A lush tangle of small-town life branches out in this engrossing collection of short stories. –Kirkus ReviewsThe sky never stops falling in Acorn, Texas.Visit Acorn, Texas, for the German festival, a high school football game, homemade apple pie from the Turner Street Café, and the cool shade of a hundred-year-old oak tree. Meet dedicated teachers, shrewd business owners, smitten lovers, and concerned neighbors. See how lives become intertwined in moments of humor or traged...

We thought the aliens wouldn't find us. We thought we could trust the Maintainers. We were wrong.The Iroquois scientist Taldra became Leader of our world a year before the alien shapeshifters attacked. Her twin gay sons, Telius and Argen, will rally to her side.Telius, a former time traveler, wants to marry his boyfriend, a former spy. Argen, a prodigy with a troubled past, modifies a handsome captain's vessel for the battle.Our world's other protectors hold dark se...

A West Texas librarian makes fun of herself and the other people in her town, while writing about her reasons for wanting to lose weight.Pamela Mae Willard must learn to love herself. Still, she can't resist laughing about her problems, and about the adventures of the colorful characters in Acorn, Texas.This irreverent, politically incorrect tale reveals a woman finding joy in life, no matter what happens to her and no matter who mistreats her.This short story also ...

"Edge-of-your-seat action, scenes that detail the turmoil and terror of an alien attack and an inside look at love and acceptance for humanity's differences." —Tome Tender"The author has a captivating writing style, creating a world full of whole and realistic characters and concepts with plenty of action." —R.L. Wood, author of Dark Little Women: Girl Power!In an alternate reality, Earth is Valchondria. The one-world government consists of Leader, the Supreme Science Counc...

Winner, Allbooks Reviewers Choice Award.Sometimes, going home is the most dangerous adventure of all!At sixteen, Sasha left her island home to buy seeds in Jaan. She stumbled into a series of misadventures that ended with the death of an evil sorcerer and made Sasha a legend, known as "Innocence." Accounts of the story barely resembled the truth.When Sasha returned for more seeds, the people of Jaan expected her to defeat a much more ruthless and powerful sorcerer.

Dr. Duane Simolke examines Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio, as it relates to Gertrude Stein, gender roles, failed communication, and the machine in the garden. Simolke also looks at Anderson's concerns about mechanization, loneliness, and the mistreatment of many people. Simolke also wrote The Acorn Stories, a story cycle in the tradition of Winesburg, Ohio.

This eBook includes the gay love poem "Home," the strange story of "The Gardener," and the comical "Angels and Razors," as well as thirty other poems. These works also appear in Duane Simolke's longer anthology Holding Me Together: Essays and Poems.Complete list of poems in this collection: Chasing Seagulls, Home, Album, Children in the Streets, The Gardener, Friday Afternoon Spectrum, Reception, second year, Angels and Razors, Separated, Faces, Songs In Sign Language, For...

Part One: Reactions to Homophobia, An EssayReactions to Homophobia: Introduction. "Unlike gay people, I don't tell people what my wife and I do in bed." "They can be gay, as long as they hide it." "If a normal guy or a white guy gets beat up, hate crimes laws can't help him. That isn't fair." "I'm not queer, so why I should care about those people?" "We shouldn't have to see gays when we watch TV or movies." "I would accept gays, but I believe in family values." "Family members spe...

Winner, StoneWall Society Pride in the Arts Award.In an alternate reality, the Iroquois scientist Taldra questions her world's ban on space travel and free speech, but that world funds her research. One of her sons becomes trapped on the other side of a time portal while the other loses himself to the religious cult Degranon. Can they find their way back to each other before the Degrans destroy Valchondria?"This is an incredible book about the human condition and how one pe...