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Fiction
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by William F. Van Wert
This collection of satirical stories by William F. Van Wert
uses the life of Spanish explorer Hernando Cortez as a theme upon which to
improvise imaginary through irreverent encounters between Cortez and other
historical figures, including Erasmus, Martin Luther, and Cervantes. The
author's playful use of puns, witty anachronisms and cleverly fractured
historical revelations give this book a humorous punch.
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by Mary Troy
What virtually all of the characters share is a profound
sense of ironic detachment that keeps the world at a protective remove. Although
Mary Troy could portray them merely as hapless losers, she wisely chooses to let
us glimpse the resignation behind their struggles. —New York Times Book
Review
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by Laurence Gonzales
Beautiful work by the author of Jambeaux and The Last
Deal, this collection is worth seeking out for its lively and new vision of
contemporary America.—Small Press Review
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Beauties
by Mary Troy
An audience seeking a stately, involved read about human relationships and
the meaning of beauty—in all its forms will enjoy this beauty of a novel.—ForeWord
Reviews
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by Ron Tanner
[Ron Tanner] is fabulously imaginative, experimental,
witty, often breathtaking...both male and female voices are handled beautifully,
although the prose is what we've come to call "muscular." At first I felt that
this was actually two collections, one concerned with life as we know it and one
as we fear it will be--but came to believe that the worlds are perfectly married
through their askew inventiveness and their witty contemporary language. It's
very assured and audacious work.—Janet Burroway,
2002 Judge, Chandra Prize
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by Philip Russell
Philip Russell's work is finely tuned to the aberrations of
love-the fear and danger and tenderness of it all. Reading these stories is like
entering a house with many doors, many windows, all leading to the heart of very
human things.—Dalia
Pagani
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by Dan Curley
A writer of exceptional polish. The stories that make up
The Curandero are certainly among his best.—New
York Times Book Review
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by Perry
Glasser
Glasser's funny and
authoritative voice is that of a sage
storyteller, one in whose world good and
evil often walk the same tightrope. These
are finely crafted and original stories.—Booklist
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by Alfred Duhrssen
By difficult women, the writer doesn't mean hard to seduce but
women who are bad tempered, quarrelsome, and treacherous.
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by Jaimee
Wriston Colbert
Jaimee Wriston Colbert’s new episodic novel-in-stories is a
jewel in both its form and its feeling, with layers of image and meaning as
intricately patterned as the dust on a butterfly’s wing.—Madison Smartt
Bell
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by Thomas E. Kennedy
Kennedy's characters are full, alive, and each story is
rich and deep. He writes with wisdom that turns some of his stories of great
sorrow into something triumphant. The title story is worth the book's price. It
is funny, gloomy, terrifying and joyful.—Andre
Dubus
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by Steve Heller
Father's Mechanical Universe
is a marvelously fresh take on the age-old theme of the painfully ambiguous
relationship of father and son...Steve Heller, like the legendary Mantle and
Maris, swings for the fence, never playing it safe.—Gordon
Weaver
In Father's Mechanical Universe, the American Dream is a quart low
and the Kellerman family has to use all its ingenuity, wit, and love to keep its
motor running. Steve Heller has written a touching, elegiac book that races with
120-octane insight. —Brent
Spencer
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by
Gladys Swan
Nine stories...skillfully track time's toll on the ability to live and
love fully. —Publishers
Weekly
Such precision of observation, such fineness of
intonation! Uncannily good.—Fred
Chappell
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by Mariko Nagai
Starkly recounted with a clear, cold tone, these stories carry the weight of
a survivor bearing witness.—Publishers
Weekly
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by Lorraine M. L ópez
"In a voice that is all
at once hilarious and mischievous, seering and seething and sardonic, López
presents, in her most necessary book to date, a celebration of the
liberating power of bad behavior."
— Heather Sellers, Georgia Under Water
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by H. E. Francis
Nine moody stories loosely interconnected about
families living in small towns on the Long Island shore....the best are small
triumphs, finding ordinary warmth and complexity in the most challenging of
circumstances.
—Kirkus
Reviews
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by Laura Maylene
Walter
Walter’s debut collection …
focuses on the significance of memory and place,
the challenges of being an independent woman in
the modern world, and struggles with death and
grief … The collection offers well-crafted and
keen entertainment.
