223: The number of homicides in Baltimore City in 2010.
23: The age of Stephen Bradley Pitcairn, one of those victims.
Numb, we watch the news from a safe distance. No personal blood is shed. Yet, beyond statistics lie human emotions—pain that cuts deeper than any weapon.
Poet Shirley J. Brewer responded to the stabbing death of Stephen Pitcairn, who envisioned a career as a doctor. Instead, he died in the street just one block from Brewer’s home in Baltimore’s Charles Village neighborhood.
Brewer gives tragedy a voice. In words both spare and poignant, she creates an awareness of the staggering ways violence robs everyone—families, friends, neighbors, co-workers, and society as a whole. In After Words, we grieve. Our sorrow is specific, for Stephen and the Pitcairn family. It is also universal—for every person whose life has been lacerated by crime.
One knife, and we all bleed.
List price: $9.95
ISBN: 978-1-934074-82-4
Specs: Paperback, 50 pages, 6×9″ perfect bound on white paper
This title is available through the following booksellers:
Amazon.com | Kindle | iBookstore | BN.com
Contact Apprentice House for quantity or wholesale orders.
Shirley Brewer’s After Words is a testament to the spirit of compassionate community that embodies the best of Baltimore and all of us. In the face of tragedy, she reaches out as a loving neighbor to address the inexplicable: the senseless murder of Stephen Pitcairn, a researcher whose dream of becoming a doctor and alleviating others’ pain is abruptly cut short one night in Charles Village. In sharing her work with members of the Pitcairn family, the author gives voice to the lost and offers solace to the bereaved. After Words is proof of the power of words—to express outrage, to comfort and to heal.
—Ned Balbo, author of The Trials of Edgar Poe and Other Poems (Story Line Press, 2010), awarded the 2010 Donald Justice Prize and the 2012 Poets’ Prize. He teaches at Loyola University, Baltimore, MD.
Shirley Brewer and I constantly walk the walk Stephen Pitcairn was taking when he met his murderers; it’s where we live. Brewer walks the walk in a second way—via her powerful, gut-wrenching, brave words. Brewer’s wise, beautifully crafted book, with its moving foreword by the victim’s mother, images the unimaginable in a way that teaches me how to think about the unthinkable and, as Brewer says in the opening poem, to give thanks for the days/you walked among us.
Readers familiar with Shirley Brewer’s wry, witty, often slightly amused poetic voice will not hear it here. Instead they will hear the voices of Pitcairn, his mother, Reggie Higgins and, yes, even the knife.
—Poet Clarinda Harriss is Professor Emerita of Towson University and Director of Brick House Books, Inc., Baltimore, MD.
Shirley Brewer’s stunning poems give voice to an urban Baltimore community struck by crime, to the young victim following his death, to his grieving mother, and to the neighbor – Reggie Higgins – who held and comforted Stephen in his last minutes of life. They reflect, in beautifully crafted lines, the horror of violence, the depth and duration of grieving, the incredible kindness of a stranger and, most of all, the tenderness, anger, love and wit of the young victim in messages sent after his death. Brewer brings us to the edge of an abyss and holds our collective hand.
—Margaret S. Mullins divides her time between rural Maryland and downtown Baltimore. She is the author of the chapbook Family Constellation (Finishing Line Press, 2012) and the editor of Manorborn: The Water Issue (Abecedarian Press, 2009).
Shirley J. Brewer is an educator and workshop facilitator. Her poetry has appeared in The Cortland, Review, Comstock Review, Passager, Free Lunch, Innisfree Poetry Journal, Pearl, Evening Street Review, and other publications. Her poetry chapbook, A Little Breast Music, was published in 2008 by Passager Books (Baltimore). Shirley lives in the Baltimore community of Charles Village.
What does it take to learn to teach the toughest children? Twenty-four struggling six-year-olds, one angry young horse, and a teacher who wouldn’t give up.
