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...
Learn MoreWhat 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...
Learn MoreBeginning 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...
Learn MoreIlluminating 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...
Learn MoreThe 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...
Learn MoreA 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...
Learn MoreThere 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....
Learn MoreA 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....
Learn MoreMany 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...
Learn MoreHow 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,...
Learn MoreWithin these poems, language and memory form a collusion which eulogizes a stuck moment of time even as it reinvents it. The result is a poet whose vision travels as far into the future as it does into the past, mining from both moments which are as compellingly familiar as they are foreign, moments in which it becomes clear that all histories are shared...
Learn MoreThis book is the culmination of work by Habitat for Humanity of the Chesapeake’s Peace by Piece initiative. The contributors to this book are Jewish, Christian and Muslim children aged five to 17 who are connected to Habitat’s Interfaith work. Youth drew pictures to describe what they think about certain elements of their own religion, and about its teachings...
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