In the tradition of the works of Raymond Carver and Richard Ford, this fiction debut shines with verbal brilliance. Disturbing yet compellingly readable, the stories in this collection explore the gap between disappointment and hope, between life as it could be and life as it is.

The Soul Is a Stranger in This World is a timely examination of some of the best modern and contemporary poets and a trenchant defense of poetry as a narrative, musical, and theological art. While it is common today to view the poet as a revolutionary, who breaks old forms in the name of aesthetic and political freedom, this volume begins with the classical view of the poet “as a man speaking to men,” as Wordsworth put it. Poetry may challenge and shock, but it also consoles, probing the contours of the human soul in a broken world. Collected from essays and reviews first published in The Wall Street Journal, The New Criterion, Books and Culture, First Things, and other outlets, the volume traces these concerns in the work of modern masters such as Rilke and Eliot, avant-garde exemplars like André du Bouchet and Basil Bunting, and contemporary writers such as Dana Gioia and Franz Wright.

Arthur Sutherland places before us our fear of meeting the “other” and the “stranger” in an increasingly global, and frequently dangerous, village. Various social, political, and historical factors have conspired to leave us in a veritable crisis: the decline of hospitality. Why is this a crisis? Why should we practice hospitality? What is it about Christian theology that compels us to think about hospitality in the first place? Sutherland offers a passionate plea to recover and rediscover hospitality, and to respond to the divine appeal to welcome the stranger. Therein lies the central concern of the book: that hospitality is not simply the practice of a virtue but is integral to the very nature of Christianity’s position toward God, self, and the world—it is at the very center of what it means to be a Christian and to think theologically. He offers a challenging definition of hospitality and calls us to a practice that is the virtue by which the church stands or falls. Drawing on modern theologians (including Howard Thurman, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Karl Barth, Martin Luther King Jr., and Letty Russell) and considering American slavery, the Holocaust, feminism, and prisons, Sutherland eloquently presents a Christian theology of hospitality.

A Stranger's Journey brings you a novel way to have a group study and fellowship with your friends. After years of leading his men's bible study group, David Thompson became convicted that there was a lack of material for those who want to study and have fellowship on a regular basis. Taking his thoughts and true life situations, David has written short devotionals that are thought provoking and guaranteed to create conversation. His use of humor and satire will hold your interest and give you insight into one stranger's life journey. You may agree or disagree with his thought process, but at least it will make you think. David W. Thompson, in his own words, is the most unusual bank president in the United States. Besides being a banker for over 30 years, David is an ordained minister, church elder and men's bible study leader. Other accomplishments include a black belt in Tae Kwon Do and qualifying to carry a concealed weapon. Mr. Thompson holds a Bachelors degree in Psychology from Southwest Baptist University in Bolivar, Missouri. But above all else, David is a sold out, totally dedicated follower of Jesus Christ.

Long recognized as a master teacher at writing programs like VONA, the Loft, and the Stonecoast MFA, with A Stranger's Journey, David Mura has written a book on creative writing that addresses our increasingly diverse American literature. Mura argues for a more inclusive and expansive definition of craft, particularly in relationship to race, even as he elucidates timeless rules of narrative construction in fiction and memoir. His essays offer technique-focused readings of writers such as James Baldwin, ZZ Packer, Maxine Hong Kingston, Mary Karr, and Garrett Hongo, while making compelling connections to Mura's own life and work as a Japanese American writer. In A Stranger's Journey, Mura poses two central questions. The first involves identity: How is writing an exploration of who one is and one's place in the world? Mura examines how the myriad identities in our changing contemporary canon have led to new challenges regarding both craft and pedagogy. Here, like Toni Morrison's Playing in the Dark or Jeff Chang's Who We Be, A Stranger's Journey breaks new ground in our understanding of the relationship between the issues of race, literature, and culture. The book's second central question involves structure: How does one tell a story? Mura provides clear, insightful narrative tools that any writer may use, taking in techniques from fiction, screenplays, playwriting, and myth. Through this process, Mura candidly explores the newly evolved aesthetic principles of memoir and how questions of identity occupy a central place in contemporary memoir.