Growing Up White

Jacob Stevens, a transplanted southerner who grew up in the Jim Crow South, but now living in the Pennsylvania Laurel Highlands, on his 59th birthday, is invited to attend his 40th high school reunion. Jacob, who married a northerner and adopted three African-American children, realizes that the reunion committee, however, neglected to invite the African-American half of his class. This sparks an avalanche of painful nostalgia as he tries to cope with his own desire to return to the South and attend this reunion. Suddenly, Jacob feels homesick, and guilty for feeling this way—both at the same time. His story is the same as millions of rootless, homeless Americans who grew up in the turbulent last half of the 20th century. Jacob’s final triumph over his past, his realization that love has rewritten his past, as well as changed his future, will encourage all Americans as they move into the 21st Century.

“Clearly Stobaugh knows his material as in his day-to-day life he is a pastor as well as quite a gifted writer.”                               

—San Francisco Book Review

“Filling a void of mammoth proportions among Christian books, Growing Up White strikes the reader with all the frankness of a 2 x 4 to the skull. Told with gulping, edgy honesty, Jacob’s heart unravels before the reader as he beholds how, for decades, he has lightly and flagrantly overlooked the contemptuously low regard for black people in the community in which he grew up. If you also grew up white, you may be surprised to see a bit of yourself in Jacob. Nonetheless, a southerner reading it can still rejoice that he was privileged to grow up in Dixie, yet while coming to a new understanding that even the best realms in this world still manifest the flaws of a fallen humanity. One way or another, you’ll be enriched by the read. As a bonus, a man might even learn from Jacob a deeper appreciation and delight for his wife.”

—Dennis Gundersen, Pastor, Grace Bible Church, Tulsa, OK

“Utilizing literary imagery and artful prose, Stobaugh delivers a powerful punch that’ll bring you to tears, make you think, stir up your ire and convict your conscience. Growing Up White will make you weep while changing your worldview and maybe even your life.”

—Jeannie Fulbright, Author & Educator

“The narrative touched me deeply . . . it deals with repulsive issues that most of us have attempted to whitewash. However, much like a rainbow after a cleansing rainstorm, there is a message of hope and of healing that is honest and beautiful. It really is a powerful story.”

—Julie Braswell, Educator

“Stobaugh’s literary metaphors add so much to the central theme that is both powerful and endearing.”

—Alouette Greenidge, Wheaton College Student

Listen to an excerpt of Growing Up White

MARKETING & PUBLICITY CAMPAIGN

• National Radio and Print Campaign • Major Christian Home Educators and Book Club Outreach

• 5-city author tour

• Library Outreach

• Online Publicity Campaign

Targeting Major National Sites, Entertainment Sites, and Book Blogs • Coordinated Blog Tour

Social Networking Campaign on Goodreads and

Facebook

• Visit James’s website at www.forsuchatimeasthis.com • Author Facebook page

https://www.facebook.com/jpstobaugh

• Author Twitter @JamesPStobaugh

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Parallel

Parallel

Bound by circumstance and tradition, and mocked by the turnpike that bisects their farmland, folks folded into the ridges beneath Timmons Mountain sense the world is literally passing them by and look for ways to catch up: veterans of several wars seek salvation through escape; a female garbage collector reconciles death through correlation; a clinical psychologist relies on a fictional detective to manage his obsessions; a housewife finds the mystical on a mountain top; and a discontented Amish woman faces a fate she believes her duplicity has earned her.

Their tales reveal the resilience of the human spirit even as they evince the paradoxical nature of change.

Sharon Erby: Interviewed by Matt Salesses of The Good Men Project Magazine

Interviewed by Slice

READ AN EXCERPT

Praise for Parallel

“In the end the web of life becomes well defined and what began as a series of disparate stories connected primarily by a sense of place evolves to a gathering of intermingled experiences shared through the perceptions, hopes and thoughts of the female protagonist. The result is an achievement especially recommended for followers of literary short fiction interested in the mechanics of linking a short story collection’s events and characters.”

—D. Donovan, Senior Reviewer, Midwest Book Review

“Parallel is full of tension, the slow boiling kind of realism that acts as a mirror to our own consciousness. These characters and these stories are about how to live a life, how to be awake in the world, and how to be connected to it. Erby doesn’t provide any answers, and her characters leave messy endings behind them in their wake. In the end the stories here parallel our own American lives, our fragile human hearts.”

