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Kassten Alonso takes the reader on a wild ride inside the mind of a profoundly disturbed man as he descends into madness and violence. A beautifully written book. Impossible to put down.—James Frey, author of A Million Little Pieces

Kassten Alonso’s amazing Core will startle you. A fierce story that actually taught me to read it as I went deeper and deeper—it’s as if this book is written in a rich, beautiful language I’d once known and somehow forgotten. I’m happy and terrified to have it back.—Peter Rock, author of The Bewildered

A novel of considerable daring and precision. In finely worked language, Kassten Alonso explores the border between Hell and the everyday, finding it closer than we might have hoped. A dense, surprising, beautifully worked novel. —Kevin Canty, author of Winslow in Love

Sentences sputter and fracture. Noting is linear. But the story progresses, through repetitions of words and phrases, and occansional clear windows in the kaleidoscope of narration, constructing a crazy quilt of a story of love gone terribly wrong, and bad things that happen because of it. —The Oregonian

A gorgeous, fractured novel about a homicidal sculptor of stones and ceramics.—Creative Loafing Atlanta

A true craftsman, Alonso controls his form &endash; portraying the internal madness of the main character without sacrificing clarity of style or plot orientation. Further, what in lesser hands could have easily lapsed into tedious stream of consciousness becomes a sublime landscape of mental anguish and crazed logic. —The Portland Alliance

Kassten Alonso's debut novel is stark and affecting. , Juxtaposing the sweet and the macabre, Alonso heightens the reader's perceptions of each. Alonso's prose is exquisite and artistic. He's able to reflect the narrator's instability amazingly well through a sort of stream of consciousness prose, while never losing the descriptiveness and lyrical quality that captures and holds the reader's attention from the first to the last page.

Alonso's modern gothic tale-- think windswept American corn fields rather than dark English moors-- is absolutely arresting. Core: A Romance is the demonstration of a writer with great skill and precision. Highly recommended. —The Absinthe Literary Review

These authors have no idea what a pain in the ass it is filing titles that begin with numbers.” —Matt Plies, Annie Bloom's Books

Ravishing work, my son. Voluptuously heartbreaking. —Thomas Aquinas

Anyplace around here I might wash my hands? —Pontius Pilate

How about 501 Minutes to Lunch? —Barabbas

By grace, through faith, they offed my head in 65, but I’m still here as you see, a Pharisee, a tortured wanderer, like this man Ballantine, by grace through faith, as to all those who wait, and shirk not the light of truth. —Saint Paul the Apostle

My soul yearns to know this most entangled enigma. I confess to Thee, O Lord, that I really have no idea what Poe Ballantine is talking about. —Saint Augustine

OK, so I edited the Bible as you know it, and I was a pagan emperor and all that, but when my Franks and I marched outnumbered under the Christian standard and whipped those Goth mercenaries all the way to the Hellespont, Rome saw another glorious millennium. In hoc signo vinces. Remember also: Istanbul was Constantinople. Now it's Istanbul, not Constantinople. Been a long time gone, Constantinople. Now it's Turkish delight on a moonlit night. —Constantine the Great

Hey, that guy stole our song. —The Four Lads

Shameless manipulation of Christian Iconography worked for me, and I’m not even a real blonde! —Madonna

They weren’t talking to you, my dear. —Madonna

Oh, you bore me, you’re all so boring. —Satan

No matter if you didn't catch the first book. Or if fiction about young guys who drink themselves pie-eyed every night, and lust after each other's girlfriends is not your favorite genre. Ballantine's genial, reckless narrator is part Huck Finn, part Hunter S. Thompson. And in a few pages he's charming you, more than any "pot-smoking, card-playing, music-loving, late night party hound" really should.— The Seattle Times

This second novel from Ballantine (after God Clobbers Us All) initially conjures images of Lord of the Flies, but then you would have to add about ten years to the protagnists' ages and make them sex-crazed, gold-seeking alcoholics. — Library Journal

