“This well established poet makes a brilliant debut in fiction with these complex, poetically detailed, interrelated stories of Blacks from Africa, the Caribbean and the USA who converge and form an artistic community in the early 1960s in the most easterly regions of Alphabet City .” –David Henderson, author of ‘Scuse Me While I Kiss the Sky “Ismaili charts the lower East side just prior to the turbulent, revolutionary Sixties, when the influence of Leroi Jones and the Black Arts Movement signaled a cultural sea-change. Her characters persevere through desertion, loss, abandonment and betrayal, to achieve fulfillment in a fractured society.” – Vinnie Burrows “A sensuous and intimate portrait of a place and a generation. Belongs in the canon of American literary and socio-political classics, alongside Diane di Prima, James Baldwin, Grace Paley, Vivian Gornick, and Jack Kerouac. A masterpiece.” – Sara Pritchard, author of Crackpots and Help Wanted: Female Autobiography of the Lower East Side is a novel in short stories, set in New York during the late nineteen-fifties and the turbulent decade that followed. Inhale the exotic spices from tenement hallways, smell the sweat and garbage in the streets, feel the sweltering heat of summer in the City. Taste the texture and densities of African dishes: the rice and pepper sauce, stewed fruits, tagine, okra soup, bread and fish. Walk the alphabet streets in the daytime, weaving among pushcarts, or at night in the biting winds of winter, footsteps too close at your back. Sway to the cool jazz. Groove to the lilt of African voices reciting poetry, intoning prayers. Follow a junkie riding out a Jones, an anarchist handing out pamphlets, a pacifist leading a draft resister on the Underground route from New York City to Canada. The Autobiography of the Lower East Side pulsates with the heartbeat of Manhattan's Lower East Side in the 1960s, its artists and activists caught in the racial, sexual, political, and class tensions of the era. Ismaili’s richly-evoked setting presents characters learning to survive in the jazz scene, the theater, and the arts while dealing with interracial relationships, abuse, addiction, and the toll of the Vietnam draft.

Autobiography of the Lower East Side

Literature & Fiction

Ismaili, Rashidah

Contemporary

Northampton House Press

MURDER IN THE DEEP WOODS"It was on that first day of the hunt, an hour after dawn, that the old man found the body of the boy." This classic novel of crime and revenge in deer-hunting country opens on the first day of buck season in remote Hemlock County, Pennsylvania. Long-retired hunter and reclusive hermit W.T. Halvorsen discovers the victim of what at first seems like a hunting accident. After the funeral, the victim's father, Dr.Paul Michelson, begins a search for the killer who shot his son, then walked away, letting him bleed to death in the snow. When Michelson too vanishes, his lover Teresa Del Rosario follows him to Hemlock County, fighting her growing fear he has murder in mind.As terror stalks the deep woods, Halvorsen pits his tracking and shooting skills against those of his human enemy in a deadly cat-and-mouse game deep in the Kinningmahontawany Wild Area.An epic tale of justice, survival, and two utterly determined men hunting each other through the snow-shrouded hills and ravines in the greatest blizzard in twenty years. Hemlock County is Poyer's fictional re-creation and evocation of the country and people where he grew up. There are four books in the series: The Dead of Winter, Winter in the Heart, As the Wolf Loves Winter, and Thunder on the Mountain.

The Dead of Winter (Hemlock County Novels)

