Apprentice House – förlag

In the fictional coastal town of Cumberland, Georgia, fifteen-year-old twin sisters Ansel and Isabel Mackenzie have lived with their eccentric grandmother since a car accident killed their parents and paralyzed Isabel. Over the past seven years the responsibility of caring for her sister has fallen increasingly on Ansel. However, as she cultivates a romantic relationship with a local boy, as well as an artistic apprenticeship with a visiting photographer, Ansel's growing desire for independence compromises her ability to care for her sister, threatening their sororal connection, and ultimately, Isabel's life. Juxtaposing Ansel's traditional narrative against Isabel's poetic prose, Cumberland highlights the conflicts between independence and familial duty, the difficulty of balancing the dark draws of the body against the brighter focus of the mind. Megan Gannon was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee and is a graduate of Vassar College (BA), the University of Montana (MFA) and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (PhD). She also served as a Peace Corps volunteer in The Gambia, West Africa from 1998-2000. Her poetry chapbook, The Witch's Index, was published by Sweet Publications in 2012, and her work has appeared in Ploughshares, Pleiades, Gulf Coast, Third Coast, The Notre Dame Review, Verse Daily, Poetry Daily, and The Best American Poetry 2006. She lives in Omaha, Nebraska, where she is currently at work on her second novel.

There are 325 languages spoken in the United States and over a million adult immigrants enrolled in federally funded English classes. Most are beginners. In this collection of poems, an ESL teacher and former expat illustrates her students' struggles and triumphs by addressing their linguistic challenges and culture shock alongside broader social issues such as poverty, spousal abuse, religious traditions, illegal immigration, education, the role of women in other cultures, and the mental scars of war. Their stories are heart-breaking, uplifting, and tinged with unexpected humor that shines a new light on their place in America.

Andrew Tollson, age twelve, runs away from his New Jersey home when his mother finds out he has been skipping school. Deep in the forest Andrew stumbles upon an ancient revolver, loaded with six rounds. Deeper in the forest he finds a door that takes him to another world entirely-a world in which guns don't exist. Paired up with an imaginative farm boy, Andrew encounters danger and dark magic in his adventures as a legendary gunfighter. However, he has a limit-he only has six bullets to spend, and his enemies are bent on closing the door that Andrew hopes will lead him back to his world.

I Remain Yours documents the past through the present by re-directing the epistolary form as a mode of cross-generational communication, exploring the reality that love and writing remain long after the end of the individual life span. Cottle collects actual postmarked love letters from 1900-1903, sent secretly between her great-grandparents while her great-grandfather returned to his parents' homeland of Sweden to serve a Mormon mission, and weaves in her own responsive love letters back to her deceased great-grandparents, written during a self-imposed 2 1/2-year mission to understand the gifts and weights of her inherited creativity. In addressing her lineage, both literally and figuratively, Cottle realizes there a fine line between the dead and the living, her past and her future families, as well as within the links of predetermined loyalty and destiny. "e;With its innovative epistolary structure, Katherine Cottle's I Remain Yours provides a fascinating window into Mormon culture-at a time when Americans have reason to be more interested in that than usual."e; -Madison Smartt Bell, novelist, author of All Souls' Rising & The Color of Night "e;An American story."e; -Clay Goss, playwright, Author of Homecookin'

Washington, D.C., 1985. Peter, a gay dancer, dying of AIDS, thirsts for forgiveness for causing the death of a young man with whom he had sex. Martin, a straight college professor, grieves over the loss of his favorite student, killed by AIDS. He volunteers to act as a buddy to an AIDS patient and is assigned Peter. When they discover that Peter infected Martin's student, both are forced to rethink their life views. No-Accounts is a story of two men, one gay, one straight, who learn from one another how to become men by accepting loss, including, in the end, life itself. "e;Tom Glenn lived his novel seven times as a volunteer assisting HIV infected men to die. This is fiction taken from life written by a hero who accompanied the terminally ill as far as any mortal could, devoting himself body and soul to their comfort and helping them make their exit with dignity. It is one man's story of committing unconditionally to another. A love story like no other, it is uplifting and wrenching and rewarding beyond measure."e; -Juris Jurjevics, author of The Trudeau Vector and Red Flags

