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On one side of the door, the rich smell of sweet, spicy food and the calm of Buddhist devotion; on the other, the strangeness of a new land. When Ira Sukrungruang was born to Thai parents newly arrived in the U.S., they picked his Jewish moniker out of a book of “American” names. In this lively, entertaining, and often hilarious memoir, he relates the early life of a first-generation Thai-American and his constant, often bumbling attempts to reconcile cultural and familial expectations with the trials of growing up in 1980s America. Young Ira may have lived in Oak Lawn, Illinois, but inside the family’s bi-level home was “Thailand with American conveniences.” They ate Thai food, sp...
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In this surprising collection, lively, provocative writers explore the many folds of fat that make up reality. Sometimes funny, sometimes angry, often illuminating and always engaging, these stories make a new and compelling case for why more room should be made for bigger behinds.
Anne Panning: In his debut collection, The Melting Season, Sukrungruang writes with compassion, humor and tenderness about the sting of cultural exclusion and isolation. His underdog characters make you root for them every step of the way, thanks to Sukrungruang's honest portrayal of their deep loneliness and family heartbreak. To sweeten the deal, the book simmers with food so delicious it will make you hungry for more.
This bountiful feast of fiction and poetry by top contemporary American writers looks at the perennial American obsession: fat. Includes works by Andre Dubus, Tobias Wolff, George Saunders, and others.
Wise and witty, heartfelt and profound, this second volume in an annual series brings together the year's most notable prose and verse inspired by the power and insight of Buddhist practice. Compiled by the editors of Shambhala Sun , North America's oldest and most widely read Buddhist magazine, the collection offers a lively array of styles, perspectives, and concerns of contemporary Buddhists. The twenty-five talented contributors include familiar favorites as well as some surprising voices who will delight and enlighten the reader, with pieces ranging from personal memoir, adventure travelogue, prison journal, and poetry, to advice for practitioners and wisdom teachings of the masters. Am...
Going beyond the typical "how to write" book, The Mindful Writer illuminates the creative process: where writing and creativity originate, how mindfulness plays into work, how to cultivate good writing habits, how to grow as a writer and a person, and what it means to live a life dedicated to the craft of writing. There's not a writer alive, novice or master, who will not benefit from this book and fall in love with it. Cover to cover, this wise little book is riveting and delightful. The Mindful Writer will be a book that readers will turn to again and again as a source inspiration, guidance, and support.
Fiction. Winner of the 10th Annual Rose Metal Press Short Short Chapbook Contest, judged by Ira Sukrungruang. A concise and compelling novella-in-flash spanning decades from the 1960s to the present, Lex Williford's SUPERMAN ON THE ROOF offers an elegiac coming-of-age tale and a family portrait imbued with tragedy, guilt, grief, and forgiveness. The arguments, injustices, and triumphs of childhood echo into the adult world in unforgettable detail in these short powerful stories. This limited edition chapbook features letterpress covers and specialty endpapers. "SUPERMAN ON THE ROOF did not let me go. There is a red siren of urgency in Williford's every sentence, every word. It is a book that reiterates what Lee K. Abbott once said to me many years ago: 'Everything is the matter in the short story.' Everything is the matter in SUPERMAN ON THE ROOF. In its brevity, its pace, the contained voice of the consistent narrator, in the flashes of story about a family trying hard to find themselves after heartbreak." Ira Sukrungruang"
The fascinating, curious, and sometimes macabre history of radium as seen in its uses in everyday life. Of all the radioactive elements discovered at the end of the nineteenth century, it was radium that became the focus of both public fascination and entrepreneurial zeal. Half Lives tells the fascinating, curious, sometimes macabre story of the element through its ascendance as a desirable item – a present for a queen, a prize in a treasure hunt, a glow-in- the-dark dance costume – to its role as a supposed cure-all in everyday twentieth-century life, when medical practitioners and business people (reputable and otherwise) devised ingenious ways of commodifying the new wonder element, a...