Bøker utgitt av Vine Leaves Press

"World-splitting. Fast, crucial, intimate, high, deep, it has the undeniable shine of a brilliant being finding her way in a world that cannot handle her shine." cin salach, author of When I Am YesWorking on Me chronicles the dysfunction and lore of a Black Russian Jewish interracial family on the far south side of Chicago, and the resulting trajectory of its prodigal child: multifaceted, multidisciplinary artist, performer, and sexual and domestic violence survivor Nikki Patin. A meditation on the biomythography genre defined by Audre Lorde, Maxine Hong Kingston, and Joy Harjo, Working on Me lyrically dances in and out of different voices and perspectives in order to get to something like the truth. Patin's prowess as a poet and a songwriter is reflected in prose that is brutal, beautWorking on Me is about what it means to work on oneself to heal and break patterns of harm and violence and what makes the healing necessary in the first place: all the forces beyond our control that work on us.

"This is a literary gut punch. It is the great Houdini book the world has been waiting for. A perfect escape." John Kelly, Detroit Free Press Houdini's Last Handcuffs weaves a mesmerizing blend of historical fiction and fantasy in 1950s Manhattan. On the 30th anniversary of Houdini's death, three young friends, gifted a mystical Ouija Board by the enigmatic writer Walter Gibson, find themselves thrust into a world of wonder.While the adults attempt to reach Houdini in a Séance at his former residence, the children unknowingly call upon the great magician, not through the Ouija board or séance but via an enigmatic pair of handcuffs from their father's magic collection.Houdini, in dire need of their aid, reveals a hidden notebook filled with scientific formulas coveted by both benevolent and malevolent secret circles. This notebook is a puzzle, locked behind Houdini's cryptic code.The unexpected unfolds, setting off a thrilling chase, where the pursuit of Houdini's notebook holds the key to secrets, mystique, and adventure. Houdini's Last Handcuffs is a riveting journey into a world where magic meets science, tantalizing readers with every twist and turn.

"This author goes where no other might dare." Catherine Filloux, award-winning playwright What's in a smile? Or the absent smile? Saving Face is Effy Redman's thought-provoking answer.Born with a rare condition of facial paralysis called Moebius Syndrome, Redman's grit and eye for beauty help her survive childhood bullying and adolescent doldrums. Her physical transformation at age thirteen via plastic surgery eviscerates her concept of image, just in time for her and her family to immigrate from hardscrabble Manchester, England to America's disorientingly scenic upstate New York. Not until diagnosis in young adulthood with bipolar disorder does Redman come out of the closet as a lesbian, finally claiming her most inherent identity.Saving Face is a searing personal tribute to anybody who has ever felt like an outsider. This memoir honors the grace of a face that stands out in a crowd, defying societal beauty norms. Disability meets transcendence, suffering becomes hope, and the individual expands into community. The inability to smile, in Redman's book, lights a window onto the human capacity for redemption.

"A heartbreakingly beautiful debut." Sandra A. Miller, author of Wednesdays at OneIn the middle of 1974, Flora is privileged and middle-aged in a liberation-hued America, and feels both compelled by and left out of the women's movement. She finds it difficult to activate her limited supply of empathy as she contends with a clandestine and unlikely friendship, a worrisome health scare, a domineering and philandering psychiatrist husband or her own distant daughter.Flora's secret foray into psychotherapy does nothing to halt the sense that there is a better life for her somewhere else, in some parallel existence. Through the continuum of psychological diagnoses, she is lost in the murky place between contentment and discontentment, normal and abnormal.Is her state of mind a clinical, diagnosable condition, or common malaise? Perhaps she'll find out if she stops resisting to share herself with those who love her.

Like Jazz, any attempt to arrive at a precise, all-encompassing definition of the stories in Automatically Hip is probably futile. However, within these artfully-crafted, often-irreverent, and darkly humorous pieces are characters who share one consistent trait: you'll recognize them. These are folks who face struggle with a smile, and fortune with a frown. They are complicated and shallow, reactive and reflective, joyful and joyless. In short, they are human.

