INSIDE THE DARKSIDE is a collection of 12 dissimilar stories inhabiting the near future. A long-winded, umbrella-like philosophical long story description might be more appropriate if you, my readers, are presented with story clues. Here they are in order: GREY – A hotshot pilot, attempting to follow in his father's galactic shoes, finds even his own whining is grey-ting. MISTY JOURNEY – The way out is unclear, even with help. THE LONGSHOT – What chances do a ragtag band of mismatched surv...

Nonfiction books like Welcome to my Soapbox are hybrids; there's just no theme. Uh, I prefer to describe this book as a literary buffet table. I've got fibrous protein with real bite. There's mushy mashed potatoes in the form of unabashed pandering. I lied—they have lumps you didn't expect. Following is the mixed media of string beans with little pearl onions and grey mushrooms. Stories of varied interest. At the end are desserts, sweet, plain vanilla and chewy chocolate with nuts. If you'...

Lovers of short fiction stories will enjoy the 17 in "short stories by a short guy in shorts." I'm better at 1000 to 8000 words than trying to construct ten or twenty times that. In my stories, you'll get the essence quicker with the motivation to find out what's next. Next, I am a short guy. Gravity is winning. Finally, I dread summer and its accompanying requirement to wear fewer clothes. Shorts are my anathema. When I wrote the subtitle, "musings, meanderings and mindfulness (sort of),"...

If you baked a cake from scratch, you'd find a recipe and follow directions. I didn't do that. I reached blindfolded into my mental pantry, saw and wrote, interviewed and memorialized, had an idea and, you know. It's about funny kids and brave veterans, bad situations and redemption, on the right track and off the rails, some fiction but mostly truth. It's my cake; have a slice.

Derrick Brown’s long awaited new collection of poetry and prose, Scandalabra, is a book that boils with true grit Americana, sensual power and black oceanic wildness. About.com rated his newest collection 'Scandalabra' as one of the top poetry books of 2009. Written at sea aboard a fishing vessel and in the hills of Tennessee, these poems roar in six unique sections never before seen from this acclaimed writer. I wish I had written “Patienceâ€. I mean written it down on paper. I’ve though...

ITS THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT...For decades, the apocalypse and its aftermath have yielded some of the most exciting short stories of all time. From David Brin's seminal The Postman to Hugh Howey's Deep Blood Kettle and Tananarive Due's prescient Patient Zero, the end of the world continues to thrill.This companion volume to the critically acclaimed WASTELANDS offers thirty of the finest examples of post-apocalyptic short fiction, with works by:Ann Aguirre

**"Take your time with these poems, and return to them often.” —The Washington PostThe New York Times-bestselling collection of poems from the award-winning writer Ocean VuongHow else do we return to ourselves but to foldThe page so it points to the good partIn this deeply intimate second poetry collection, Ocean Vuong searches for life among the aftershocks of personal and social loss, embodying the paradox of sit...

**"Kristi Coulter charts the raw, unvarnished, and quietly riveting terrain of new sobriety with wit and warmth. Nothing Good Can Come from This is a book about generative discomfort, surprising sources of beauty, and the odd, often hilarious, business of being human." —Leslie Jamison, author of The Empathy Exams and The RecoveringKristi Coulter inspired and incensed the internet when she wrote about what happened when she stopped drinking. Nothing Go...

SHE WANTED TO QUIT BEING HER WORLD'S BEST ASSASSIN—BUT THE ONLY WAY TO QUIT WAS TO DIE!Look into the abyss—For as long as Cally O'Neal could remember, she had lived in danger. While her father was off fighting the invading Posleen she had been raised by her grandfather, practically on the front-lines of a war that had erased five billion humans from the face of the earth.The abyss looks back—In the final stages of the war she had offi...

From acclaimed, New York Times best-selling author Mary Roach comes the complete collection of her “My Planet” articles published in Reader’s Digest. She was a hit columnist in the magazine, and this book features the articles she wrote in that time. Insightful and hilarious, Mary explores the ins and outs of the modern world: marriage, friends, family, food, technology, customer service, dental floss, and ants—she leaves no element of the American experience unchecked fo...

When the world ends, what do you do when you realize you are still alive?In a world devastated by natural disaster, only the most stubborn refuse to give up. When Ed Walker learns that others have been preparing for the disaster for years, he realize finding them may be his only shot at survival. But time is running out...In a dying world one man makes a choice to keep going, hoping against hope there might be a future after all.Alive is a 10.000 word story loosely ...

An almost unnaturally poignant love story from the father of “Gonzo” journalism and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas Hunter S. Thompson.What makes the romantic short story Screwjack so touching, for all its queerness, is the aching melancholy in its depiction of the modern man's burden: that "we are doomed. Mama has gone off to Real Estate School...and after that maybe even to Law School. We will never see her again."Hunter S. Thompson’s mos...