Fiction. Written over the course of a quarter century by one fo Alaska's best living writers, these two dozen stories embody the spirit of Alaska—its colliding cultures, magnificent beauty and dangerously unforgivign environment. "John Smelcer is Alaska's modern-day Jack London"—W. P. Kinsella. "John Smelcer's stories are an indispensable addition to Alaskan literature"—J. D. Salinger.

Alaskan: Stories from the Great Land

Smelcer, John

Literature & Fiction

Standing Stone Books

Fiction. Compelling, gritty and funny, DOING TIME OUTSIDE travels the back roads of family life to better understand what it means to be tied by blood and love to the world of mental illness, addiction and incarceration. Through compassion for her characters and the bouyancy of her voice, Howard gives us a novel with a generous and intelligent heart. "Catskill's wordsmith Howard has a gift for the choice, mundane detail: the vinegar chips and Advil headaches and warmth of a dog's fur on a cold day. Her turf is the Upstate New York just outside of the weekender realm, and her people are fiercely smart and loving throughout their frustrations and misunderstandings. You start really, really wanting Rudy to make it, a topic around which Howard builds mind- bending suspense. It all comes together in a knockout ending—Howard's characters have grown and so have we. A beautiful read."—Chronogram

Doing Time Outside

Howard, Ginnah

Literary

Fiction. In these three linked novellas, Boatwright explores the lasting effects of the Vietnam War on people living in its shadow—both those who fought and those who didn't. These moving stories from one of American history's most divisive eras show us Vietnam may not be as far behind us as we think. Who goes to war and why—and the consequences for them and the people who love them—are issues that we still face today. "These are engrossing stories told with considerable artistry, full of recognition and sympathy."—Diane Johnson

Collateral Damage

Boatwright, Alice K.

Contemporary

Fiction. LGBT Studies. "Jennifer Pashley is a phenomenal young writer with perfect pitch for the messy world we all live in now. THE CONJURER is riddled with romance and terror, anxiety and mystery, threat and uneasy relief. All our frailties are on view—beautifully observed, served with the utmost generosity and largeness of heart, seen with the smartest eyes. She deserves an award for writing like this."—Frederick Barthelme "The stories in THE CONJURER are unflinching in their portrayal of humans in love and the side effects of passion—strange consummations, half-hearted substitutions, moments of grace. Pashley is a hard luck oracle, tracing portents in a world heavy with the weight of not-quite babies, truck-stop infidelities, the ghosts of June Carter and Raymond Carver and Flannery O'Connor. These beautiful stories walk the edge between bravado and poetry, creating their own weird magic. One of the characters imagines being poisoned from the inside out by gold flaked from the rim of an old coffee cup; this collection accomplishes a similar feat, a gorgeous poisoning, Pashley's language a precious lethal substance spreading into all the hidden places."—Tina May Hall

The Conjurer

Pashley, Jennifer

Poetry. LGBTQIA Studies. Women's Studies. "Sarah Jefferis has gifted us with a beautiful collection, crafted with intelligence, wit, and transcendent hope," says Jose Rodriquez. Ansel Elkins calls WHAT ENTERS THE MOUTH "a brave collection of fearless poems." Bruce Smith says the book has a "incendiary, vulnerable and startling reckoning that I admire."

What Enters the Mouth

Jefferis, Sarah

Poetry

About the Author\nThomas Brockelman, who teaches philosophy at Lemoyne College, has written extensively about psychoanalysis, aesthetics, and continental philosophy. In both his teaching and his scholarship, he is interested in the way that contemporary society and culture have been transformed by the digital revolution. He is the author of The Frame and the Mirror, and Zizek and Heidegger, books about art and the unconscious.\nLiterary Nonfiction. Memoir. Brockelman's book is a loving tribute to his philosopher father as well as an artful exploration of various important philosophical issues that are relevant to everyday life, such as the nature of religious belief, the definition of a "good" life, and the challenge of facing our own mortality. Anyone who has ever wondered "how should I live," or "am I living an honest and worthy life?" should read this book.

Diving for Pearls: Exploring Philosophy with my Father

Brockelman, Thomas

Essays & Correspondence

Poetry. "Townsley has a restless imagination--he conjures ghosts from the past, and out of fragmented memories he melds animal fables, parables, liturgies, dream visions, political debates, and a seance or two."--Ron Block "Reading him is a 'dark pleasure.'"--Brooks Haxton

Holding A Seance by Myself

Townsley, Thomas

Literary Nonfiction. Hurd's brilliant book about climate change is also a book about storytelling, about paying attention to little, most invisible things that manage to survive without heroics, or the help of heroes. There are many books about climate change, but none like hers that deliver the bad goods with such unsentimental empathy.

Epilogues: Afterwords on the Planet

Hurd, Barbara

History & Criticism

Previously published in literary journals, and here collected for the first time, these stories grapple with important questions about how to live, and the answers are always surprising, defiant and true. Her compressed, kinetic prose is counterpointed by an elegiac strain, and her piercing observations go straight to the heart. Fiction.

If the Eye Were An Animal

McFall, Lynne

Short Stories & Anthologies

Fiction. One August morning while walking her dog, high-school English teacher Beatrice Ousterhout stumbles over the dead body of a student, Amber Inglin, who was to play the lead in Beatrice's production of John Webster's Jacobean tragedy, The Duchess of Malfi. Barely able to speak, Beatrice calls the police. That is to say, she calls her daughter. Jes is a detective with two years of experience under her belt and a personal life composed primarily of a string of one-night-stands, including the owner of the field in which Beatrice has found Amber. In addition to a house and a field, Child Services lawyer Liam Walsh owns a vineyard, where Amber Inglin, along with a handful of other teens who've had difficulty negotiating the foster system, was an intern. Set among the hills and lakes of upstate New York and told in six vibrantly distinct voices, this complex and original narrative chronicles the rippling effects of a young girl's death through a densely intertwined community. By turns funny, fierce, lyrical and horrifying, BIRDS OF WONDER probes family ties, the stresses that break them, and the pasts that never really let us go.

Birds of Wonder

Robinson, Cynthia

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