1/8/2011 Now Available!! Adoption, Speculative Fiction
Adoption, a novel by Victoria I. Sullivan, is now available. Adoption was released by Pinyon Publishing in Montrose, Colorado on 12/24/2010 (6 x 9 paperback, 172 pages, $15.00). For more information, please contact susanelliott@pinyon-publishing.com.
Speculative science ● Louisiana culture ● Humor ● Humanity at its best and worst
When six-year-old Mary's mother dies unexpectedly, she is "adopted" by her neighbors, Val and David. But nothing about Mary or her adoption is normal. She's a giant—nearly seven feet tall, brilliant and beautiful, the result of her mother's in vitro fertilization at a clinic in Vermilion, Louisiana.
What happened? Did something go wrong? Or was it planned by doctors experimenting on humans? And if so, is it still happening in other fertility clinics in the United States, Russia, and North Korea?
Val, a reluctant mother and professor of biology, becomes detective and protector. Her own research on the genetics of polyploid plants that have multiple sets of chromosomes give her insights and sympathy for this super, but outnumbered, new race of humans. A new race that is threatened by a fearful government and public, who want to eliminate them (and their differences) at any cost.
Murder, mystery, speculative science, and a mother's love blend in a novel that asks us to consider what would happen if life were just a little bit different.
AUTHOR BIO
VICTORIA I. SULLIVAN is a writer and botanist. She studied biology at the University of Miami and has a Ph.D. in biology from Florida State University. She has published poetry, flash fiction, numerous botanical papers, and nonfiction articles. She held a faculty position in the Department of Biology, University of Louisiana at Lafayette for 20 years. Sullivan is a resident of Sewanee, Tennessee. She winters in New Iberia, Louisiana.
8/9/2010 Pinyon Announces Open the Gates: Poems for Young Readers is Now Available!
Pinyon Publishing in Montrose, Colorado, is pleased to announce that Open the Gates, by Dabney Stuart, with paintings by Susan Elliott, is now available. Stuart’s 16th book of poetry, and his second book of poems for young readers, is a treat for all ages: exquisite poetry accompanied by lively watercolors (8 x 10 paperback, full color, 92 pages, $27.00). For more information and review copy requests, please contact gs@pinyon-publishing.com. Available from Amazon, Ingram, & Pinyon Publishing.
Dabney Stuart's love for the animals that inhabit the earth pulses through this new collection of poems for the young and the young at heart.
From rhinoceros to remora, iguana to impala, whale to water buffalo, & chameleon to crocodile─the dozens of animals in Stuart's poems come alive in a spirit of playfulness. Coupled with Susan Elliott's spirited watercolors, the poems magnify the wonders of being young.
Stuart’s poems show the beauty and enchantment of friendship: the koala and the kiwi, the eel and the clam, the fiddler crab and his companions, and the dove cooing to an empty sky, hoping another hears.
TRULY FOR ALL AGES
Adults will appreciate the poems’ intelligence, questions about the world, and Stuart’s masterly expertise with the English language; while younger children will delight in the sounds and playful stories embedded in the poems. The watercolors are works of art that will engage and enchant older and younger readers alike.
AUTHOR BIOS
DABNEY STUART has published fifteen previous volumes of poetry, most recently Tables, Family Preserve, and The Man Who Loves Cézanne. A former resident at the Rockefeller Center in Bellagio, Italy, he also held a Virginia Artists Fellowship, two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He won the Library of Virginia Poetry Prize for 2006. His work is in the audio and video archives at the Library of Congress.
Stuart and his wife Sandra live in Lexington, Virginia.
SUSAN ELIZABETH ELLIOTT is an artist, ecologist, and writer. She studied botany and French at Humboldt State University and has a Ph.D. in biology from Dartmouth College. Her paintings are inspired by a combination of Western and Eastern watercolor techniques. This is her fourth book.
Elliott, born and raised in Mariposa, California, now lives in the Colorado Rocky Mountains.
2/7/2011 Chant of Death Kindle Edition is Now Available!!
Chant of Death, authored by Diane Marquart Moore and Isabel Anders, is now available for Kindle Readers. Chant of Death was released by Pinyon Publishing in paperback in August 2010 ($15.00). The Kindle version is now available at Amazon for $9.99. For more information, please contact susanelliott@pinyon-publishing.com.
