An overview of Pueblo pottery sheds light on the people, both legendary and contemporary, and the places behind this remarkable art form.

"Galleries and shops across the United States are filled with American Indian art. Especially popular is the striking pottery handmade by the Pueblo Indians of the Southwest. Talking with the Clay tells the story of this pottery from the uniquely personal view of the potters themselves. Stephen Trimble interviewed sixty artisans in the pottery-making Pueblo villages, from Taos, New Mexico, to the Hopi reservation in Arizona. Their eloquence fills this book. They speak of 'picking clay' as they would pick flowers, and of the enormous amount of work (fully half their time) necessary to prepare the clay for building their pots. Coil by coil they create jars, bowls, and figurines, and then sand, polish, and paint them. Firing is done outside in a dung-fueled 'kiln' built from scratch for each firing. Trimble shows how Pueblo pottery embodies all the beliefs and values that are central to Pueblo culture. Yet what defines a Pueblo pot is not strictly a matter of tradition, for, as Grace Medicine Flower says of her Santa Clara miniatures, 'Now they call this contemporary; years from now they may call it traditional.' Instead, a Pueblo pot is defined more than anything by the way it feels, and this book captures that feeling in both words and photographs. Talking with the Clay is a joyous, fascinating, and moving book filled with information and insight." -- Back cover

On a bone-chilling New Year's Day, when all the mountain roads are slick with ice, Clay's mother, Anneth, insists on leaving her husband. She packs her things, and with three-year-old Clay in tow, they inch their way toward her hometown along the treacherous mountain roads. That journey ends in the death of Clay's mother. It's a day that comes to haunt her only son, who's left without a family and a history. This is the story of how Clay Sizemore, a coal miner in love with his town but unsure of his place within it, finds a family to call his own. And it's the story of the people who become part of the life he shapes: Aunt Easter, always filled with a sense of foreboding and bound to her faith above all; Uncle Paul, quietly producing quilt after quilt; Dreama, beautiful and flighty; Evangeline, the untameable daughter of a famous gospel singer; and Alma, the fiddler whose song wends its way into Clay's heart. Together, they all help Clay to fashion a quilt of a life from what treasured pieces are around him. Authentic and moving, Clay's Quilt is both the story of a young man's journey and of Appalachian people struggling to hold on to their heritage.

When Clay Strong was admitted into the hospital for emergency surgery, he first thought it was the worst thing to ever happen to him until he laid eyes on his OR nurse Lizzie. He could only see her eyes but knew he wanted to see more of her. She laughed and told him it was the medicine talking, but Clay knew better. Clay had been working with Jade in a complex job for NASA for the past five years, developing intricate equipment for them, and a new position was opening. Clay was a shoo-in for the job, or so he was led to believe. But when the idiot told him his girlfriend’s “pedigree” didn’t meet their standards, Clay was livid, and so was Jade. Heads would roll for this….

Clayton Tucker and his colleagues at the Dallas Observer eagerly prepare to cover the anniversary of the first human heart transplant using a cloned heart. Cloning, stem cell therapy and gene splicing have become nearly routine in 2016 and have opened the door to advances in medicine only dreamed of ten years earlier. Traveling to South Africa where the first heart transplant was done fifty years earlier, Clay discovers that Pontiac Pharmaceuticals has been closely involved in the research surrounding both the original transplant and the one in Dallas. Clay and Brian Singh begin looking into Pontiac and learn that it is part of Omega Security Systems; a multinational arms dealer fronting for a counter espionage organization. However, a power struggle is underway at Pontiac and Clay is contacted by Pontiacs COO Darius Kent. Kent is concerned that an advanced unstable biological weapon is being developed at the companies lab in Bosnia by the companys president, the Colonel. Kent helps Clay and Brian infiltrate the lab using the newly developed counter insurgency macro skin. They pose as two of the companies researchers recently transferred to the lab. Here they are confronted with ultimate biological weapon, the Alastor. Clay and Brian are able to download the Alastor research and escape the lab. Now the two must get back to Dallas with the data intact hopefully in time. The initial field test of the weapon is only days away.