Peter Conners, editor at BOA Editions, introduces Martha Ronk's debut short story collection.

In one of my early editorial correspondences with Martha Ronk, she said of Glass Grapes and Other Stories (978-1-934414-13-4): "The main thrust behind the book was to create pieces in which objects rather than psychology had the major impact on characters and decisions. I wanted the physical world to throw about its very substantial weight." Interestingly enough, in a Ronk story, as we find in the title story "Glass Grapes," those physical objects usually land their "substantial weight" directly on top of a character's psyche. As a result, the character has all their insecurities, petty angers, real fears, hidden joys, and many obsessions squeezed out for readers to behold. And Ronk's characters are nothing if not obsessive. In fact, I would go so far as to say that no contemporary American writer is as skilled at laying bare the inner-workings of an obsessive mind as Martha Ronk. Part of the reason for her success is that her language is so precise and her sentences so deft that the reader has no choice but to follow along until Ronk decides to release them. The result is a trip through the psyche of an acutely aware and fiercely intelligent mind.     
 
Martha Ronk is an extremely distinguished American poet and fiction writer. Her work has garnered critical accolades and numerous awards including, most recently, a 2005 PEN USA Award in Poetry, a 2006 National Poetry Series Award, and a 2007 NEA Fellowship. Ronk is one of the rare writers with equally impressive facility in both poetry and fiction. Due to this facility, her fiction moves with grace, beauty, syntactical rigor, and the same attention to language as our most accomplished poetry. BOA Editions is proud to be the publisher of Martha Ronk's debut short story collection, Glass Grapes and Other Stories. We are pleased to present this sample story from the collection for your reading pleasure.

Raphael Kadushin, Senior Acquisitions Editor for The University of Wisconsin Press, introduces a story he wrote for the anthology, Big Trips: More Good Gay Writing.The story, called “At Home with James Herriot,” is available in its entirety at the Book Club for the next week. Don’t miss it; it’s hilarious.

This is a story I wrote for my anthology Big Trips: More Good Gay Travel Writing published by Terrace Books, an imprint of the University of Wisconsin Press. The story is clearly (I hope) fiction, with maybe just a little seam of autobiography (it’s actually the slightly altered chapter from a novel-in-progress). And the fact that it’s fiction is true to the anthology itself, which deliberately blends different genres (fiction, creative nonfiction, plays, etc). Why? In putting together a collection of strong travel writing I didn’t want to limit the pieces and I wanted to avoid the generic consumer travel piece (the 10 best brewpubs in London and 36 hours in Seville sort of piece). Instead I was looking for strong essays and stories that reclaimed classic, impressionistic travel writing, the kind that convey the flavor and sensibility of a place, explore the reasons we travel, and consider how we define home. So I asked some of the finest sometimes inadvertent travel writers writing today (Edmund White, Dale Peck, Andrew Holleran, Michael Klein, Douglas Martin, Bruce Benderson, Brian Bouldrey, Martin Sherman, etc) and collected a real range of beautiful, narrative pieces that span the world (Prague, Vienna and Provincetown to Paris, Cario, Morocco, London, San Francisco, Florida, Rome, Mexico, Greece, Spain, the Dordogne, and Sicily). So there is something in Big Trips for everyone who loves to travel (and probably can’t afford to now) and anyone who likes a good well-told story.

More Good Gay Travel Writing
Edited by Raphael Kadushin
Publication Date: November 18, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-299-22860-6 Cloth, $24.95, 312 pages
Terrace Books: A trade imprint of the University of Wisconsin Press
http://www.wisc.edu/wisconsinpress/books/4291.htm

For more information or interview requests, please contact the Publicity Department, at Ph (608) 263-0734; Fax (608) 263-1132; or publicity@uwpress.wisc.edu.  We would appreciate receiving a copy of any notice that may appear. Please send tear sheets, noting name and location of publication and date of issue, to the Publicity Department at the University of Wisconsin Press.

"'Whenever I think back to that dreadful experience, I feel as if an ice-cold dead man's hand is stroking my back, while at the same time my brain is giving up the third dimension between the buffers of freight trains being switched.'"

So exclaims the narrator in this story by Otto Willi Gail, The Missing Clock Hands: An Implausible Happening, translated by Mike Mitchell and originally published in Germany in 1929.

Science fiction began to appear in Germany around the turn of the century in what were called "novels of the future," or "utopian-technical novels." A major early figure was Kurd Lasswitz, a mathematician, philosopher, and poet whose short story "The Universal Library" -- about a system wherein everything that is written can be stored in a finite number of volumes using a small number of signs --  inspired Argentine Jorge Luis  Borges to write "The Library of Babel." (And who knows what Google that inspired.)

