Containing items of historical interest for military enthusiasts as well as bits of nostalgia that will appeal to general readers of Americana, Leatherneck Sea Stories is an informal collection of profiles of Marines and memories of serving in the Corps during and after the Korean conflict of the 1950s, all culled straight from the heartfelt experiences of author Dave Easton.

As a member of the “old breed,” Easton might bristle at being labeled a literary artist, but the reader of Leatherneck Sea Stories will quickly discern a clever turn of the phrase to go along with his eloquent demonstration of the fine art of storytelling.

Doug Hoekstra has long-been recognized as an extraordinary singer-songwriter with a decidedly literary bent. Fans and music critics alike are quick to suggest favorable comparisons to such musical poets as Leonard Cohen and Lou Reed, but ultimately the comparisons give way to recognition that he is indeed a unique artist with a distinctive identity. Integral to that identity are his talents as a prose stylist—talents which are triumphantly borne out in Bothering the Coffee Drinkers, a collection of short stories (and two essays) culled from his experiences as a musical troubadour rolling down the highways and playing gigs at dozens of the world’s most renown music clubs and hundreds upon hundreds of gigs at neighborhood pubs and coffee houses. But the setting is ultimately inconsequential: For Doug Hoekstra, everyone is a story and everything a storyline, and if you spend some time listening to his music and reading Bothering the Coffee Drinkers, you’ll realize that the songs are stories and the stories are songs and it will all blend together like pure cream poured into a fresh cup of gourmet coffee.

Bothering the Coffee Drinkers is, above all else, a testament to good, solid writing—a collection of prose stylings which fall under the grand heading of fine literature.

In The View from My Ridge, Charles E. Rice creates short, wonderfully perceptive, lyrical vignettes in the rich story telling tradition of Sandra Cisneros’s The House on Mango Street.

Sometimes profound, always moving, these essays by Rice are beautifully crafted. Their intricate designs, almost always completed on one page, reveal the skill of an extraordinary writer. Here is a memoir whose form and style, plus the profundity of its meaning, make it a worthwhile and important read. (Mary Sue Koeppel)

Between the Bones is a structured and unified gathering of poems, poems that speak of fresh wounds and ancient healing, of emptiness and fulfillment. From the opening lines of “Getting the Angels to Talk” to the concluding words of the wonderfully apt “How to Say Good-bye Indestructibly,” the reader is embraced by a voice simultaneously innocent and experienced moving along a path of sensual awakenings. This is a journey of shared solitude, patiently navigated by a poet skilled in traversing the harsh earth with a compassionate and boundless spirit. Between the Bones is a book of enduring breath deserving of a thousand reads—and more.

Guts from the Urn is an anthology of writing from various issues of Canopic Jar, from the first print issue in 1986 to online issue #13 in 2004. The eclectic mix of writers include Carroll Dale Short, Utahna Faith, David Greenberger, Carver Adams, P.A. Merrill, and Warren Denney/

"Say what you will, but it ain't like nothing else you got on your shelf." —Ivester Jones, composer of "Shufflin' Boogie Blues."

"This Guts has a lot of heart." — Will Kern, author of Hellcab and Shakespeare Kung Fu

“This writer knows the country whereof he speaks, its dialect, its mores and folkways. But this is not sociology. It is primitive fiction of the sort one rarely sees. More's the pity. Underneath this violent language and narrative, there is a sweet truth. It deserves to be read.”—Harry Crews, author of The Mulching of America and Celebration

“Junior Ray runs a belly laugh per page. When Junior Ray, a deputy sheriff who makes Flem Snopes sound cultured, sets out to track down a maniac loose in the Mississippi Delta he proves to be more demented than his prey. Like his protagonist, John Pritchard's novella is outrageous and ribald, a revolt against the literary school of manners and a ride that will take Southern Gothic to new extremes.”—Curtis Wilkie, author of Dixie: A Personal Odyssey Through Events That Shaped the Modern South

“If you grew up in the environment of New Jerusalem and unrestrained, fundamentalist religion, this is déjà vu. If you didn’t, Clayton Sullivan will take you there. Be prepared to hurt and laugh, marvel, censure, and say Amen. But Hold on all the way.” The Rev. Will Cambell, civil rights veteran and Author of Brother to a Dragonfly.