Poyer, David

Genre Fiction

"This well established poet makes a brilliant debut in fiction with these complex, poetically detailed, interrelated stories of Blacks from Africa, the Caribbean and the USA who converge and form an artistic community in the early 1960s in the most easterly regions of Alphabet City ." -David Henderson, author of 'Scuse Me While I Kiss the Sky "Ismaili charts the lower East side just prior to the turbulent, revolutionary Sixties, when the influence of Leroi Jones and the Black Arts Movement signaled a cultural sea-change. Her characters persevere through desertion, loss, abandonment and betrayal, to achieve fulfillment in a fractured society." - Vinnie Burrows "A sensuous and intimate portrait of a place and a generation. Belongs in the canon of American literary and socio-political classics, alongside Diane di Prima, James Baldwin, Grace Paley, Vivian Gornick, and Jack Kerouac. A masterpiece." - Sara Pritchard, author of Crackpots and Help Wanted: Female Autobiography of the Lower East Side is a novel in short stories, set in New York during the late nineteen-fifties and the turbulent decade that followed. Inhale the exotic spices from tenement hallways, smell the sweat and garbage in the streets, feel the sweltering heat of summer in the City. Taste the texture and densities of African dishes: the rice and pepper sauce, stewed fruits, tagine, okra soup, bread and fish. Walk the alphabet streets in the daytime, weaving among pushcarts, or at night in the biting winds of winter, footsteps too close at your back. Sway to the cool jazz. Groove to the lilt of African voices reciting poetry, intoning prayers. Follow a junkie riding out a Jones, an anarchist handing out pamphlets, a pacifist leading a draft resister on the Underground route from New York City to Canada. The Autobiography of the Lower East Side pulsates with the heartbeat of Manhattan's Lower East Side in the 1960s, its artists and activists caught in the racial, sexual, political, and class tensions of the era. Ismaili's richly-evoked setting presents characters learning to survive in the jazz scene, the theater, and the arts while dealing with interracial relationships, abuse, addiction, and the toll of the Vietnam draft. About the Author Rashidah Ismaili is an internationally-known poet, dramatist, and nonfiction writer. Her poetry collections include Cantata for Jimmy (2004) and Missing in Action and Presumed Dead (1992). Ismaili coedited the anthology Womanrise (1978). Her work is included in The Heinemann Book of African Women's Poetry (1995). A reading of her play Rice Keepers was staged in 2006 at the American Museum. She conducts soirees at her Harlem apartment, Salon d'Afrique, and has taught or presented at St. Peter's College, Rutgers University, Hunter College, Pratt Institute, and Wilkes University in African, African American and African Caribbean Literature and Creative Writing. Ismaili's awards include the Puffin Travel Award, PEN, Dramatist League, Kennedy Center for the Arts, STARS, Miami International Book Fair, Zimbabwe International Book Fair, National Association of Negro Business and Professional Women's Club, Inc., and the Sojourner Truth Meritorious Award. She now lives in Harlem.

Autobiography of the Lower East Side: A Novel in Short Stories

Shorts and Briefs is a collection of short plays and brief principles of playwriting. The first part "Shorts" consists of a nine short plays, offering roles for actors from the teens to the fifties. Visit an agency that offers once in a lifetime placements (Eight Times Around), a family errand that turns downright embarrassing (Family of Flechner), a subway ride that changes lives forever (Hangman), a dog park for extended families (The Moon Alone), a breakfast nook that turns negative to positive (The Nine-Month Fix), an unexpected war zone where a soldier is unprepared for battle (Not Tonight), a double date where a surprise kiss almost topples everything (Roast Beef and the Rare Kiss), a date that hopes to regain a romantic spark (Robert Mapplethorpe's Flowers), and a staircase where two estranged siblings become reunited (Stairway to Heaven).The second part "Briefs" consists of brief principles of playwriting, intended for students of theater, new or established playwrights who would like to explore the short play genre. Topics include producible short plays, the short play versus a sketch or scene, the difference between playwriting and stenography, a character's vocabulary, why dialogue isn't talking, treating emotion like sweat, filling up the trunk, formatting the manuscript, revising, participating with the rehearsal process, things to avoid, play submissions, surviving showbiz, and knowing theater vocabulary. In addition to playwrights, the book is intended for actors, directors, and producers of the short play genre, both in and out of the classroom. The first edition has been used by Alfred University, Cornell University, CUNY-Kingsborough Community College, Lock Haven University, Marshall University, Niagara University, University of Oregon, University of Central Arkansas, and many others. This revised and expanded edition has added two new briefs, revised several of the plays, and expanded the glossary, which will serve and inspire many more drama students and aspiring playwrights.

SHORTS AND BRIEFS: A Collection of Short Plays and Brief Principles of Playwriting

Arts & Photography

Fletcher, Gregory

Performing Arts

"A stunning period tale in which the oft-forgotten essence of the American dream is visible in every chapter." - Publisher's Weekly, starred review"Dramatic and suspenseful, full of despair and hope." - Booklist, starred review"The prizefight and deer hunt sequences are worthy of Jack London"- Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel"Poyer, who grew up in Bradford, has been compared to Steinbeck, with good cause." - Pittsburgh Post- Gazette 							In the depths of the Depression, young wellshooter and aspiring boxer W. T. "Kid Nitro" Halvorsen starts a strike in the Pennsylvania oilfields after a massive refinery disaster exposes the Thunder Oil Company's neglect of workers' safety. As the violence escalates, Halvorsen, CIO organizer and secret Communist Doris Gurley Golden, strikebreaker Pearl Deatherage, and Thunder Oil owner Daniel Thunner battle to decide the fate of Hemlock County - and whether the bloodshed there will ignite a revolution that will shake all America.