For the most part however, German-language science fiction was untranslated and therefore unknown. Franz Rottensteiner, editor of the critical science fiction magazine Quaber Merkur, here brings together for the first time an historical sampling indicating the development of the genre. Spanning 137 years, this anthology, translated by Mike Mitchell, provides a fascinating glimpse into the past and present minds of the future.

The Black Mirror & Other Stories: An Anthology of Science Fiction from Germany and Australia
Edited by Franz Rottensteiner
Translated by Mike Mitchell
Wesleyan University Press, 978-0-8195-6831-1

Senior Editor Jason Gardner picks his favorite book of the fall, Solitude: Seeking Wisdom in Extremes—A Year Alone in the Patagonia Wilderness by Robert Kull (978-1-57731-632-9), reviewed in the September/October issue of ForeWord.

Jason Gardner, Senior Editor

How long have you been with the company?
I’ve worked for New World Library for twelve years. I’ve been acquiring books for the last ten.

What is the book you are most excited by this season, and how did it come to your attention?
Of course I’m excited about all my fall books, but I’m probably most personally excited about Solitude: Seeking Wisdom in Extremes--A Year Alone in the Patagonia Wilderness by Robert Kull. I’ve always loved writers who approach the natural world from a mystical or spiritual perspective (for lack of better words), particularly Buddhist-leaning writers Peter Matthiessen, Gary Snyder, and Jim Harrison. So I was excited when Christian de Quincey, a writer and agent who formerly worked as managing editor at the Institute of Noetic Sciences, sent me Robert Kull’s manuscript. Kull traveled to a remote island off the coast of Patagonia with supplies to live by himself for an entire year. The manuscript was adapted from his journal, which also became his PhD dissertation. In addition to the raw, vivid details of his daily life—both inner and outer—Bob interweaves philosophical meditations on what solitude means in this increasingly connected technological world. His goal was to explore the very things we typically try to avoid in our busy lives, whether they’re physical or psychological. In the end it’s both an examination of human consciousness, an experiment in awareness, and a beautiful description of wildlife, terrain, and weather.

What can you tell us about the author?
Check out Bob’s bio: “Born in Ventura, California, Robert Kull has spent years wandering North and South America working as a scuba instructor, travel guide, construction worker, logger, community organic gardening teacher, truck driver, bartender, dishwasher, firefighter, photographer, and professor. In 1985 he lost his lower right leg after a motorcycle crash in the Dominican Republic. He began undergraduate studies at age forty and now holds a PhD from the University of British Columbia.” Clearly, Bob approaches life a little differently and maybe has the ideal background for this kind of undertaking. He’s been giving a slide show describing his year alone, which audiences have really responded to.

Who will enjoy this book?
We struggled a little in deciding where to shelve this book since it includes elements of several genres: Jon Krakauer--like adventure reportage, armchair travel, nature writing, and philosophical/spiritual explorations of consciousness. In the end, nature writing made the most sense, but I think the book could appeal to readers interested in any of these subjects.

What can you tell us about the (excerpt) published online?
The book consists of journal entries, interspersed with interludes on such topics as other solitaries, solitude and meditation, and technology and desire. The excerpted introduction gives a great overview of Bob’s motivations and preparations for this adventure.

Senior Editor Shana Drehs talks about a new novel that’s close to her heart, To Catch the Lightning by NPR’s Alan Cheuse.

Name and Publisher:
Shana Drehs, Senior Editor, Sourcebooks

How long have you been with the company?
I came to Sourcebooks two years ago after several years at Crown. I’m glad I’ve had the chance to experience publishing from both the conglomerate and independent sides as it’s been quite an education. Sourcebooks is a leading independent publisher and the passion for books and authors is contagious here. Despite these tough times in the economy and industry, fortunately we are producing solid results. Based on recent BookScan data, Sourcebooks’ in-store sales through the register have increased 40% since 2005. And during the first half of 2008, Sourcebooks had the second-highest growth of any large publisher--we outgrew the market three-fold!

What is the book you are most excited by this season, and how did it come to your attention?
I have to say that it’s hard to pick one book out of our fall list as they’re all so compelling. From Nikki Giovanni’s innovative, mixed-media children’s picture book, HIP HOP SPEAKS TO CHILDREN, to the visually stunning coffee-table photography book and audio CD, COUNTRY MUSIC: THE MASTERS, by renowned country music icon Marty Stuart, this fall season is by far Sourcebooks’ strongest fall season to date. But the one title that’s very close to my heart is TO CATCH THE LIGHTNING, by Alan Cheuse. Of course, we’ve had a relationship with Alan for years as he is known as the “voice of books” for NPR, but this is the first book of Alan’s we’ve had the chance to publish, and we’re absolutely delighted. We began talking to Alan about the novel at BEA in 2007, and it’s been a fascinating journey into history ever since.

