From an authentic American voice, a stunning, gritty tale of a young man's retreat into the darkly glamorous world of the circus. Venice, Florida: On the edge of town sits the winter headquarters of a traveling circus. One day Gary, a drifter, signs up for a job as a bullhand with the circus. Everyone has heard of the ringmaster, the trapeze artist, and the clown, but Gary soon learns that the circus includes others as well: the 24-hour man, the first to arrive in a town to poster the way to the circus grounds; the bullhands who remove elephant excrement from under the animals' bodies; the butchers who distract the audience from the circus spectacle selling them cotton candy or lemonade; the animal people who care for the animals and keep to themselves. Gary instantly falls in love with this new life, riding the circus train from one town to the next in the odd hours of the night. This acclaimed debut tells of a hapless, magical existence-a life for which Richard Schmitt's characters have abandoned everything and nothing at all. In it, the circus unfolds as a wealth of human energy and ambition, and Schmitt emerges as a talent with a magical voice and a high-flying future.

This latest title in the Sewanee Writers's Series is a gritty debut novel in the tradition of Tom McGuane and Pete Dexter that chronicles a young man's retreat into the darkly glamorous world of the circus.

Paris, 1891 Laura is living on the streets, far from the American Prairies where she was born. When rescued by the entrancing aerialists, Ena and Auguste Gaudron, she soon finds herself ensconced in the family hot air balloon business, and offered the chance to learn how to fly.

Poetry. "THE AERIALIST is a wise, observant, and deeply reflective body of work. With mature authority and true poetic intelligence, Hallerman presents us with our lives as aerialists: 'Her life is the wife she can never come down... / if she were to cut the wire (she dreams of this) / the sky would break like a mirror into the sea / and nothing would be whole again..."--Jean Valentine. "As soon as I began reading these poems, I knew I was in the company of a writer I wanted to be with, someone whose personality becomes recognizable on a basic yet open level that is appealing and not in any way exclusive. I was eager to learn what she had to say about the wide variety of things that concern her. This is the unforced voice of a poet who has nothing to prove (and therefore does not need to lecture or presume) and does not restrict herself to one small area in short, a poet who reveals herself without needing to confess. The Aerialist is a superb collection; it's hard to believe that it is the

"Mark Mayer writes with a humorous, wistful elegance. His stories are singular, as detached and intimate as dreaming." --Marilynne Robinson Welcome to the sublime circus of Mark Mayer's Michener-Copernicus-winning debut, Aerialists, a fiercely inventive collection of nine stories in which classic carnival characters become ordinary misfits seeking grandeur in a lonely world. Under the luminous tent of Mayer's prose, we see P.T. Barnum's caravan remade: A young misogynist finds a confidante in a cable-TV strongwoman. A realtor for the one percent invokes his inner murder clown. A skin-and-bones mathematician and his bearded wife plot revolution. A friendless peach farmer holds a funeral for a beloved elephant. And a model-train hobbyist prepares to throw his miniature world in the trash. The circus has always been a collection of American exaggerations—the bold, the beautiful, the freakish, the big. Aerialists finds these myths living in the everyday. Mayer's deftly drawn characters illuminate these small-scale spectaculars, and their attempted acts of daring and feats of strength are rendered with humor, generosity, and uncommon grace.

An illustrated guide to anatomy and biomechanics for aerialists who want to optimize their performance and train safely Specifically designed for aerialists—including those who do trapeze, silks, and other aerial arts— Applied Anatomy of Aerial Arts is an invaluable resource for those who want to optimize their performance and train safely. Using a biomechanical and movement-based approach, Emily Scherb—a physical therapist who specializes in the care, treatment, and education of circus performers—explains the anatomical rationale for progressions of learning and demonstrates simple movements to achieve the coordination, muscular control, strength, and fitness to hang with correct form, how to progress from hanging into a pull up, an inversion, and beyond with a strong center, precise muscle sequencing, and ease of movement. Aerialists will learn how bones, joints, muscles, and soft tissues allow for specific movements and gain an appreciation for concepts of proximal stability. This full-color illustrated guide lays a solid foundation for beginners and advanced students with a wealth of insights into their own performance as well as refreshers on fundamentals in warm ups and conditioning. It explains how to structure a training session, how to care for injuries, and best practices for basic self first aid.

Female solo aerialists of the 1920s and early 1930s were internationally popular performers in the largest live performance mass entertainment of the period in the UK and USA. Yet these aerialists and this period in circus history have been largely forgotten despite the iconic image of ‘the’ female aerialist still flaring in the popular imagination. Kate Holmes uses insights gained as a practitioner to reconstruct in detail the British and American performances and public personae of key stars such as Lillian Leitzel, Luisita Leers, and the Flying Codonas, revealing what is performed and implicit in today’s practice. Using a wealth of original sources, this book considers the forgotten stars whose legacy of the cultural image of the female aerialist echoes. Locating performers within wider cultural histories of sport, glamour, and gender, this book asks important questions about their stardom, including: Why were female aerialists so alluring when their muscularity challenged conservative ideals of femininity and how did they participate in change? What was it about their movements and the spaces they performed in that activated such strong audience responses? This book is vital reading for students and practitioners of aerial performance, circus, gender, popular performance, and performance studies.