Thunder on the Mountain: A Novel of 1936

Even as a child, plain, boyish Annie Revels had everyone's role in life figured out. Everyone's, that is, except her own. Her mother was sickly and needed to be taken care of. Her little sister Rebecca was remarkably beautiful, where Annie was not. Her father was a waterman, a free-looking life Annie deeply envied and could've had, if only she'd been born a son.
Tiny, remote Yaupon Island knows nothing of the partying, gin-soaked Roaring Twenties which grip the rest of the country. The Revels family depends on the coastal waters to make a living, and tragedy is always only a bad storm away. As Annie notes, "In order to live on the Shore, you need to understand that good weather always follows bad." But when her father dies, suddenly it falls to Annie to take his place aboard the oyster boat and support what's left of the family.
Out there, she finds the only life she thought she could ever really fit into: being a waterman. Until one day, out on the water, she meets Nathan . .
LENORE HART is the author of seven other novels, including ORDINARY SPRINGS, BECKY: THE LIFE AND LOVES OF BECKY THATCHER, and THE RAVEN'S BRIDE. She lives on the Eastern Shore with her husband, novelist David Poyer, and teaches in the Wilkes University MA/MFA Creative Writing Program.

Waterwoman: A Novel of the Eastern Shore

Hart, Client ICM Lenore

"This lively and entertaining book begins a much-needed conversation about the modern history that our Founders knew so well and which our generation has largely forgotten." -- Dr. Lynn Uzzell, Scholar in Residence at Montpelier “Using stories of pivotal individuals within this process, VanDuren reviews the creation of these layers of law that eventually inspired the framers of the U.S. Constitution. For instance, Frankish Queen Balthild’s reforms to land ownership in the seventh century led to Philips van Leyden’s 14th-century demand that rulers respect public interest . . . . . A fictionalized version of the 1787 Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia ties all these threads together. First-time author VanDuren delivers impressive research on individuals whose ideas guided the drafters of the Constitution.” – Kirkus Reviews “In this age of Google and Wikipedia, it is understandable that most see history as a pile of facts . . . VanDuren serves up a richer feast. He paints the history of modern democracy as a vast tableau that wanders from its origin in Europe to the United States. VanDuren shows that many of the earliest intellectual and political movers and achievements in this drama are Dutch.” -- Joe A. Oppenheimer, Prof. Emeritus, Government and Politics, University of Maryland “Those who care about the future of democracy will appreciate Mr. VanDuren’s vigorous and rigorous examination of the way Dutch and English influences worked from the European Middle Ages down through New England, New Amsterdam, and New York to the Federalist Papers and the American Constitution in the late 1780s.” John C. Kemp, Plimoth Plantation. Have you ever wondered why we practice separation of church and state? Or have secular marriage, or freedom of religion? Or enjoy democracy and the rule of law? And equality under the law? No taxation without representation? As Americans we hold these concepts dear. Our republic was founded on them and we find them in our Constitution, of which James Madison was the main author. Madison’s vast knowledge of history was supported by a keen understanding of human nature. Alone in his library, he studied ancient and contemporary nations, foremost the Dutch Republic. The American confederation had been modeled on it, and suffered from the same shortcomings. The people in whose footsteps he followed are the “Many Heads and Many Hands” who inspired Madison in his search for a “more perfect union.” From a cave in South Africa to the Roman Rhine, into Dark-Ages Paris, through the Burgundian lands to the marshes of Holland, and via the fields of England to the shores of America, this is a titanic story of scholars, pastors, princesses, generals, and common people too, striving over the centuries for security and freedom, and at last building a government that can promise both, within the confines of a just law.