Poe Ballantine in this sequel to God Clobbers Us All, reveals that he is a writer with a keen ear and a blistering wit...it's a prime opportunity to observe a writer's joyful wallow in the decadence of words. — The Austin Chronicle

Edgar's supersize pal Mountain is the best of the author's creations: "He possesses a merry and absurd sweetness . . . combined with a body mass that can block out the sun." — Booklist

Ballantine's second novel is ...memorable...funny and smart, and rarely boring. — Philadelphia Weekly

Decline of the Lawrence Welk Empire has the same amped tone and subtropical setting as Hunter S. Thompson’s The Rum Diary but less of the gonzo arrogance and more of that good ol’ American angst.

Fans will remember Edgar from Ballantine’s first novel, God Clobbers Us All, and will again be rewarded with the self-effacing character also visible in his inimitable essays in the Sun Magazine. The prose is poised on the brink of perfection, and the plot twists into an unexpected yet perfect conclusion that makes scotch and roadkill seem almost palatable. ... — San Francisco Bay Guardian

Ballantine’s novel is an entertaining coming-of-age story.” — The San Francisco Chronicle

A surfer dude transforms into someone captivatingly fragile, and Ballantine's novel becomes something tender, vulnerable, even sweet without that ickly, cloying literary aftertaste. This vulnerability separates Ballantine's work from his chosen peers. Calmer than Bukowski, less portentous than Kerouac, more hopeful than West, Poe Ballantine may not be sitting at the table of his mentors, but perhaps he deserves his own after all. — The San Diego Union-Tribune

It's a compelling, quirky read. — The Oregonian

Poe Ballantine has created an extremely fast page-turner. Edgar, in first-person narrative, is instantly likeable, and his constant misadventures flow seamlessly. Partially analyzed daydreams hint at an intriguing adolescent intellect without rambling on into psychological overkill. Ballantine paints southern California with voluptuous detail. Green suns, kaleidoscopic blue eyes, yellow moons and other Lucky Charms marshmallows decorate Edgar's acid-tinged world with an effect more tangible than psychedelic. The blank gloom of the hospital and the florid '70s California coast serve as the arena for this initiation into adulthood. — Willamette Week

God Clobbers Us All succeed[s] on the strength of its characterization and Ballantine's appreciation for the true-life denizens of the Lemon Acres rest home. The gritty daily details of occupants of a home for the dying have a stark vibrancy that cannot help but grab one's attention, and the off-hours drug, surf, and screw obsessions of its young narrator, Edgar Donahoe, and his coworkers have a genuine sheen that captivates almost as effectively. — The Absinthe Literary Review

A wry and ergoty experience. — Gobshite Quarterly

That the resulting melange of a plot draws the reader's attention from the first page and leaves one wanting more is a tribute to a storyteller with a keen sense of irony, a precise power of observation, a deep understanding of psychology, and a lyrical command of language... It's not just an eccentric plot that keeps God Clobbers Us All afloat though, Ballantine's prose carries metaphorical powers that make a day of mediocre surfing into a symphony, soften even the harsh indignity of an unintended nursing home death, and illuminate the distorted reality of psychedelic hallucination. — The Chadron Record

Ballantine pulls no punches as he writes about Edgar's life in the 1970's. But even though his sexual and drug-related stories are graphic, they are not disturbing. He has a way with words, and this story takes on a life of its own. It's easy to get involved in the story after page three. After page three, you're hooked; it's that simple. — Book Review Cafe

In Ballantine's world, the trip between a joyful guffaw and overwhelming hopelessness takes the blink of a well-turned sentence. It doesn't seem to matter what our particular take on life is; the stories teem with such substantial realism and human interest that we have no choice but to disregard our individual dispositions and get on the bus for the next disappointing town, the next rainy bus stop … The stories are well worth the price of admission. —The Absinthe Literary Review

Part social commentary, part collective biography, this guided tour may not be comfortable, but one thing's for sure: You will be at home.— Willamette Week

Meet the new guide on the lonesome highway. Poe Ballantine’s wry voice, clear eye, hilarious accounts and lyrical language bring us up short by reminding us that America has always been about flight, and for most of its citizens it has been about defeat. His wanderings, drifters, bad motels, cheap wine, dead-end jobs and drugs take us home, the home Betty Crocker never lived in. We’re on the road again, but this time we know better than to hope for a rumbling V-8 and any answers blowing in the wind. The bus has been a long time coming, but thank God it has arrived with Mr. Ballantine aboard. Sit down, give him a listen and make your own list of Things I Like About America. —Charles Bowden, author of Blues for Cannibals and Blood Orchid.

