Bottom of the Fox
The Bottom of the Fox, by Sean Mullen
Eddie Joubert's midlife crisis had arrived right on schedule. He fell hard for the Poconos, a resort area in Pennsylvania where he bought a rundown tavern that became a magnet for an eclectic clientele that ranged from world-class jazz musicians to bikers to returning Vietnam War veterans. But the Poconos held a dark secret. When Joubert was hacked to death in 1981, it was yet another in a series of gruesome unsolved murders and puzzling deaths involving hippies, gays and other people whom the authorities cared little about because they were considered to be lowlifes. The Bottom of the Fox lays bare that secret for the first time. It details the astonishing level of violence in an area known for resorts and verdant woodlands while revealing how evil doers could literally get away with murder. See Phillip Bannowsky's Review in Broken Turtle Blog.
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There's a House in the Land
There's a House in the Land, by Shaun Mullen

It was a time of bad hair and bad music, but none of that mattered to the tribe who lived on a farm beyond Philadelphia's far western suburbs. At first glance, this farm would seem to have been one of the then-ubiquitous communes, but it most definitely was not.  There's a House in the Land, (Where a Band Can Take a Stand) is the compelling, funny and sometimes heartbreaking story of that tribe and that farm.  It is fact lightly disguised as fiction in that the places, events and people are real, but the names of some places and people have been changed to protect the innocent.  As well as the guilty. Featured Author for September, 2014. Read Phillip Bannowsky's Review in Broken Turtle Blog.

Closer to the Ground
Closer to the Ground, by Particia Lewis Goodman
A stunning book of beautifully rendered poems. With a direct, clear voice, this poet writes the grief of a husband’s suicide—making the unspeakable spoken; making the unimaginable real. Goodman asks: “What is life? That flicker of electricity that / sparks a heart?” In strong, steady lines, we see the everyday brutality of farm life: “Brambles crawled / over everything, until all that remained / were skulls buried in the tangle, // and me, picking ripe blackberries / along the verge.” With incredible courage, Goodman finds a glimpse of light: “In a few years the hillside healed— / gardens fragrant with clematis and roses, / the pasture below sweet with milkweed.” – Jan Beatty
Why I Write, a Hearts and Minds film
Why I Write: The Twin Poets
The Hearts and Minds film Why I Write is a universal story of devotion to art and community - the powerful tale of the life and death struggle of helping children grow up in the face of poverty and violence, seen as it happens in the tough Riverside neighborhood of Wilmington, Delaware.
Every Mother Moves to a New Country
Maggie Rowe is a Delaware poet and teacher who was born in Somerset, England. She has had poems published in Oberon and The Sun magazines, as well as in two Delaware anthologies in 2008, Art and Poetry, published by the Biggs Museum and On the Mason-Dixon Line, published by the University of Delaware Press. Maggie has won an Academy of American Poets Award and is a recipient of a Delaware Division of the Arts Fellowship in Poetry.
She teaches at the Wellness Community of New Castle County, and has edited a poetry anthology there,
Poems of Shadows and Light (available on Amazon).
Our Work, Our Words:
iUniverse, 2008.
Words of praise for the Twin Poets Albert H. Mills and Nnamdi O. Chukwuoca:
"To see the Twin P
Our Work, Our Word: Taking the Guns from Our Sons' Hands, by The Twin Poets
oets is to laugh and cry and be thankful that young poets continue our great tradition"-Sonia Sanchez, author of Shake Loose My Skin
"What beauty"-Walter Mosley, author of Walking the Dog
"These two brothers have the wind in their words. WE NEED YOU"-Haki Madhubuti, author of Tough Notes
"A wonderful, skillful group of brothers with a great passion and future"-Michael Eric Dyson, author of Come Hell or High Water
"Twin Poets = Unity & Struggle"-Amiri Baraka, author of Dutchman & The Slave
Every Mother Moves to a New Country, by Maggie Rowe
This is a small, illustrated jokebook filled with puns (rated for everyone) on film and song titles. It is compiled from Twitter(TM) threads added to by credited contributors from around the world, and the only rule is that they can't be real titles. It's surprising how many people have the same dreadful sense of humour. Here are some examples: #bodypartfilms: "Lobe, Actually," #laundrysongs: "Papa Don't Bleach," #kitchenhorrormovies: "Village Of The Jammed," #furnituresongs: "Deskerado," #poultrymovies: "Buffy, The Vampire Layer," #maternityfilms: "3:10 To You're A Ma," #kitchensongs: "Bake Another Little Piece Of My Tart," #dogsongs: "It Mastiff Been Love," and #scaryclothingmovies: "The Purse of Frankenstein." Threads can be added onto very quickly, but after a few days of neglect they disappear. The ones in this book have been preserved, like figs, the rotten ones discarded, and the good ones set up in jars with judiciously-added cartoons. If you like figs, or figgy pudding, you may find this book to your taste. Any profits from this book will be split between tweeters and artists.
Delaware's dual Poets Laureate and Twin brothers Al Mills and Nnamdi Chukwuocha are men who have found a mission: using poetry and social action to awaken the spirit of awareness buried deep within the souls of the downtrodden. See Twin Poets on Facebook. Learn about their redemptive non-profit, Art for Life Delaware.
