For novelist Stephanie Johnson, her relationship with Australia and Australians has been an ambivalent one. She has lived there for periods in her life, and her first book, a collection of short stories, was actually published in Australia. She was described then as a young Australian writer, something she says she agreed to ‘for reasons that are complex and some of them hardly honourable’. For Johnson the longing to return has waxed and waned. ‘Why don’t I live there?’ she often asks herself. Yet she is a sixth-generation New Zealander. In this BWB Text Johnson explores her elusive and ambivalent feelings about the sunburnt country – which includes a musician’s road trip there with her singer-songwriter son Skyscraper Stan – and in so doing casts fascinating light on some of the formative influences that have shaped the work of this award-winning New Zealand writer.

Ken is the product of a severely broken home and a freshman at a local college. He struggles with his sexuality, suspecting he’s bisexual because girls sure turn him on, but so do guys. Joel is the victim of an abusive childhood. Rescued off the streets by Dio, a wounded war veteran, he’s grown. He’s confident he's gay, but he's confused after he meets Danielle and Ken. Danielle is a confident young woman who has a number of sexual fantasies that include bedding two sexy guys. She winds up with both Ken and Joel, but moves away after the first year of college. Confused over his love for both Joel and Danielle, Ken grows depressed when he hears Danielle is moving back. With the weight of the world on his shoulders and confusion over whom to love, will he be able to overcome the past to build a future with them both?

Could the Gospel that we commonly proclaim in the US be labeled, Made in America? Have Americanisms and cultural insertions unknowingly slipped into our message? Can the Cultural Fence encountered when we attempt to minister cross-culturally serve as a filter to help purify our Gospel presentation and return it to the powerful, supra-cultural Gospel of which the Apostle Paul was not ashamed? The answer to these and many other questions make Playing Both Sides of the Fence required reading for all who care to proclaim the Good News to the World.

Matija Arko, po domače Hojer, rojen v Sodražici, se je v mladosti izselil v Ameriko in s seboj prinesel veselje do glasbe in harmonike. Glasba je postala pomemben del njegovega življenja in s svojo skupino Hoyer trio je postal zelo priljubljen med Slovenci v ZDA pa tudi med izseljenci drugih narodnosti. S prepletanjem slovenske ljudske glasbe in različnih oblik ameriške popularne glasbe tistega časa je postavil temelje t. i. polka glasbe, ki je zaradi privlačnosti prestopila etnične meje in pozneje dosegla vsesplošno popularnost. Veliko glasbe Matije Arka je dokumentirane in ohranjene na gramofonskih ploščah, ki nudijo vpogled v njegovo delo in zgodovino slovenske glasbe v ZDA. O Matiji Arku, v Ameriki bolj znanem kot Matt Hoyer, in o njegovem glasbenem ustvarjanju smo vedeli v Sloveniji zelo malo. S pričujočo knjigo, ki je angleški prevod slovenske knjige, želimo opozoriti nanj, na njegovo delovanje in na glasbo, ki je ohranjena na starih gramofonskih ploščah.

James Wilkinson was a consummate contradiction during the Revolutionary War era. In this modern biography of the greatest traitor--and one of the most colorful characters--in American history, Linklater examines the extraordinary double life of Wilkinson.

An analysis of social mobility in contemporary French literature that offers a new perspective on figures who move between social classes. Social climbers have often been the core characters of novels. Their position between traditional tiers in society makes them touchstones for any political and literary moment, including our own. Morgane Cadieu's study looks at a certain kind of social climber in contemporary French literature whom she calls the parvenant. Taken from the French term parvenu, which refers to one who is newly arrived, a parvenant is a character who shuttles between social groups. A parvenant may become part of a new social class but devises literary ways to come back, constantly undoing any fixed idea of social affiliation. Focusing on recent French novels and autobiographies, On Both Sides of the Tracks speaks powerfully to issues of emancipation and class. Cadieu offers a fresh critical look at tales of social mobility in the work of Annie Ernaux, Kaoutar Harchi, Michel Houellebecq, Édouard Louis, and Marie NDiaye, among others, shedding fascinating light on upward mobility today as a formal, literary problem.