Many Heads and Many Hands: James Madison's Search for a More Perfect Union

History

VANDUREN, MAU

Americas

"[this] Florida native breathes life into all her characters -- dead or alive." --St. Augustine Record Lucy Fowler plans to spend winter break on an island off the coast of Florida, to finish writing her thesis. She needs one last interview with an elderly midwife. Lucy almost cancels the trip after she's brutally assaulted on campus. But in the end she goes, hoping work will be therapeutic. On remote, isolated Ibo Key, Lucy learns midwife Esther Day is now confined to a psychiatric ward. She also learns that there was once a thriving black community, Revelation, on the island. Its residents all vanished one night long ago. Lucy decides to write about the ghost town, but no one will talk about what happened. Eventually, she uncovers the terrible story behind the town's destruction. Esther's rival, Soulange, once owned a mysterious book . . . a centuries old grimoire revealing the arcana of Obeah. An odd little man tells Lucy the island is cursed. That every man, woman, and child on it will soon die. And she begins to see glimpses of the past. But by then she's stranded, trapped by a killer hurricane. To escape she must face her own connection to both the victims and perpetrators of a long-ago massacre . . . a crime so monstrous it invites the arrival of an evil old as time. Devil's Key was originally published by Egmont Boker, Oslo, in 1999 as Svart Frikt. This Northampton House Press trade paperback edition is the first in the English language.

Devil's Key

Graves, Elisabeth

“A highly original cautionary tale...on more levels than the reader might first suspect.” —Analog “A jaunty, corkscrew ride through a skewed future.” —Alan Dean Foster “First-rate satire, with a serious core" - Library Journal The year is 2110, and the Bank owns everything.. It’s called simply The Bank because its full name is six hundred and sixty-six words long. Over its first ten years it secretly gained controlling interests in Alphabet, Disney, China National Petroleum, Deutsche Bank, Colombia, Fox, CNN, Egypt, and the Mafia—among many other international corporations, cartels, and governments. After the Last War and the Big Overheat, The Bank finally emerged into the open, to exercise what had long been predicted as the final stage of economic evolution: monopoly. By the year 2110 it has owned Earth (et cetera) for four generations. It’s eliminated armies and armaments, governments and war, cash and crime, discrimination and religion. It’s transformed the world genetically, scientifically, culturally, and economically. It employs, is owed by, and so rules everyone. Everyone in the world. Except Monaghan Burlew. Burlew’s styled himself as a freelance poet since the day he completed minimum schooling and became of Working Age. Since that day he’s never earned a currency unit. Therefore, by law—and the Bank is rigidly legalistic— he pays no percentages and owes no taxes. He owns nothing, and buys nothing, so the Bank can’t “assist the client in question to find the most suitable employment”—i.e., tell him where and at what to work. He’s the only man on the planet outside the System. The only one who’s free. He has no idea that very shortly, he will be Earth’s last hope of surviving an interplanetary catastrophe....

Stepfather Bank

Science Fiction & Fantasy

Poyer, D. C.

Science Fiction

"Appealing to those who like their fantasy served with a side of psychological horror, this anthology is sure to entertain." - Publisher's Weekly Are You One of The Invited? Various mentions of a Night Bazaar appear throughout history in obscure and controversial texts from around the world. A forbidden market which opens at midnight, closes before sunrise, and appears for one week . . . but never in the same venue each night, and never again in the same city. There's just one catch: To find it, you must be Invited. Tonight the Bazaar opens in a parking garage somewhere in Manhattan. A huge subterranean market fair of antique costumes, alchemical treatments, magical dentistry, palmistry, Tarot and tea leaf-reading, and water-, glass-, and crystal-gazing, oddities and objets d'art, medical curiosities and strange instruments, erotic favors, time travel, and body alterations. The narrow aisles throng with jongleurs, freaks, charlatans, mountebanks, faeries, prostitutes, and acrobats. The scents of opium, perfume, tobacco, greasepaint, incense, plastic explosive, alcohol, and sex permeate the air. But each object or service comes with a gift, a curse, or a haunting. The Bazaar sells that which cannot be had elsewhere. Everything you've read about but thought had passed away, or never existed at all. How wrong you were! Ah! It seems you have already spotted something you desire. But don't head off that way, not just yet. You have all night ....but not a moment more. . . .

The Night Bazaar: Eleven Haunting Tales of Forbidden Wishes and Dangerous Desires

United States

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