Girl Friday Books – förlag

“That day, I saw humanity at its best and worst. Humanity doesn’t have race, creed, or color—not when you look into the very souls of people.” —Christopher Braman, Army Sgt. 1st Class (ret.)

The terrorist attacks against the United States on September 11, 2001, were intended to tear apart the fabric of our country and our democracy. Instead, this brazen act served to show the world the heart of a nation and the true meaning of “united we stand.” The heroes at the Pentagon were extraordinary civilians and soldiers who made decisions to sacrifice their own safety to render aid to complete strangers. Twenty years later, these stories serve as a reminder of what it truly means to be American.

Meticulously researched and told with respect and reverence, American Phoenix sheds light on the remarkable individuals and events of that day, revealing stories never before told. Starting from the date the builders of the Pentagon broke ground on September 11, 1941, and culminating in the national Pentagon Memorial dedication in 2008, this is a tribute to those who sacrificed everything so that others might live.

This energetic book is for kids who feel the unstoppable urge to hip-slippity hop and twirl-bouncy pop but find themselves in situations in which they can’t freely play, like sitting in a classroom or riding in a car. Children can jump into the vibrantly illustrated world of the ever-kinetic protagonist, who uses muscle-control exercises to burn off blip-fidgety jitters and calm himself down, even in restrictive settings.

By teaching simple movements and exercises using fun descriptions and instructional visuals, Gonna Move, Gotta Bounce, Have to Jumpity Jump! builds self-awareness and corrective strategies that kids with hyperactive tendencies can access anywhere, at any time. The playful tone normalizes a child’s skip-squirmy impulses and offers approachable guidance for even the most active kids. The rhyme scheme and imaginative vocabulary engage children who want to learn how to regain focus so they can have a smooth and smiling day.

We’ve been taught by the diet industry that the key to weight-loss success is eating less and exercising more. Both research and experience have proven this theory wrong. Yet we continue to count calories, eliminate carbs, track macronutrients, and cut out entire food groups because the only thing scarier than failing at another diet is trusting ourselves enough not to be on one at all.

It’s time to ditch the diet and learn how our bodies actually work. In Metabolism Makeover, registered dietitian nutritionist Megan Hansen strips away the complexity and confusion surrounding dieting and replaces them with a simple framework that will give you the tools to:

Your body knows how to lose weight and keep it off—you just haven’t been given the owner’s manual yet. Metabolism Makeover empowers you to regain control of your appetite, mindset, and life.

Today’s educators face a critical challenge that goes beyond the curriculum: they must nurture appropriate social and emotional behaviors by providing youth with the conflict-resolution and leadership skills necessary for modern life. The Leadership Program’s Violence Prevention Project delivers on that need with an approach that engages, informs, and empowers its early adolescent audience. 

The Violence Prevention Project Leadership Skills curriculum has been implemented in over 5,000 classrooms for over 150,000 Title 1 students—and has earned distinction from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention as the country’s top program of its kind. This guidebook includes thirty-seven lessons complete with step by-step instructions that make facilitation easy and accessible. Help your students get to the core of conflict and transform into leaders in your classroom and community. 

"A moving and beautiful tale about a family, a loss, and the natural world that binds us all together. With exquisite tenderness, Moore reveals the persistent, transcendent power of love." —Lily King, bestselling author

A young child and a grandmother share a love of birds. Every day after school they watch the birds outside her window and draw them with colored pencils, the scent of ginger tea hanging in the air. When they find a dead goldfinch outside the window one day, the grandmother teaches her grandchild about the enduring strength of love that continues even when a body is no longer living. This lesson returns to the child in a powerful dream after the grandmother dies—a dream that becomes a healing gift for the child’s grandfather.

Gorgeously illustrated by wildlife artist and illustrator Michael Boardman, Libby Moore’s The River of Birds is a gentle story that looks honestly at grief and love. The beautiful themes and lush illustrations will bring comfort to readers of all ages. The book includes a guide put together by clinical psychologist Mary Plouffe, PhD, that provides practical resources for adults who are supporting grieving children.