Poe Ballantine reminds us that in a country full of identical strip malls and chain restaurants, there’s still room for adventure. He finds the humor in situations most would find unbearable and flourishes like a modern-day Kerouac. With his funny, honest prose, Ballantine explores the important questions about being an American: Do I have enough money to buy this bucket of KFC? Can I abide another sixteen-hour Greyhound bus trip? Did my crazy roommate steal my beer again? It’s a book to cherish and pass on to friends. —Mark Jude Poirier, author of Unsung Heroes of American Industry and Goats.

Poe Ballantine makes sense of American alienation: the impulse to roam endlessly looking for the thing we know doesn’t exist and that place where we belong that could be anywhere. He makes writing really well seem effortless, even as he’s telling us how painful writing is. He knows that life is the most funny when it shouldn’t be, and that the heart breaks the most during small moments. These stories are shining gems. He kills me, this guy. —Mimi Pond, author of Splitting Hairs: The Bald Truth About Bad Hair Days.

In his search for the real America, Poe Ballantine reminds me of the legendary musk deer, who wanders from valley to valley and hilltop to hilltop searching for the source of the intoxicating musk fragrance that actually comes from him. Along the way, he writes some of the best prose I’ve ever read. —Sy Safransky, editor, The Sun.

Madison House treats readers to a boarding house full of fascinating and lovable characters as they create their own identities and contribute to early 20th century life in Seattle. Every page reflects Peter Donahue’s meticulous and imaginative recreation of a lively and engaging moment in American history. I loved reading this novel and sharing in the pleasures and labors of the diverse and authentic inhabitants of a remarkable city. —Sena Jeter Naslund, author of Four Spirits and Ahab’s Wife

Peter Donahue crafts a resplendent novel examining life in Seattle in the early 20th century, complete with a Dickensian cast of unforgettable characters; a handsome edition from a rising literary house in Portland. —Seattle Post Intelligencer

The historical detail is compelling and effectively interlaced with the action. Those interested in the history of the Northwest will find much to savor here. —Booklist

An ambitious novel... Donahue’s story is a paean to a significant part of the city’s history. —The Seattle Times

Madison House is reminiscent of the tomes of the 19th century - filled with descriptive passages and forays into the lives of various characters, telling, ultimately, the tale of Seattle's emergence as a city during the first decade of the 20th century. The author's research shows, but does not intrude. The characters are unique and believable... Peter Donahue has penned a memorable chronicle of life in the Pacific Northwest one hundred years ago. —The Historical Novels Review

A richly atmospheric debut novel. —Elliott Bay Book Company

Donahue's affecting literary narrative successfully incorporates social, political, and cultural history as seen through the eyes of the dispossessed, disadvantaged, and disenfranchised in a pivotal time in Seattle's history. —The Absinthe Literary Review

Riffing on language and revising her jokes in nervous flurries, Nita is the most endearingly teary clown since Smokey Robinson.” —Entertainment Weekly

Clown Girl is a devilishly quirky look at a downtrodden young clown adrift in the hostile streets of Baloneytown. It is a worthy fictional successor to another Rose City female writer's highly original novel with not-dissimilar material -- Katherine Dunn's Geek Love, an instant idiosyncratic classic about freaks in a traveling carnival that was a finalist for the National Book Award in 1989. —Seattle Post Intelligencer