—S. Scott Whitaker, The Broadkill Review

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Parallel

by Sharon Erby

Giveaway ends October 19, 2014.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter to win

“We read it with enthusiasm, and experienced the narration and point of view of a working-class woman as strong, unpredictable, and convincing.”

—Minnie Bruce Pratt, Feminist Studies Board member
and author of Inside the Money Machine

“Parallel is one of the best linked-story collections I’ve read in recent years. Erby does for rural South-Central Pennsylvania what Sherwood Anderson did for the town of Clyde in Winesburg, Ohio. Parallel is a classic in its own right.”

—Sara Pritchard, author of Crackpots and Help Wanted: Female

“Sharon Erby takes on the plight of those caught in what used to be called Middle Class America, now more accurately, the Working (or undefined) Class — from the wars they have fought to the dead end jobs they endure to the baffling, unrewarding relationships they find themselves in through a sense of duty or inevitability. She tells it through riveting individual stories, and shows what a skilled writer with a good heart can do.

—John Bowers, Author of The Colony

The Research Notes series has invited Sharon to describe her research for her recent book, with “research” defined broadly. Sharon Erby writes about Parallel.

Book Launches:
Wilson College, Chambersburg, PA: Nov. 13 @ 7:00 p.m.
Midtown Scholar, Harrisburg, PA: Dec. 6 from 2:00-4:00 p.m.

Author Bio

A Pushcart Prize-nominated writer, Sharon Erby was awarded the Norris Church Mailer Fellowship while she studied for her MFA at Wilkes University. Currently an adjunct Assistant Professor of English at Wilson College, Chambersburg, PA, she has published creative and critical work in numerous literary journals and magazines, including Slice, Florida English, Feminist Studies, The Puritan, and Kaleidoscope.

She handled an array of jobs—from accounts receivable clerk, to technical editor, to Navy negotiator, to being a mother of four children—before she returned to one of her first passions: writing.

Fugue for the Right Hand

Fugue for the Right Hand, by Michele Tolela Myers
Release date: October 7, 2014
Book Launch: November 12, 7 p.m. at Book Culture, in Morningside Heights, 536 W. 112th, NY 10025;
Reading September 30 at Sarah Lawrence College
ISBN: 978-0-9895960-8-4
Trade Paperback and E-book formats, 164 pages, $19.95
Available through Ingram, Baker & Taylor, Brodart, Amazon, and bookstores every-where

Part political fable, Part a tale of losses and unexpected gains, Fugue for the Right Hand tells a story of hope and hard-won redemption in a fast-paced fugue. The time: the presidential campaign in the Fall of 2012. The place: Manhattan Upper West Side. The characters: a bum who sleeps on a Riverside Park bench, a woman who teaches economics at Barnard College, her boyfriend, her father, and a little girl who lives in Brooklyn and plays the piano. Chance makes their lives intersect over a one-year period, shuffles all the cards and deals a new hand.

With the presidential campaign and Hurricane Sandy as backdrops, Myers deftly raises the question of economic inequalities. With skill and expertise, she creates believable characters whose struggles could be our own. This fast-paced novella will keep you turning pages until the end.

 ^{Listen to an excerpt}

Win a free review copy at Goodreads:

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Fugue for the Right Hand

by Michele Tolela Myers

Giveaway ends September 30, 2014.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter to win

“Michele Myers’s sharp, spare, timely novella Fugue for the Right Hand is many things—a didactic fiction driven by moral passion and rage at societal folly and injustice, a documentary fiction with the immediacy and fidelity of the best journalism, a satiric fiction about the way we live now. Most deeply, though, it is in its tutelary spirit and its deep sympathy for its characters a fairy tale of sleepers awakening to their own humanity.”

—Vijay Seshadri, Poet, 3 Sections: Poems, 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry

“Truly a love story of so many different kinds of love, loss and connection, with the power of that love to lift and redeem. That’s a wonderful theme.”

—Arlene Alda, Author, Photographer
 
 
 
 
 

Author Bio:

Myers’ academic career took her from teaching to academic administration at Bryn Mawr College as dean of the College, to Denison University as president for nine years, and to Sarah Lawrence College as president for nine years. Myers retired in 2007 to write fiction full time.

