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Fiction
 Leaving Bayberry House
A Novel
by Ann L. McLaughlin
ISBN 978-1-56474-495-1
224 pages, paperback, $14.95
The novel takes place during one week in August 1973, when the sisters are middle-aged, but each chapter ends in a flashback to the years of World War II, when they were adolescents and the family was in turmoil, the father wrestling with his conscience over his pacifism and an affair with a Polish refugee, a son killed in the war, and one daughter sinking into bipolar disorder.
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 Wolf Tones—A Novel
Irving Weinman
ISBN 978-1-56474-480-7, 1-56474-480-9
400 pages, Trade Paperback Original, $16.95
Ethan Baum leaves his broken marriage, his failed romance, and his overbearing father, a famous philosopher, back East and heads out to New Mexico, where he hopes to make a fresh start and end the writer’s block that has halted his once promising career as a novelist. Once in Albuquerque, he loses his job, finds himself with an older woman and her anorexic daughter, and becomes involved with suspicious grandees, cynical environmentalists, ruthless mining interests, a possible war criminal, and an unlikely Ivy League Navaho. As their stories crisscross his own, Ethan’s suppressed memories surface and he has to question his understanding of himself and his real relations with others. In all this Ethan’s sense of living through literature and language becomes more problematic: the more hopeless things become, the funnier they seem, until he isn’t sure he can survive his new self-knowledge.
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 Windstorm and Flood
A Novel
Rosalind Brackenbury
ISBN 978-1-880284-93-3
240 pages, paperback, $15.95
Jim Russo is a minister of a small church in Key West. As Hurricane Georges approaches, his wife Susan leaves for safer ground, and he stays on. The hurricane is vicious, and the Key is a disaster zone for days during and afterwards. In the rubble that remains, a homeless woman named Pearl parks herself and her belongings on Jim’s front porch, embarrassing him in front of his congregation. Meanwhile Sarah, an old lover from decades past, comes to Key West to take possession of a house she has been given. That house is next to a young couple, named Tom and Martha, who have almost no money, a baby in diapers, and another on the way. Jim and Sarah reunite, but Sarah doesn’t take it as seriously as Jim does. Susan phones and tells Jim she has left for good. Pearl accidentally burns Jim’s house down. Jim leaves the church, his life a wreck, and joins a crew on a boat sailing for Honduras to take supplies to the victims of Hurricane Mitch. Sarah gives her house to Tom and Martha, who need it more than she does. Jim returns, stronger but still in love with Sarah, who is now ready to give a permanent relationship more serious consideration.
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 Curiouser and Curiouser
An Anthology of Very Short Stories, Essays, and Poems
Inspired by the Alice Books of Lewis Carroll
Edited by John M. Daniel
56 pages, paperback, $8.00
An anthology of writing inspired by the Alice Books of Lewis Carroll. Each story, essay, or poem is no more than 99 words.
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Read about our other 99 Word Anthologies
 Keeping Warm
Essays and Stories
Max Schott
ISBN 1-880284-64-2
240 pages, paperback, $15.00
Here's a collection of essays, diaries, and stories by the author of Murphy's Romance, Ben, and Up Where I Used to Live. Max Schott was a horse trainer in the high desert country of southeastern Oregon, then went on to teach literature and writing at the College of Creative Studies at UCSB. He says he writes about what he knows, or would like to know, or hopes to know.
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Visit Mary Proenza's website (She did the painting on the cover.)
 Stealing Home
A Novel
Irving Weinman
ISBN 1-880284-72-3
240 pages, paperback, $14.95
Three childhood friends grow into strong but flawed men in a small town on the southern gulf coast of Florida. They share history and memories and now a complicated mutual animosity. This is a novel about how people are drawn together and apart, and the lengths they'll go to to protect their loves and obsessions.
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 The House on Q Street
A Novel
Ann L. McLaughlin
ISBN 1-880284-59-6
320 pages, paperback, $14.95
"Make no mistake about it, Ann McLaughlin has written a deeply moving, adroitly embroidered novel." —James Sallis, The Washington Post reviewing The Balancing Pole
Joey Lindsten is ten in 1942 when she and her mother and sister move to Washington, DC, where Joey's father is an atomic physicist. The family is in trouble, not only because of wartime shortages, but because of the demands that work and an affair have made on the father's time and attention. This novel takes us through the war years, and through the onset of Joey's adolescence.
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 Unplugged
A Novel
Paul McComas
ISBN 1-880284-60-X
272 pages, paperback, $14.95
“With consummate skill, Paul McComas weaves together the interior wilds of protagonist Dayna Clay with the exterior wilds of the South Dakota Badlands. The reader cheers for Dayna on her spiritual and sexual quest, eager to see what she will discover as she leaves the ups and downs of the music industry for the zigzag terrain of the Badlands and her own psyche. McComas writes of women, depression, and bisexuality as if he has ‘been there.’” —Chris Glaser, editor, Open Hands and author of Coming Out as Sacrament
Dayna is a rock and roll superstar who's on the verge of suicide. She escapes the business and even the thing that tortures her the most: her identity. She splits and goes anonymous, ending up in the Badlands of South Dakota, where she finds friends, love, and meaning.