In this powerful book, part memoir and part how-to, master teacher Alix Moore shares with us how she learned to teach the unteachables. We follow her journey as she struggles with challenging animal and human students, surrenders ego, finds patience, and ultimately succeeds because of her unshakable conviction that all her students can learn.
List price: $13.95
ISBN: 978-1-934074-88-6
Specs: Paperback, 186 pages, 6×9″ perfect bound on white paper
This title is available through the following booksellers:
Amazon.com | Kindle | iBookstore | BN.com
Contact Apprentice House for quantity or wholesale orders.
“Truly a gift to all those who consider the space between teaching and learning as sacred, The Gift is a delight to read, buoying the spirit and delighting the soul. I want all my students to read this beautifully written book.”
– Dr. Diane Lee, Ph.D., Vice Provost and Dean of Undergraduate Education, University of Maryland,
Baltimore County
“A present you will want to open again and again.”
– Kathleen McInnis-Martens, Two-Time National
Board–Certified Teacher
“The Gift pulled me to its center, asking me questions, providing answers. . .
The personal touch, the questions posed to the reader, and the interspersed poetry kept me eager to read more.”
– Lona Crist, Spanish Language and Literature Classroom Teacher and Resource Teacher
Alix is . . .
. . . a teacher. Her passion is supporting struggling students as they learn to read and write, and she believes that every child can learn—with no limits and no exceptions. She supports parents and teachers as they learn to help the children they love.
. . . an animal “trainer.” She believes that all dogs can live joyfully and in peace with their human families. She works with dogs and their families to sort out behavioral issues using a wide range of holistic healing and training modalities. Alix also has many years of experience riding, training, and teaching horses and their people.
. . . a writer. Her first book, Tapping the Well Within: Writing from Your Source of Effortless Creativity, Deep Wisdom, and Utter Joy, was self-published in June 2011. She blogs about teaching at http://theconsciousclassroom.com and about writing at http://tappingthewellwithin.com/ and http://thehealedwriter.com.
. . . an accomplished presenter and motivational speaker. Alix is passionate about sharing her wisdom with children and adults.
Alix’s professional credentials include certification as both a reading specialist and a teacher of English as a Second Language (ESOL). She holds a Bachelor of Arts in French from Wellesley College and a Master of Arts in Instructional Systems Development from the University of Maryland Baltimore County.
Alix has worked in education for more than twenty years, first as an ESOL teacher, then as a differentiation teacher, reading specialist, and academic intervention teacher. She has written curriculum, developed and delivered many training modules for teachers, taught graduate-level courses, and given lectures at numerous local colleges and universities.
Alix currently lives in Clarksburg, Maryland, on a sustainably managed hobby farm. She shares this magical space with her partner of many years, their dogs, cats, horses, chickens, cows, and numerous enchanting wild creatures.
To contact Alix, please visit http://www.alixmoore.net.
Beginning from an interest in her own family’s history, with From the Old Sod to the Naugatuck Valley Janet Maher shares a deeply textured journey through a fascinating corner of the Irish Catholic diaspora. She explores the history of Ireland through the perspective of Catholicism, bridging it to the origins of Catholicism in Connecticut generally, then to several Irish families whose personal stories extend to the present. Mapping and thoroughly transcribing the oldest Catholic cemetery in Naugatuck, Saint Francis, Maher has made connections between generations of families and friends. The book includes selected marriage, baptism and death records throughout the nineteenth century and excerpts from rare letters between Irish immigrants and individuals still in Ireland. It is replete with photographs from Ireland and Connecticut, and restored personal images selected from families’ collections, including her own, from materials safeguarded in scrapbooks and albums for years. In many ways Maher has made the people whose graves she encountered in cemeteries come alive again. Creatively overcoming the limited existence of early genealogical records, From the Old Sod to the Naugatuck Valley draws a colorful, intimate, multi-layered vision of a generation of immigrants and their descendants who shaped the character of southern Connecticut. Its fusion with family histories brings to the foreground a captivating thread in the tapestry called America.