Weep. Scream. Hate. Disbelieve. Go numb.

Breathe.

This beautiful book offers a gentle and honest guide for surviving the early days of grief—shock, trauma, disbelief—and beyond. In simple, easy-to-absorb pages composed of short, poetic text and spot illustrations, readers will begin to find the path they need to move through their grief, step by step. From grieving a sudden death or a long illness, someone hard to love or impossible to live without, anyone suffering a loss will see themselves and their grief reflected in these pages.

When author Paula Becker’s son was killed in 2017, she reached for grief books to help her understand how to proceed through the enormous grief engulfing her. Most grief books are tens of thousands of words long—helpful resources, but often too overwhelming for the newly bereaved to navigate with shattered attention spans and broken hearts. With A Little Book of Self-Care for Those Who Grieve, as only someone who knows grief intimately can, Paula Becker offers grievers a touchstone, quiet snippets of care and advice that can be returned to again and again as they travel the lifelong road of grief. A planned foreword from a notable voice in the grief community as well as a resources section rounds out this essential book.

In the vein of It’s OK That You’re Not OK, A Little Book of Self-Care for Those Who Grieve acknowledges the brokenness, the pain, and how grief alters your reality—and with great tenderness and gentle compassion, walks with readers in that new world.

Today’s educators face a critical challenge that goes beyond the curriculum: they must nurture appropriate social and emotional behaviors by providing youth with the conflict-resolution and leadership skills necessary for modern life. The Leadership Program’s Violence Prevention Project delivers on that need with an approach that engages, informs, and empowers its early adolescent audience. 

The Violence Prevention Project Leadership Skills curriculum has been implemented in over 5,000 classrooms for over 150,000 Title 1 students—and has earned distinction from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention as the country’s top program of its kind. This guidebook includes thirty-seven lessons complete with step by-step instructions that make facilitation easy and accessible. Help your students get to the core of conflict and transform into leaders in your classroom and community.

“The adventurous spirit of In Your Dreams captures Boys & Girls Clubs’ legacy of inspiring young people worldwide to dream big and create brighter futures for themselves and us all.” —Boys & Girls Clubs of America 

As a mother holds her sleeping baby, she ponders the dreams dancing through his head. Has he traveled back in time to play with the dinosaurs? Is he climbing tall mountains among the clouds? 

Is he watching dolphins frolic in the sea, or visiting new friends in faraway places? 

Told in gentle rhymes with whimsical illustrations to spark the imaginations of children of all ages, this sweet and timeless book is a story of curiosity, possibility, and, above all, the wonder of love.

2022 Best Book Awards Finalist in Fiction: Women''s Fiction

2022 Independent Press Awards Winner in Chick-Lit

2022 Independent Press Awards Winner in Romantic Comedy 

From Charming Falls Apart author Angela Terry comes a story about finding the courage to face your past, be true to your heart, and live your best life. Fans of Sophie Kinsella and Emily Giffin will enjoy cheering for Adeline Turner as she navigates the twists and turns of her newly complicated life in this fun, heartwarming novel.

Thirty-three-year-old corporate attorney Adeline Turner has built her adult life around stability. Her professional life is thriving, but her personal life . . . not so much. Deep down she wants more, but finds it’s easier to brush aside her dreams and hide behind her billable hours. That is, until a new client and a chance encounter with her high school crush have her taking leaps she never planned. Suddenly, unadventurous, nose-to-the-grindstone Adeline finds herself moving across the country from her predictable life in Chicago to San Francisco, falling into messy romantic situations, and trying to unravel an office-sabotage plot before it ruins her career.

Without the safety net of her old life in Chicago, Adeline must become her own advocate and learn that people aren’t always who they seem. Which makes her wonder if the key to having the future she desires lies in uncovering the truth of the past.

WINNER OF 29 BOOK AWARDS including the Writer’s Digest Grand Prize and the Rubery Book Award Book of the Year.

True stories of glamour, drama, and tragedy told through five generations of a Shanghai family, from the last days of imperial rule to the Cultural Revolution.