"Her characters are smart, funny, bold and wonderfully flawed." Joel Mowdy, author of Floyd HarborThe stories in Sara Hosey's stunning collection, Dirty Suburbia, trace the lives of girls and women struggling to live with dignity in a world that often hates them.Dirty suburbias are working-class neighborhoods in which girls who are left to fend for themselves sometimes become predators, as well as affluent communities in which women discover that money is no protection against sexism, both their own and others'.One young woman sets up her abusive, cheating boyfriend, hoping he'll get arrested so that she can rescue him and win him back. A teenager arranges to meet up with an older man she's met online playing video games; she brings a knife with her, just in case. A middle-aged divorcee attempts to rekindle a romantic relationship with her high school English teacher, who happens to be a former nun. A struggling academic falls in love with a Henry David Thoreau impersonator, and a well-adjusted grad student goes home for Christmas only to be repulsed by her family's casual cruelty.Despite the ugliness and injustice, they face, as well as the failures of their families and communities, these characters often find relief in friendship and connection, and sometimes, even discover meaning and cause for hope.

"Brave and heartbreaking... will resonate with all parents." Jen Pastiloff, author of On Being HumanAs a young suburban mother in the early 1980s, Cathy had a loving husband, a sweet toddler, and a vision of life laid out before her. Pregnant for the second time, with twins, she imagined creating the warm, affectionate home she'd craved as a child. Her family would flourish, and she would be the calm, unflappable mother at its center.But the universe had other plans.The Shape of Normal explores Cathy's intense denial and devotion as she struggles to face the challenges of raising a girl with cognitive disabilities. Convinced her diagnosis can be undone with just the right amount of single-mindedness, she turns it into a dark prophecy. But she'll have to overcome adversity and learn the lesson of acceptance before realizing her daughter was never broken.Cathy was never on a hero's journey to save her child. She needed to save herself.

"Like the best country song you have ever heard." Jane Stern, author of Ambulance GirlWith Strangers to Temptation, Things that Crash, Things that Fly, and The Hammerhead Chronicles, Scott Gould cemented his reputation as one of the most inventive, distinctive voices of Southern literature. In his latest collection, Idiot Men, he once again gathers a cast of unforgettable characters in eleven stories chock full of exceptional storylines and hilarious writing. You'll meet a trucker driver whose wife flees to Jamaica with her lover, leaving him to babysit her hairless tomcat, Princess Di; a male nurse who discovers a trailer full of counterfeit NASCAR paraphernalia during a home health visit; an amateur arsonist sentenced to a year in a Smokey the Bear suit; a disgruntled roofer with a bad back and a meth-dealing twin brother... these are just a few of the idiot men you'll encounter in a collection of stories that will appeal to readers who relish literature with a Southern flavor. Gould's Idiot Men provides the stage for wayward characters who make poor choices in life and love against a backdrop of elegant prose. These tales recalibrate morality and convention as readers will grow to love the characters despite-and perhaps because of-their flaws. These diverse, rich stories are ultimately connected by the spellbinding voice of a true Southern storyteller.

"50 ways to get to the heart of the matter." Joanne NelsonRead a story between sips of coffee, while running errands, or on your commute home. Vine Leaves Press 50-word stories are a welcome break from a busy day. The 50 Give or Take newsletter series delivers a bite-sized piece of literature straight into your inbox. This anthology contains our third year's worth of stories.

"Achingly beautiful" Robbie Jarvis, actor "Prepare to be seduced." David Scrivener, Oxfam BooksA woman's soul is laid bare between these pages, eviscerated, sunk deep between ink and page. Life in the Dressing Room of the Theatre is a meandering journey of a heart both scarred and lonely and fierce and wild as it seeks itself in each new incarnation. It is stitched and pieced together with the blades of grass and faded-yellow ribbons that string themselves through each poem, following the thread of love, through grief and trauma, suicide and rose-tinted memories while traversing the vague and uneven road to self-rediscovery.

