The Night We Set the Dead Kid on Fire, a collection of poetry, is a book chocked-full of characters (both women and men) that don't receive much attention in Contemporary American Poetry, --the dishwashers, the addicts, the truckers, the card players, the convicts, the boxers, the grave-diggers, the mechanics, the farmers, the blue-collar "others"--And many of these characters are either the victims or the perpetrators of violence. This book's speakers (both women and men) lie and cheat and drink and fist-fight in parking lots, campgrounds, and dive bars. They get cheap in casinos, broken apartments, hospitals, and hotel rooms. In this book, you will find STI's, tattoos, and shotguns, rattlesnakes, brass knuckles, and bottles across the face. Assault. Overdose. Suicide. BUT, though my hometown (A-Town), can get ugly and violent, can hold grudges and punch holes in the walls or set a car on fire, it is also a place capable of great love, sacrifice, and loyalty as its people carve out a meaningful life every day in spite of the wreckage around them, as they wrestle with the shifting space between community and self. Yes, much of the subject matter in these poems is hard to look at, but I believe there is poetry in those dark places too. I seek to celebrate and to elegize small towns and the people who go to work in them

“We Set the Dark on Fire burns bright. It will light the way for a new generation of rebels and lovers.” —NPR “Mejia pens a compelling, gripping story that mirrors real world issues of immigration and equality.” —Buzzfeed Five starred reviews!! In this daring and romantic fantasy debut perfect for fans of The Handmaid’s Tale and Latinx authors Zoraida Córdova and Anna-Marie McLemore, society wife-in-training Dani has a great awakening after being recruited by rebel spies and falling for her biggest rival. At the Medio School for Girls, distinguished young women are trained for one of two roles in their polarized society. Depending on her specialization, a graduate will one day run a husband’s household or raise his children. Both paths promise a life of comfort and luxury, far from the frequent political uprisings of the lower class. Daniela Vargas is the school’s top student, but her pedigree is a lie. She must keep the truth hidden or be sent back to the fringes of society. And school couldn’t prepare her for the difficult choices she must make after graduation, especially when she is asked to spy for a resistance group desperately fighting to bring equality to Medio. Will Dani cling to the privilege her parents fought to win for her, or will she give up everything she’s strived for in pursuit of a free Medio—and a chance at a forbidden love?

The Journey By: George Patton Bargas The Journey is the story of a child who grew up with a deep love for his country. A child who envisioned how great it would be to serve his country and dreamed of the day he would come marching home in a parade and have the “proverbial” girl run out from the crowd and throw her arms around him as she planted one right on the mouth. It’s the story of a Christian boy who turned against God and all he had been raised to believe. A boy who realized he had become what he hated most. A boy who waged a forty-year war against God. A boy who received the best training and weapons any country could offer, then came home to fight a war, a real war, in which he was not equipped to fight. A war his country never prepared him for. A young man who fought the only way he knew how, with drugs and alcohol. A young man who never got his parade, who came home to be spit on and have drinks poured over his precious uniform at the airport. A young man who felt as though the country he loved so much had betrayed him. A young man who, after three attempts to take his own life, and a series of “shock treatments” finally made his piece with God almost fifty years later. A man who finally realized that he had WON the war!

By the time America decided to engage in Vietnam, the Soviets had already overwhelmed fifteen nations by force and fear. The conflict that followed was one of American history's toughest infantry wars. American soldiers who fought in the Vietnam War call it "the Nam." In this unique recollection of deadly, close-quarters infantry combat, author and twenty-year US Army veteran Donald R. White shares his wealth of personal experience, presenting an emotional trip through violence and bloodshed. In the time period between late fall of 1965 and late summer of 1969, hundreds of men were killed in action each week-something that survivors live with daily. Former US Army platoon sergeant Donald R. White reveals detailed facts about infantry war that are bloody, horrific, and shocking. In this personal account, he deals with memories that are seldom happy and often grim, giving readers an eye-witness account of what the Nam was really like for American fighting men.