Myers has published extensively in her professional life (non fiction books that have been best-sellers in their markets, scholarly articles, essays). Her opinion editorials on education pub-lished in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Christian Science Monitor have been widely circulated and brought her national attention. Her short fiction has appeared in The Reading Room, in Global City Review, and in The Commonline Journal.

Born in Morocco, Myers grew up and was educated in Paris until she moved permanently to the US in 1964. In 2007, she was named by President Chirac a Chevalier de la Legion d’Honneur, the highest honor bestowed by the French government.

Myers lives in Manhattan, Asheville, NC, and Paris. She has completed her fourth novel.

A Little Something

Book launch at op.cit books in Santa Fe

Katherine Warren, M.D., is a no-nonsense pediatrician who serves the small and suffering in a Texas barrio clinic. She thinks she’s seen it all, but then it all hits home. Her ten-year-old son is brought to the edge of death by a medical accident in a dentist’s office.

Katherine, her CPA husband, Sam, her grandmother, her best friend, her scientific colleagues – the finest minds and biggest hearts – rally to the aid of the boy, who is locked in darkness.

Sam and Katherine, twin towers of rationality, must come to terms with difficult yet sustaining truths. When all seems lost, this is what remains:  Below hope, beyond the reach of religion or science, at the point of surrender lies something in our trembling center that keeps us going. A small, quiet mystery. A little something.

Praise for A Little Something

“What makes this story work so well is Haddaway’s laser focus on the characters and how each deals with the impact of Justin’s coma and the uncertainty about his future.”

—Jeff Fleischer, Foreword Reviews

“Haddaway’s ability to imagine a family facing tragedy and its aftershocks offer nearly the opposite of cynicism—this is a story of grace, a reminder of the tenuousness of life, and the fragility of family ties.”

—Michael Wade Simpson, CultureVulture.net

“A ten-year-old boy is struck in the face by a foul ball; from this freak accident a relentless chain of events unrolls. This brave and illuminating book focuses on his parents Sam and Kath (herself a physician to children) and medical personnel, but it also explores wider contexts of religion, bioethics, social justice, and the limits of medicine in desperate situations. Richard Haddaway has crafted a pitch-perfect range of characters’ emotions and memories, of scientific facts and obdurate mysteries, and of suspense and resolution.”

—Albert Howard Carter, III, Ph.D., adjunct professor, Social Medicine, School of Medicine, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, and author of Our Human Hearts: A Medical and Cultural Journey

Goodreads Book Giveaway

A Little Something

by Richard Haddaway

Giveaway ends November 01, 2014.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter to win

About the Author

Richard Haddaway has spent thirty years in the journalistic trenches as an editor, reporter and columnist for newspapers and magazines. His previous novel, Where the River Bends, was published by SMU Press in 2003.

He was an Army medic during the Vietnam era and also worked for a time as a hospital orderly, specializing in bedpans. A Little Something was written in close consultation with a neurologist, William Gulledge, M.D.

Haddaway is a born-once, third-generation Texan who now lives in Santa Fe with his wife, Kay, a CPA, and the best of all possible dogs, WooWoo. They have one son and three grandchildren.

Twenty Grand, A Love Story

A riveting modern noir telling of

desire and betrayal, justice and love

Forthcoming April 21, 2015

The beautiful wife of a powerful businessman finds that her husband has given their fortune away to a young woman. And she’ll do anything to get it back.

Gloria Orion’s life is complete – a lovely home, a wealthy spouse, vacations abroad. It’s a pretty picture.

But one afternoon, Gloria discovers this nice life is an illusion. She finds that her husband Karl has given away their fortune to a young woman named Mira. When she confronts him, he puts up a wall: It’s all true, honey. And none of your damn business. Then Karl reveals he is dying of cancer, and has no insurance. Gloria’s devastated, stunned – and bankrupt. But her tears dry quickly. This girl Mira has the money, she thinks. My money! And Gloria Orion will do anything to get it back.

She calls her brother, a prominent lawyer, who’s fighting to save the building he owns from foreclosure. He needs money too, fast. Then she finds a private investigator, who can’t earn a living legitimately because his license is revoked. But that suits Gloria fine, so she hires him. Angry and desperate, they’re all determined to recover the money.