A high position bestowed by China’s empress dowager grants power and wealth to the Sun family. For Isabel, growing up in glamorous 1930s and ’40s Shanghai, it is a life of utmost privilege. But while her scholar father and fashionable mother shelter her from civil war and Japanese occupation, they cannot shield the family forever.

When Mao comes to power, eighteen-year-old Isabel journeys to Hong Kong, not realizing that she will make it her home—and that she will never see her father again. She returns to Shanghai fifty years later with her daughter, Claire, to confront their family’s past—one they discover is filled with love and betrayal, kidnappers and concubines, glittering palaces and underworld crime bosses.

Lavishly illustrated and meticulously researched, Remembering Shanghai follows five generations from a hardscrabble village to the bright lights of Hong Kong. By turns harrowing and heartwarming, this vivid memoir explores identity, loss and redemption against an epic backdrop.

Join Michael Tuso as he guides sellers out of the antiquated world of “one size fits all” pitching and into a world that empowers buyers and sellers alike through problem-solving and system building. 

If you find the traditional methods of hard selling and forceful tactics to be outdated and exhausting, then Crafting the Sale is the refreshing people-focused approach you need. Learn how to solve buyer problems, increase your sales numbers, and create impeccable sales and buying experiences. Buyers don’t have to work with you; they choose to work with you—and Crafting the Sale shows you exactly how to get those buyers to engage, act, and convert. 

In this modern approach to selling, Tuso tosses aside canned sales pitches and instead shows how true success in sales stems from understanding others and problem-solving. Throughout, Tuso takes on old-school methodologies and shows how to equip sales teams with newer, more refined approaches to their craft, demonstrating how to: 

Crafting the Sale is the ultimate tool for anyone new to sales or looking to level-up their skills, improve their outcomes, and create lasting connections with customers. Salespeople can be successful by adapting to the changing dynamic between buyer and seller and providing experiences that benefit both sides. All it takes is genuine conversation, a problem-solving attitude, and a commitment to learning. 

This provocative startup tale of success exposes Silicon Valley''s startup myths and sets forth a new approach for aspiring and current founders to build companies that make an impact.

In New Startup Mindset, Sandra Shpilberg, founder and CEO of Seeker Health, introduces a new mindset for starting and building a successful company. Shpilberg shows that Silicon Valley’s startup formula—a few young male cofounders attempting to build a unicorn funded by venture capital—is a broken system that puts excessive emphasis on hype and improbable outsized outcomes, disregards real results such as revenue and profit, and promotes limiting beliefs for the next generation of entrepreneurs.

When Shpilberg founded Seeker Health, a digital patient-finding platform, in 2015, she did almost everything differently than the blazed path: she chose to be a solo founder, didn''t pursue an incubator, didn''t accept outside funding, led development of software despite not being a programmer, and charged customers from month one. Instead of creating hype about fundraising based on fictitious valuations, Shpilberg focused on customer needs, yielding a startup with revenue, profit, and impact; and three years later, a large life science services company acquired her startup while she was still the sole owner.

In this expanded second edition, Shpilberg shares her success story of starting, building, and exiting her startup and provides readers with sage insights and practical tools to follow this approach. This book is simultaneously a needed dose of reality for Silicon Valley and a large serving of inspiration for those who want to create something from nothing. It is a must-read for aspiring startup founders and current entrepreneurs, especially those who may think they don''t fit the mold of a Silicon Valley founder and are open to a new way of making a definitive and profound impact with the companies they create.

“A gleefully apocalyptic page-turner . . .” —Kirkus Reviews

Meet Chloe and Elizabeth Yetti: antisocial, semi-homicidal eighteen-year-old twins casually surviving the AI apocalypse.

Ten years ago, a powerful machine intelligence unleashed a nanoengineered superdrug on humanity. Civilization is now a collection of mindless addicts confined to automated treatment centers that tower over drone-dominated cityscapes. Having escaped and grown up in the forests of Northern California alongside their younger brother and brilliant scientist/survivalist mother, Clo and El stayed safe while society collapsed around them.