List price: $65.95
ISBN: 978-1-934074-75-6
Specs: Paperback, 400 pages, 8.5″x8.5″ perfect bound on white paper
This title is available through the following booksellers:
Amazon.com | Kindle | iBookstore | BN.com
Contact Apprentice House for quantity or wholesale orders.
Janet Maher has been a professional artist for more than thirty years. Her drawings, prints, artist books, mixed media works and collaborative projects have been exhibited widely and are in numerous private and public collections. A native of Connecticut, she also lived and worked in New Mexico before settling in Baltimore, where she is an Associate Professor of Visual Arts at Loyola University Maryland. This is her first scholarly book.
Illuminating the intimate, human faces of war, this unique series of short stories by award-winning author Katey Schultz questions the stereotypes of modern war by bearing witness to the shared struggles of all who are touched by it. Numerous characters—returning U.S. soldier and pragmatic jihadist, Afghan mother and listless American sister, courageous amputee and a ghost that cannot let go—appear in Flashes of War, which captures personal moments of fear, introspection, confusion, and valor in one collection spanning nations and perspectives. Written in clear, accessible language with startling metaphors, this unforgettable journey leaves aside judgment, bringing us closer to a broader understanding of war by focusing on individuals, their motivations, and their impossible decisions. Flashes of War weaves intimate portrayals of lives affected by the War on Terror into a distinctive tapestry of emotional resonance. It builds bridges, tears them down, and sends out a universal plea for reconnection.
List price: $16.95
ISBN: 978-1-934074-85-5
Specs: Paperback, 188 pages, 6×9″ perfect bound on white paper
This title is available through the following booksellers:
(Available in late May)
Amazon.com | Kindle | iBookstore | BN.com
Contact Apprentice House for quantity or wholesale orders.
“Katey Schultz has written an amazing book. What emerges from these stories is a chorus of voices—American, Afghan, Iraqi—and this chorus enlarged my sense of the experience of a war that has defined an American decade. Flashes Of War is the work of a bold, ambitious, and brilliant young author who is writing stories few others in American fiction have really yet tackled.”
– Doug Stanton, author of New York Times Bestsellers Horse Soldiers and In Harm’s Way
“The title of this fine book may lead us to believe we’ll see the war in the Middle East in tiny, fragmentary bursts of the sort that come to us in nightmares, and this book indeed bursts in small ways throughout, in tight narratives, in arresting images, in brilliant searches into the distresses of the human heart, but Flashes of War is so much more than that. This is a book about the whole war, the soldiers on both sides, the civilians on both sides, the consequences for everybody involved before, during, and after. This book, maybe more effectively than any in a long time, pleads with humanity to end war once and for all. Read this book, and seek peace.”
– Mike Magnuson, author of Lummox, The Evolution of a Man
“Flashes of War is fierce and beautiful, a collection of finely honed stories that hit with the bite of a bullet. It’s a read you can’t put down. Hoozah for Schultz, a brave new talent on the literary scene.”
– Claire Davis, author of Labors of the Heart
Katey Schultz grew up in Portland, Oregon, and is most recently from Celo, North Carolina. She is a graduate of the Pacific University MFA in Writing Program and recipient of the Linda Flowers Literary Award from the North Carolina Humanities Council. She lives in a 1970 Airstream trailer bordering the Pisgah National Forest. This is her first book. Please visit www.kateyschultz.com
The two men came at dinnertime on Friday night to murder a young rabbi and his family. They didn’t say why. They didn’t say who sent them. Fortunately, Gidon Aronson was at the right place at the right time. Gidon, a former member of an elite Israeli special operations unit, must not only protect the clergyman, but also peel back the layers of the man’s personal and professional lives to get at a secret not even the target knows, or admits. Gidon’s inquiries soon place him in the crosshairs as well, and lead him from the United States to Israel and the Gaza Strip. In his search, Gidon not only uncovers more questions, but in the process must also face his own demons from past Israeli operations.
