Little Big Horn in 1876. "Tom Madden's poems sing of life, of rich histories, and the sad and beautitful landscapes that make us mourn and rejoice. His voice is quiet but insistent. Here, he is saying, look closely, more closely at the soul of the American West and our place here. This is a profound and beautiful collection." — Debra Magpie Earling, author of Perma Red "These small rooms into which Thomas Madden leads us, quietly, hand in hand, burst with treasure." —David Axelrod, winner of the 2004 Spokane Prize for Poetry SECOND PRINTING STILL AVAILABLE BUT GOING FAST
SOLDIER
TO ADVOCATE: C .E. S. WOOD'S 1877 LEGACY, George Venn SECOND PRINTING: Send check or postal money order for $20 + $3 S/H (media book) to: Wordcraft of Oregon, LLC, P.O. Box 3235, La Grande, OR 97850. (See ordering information for shipping costs.) Only 24 copies of First Edition, First Printing, signed by author, remain. Get yours now for $35 + S/H. "GEORGE VENN IS BREAKING NEW GROUND..." — Jeff Baker, Book Section, The Sunday Oregonian Dec. 10, 2006 "...this fascinating book [is] a must-read, must-have for students of Nez Perce tribal history...[Venn's teamwork with Wordcraft of Oregon] has produced an outstanding work that will be a treasure now and in the future...the unique kind of scholarship represented by Venn...artistically, seamlessly ties modern tribal history to that earlier troubled time." -- Steven R. Evans, Oregon HIstorical Quarterly for full review see History Cooperative on-line
ONE AMERICAN SOLDIER, ONE NEZ PERCE CHIEF: ONE SPIRIT Soldier to Advocate tells the story of 2nd Lieutenant Charles Erskine Scott Wood (1852-1944) who wants to be a lover and a writer. Stationed in 1877 at Vancouver Barracks near Portland, General Howard grants Wood the privilege of exploring Alaska, then recalls him to fight in the tragic Nez Perce War. Part II features Wood's transcribed diary from this period, a text enriched by Wood's drawings leaked to the New York press—the only eye-witness images of the Nez Perce conflict. Part III traces Wood's lifetime of prose and poetry defending Chief Joseph and finally opposing General Howard. The book concludes by documenting three 1990's events in the Wood family's legacy of friendship and respect for the Nez Perces: a joint exhibition, the gift of a stallion, and a reconciliation ceremony. With nearly two hundred notes and forty additional 19th century images, Soldier to Advocate shows us that history is the nightmare from which we should all try to awake. "I highly recommend that any serious student of the Nez Perce Campaign read this excellent and rich piece of work. Mr. Venn's research in Soldier to Advocate will add that "missing piece" to some of the misunderstandings of the Nez Perce War." -- W. Otis Halfmoon (Nez Perce), former Idaho Unit Manager, Nez Perce National Historical Park, contributor to the Encyclopedia of North American Indians "George Venn's work is a superb contribution to our knowledge of the Nez Perce War, particularly as it respects judgments about Charles E.S. Wood as historian, participant, and literary influence." -- Jerome A.Greene, historian and author of Nez Perce Summer, 1977: The U.S. Army and the Nee-Me-Poo Crisis "Thank you for that wonderful publication, Soldier to Advocate. It's rich, rich, rich, and I congratulate you." -- Alvin Josephy, historian and author of The Nez Perce Indians and the Opening of the Pacific Northwest Also by George Venn George Venn's website: An American treasure back in print — in a new and revised edition.
The Book of Mamie is the story of one person's struggle to overcome the abuse and traumas of her childhood. It is the story of a wonderfully gifted young woman, a young woman of genius, uncanny wisdom and primitive strength, whose revelations unfold in the course of an odyssey across the heartland of America. Mamie's story is told by her companion, a 15-year-old farmboy who shares her adventures with a wild variety of characters and whose own story becomes a rite of passage as they try to stay one step ahead of the law and Mamie's sinister father. "Duff Brenna's The Book of Mamie reminds us why we read...This novel is unforgettable." --James Michael Slama, The Literary Review "...a risky, graceful book...told in language that is lean and unpretentious, a language forged out of the hard landscape of the rural Middle West." -- New York Times "Duff Brenna is an American treasure." -- The Bloomsbury Review "And Brenna writes consciously in the American tradition, invoking Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn in both the voice and the story...and [he] is in good company with the great literary voices to whom he pays homage." -- San Francisco Chronicle Duff Brenna's website: They set out to find J.D. SALINGER
In the mid-1970s, hiding out for nearly a decade, J.D. Salinger had long been a literary legend, the lost leader and vanished wiseman of millions of readers around the world, from the USA to the USSR. An unreachable hero. Or was he? Enter inner-city teacher Greg Herriges, determined to fulfill his dream of meeting and speaking with the reclusive author. Herriges’ tale is a double helix narrative of personal quest and romantic love as he and his former girlfriend, both young, big city high school teachers, hit the road one summer, Kerouac-style, on a mission to find the hidden giant, discovering America – and themselves – along the way. This journey of two young idealistic English teachers who set out to find J.D. Salinger is a love story as well as a tribute to the reclusive author. "Beyond the vividness with which Herriges conveys the surface adventures, JD is much more than a celebrity hunt. The book's profound human complexities give it emotional depth." --Walter Cummins, The Literary Review
Gerg Herriges has published three novels: Somewhere Safe, Secondary Attachments, and the twice award-nominated The Winter Dance Party Murders, a murder mystery satire of the golden days of rock and roll. His short works have appeared in Chicago Tribune Magazine, Social Issues Resources, The Literary Review, Story Quarterly, Britain's World Wide Writers, and South Carolina Review. He is a professor of English at William Rainey Harper College in Palatine, Illinois.
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