But when a mysterious stranger and a demonic woodland creature appear and threaten their family, the twins are drawn back to a disintegrating, drug-addled San Francisco. There, biomechanical gods and monsters vie for control of what’s left of humanity’s consciousness. Armed with only a knife, an old hunting rifle, and their secret, cryptophasic twin language, Clo and El realize that surviving the apocalypse was just the beginning—now they’ve got to face it head-on.

The first book in the Babylon Twins trilogy, this epic adventure takes readers on a journey filled with sci-fi spectacle and darkly humorous twists and turns, not to mention some good old-fashioned butt-kicking. The second book in the series will be coming out in 2022.

Winner of 5 major book awards, including the Publishers Weekly U.S. 2021 Selfies Award for Best Adult Fiction and winner of the IndieReader 2021 Discovery Award

“L’Origine got me hooked—what a story! Milgrom brings the reader right along on her adventures as a copyist of one of the most well-known paintings in all the world.” —Harriet Welty Rochefort, author of French Fried, French Toast, Joie de Vivre, and Final Transgression

The riveting odyssey of one of the world’s most scandalous works of art.

In 1866, maverick French artist Gustave Courbet painted one of the most iconic images in the history of art: a sexually explicit portrait of a woman’s exposed genitals. Audaciously titled L’Origine du monde (The Origin of the World), the scandalous painting was kept hidden for a century and a half. Today, it hangs in the world-renowned Orsay Museum in Paris, viewed by millions of visitors a year.

As the first artist authorized by the Orsay Museum to re-create Courbet’s The Origin of the World, author Lilianne Milgrom was thrust into the painting’s intimate orbit, spending six weeks replicating every fold, crevice, and pubic hair. The experience inspired her to share her story and the painting’s riveting clandestine history with readers beyond the confines of the art world.

L’Origine is an entertaining and superbly researched work of historical fiction that traces the true story of the painting’s unlikely tale of survival, replete with French revolutionaries, Turkish pashas, and nefarious Nazi captains. But L’Origine is more than a riveting romp through history—it also sheds light on society’s complex relationship with the female body.

From a remote cabin in the rugged rainforest of the Alaskan wilderness, where the untamed landscape tumbles into the ocean, a remarkable yellow Labrador retriever named Woody helped an exile from corporate America seek a fierce freedom.

A young Ward Serrill arrived in Southeast Alaska in 1982, dispatched by his Seattle accounting firm to a remote native village to audit their new corporation. Within a year Serrill had ditched the job, with designs on forging another life up north, a new Labrador retriever puppy in tow. Woody—named after Guthrie—was of champion bloodline and seemed ready for any adventure.

After a stint working with Tlingit elders in the village of Saxman, Serrill was adopted into the clan. Some called him Dleit Yéil, or White Raven. But over time, his connection to the village began to fray as his relationships there unearthed dark aspects of his own family history. Only his friendship with Woody remained unshakable, and it was time to move on.

On the maiden voyage of their dogyak—a specially fitted kayak—Woody and Serrill rounded a point into a half-moon bay with rugged coastline. There, sixteen miles from town on the rough, steep bank, accessible only by boat, sat a small gray house on stilts. In the shadow of ancient spruce and cedars, with a waterfall on one side and the ocean below, he and Woody took up their years-long vigil in the place he came to call Shakri-La.

His experiment in self-isolation helped Serrill to confront the reality and the emotional cost of running away—physically and emotionally—all his life. Looking inward and facing his darkness, Serrill discovered an unexplored region of his heart that offered the true possibility of healing and belonging, made possible by the steadfast devotion of a very special dog.

An extraordinary journey of the heart and soul from the award-winning filmmaker and director of The Heart of the Game, To Crack the World Open is a poignant, adventure-driven Alaskan story of self-discovery, with one of life’s most essential relationships—a man and his dog—at its heart.

A memoir of the author’s twenty-five-year, self-designed experiment with a nonpharmaceutical approach to multiple sclerosis and of the indomitable mother who taught her to meet trouble with active resistance. 

When novelist Edith Forbes experienced her first episode of multiple sclerosis in 1993, few treatments existed. The famously crippling disease was a medical mystery, its cause unknown and its course unpredictable. The only medical advice Forbes received then was to “simply live your life.” She had other ideas.