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 Between Man and Woman Keys
Stories
Rosalind Brackenbury
ISBN 1-880284-52-9
192 pages, paperback, $12.95
"I can't remember the last time I read an extended piece of writing whose subjects, cadences, correspondences and plot so unerrignly interfold, its ingredients including political refugees, definitions of fidelity, rekindled hope, young love, endurance and sudden loss."
—Bud Navero, Key West Citizen reviewing Seas Outside the Reef
Imogen is an expatriate Brit, now living in Key West. She is a writer of poetry and fiction. These are her stories about life in South Florida and the people who live there: fisherman, Cuban refugees, grifters, and conches (natives of Key West). But the first story, a novella, is a memory of her young marriage and a time that she spent on a commune in France. The last story has Imogen returning to France as a successful writer.
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 A Hole in the Water
A Novel
Mae Briskin
ISBN 1-880284-49-9
240 pages, cloth, $24.95
"…her complex story is insightful in its portrayal of an older woman still able to experience life in all its pleasures and pain."
—Kirkus Reviews, January 1, 2002
"…Briskin, winner of four PEN awards, depicts human nature with acuity. Her writing is plain, but this very artlessness—the refusal to dazzle—seems part of the stories' strength, their honesty." —The Cleveland Plain Dealer reviewing A Boy Like Astrid's Mother
"A Hole in the Water is thoroughly absorbing, a story that pierces two of the primal passions of a woman's life—herself as lover and herself as mother—with a single arrow. And, as readers will recognize, that arrow can be tipped with poison or with balm, depending…. Mae Briskin shows herself to be both smart and wise, yielding and hard, also depending…and her Italy makes a lively and very convincing backdrop against which these contradictory emotions are played." —Rosellen Brown, author of Half a Heart
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 Postcards from the Moon
William Steinkellner
192 pages, paperback, $10.00
ISBN 1-880284-39-1
A collection of campy postcards with humorous , shocking, poignant short-short stories written by the author to woo his future wife. Illustrated with ninety postcards.
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 Seas Outside the Reef
A Novel
Rosalind Brackenbury
224 pages, paperback, $14.95
ISBN 1-880284-41-3
Emily de Soto returns to Key West, where she used to visit her grandparents as a child. She's an adult now, and married to a Cubano, and she's in Key West to help smuggle her husband, Raul, into the U.S. But while waiting for Raul, she falls in love with Harry. He's a deckhand on a pleasure boat, as is Martha, who narrates parts of the novel. Martha helps Harry figure out what's going on with the enigmatic Emily, but in the process develops a crush on Raul.
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 The Yellow Ribbon Snake
A Novel
J.R. Dailey
144 pages, paperback, $12.00
ISBN 1-880284-37-5
Set in the stark Southwest, this is the story of Jacko, a good man with a simple brain and a large heart, and his sister, Marie, a woman with a strong body and a vulnerable spirit. Together they solve the mystery of the past and their twisted family.
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 Santa Barbara Stories
A Collection of the Best Short StoriesSet in Santa Barbara
Edited by Steven Gilbar
200 pages, paperback, $14.95
ISBN 1-880284-31-6
"Santa Barbara for me is...a way of secreting oneself along the sunlit margins of the world, not in the neon glare, but not exactly out of it. Santa Barbara is a way to disappear into the foothills, or the seamist, or the house behind the gates; in many ways, the whole city feels like a collection of privacies, of fiercely guarded silences." —Pico Iyer
Santa Barbara, California has been a sanctuary to many writers. Its unique and creative ambience has inspired short stories by some of this country's finest contemporary authors, including Ross Macdonald, Wallace Stegner, T.C. Boyle, et al.--gathered here for the first time. This literary treat offers the tang of first-rate writing while at the same time enjoying the atmosphere of one of the great sunlit margins of the world.
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Non Fiction
 Out of the Kitchen
Adventures of a Food Writer
Jeannette Ferrary
ISBN 1-880284-78-2
240 pages, paperback, $15.00
Jeannette Ferrary, a food writer for The New York Times and author of M.F.K. Fisher and Me, tells the story of her life as it relates to food. This is the journey from a girl's ambivalence about food ("women's work") to a career immersed in cuisine. Here are the changes she went through over feminism, career, food, marriage, divorce, childraising, work, and play. All along the way, food played an important part of her life, as heritage and legacy, as symbol, as nourishment, and as pleasure. The book contains many recipes as well as portraits of many of America's most famous chefs.
