While Joyce Coy was recreating mosaics of her adventures with words, she pictured her grandchildren from ages 7 to 25 who often asked, “Gramma, tell us a story about you.” Joyce has included naughty moments, the yearning and search to know God, and the tug of war between fears and faith. She has also given peeks into the cultural backdrop of the farming society of her youth in the 60’s and 70’s. Her wobbly times showcase God meeting her in specific ways. She unwraps the reality that Father God made a way through the unknowns of her life. His steady influence increased her trust. Even when her dearest love, her husband, had a sudden departure to heaven, Joyce could say, “It’s well with my soul, it’s okay.” Her objective in unzipping her heart is that each reader, youth or adult, will be supported on their personal footpath in knowing Him. What God has done for a modest grandma, He can also do for you.

Beyond the Kaleidoscope presents a thought-provoking trilogy of contemporary tales exploring humanitys interactions with death and faith, extraterrestrial intelligence, and a series of bizarre parallel realities. In A Stroll in the Park, an old man climbs out of his bunker in a post-apocalyptic world to wait for death to take him. A young fundamentalist man in a horse-drawn cart drops him at the entrance to a long-abandoned forest campgroundand decides to return the following day to check up on his new friend. What he finds will change his life forever. The Truth Source explores what happens when big government deals with a big secret. When a so-called flying saucer crashes, mankind is suddenly confronted with incontrovertible evidence of intelligent extraterrestrial beings visiting Earth. If the artifacts from 1954 still exist, CIA agent Sully Mildauer intends to locate thembut hell have to save his two prize agents from a deadly forest fire in the process in order to learn whether they found aliens being cloned in a top-secret CIA lab. In The Blind Watchmaker, a laboratory accident sends a scientist careening hell-bent through a dizzying slide show of bizarre parallel realities. In the process, he finds himself facing the fundamental truth of whoand whathe is. Take a peek beneath the shroud of chaos to discover humanitys place.

The Kaleidoscope Effect identifies the common leadership needs of emerging generations and provides church leaders practical “how-to” solutions for engaging and serving these generations. Based on the research of author Scott Chrostek, this book dives deep into the character and leadership traits of both Millennials and Gen Z. Pastors, lay staff, and volunteers will learn how to steadily rotate their individual leadership skill sets while identifying common leadership needs that emerging generations crave. The implementation of the ideas and principles found in this book will produce better leaders who will serve a greater number of people, resulting in the ability to cultivate and sustain attractive environments that ignite the imagination of emerging generations.

The author of The Last Leaves Falling delivers a harrowing and beautifully written novel that explores the relationship between two girls obsessed with music, the practice of corrective rape, and the risks and power of using one's voice. 5 1/2 x 8 5/16.

Colonial Legacies in Chicana/o Literature and Culture exposes the ways in which colonialism is expressed in the literary and cultural production of the U.S. Southwest, a region that has experienced at least two distinct colonial periods since the sixteenth century. Vanessa Fonseca-Chávez traces how Spanish colonial texts reflect the motivation for colonial domination. She argues that layers of U.S. colonialism complicate how Chicana/o literary scholars think about Chicana/o literary and cultural production. She brings into view the experiences of Chicana/o communities that have long-standing ties to the U.S. Southwest but whose cultural heritage is tied through colonialism to multiple nations, including Spain, Mexico, and the United States. While the legacies of Chicana/o literature simultaneously uphold and challenge colonial constructs, the metaphor of the kaleidoscope makes visible the rupturing of these colonial fragments via political and social urgencies. This book challenges readers to consider the possibilities of shifting our perspectives to reflect on stories told and untold and to advocate for the inclusion of fragmented and peripheral pieces within the kaleidoscope for more complex understandings of individual and collective subjectivities. This book is intended for readers interested in how colonial legacies are performed in the U.S. Southwest, particularly in the context of New Mexico, Texas, and Arizona. Readers will relate to the book’s personal narrative thread that provides a path to understanding fragmented identities.