“Clayton Sullivan has written a novel that is at turns rollicking and heart-rending, the story of sisteen-year-old Beulah Buchanan’s fateful marriage to thirty-six-year-old widower Ralth Rainey, a man of many parts, a man who is a ‘lollipop’ in public and a ‘rattlesnake’ in the privacy of his own home. This marriage starts and more or less ends in the New Jerusalem Primitive Baptist Church in New Jerusalem, Mississippi, population not enough, and over the course of its six-year span, told in retrospect, draws a starling raw and touching portrait of small-town life in the rural south. Sullivan has a deft touch with traditional Southern dialect, an eye for complex intimacies, and plenty of old-fashioned heart.” Frederick Barthelme, artist, educator and writer; his new book is The Law of Averages: New and Selected Short Stories.

"Here is a fresh and strong appeal from the South, to redeem the best of American values in our government. An amazing collection of authors takes an expert look at what one essay calls 'the Southernization of American Polities' and stands fearlessly against the South of George W. Bush and its Yankee allies and apologists. Witty, reasoned, uncompromising, and deeply informed, Where We Stand comes none too soon."—SEAN WILENTZ, Princeton University Director of American Studies and Dayton -Stockton Professor of History.

"There is a long tradition of courageous Southerners who have stood up against the dominant values of (he nation and the South and spoken out against war and racism- Here is an extraordinary group of writers from every part of the South who embody that tradition and give us, at a time when we need it most, voices that ring out eloquently for peace and justice." —HOWARD ZINN, author of A Peoples History of the United Slain

Originally published in 1976, Watermelon Wine received praise for its honest, unsen¬timental examination of the compassion as well as the passion behind authentic country music. A quarter-century later, the essays in the book seem prophetic, and in many cases have become even more relevant. Author Frye Gaillard looked at the commercialization of the Grand Ole Opry; the tradition-minded rebels such as Hank Williams. Way-Ion Jennings, and TompalI Glaser; the growing divide between country and folk music; how Johnny Cash inspired new songwriters and new ideas: how the changing relationships between men and women affected the music; the role of God and gospel: and Southern rock's increasing influence.

A new in¬troduction by Nashville music journalist Peter Cooper and a new afterword by the author update the book's themes and show what has happened to its personalities. Gaillard and Cooper have also collaborated to include a Listeners' Guide to the best CD’s by the artists fea¬tured in the book.

In three dozen poems and two-act play. MacArthur Fellow Billie Jean Young honors the tradition of struggle, resistance, and survival common to generations of women descended from African slaves. The tradition she dramatizes in her acclaimed portrayal of Fannie Lou Hamer (here for first time in book form) – the tradition of making a way out of no way – is the same tradition she celebrates in remembering her mother’s “rub-board hands”. Her poetry also reveals the often hidden costs of resistance. In this collection Young celebrates her personhood as well as her African American womanhood and the power of self-creation and re-creation in the face of personal rejection, abuse, systemic exploitation and oppression. Organized chronologically, her poems may be read as road markers from her life’s journey. For Young, the road is not a freeway; it is not even always paved. It is, however, a familiar path and one any of us can enter.

Marge Piercy: This is a strong focused book about the dimensions and intensity of loss and the slow healing after it. These are deeply imagined and fully realized poems. This is a book small in length but large in impact.

Joy Harjo: These are poems born in the dark, constructed during the winter of life when all that seems possible is sorrow and grief. But in the snow the flowers of these poems bloom, delicately, surely. They make color, they make life.

Mary Sue Koeppel won the Esmee Bradbury National Poetry Award; an Art Ventures Grant; the Frances Buck Sherman Award for her editing of Kalliope, the national literary journal; the prestigious Red Schoolhouse Award for Excellence in Teaching from the State of Florida; and the Faculty Excellence Award as well as many other awards for her poetry and short fiction. She is a Florida humanities council scholar.

Tips for Collecting Stories is an invaluable resource for anyone--professional or amateur--who is interested in compiling an oral history of a group of any sort (such as a family, business, school, or military unit) or even for broader topics such as the oral history of a town or cultural movement.

Robert Gentry is an award-winning short story writer and essayist. These skills proved invaluable in his development of an extensive oral history of his college, the critically acclaimed A College Tells Its Story, written in the style of Studs Terkel. For the project, Gentry interviewed 145 people, including alumni, faculty, students, board members, support staff, and others who told him their stories. That experience plus forty years of collecting stories for various literary purposes, both personal and professional, provide an excellent foundation for Tips for Collecting Stories: A Guide to Developing an Oral History.