New Iberia Signing: Diane Moore will be signing copies of Chant of Death at the Books Along the Teche Bookstore on February 26, 2011 (11am - 1pm). (Refreshments provided!)
In Chant of Death, the traditional Seven Deadly Sins, are fleshed out in a complex, unfolding narrative of suspicion, darkness, and deceit. In a story straight from the headlines—of monks becoming “rock stars,” Chant of Death is set in a fictional Benedictine Abbey in southern Louisiana.
When a sudden murder breaks the ordered, prayerful sequence of the monks’ dedicated days, Father Malachi finds his powers stretched to the limit in an effort to protect the innocent and identify the killer. Lives and philosophies conflict, setting off deadly sparks—where pious faith and ancient superstition often mingle seamlessly; where Spanish moss veils the landscape, and a murderous soul has found a cloistered refuge.
PRAISE FOR CHANT OF DEATH from Louisiana Poet Laureate, DARRELL BOURQUE: "Chant of Death is a remarkable piece of storytelling: grounded in the real and the observable—but connected as well to the magical and the ineffable. Moore and Anders have woven a tale that is at once a traditional mystery, while also a thoroughly contemporary work that explores the medieval church as well as the challenges faced by the post-modern church, the vagaries and varieties of every kind of love imaginable, the consolations of both philosophy and modern psychology, the lures and temptations of both monastic life and life on the outside. This work is engrossing and satisfying, a tapestry one can more easily enter than leave behind. Rich, expansive, masterfully plotted to please the broadest spectrum of readers."
AUTHOR BIOS
DIANE MARQUART MOORE is a writer of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and news articles. She has published 26 books, and her short stories and poetry have been featured in publications including The Southwestern Review, Interdisciplinary Humanities, and The Xavier Review. Her young adult fiction, Martin’s Quest, was a finalist in the Heekins Foundation Award for Best Children’s Fiction. Moore studied Creative Writing with Ernest Gaines at ULL. She was a former editor of Acadiana Lifestyle and has written for The Daily Iberian, The Acadiana Profile magazine, and the Yaddasht Haftegy. She authors a blog entitled A Words Worth. Retired Archdeacon of Episcopal Diocese of W. Louisiana, Moore lives part of the year in New Iberia, Louisiana, and part of the year in Sewanee, Tennessee.
ISABEL ANDERS is also the author of more than 20 books for adults, children, and young adults, including the award-winning book: Becoming Flame: Uncommon Mother-Daughter Wisdom, with a Foreword by Phyllis Tickle; Awaiting the Child: An Advent Journal, with an Introduction by Madeleine L’Engle; Soul Moments: Times When Heaven Touches Earth; The Faces of Friendship; and 40-Day Journey with Madeleine L’Engle. Anders is also author of the recently released Blessings and Prayers for Married Couples: A Faith Full Love. She is a regular blogger at BlogHer.com and a contributor to bloggingauthors.com. For further information, visit www.isabelanders.com. Anders lives in Sewanee, Tennessee.
2/16/2011 You Who Make the Sky Bend is Now Available!!
You Who Make the Sky Bend: Saints as Archetypes of the Human Condition (Lives by Lisa Sandlin & Retablo Paintings by Catherine Ferguson), is now available. You Who Make the Sky Bend was released by Pinyon Publishing in Montrose, Colorado on 2/8/2011 (7” x 10” paperback, 112 pages, full color, ISBN: 978-0982156186, $27.00). For more information, please contact susanelliott@pinyon-publishing.com.
Most saints began as children, as all humans do. Martin de Porres’ white father abandoned him; Dymphna fled an incestuous father. Rosa de Lima threw her mother into despair. A few, though, did not know childhood or death. Archangel Michael’s name was a battle cry; shining Gabriel calmed the terrified before delivering his messages. Desperate for the powers associated with Librada (relief from bad husbands and boyfriends) and Expeditus (exceedingly swift help), people conjured these saints from relic and desire.
Catherine Ferguson and Lisa Sandlin have combined their exceptional talents to create a beautiful book of retablo paintings of saints, accompanied by biographies that draw on ancient sources, poetry, and literature. You Who Make The Sky Bend relates the saints to stages of the human condition, thus placing them into the wheel of life.