Drops on the Water is a book about the childhood experiences of a father and son, and their gradual entrance into adulthood. It traces the similarities and differences between distinct generations in their unique geographical environments. From the suburbs and fairgrounds of the United States to the majesty and beauty of the Swiss Alps, from a beach in Nicaragua to a gum plantation in Zululand, these stories jump between Europe and America, east and west coast, and the African continent. They trace the inheritance of World War II, of German nationality, of the shock of a friend's suicide to a classmate's overdose. The anxieties of early love and rural small town life are balanced against changes seen in the familial sphere across generations. Apartheid inequities, corporal punishment in strict prep schools, a friend's illicit affair with an African maid, hitchhiking barefoot, and a scheduled Ping-Pong match with the Prince of Liechtenstein, all coalesce in a book that brings to life the circumstances that bind its authors to history, family, generation, and place. ADVANCE PRAISE: "e;These simultaneously personal, yet universal, utterly recognizable incidents have been delivered to the page with perspicacity, humor, and a poet's eye."e; - Glen Berger, award-winning playwright, winner of two Emmys and author of Song of Spider-Man, The Inside Story of the Most Controversial Musical in Broadway History

In Sparking the Genius, Whitehead outlines the Critical Moments in American History that defined both the beginning of the early Civil Rights Movement-with the release of the Emancipation Proclamation-and the modern Civil Rights Movement in 1963. Starting with the Birmingham Campaign (Project C), Whitehead outlines, defines, and deconstructs five Critical Moments including the release of Dr. King's "e;Letter from a Birmingham Jail,"e; the assassination of Medgar Evers, the March on Washington, and the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. With an introduction from Dr. Alicia Moore and Dr. La Vonne Neal, the book also includes an article on critical pedagogy by Dr. Conra Gist and a lesson plan for teaching the Woodson Lecture to K-16 students. Whitehead's 2013 Carter G. Woodson Lecture is both a challenge and a call to action: Will you answer the call to help spark the genius?

One Nation Taken Out Of Another is a joyride through the Five Books of Moses on the back of a strange chimera - with an American head, a Yiddish heart, and all manner of multicultural, bassackward, and wandering limbs grafted on to the whole. The included poems are in English, Yiddish, and both. It's midrash and whimsy, and an exploration of Bible, tradition, exile, redemption, and mystery.

In the summer of 1961, black and white Freedom Riders from all over the U.S. converged on Jackson, Mississippi in a campaign to force the desegregation of public transportation and public facilities. Buses were burned. Some Riders were beaten almost to death. They were jailed by the hundreds, and they rocked the conscience of the nation. In this compelling coming-of-age novel, when the first Freedom Ride rolls into Jackson, one Mississippi white boy, Tommy Jackson, is watching and waiting. His young life was already turned upside down by the arrival of rock and roll and by his first-hand exposure to the racial violence that ruled his hometown. When he sees the Freedom Riders, he stops being a silent witness and takes action, hoping to redeem his guilty conscience and join a community of like-minded souls. Instead he finds there is no escaping the past. White Boy depicts the world seen in the 2009 best-seller, The Help, but from a grittier working-class perspective.

How does a hypochondriac experience the wonders of the world when constantly fearing death, germs and exotic diseases? These humorous and absurd travel stories take the reader on a wild global ride through deserts, rainforests, nude spas, international marathons, dirty waterparks, essential film locations, and a dreadful "e;momcation,"e; while exploring important tactics about flying, pirates, and keeping a stubborn traveler's stomach in line. Uplifting and relatable, these tales of all different types of travel will have you laughing while you eagerly pack your bags for your next trip.