Forbes grew up on a ranch in Wyoming, raised by a widowed mother who met challenges head on. Besides shouldering responsibility for seven children and a cattle ranch, Forbes’s dynamo mother had ambitions to change the world. As a forward-thinking woman in a largely male business, she became a model of tenacity and independence for her daughter.

After her MS diagnosis, Forbes turned her fear into action, immersing herself in the medical literature to search for ideas. Finding an unexpected connection between the medical information and her own knowledge of agriculture, she embarked on a self-designed experiment that continues to this day.

Tracking a Shadow weaves together the story of Forbes’s personal twenty-five-year medical experiment with a memoir of the mother whose constant determination to look for better answers shaped the author’s unique approach to her disease.

2022 INDIES Winner

Gold, Career (Adult Nonfiction)

Becky Margiotta’s Impact with Integrity: Repair the World Without Breaking Yourself is a call to action, but also an invitation to reclaim your agency and mobilize your creativity in order to enact meaningful, efficient, and effective social change. With authenticity, grit, and grace, Margiotta lays out a proven step-by-step framework for doing the inner work that is necessary for advancing social change. Examining yourself is key to supercharging your power to make the world a better place. In this essential guide, she weaves joy and well-being into the work of sustainable and transformational leadership. 

Not just for nonprofit leaders, social workers, activists, educators, and health professionals, Impact with Integrity is for all of us inspired to do good and make effective change in the world.

“Outstanding photography! This book is a valuable contribution to the public’s understanding of our remarkable ‘near relatives.’” —Robert Bateman, wildlife painter and environmental icon

“Just Like Us is an entertaining and informative read that illustrates how one ordinary person can be a catalyst for positive change.” —Jane Goodall, primatologist and bestselling author

"Just Like Us will be a classic and is a must read. The book adds much to what we can learn about ourselves. A beautifully written adventure with great apes, with some of the most difficult and stunning photographs of the great apes ever made." —Thomas Mangelsen, award-winning nature and wildlife photographer and conservationist

A stirring account of hope and survival for the planet''s endangered great ape species.

For most of his life, veterinarian Rick Quinn ignored a deep longing to meaningfully protect the endangered animals that fascinated him. Then one day, he read two magazine clippings about the great apes and knew it was time to set aside excuses and find the means to help. Armed with his camera and an insatiable curiosity, Dr. Quinn set off for the front lines of great ape conservation.

Just Like Us is a gorgeous tribute to our not-too-distant relatives as well as the courageous people who are risking their lives to protect them.

In this remarkable memoir, we follow Dr. Quinn’s seven-year journey across seven African countries and Indonesia, where he photographed each great ape species in its natural habitat. Using inspiring stories juxtaposed with stunning photographs, he illuminates the threats to great ape survival as well as the complexity of saving them. The result delivers an empathetic sense that these magnificent beings really are—strikingly so—just like us.

Feeling burned out? So done? Like you’ve got zero left to give? This guided journal will help shift your focus from giving up to gratitude and refuel your soul, one prompt at a time. Yeah, yeah, we know it sounds like another line, but gratitude really can improve your overall attitude and have profound effects on your life. Real-life, actual scientific studies have found that people who regularly practice gratitude and write about it have better relationships and are healthier and happier than people who don’t.

Use this journal to dig deep to find your f*cks, or focus on the ones right in front of your face. Sometimes you’ll want to fill pages with paragraphs, while other times a simple list will do. Skip around and work on the prompts that speak to you in the moment.

Thoughtful quotes from superwise and bad*ss people will inspire you, while quick tips, tricks, and suggestions for maximizing all that latent gratitude will help you make the most of even the sh*ttiest day. Even when life ships you crates of lemons, you can still make one super strong vodka lemonade and find that there are a whole lot of reasons to give a sh*t. Now let’s find those f*cks, one by one.

The first in the Camille Delaney Mystery series, The Complication is a fast-paced legal and medical mystery filled with greed, murder, and intrigue.

