In the fall of 2014, educators Eric and Rixa Freeze moved with their young family to Old Nice, a medieval town-within-a-city on the famed Cote d'Azur. They'd bought a 700-square-foot dive, an apartment in need of renovation just a couple blocks from the Mediterranean. They were a family with a plan: to live differently. No home in the suburbs with a two-car garage, no bedroom for every child, no 24-hour Walmart. Carefully researched and vividly written, French Dive chronicles the Freeze fa...

Enslaved by their own fears, the characters in this riveting collection are straining for redemption. Their choices reflect the well-worn patterns we carve for ourselves through our idiosyncrasies-our dominant traits. A basketball coach teaches moral ambiguity; a divorcee clutches at sanity; a mother struggles with her son's paternity; a childless man regrets his youthful onanism. Through their shared experiences these tangible characters undergo the sad, hilarious search for wholeness and...

A 2024 Choice Outstanding Academic TitleAgainst the backdrop of a hyper-competitive AAA industry and the perception that it is a world reserved for top programmers and hard-core 'gamers', Story Mode offers an accessible entry-point for all into writing and designing complex and emotionally affecting narrative video games. The first textbook to combine game design with creative writing techniques, this much-needed resource makes the skills necessary to cons...

The Book of Mormon prophet Nephi describes the journey to eternal life as going through a gate of ordinances and traveling a “straight and narrow path.” Twenty-three authors took that gospel roadmap passage as a prompt to write “a Mormon story.” They responded with a surprisingly wide range of realistic and fantastic tales. Many are human reactions to unexpected steps on the path: a lifetime of faith in a patriarchal blessing’s unfulfilled promise, a survivor of violence calling a divided ...

A collage-like mash-up of personal anecdote, popular culture, masculinity, sports, and parenting, Hemingway on a Bike takes readers through the many and varied twists and turns of the life and mind of its author, Eric Freeze. Delving into obsessions and experiences, Freeze’s essays display a keen intelligence with insights on topics as diverse as Mormonism and foosball, Angry Birds and professional wrestling, superheroes and freebirthing, Ernest Hemingway and Star Tre...

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A powerful, blazingly honest memoir: the story of an eleven-hundred-mile solo hike that broke down a young woman reeling from catastrophe—and built her back up again.At twenty-two, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. In the wake of her mother’s death, her family scattered and her own marriage was soon destroyed. Four years later, with nothing more to lose, she made the most impulsive decision of her life. With no ...

Can Outlining Help You Write a Better Story?Writers often look upon outlines with fear and trembling. But when properly understood and correctly wielded, the outline is one of the most powerful weapons in a writer’s arsenal.Outlining Your Novel: Map Your Way to Success will:Help you choose the right type of outline for youGuide you in brainstorming plot ideasAid you in discovering your charactersShow you ...

This collection of thirty-eight terrifying tales of serial killers at large, written by the great masters of the genre, plumbs the horrifying depths of a deranged mind and the forces of evil that compel a human being to murder, gruesomely and methodically, over and over again.From Hannibal Lecter ( The Silence of the Lambs) to Patrick Bateman ( American Psycho), stories of serial killers and psychos loom large and menacing in our collective psyche....

"In Paris (or anywhere else, really) a table for one can be a most delightful place." --Alone Time, as seen in The New York TimesA wise, passionate account of the pleasures of traveling soloIn our increasingly frantic daily lives, many people are genuinely fearful of the prospect of solitude, but time alone can be both rich and restorative, especially when travelling. Through on-the-ground reporting and recounting the expe...

Camping sounded like a great idea—until it wasn’t.In book fifteen of the #1 international bestselling series, the Heffleys hit the road and end up stuck in a flooded RV park.Are they in over their heads, or can they rescue their disastrous vacation?A great read for ages 8–12 who love wild outdoor adventures and the unexpected surprises of camp life.Collect all the books in the #1 bestselling Diary of a Wimpy Kid series: ...

2 Bestselling Guides Packed With Tips to Help You Brainstorm and Plan Your Best StoryFrom Award-Winning and Internationally Published Writing Mentor K.M. WeilandWith over 300 pages of step-by-step guidance, these two individual books have helped thousands of authors write better books.Can Outlining Help You Write a Better Story?These bestselling guides will help you choose the right type of outline to unleash your creativity...

The National Book Award finalist. " Limón's poems are like fires: charring the page, but leaving a smoke that remains past the close of the book." — The MillionsBright Dead Things examines the chaos that is life, the dangerous thrill of living in a world you know you have to leave one day, and the search to find something that is ultimately "disorderly, and marvelous, and ours."A book of bravado and introsp...