"[A] long, beautiful, heart-breaking love letter to potential and possibilities and hope, to the pain we survive in youth and carry with us into adulthood."--NPR Book Reviews One week. That's all Jessie said. A one-week break to get some perspective before graduation, before she and her boyfriend, Chris, would have to make all the big, scary decisions about their future -- decisions they had been fighting about for weeks. Then, Chris vanishes. The police think he's run away, but Jessie doesn't believe it. Chris is popular and good-looking, about to head off to college on a full-ride baseball scholarship. And he disappeared while going for a run along the river -- the same place where some boys from the rival high school beat him up just three weeks ago. Chris is one of the only black kids in a depressed paper mill town, and Jessie is terrified of what might have happened. As the police are spurred to reluctant action, Jessie and others speak up about the harassment Chris experienced and the danger he could be in. But there are people in Jessie's town who are infuriated by the suggestion that a boy like Chris would be a target of violence. They smear Chris's character and Jessie begins receiving frightening threats. Every Friday since they started dating, Chris has written Jessie a love letter. Now Jessie is writing Chris a letter of her own to tell him everything that's happening while he's gone. As Jessie searches for answers, she must face her fears, her guilt, and a past more complicated than she would like to admit.

"In 1981, Chicana literary icons Gloria Anzaldúa and Cherie Moraga published what would become a foundational legacy for generations of feminist women of color-the seminal This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color. In celebration of that legacy's 40th anniversary, editors gloria j. wilson, Joni Boyd Acuff, and Amelia M. Kraehe offer new generations A Love Letter to This Bridge Called My Back. A Love Letter contributors illuminate, question, and respond to current politics, progressive struggles, transformations, acts of resistance, and solidarity, while also offering readers a space for renewal and healing"--

It's 1885 and five preachers sit around a campfire out West, trading stories of unlikely couples they've seen God bring together. This is one of those stories . . . She's the best writer the paper has ever had. He's her new editor. And she doesn't like it one bit. Molly Everton is the outspoken daughter of the town's newspaper publisher. She had the best education her father's money could buy and she's a better writer than he is. So when her father passes her over for the position of editor and gives the job to an outsider from back East, she's furious. But a smart girl like Molly knows she can drive the new guy out of town with little trouble if she plays her cards right . . . Jack Ludlow came out West for adventure and wide open spaces, not romance. And he's not intimidated by the beautiful daughter of his new employer. At first he's just trying to prove to her he is the right man for the job—but before long he's set on stealing her heart. “Robin’s stories are always an adventure of the heart! She is one of the premier storytellers of our day." —Karen Kingsbury, best-selling author

Raise a glass in a toast to Edgar Allan Poe with this jam-packed gothic anthology, including 12 themed issues containing 48 short stories and 7 poems from 55 masterful weavers of gothic fiction. Take a tour through Poe's Baltimore home, experience "The Tell-Tale Heart" through the old man's eyes, go corporate at Raven Corp., witness "The Fall of the House of Usher" from the perspective of a hidden Usher sibling, and much more. Don't miss the award-nominated stories "The Heart of Alderman Kane" by Eleanor Sciolistein and "Midnight Rider" by Melanie Cossey, both nominees for Poe Baltimore's Saturday 'Visiter' Awards.Curl up with Love Letters to Poe and enjoy these haunting tales!

What makes a good story or a screenplay great? The vast majority of writers begin the storytelling process with only a partial understanding where to begin. Some labor their entire lives without ever learning that successful stories are as dependent upon good engineering as they are artistry. But the truth is, unless you are master of the form, function and criteria of successful storytelling, sitting down and pounding out a first draft without planning is an ineffective way to begin. Story Engineering starts with the criteria and the architecture of storytelling, the engineering and design of a story--and uses it as the basis for narrative. The greatest potential of any story is found in the way six specific aspects of storytelling combine and empower each other on the page. When rendered artfully, they become a sum in excess of their parts. You'll learn to wrap your head around the big pictures of storytelling at a professional level through a new approach that shows how to combine these six core competencies which include: • Four elemental competencies of concept, character, theme, and story structure (plot) • Two executional competencies of scene construction and writing voice The true magic of storytelling happens when these six core competencies work together in perfect harmony. And the best part? Anyone can do it!

An exuberant, expansive cataloging of the intimate physical relationship between a reader and a book A way to leave a trace of us, who we were or wanted to be, what we read and could imagine, what we did and what we left for you. Readers of physical books leave traces: marginalia, slips of paper, fingerprints, highlighting, inscriptions. All books have histories, and libraries are not just collections of books and databases but a medium of long-distance communication with other writers and readers. Letter to a Future Lover collects several dozen brief pieces written in response to library ephemera—with "library" defined broadly, ranging from university institutions to friends' shelves, from a seed library to a KGB prison library—and addressed to readers past, present, and future. Through these witty, idiosyncratic essays, Ander Monson reflects on the human need to catalog, preserve, and annotate; the private and public pleasures of reading; the nature of libraries; and how the self can be formed through reading and writing.

A collection of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s remarks on his craft, taken from his works and letters to friends and colleagues—an essential trove of advice for aspiring writers. As F. Scott Fitzgerald famously decreed, “An author ought to write for the youth of his own generation, the critics of the next, and the schoolmasters of ever after.” Fitzgerald's own work has gone on to be reviewed and discussed for over one hundred years. His masterpiece The Great Gatsby brims with the passion and opulence that characterized the Jazz Age—a term Fitzgerald himself coined. These themes also characterized his life: Fitzgerald enlisted in the US army during World War I, leading him to meet his future wife, Zelda, while stationed in Alabama. Later, along with Ernest Hemingway and other American artist expats, he became part of the “Lost Generation” in Europe. Fitzgerald wrote books “to satisfy [his] own craving for a certain type of novel,” leading to modern American classics including Tender Is the Night, This Side of Paradise, The Beautiful and Damned. In this collection of excerpts from his books, articles, and personal letters to friends and peers, Fitzgerald illustrates the life of the writer in a timeless way.