A young boy dies during a midnight ceremony. A fish buyer and $75,000 goes missing. And a runaway becomes the object of an Alaskan wilderness search.It is 1979 in a small native village in Alaska accessible only by boat. The local Tlingits continue to honor many traditions of the past, although increased contact with the outside world is accelerating a cultural shift. Caught in a slipstream of time, the village has become a curious blend of old and new.When a young boy dies from a potion that was supposed to cure his limp, all the evidence points to the teenage shaman as the killer. It is up to Jonah St. Clair, the only police officer in the village, to solve the murder and, at the same time, find the missing fish buyer. To do so, he must use both his police skills and his knowledge of the local culture.During his investigation, Jonah becomes prey and predator in a nighttime chase through the Alaskan wilderness and barely survives a rugged boat trip in dangerous waters. In the end, he not only apprehends a killer but discovers the bittersweet secret of the Raven's Grave.

"A profound and riveting journey through shame and grief, A Hard Silence is, quite simply, unforgettable." Monica Wood, author of When We Were the KennedysIn the mid 1980s, Canada's worst public health disaster was unfolding. Catastrophic mismanagement of the country's blood supply allowed contaminated blood to be knowingly distributed nationwide, infecting close to two thousand Canadians with HIV. Among them was Melanie Brooks's surgeon father who, after receiving a blood transfusion during open-heart surgery in 1985, learned he was HIV positive.At a time when HIV/AIDS was widely misunderstood and public perception was shaped by fear, prejudice, and homophobia, victims of the disease faced ostracism and persecution. Afraid of this stigma and wanting to protect his family, Melanie's father decided his illness would be a secret. A secret they'd all have to keep. They did not know that her father would live past that first year, but he did. And for ten years before his death in 1995, from the time she was thirteen until she was twenty-three, Melanie's family lived in the shadow of AIDS. She carried the weight of the uncertain trajectory of her father's health and the heartbreaking anticipation of impending loss silently and alone. It became a way of life. A Hard Silence is an intimate glimpse into Melanie's memories of coping with the tragedy of her father's illness and enduring the loneliness and isolation of not being able to speak. With candor and vulnerability, Melanie opens her grief wounds and brings her reader inside her journey, twenty years after her father died, to finally understand the consequences of her family's silence, to interrogate the roots of stigma and discrimination responsible for the ongoing secret-keeping, and to show how she's now learned to be authentic.

"For anyone who has ever loved deeply and been willing to take risks for the sake of love." Rachel Barenbaum author of Atomic AnnaWhen American-born Jennifer falls in love with French-born Philippe during the First Intifada in Israel, she understands their relationship isn't perfect.Both 23, both Jewish, they lead very different lives: she's a secular tourist, he's an observant immigrant. Despite their opposing outlooks on two fundamental issues-country and religion-they are determined to make it work. For the next 20 years, they root and uproot their growing family, each longing for a singular place to call home.In Places We Left Behind, Jennifer puts her marriage under a microscope, examining commitment and compromise, faith and family while moving between prose and poetry, playing with language and form, daring the reader to read between the lines.

We all have our rituals and talismans to protect us from the unknown, but will we admit what they are? Tarot cards, speeding cars, several saints, and old dogs make appearances in Joanne Nelson's new collection of prose and poetry. She unravels the secular deities giving shape to her days, not only on planes, but in summer crowds, at conferences, and in long post office queues. Whether it's a bandaid in a pocket, the backup pen in a purse, or a hidden $20 in a wallet for just-in-case, Nelson explores what we carry for comfort. She delves into the Mercury retrograde conundrum and examines the significance of kitchens as holy places. Beer runs through it. There will be coffee. Join Nelson, author of the memoir, This Is How We Leave, in this humorous and heartfelt journey through life's often-ignored quiet moments. Ignored until, plate of cookies in hand, they come begging for a chat. All the while, the kids move out, the house gets put up for sale, and loved ones age.

"Tough rat-a-tat-tat prose speeds the reader through a wild search for missing millions." Jonathan Santlofer, author of The Last Mona LisaWhat happens when millions in cold cash evaporates into thin air? And the only people aware of its disappearance are a collection of misfits, bunglers and crooked CIA agents? The one person on earth who knows exactly where that cash is located is a legless, ex-Navy SEAL, confined to a wheelchair.It's an icy Christmas Day in Philadelphia, City of Brotherly Love. Sam Christie has come to South Philly to visit the grave of a former Secret Service Agent, Pete Macaluso. Drive into town, place some flowers on Pete's grave, and head home - piece of cake...Not so fast; unbeknownst to Sam, he's walking straight into a sinister trap; a trap that will take him to the exact spot where the Americas meet, and pit him against ruthless mercenaries, an unrelenting cop, and rogue CIA agents."It's Panama, Sam... There are no rules."