Unfortunately, Mira won’t be much help. Her body turns up in a vacant lot on the wrong side of town, and the cops suspect Gloria and her brother of murder. The hunters become the hunted. As the police close in, Gloria embarks on a frantic search, only to find disaster. In a shocking ending, her lost fortune becomes part of a strange and fascinating justice.

Praise for Twenty Grand

“Twenty-Grand, A Love Story is a novel that pulls you in and won’t let you go. The fate of the characters will break your heart as they do the best they can with all they have. In the end, their success will lift you up.”

—Lyman McLallen, Professor of English, Hankuk University, Seoul, Korea

“McLellan writes compelling characters with real struggles and dark secrets, weaving them into a story that keeps you guessing and stays with you beyond the final page.”

—Stacey Wiedower, author of Thirty First Dates

About the Author

Austin McLellan has published fiction at Akashicbooks.com, and in the Bangalore Review, Stepaway Magazine, the Monarch Review, and In Recovery Magazine (Spring 2015). His drama King Henry, Mayor was a finalist in the 2014 Tennessee Williams Play Contest. In a previous life, Austin taught English and writing at universities in Asia, Europe, and the United States. He has also operated an art gallery, developed software, and acted in a Shakespeare play. Austin lives in Memphis, Tennessee, where he develops real estate in the inner city, and writes. He has a BA, Philosophy from Rhodes College; an MA in Literature from the University of Memphis. More at www.austinmclellan.com

Calling the Dead

Eusapia Palladino’s wretched childhood in a small Italian village, her evolution into one of Europe’s most successful mediums and her travels to France, England and America at the turn of the 20th century come alive in this gripping tale that spans literary, historical, feminist, occult and paranormal categories. Since Eusapia’s special powers spring from her relationship with her deceased mother, her story was fittingly released on Mother’s Day.

In a period when the emergence of modern science calls into question long-held assumptions, and spiritualism fills a void caused by the resulting decline in traditional religious beliefs, Eusapia taps successfully into the new hopes and fears of her time.

Communicating with the dead is deeply personal for Eusapia. She survives the misery of her childhood only by holding on to her dead mother who died giving birth to her. For a poor but clever and independent girl without schooling, becoming a medium is one of her only means to get by in life and maybe even do well. With the help of influential spiritualists, Eusapia develops her powers. Her reputation soars and brings her to cities all over the world. She is sought out by famous people and investigated by renowned scientists and Nobel Prize winners like Charles Richet and Marie and Pierre Curie.

R.K. Marfurt’s novel explores Eusapia’s conflicted, not always savory, yet courageous journey through life and mediumship, as well as the multifaceted relationships of scientists and upper-class people with spiritualism and the dark séance rooms where peculiar and unexpected things happen.

Praise for Calling the Dead

“Calling the Dead is a timely historical novel exploring the spaces between religion, science and spiritualism. Join traveling medium Eusapia Palladino (1854-1918) on a fascinating journey to the indeterminate realms that have come to dominate the postmodern era. Love, politics and science collide in what, ultimately, is a rumination on human being.”

—John M. Gist, Founding Editor, Red Savina Review

“R.K. Marfurt does a marvellous job at showing the reader how Eusapia’s childhood may have impacted her and drawn her into the world of spiritualism. CALLING THE DEAD is an insightful, albeit very dark, look at the life of Eusapia Palladino. R.K. Marfurt paints a very powerful portrait of her life and the times that shaped both the woman and her career. CALLING THE DEAD is a tragic and intense look at a well-renown medium.”

—Fresh Fiction

“Calling the Dead is an impressive achievement. It is a straightforward biographical story yet full of suspense, a firmly grounded account with a dreamlike quality, an intensely feminine exploration of self in a predominantly male environment, a historical narrative with contemporary immediacy. An excellent book.”

—Jose Havet, Professor of Sociology, Ret., University of Ottawa

“…a very entertaining read, and I recommend it for the permanent library of any reader who appreciates an excellent novel and wants to get hooked from the beginning.”

“In rich and fluid language, the novel explores a plethora of feelings and situations. The reader can’t help but be swept up as if under the spell of a real séance. A must read.”

                                                                                               —Marie-Andrée Donovan, author of the award-winning Les soleil incendiés, and À l’ombre du silence

Savior

Savior,

by Anthony Caplan

Amazon #1 bestseller in International Crime 

A father and son stumble into the secret world of the Santos Muertos, a crime cartel bent on global domination. The son must find his father and keep the secret of the ancient Mayan code underlying the creation of matter in the universe from falling into the wrong hands.

