Böcker av Lynn Levin

With a deft command of comic distance and abiding compassion for her characters, Lynn Levin in House Parties, her debut collection of short fiction, presents us with a broad range of characters who ardently, foolishly, and often with weird invention, relentlessly spar with their fates. Three friends hike through Yosemite in search of an awe-inspiring waterfall that may or may not exist...a girl on a high-school science trip finds herself abandoned on an island inhabited by aggressive monkeys...a lonely young rabbinical student creates and animates a female form only to see her beloved creature acquire free will...overwhelmed by surveys, an office worker rebels à la Bartleby...a couple believes that a move to a friendly and sophisticated exurban neighborhood will set the stage for happy marriage. Many of the characters in House Parties see themselves with a certain bemused humor and strive to stay self-possessed even as they struggle against the strange and undeserved things that happen to them. At other times, the characters-sometimes successfully, sometimes not-keep trying to escape the gravity of a plight they created or a problem they refuse to resolve. In observant and generous prose, Levin writes in tones that range from the wry, witty, and hilarious to the lyrical and deeply serious.

From Texture Press, the second edition of POEMS FOR THE WRITING: PROMPTS FOR POETS offers 18 classroom and workshop-tested prompts, including 6 new prompts and a wealth of new example poems. Student writers, working poets, and teachers of creative writing will find this new edition from Fox and Levin to be an easy-to-use and invigorating resource. Writes Jeanne Murray Walker, "POEMS FOR THE WRITING (SECOND EDITION) is fun and it''s just as versatile as a utility outfielder." According to Elaine Terranova, this book is "more than anything, a reminder that we are all as poets thirsting for new ideas and kicks in the butt to get going." New prompts include "The Song-Title Prompt" and "The Superhero Poem."

Miss Plastique, the fourth full-length poetry collection by Lynn Levin, invites the reader into a world of female bravado in which Miss Plastique and her many selves rant, fret, joke, fall in love, dress up, and do their hair. Poems inthis collection first appeared in Boulevard, Artful Dodge, Hunger Mountain, Connecticut Review, Knockout, Nerve Cowboy, and other places.Lynn Levin, a poet known for her eclecticism, humor, and range of poetic styles, is the author of the previous poetry collections Fair Creatures of an Hour, a Next Generation Indie Book Awards finalist in poetry; Imaginarium, a finalist for ForeWord Magazine's Book of the Year Award; and A Few Questions about Paradise (all from Loonfeather Press). Her craft of poetry book, Poemsfor the Writing: Prompts for Poets (with Valerie Fox) is forthcoming from Texture Press in 2013. Lynn Levin is also a writer and literary translator. She has received nine Pushcart Prize nominations, two grants from the Leeway Foundation, and Garrison Keillor has read her work on his radio show The Writer's Almanac. Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Levin has lived in thePhiladelphia area since 1980. She is the 1999 Bucks County, Pa. poet laureate and currently teaches at Drexel University and the University of Pennsylvania.Advance praise for Miss Plastique:Miss Plastique is a busy girl: giving it to her enemy in stiletto heels, giving it up to an Elvis impersonator, thumbing a ride across Texas. She has turned from the mirror and can't look back. She's sexy and seductive and refuses to be pinned down; she's silk so fluid you could drink her-read her instead, but watch she doesn't explode in your hands. -Meg Kearney, author of Home By NowThe poems in Lynn Levin's Miss Plastique hold their tension between fantasy and devastation. -Jill Alexander Essbaum, author of NecropolisThis book is just as explosive as plastique and packed as tightly and with the impeccable craft you'd expect from a good detonation expert. Lynn Levin has the perfect timing and sensitive touch of one who works with volatile materials-an Elvis impersonator, the Beav and Eddie Haskell,Gaspara Stampa, Eve and Lilith at Macy's. We are better for the aftershocks of this verse. -Christopher Bursk, author of The Improbable Swervings of Atoms