What can you tell us about the author?
Alan Cheuse has been working on this book for nine years – his focus and drive to craft a poetic novel drawn from the real life of frontier photographer Edward Curtis has made this a layered, intricate story of choice and sacrifice. This is Alan’s ninth book, and I think this is the one he’s been destined to write. His short fiction has appeared in places such as The New Yorker, Ploughshares, and The Antioch Review, among other places. He teaches in the Writing Program at George Mason University and the Squaw Valley Community of Writers. He is a regular contributor to NPR’s “All Things Considered,” which you can listen to online at www.alancheuse.com.

Who will enjoy this book?
Anyone interested in American history and in stories of how obsession can drive us to do great things and make terrible sacrifices. I think anyone who enjoyed the work of Charles Frazier (who called TO CATCH THE LIGHTNING ”compelling fiction that digs deep into the mystery and sacrifice and selfishness of creative vision.”) would love this. Alan has created a masterful portrait of the legendary Edward Curtis and his quest to capture the past, to document and photograph the fading way of life of the American Indian. It’s about a landscape of unparalleled beauty and tradition, about the dreams that haunt us and the spirits who guide us. Women will love the enduring power of the muses that speak to Edward and the unmistakable pull of family, and men will undoubtedly be engrossed by the hardscrabble determination bound up with a drive to do something big, something that leaves a permanent mark on the world.

ForeWord reviewed To Catch the Lightning in this year’s Sept/Oct issue, as well as Cheuse’s 1999 title from Southern Methodist, Lost and Old Rivers.

Interview by Editor-in-Chief Heather Shaw

This week, Heather Lundine, Acquisitions and Editor-in-Chief of University of Nebraska Press, introduces her favorite title of the season.

How long have you been with the company?: Almost 5 years

What is the book you are most excited by this season, and how did it come to your attention?: Corkscrewed by Robert Camuto. This came through an agent as a submission for our At Table series

What can you tell us about the author?: Robert is a freelance writer — he does food and travel writing for Washington Post, Wine Spectator, and other great publications. He, his wife, and son moved from Texas to France a few years ago.

Who will enjoy this book?: Wine enthusiasts, francophiles, people who like travel books; it’s really a great book filled with funny and endearing characters, so I think it’s appeal could exceed its genre and topic

What can you tell us about the excerpt published online?: The excerpt comes from the book’s introduction. While it’s a bit different from the body of the work (which is more focused on these interesting, passionate, independent vintners across France who are making very personal, small batch wines), it is a great welcome to the author’s sensibility, humor, and motives.

Corkscrewed by Robert Camuto is available wherever books are sold or from the University of Nebraska Press 800.755.1105 and on the web at www.nebraskapress.unl.edu. Corkscrewed is copyright 2008 by Robert V. Camuto. All rights reserved.

Join Gayle Wattawa, Acquisitions Editor at Heyday Books, in her enthusiasm for their new title, Edges of Bounty: Adventures in the Edible Valley (978-1-59714-108-6) by Californian William Emery with photographs by Scott Squire. An excerpt from Edges of Bounty: Adventures in the Edible Valley is available for one week via the link in the right column.

How long have you been with the company?
I’ve worked for Heyday for almost five years and loved every minute of it.

What is the book you are most excited by this season, and how did it come to your attention?
I’m most excited by our upcoming Edges of Bounty (November) by William Emery with photographs by Scott Squire. William is actually the former acquisitions editor at Heyday Books and a wonderful friend. He and Scott, an accomplished documentary photographer, traveled all around California’s Central Valley and sought out people who are intimately and passionately involved in the relatively small-scale production of their own food: a beekeeper able to snatch a honeybee from midair to show William and Scott the honey inside, a woman who takes wonderfully bizarre ingredients—beets! avocados! rosemary!—and makes popsicles from them, a crew preparing a sumptuous sopas dinner for a thousand Portuguese immigrants, and a “river rat” and self-proclaimed liar who gets up every morning, puts on his duct-taped-together shoes and opens a trap door on the floor of his house to fish the Delta (where the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers meet)—these are some of the offbeat characters that populate the book and open their worlds to—and share their bounty with—these two strangers. The writing is gentle, humorous, insightful, probing, and deeply poetic, as are the accompanying photographs. And the food that’s discussed! It’s quite the experience, and it perfectly illustrates the kind of work that we do best—exploring all things California, from the obvious stuff like the Gold Rush and Yosemite, to the lives of those working in roadside produce stands.

