If you have ever felt "kicked" to the point of feeling like everyone is against you ... like maybe someone was putting a "kick me" sign on your back, then you'll identify with the kick-me-girl named Kimi. But this is more than a story. With plainspoken boldness, Saralyn Smith McLean describes the often hidden and silent struggle of Christians depression. Not only has she personally experienced it firsthand, but she has done her homework and drawn on many sources to substantiate her message. This book is a mix of a short story, self-help guide to treatments, and inspirational treatise. May God grant that the silent struggle that you or a loved one may be going through no longer remain silent, that the struggle itself will cease to be the deep-seated problem that depression can be.

As a young man, author Harry Lee was idealistic; he felt he wanted to impact the lives of children by becoming a teacher. In Going thru Life with a Kick Me Sign, he shares the realities of his career as an urban educator. In this memoir, he narrates his story from the beginning of his life, details of his youth, adult life, and his career from beginning to retirement. Offering a surprising roller coaster ride of humor, violence, advice, faith, corruption, and life-changing events, Lee shares a shocking view of urban education along with a host of his challenging life experiences. Praise for Going thru Life with a Kick Me Sign Gripping An eye-opening look behind the walls of urban education. A true story of a broken system and the desolation that lies in its wake challenges, triumphs, heartaches, politics, betrayal, and a lost generation of urban children. Michael Williams, Bachelor of Arts, Masters of Education, Former Public School Superintendent This book provides an honest and open look at the world of education in urban America today revealing the rewards, challenges, and struggles from the classroom to the principals office. Within its pages, author Harry Lee creatively shares his experience as a teacher in an urban setting by weaving humorous and heartwarming chalkboard stories of the life of a teacher, student life, poverty, security in the classroom, as well as exposing the shifting values and politics in education Rev. Dr. Gene Burgess, Bachelor of Science, Masters of Professional Studies, Doctor of Divinity

Three “sly, self-knowing, and hilarious” novellas from the highly acclaimed author of The Lost Language of Cranes (The New York Times). Here are three novellas of escape and exile, touching and funny and at times calculatedly outrageous. In “Saturn Street,” a disaffected LA screenwriter delivers lunches to homebound AIDS patients, only to find himself falling in love with one of them. In “The Wooden Anniversary,” Nathan and Celia—familiar characters from Leavitt’s story collections—reunite after a five-year separation. And in "The Term-Paper Artist," a writer named David Leavitt, hiding out at his father’s house in the aftermath of a publishing scandal, experiences literary rejuvenation when he agrees to write term papers for UCLA undergraduates in exchange for sex. “Confessional, audacious and outrageous . . . This is classic Leavitt—writing with subtlety, maturity and compassion about the complexity and fragility of human relationships.” —Los Angeles Times Book Review

Salvation is the coming of age story of Crane Cavanaugh. Born into a family of three former charlatan preachers and two older siblings living in poverty in rural Iowa, Crane is a budding scientist with a rich awareness of the natural world and her own precarious spot in it.