List price: $19.95
ISBN: 978-1-934074-86-2
Specs: Paperback, 388 pages, 6×9″ perfect bound on creme paper
This title is available through the following booksellers:
Available soon via–
Amazon.com | Kindle | iBookstore | BN.com
Contact Apprentice House for quantity or wholesale orders.
In addition to Confluence, Stephen J. Gordon is the author of In the Name of God, Gidon Aronson’s debut thriller. Mr. Gordon’s other writing credits include a memoir for Good Housekeeping and television series work for Maryland Public Television. His feature film script Rapid Eye Movement was accepted by the Independent Feature Film Market in New York. Mr. Gordon lives in Baltimore.
A desperate plea for help… “Tina stood by the door, wondering if she should open it. The next instant, she unlatched the bolt and tremblingly stared at a stranger’s face. A woman was leaning over the threshold, dressed in a tattered sari, clutching something against her chest with both hands. So tight was her hold that her knuckles seemed to burst through her fragile, bruised skin.” Caught in the cross-hairs of a twisted fanatic… Poverty, broken families and a system ill-equipped to help innocent and impressionable children combine to create an ideal breeding ground for Usman who is recruiting and training missionaries for mass destruction. While completing her thesis in India, Tina Matthew, a young doctoral student from the United States, unwittingly gets thrown into the center of this madman’s demented plot built upon religious fanaticism. She quickly learns what the classroom cannot teach as she experiences first hand how Usman executes his mission with crazed religious righteousness, violence and the psychological manipulation of human trafficking victims.
List price: $18.95
ISBN: 978-1-934074-87-9
Specs: Paperback, 330 pages, 6×9″ perfect bound on creme paper
This title is available through the following booksellers:
Available soon via–
Amazon.com | Kindle | iBookstore | BN.com
Contact Apprentice House for quantity or wholesale orders.
Annu Subramanian, an award-winning teacher and author, was born in Bangalore, India. She received her Master of Arts degree in English Literature from the University of Madras and a Master of Arts in Teaching from Union College in Schenectady, New York. She is the director of The Writing Center at Brown School in Schenectady, New York. Keeping with her goal to write for a cause, Subramanian has written her second novel, Another Heaven, on human trafficking and terrorism. The proceeds from this novel are used to benefit organizations dedicated to helping victims of human trafficking. Subramanian is using her debut novel, Waiting for the Perfect Dawn, to bring awareness about suppression of women and domestic violence. Written in a unique style, using the stream of consciousness technique, Waiting for the Perfect Dawn allows a three-way conversation between the author, the readers, and the characters. Subramanian has co-founded Albany Women Connection, a support group in Albany, New York. She was chosen as one of the four national finalists by Norman Mailer Center in 2011 for So Fair and Very Lovely, a short story, and she was chosen as a Teacher of Excellence in 2011 by New York State English Council (NYSEC).
There are very few benefits to being the only man in the convent. There are fewer still being the only big brother to 250 boys in an orphanage. But if you keep busy, you stumble into opportunities to help. And if you’re clueless, you don’t know better than to attempt the improbable. And if you’re clumsy, you trip over life’s lessons at every turn. For more than 100 years, a small band of nuns have run Alpha Boys School in Kingston, caring for the abandoned, abused and delinquent boys of Jamaica. From 1984 – 1986, they allowed the author to share their world. He was one of many people during those years who lived on the periphery of the boys’ lives, trying to help, and trying to understand. He saw the relationships the boys built with each other, which kept them from being completely alone in the world. Whether from the inside or the out, they all lived at the orphanage edge. All of the author’s proceeds from this book go to support the work of the Mercy Sisters and the Jesuits in Jamaica.
List price: $19.95
ISBN: 978-1-934074-81-7
Specs: Paperback, 354 pages, 6×9″ perfect bound on white paper
This title is available through the following booksellers:
Available soon via–
Amazon.com | Kindle | iBookstore | BN.com
Contact Apprentice House for quantity or wholesale orders.