For the past several centuries, science has been offering us a powerful new way to understand nature, but the accompanying rise of materialistic philosophy threatens to drain the meaning and sacred quality of our experience of nature. The resulting tension represents a fractured and incoherent apprehension of nature on both a personal and a cultural level. In this book, Gregory N. Derry explores this problem and suggests a solution based on complementarity, a logical framework that demonstrates the compatibility of apparently contradictory propositions by showing them to be grounded in mutually exclusive domains of knowledge. Complementarity was famously employed by Niels Bohr in his quest to interpret quantum mechanics. Here, Prof. Derry extends and generalizes Bohr's epistemological approach so that it becomes applicable to problems beyond the scope of empirical science, and he uses this generalization of Bohr's complementarity to argue that the truth of scientific materialism in no way implies that nature has no sacred and spiritual dimensions, i.e., nature is both sacred and mundane.

Bernadette Baker lives through every mother's worst nightmare when her adopted sixteen-year-old daughter, Veronica, is brutally murdered in a shocking and random act of violence. Ten years later the murderer, Raelynn Blackwell, is facing execution for her crime, and despite being united in their grief over Veronica, the Baker family is deeply divided on the subject of the death penalty. On one side is Veronica's deeply spiritual and sensitive brother who believes that the death penalty is the last thing his baby sister would have wanted. On the opposite side is their tough-as-nails older sister who vehemently believes that death is the only way justice will be served. In the center is Bernadette, who is deeply ambivalent and longs for a resolution that will help her family move forward. After Raelynn receives a last-minute stay of execution, a secret is revealed that changes everything and leads to an unlikely bond between Raelynn and Bernadette. Just Mercy is a heart-wrenching and ultimately redemptive family drama of forgiveness, destiny, and the true nature of justice. "e;This family drama is a must-read that teaches us about the true nature of justice and our very humanity."e; -Sr. Helen Prejean, C.S.J., author of Dead Man Walking "e;A stunning achievement...surprising twists and turns as a family, shattered by the heinous killing of their youngest member, must come to terms with life-altering truths."e; -Hal Zina Bennett, author of bestseller Write From the Heart A thought-provoking novel about the full implications of the death penalty by Van Soest (Diversity Education for Social Justice: Mastering Teaching Skills, 2008), a retired professor and social worker who has written extensively on social justice issues. On a spring night in 2001, teenager Veronica Baker is stabbed to death at an Austin, Texas, bus stop by a drug-crazed woman. Ten years later, Veronica's murderer, Raelynn Blackwell, is scheduled for execution. Veronica's death, as well as family members' differing opinions about justice for her killer, tears her family apart. Veronica's adoptive mother, Bernadette Baker, experiences a change of heart after meeting her daughter's killer, and her husband, Marty, a philosophy professor who seems too good to be true, supports his wife in her obsession with Veronica's killer, even as he suffers a health crisis. But Veronica's sister, Annamaria Baker, a strident, bitter attorney, wants Raelynn dead. She believes Raelynn and her attorney are playing the system. Meanwhile, Fin, Veronica's brother, unequivocally opposes the death penalty, even for his own sister's killer. When Raelynn is spared execution, Bernadette redoubles her efforts to help Raelynn find peace, although it means antagonizing Annamaria, neglecting Marty and uncovering a shocking revelation. Van Soest's stated purpose for trying her hand at fiction is her "e;growing conviction that people become empowered to work for personal and social change, not through objective data and studies, but through personal connections that lead them to care enough to take action."e; Raelynn and her neglectful, alcoholic mother, Maxine, emerge as surprisingly sympathetic characters. However, Bernadette's determination to help Raelynn find peace when her own husband's health is in doubt makes her less likable. Complex characters populate this well-considered take on capital punishment. - Kirkus Reviews

The first thing you need to know is I'm not Chinese. My name is Raymond Wong and I stopped being Chinese at the age of five. Raymond Wong wants to forget his past: a charming, conniving, and controlling Chinese mother, a father who hasn't so much as written him a letter in 28 years, a stepfather who never sees him as a son, a childhood rife with ridicule and bullying from American kids, and the pain of being an outcast in his own family. Raymond goes back to Hong Kong with the mother he has always pushed away, a woman who represents everything he wants to disown. He meets a father he doesn't recognize and can't talk to because they speak different languages. He encounters a people and a country as foreign as the Cantonese he can no longer comprehend. I'm Not Chinese: The Journey from Resentment to Reverence is about a man who has spent his life running from his culture, his family, himself-and what happens when he is forced to stop running.