Böcker utgivna av Shadelandhouse Modern Press, LLC

"The heartfelt poetry and essays in Cradled by Skeletons impart an argument that all be welcomed, as all are worthy. At once intimate, poignant, and raw, the entries of Cuban American poet, essayist, and activist Marta Miranda-Straub's Cradled by Skeletons reflect how she lives, loves, and creates at the intersections of queerness, feminism, and of being an American immigrant of color."Miranda-Straub relates that her boundary crossing began early. Her poem "The Cradle" shares a message received from her twin sister who died in the womb: 'Always remember that your big sister is watching out for you. / Breathe, beat, swim, stretch, grasp, swallow. Your time is now.' Elsewhere, 'The Feast' pays homage to her Cuban grandmother's abiding love."Striking and multisensory, lines evoke the smells of orange peel and melted brown sugar; the flame of red tiles lining the stove; the cracked porcelain of the sink; and the sight of her grandmother's hands as she prepares the special treat to carry on the trip to America. 'I carry Abuelita's warmth and sweetness close to my sprouting chest, ' she writes."Spare and eloquent, the chosen words carry deeper messages about grief and hope. Other poems hold tragedy and rage: 'When Ancestors Call' is about the legacy and brutality of slavery and rape, while 'The Prince Was a Frog' captures the disillusionment and pain of an unhappy marriage and ends with the urge to rise up and claim a new life."Profound essays concentrate on joy, sorrow, and astonishment. 'Upon Being Brown in the South' is a moving expression of Miranda-Straub's love for the mountains of Kentucky, so strong that she identifies as 'Cubalachian, ' although she looks, lives, and loves in different ways than most of her neighbors. Her shock and hurt is palpable when, though she is an American citizen, a white Appalachian neighbor questions her right to vote based on her appearance."Elsewhere, the writing is warm and humorous. 'A Day in the Life, ' about the adventures of two inexperienced women living in the mountain wilderness, includes the reflection that 'we don't know how to properly handle poisonous snakes ... all those years of Catholic graduate education, and not one damn course in snake handling.'"Presented in both English and Spanish, the book is an expression of vitality and of being open to all that life has to offer. It approaches American society with both appreciation and criticism, noting that, while it is rich in material things, it operates out of fear of scarcity and of difference, rendering Latino people, the latest and largest group of immigrants to the US, targets of racism. The text invites a larger, more curious, and more welcoming worldview."The poetry and essays in Cradled by Skeletons embrace immigrants, broken people, and people otherwise disillusioned and dispossessed. Their heartfelt beauty and hunger for justice impart a sense that all be welcomed, as all are worthy." Clarion Foreword Reviews

[Grenadine and Other Love Affairs] is the work of an alarming talent. An intricate gem of a poetic debut.""Grace's poetry is laden with sensuous imagery: 'Ignominious fruit of that garden / my carmine lips, your garnet desire.' The most compelling aspect of this ingenious body of verse is the poet's determination to excavate ever deeper layers of meaning..."-Kirkus Reviews (starred review)"A gorgeous and smart debut." -Rebecca Gayle Howell, Poetry Editor, Oxford American"In this sensuous debut poetry collection, Grenadine and Other Love Affairs, Carolyn Grace explores meaning through body, image, form, music, myth, and history-and always through language that 'must stretch to convey / only the edge' of the subject ('Grenadine'). In Grace's deft hands, stretch it does-stretch and infuse, suffuse, penetrate, undercut, probe, and play with meaning...To read these poems is to touch and taste and hold love deeply in body and soul, to celebrate love, unflinching and painful and joyful. 'Poetry,' Grace writes, is 'prayer-a desired exactitude of thought-the magical incantation of the essential ('Delphic', in 'Reverie').'Come, enter this magical, essential world. Let its music sound your depths, its precision sharpen your mind. Then prepare to leave changed, your self challenged and enlarged."- LIBBY FALK JONES, Professor of English, Emerita, Berea College