Jay Sullivan, is the Managing Partner of Exec|Comm, LLC, a communications consulting firm. In between graduating from Boston College and attending Fordham Law School, he taught English in Kingston, Jamaica. He was a featured columnist in the New York Law Journal, where his Art of Communication column appeared regularly. His articles and poetry, both humorous and serious, have appeared in The Golfer, Boston College Magazine, Catholic Digest, Parents Magazine, and other publications. He lives in Pleasantville, New York, with his wife and four children.
A Kidnapping – A Suicide – An Unspeakable Decision
The lives of James and Dylan Paxton are torn apart when their brother mysteriously vanishes on a quiet street in 1954. In the wake of the crime, their family disintegrates. Abandoned by their parents, the boys are thrust into a world where they don’t belong.
Now the brothers must find a way to survive. Tormented as social outcasts and haunted by the past, James strikes out at the world, while Dylan finds safety in his brother’s shadow. When they discover a terrible family secret, they face the most difficult decision of their lives. And one man’s suicide could save them all.
This is a story of the enduring scars left in the wake of a family’s destruction, and the unshakable bond of two brothers as they struggle to find their own identities and their place in the world.
Is it ever too late for a family destroyed by tragedy to heal?
List price: $19.95
ISBN: 978-1-934074-83-1
Specs: Paperback, 370 pages, 6×9″ perfect bound on white paper
This title is available through the following booksellers:
Available soon via–
Amazon.com | Kindle | iBookstore | BN.com
Contact Apprentice House for quantity or wholesale orders.
Jack Downs lives with his wife and three children in Eldersburg, MD. His new book,
Cattails — The Edenmist Affair, will be released in late 2013. Visit him at
www.jackbdowns.com
Many beginning writers and editors benefited from a crusty old editor’s brisk maxims about the craft. If you want to be reminded of those days, look inside. If you want to learn those brisk maxims, many of them are collected here. And if you aspire to become a crusty old editor, this is the handbook.
List price: $11.95
ISBN: 978-1-934074-89-3
Specs: Paperback, 70 pages, 5×8″ perfect bound on white paper
This title is available through the following booksellers:
Amazon.com | Kindle | iBookstore | BN.com
Contact Apprentice House for quantity or wholesale orders.
John McIntyre is the night content production manager at
The Baltimore Sun and author of the blog
You Don’t Say at
Baltimoresun.com. A former president of the American Copy Editors Society, he teaches editing at Loyola University Maryland.
How does a person stay upbeat in life when she constantly fears death or other health catastrophes? This humorous, absurd, yet relatable story offers a glimpse into the antics of a hypochondriac; from the rapturous to the downright ugly. She endures dance recitals gone wrong, first love amid the glow of mini golf, living the college dream with waffle batter in her hair, the gut-wrenching loss of her parents, forging lasting love while clinging to a mountain, and starting her own family with a rash so bad she was declared a medical marvel; but shows it’s possible to function, succeed and even have fun despite the craziness.
List price: $18.95
ISBN: 978-1-934074-72-5
Specs: Paperback, 328 pages, 6×9″ perfect bound on white paper
This title is available through the following booksellers:
Amazon.com | Kindle | iBookstore | BN.com
Contact Apprentice House for quantity or wholesale orders.
“They say laughter is the best medicine, but I have never been sure of how to prescribe it until now. Read this book! Kat’s anecdotes will make you smile as she attempts to stay positive and centered in our tumultuous, stressed out world.”
– Dr. M., Physician
“Buy this book for the worrier in your life, or if you just want a good laugh.”
– Dr. Marcus Jones, Professor, U.S. Naval Academy
“I, for one am thrilled that this book has been published. Mainly because now I can point to something actually in print to say ‘SEE! This is what I live with!”
– HHH (Happy Hypochondriac Husband)
Kat Spitzer writes the blog, “The Happy Hypochondriac” (www.happyhypochondriac.com). She also writes nonfiction for magazines. The Happy Hypochondriac is her first book. She graduated from Vanderbilt University and Vermont Law School. The word “hypochondriac” appears in all of her medical files. She lives in Maryland, surrounded by her very patient and understanding friends and family.