"Intelligent and laden with surprises... Marvelous." Lorrie Moore, author of I Am Homeless If This Is Not My HomeWill Sorley, a native Californian, is barely surviving his days teaching college in rural Pennsylvania when he receives an email from a teenage girl in Kenya claiming to be his long-lost daughter.This explosive note leads to a trip halfway around the globe to find this young woman and uncover more about her enigmatic mother, while trying to stay connected to his new girlfriend.Swerving from the comic to the tragic, For You I Would Make an Exception follows Will from Pennsylvania to Kenya, San Francisco to India as his life expands in ways he never imagined.

A successful radiologist and elite athlete, Dr. Dave tended to the blistered feet of strangers on racecourses and gave away many of his trophies. He was appreciated for his generosity and camaraderie with family, friends, colleagues, and adventure-racing teammates, the latter of whom usually accompanied him on excursions. But he embarked on his final pursuit alone-an attempt to summit all fifty-four of the fourteeners in Colorado-and made an unknowable error that caused him to fall two hundred feet to his death. When people learned that he had died, they often asked his sister, the only girl and the baby of the family, "Were you close?" The question, seemingly straightforward, haunted her and begged for a deeper answer, requiring an exploration that took a decade. She invites the reader along on her own journey as she searches for a greater understanding about who her brother was, why his passions were worth risking everything, and how to carry on in the world and in her family without him, ultimately becoming even closer to him in death than in life. Were You Close? challenges the cultural notion that the bereaved can or should simply "get over" their losses, illustrating that integrating these experiences can actually help a mourner not just heal, but move forward with clarified purpose.

From the snowy Soviet shooting range to the heat and dust of Africa, nothing is what it seems. And neither is Sue Dobson.The image of South Africa in the 1980's as the golden paradise on the tip of the African continent conceals a brutal, racist Apartheid regime. Those who oppose it risk their lives. Beauty and brutality go hand in hand.Sue Dobson, a young white South African woman lives a 'legend'-a life where she pretends to conform, moving easily through the echelons of the racist government in her work as a journalist, whilst concealing her espionage and military training in the Soviet Union, and her intelligence work for the banned African National Congress. Matters come to a head when sinister forces try to derail the Namibian independence process and Sue's cover is blown during a difficult honey trap operation, bringing the Cold War to Africa, and leading to her desperate flight across Southern Africa with the Apartheid security police snapping at her heels.

Camus once stated that fiction is a lie through which we tell the truth. The main characters in Heart and Salt all have truths, lies, and in-betweens, similar to every human being you've ever met. We all carry scraps of our past in our heart, the hope of the present in our palm, and the leftovers in our souls. Heart and Salt unwraps what is boxed tightly until it can't be contained any longer-Charli tests her seemingly strong marriage, Genevieve investigates a crumbly old beach shack after decades of storms, February navigates a new friendship, and Feather can't find her way out of the self-imposed "middle." Every piece's setting inhales and exhales as strongly as the people living within its walls, from backyards to kitchens to small towns, to cities. Dive deep into their heart, their salt, and their truths.

Inspired by the special bond between mother and child, Bell's poems search for meaning in a world of misconception. They begin with small everyday moments and end with a shift in understanding that not only enlightens, but leaves you wondering.From quiet nights reflecting on the sound of her child's smile, to viewing the world from the perspective of a potted tree dreaming of being rooted into true mother earth, A Tide Should Be Able to Rise Despite Its Moon is a collection of raw, honest, modern-day fables that remind readers to look deeper, feel more, and let the world speak for itself.