Welcome to wacky, stressful Baloneytown, where clown prostitution, stoned dogs and fire juggling-cum-arson are the norm. [T]he pace of the narrative is methamphetamine-frantic, as Drake drills down past the face paint and into Nita's core, often using Nita's relations with men as the bit. Nita emerges as a fully-realized character, bearing witness to a lot of the emotionally ridiculous and just a hint of the sublime. [T]here is a lot more going on here than just clowning around. —Publishers Weekly

Sniffles, the titular clown girl, is endearingly self-deprecating, an oddball comic who masks her insecurity with a show of bravado and, more literally, a crazy array of clown garb. Clown Girl is a polished, quirky and often-funny look at the dark side of clown life. —Winnipeg Free Press

Can a farce involving strap-on “pendulous breasts,” a rubber chicken called Plucky, biblical balloon tricks, a marijuana-eating puppy, clown fetishists and the phrase “EKG=Nazis” also succeed as a work of psychological realism? Monica Drake's debut novel Clown Girl leads me to believe the answer is yes. Clown Girl's pages give off the perfume of sun-baked concrete, cinnamon, turpentine, spilled beer, bruised fruit, piss and clown grease. It's a sharp and engaging debut—which I suppose is a fancy way of saying I want to read it again. —Philadelphia Weekly

Drake's humor will strike some as dark, but it would be more accurately described as shades of gray shot through with hot pink. Her Nita is hilarious and poignant, fantastical and real. —The Oregonian

Drake is raising expectations with Clown Girl,, a tight, claustrophobic little tale with a charming cast of self-obsessed screwups. —Willamette Week

While clowns are visual creations who rely on their physical presence to ensnare (or terrify) their audience, Drake very deftly translates that physicality to prose—I had the urge to put the book down and applaud. —The Stranger

Clown Girl is sideways humor: social commentary disguised as pratfalls. It's surely one of the most polished and eccentric pieces of fiction to come along in recent memory, the result of several years' work by this talented Portland writer. Drake's humor won't compute for every reader. Just the smart ones who dig gray and hot-pink neon. —Seattle Times

Drake's imagination is boundless, her compassion intense. No matter how absurd a situation this antiheroine gets herself into, it's impossible not to will her to get back out. The strange world that Drake creates in Clown Girl is peculiarity entrancing and wholly, vividly imagined: You can substitute any put-upon, impoverished, outside-the-mainstream or even simply imperfect sort of individual or group for her clowns, or you can read Clown Girl as a gorgeous mix of character study and unlikely manifesto about the artist's place in the world. —Eugene Weekly

Monica Drake’s Clown Girl is a high-voltage creation. She’s a passionate martyr to the art of clowning in a slapstick world that despises and exploits clowns. She’s hit a rough patch where the pratfalls hurt and the locals don’t get her jokes. She’s Groucho one hour, Chaplin the next, and a hospitalized Stooge or three by sunrise. She’s sad as Emmett Kelly, indignant as Holden Caulfield. Maybe she’s wrong. She’s certainly cranky. But Clown Girl is mesmerizing, drunk on the high wire, gorgeous and dangerous fun.

—Katherine Dunn, author of Geek Love

Clown Girl is an extreme novel⎯beyond metaphor, a hilarious book that asks the startling question: what does it mean to be serious about clowning? This intelligent narrative always keeps in mind the bleakness and desperation that initially caused a need for clowns, and that they, in their way, embody. Is there exaggeration in the book’s narrator, or in its world, or neither, or both? I found myself asking if I were myself a clown⎯and if not, why not? Caulrophiles and caulrophobes, prepare yourselves!—Peter Rock, author of The Unsettling

Monica Drake’s Clown Girl is a bright shining bubble of a novel, dark, funny and deeply strange. The writing is brilliant—I would read this novel for the sentences alone—but it is Sniffles herself and her struggles to come to grips with life in Baloneytown that stay with me. The word “unique” is widely abused but I think, for once, it’s justified: this novel is not much like anything else, and all the better for it. A really exciting debut. —Kevin Canty, author of Winslow in Love

If you can’t get enough of Monica Drake and want to read more, check out:

The Atlantic Journal-Constitution (www.ajc.com)

Statesman Journal (www.statesmanjournal.com)

Thereby Hangs a Tale (www.therebyhangsatale.com)

Suicide Girls (www.suicidegirls.com)

Fancy Pants Incorporated (www.fancypantsincorporated.com)

Anhedonia Poetry (http://anhedoniapoetry.blogspot.com)

Portland Monthly Magazine (February issue)

Seattle Monthly Magazine (March issue)

Resonance Magazine (March issue)

Indiana Review (Summer Issue)

Eugene Magazine (June issue)

How did a smart and sassy young woman end up living on the land in pure seventies style with a group of people who work as Donut Brothers going door-to-door selling for Our Father’s Bakery? Fallon takes us into the life of a born-again commune with compassion and humor — and she's an ungodly good guide. —Louise Rafkin, author of Other People’s Dirt: A Housecleaner’s Curious Adventures

So Late, So Soon is the story of one woman's misadventures in religion, but in the hands of a writer as skilled and generous as Fallon, it becomes the story of every person’s search for faith — in themselves, in others, and in the crazy ways of the world. A clear-eyed, compassionate, and rewarding book. —Bernard Cooper, author of Maps to Anywhere, winner of the 1991 PEN/Hemingway Award

I found D'Arcy Fallon's story fascinating, as will anyone who has ever wondered about the role women play in fundamental religious sects. What would draw an otherwise independent woman to a life of menial labor and subservience? Fallon's answer is this story, both an inside look at 70s commune life and a funny, irreverent, poignant coming of age. —Judy Blunt, author of Breaking Clean

A highly readable memoir.Fallon’s honest tale of her internal and external struggles within the repressed traditional construct of a garden-variety Jesus-Freak Central should be required reading for any young person who has recently “found” the Lord.

So Late, So Soon addresses the problem of spiritual hunger within the human sphere with style and a considerable eye to warts, navels, and better angels. Recommended. —The Absinthe Literary Review

Baudrillard and his ilk make one grateful for Harlan Ellison, the science-fiction novelist, who tells a story in September 11: West Coast Writers Approach Ground Zero. —New York Times

A remarkable anthology. —Los Angeles Times

September 11: West Coast Writers Approach Ground Zero deserves attention. This book has some highly thoughtful contributions that should be read with care on both coasts, and even in between. —San Francisco Chronicle

Jeff Meyers did an admirable job of soliciting material from diverse sources, and the results are sometimes startling. —The Oregonian

Fortunately, there’s new a collection of writings that looks more interesting than a book of portraits of September 11 babies.
—Seattle Weekly

Wide-awake and sensuously lyrical, Mark Mordue's Dastgah gets in behind the shell of the familiar, reminding us that the world is vast and strange and that everything is — in case we've forgotten — happening for the first time. —sven birkerts, editor of AGNI and author of My Sky Blue Trades: Growing Up Counter in a Contrary Time

An extraordinary and dazzling voyage across continents and into the mind. Mordue's book is almost impossible to summarize — reportage, reflection and poetry are all conjured onto the page as he grapples with the state of the world and his place in it. —Giles Milton, author of Nathaniel's Nutmeg: Or, the True and Incredible Adventures of the Spice Trader Who Changed the Course of History

A lovely, fascinating book. —David Almond, author of The Fire-Eaters and 2003 Whitbread Award Winner

Meticulously assembled... Mordue has elevated Dastgah beyond the realms of the traditional travelogue by sharing not only what he learned about cultures he visited, but also his brutally honest self-discoveries. —Elle

A lovely impressionistic book... idiosyncratic, entertaining, vulnerable and unpretentious ... Mordue skitters between worlds, not sparing his readers the contrast. —Newsweek

Dastgah is much more about what it means to be a traveler than a travel book. This is brave writing, unafraid to open itself to awkward emotions with honesty and passion. —Marie Claire