223: The number of homicides in Baltimore City in 2010.
What does it take to learn to teach the toughest children? Twenty-four struggling six-year-olds, one angry young horse, and a teacher who wouldn’t give up.
Beginning from an interest in her own family’s history, with From the Old Sod to the Naugatuck Valley Janet Maher shares a deeply textured journey through a fascinating corner of the Irish Catholic diaspora. She explores the history of Ireland through the perspective of Catholicism, bridging it to the origins of Catholicism in Connecticut generally, then to several Irish families whose personal stories extend to the present. Mapping and thoroughly transcribing the oldest Catholic cemetery in Naugatuck, Saint Francis, Maher has made connections between generations of families and friends. The book includes selected marriage, baptism and death records throughout the nineteenth century and excerpts from rare letters between Irish immigrants and individuals still in Ireland. It is replete with photographs from Ireland and Connecticut, and restored personal images selected from families’ collections, including her own, from materials safeguarded in scrapbooks and albums for years. In many ways Maher has made the people whose graves she encountered in cemeteries come alive again. Creatively overcoming the limited existence of early genealogical records, From the Old Sod to the Naugatuck Valley draws a colorful, intimate, multi-layered vision of a generation of immigrants and their descendants who shaped the character of southern Connecticut. Its fusion with family histories brings to the foreground a captivating thread in the tapestry called America.
A desperate plea for help… “Tina stood by the door, wondering if she should open it. The next instant, she unlatched the bolt and tremblingly stared at a stranger’s face. A woman was leaning over the threshold, dressed in a tattered sari, clutching something against her chest with both hands. So tight was her hold that her knuckles seemed to burst through her fragile, bruised skin.” Caught in the cross-hairs of a twisted fanatic… Poverty, broken families and a system ill-equipped to help innocent and impressionable children combine to create an ideal breeding ground for Usman who is recruiting and training missionaries for mass destruction. While completing her thesis in India, Tina Matthew, a young doctoral student from the United States, unwittingly gets thrown into the center of this madman’s demented plot built upon religious fanaticism. She quickly learns what the classroom cannot teach as she experiences first hand how Usman executes his mission with crazed religious righteousness, violence and the psychological manipulation of human trafficking victims.
There are very few benefits to being the only man in the convent. There are fewer still being the only big brother to 250 boys in an orphanage. But if you keep busy, you stumble into opportunities to help. And if you’re clueless, you don’t know better than to attempt the improbable. And if you’re clumsy, you trip over life’s lessons at every turn. For more than 100 years, a small band of nuns have run Alpha Boys School in Kingston, caring for the abandoned, abused and delinquent boys of Jamaica. From 1984 – 1986, they allowed the author to share their world. He was one of many people during those years who lived on the periphery of the boys’ lives, trying to help, and trying to understand. He saw the relationships the boys built with each other, which kept them from being completely alone in the world. Whether from the inside or the out, they all lived at the orphanage edge. All of the author’s proceeds from this book go to support the work of the Mercy Sisters and the Jesuits in Jamaica.
A Kidnapping – A Suicide – An Unspeakable Decision
Many beginning writers and editors benefited from a crusty old editor’s brisk maxims about the craft. If you want to be reminded of those days, look inside. If you want to learn those brisk maxims, many of them are collected here. And if you aspire to become a crusty old editor, this is the handbook.
How does a person stay upbeat in life when she constantly fears death or other health catastrophes? This humorous, absurd, yet relatable story offers a glimpse into the antics of a hypochondriac; from the rapturous to the downright ugly. She endures dance recitals gone wrong, first love amid the glow of mini golf, living the college dream with waffle batter in her hair, the gut-wrenching loss of her parents, forging lasting love while clinging to a mountain, and starting her own family with a rash so bad she was declared a medical marvel; but shows it’s possible to function, succeed and even have fun despite the craziness.