Selected as the 1998 Drue Heinz Literature Prize Award winner, and winner of the Midland Society of Authors Award for Adult Fiction, 1999. Storytelling and art are major themes of this collection. The stories center on the need for expression, the pain of failing in artistic expression, and the ways in which we construct imaginative representations of our lives, the "necessary fictions" that allow us to live. At the heart of the book is a series of three interconnected stories and a novella concerning Raymond Gerhardt and his family. Ray is a carpenter, a World War II veteran, obsessed with building the perfect home for his family. When he dies, a possible suicide, his wife and children are left to sort out the meaning of his life and their own.

Love America? Then get this Veterans Journal and record events that you want to remember in the future and pass on to your children and grandchildren. Keep track daily weekly monthly or whenver you feel the need to list your thoughts in this blank 200 page 8.5 inch by 11 inch blank lined journal. Makes a great birthday or Christmas gift. The Military Veterans Journal will be cherished for years to come and will be passed on from generation to generation sharing the knowledge in the diary. Get the United States Armed Forces Veterans Journal and record your deepest innermost thoughts. Never forget our US Army Veterans, US Air Force Veterans, US Navy Veterans, or the US Marine Corps Veterans. The US Military Armed Forces Journal is the perfect place to record events that happened while the Veteran served as a soldier, sailor, airmen or marine. The Veterans Journal is ideal to write one's memoirs or war stories so that they are never forgotten and can be passed from generation to generation.

Peter Straub has created a body of short stories and novellas establishes him as one of the best literary voices in the genres of horror and dark suspense. His list of accomplishments and awards is staggering: In addition to the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Horror Writers Association, Life Achievement World Fantasy Award, Grand Master Award from World Horror, Living Legend Award from the International Horror Guild, he has won the Bram Stoker Award nine times, the World Fantasy Award three times, and one British Fantasy Award. He remains a living legend. Volume one features Peter's short stories. Stories included in this collection: The Juniper Tree She Saw a Young Man In the Realm of Dreams Going Home A Short Guide to the City Interlude: Bar Talk Something About a Death, Something About a Fire The Poetry Reading The Veteran Then One Day... The Ghost Village Ashputtle Hunger In Transit (with Benjamin Straub) Isn’t It Romantic? The Geezers Donald, Duck! Little Red’s Tango Lapland, or Film Noir Mr. Aickman’s Air Rifle Mallon the Guru The Ballad of Ballard and Sandrine Inside Story The Collected Stories of Freddie Prothero Lost Lake (with Emma Straub) Beyond the Veil of Vision: Reinhold von Kreitz and the Das Beben Movement “Peter Straub’s shorter fictions are like tiny novels you drown in: perfectly pitched, terrifyingly smart, big-hearted, dangerous, and even cruel... If you care about the short story, you should read this book, and watch a master at work.” —Neil Gaiman, author of The Ocean at the End of the Lane “Straub has a proven knack for black humor, and he coaxes the nightmarish out of the mundane with startling ease. This is a powerful collection from an enduring favorite in literary chills.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) “These stories show [Straub] ranging far and high into the uplands of literary fiction without ever leaving behind the dark impulses and fears that make his work so powerful.” —John Crowley, author of Little, Big and the Aegypt Cycle

The 15-month, 458 page, October 2019 - December 2020, United States Army Air Force Navy Marine Veterans fiscal year planner is perfect for your favorite US retired serviceman or woman. Keep track of your training, official meetings, daily duties, special projects, temporary duty, and anything else military related in the United States Military Veteran FY2020 Planner. Perfect for an early Veterans Day gift, birthday present, Armed Forces Day, or for your favorite retired Platoon Leader or Platoon Sergeant. 1 October 2019 through 31 December 2020 15 month academic planner 458 pages 8.5 inches by 11 inches paperback The Fiscal Year 2020 Daily Planner for United States Military Veterans is the perfect gift for your favorite prior service Sergeant, Lieutenant, Captain, Major or Colonel.

There is for all of us a profound Moment of Truth that lies in wait—a moment that transfixes our attention and forces us to confront the essential question in life: Who am I? For Chip St. Clair that moment came when he learned that the man he called “Dad” was an impostor—a child killer who had been on the run for nearly three decades. After turning his father in on a cold January night in 1998, St. Clair embarked on a quest for his true identity, a journey that began when he opened a nondescript black trunk: Inside he found his birth certificate—typed over and forged. His “date of birth”? The same day his father had killed a child five years earlier. Along with that, more “answers” that spawned more questions: photographs of young children he didn’t know; locks of hair; a jewelry box full of baby teeth; and records of tens of thousands of dollars in loans taken out by his parents in his name. While forensic tests and DNA proved the answer to the most important question—was he the biological son of a convicted child killer?—the rest of the mysteries may never be solved. What St. Clair discovered as he tried to unravel the swath of lies his “parents” had woven across at least seven states is something that all of us can learn from: Oftentimes the answers we seek are within us and the only path to fulfillment is to make peace with the unknown. His eventual epiphany, which took place in a butterfly garden, freed him to leave his haunted past behind and to construct a future full of light and hope. Most important, he learned that our fate, our path in life, is not determined by demons of the past or by DNA, but the power of our own free will and what we hold in our hearts.