After her friend Dallas Jackson suffers a fatal complication during routine surgery, Seattle attorney Camille Delaney is determined to find out why. Dallas was like a father to Camille, and she feels she owes it to him and his family to get answers. Knowing she could lose her partnership at her high-profile law firm for undertaking such an investigation, Camille takes a huge risk and starts her own firm, determined to bring Dallas’s killer to justice. She turns for help to her friend Trish Seaholm, a quick-witted chameleonlike private investigator with an uncanny knack for blending into any situation.

As the two dive headfirst into a dangerous investigation, they discover disturbing evidence that Dallas’s case is not an isolated incident. A shocking number of patients are dying during run-of-the-mill surgeries at small-town hospitals—at the hands of the same two surgeons. Can Camille uncover the reason for these unexplained deaths before more patients fall victim? Or will her search for answers land her in the crosshairs of a killer?

"We love your work on Holistic Wealth!" —Oprah Daily Editors

WINNER of the 2024 American Legacy Award in Self-Help: Motivational category

WINNER of the 2023 Best Books Award (American Book Fest) in the Self-Help: Motivational category

A Maria Shriver’s Sunday Paper Recommended Book, December 2022

MOTHER OF HOLISTIC WEALTH and MOTHER OF RESILIENCE FRAMEWORKS

Keisha Blair’s Holistic Wealth framework and Personal Financial Identities Framework make her a pioneering trailblazer in creating practical, actionable systems for resilience, earning her the titles Mother of Holistic Wealth and Mother of Resilience Frameworks.

“In this terrific read, Keisha Blair gives us all the tools to thrive, no matter the obstacles we face. She defines prosperity as something beyond monetary figures. Holistic wealth is financial, physical, and emotional stability combined—and she shows us how to get there.” —Maria Shriver’s Sunday Paper

Imagine facing life’s disruption with confidence, knowing how to regain your balance in times of uncertainty. By expanding on the teachings shared in the highly acclaimed first edition of her book and in her viral article, “My Husband Died at Age 34—Here Are 40 Life Lessons I Learned from It,” viewed by more than fifty million people globally, author Keisha Blair presents even more revolutionary strategies—curated for the challenges of today’s world—that will help you find balance and success. 

This updated edition of the classic book is fully revised throughout, and includes: 

"Fyrian’s Fire is a thrilling debut. The characters are not only interesting but unique, and the story line is woven with delightful elements of the fantastical. Excited to see more from Emily!”—Lauren H. Brandenburg, Carol Award–winning author of The Death of Mungo Blackwell and The Books of the Gardener series

When Tess commits a grievous error, siege befalls her land—a siege only Tess’s magic can end.

The week of her wedding, Lady Tessamine Canyon is jilted by her betrothed, Prince Linden. Left utterly humiliated, Tess betrays a tightly guarded secret to an enemy spy—a decision that throws the Dione of Glademont into chaos. Hunted by bloodthirsty mercenaries, Tess flees into the Hinge Forest. There, with the help of a wild owl and a two-hundred-year-old bear, Tess begins to unlock the forgotten mysteries of her people.

Deep in the woods, the spirit of a long-dead dryad awaits the next Thane of a fierce weapon. To Tess’s amazement, it is she who is called to master the weapon’s power and save Glademont from an impending war.

When a surprising turn of events reunites Tess with Linden—the prince who called off their engagement—Tess must swallow her pride and join forces with him. But even if Tess can rescue her people, will that be enough to forgive her treason? Armed with a fiery magic, Tess is forced to make an impossible choice, one that might seal her fate as the next Thane—but forever extinguish any chance at following her heart.

With the help of a wise frog, Millie learns a special skill that empowers her to help others while staying true to herself. 

When young Millie sees her three older brothers head into the world to pursue their goals, she retreats to the creek to reflect on her own ambitions. There, she develops a magical hidden talent. 

With the help of a friendly frog, Millie learns the art of perseverance by perfecting her stone-skipping skill. When a mischievous bandit puts her siblings in peril, can Millie harness her new power to save them?  