A story of sacrifice and love.

Praise for Savior

“In the literary world, a gem comes along that deserves to be recognized and read. Grab your sunglasses because Savior by Anthony Caplan shines it’s brilliance up there with the rarest of rare finds! Part mystery, part adventure, part psychological thriller, part coming of age, 100% amazing, a non-offensive read for any age!”

–Dianne Bylo, Tome Tender

“Set in a dystopian near-future, Savior is genre-breaking reading at its best . . . a fascinating combination of high adventure and interpersonal relationships that keep Savior an exciting, unpredictable read right up to its emotionally charged (and satisfying) conclusion.”

–Diane Donovan, Midwest Book Review

“The story opened strong and it kept that level throughout…This is definitely a story of love and sacrifice.”

—Highway-YA

“This is a great edge-of-your-seat dystopian novel. I was drawn in immediately and could not put it down…a wonderful story of faith and courage. Even if you don’t read dystopian novels, this book takes you on an amazing cross-country adventure you’re sure to enjoy.”

“The author did a superb job on creating the characters, going deep into the psycho analysis of their behavior. The plot is very well constructed….The plot is very intense and it is guaranteed that you will be hooked from the first page on this incredible adventure, showing that a love between father and son has no limits. I recommend this book to the permanent library of all readers that enjoy a very well written novel and want to be entertained.”

“The use of language is intelligent, and unexpected in today’s thriller/dystopian genres, with turns of phrase that startle with their elegance without ripping the reader away from the plot or descriptions . . . It is exemplary in its stellar use of language, its complex plot and characterizations, its ability to derive truths and fallacies and the thin veil separating them.”

—Diane Nelson, Sand in My Shoes Reviews

“I enjoyed the characters very much and the development of the plot line kept me interested to the end. The Canadian connection made it even more exciting.”

—J.C., Rockwood, Ontario

About the Author

A former reporter in Central America, Venezuela and the UK for the Associated Press and United Press International, Anthony Caplan teaches high school Spanish in New Hampshire. He is also a farmer, and the author of Birdman; French Pond Road; and Latitudes – A Story of Coming Home.

Trading Dreams

“Occupy’s 1st Bestselling Novel”

Trading Dreams

by J. L Morin

Finally! A humorous novel that throws corruption onto the horns of the Wall Street bull. Trading Dreams slams the cultural & psychological hypocrisy that undermined our stolen economy in a tale that is funny, thrilling and spiritual. Author J.L. Morin unveils the ironies of established Wall Street greed to the baseline of a grassroots Occupy Wall Street movement.

This redemption story depicts the pitfalls of a new-hire at a bank. For Jerry, New York in its heyday means hanging with the guys, finding nothing but users, and developing a sex addiction. When her villain CFO sets her up as a scapegoat for ‘robo-signing’ mortgages with no paperwork, Jerry fights back. But nothing escapes the villain’s greedy clutches, while the economic crisis descends like a praying mantis devouring its mate at the moment of ecstasy. The young career woman teeters spectacularly between life as a trading-floor cyborg and revolutionary battling Wall Street corruption . . . as if she didn’t have enough to worry about running from a murderer.

Not one to let homeowners down or push clients to invest in the stocks the bank is trying to dump, Jerry is convinced she can outsmart the machine. With the help of Occupy Wall Street, she spreads the word through the human microphone. There’s little prospect of finding another job when Jerry blows the whistle . . .This turncoat story by a native Detroit author got rave reviews:

“An ideal read for suspense lovers interested in the current financial crisis.”

― Booklist

“No 1 in Amazon’s Political Fiction section…Ms Morin’s book is a fantastic read.”

― CNN iReport
 

 
“Trading Dreams is an enticing and humorous read, not to be overlooked.”    

― Midwest Book Review
 

 “Superb fiction with a side of harsh reality and a heaping of humor.”    

― Raise The Fist 

 
“A compelling mystery that is also a story of personal discovery – as well as an in-depth analysis of the Occupy Wall Street movement and the factors that have created our economic kerfuffle.”

