Short Story Press Presents Monkey Freckles by Srah Zachary Liam grew up thinking he wanted to be a zookeeper. He practically lived in the zoo as a child, and his brother is wild enough to be an animal, so it seems perfect. But no one told him he had to go through so much higher education. No one told him he needed practical experience. As an unhappy volunteer who works at the zoo after high school each day, he’s beginning to wonder if it’s worth it. Suddenly, he’s faced with a mysterious visitor, a girl who: sits in front of his gibbon exhibit, refuses to talk to him, and writes all day, every day, without cease. When she finally says more than two words to him, leaving him speechless, she also accidently leaves behind something else- her journal she’s been writing in constantly every day. Taking it home with him instead of returning it, Liam decides to take a tiny peek, after all, what harm could it do? As he reads, Liam finds himself unexpectedly thrown into the life of this stranger he’s nicknamed monkey freckles and the reasons behind her strange actions begin to come to light. As he faces her once more, he has to come to grips with helping monkey freckles and facing his own unspoken past, before it’s too late. Short Story Press publishes short stories written by everyday writers.

When orphaned Freckles gets a job watching Mr. McLean's valuable Limberlost timber, he thinks that he has at last found a home. But the Limberlost gives him much more than that--a lasting knowledge of nature, a woman who loves him, and the secret of his noble birth. Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.

One of the Must-Read Books of 2019 According to O: The Oprah Magazine * Time * Bustle * Electric Literature * Publishers Weekly * The Millions * The Week * Good Housekeeping “There is more life packed on each page of Ordinary Girls than some lives hold in a lifetime.” —Julia Alvarez In this searing memoir, Jaquira Díaz writes fiercely and eloquently of her challenging girlhood and triumphant coming of age. While growing up in housing projects in Puerto Rico and Miami Beach, Díaz found herself caught between extremes. As her family split apart and her mother battled schizophrenia, she was supported by the love of her friends. As she longed for a family and home, her life was upended by violence. As she celebrated her Puerto Rican culture, she couldn’t find support for her burgeoning sexual identity. From her own struggles with depression and sexual assault to Puerto Rico’s history of colonialism, every page of Ordinary Girls vibrates with music and lyricism. Díaz writes with raw and refreshing honesty, triumphantly mapping a way out of despair toward love and hope to become her version of the girl she always wanted to be. Reminiscent of Tara Westover’s Educated, Kiese Laymon’s Heavy, Mary Karr’s The Liars’ Club, and Terese Marie Mailhot’s Heart Berries, Jaquira Díaz’s memoir provides a vivid portrait of a life lived in (and beyond) the borders of Puerto Rico and its complicated history—and reads as electrically as a novel.

In the tradition of Kaye Gibbons, Sheri Reynolds, and Dorothy Allison, Brenda Jernigan is an exciting and original Southern voice. This novel concerns a miraculous event -- with a contemporary spin -- that sets in motion a profoundly moving and often warmly human coming-of-age story. This is beautifully crafted writing, rich with unforgettable characters. Every Good and Perfect Gift is set in a small town in North Carolina, a place that is comfortable with tradition, including the traditional image of God. On a sultry Sunday morning when ten-year-old Maggie Davidson swoons from the heat and sees God -- and God is a woman -- people are quick to ascribe her vision to the fantasies of an overheated girl. But when Maggie begins to demonstrate a gift of healing, people's attitudes change. This is a story of a family of three strong women -- grandmother, mother, and daughter -- who live by the laws of love, loss, and pride. It is also the story of a community of good people gone wrong and bad people who find good in themselves. It is a knowingly detailed account of a particular part of America -- and of the wide landscape of human hearts and souls.

A classic he-said-she-said romantic comedy! This updated anniversary edition offers story-behind-the-story revelations from author Wendelin Van Draanen. The first time she saw him, she flipped. The first time he saw her, he ran. That was the second grade, but not much has changed by the seventh. Juli says: “My Bryce. Still walking around with my first kiss.” He says: “It’s been six years of strategic avoidance and social discomfort.” But in the eighth grade everything gets turned upside down: just as Bryce is thinking that there’s maybe more to Juli than meets the eye, she’s thinking that he’s not quite all he seemed. This is a classic romantic comedy of errors told in alternating chapters by two fresh, funny voices. The updated anniversary edition contains 32 pages of extra backmatter: essays from Wendelin Van Draanen on her sources of inspiration, on the making of the movie of Flipped, on why she’ll never write a sequel, and a selection of the amazing fan mail she’s received. Awards and accolades for Flipped: SLJ Top 100 Children’s Novels of all time IRA-CBC Children’s Choice IRA Teacher’s Choice Honor winner, Judy Lopez Memorial Award/WNBA Winner of the California Young Reader Medal “We flipped over this fantastic book, its gutsy girl Juli and its wise, wonderful ending.” — The Chicago Tribune “Van Draanen has another winner in this eighth-grade ‘he-said, she-said’ romance. A fast, funny, egg-cellent winner.” — SLJ, Starred review “With a charismatic leading lady kids will flip over, a compelling dynamic between the two narrators and a resonant ending, this novel is a great deal larger than the sum of its parts.” —Publishers Weekly, Starred review

A glimpse into a beloved novelist’s inner world, shaped by family, art, and literature. In her fiction, Claire Messud "has specialized in creating unusual female characters with ferocious, imaginative inner lives" (Ruth Franklin, New York Times Magazine). Kant’s Little Prussian Head and Other Reasons Why I Write opens a window on Messud’s own life: a peripatetic upbringing; a warm, complicated family; and, throughout it all, her devotion to art and literature. In twenty-six intimate, brilliant, and funny essays, Messud reflects on a childhood move from her Connecticut home to Australia; the complex relationship between her modern Canadian mother and a fiercely single French Catholic aunt; and a trip to Beirut, where her pied-noir father had once lived, while he was dying. She meditates on contemporary classics from Kazuo Ishiguro, Teju Cole, Rachel Cusk, and Valeria Luiselli; examines three facets of Albert Camus and The Stranger; and tours her favorite paintings at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts. In the luminous title essay, she explores her drive to write, born of the magic of sharing language and the transformative powers of “a single successful sentence.” Together, these essays show the inner workings of a dazzling literary mind. Crafting a vivid portrait of a life in celebration of the power of literature, Messud proves once again "an absolute master storyteller" (Rebecca Carroll, Los Angeles Times).