Set against the stunning backdrop of Teton Valley, Millie the Magical Stone Skipper is a Wild Western tale that empowers young readers to try new things and live purposeful and authentic lives.

The life and work of Upper Skagit tribal elder Vi Hilbert, who, more than anyone, revitalized her native language—Lushootseed—and shared it and the culture it expresses with the world.

In 1978, Seattle writer Janet Yoder took a Lushootseed class at the University of Washington. She was expecting to learn a little about this Salish language, and while Yoder did begin her Lushootseed lessons, what followed was lifelong learning and lots of adventures with Skagit tribal elder Vi Hilbert.

Drawn from thirty years of friendship and interviews, Where the Language Lives is a tribute to Vi Hilbert’s life, work, and her quest to preserve her native language. Vi carried her culture by the example of her life as she shared her beloved Lushootseed language through her teaching, speaking, storytelling, recording, and publishing. Without her diligent research and her transcription and translation of early recordings in Lushootseed, much of the language could have been lost to the world. Her historical preservation efforts were recognized with a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, presented by First Lady Hillary Clinton. She was also named a Washington State Living Treasure in 1989. Vi tasked Yoder with this collaborative book as a way of bearing witness, sometimes referring to Yoder as her “chronicler” and showing appreciation for the essays written during her life.

To celebrate the legacy of her dear friend and mentor, Yoder poured decades of Vi’s teachings and stories, along with her experience of knowing Vi, into these essays. Ultimately, Where the Language Lives is a tribute to the memory of a woman who profoundly impacted a culture, a history, and the longevity of a language.

Vi’s commitment to preserving Lushootseed contributed greatly to the renaissance of interest in Lushootseed and the growth of tribal language programs across western Washington.

These essays cover the cultural significance of canoes, baskets, blankets, the bone game, naming ceremonies, stories, and story places, as well as the ritual burning of Vi’s parents’ house in order to send it to them in the spirit world and how Vi came to commission the Healing Heart Symphony.

One foreword note is written by Vi Hilbert’s granddaughter, Jill La Pointe, and the second by Vi’s great-granddaughter Sasha La Pointe. Sasha, who carries Vi’s traditional name, is the author of the forthcoming memoir Red Paint: The Ancestral Autobiography of a Coast Salish Punk (Counterpoint Press).

And that’s when it started . . . the inside-out squeezing, pulsing, whirly feeling in Penelope’s belly. 

Meet Penelope Pickleberry, first grader extraordinaire. Penelope can do lots of things, like pack her own snack and tie her shoelaces in under thirty seconds. But Penelope has one huge problem—Nelly, the negative voice in her head that tells her about bad things that might happen. 

At the final game of the soccer season, Nelly’s I-just-can’t message is getting louder. Luckily, Penelope also has Penny, the positive, confidence-boosting voice inside her that tells her to be brave and persevere. Will Nelly win the battle? Or will Penny’s words of encouragement prove more powerful? 

This fun and relatable picture book helps kids manage childhood anxiety by learning to quiet their negative self-talk and listen to their own Penny, the inner voice that fills them with the courage to conquer everyday obstacles. 

Includes “A Guide for Shushing Your Nelly”—practical tips to help children overcome anxious thoughts.

1st place award in the 2023 Feathered Quill Book Awards, Mystery/Suspense category

When a top secret and powerful US surveillance technology is stolen and offered for sale on the black market, an exiled reporter races to expose the theft and untangle the plot—before the story is spiked, and he is silenced for good. 

Coming off a successful investigation into a major banking scandal, Newshound reporter Nik Byron arrives in Washington, DC, with high hopes for his career. But a disruptive corporate merger and a vengeful boss quickly dash his plans. Relegated to scut work and the graveyard shift, Nik’s career and emotions are in a tailspin. That is, until a late-night explosion levels a high-tech office park—home to some of the nation’s top clandestine programs—and provides Nik with an opportunity to reverse his fortunes. As Nik tries to unravel the mystery at the heart of the explosion, he suddenly finds himself confronting domestic terrorists, rogue American and Chinese spies, mercenaries, and a brilliant but temperamental computer expert. 