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Read praise for Jeannette Ferrary's earlier books
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 The Russian Far East
A Reference Guide for Conservation
and Development
Josh Newell with 90 contributors
ISBN 1-880284-76-6 (cloth, $99.95)
ISBN 1-880284-75-8 (paper $59.95) •
486 pages (including 16 color)•53 maps• index
The result of six years of research and encyclopedic in breadth and detail, The Russian Far East: A Reference Guide for Conservation and Development is the most comprehensive English-language reference text on the Russian Far East to be published in more than ten years. Unlike other books on Russia written by one or a handful of western “experts,” it provides an unparalleled local perspective, drawing on the contributions of Russians living and working in the far-flung area.
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Visit Josh Newell's website
 My Friend You Are Legally Blind
A Writer's Struggle with Macular Degeneration
Charles Champlin
ISBN 1-880284-48-0
80 pages, paperback, $8.95
Charles Champlin, who had a long career of using his eyes as a film critic and writer, finally had to face the fact that he was a victim of age-related macular degeneration and was going blind. This book describes the progress of that disease as he experienced it: the rapid loss of skills such as driving, reading, even putting toothpaste on his toothbrush. Much of the book is practical, and much of it is philosophical. None of it whines; most of it is positive in tone, and some of it is even entertaining. It is full of practical advice for fellow sufferers of AMD and their caregivers, and it contains a reference section at the back of the book.
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 The Santa Barbara County Courthouse
Patricia Gebhard and Kathryn Masson
Photographs by James Chen
ISBN 1-880284-45-6
96 pages, paperback, $16.50
The Santa Barbara County Courthouse stands today as a unique monument of architectural brilliance in California, and it is the prize jewel of the city and county whose people it serves and whose visitors it delights. This book, illustrated throughout with stunning full-color photographs, is the first thorough study of the history and the architecture of this important landmark.
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 Painting the Cows
Twenty Years of Wildlife Conservation
in California and the West
T.A. Roberts176 pages, paperback, $14.95
ISBN 1-880284-29-4
These stories are about the real people doing the real work of wildlife management, from the mountains, deserts, and old-growth forests of California to the Snake River Valley in Idaho.
Here's a book of honest praise of animals and landscapes and people and events in the struggle to keep the natural world alive for another generation.
"Roberts' Adventures in Conservation (Published 1989) is a lively, engaging, and often beautifully written compendium of much that is right and even more that is wrong with the management of the nation's forests and the critters they nurture....There has never been anything better written from inside Smokey Bear's domain."—Wilderness Magazine
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Poetry
 Yellow Swing
Poems
Rosalind Brackenbury
ISBN 1-880284-73-1
80 pages, paperback, $12.00
Many of the poems in this book are about relationships, the way two people come together and drift apart and then come together again, a sensual rhythm that strengthens the bond even as it lets go. Some of the poems are clearly autobiographical, about the poet's childhood and the feelings she still has for the parents who have departed. There are steamy poems too, of travel and romance, and a section of poems that deal head-on with the political problems of the modern world.
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 Go Where the Landshed Takes You
Poems
Jane Glazer
ISBN 1-880284-63-4
96 pages, paperback, $12.00
Some of the poems in this collection take on gigantic subjects, as big as the cosmos and forces beyond our control; but the poet also finds pleasure in simpler, tamer matters, like children on a beach and cows in the barn. There's magic in these poems, some of it spooky and some ordinary, some sensual, all of it meaningful. These poems also take us traveling over the globe and time-traveling through human history. There is a balance here between the brain and the spirit, and tension between the wild and the tame.
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 Shot With Eros
New and Selected Poems
Glenna Luschei
ISBN 1-880284-50-2
80 pages, paperback, $10.00
"Glenna Luschei's poems are always lively, brave, sometimes biting as lime juice—written by an enchanting mind." —Robert Bly
These poems cover thirty years in the writing career of poet/rancher/publisher Glenna Luschei, the editor-publisher of Cafe Solo Magazine and Solo Press. The poems are funny, moving, sensual, intelligent, and intensely personal. They demonstrate that humor and imagination are important ingredients of passion, as are honesty and communication. This book champions stubborn-minded, passionate independence and celebrates the positive strength that overcomes trauma.
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 Still Waters
Poems
Thelma Shaw
ISBN 1-880284-46-4
80 pages, paperback, $10.00
"Still Waters is a remarkable collection, deeply intelligent, often witty, always wise, a rare treasure." —Mary Jane Moffat
Thelma Shaw's poems reveal a love of words, a love of cats, a love of life. They flirt with traditional form without being constrained by it. Many of the poems are whimsical, displaying Shaw's crackling humor, but many deal courageously with dark subjects such as aging, the loss of sight, and the approach of death.
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Memoir
 Home is Where the Bus Is
Anne Beckwith Johnson
ISBN 1-880284-47-2
224 pages, paperback, $14.95
In 1960-61, at the height of the Cold War, Vernon Johnson decided to take his entire family—his wife, and eight children ages 2 to 17—on a trip around the world. It was hard enough to travel behind the Iron Curtain under the best of circumstances, but the Johnsons chose to do it the hard way: in a converted municipal bus, which broke down whenever it could. This is a l
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