The stories in Scott Nadelson’s The Cantor’s Daughter – set mostly in suburban New Jersey among Jewish families – seethe with psychological insight. Nadelson brings a wry and loving eye to the complexity of all relationships and to human failure, in particular to the all-too-common failure to communicate. His characters make fragile accommodations in order to continue living in less-than-optimal circumstances, and he has a striking knack for identifying the perfect, odd, specific, often body-centered detail that he then renders with such startling precision that it recasts an entire scene. —Cai Emmons, author of His Mother's Son

Nadelson, a tireless investigator of the missed opportunity, works in clear prose that possesses a tremolo just below the surface. His narratives about contemporary American Jews are absorbing and satisfying, laying bare all manner of human imperfections and sweet, sad compensatory behaviors. —Stacey Levine, author of My Horse and Other Stories and Dra--.

Nadelson is a gifted storyteller whose award-winning 2004 debut, Saving Stanley: The Brickman Stories, mined similar terrain. He is adept at peeling away the superfluous layers and getting down to the unpleasant intricacies that are a part of our everyday relationships, be they parental, familial, marital, fraternal, or casual...These beautifully crafted stories are populated by Jewish suburbanites living in New Jersey, but ethnicity doesn't play too large a role here. Rather, it is the humanity of the characters and our empathy for them that binds us to their plights.— The Austin Chronicle

Nadelson, a visiting assistant professor of English at Willamette University, concerns himself with the everyday motions of living: going on vacation, a rehearsal dinner for a wedding, working and earning a living. Nadelson is particularly adept at allowing his characters, often family members, to reveal themselves as human beings complete with significant flaws...This is a thoughtful collection, compassionate yet unsparing in its observations. "Only connect," reads the oft-quoted passage from E.M. Forster's Howards End. If only the characters in these stories could.— The Oregonian

Authentic... careful stories about suburban New Jersey Jews turn on the inescapable mix of love and destruction... Nadelson bears unflinching witness to his characters' darkness. — Publishers Weekly

Nadelson tells his stories in unpretentious prose in which the writer is mostly invisible, a quality he has further refined in this second collection. It is a voice unmodulated by ego and infused with an intimacy that makes it seem almost as if the stories were being read to us alone in a quiet room. — Jewish Review

Nadelson's prose is sturdy but not flashy, almost workmanlike. As a mason lays bricks, he stacks one sentence upon another until slowly, a story emerges. — The Portland Mercury

In stories darkly comic and tragic at times, Nadelson's carefully crafted prose makes his characters' emotional shortcomings accessible to readers. Nadelson's best trick is slipping complex emotions and startling revelations between smooth and steady sentences, as a mother mixes in peas with the mashed potatoes so her child will eat his vegetables unwittingly. It is easy to become so invested in his characters' lives that it no longer matters how they became damaged; Nadelson's so engaging that the why is almost irrelevant. But the same thing that makes The Cantor's Daughter compelling—the hope that these characters will be able to put aside their problems and accept love—also makes it disappointing when a happy ending is so rare. What emerges from these complex characters is the unsettling feeling that unhealthy and painful relationships are not limited to New Jersey Jews. Those entanglements are an unfortunate fact of daily life that, according to Nadelson, force us to examine why we've become so reluctant to care about the people who care about us. — Willamette Week

A not-yet well-known award-winning author returns with a strong literary work of fiction, a quiet book that has much potential. — The Jewish Week

Nadelson writes well and his characters are convincingly real. — The Reporter

Nadelson's largest asset is his ability to write crystal-clear, eminently readable sentences. He has staked an imaginative claim on the suburbs of the Garden State and the quietly sad Jews who live there. He plays this poignant tune with grace and large reservoirs of heart.— New Jersery Jewish News

There's a certain thrill in reading a young writer coming into his own. The nuances of style, the interplay of theme and narrative, the keen and sympathetic eye for character—all rendered new by a fresh voice and talent. Scott Nadelson’s stories are bracing, lively, humorous, honest. A splendid debut. —Ehud Havazelet, author of Like Never Before and What Is It Then Between Us