Understand the chemistry of book cover design in Can You Make the Title Bigga? by award-winning book cover designer, Jessica Bell, who is recommended by Dave Chesson of Kindlepreneur, Makeuseof.com, John Fox of Bookfox, and more.Are you self-publishing? Can You Make the Title Bigga? will inspire you with practical, actionable advice and information.Work in marketing or graphic design in a publishing house? It offers an invaluable resource.Studying graphic design? Already designing book covers professionally-or with dreams of doing so? Find inspiration for designs, workshops and classes.From Jessica Bell's witty, kind, and thoughtful perspective, you will discover:*why book cover design is so important, whether you're self-published, indie, or traditionally published*the elements of an eye-catching, professional cover design*how to research and choose potential book cover designers*some of the biggest challenges an author and a designer face during a collaboration*the balance between creating a book cover the author loves, the designer loves, and a potential reader loves*how to prepare for a collaboration*how to ensure a smooth sailing collaboration*costs and recommended designersand much more!Includes over 100 color book cover design examples and information about project agreements, how to obtain puff quotes for your book, how to obtain ISBNs, a list of standard trim sizes, and binding options.

It's 1937. Jewish newlyweds flee Nazi Germany for Brooklyn.

You've been writing and honing your craft for months or years and are curious about seeking publication for your latest project. Perhaps you wonder about the next steps in the process. Look no further!This book has a little something for every writer interested in expanding their audience and sharing their writing with readers, from pre-writing and writing your drafts to choosing your market and the writing life before, during, and after publication.Topics covered include: The Lovely Littles: Breaking into Literary MagazinesThe Spinning Spider: Keeping Track of your BrainchildrenOptions, You've Got 'em: Traditional, Indie/Small, University Press, or Self-PublishingTwo Streams with One Stone: To Simultaneously Submit or NotMonetize it! Part One: All about the Benjamins; Monetize it! Part Two: Risk and a Swimming MetaphorThe Myth of the Fancy-Pants ToolsThe Art of Writing the Author BioParadox Meets Passion: Writer vs. AuthorThe Slam-Bam Reply: Now in Two Painful Varieties; Creative NoodlingF.U.Nand so much more!

Out of place at an experimental high school, sensitive high school junior Bryce Hughes steals his father's pharmaceutical sales samples to stay steady and share recreationally with his wealthy, spoiled, nihilistic friends at their wild weekend parties. Hopelessly hung up on his ex-girlfriend, Paige, whose emotions are as fickle as her taste for fashion, Bryce can barely see the quiet scholarship girl, Jaycee, who adores him. Over the course of a single school year, Bryce and his crew from The Dream Academy have to survive classes they don't understand, work in the real world, pressure to uphold their school's public brand, betrayals, and cyberbullying that threatens to push one of their own over the edge.Each lost Dream Kid must find a way to save their future, their sense of self, and their passions, while fighting to reconcile who they are at heart with who they are believed to be by others.

What if your survival depended on the villainy you long despised?Sister and brother. A loyalty forged in the crucible of their tragic upbringing in the Northwoods town of Backus, Minnesota. Cass, a quiet young woman caring for the grandmother who raised them. Jack, a fugitive carrying a life-changing sum of stolen drug money.Desperate, trusting only his sister, Jack enlists her help in burying the cash in their grandmother's back acres. Cass agrees to the scheme, a decision that soon endangers not only her unassuming backwoods existence, but both of their lives.Jack returns to hiding, and Cass learns of the bounty placed on his head, as the cast of characters in their orbit-some villains, some saviors, some perhaps both-emerges. Their corrupt cop uncle and lawless cousins. Their father, a violent, conniving career criminal whom the siblings blame for their mother's unsolved murder many years ago. Claiming reformation, he pledges to ensure her and Jack's safety.Bowed by the burdens of her love for Jack, haunted by a past that seems poised to repeat itself, Cass realizes that her survival may depend on her own measure of wickedness.

Online teaching can be a wonderful way to share what you know about writing with other authors and to inspire more writing of your own. Ever wondered how to break into online teaching? Wonder no more!Whether you're just getting started on your teaching journey or if you've taught for years in a brick-and-mortar classroom and would like to make the leap into online instruction, this book offers insight into topics such as: choosing your class theme or genre, determining target audience, choosing the length and platform of your class, tips for what to charge, determining objectives, creating a syllabus, marketing your class, interviews with experienced online teachers, and so much more!Packed with exercises, a sample syllabus, a self-quest survey about your teaching strengths, and a resources list, this book is a one-stop read to launching your online courses and inspiring your writing students. Teach on!