— Publishers
Weekly
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by Billy Lombardo
Lombardo gets everything right, from a sensitive boy's
struggle to say and do the right thing in delicate situations to Chicago's
impossible weather, as he celebrates the marvels of boyhood and everyday
life. —Booklist
Lombardo's stories reflect the natural grace of someone who not only grew up
in the city but who possesses the precise touch to express his points with
honesty and art.—Chicago Tribune
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by
Naomi Benaron
Each voice rings true. Each new world created in the compressed length of
the short story form is vivid and real. This is a book that is rich in
character, detail and unified by a vibrant prose style and an empathy for it
subjects. What's more, it is fun to read.—Stuart
Dybek |
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by Kathleen George
George doesn't waste a word as she plunges the reader into her characters' lives
with startling intensity, then skillfully reveals as much about them as it is
necessary to know . . . These masterfully shaped stories mark George as a writer
to watch.
—Booklist
Kathleen George understands the powerful pull of outlaw love. Her characters are
earnest and sensible, but when they fall in love, they throw caution to the
wind. They chase ghosts, woo addicts, long for their devout Mexican housemaids,
leave their perfect husbands for their neighbor's surly gardeners. "It was an
old story," one of the lovers sighs, "but it felt brand new..." These stories
too feel new.
—Molly
Giles
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by Andrew Plattner
Plattner's stories always amaze me with delicacy, introspection, precision,
observation, and profound empathy. A Marriage of Convenience is a
masterful performance first to last.
—Frederick Barthelme
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Mustaches and Other
Stories
by G. W. Clift
Calm and reasonable, very readable, accessible as we say, Clift's stories show
plain American folks teetering over the edge of what just might be a great fall.—Jerry
Bumpus
Clift has edited Kansas Quarterly, Touchstones and
Literary Magazine Review during his career at Kansas State University.
His writings have appeared in Salad: A Reader, Vanderbilt Review and
Midwest Quarterly Review.
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Our People
I am a great admirer of Ian MacMillan's
writing, and all his strengths are evident in the superb stories of Our
People, all set in an obscure if not forgotten corner of rural America—upstate
New York, on small farms and in conflicted families. They are distinguished by
their powerful sense of place and most of all for the grim humor of their
humanity.—Paul Theroux
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Necessary Lies
Bakken's quiet exploration
of life's bookends makes for an auspicious first outing.—Publishers
Weekly
...Her stories are simple, straightforward American fiction that
works--making Necessary Lies a delight and something of a rare bird.—Los
Angeles Times
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Paper Crown
by Tom Hawkins
Tom Hawkins is a true master of what is perhaps the most difficult of all
literary forms, the short-short story. . . . Paper Crown is a book
that lovers of short fiction will talk about for years to come.—Fred
Chappell
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Tanks
by John Mort
The most vivid and upsetting piece of writing on Vietnam I've ever read.—Peter
Meinke
Chilling glimpses of the Vietnam War. These are terrifying but sensitive
stories.—Bobbie
Ann Mason
Mort is the winner of BkMk's Fiction Award and a Pushcart Foundation Writer's
Choice award. He lives in rural Missouri, and his stories have appeared in
Missouri Review, The New Yorker and many others. Mort
received a master's degree in library science and a master's of fine arts degree
in fiction from the University of Iowa in 1976.
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Tea and Other Ayama Na Tales
Bluestein brings a versatile, captivating
voice to her debut story collection set in the fictional Asian country of Ayama
Na....Bluestein explores with affection and a wicked sense of humor the excesses
and arrogance of American culture amid "a nation so much older, wiser, and
sadder than theirs.—Publishers Weekly |
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Urbane Tales
by Raymond Johnson
Actor-playwright Johnson wrote short stories of sophistication, restraint and
elegance. In the last book before his death, he once again demonstrates his
quiet wit and language.
"A natural, gifted story teller. I was both charmed and moved by every story in
this book and marveled at the skill of the author." --Laurel Speer, Remark
Johnson studied at the University of Chicago and the University of Kansas and
has taught English, Swedish and creative writing. He has written a novel and
numerous plays, including the prize-winning Love is Like a Prairie Dog,
winner of the Green Bay Civic Theater's National Contest.
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Modern Interiors
(short fiction and lithographs)
by Stephen
Gosnell
Gosnell is a painter, printmaker and writer. He teaches in the Department of Art
and Art History at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.
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