Poultry Movies, Dogsongs, and Other Witty Tweet Jokes, ed. @rowemag (Maggie Rowe)
Word for House Story
Words for House Story, by JoAnn Balingit, Poet Laureate Emerita of Delaware
With a gift for metaphor and an eye for what is strange and arresting in everyday life, Balingit weds intimate family narratives with radiant lyric poetry about loss, passion, parenthood and a life grounded in the natural world. " Balingit's Word For House Story, celebrates the house of our longings, our memory, and our hopes. That house is filled with real people, imperfect, living among frogs, herons, and muskrats, watching the moon and stars, not for a sign but as emblems of what we are: watchers together. The poems are taut, poignant with love, the raw trouble of love and of families. 'Life can knock you down / Tumble your jars of black ink,' begins 'Unfinished Lullaby.' I appreciate these poems. They go unflinchingly into the hollows and find all the light that's filtering in there." -Fleda Brown
Forage
Balingit's Forage is a passionate and heartbreaking collection that scours the depths of familial longing, grief and loss in imagery that "paints mango sunsets in bowls" but acknowledges "the face of a loved one/whose dark secret bristles/temper November/a shade of purple I can only call/a truce with the sky/and its endless ghosts." Often grounded in the natural world, Balingit's lush imagery and sure music reverberate throughout these poems. Her prosody is as crisp and unflinching as Sylvia Plath's in lines like "my mother glints like a polished shield." I am smitten by this small collection of poems that explodes from a huge heart foraging through a complex family history (Filipino/ Anglo) punctuated by misunderstanding, loss and struggle, and arriving at what we call love, then, finally, grace. -Pamela Uschuk
Forage, by JoAnn Balingit, Poet Laureate Emerita of Delaware
Storm (photo by Sohn Lewis)
Wings, by Auset (Marian Lewis)
Known as Marian Smothers when she won a Delaware State Arts Fellowship, Auset now features the poems from this collection in a Blogspot album. She has won several other awards and writes columns for Black Agenda Report. (Photo by Sohn Lewis)
More Books 4
To Give a Rose
To Give a Rose, by Caroline Ailanthus
Artist Sophie Smith “listens” to fossils to seek inspiration, but her latest subjects, a pair of ape-like human ancestors millions of years old, could give her something else as well. Never has she needed a clear perspective on human descent so much, for now she is unexpectedly pregnant. As Sophie struggles to make art and make a decision, her speculations frame and introduce the real stories of seventy-five years in a proto-human community, the “foot-ape” Tribe of the River Confluence. There is the community founder who must make a terrible choice to reclaim her power and her dignity. There is the man who defends his family from famine in ways at once human and beastly. There is the woman who crosses a mountain range for a chance at saving her children. And more. Sophie can wonder, draw solace, and make decisions about her own legacy, but she cannot know these stories. She cannot learn why one of her fossil subjects is holding the fossil of a flower.
Caroline Ailanthus considers herself a science writer. From blogging about climate change and editing scientific papers, to her meticulously researched fiction, her projects blend science and story. She grew up in Delaware and attended mostly small, private schools there and in New England. She has a BA in Environmental Leadership and an MS in Environmental Studies. While researching a certain novel about australopithecines, she served on trail maintenance crews, managed back-country tent sites, collected data on nesting birds, and eventually became a full-time free-lance writer. To Give a Rose is her first published novel, but prior credits include numerous essays, some short fiction, and two long-running blogs, The Climate Emergency, and The School with No Name. The novel, To Give a Rose, is also the first major publication of her visual art, although she also contributed paintings and collage to the off-Broadway musical, Inappropriate, illustrated some of her own blog posts, and has donated watercolors to fundraisers by Conservación Panamá. She travels often, but usually lives in Maryland with her husband and assorted cats and dogs.
The Self-Publishing Roadmap
The Self-Publishing Roadmap (CreateSpace, 2014), by Lois Hoffman
Whether you are a business professional looking to brand yourself as an expert in your field, a first-time novelist dreaming of seeing your name in print, or someone who wants to hand down a treasured family history, The Self-Publishing Roadmap will guide you through each step of the process. This book is designed for those who are new to the self-publishing world in an easy-to-follow format with numerous resources to help you on your journey. The time has never been better to tell your story. Lois Hoffman is a writer, speaker, workshop facilitator, and coach for new and experienced writers. Combining her life-long passion for teaching with her expertise in self-publishing, Lois founded The Happy Self-Publisher to encourage writers to become authors and aspiring writers to put their thoughts on the page. She teaches writers to overcome writing, publishing, and book marketing obstacles through workshops and on her blog. She has also been published in Highlights for Children. Lois lives with her family in Newark, Delaware where she juggles her creative pursuits with enthusiasm and joy. Please contact Lois for requests for interviews, workshops, school visits, and presentations.
The Almost Perfect Birthday Party
The Almost Perfect Birthday Party (2013), by Lois Hoffman
The Almost Perfect Birthday Party: A sanity-preserving guide to planning a party your child will love. If you are faced with planning a birthday party for the first time or are trying to make up for the party that went terribly wrong, this book will give you easy to follow guidelines for everything from invitations to goodie bags. This guilt-free guide will help take the guess and the stress out of planning for both you and your child. Sometimes almost perfect is perfect just the way it is. As a professional juggler and entertainer, she performs with her husband, Michael, as The Juggling Hoffmans. They share the gift of laughter at corporate, private, and community events. Her experience as an event planner and participant in 20+ years of birthday parties lead Lois to write about successfully, although perhaps not perfectly, planning a birthday party for children.
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