For they touch lives. The saints remain on call, as if their form is a kind of ethereal transmitter lit by their filament souls. Many people talk to them, daily, weekly, or on the unforeseen morning when misfortune pushes past their threshold. And many people believe they are heard—by the saint, their better selves, their own hearts.
AUTHOR BIOS
LISA SANDLIN is the author of three previous books of short stories, In the River Province, Message to the Nurse of Dreams, The Famous Thing About Death, and the co-editor of an anthology, Times of Sorrow, Times of Grace. She has received an NEA Fellowship, a Pushcart Prize, a Dobie Paisano Fellowship from the Texas Institute of Letters, and numerous other awards. Sandlin is an Associate Professor at the University of Nebraska, Omaha.
CATHERINE FERGUSON was born in Mexico, and comes from a family of painters. She was called to her life's work by a picture of the Virgin of Guadalupe, which she saw as a child. Her work has been shown and sold throughout the Southwest, appearing in museums, galleries, and on book covers. Ferguson lives in Galisteo, New Mexico.
4/15/2011 Aromatics is Now Available!!
Aromatics, Poems by Robert B. Shaw, is now available. Aromatics was released by Pinyon Publishing in Montrose, Colorado on 4/15/2011 (6” x 9” paperback, 100 pages, paperback, $15.00, ISBN: 978-0-9821561-9-3). For more information, please contact susanelliott@pinyon-publishing.com.
The scents that permeate the poems of Aromatics include bittersweet ones of memory, acrid ones of danger, and many others equally enticing or alarming.
Candles—in this enlightened age, who needs them?
Everyone and his mother, it appears.
And what they’re after more than anything
is opportunity to choose aromas.
As in Robert B. Shaw’s previous work, his questing scrutiny of the world’s inner mysteries is revealed in daily concerns and the self-reflection and hope that accompanies it.
Looking through the skylight
a moment after midnight,
I found my gaze returned.
The seven bright eyes burned
with neither love nor hate.
Robert Frost once offered this definition of a successful poem: “Read it a hundred times: it will forever keep its freshness as a metal keeps its fragrance.” The poems in this book aspire to that high standard.
PRAISE FOR AROMATICS
“Robert Shaw can do almost anything in verse, and do it well. His structural patterns vary; the range of his subjects is wide, but his New England sensibility is bedrock; unexpected shifts and turns mark many poems. His voice is conversational yet quietly formal, amiably inviting to his reader. Everything, no matter how randomly it may seem to occur, is aimed. His rare and subtle ways of observing the things of this world are also affectionate and welcoming. Aromatics, Shaw’s sixth book of poetry, caps 30 years of work, of saying what he has ‘lived to say.’ It’s a gem.”—DABNEY STUART, Author of Tables
“Undaunted by ‘the heatless fire of time’ (not heartless—heatless), unafraid of the monsters of myth (check the poem about Perseus), and wonderfully allusive, whether comic (how did Rilke get into that gym? see the end of ‘Working Out’ or tragicomic (see the villanelle “Single File,” with its joke against Frost’s ‘Design’), Shaw demonstrates once again his care and craft, his mix of transatlantic, or traditional, elegance and New England honesty, of fluent blank verse and rhyme, attentive to—rather than bound by—the examples of Frost, Auden, Merrill. Here is an unshowy, confident, and often masterful collection: read it and hear it, and you might just find yourself saying, some times, “What a neat effect!” and at others, simply, ‘Life is like that.’”—STEPHEN BURT, Author of Close Calls with Nonsense
AUTHOR BIO
ROBERT B. SHAW is the author of five previous books of poetry, the latest of which, Solving for X, won the Hollis Summers Prize. For his recent prose work, Blank Verse: A Guide to its History and Use, he received the Robert Fitzgerald Award. A longtime resident of Massachusetts, Shaw teaches at Mount Holyoke College, where he is the Emily Dickinson Professor of English.
6/13/2011 Sky Harbor is Now Available!!
Sky Harbor , Poems by Miles Waggener, is now available. Sky Harbor was released by Pinyon Publishing in Montrose, Colorado on 6/13/2011 (7.5” x 9.25” paperback, 84 pages, paperback, $15.00, ISBN: 978-1-936671-01-4). For more information, please contact susanelliott@pinyon-publishing.com.