Scott Nadelson’s fine first story collection achieves a rare balance between compassionate comedy and an unswerving attention to the dark trials of family life. Watching Daniel Brickman come of age was like watching a high-wire act: I held my breath for him, but felt the sure and steady net of Nadelson’s vision all along, keeping this boy, and his whole family, wildly alive. —Marjorie Sandor, author of Portrait of My Mother, Who Posed Nude in Wartime and The Night Gardener

The tortuous knots of Scott Nadelson’s Brickman family make my toes curl and my breath quicken. Equally powerful with narrative and dialogue, he is a writer in full possession of both his material and his craft. —Susan Thames, author of I’ll Be Home Late Tonight

It's thrilling to watch a young talent reach out and grasp the essence of an art form, particularly a form as rich and nuanced as the short story. In Saving Stanley, Scott Nadelson proves, line after line, that he has mastered the discipline and the delicacy required to orchestrate his chosen medium. That he does so with grace and ease, and an eye toward entertaining the reader, is a bonus matched only by the wisdom to be found here, as the members of the Brickman family inflict a series of disappointments on each other even as they try to help each other take their disappointments lightly. Smart, funny, and heartbreaking, Saving Stanley is an uncommonly exciting debut. —Tracy Daugherty, author of Five Shades of Shadow and Axeman’s Jazz

Scott Nadelson playfully introduces us to a fascinating family of characters with sharp and entertaining psychological observations in gracefully beautiful language, reminiscent of young Updike. I wish I could write such sentences. There is a lot of eros and humor here—a perfectly enjoyable book. —Josip Novakovich, author of Salvation and Other Disasters and Apricots from Chernobyl

Nadelson's writing is sharp and to the point. The family is engaging. This is a solid debut book for the Portland writer and teacher. —The Seattle Times

Focusing on small decisions and subtle shifts, Saving Stanley closely examines the frayed ties that bind. With a fly-on-the-wall sensibility and a keen sense for dramatic restraint, Nadelson is displayed here as both a promising local writer and an apt documentarian. —Willamette Week

Nadelson's compassion for the Brickman family, keen eye for detail and dialogue true to character make Saving Stanley a successful debut. —The Oregonian

Even a remarkable dreamer of nightmares like Nathanael West might have been hard-pressed to top the book’s finale…Seaview…is a very inventive work, unlike any other recent American novel in the freshness of its approach and vision. —The New York Times Book Review

The description of the game [of golf] is nicely and leisurely paced; it is suitably precise and concentrated, and the evocation of the players and the tensions that animate them is masterful. —The New Republic

Toby Olson is a superior writer of stylish and impelling prose, a storyteller of power, a recorder of human truths and a visionary. —Doris Grumback, National Public Radio

Gin Phillips has a remarkable ear for dialogue and a tenderhearted eye for detail … the ghosts of places and people and luscious peach pies, making it a strange combination of dream and nightmare, nightmare and dream.—The Los Angeles Times

A finely detailed debut … painted in precise, elegant strokes. Phillips has a gift for detail, for nailing life's little tragedies ... rarely has the innocence of childhood been as succinctly and heartbreakingly put.—Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A Southern novel written by a Southern author, but it avoids most of the southern clichés.—The Stranger

Gin Phillips’ wonderful debut novel … often caught me daydreaming about childhood visits to my grandparents’ home in Mississippi. But you don’t have to be a homesick Southerner to appreciate the rich writing and piercing winsomeness that makes up Phillips’ tale of the Moore family in Depression-era Alabama.

Ultimately what makes this book such a pleasure to read is that Phillips has captured the elusive sense of Southern family and tradition. Woven throughout the story are vignettes that will transport many readers back to a wooden front porch and a glass of cold tea, to the fleeting but beloved touch of a rugged hand on a child’s sweet-smelling head.