― Frying Pan News

About the Author

JL Morin grew up in inner-city Detroit. She proffered moral support while her parents sacrificed all to a failed system. Wondering what the Japanese were doing right, she decamped to Tokyo. Her debut Japan novel, Sazzae, won an eLit Gold Medal, and a Living Now Book Award. Her second novel, Travelling Light, was a USA Best Book Awards finalist, and her third, Trading Dreams, became ‘Occupy’s first bestselling novel’. Her climate fiction novel, Nature’s Confession, won first place in the Dante Rossetti Book Awards; a Readers’ Favorite Book Award; a LitPick 5-Star Review Award; and an excerpt received an Honorable Mention in the Eco-Fiction Story Contest, published in the Winds of Change anthology of eco-fiction. Her second cli-fi novel, Loveoid, is a Cygnus Sci-fi 1st place winner, among others.

Her cli-fi novels are on course syllabi at many universities. Ivy League professors have facilitated discussions with JL Morin’s writing, and it is discussed in textbooks, such as Science Fiction and Climate Change: A Sociological Approach, by Andrew Milner, ‎and J. R. Burgmann, 2020, published by Oxford University Press.

Her most recent work, Tuck-a-tuck Dragon, is a diverse rhyming children’s book illustrated by children throughout their childhood from the ages of 2–21.

JL Morin’s writing draws on a breadth of experience. She traded derivatives in New York while studying nights for her MBA at New York University’s Stern School of Business; worked for the Federal Reserve Bank posted to the 103rd floor of the World Trade Center; presented the news as a TV broadcaster; and she is adjunct faculty at Boston University. Morin’s fiction has appeared in The Harvard Advocate and Harvard Yisei, and her articles and translations in The Huffington Post, Library Journal, The Detroit News, European Daily, Livonia Observer Eccentric Newspapers, The Harvard Crimson, and Agence France Presse while she worked in their Middle East Headquarters.

Above Ground

A group of award-winning and new authors have contributed to this anthology of short fiction and are donating the net proceeds to Doctors without Borders and Jubilee USA. Above Ground is a blend of the print and online worlds that is unique because it is generative. The stories and novel excerpts in Above Ground are what publisher Harvard Square Editions has dubbed Living Fiction, work by contemporary authors seeking to stimulate a literary dialog. Living Fiction invites readers to join in and converse with the 19 authors, mostly Ivy League alumni, whose email addresses are in the book. “We are delighted to see the excitement that advance copies of Above Ground have already generated, and hope others will replicate this interactive approach to literary diffusion,” says Geoff Fox, an Above Ground author who lives in Spain. Themes range from romance with a ghost, to a modern Grapes-of-Wrath family quest, to lawlessness on a remote island “paradise,” to surfing the “Outernet” of the collective unconscious, to wisdom that carries an immigrant cleaning woman through hardship. The variety and unexpected forms of the authors’ intelligence and wit is enthralling. Above Ground is the first in a series of anthologies, and speaks especially to writers who might want to participate in future volumes. Harvard Square Editions will play a vital role in the Harvard Community, fulfilling its need for a press that publishes fiction.

Proceeds from the sale of this book go to the Nobel Prize winning charity Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), an international medical humanitarian organization created by doctors and journalists in France in 1971.

Today, MSF provides aid in nearly 60 countries to people whose survival is threat-ened by violence, neglect, or catastrophe, primarily due to armed conflict, epidemics, malnutrition, exclusion from healthcare, or natural disasters.

© Francesco Zizola / Noor

Proceeds from Harvard Square Editions anthologies have also gone to Jubilee USA Network to break the chains of debt and feed children in over sixty countries. Jubilee works for responsible global lending practices and engages in public education, research, poicy analysis and advocacy.

Jubilee photo © Feije Riemersms

The Conjurer’s Boy

The Conjurer’s Boy

The Conjurer’s Boy is the saga of Thomas Faye, a fatherless boy who enters a junk shop on a gray Chicago day in 1962 and is forever changed by the two men he meets there. Arthur Farrell, the proprietor, is a sometime-magician,raconteur, wanderer, a wounded veteran of the carnage at the Somme, who can heal – and perhaps far more – with the mere touch of his hand. His belligerent friend Meyer, a seemingly indestructible survivor of the fall of the Warsaw Ghetto, lives on the street, a magnet for trouble and violence. Under the influence of these two mysterious men Thomas comes to see the world in ways he could never have imagined. As his own travels take him to Vietnam and the far corners of America, he adopts one persona after another: drifter, soldier, carny worker, detective, lover. Through it all, three people hover at the edge of his existence: Farrell, Meyer, and a troubled girl. As he notes the troubling changes in his own abilities, he begins to understand why fate sent him into the conjuror’s shop that day in 1962.

