SEASONS OF DEFIANCE is the latest collection by Lance Lee, an accomplished poet, dramatist, and essayist who often draws upon literary history and nature for his inspirations. His previous book with Birch Brook Press was HUMAN/NATURE.

HUMAN/NATURE bears witness to a lyricism rare in much of today's poetry as the author unflinchingly explores the condition of being human, and especially how easy it is to shed the thin skin of humanity. He brings voices as diverse as Hannibal and Rembrandt into this work.

Elemental Natures draws together thirty years of poetic practice, with substantial selections from six previous books of poetry, including the sequence “No One Comes For Penelope— ”, a retelling of the end of the Odyssey that teases the reader with conflicting views of time and reality. The essay, “The American Voice”, looks at three iconic American poets, Walt Whitman, Robinson Jeffers, and Robert Lowell, emphasizing an entirely different viewpoint of what is unique to the American voice ...

FAMILY MATTERS is a generations long reckoning with family myth, loss and transformation from the end of the Civil War into the 1970s, showing how family suffering metamorphosized into comedy on an abiding public, cultural scale in the original The Addams Familytelevision series of 1964-1966 created by the author's father, David Levy, from the original Charles Addams New Yorker cartoons. It is also the story of how the author's parents though drawn from widely di...

Orpheus Rising is a sparkling immersion in adventures of great beauty, danger, and the unexpected, with a climax that will move anyone to a sense of joy. A daring retelling of the Orpheus legend in modern guise, Sam and his father, John, set off to rescue Sam's lost mother, Madelyn, from "The Far Land of Fear" and "Dread City", a startling, imaginative view of the afterlife. A fantasy set in terms of Sam's 10 going on 11 imagination, they are joined by Lepanto, a very wise Elephant who lik...

Lance Lee knows that Animals, Places and the Past (his past, our pasts) all have a part to play in Becoming Human. The deer's soft eyes look at him, he thinks of death. In "The Light at Vezelay" he writes of Mary Magdalene. "Poker-Faced", he lied to his father at 12. Read all about it in this splendid new collection. Lance Lee knows what it takes and proves it skillfully in Becoming Human.Martin Bax, Editor, Ambit, England's leading Arts Quarterly; author, The...

What makes a film "work," so that audiences come away from the viewing experience refreshed and even transformed in the way they understand themselves and the world around them? In The Death and Life of Drama, veteran screenwriter and screenwriting teacher Lance Lee tackles this question in a series of personal essays that thoroughly analyze drama's role in our society, as well as the elements that structure all drama, from the plays of ancient Athens to today's most popular movi...

Second Chances is an adult romance between Anne and Ted, who have both suffered great losses. They have ended up on Cape Cod, whose nooks and crannies of wildness are their refuge. They are drawn together as Anne searches for someone to care for an injured foxMaggie, Ted's daughter, gives the story a mythic dimension with her hunger for a mother and her love for the fox. The obvious 'match' between Ted and Anne, both needing what the other has, is not so obvious i...

This unique, comprehensive introduction to screenwriting offers practical advice for the beginning writer, whether college student or freelancer. Based on their experience as professional writers and as teachers in a large, successful screenwriting program at California State University, Northridge, the authors provide a progression of assignments at manageable screenwriting lengths for beginners. They lead students through development of a premise, treatment, stepsheet, and, finally, mini...

Writing successful screenplays that capture the public imagination and richly reward the screenwriter requires more than simply following the formulas prescribed by the dozens of screenwriting manuals currently in print. Learning the "how-tos" is important, but understanding the dramatic elements that make up a good screenplay is equally crucial for writing a memorable movie. In A Poetics for Screenwriters, veteran writer and teacher Lance Lee offers aspiring and professional scr...