Much like the sturdy bones of the centuries-old house in Echo Her Lovely Bones, the women who inhabited its rooms are bound together through the letters they leave in the attic. In these letters, which form the novel, the women reveal their dreams, their disappointments, their griefs, and their hopes. Each letter moves us through the female experience that is shaped as much by historical context as it is by each woman's own life.The women of Echo Her Lovely Bones include: a daughter reluctantly leaving the comfort of her family in northern Virginia to settle in the harsh Kentucky frontier as a new bride; a newly emancipated slave learning what it means to be free; a young law student in the Roaring Twenties testing her family's (and cultural) expectations for women; a woman wrestling with a dark family secret and debilitating depression; a traditional wife and mother beginning to question those traditional values; her now-grown daughter living out the repercussions of her mother's abandonment; a woman being forced to strike out on her after divorcing her husband of two decades; and her daughter, twenty years later, struggling with family issues in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.These women echo the resilience of generations of women and affirm the importance of women finding their own voice.Echo Her Lovely Bones is a special rerelease in a new second edition of Robinson's first novel, originally titled My Secrets Cry Aloud). Echo Her Lovely Bones includes a beautiful new cover by Annelisa Hermosilla, Foreword by Silas House (author of Lark Ascending, September 2022), a new chapter titled "Misty Newsom Albright November 1, 2020," Reading Group Guide, and Author's Note.

A 2019 Foreword Indies Book of the Year Winner, Bronze, Religious (Adult Fiction) A 2019 Foreword Indies Book of the Year Finalist (Fiction: General Adult and Religious) Finalist in the Fiction: Religious category of the 2020 International Book AwardsWho killed Grayson Armstrong, a preacher in small-town Mercy, Kentucky, with a controversial vision for his dying church? His untimely death has everyone talking and everyone trying to understand who they thought he was. "Twelve years ago, the conservative New Hope Baptist Church wasn't quite prepared for its new minister, Grayson Armstrong. Now, the town gathers to mourn his death, though not all who knew him grieve. The story of Grayson's controversial tenure unfolds through the perspectives of his wife, children, and the citizens of Mercy."As Grayson's funeral ends, his story is told in a round-robin of voices. Chapters are brief, sometimes no more than a page long, and each character speaks with a firm, distinctive voice, with enough backstory given to make them engaging and credible. "This story has depth; characters' recollections and experiences result in a complex, multidimensional view of Grayson. It becomes apparent that, while some benefited from his compassion and understanding, others resented the changes he forced on them. These included abolishing the choir, removing stained-glass windows, and renaming the church Ignite Community Church-decisions driven more by ego than by fellowship."The story's pulse quickens in time with Grayson's increase in proposed changes and how they stirred dissent. It shows deepening divisions, rumors flying, and church members feeling the chill of alienation. Grayson's wife struggles to accept her husband lavishing time on his parishioners at the expense of time spent with his children, and his oldest son adds his account of his father's rejection. What begins as a story of normal change and adjustment shifts to something darker."Grayson's successful defeat of an effort to oust him does little to lower the story's tension, built through skillful opposing examples: a non-churchgoing waitress found him to be a sympathetic listener, while a meek, elderly widow felt shut out of the church she'd once found comfort in. A portrait of the town emerges as an alcoholic veteran describes the once-thriving but now abandoned plant he and other homeless men take refuge in; others describe church traditions going back generations."The fact that Grayson's premature death is not explained looms large in the story, driving it to an unexpected but realistic conclusion. Throughout, the book withholds judgement of Grayson and those around him, leaving that space for readers to fill. Themes of obligation and the limits of idealistic altruism are tied together."Noteworthy for the questions that it raises, Blessed is an appealing, thought-provoking work of contemporary Christian fiction."-Foreword Reviews Clarion Review

Marianne Peel''s collection, No Distance Between Us, is filled with poems of discovery. Through her extensive travels, the narrator''s revelations are often more internal than they are about any foreign geography or culture. Amazed, confused, perplexed, often frustrated, her interior journey is where the ultimate epiphanies lie. This narrator''s outward journey takes place over six regions, and while we are privy to her experiences, as readers we also bear witness to her emotional and spiritual transformation-the lessons she learns as the result of her expeditions.