Ghost Parachute


Book Description

This is a collection of 105 flash fiction stories published in Ghost Parachute magazine. Ghost Parachute seeks to publish writing that is unapologetically bold. We wish to lose ourselves in fresh and vibrant imagery. We want to read what we've always known but were too afraid to say. We want to read a story unlike any other story we've read before. It's easy to view the world in black and white, so Ghost Parachute paints a streak of gray. Great stories don't ride the popular, easy narrative, and great characters are often impossible to love yet we love them anyway. We aim to unleash the spider behind the rose and dance in the surreal.




They Kept Running


Book Description

They Kept Running takes its title from a story about three women running in a national park in the Arizona desert, where they are warned to watch out for mountain lions and the heat, but where the real threat they encounter is men in a jeep. This collection of fifty-seven small stories catalogs the lives of women and girls as they grapple with the hazards of navigating the human world. “In this taut collection of flash fiction, Michelle Ross weaves together fairy tales and horror, beauty and the grotesque, to inhabit the intersections of gender, sexuality, violence, and romantic love. Each story draws the reader into a sharply etched world studded with tension. A seemingly safe domestic life turns, just slightly to reveal its hidden dangers. For the girl and woman characters at the center of this book, the call is often coming from inside the house, and Ross is unafraid to look directly at what lurks on the other end of the line.”—Meagan Cass, author of ActivAmerica and judge




Those Fantastic Lives


Book Description

Prepare to be transported to the edge of the world in Bradley Sides' affecting and haunting debut collection of magical realism short stories, Those Fantastic Lives and Other Strange Stories. In Sides' tender, brilliantly-imagined collection, a young boy dreams of being a psychic like his grandmother, a desperate man turns to paper for a miracle, a swarm of fireflies attempts the impossible, scarecrows and ghosts collide, a mother and child navigate a forest plagued by light-craving monsters, a boy's talking dolls aid him in conquering a burning world, and a father and mother deal with the sudden emergence of wings on their son's back. Brimming with our deepest fears and desires, Sides' dazzling stories examine the complexities of masculinity, home, transformation, and loss. Bradley Sides is an exciting new voice in fiction, and Those Fantastic Lives, which glows with the light of hope and possibility amidst dark uncertainties, will ignite imaginations.




Mojave Desert Wildflowers


Book Description

The Mojave Desert eco-region extends from eastern California to northwestern Arizona, southern Nevada, and southwestern Utah, and boasts plant communities as diverse as alkali sinks, dune systems, Joshua tree woodland, pinyon juniper woodland, mixed mojave scrub, and even riparian woodland. This fully updated and revised edition will be appreciated not only by amateur wildflower enthusiasts, but experts will also find the detailed photographs and charts useful in distinguishing among similar species in difficult groups. Species are arranged by color and plant family for easy identification. This guide features 300 of the common species, full-color photographs (many brand new to this edition), detailed descriptions, information on bloom season, and interesting facts about each plant.




Trouble No More


Book Description

Turn on any classic rock station, and you’ll hear Southern Rock tunes that will make you stomp your foot and sing along to. The hard-rocking pioneers of the genre left behind a legacy of hard living that endures today. The stories in Trouble No More celebrate those pioneers. Find ramblers, gamblers, swindlers, and double-dealers within these pages, all striving to survive more than the Southern humidity. The authors bring the rough living of the Southern Rock genre to the page, and communicate the ache of the blues. There are twenty-two stories of heartbreak, murder, robbery, and barnyard brawls. Edited by Mark Westmoreland with stories by Bill Baber, C.W. Blackwell, Jerry Bloomfield, S.A. Cosby, Nikki Dolson, Michel Lee Garrett, James D.F. Hannah, Curtis Ippolito, Jessica Laine, Brodie Lowe, Bobby Mathews, Brian Panowich, Rob Pierce, Joey R. Poole, Raquel V. Reyes, Michael Farris Smith, J.B. Stevens, Chris Swann, Art Taylor, N.B. Turner and Joseph S. Walker.










The Quarantine Review, Issue 7


Book Description

The seventh issue of a digital journal created to alleviate the malaise of social distancing with exceptional writing and artwork. The Quarantine Review celebrates literature and art, connecting readers through reflections on the human condition — our lived experiences, afflictions, and dreams. As we face a pandemic with profound implications, the essays within offer a variety of perspectives on the current predicament, encouraging readers to reflect on the world we knew before and contemplate how society can be reshaped once we emerge. Through The Quarantine Review, Dupuis and Sarfraz hope to give voice to the swirling emotions inside each of us during this unprecedented moment, to create a circuit of empathy between the reader, the work itself, and the wider world beyond the walls of our homes. This issue includes works by Kirti Bhadresa, Sydney Warner Brooman, Diana Fitzgerald Bryden, Veronique Darwin, Catherine Graham, Joy Gyamfi, Pamela Hensley, Mark Laliberte, Donna Langevin, Mike Lee, H. C. Phillips, Robert Priest, Kenneth Sherman, Jillian Stirk, and Jasper Wrinch.




COOLEST AMERICAN STORIES 2022


Book Description

America's most talented storytellers share their most courageous, compelling, unputdownable work in a collection made for story lovers. Praised early on by Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk author Ben Fountain and The Weight of Blood author Laura McHugh, COOLEST AMERICAN STORIES is a new annual short story anthology whose guiding philosophy is that a collection of interesting "full meal" short stories could, as one @JustCoolStories Twitter follower put it, "make America cool again." Toward this end, COOLEST AMERICAN STORIES 2022 features a previously unpublished story by the multi-major-book-award-winning author of Blacktop Wasteland S. A. Cosby; the timeless, previously unpublished short story that led Tina Brown to sign Frances Park's When My Sister Was Cleopatra Moon; and Pulitzer Prize finalist Lee Martin's heartfelt rendering of married life that apparently was too startling for the editors of several university-affiliated literary magazines. And since interesting storytelling―rather than a list of publishing credits―matters most to story-hungry readers, COOLEST AMERICAN STORIES 2022 also includes a page-turner about dating in Hollywood written by MFA student Megan Ritchie; Brooklyn native D.Z. Stone's very first published fiction, a hilarious love story that celebrates the power of women; a heartbreaking account of adult siblinghood authored by David Ebenbach―among others in this treasure trove of unputdownable, sharply written, sometimes comic, sometimes frightening, always suspenseful stories loaded with twists and turns. "Coolest American Stories 2022 is a helluva lot of fun. These stories bump and brim with rambunctious energy and show that the American short story is alive and well. Many thanks to Mark Wish and Elizabeth Coffey for this breath―or let's call it a gale―of fresh literary air." --Ben Fountain, winner of the PEN/Hemingway Award and the National Book Critics’ Circle Award, author of Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk "Extraordinarily rich storytelling from fresh, vibrant voices―Coolest American Stories promises to be an annual force." --Laura McHugh, internationally bestselling author of The Weight of Blood and What’s Done in Darkness "Love short stories? This collection is for you. Not yet sure how to feel about short stories? This collection is definitely for you. Whoever you are, wherever you are: read these stories!" --Lori Ostlund, Flannery O’Connor Award winner and author of After the Parade and The Bigness of the World




The Ghost of Slappy


Book Description

Slappy's back as a ghost! And this time, the only thing you'll play is hide-and-go-shriek!