Gentle Tugs
Janet K. Brennan

Book Description: A composition of life, love and the many facets of their complex puzzle. All life is a Tarantella and must be danced to the fullest in order to understand the journey. A gratious thank you to Peggie Devan, Charles Ades Fishman, and Janet Yaeger for contributing some brilliant poems to this book.

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Water under Water
Charles Adés Fishman

Book Description: In Water under Water, Charles Adés Fishman illuminates the web of relationships that exist between individual lives and the emotional and physical environments that shape them. In this collection of more than 60 poems, the poet takes us beneath the surfaces of things to deeper layers where memory's roots and tendrils haunt us but where change is not only possible but necessary. In one achingly beautiful poem after another, Fishman writes as son, father, guardian, husband, friend, lover . . . and as a deeply invested explorer and observer of the natural world that embraces, amazes, overwhelms, and nurtures us. Water under Water will pull you under and will release you, uplifted and renewed.

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The Making of Tibias Ivory
Through the Eyes of Innocence
D. Allen Jenkins

Book Description: Bound to a chair, hands tied, face covered in a burlap sack, five-year old Tibias Ivory - the illegitimate, bi-racial son of Bethany Ivory, the daughter of the small, southern town of Principle's leading preacher and a murdered, black, high-school superstar, Mahognus "Hog" Worthington - has had the innocence of his young life ripped away by the depths of bigotry and degradation of hate. These horrific transgressions left his father hanging from a tree and ripped Tibias' hometown apart before he ever took a breath.
  But the lessons that he learns from his mother, her new friend, Sergeant Luke Worthy, and an eccentric newcomer to Principle, Adam Zur, will give him the strength to believe that the impossible can happen and keep him from experiencing his father's fate. Deceit is brought to light, and the deeds of death will discover justice as the festering wounds of a town's heart are exposed to the divine love that can heal it

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Spectral Freedom
Selected Poetry, Criticism, and Prose
Lynn Strongin

Book Description: "Because I could not stop for Death, He kindly stopped for me" --wrote poet Emily Dickinson, who was said to have shaped, along with Walt Whitman, American poetry.

Lynn Strongin, who has been called the Dickinson of our time, was faced with death at age twelve. Because stopping for death was not an option for this brave young girl, she decided to rise above her diagnosis of polio and sing rather than cry; she has been doing just that her entire life. Lynn Strongin was paralyzed at age twelve by the insidious disease which would be completely eradicated only two years later. But it was too late for her. She would soon realize that her life was going to be very difficult as well as different from other children. She would, indeed, go on to miss schoolroom, adolescence and her first ball gown.

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A Scattering of Imperfections
Katrina K Guarascio

Book Description: A Californian native, Katrina K Guarascio currently resides in Albuquerque, New Mexico where she teaches Language Arts in the Rio Rancho School District. Katrina received her Bachelor's degree in English with a concentration in Creative Writing at the University of New Mexico in 2002 which lead her to a position tutoring developmental reading and writing students at the local community college, CNM. She found the position a challenge and an inspiration, and decided to return to the University to further her degree in the field of education. She received her Master's degree in Secondary Education in 2008. Although her lifelong goal was not always to teach, she finds it a rewarding career and feels she is truly able to spread her love of literature and writing to a generation who have difficulty recognizing their importance. She loves exposing her students to different forms of poetry, such as performance or slam poetry, and other more contemporary forms which are often neglected in education. Along with numerous one time publications in various literary magazines, two chapbooks of her poetry have previously been published: "Hazy Expressions" through Powerscore Press and "More Fire than Sun" through Shadow Poetry Publications. Katrina was a co-editor and Poetry editor of the University of New Mexico's Literary Magazine, Conceptions Southwest, during her time as a graduate student. She also edited the Literary Magazine for Central New Mexico Community College, Leonardo, during her time working for the school. She is largely inspired by the individual and the human experience, and is constantly attempting to capture a persona in poetry. Her biggest literary influences include William Shakespeare, Toni Morrison, T.S. Eliot, Tori Amos, and Sandra Cisneros.

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Harriet Murphy
A Little Bit of Something
Janet K. Brennan

Book Description: Come in, enjoy a cup of coffee, and sit a spell with Harriet Murphy as she regales you with her tales of family, life, and love in the early 1900's in the former gold mining town of Old Pine near Lake Tahoe in Northern California. This is a period in U.S. history of great mechanical and cultural inventions as well as a time for women attempting to gain their well deserved right to vote. Her tales revolve around a woman living alone in the hills of the Sierra Nevada with her horse, Pager, and a myriad of other wonderful and colorful characters. Her humble abode is the log cabin that her father built for her family soon after he came across the country in the great gold rush of 1849. Although he never struck it rich in the mines, he found it a unique, yet ideal, place to live and care for his wife and daughter, Henrietta.

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A Dance in the Woods
Janet K. Brennan

Book Description: Anna and William Benton felt secure with 3 beautiful children, a home in the desert of New Mexico, and a wonderful marriage. Then tragedy struck. Their eldest daughter Beth was admitted to a hospital with respiratory problems. Just days later, she suddenly passed away in the middle of the night plunging Anna into the depths of depression with inexplicable pain in parts of her body that she had never experienced before. To make matters worse, her military husband received orders to report for duty with his family to a small American community in the mountains of Northern Italy, resulting in the loss of their home and stability. Join the Benton family as they learn to adapt to the rigors of life in the small village of Montecchia di Crosara, Italy while Anna tries desparately to find a way to to cope with her pain. In this incredible and life altering experience filled with miracles you may question whether truth really is stranger than fiction.

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I Found My Father in a Women's Prison
Tracey Brown, PhD

Book Description: This book is an eye opening documentary of Tracey Brown's days and nights spent in an environment most of us could never tolerate. It is filled with beautiful scripture and exquisite poetry written by Dr. Brown. Every day in jail presents something new to write about and, incredibly, thank her Father, the Lord, for sending her way. Although she spends her days shut off from the rest of the world, she manages to find joy in the smallest of pleasures. Things that we take for granted in our everyday lives, soon become cherished gifts in the austere world of prison. Yet, Ms. Brown finds beauty in all of it.

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A Stronger Grace
Janet K. Brennan

Book Description: This book was a pure joy in the composition. Although it deals with the many aspects of life, some tragic, but most joyful, I was hoping to bring across to the reader that all of life is a special gift to be cherished and enjoyed to the last. I, like almost everyone on this beautiful earth, have suffered intense tragedy and sadness in the loss of my beautiful daughter Kristen Beth at the age of twenty one. Her death, however taught me many things that I had forgotten in the years of just trying to live, be a good wife, and raise my children. I write about these things. I tell of illness in the diagnosis of Leukemia of my six year old granddaughter, Erin, the loss of friends and family in death, the heartache of sometimes just trying to hold on to one s own sanity when all of the world seems to be falling apart. However, mostly I write about joy, miracles, faith, love, passion, and above all my prayer to always have...A Stronger Grace.

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Recollections of an Old Mind, West
Janet K. Brennan

Book Description: Recollections of an Old Mind West is a compilation of western poetry. It did not take me long to begin a love affair with the west and all of its abundant beauty. The desert and southwest culture in all forms became my muse twenty five years ago, and I am in love with this high desert place to this day.

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