PRAISE FOR SKY HARBOR
“One might slip into a cave without a torch and imagine a language of foot scuttle and wing whinny, imagine that one must make from these consonants and vowels a lyric, a metaphysics—such is the poetry of Miles Waggener—hermetic, intentional, and of great necessity.”—SANDRA ALCOSSER, Author of A Fish to Feed All Hunger and Except by Nature
“‘Sky Harbor’ is the name of Phoenix, Arizona’s international airport, through whose automatic sliding doors—at one point in this fabulous collection of the same name—a sparrow flies. The human-constructed and the unconstructed abut constantly in Miles Waggener’s second full-length collection, wherein collisions between desert landscape and air-conditioned condominium developments form a stimulating dynamic, and an indelible backdrop on which the poet’s major concerns—memory, the land’s impression on the psyche, logos, spiritual longing—unfold, to distinct and brilliant consequence. When all the clique-ish whisperings cease, we will come to poetry like Miles Waggener’s Sky Harbor to regain a sense of what the genre can truly do. Rigorous and rewarding, brimful of craft and passion, this book emanates from a place—in the physical landscape and in the landscape of the mind—that is both longed for and exquisitely evoked. These poems shine the reader ‘through the lock’s narrow way.’”—CHRIS DOMBROWSKI, Author of By Cold Water
“Enter an earth dark with portents, some of which we have created ourselves: bird dead from a boy’s rock, fetus unable to come to term. In this uncannily orchestrated book of poems, the earth, our familiar, is given back to us strange, a landscape caught between the violence of the past and impending apocalypse, where we, as humans, exist between danger and domain. Miles Waggener has written a narrative of last days in a language that staggers, turning corners, sometimes perilously, in a search for doors, gates, horizons which will open, ‘the last-ditch efforts in the inclement that you, that your children become.’ Read this book slowly; it is as breathtaking and suspenseful as our time here.”—MELISSA KWASNY, Author of The Nine Senses
AUTHOR BIO
MILES WAGGENER is the author of Phoenix Suites (The Word Works, 03), winner of the Washington Prize. He lives in Omaha, Nebraska with his wife and fellow writer Megan Gannon and their son Manny.
6/20/2011 Back in the Animal Kingdom is Now Available!!
Back in the Animal Kingdom, Poems by Neil Harrison, is now available. Back in the Animal Kingdom was released by Pinyon Publishing in Montrose, Colorado on 6/20/2011 (6” x 9” paperback, 110 pages, paperback, $15.00, ISBN: 978-1-936671-02-1). For more information, please contact susanelliott@pinyon-publishing.com.
PRAISE FOR BACK IN THE ANIMAL KINGDOM
“Harrison’s poems derive from a curiosity and passion for the out-of-doors. The poems seek to answer questions that probably cannot finally be answered. Yet out of necessity Harrison perseveres. ‘I need to scent again / the mountain air // in that high camp / up on Cutthroat Lake,’ he writes. ‘I need that light, / that god, / the sun.’”
His animal kingdom remains a mystery, but its ‘timeless burning / pulse’ conceals wildness beyond the reach of the human mind. Among these wonders are the great blue heron, the snowy egret, the coyote, the Canadian goose, the fence row ‘ripe with plums, grapes, sunflowers, coneflowers / and beyond, vast fields of golden corn and beans.’ A place where, ‘from high heavens a dark hawk / unlocks its talons teaching a snake to fall.’ This ‘glorious chain of mysteries goes on,’ and that, in itself, is perhaps the deepest mystery.
