“Nine Years Under is a sparkling debut--- brimming with love and bursting with life. Booker's Baltimore is equal parts The Wire and The Cosby show. She doesn't shrink from the realities of life in an inner city funeral home, but she is also a loving witness, documenting the big hearted community that takes care of its own. Told with compassion, wit, and good old fashioned story telling, Sheri Booker gives us unforgettable characters who will make you laugh right up until they break your heart.” GivingYearsHeartCharacterStoriesShowsHomeBigsRealityCareCommunityCitiesCompassionBreakLaughingEqualTake CareWitNineWitnessReality Of LifeFuneralOld FashionedWireShrinksHeartedNine YearsBurstingBaltimoreSparklingBreak Your HeartDebutUnforgettableMake You LaughInner CityBig HeartCosby Show Author:Tayari Jones
“Vividly imagined, beautifully written, at times almost unbearably suspenseful-the stories in Kristiana Kahakauwila's debut collection, This Is Paradise, are boldly inventive in their exploration of the tenuous nature of human relations. These are poignant stories of 'paradise'-Hawai'i-with all that 'paradise' entails of the transience of sensuous beauty.” HumansStoriesWrittenRelationParadiseCollectionsExplorationHuman RelationsPoignantDebutSensuousTransience Author:Joyce Carol Oates
“To what or whom does Lizzie Harris direct the imperative title of her startling first book, Stop Wanting? To the reader, the narrator, to desire itself, or to lack? This is a work of complexly, ambiguously layered narratives and identities. The opening poem asserts I want to say what happened / but am suspicious of stories. These lines become an ars poetica for the whole of this painful and exceptional collection in which the unspeakable is stubbornly confronted by a searing eloquence. This is a commanding debut.” WantFirstsDoeBookWholeStoriesDesireLinesHappenedIdentityReaderDirectPainfulOpeningNarrativeTitlesCollectionsExceptionalImperativesSuspiciousEloquenceUnspeakableDebutNarrators Author:Lynn Emanuel
“With ferocity and extraordinary craft, Lizzie Harris has made a book of poems that resonates far beyond the personal stories it tells. Stop Wanting reveals, in every lyric, its author's profound metaphorical gifts. In its ironies and intensities, it brings to mind a writer like the young Sylvia Plath, though what is startling about Harris' s work is the way it combines those gifts with a muted, deft self-awareness. Most of all, these are wonderfully shaped, powerful, and surprising poems-a startling debut.” WayMindMadeBookSelfStoriesYoungPowerfulAwarenessSelf AwarenessProfoundExtraordinaryCraftsIronyIntensitySurprisingDebutMetaphoricalFerocityPersonal StoriesPlath Author:Meghan O'Rourke