Praise for The Conjurer’s Boy

“Michael Raleigh hits a home run this book. I really loved In the Castle of the Flynns but this is even better. For those of us who grew up in Chicago during the time frame of the book, much less walked or drove the same streets, this book is a real and personal journey through a child’s, young man’s and man’s life. There were parts that were dark and there were no easy outs. Everyone has a Conjurer in their life; they just need to listen, try to understand and take the hand-off from another generation. If Raleigh were only a Southsider and set his books there [South Side Chicago], he would be on the New York times best seller lists for years!”

― John P. Farris

Michael Raleigh is the author of seven previous novels, including  In The Castle of the Flynns. He has received the Eugene Izzi award for crime fiction and four Illinois Arts Council awards for fiction. He teaches writing at DePaul University and lives in Chicago with his wife Katherine and his three children.

Patchwork

Patchwork

A debut novel

Dan Loughry

“Patchwork is an emotionally riveting, powerful and true-to-heart novel of two men whoserelationship unravels in the initial AIDS crisis. It’s also a telling tale offamily dynamics, picking up the pieces of shattered dreams and finding thestrength and courage to move forward. …a novel that brilliantly captures a truly devastating time period by tellingthe story of just one couple.”

— Edge Magazine

As it moves from Chicago in the late 80’s to Los Angeles on the cusp of a new millennium, Patchwork encompasses a mercurial decade in the lives of its characters. This debut novel – told with candor, insight, and a humor both gentle and scathing – sets the story of gay lovers in transition, and a family in the midst of personal upheaval, as they struggle to redefine themselves in the shadow of AIDS.

More Praise for Patchwork

“With the 30th anniversary of AIDS on many people’s minds, the arrival of Dan Loughry’s debut novel Patchwork (Harvard Square Editions) couldn’t come at a more crucial time.”

— Bay Area Reporter 

“Congratulations to Charles, Dan, and Susan for collaborating on such a wonderful project!”

—UCLA News
 

“By turns courageously comic and heart-wrenchingly historical, this is a compelling reminder of the way things were.”

—Price Source

“A deeply moving story of human relationships, yours and mine, in elegant prose that tackles tragedy and hope, loss and grief, with refreshing honestly and humor. Loughry’s brilliant voice and haunting story will follow you long after you’ve turned the last page.”

— Dora Levy Mossanen, author of HAREM and COURTESAN

“Dan Loughry is a maestro of memory and observation. In Patchwork, he achieves the impressive feat of telling a story that feels archetypal in its outlines – as it follows its protagonist through three eventful decades, from the beginning of the age of AIDS to the era of bemused long-term survivors – but ultimately wins us over through its masterful recording and layering of the specific human details and discoveries that make up a particular journey, and a particular life.”

— Dave Awl, editor of 200 NEO-FUTURIST PLAYS

A Weapon to End War

A Weapon to End War

What if the foremost scientist in the field of nanotechnology and microrobotics decided to use his inventions to take our world leaders hostage and enact his own political agenda? Dr. J. Maurice Carpenter has worked for decades at the Brookhaven National Laboratory on a top-secret government project to develop a terrifying new breed of weaponry. Launching an attempt to take over the world, Carpenter implants microscopic robots in the bodies of the President of United States and his family members. The only hope for stopping Carpenter is a Los Angeles-based FBI agent named Bill Maddox, who is more accustomed to working simple narcotics cases than handling crises of such magnitude. In far over his head but determined to prove his worth, Maddox plunges into a labyrinth of danger, matching wits against an intellect far superior to his own. In doing so, he confronts a femme fatale and a technology potentially more deadly than any the world has ever witnessed. More frightening still, it is a technology that actually exists today.

“Ross is a powerful new voice on the thriller scene. He takes the best of Le Carre, Clancy and Ludlum and winds it up with a timely, riveting commentary on the sociopolitical threats that lie beneath the surface of the nightly news. You won’t be able to put this book down.”

—RIP GERBER, author of the best-selling thrillers PHARMA and KILLER VIRUS