Harrison’s poems are beautifully crafted, with just enough rhythm to deflect the craft. Most of the poems are written in free verse, but from time to time he introduces a conventional form—as, for example, ‘Go Gently On,’ a strikingly lovely villanelle. Individually and collectively these poems offer a marvelous and compelling journey into the animal kingdom, a journey that ‘sets us spinning / out once more into the awe-filled everlasting . . .’”—WILLIAM KLOEFKORN, Nebraska State Poet
“A dog’s run leads us into an opening in the continuum, into wildness intercepted by man, taking us into the precise pulse of it all, in this wild place we all know. Whether ‘Under thrumming streets in the city of dreams,’ or ankle-deep in prairie grass, watching as ‘A spattered black iridescence / feathers each small body / floating / like a living heaven full of stars,’ we are changed and made over in this reading. There’s a bard on the river in this spectacular ‘dream-world built of words,’ this bridge between existences. Like Orion, he’s carrying a bow to feed us all, Sirius alongside. This book is nourishment. Take from it.”—ALLISON HEDGE COKE, Reynolds Chair of Creative Writing; Platte Valley Review, Senior Editor; University of Nebraska, Kearney
“Back in the Animal Kingdom, is rooted in the immense landscape of the Plains. Harrison is attuned to nature and all living things, and draws us into the terrain he knows. He scans his memory for those moments that remain clear and shining years after they happen. Above all, he sheds light on his past and ours in celebration and sorrow. These poems pay attention, and they force the reader to do the same.”—MARIA MAZZIOTTI GILLAN, Winner of the Barnes & Noble Writers for Writers Award from Poets & Writers, 2011; American Book Award for All That Lies Between Us (2008)
AUTHOR BIO
NEIL HARRISON has worked as a livestock-market yardman and night chute-man, feedlot worker, construction worker, house painter, machine-gunner in the 325th Airborne Infantry, casket bearer in Arlington National Cemetery as a member of the 3rd U.S. Infantry, farm and ranch hand, block-layer’s assistant, gas-station attendant, plumber’s assistant, masonry crew worker, and postal clerk, with various episodes of schooling scattered throughout. Among his most memorable experiences was a one-day excursion as a carpet cleaner, negotiating rush hour traffic in Omaha in a hot-pink minivan with the company’s proud logo, TICKLED PINK, writ large on either side.
At present, Harrison teaches English and Creative Writing at Northeast Community College in Norfolk, Nebraska, where he coordinates the Visiting Writers Series.
9/14/2011 A Listening Life is Now Available!!
A Listening Life, by Tracy Balzer, is now available. A Listening Life was released by Pinyon Publishing in Montrose, Colorado on 9/14/2011 (6” x 9” paperback, 112 pages, paperback, $16.00, ISBN: 978-1-936671-04-5). For more information, please contact susanelliott@pinyon-publishing.com.
PRAISE FOR A LISTENING LIFE
“Wonder, attention, journey, stillness―A Listening Life explores the very lineaments of the spiritual life. In reflecting on these themes, Balzer draws, of course, on Scripture, but also on wildlife, poetry, art, and the text of her own ordinary and extraordinary life as a minister, mother, wife, friend, and disciple of Jesus Christ. Her book cultivates wonder and attentiveness―I found myself becoming calmer, more peaceful, and more prayerful as I read. I am so thankful for A Listening Life. Quite simply, it is a book that I need.”―LAUREN WINNER, Author of Girl Meets God and Mudhouse Sabbath
“Tracy Balzer has lived attentively to God and has found His glory in the wonder of whales and waterfalls. In this book she takes her readers to ‘thin places,’ enabling us to feel the holy awe that she discovered, and she offers great insights into the God who made them. After reading this book I can attest: The Listening Life is a life I want to live.”―JAMES BRYAN SMITH, Author of The Good and Beautiful series
“Tracy Balzer has written a spiritual and practical book about the reality of her own and others’ connection with the living God. I love both the sweetness and challenge of it. I recommend this book to all who seek to go deeper with God.”―JILL BRISCOE, Author of Spiritual Arts: Mastering the Disciplines for a Rich Spiritual Life and Heart Cry
“This is a true and hopeful book. Tracy Balzer not only discovers deeply enriching disciplines as she listens, she writes about them vividly, intimately, opening up to us her sensitive heart in a way that draws us towards the God she hears speaking. I love her self-revealing honesty and the stories that tell how she finds divine wisdom in her own life events and relationships.”―LUCI SHAW, Author of Breath for the Bones and Water My Soul and Writer in Residence, Regent College
“This wise book reminds us not only that we should listen to God in life and especially in Scripture, but it also shows us the various ways we can do that. Balzer gently coaxes the reader into a lifestyle of attentiveness to the holy all around us.”―MARK GALLI, Senior Managing Editor, Christianity Today
AUTHOR BIO
TRACY BALZER is the Director of Christian Formation at John Brown University in Siloam Springs, Arkansas. She is the author of Thin Places: An Evangelical Journey into Celtic Christianity and has a particular affection for the British Isles, leading spiritual pilgrimages and study trips there frequently. She is also a certified spiritual director and is in process of becoming an oblate at nearby Subiaco Abbey. Tracy and her husband, Cary, have two daughters: Kelsey, married to Jordan Howard, and Langley.
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