You don’t have to be a Southerner to enjoy The Well and the Mine. You just need to be prepared to feel like one.—The Portland Tribune

A prime example of Phillips’ strength is her keen eye for the idiosyncratic and the downright strange, a talent she employs to produce hearty laughs and striking images ... whereas most writers struggle to find a voice, Gin Phillips has hers nailed.—Willamette Week

Gentle and engrossing … Phillips' atmospheric novel is full of love and depth, as are her characters, these loving, ordinary folks, and the lives they staunchly continue to lead despite unforeseeable events and their inevitable, sometimes entirely internal, consequences.—Eugene Weekly

Leaving Brooklyn will stay with the reader, and remain...in our literature, a small masterpiece. —The Boston Globe

Leaving Brooklyn is an enormously intelligent novel about female initiation...frankly I’ve never read anything quite like it. It’s got an odd shape...the prose is very subdued...and it still lingers in my mind. — NPR, All Things Considered

The blend of lyricism and history, of memory and the imagination – all shot through with the female erotic – is wonderful. —Russell Banks

An electrifying book...it took my breath away. Audrey is every one of us at fifteen. —Maxine Kumin

A taut, brutal narrative...that comes to hypnotize, shimmering like the brilliant sun on the alfalfa fields. —New York Times Book Review

Forceful and moving... Spanbauer tells his short, brutal story with delicacy and deep respect for place and character. —Publishers Weekly

If the Green Man of medieval lore appeared in Oregon — the mystic version of Strelow’s Oregon — and if the ghost of Kesey helped keep the tale irreverent but strangely tender for place, person, and our chance, then you would hold in your hands The Greening of Ben Brown. And so you do. Let this quiet mystery take you where you need to be. — Kim Stafford, author of The Muses Among Us and Other Pleasures of the Writer’s Craft

With its richly cultivated and carefully tended prose, The Greening of Ben Brown is a compelling examination of community and what it means to love the land, for, as these characters teach us, there shall never be another quite like it. — Gina Ochsner, author of The Necessary Grace to Fall.

The Greening of Ben Brown is about communities, physical and emotional. It is a tale of wonders and everyday things. This is a wise book. While it might seem to be intrinsically about the Northwest, it is about universal things. Not many novels mean as much, entertain as much and stimulate as much as The Greening of Ben Brown.—Statesman Journal

The Greening of Ben Brown is an intriguing debut novel. —Seattle Post-Intelligencer

An English teacher at Willamette University, Strelow resonates as both poet and storyteller. In creating inhabitants of a town, its central figure and a strong sense of place, he lays on description lavishly, almost breathlessly, in both broad and detailed strokes. The author lovingly invokes a particular brand of Pacific Northwest magic realism, a blend of fable, social realism, wry wisdom and irreverence that brings to mind Ken Kesey, Tom Robbins and the best elements of a low-key mystery. —The Oregonian

Strelow’s powerful descriptive language in The Greening of Ben Brown proves beyond a doubt that he is an author to watch in the future. —Jackson Free Press

Debut novelist Michael Strelow’s prose is wonderfully descriptive, especially in describing the natural characteristics of East Leven, and clearly demonstrates his affection for the state he’s called home for more than thirty years. —The Absinthe Literary Review

Wonderful...Original...Terrific...Haunting...Reading Soldiers in Hiding is like watching a man on a high wire! —Los Angeles Times

Extraordinary...a feat of the imagination rendered with surprising skill...you'll remember this book for a long time. —Chicago Sun Times

Intelligent and interesting...daring and entirely convincing. —The Washington Post

A mature novel...the spirit of Graham Green is here. —Kirkus Reviews

Admirable, smooth, dispassionate...for an American to write from a Japanese standpoint, regardless of how long he has studied their culture, is an act of extreme literary bravery. —Christian Science Monitor

A work of exceptional power and imagination. —Publishers Weekly

Superb...First-Rate...Ingeniously plotted with surprising twists and turns that continually move the story in unexected directions. —Seattle Times

Richly imagined and wonderfully written...Richard Wiley is a first-rate talent! —Cleveland Plain Dealer

Satisfying...draws the reader into a combination of surprising plot turns and richly textured characters. —Atlanta Journal-Constitution