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Singing Lessons for the Stylish Canary
As a firstborn son of a master craftsman, Henri Blanchard is expected to inherit the family barrel organ workshop, but he would prefer to make bobbin lace like his best friend Aimée. In an effort to put his misgivings aside and prove himself a worthy heir, he attempts dramatic feats that draw derision from the townsfolk and finally land him in jail, accused of murder. Threatened with the hangman's noose, he is forced to flee the cozy village of Mireville--and discover a world beyond that may be big enough for even the rarest bird to find a nest. Suspenseful and heartwarming by turns, Laura Stanfill's debut is a whimsical journey full of friendship, adventure, and self-discovery.
Brave on the Page
This homegrown anthology features meditations on the act of writing by forty-two Oregon authors, including journalists, poets, fiction writers, essayists, memoirists, and travel writers. In interviews and original flash essays, contributors share their thoughts on avoiding distractions, weathering rejection, using real-life dialogue in fiction, and what it takes to have a successful writing career. "What emerges is a tapestry of writers who happen to hail from the same geographic region, sharing wisdom, encouragement, and counsel beyond the boundaries of regional writing." - The Los Angeles Review
Sad House: Parenting, Grief, and Creativity in the Coronavirus Crisis
There's no guidebook for parenting during a pandemic. Sheltering at home means being yourself in front of your kids--all day, every day--without much reprieve. When Laura Stanfill's best friend was killed by the virus in April 2020, her daughters experienced her grief at close range. Over the next several months, with storytelling and art, gardening and games, Laura found her imperfect way through deep grief--just in time to weather a second major loss. SAD HOUSE offers a guide for family resilience, growth, and how small, shared joys can sustain a household in difficult times.
City of Weird
City of Weird conjures what we fear: death, darkness, ghosts. Hungry sea monsters and alien slime molds. Blood drinkers and game show hosts. Set in Portland, Oregon, these thirty stories blend imagination, literary writing, and pop culture into a cohesive weirdness that honors the city’s personality, its bookstores and bridges and solo volcano, as well as the tradition of sci-fi pulp magazines. Including such authors as Rene Denfeld, Justin Hocking, Leni Zumas, and Kevin Sampsell, editor Gigi Little has curated a collection that is quirky, chilling, often profound—and always perfectly weird.
A Small Crowd of Strangers
Marrying the wrong man is easier than leaving him. How does a librarian from New Jersey end up in a convenience store on Vancouver Island in the middle of the night, playing Bible Scrabble with a Korean physicist and a drunk priest? She gets married to the wrong man for starters—she didn't know he was 'that kind of Catholic'—and ends up in St. Cloud, Minnesota. She gets a job in a New Age bookstore, wanders toward Buddhism without realizing it, and acquires a dog. Things get complicated after that. Pattianne Anthony is less a thinker than a dreamer, and she finds out the hard way that she doesn't want a husband, much less a baby, and that getting out of a marriage is a lot harder than getting into it, especially when the landscape of the west becomes the voice of reason. A Small Crowd of Strangers, Joanna Rose’s second novel, is part love story, part slightly sideways spiritual journey.
The Royal Abduls
Ramiza Shamoun Koya reveals the devastating cost of anti-Muslim sentiment in The Royal Abduls, her debut novel about an Indian-America family. Evolutionary biologist Amina Abdul accepts a post-doc in Washington, DC, choosing her career studying hybrid zones over a faltering West Coast romance. Her brother and sister-in-law welcome her to the city, but their marriage is crumbling, and they soon rely on her to keep their son company. Omar, hungry to understand his cultural roots, fakes an Indian accent, invents a royal past, and peppers his aunt with questions about their cultural heritage. When he brings an ornamental knife to school, his expulsion triggers a downward spiral for his family, even as Amina struggles to find her own place in an America now at war with people who look like her. With The Royal Abduls, Ramiza Koya ignites the canon of post-9/11 literature with a deft portrait of second-generation American identity.
Imagine a Door
Foreword by Beth Kephart, author of Handling the Truth Imagine a Door intersperses craft insights, case studies, and checklists with personal stories about publishing and the emotional complexities of sending your work into the world. Is a writing routine worthwhile? How do you pinpoint the why behind your storytelling and use it to improve your manuscript? What makes a query letter stand out? What exactly is distribution? Does success mean selling a certain number of books or can we reframe our expectations in a less capitalistic way? While prioritizing genuine community over platform building, Laura Stanfill, publisher of Forest Avenue Press and author of Singing Lessons for the Stylish Canary, explores these questions from both sides of the desk. She peppers her material with original interviews with authors Fonda Lee, Amy Stewart, Wendy Chin-Tanner, Keith Rosson, Rosiee Thor, Kesha Ajose-Fisher, Emme Lund, Omar El Akkad, and agents, editors, and publishers.
About the Carleton Sisters
A Las Vegas showgirl, a diner waitress, and a heartbroken alcoholic—three sisters—are called into an obligatory reunion in California’s Central Valley in the late 1990s as a prelude to their mother’s impending death. Inside Diego’s Diner on Highway 99, Lorraine, the eldest of the sisters, attempts to convert the truckers and regional farmers to her religious beliefs while managing the counters and booths. Becky, the youngest, lurches into this scene after a night’s drunken romp. Meanwhile, middle sister Julie is en route on a bus from Las Vegas, where she’s just ended a long career as a Riviera showgirl. Overshadowing the longstanding tensions between the three women is the unexplained disappearance of the sisters’ long-absent father from their lives. Julie is reluctant to return to River’s End, but she makes a valiant attempt to jump-start her life again once she gets there, even as she confronts the loss of the beauty she’s long used to mask her insecurities and failed relationships. Meanwhile, Becky struggles to stay sober and out of jail—and Lorraine throws herself into cheating her sisters out of their inheritance.
A Girl Called Rumi
A Girl Called Rumi, Ari Honarvar’s debut novel, weaves a captivating tale of survival, redemption, and the power of storytelling. Kimia, a successful spiritual advisor whose Iranian childhood continues to haunt her, collides with a mysterious giant bird in her mother’s California garage. She begins reliving her experience as a nine-year-old girl in war-torn Iran, including her friendship with a mystical storyteller who led her through the mythic Seven Valleys of Love. Grappling with her unresolved past, Kimia agrees to accompany her ailing mother back to Iran, only to arrive in the midst of the Green Uprising in the streets. Against the backdrop of the election protests, Kimia begins to unravel the secrets of the night that broke her mother and produced a dangerous enemy. As past and present collide, she must choose between running away again or completing her unfinished journey through the Valley of Death to save her brother.