With the help of a small team of colleagues and his new girlfriend, Samantha Whyte—the chief investigator for the Northern Virginia Sheriff’s Department, who has her own secrets to conceal—Nik follows a bloody trail of bodies from DC to the upper Midwest. But as word gets out that what he has dug up threatens to expose the theft of highly sensitive US technology, now being sold to terrorists and repressive regimes, new enemies close in. How far is Nik willing to go for a story, and how much is he willing to risk to reveal the truth? 

2024 Feathered Quill Book Award winner, Mystery/Suspense category

In the tradition of the best legal and political thrillers, Friendly Fire is an explosive tale of greed, revenge, treason, and murder. 

When Geoffrey Tate, one of the world’s richest individuals and the CEO of Yukon, the country’s preeminent artificial intelligence company, is shot and killed by his young trophy wife, it’s going to grab headlines. And seasoned Newshound reporter Nik Byron intends to be the one generating them. But Nik’s investigation quickly leads him down a treacherous path he didn’t foresee. 

The sensational trial that follows Tate’s death threatens to derail Bullwhip—the military’s next generation of AI-inspired war machines—and scramble the fortunes of political heavyweights and Pentagon brass alike. His journalistic instincts aroused, Nik embarks on an uncertain hunt for the truth that takes him deep into the murky worlds of Washington lobbyists, the military-industrial complex, and the Saudi intelligence apparatus. 

Undermined by a vindictive boss and a jealous rival reporter, Nik turns to trusted Newshound colleagues, Mia Landry and Patrick “Mo” Morgan—as well as a Pentagon whistleblower—to land his story and unravel the mystery surrounding Tate’s death. But in doing so Nik risks alienating Samantha Whyte, the chief investigator for the Northern Virginia County Sheriff’s Department and his lover. Worse still, the story puts him in the sights of a contract killer. 

A young girl befriends a time traveler on the run. Now, to save the world, she must learn to fly, track down aliens, and traverse space and time.

After thirteen-year-old Anna Armstrong loses her parents in an accident, she is sent to live on her Uncle Jack’s farm. She is despondent, but on her first night there, she is awoken by strange lights originating from a nearby lake. She sets out to investigate—and the skies suddenly erupt in a thunderous explosion. 

That’s when Anna sees a mysterious woman floating across the lake. 

She discovers Mara—the woman on the lake—is a time traveler on the run from frightening bone-white alien creatures. She also learns that time travel has consequences. Mara’s time-hopping escape has broken the universe, opening wormholes throughout the valley, each leading to another world. 

Now, Mara needs Anna’s help—together, they must use science to track down the aliens and close the portals before anything escapes. But can they figure out how before Mara’s very existence is erased forever? 

Girl Out of Time is a thrilling adventure of two unlikely friends who team up to take on a world of aliens, wormholes, and time travel—to save themselves and, possibly, the entire planet. 

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Callie Dressler thought she’d put her past where it belonged—behind her. But when her ex-boyfriend brings their breakup to the big screen, she can no longer deny that their history has been looming over her all along. 

At thirty-one, Callie Dressler is finally comfortable in her own skin. She loves her job as a preschool teacher, and although living in her vacant childhood home isn’t necessarily what dreams are made of, the space is something she never could have afforded if she’d stayed in New York City. She knows her well-ordered life will be upended when her type A, pregnant sister, Nina; adorable four-year-old niece; and workaholic brother-in-law move in, but how could she say no when they needed a place to crash during their remodel? As Nina pointed out, it’s still their parents’ house, even if their mom and dad have relocated. 

As if adjusting to this new living situation isn’t enough, the universe sends Callie another wrinkle: her college boyfriend—who Callie dumped ten years earlier for reasons known only to her—has a film coming out, and the screenplay is based on their real-life breakup. While the movie consumes her thoughts, Callie can’t help wondering if Nina and her friends are right that she hasn’t moved on. When a complication with Nina’s pregnancy brings Callie in close contact with Nina’s smart and funny architect, Callie realizes she’d better figure out whether she wants to open the door to the past—or risk missing out on her future.