What can you tell us about the author?
William is one of those authors that’s so fun to describe: he grew up a farm boy in rural Kansas, studied Russian language and literature, worked as a vacuum salesman and an early-morning donut fryer, dabbled in publishing for a couple of years and added some spectacular writers to our list, and then left to pursue his own writing, dividing his time between the Bay Area, where he bartends at a local pub, and Kansas, where he’s growing different kinds of grapes for the establishment of a winery. He’s deeply curious and a great lover of all things food-related. What better person to write a book like this? Scott is a Seattle-based photographer who has traveled extensively, documenting places like Romania and Cairo, tirelessly exploring social justice issues word-wide.

Who will enjoy this book?
Really anyone at all interested in food would enjoy this: anyone who likes going to farmer’s markets, who is curious about food production, who wonders where the ingredients to the dishes served at high end restaurants come from, who loves great travel writing, who fantasizes about making his or her own cheese and honey, who loves the idea of self-sufficiency, who is interested in life in non-coastal California, and also anyone who has never seen what a field of rotting melons looks like (absolutely horrifying but also strangely beautiful).

What can you tell us about the (excerpt) published online?
This excerpt is the first chapter (“The Bearer of Strange Melons”) from the first part (“Farmers”) of Edges of Bounty. William and Scott set off on their vaguely planned journey, meeting up with Mike Madison, a melon farmer engaged in “guerilla agriculture.” Edges of Bounty will be available in November. It’s an 8x10, 224-page trade paperback with 90 full-color photographs and a list price of $24.95.

This week, Other Press editor Corinna Barsan talks about her favorite pick for fall, The Common Bond (978-1-59051-306-4). The novel by Donigan Merritt is about a “man’s attempt to surmount grief and guilt, recover his past, and claim a future” after the death of his wife. An excerpt from The Common Bond is available for one week.

I’m excited by a number of books this fall, Randa Jarrar’s A Map of Home and Michael Greenberg’s Hurry Down Sunshine, but I have a soft spot for Donigan Merritt’s The Common Bond. It’s the second of Don’s novels that we’re publishing. The previous title, Possessed by Shadows, came out in 2005. I hadn’t read Don’s work before coming to Other Press so when The Common Bond landed on my desk I was in for a treat. By chapter four I was already living with the protagonist in Hawaii and completely invested in the characters and their stories. There was no question that it was a book I wanted to edit and an author I wanted to work with.

Donigan Merritt is a man of the world and a man who has worn many hats, which is certainly reflected in his writing. He was raised in the southern town of Magnolia, Arkansas but he didn’t stay put for long when wanderlust took him to Hawaii, Iowa, Bratislava, Slovakia, and Berlin, Germany, among other locales. Since leaving his hometown, Don worked such diverse jobs as airport cargo loader to paratrooper in the Army to philosophy professor. Lucky for us, he’s also a writer. The Common Bond draws on some of Don’s own experiences when he lived in Hawaii working as a deckhand on a sport fishing boat and then as a captain after he received his Coast Guard Captain’s license. You can read a little about his days living in Kona on Don’s blog and also keep up with his latest news at http://doniganmerritt.typepad.com

In this excerpt of Chapter Two, Morgan Cary has just arrived back home in Hawaii after being away for roughly a decade. His wife has recently died, and he is returning to the ghosts of his past within the lush backdrop of the island and inside the walls of the Sunset Lanai motel.

This week, MacAdam/Cage editor David Adams talks about his favorite pick for fall. An excerpt from Our Lady of Pain is available for one week at our Book Club.

What is the book you are most excited by this season, and how did it come to your attention?
Our Lady of Pain, by Elena Forbes (978-1-59692-316-4).

My boss, David Poindexter, brought Elena’s first book, Die With Me, back from the London Book Fair last year. He was really excited about it, and asked me to give it a read to see if I agreed. The first chapter—written from the perspective of the story’s villain—convinced me that this was a book we had to do. The voice had just the right blend of the banal and the vicious, and the details of the setting and the crime were so imaginative and compelling that I knew the whole thing was going to hold together. It was clear we had the start of a promising series on our hands.

So we signed Elena up for a two-book deal, and published Die With Me to starred reviews and great bookseller response. Elena was already at work on the sequel, which she delivered to her UK publisher right on time. (We really ask a lot of these mystery writers.) I started Our Lady of Pain hoping that it was going to be as good as the first book, and was delighted to find that it was even better. The crime this time is the ritualistic murder of a young art dealer in London’s Holland Park; the lead investigator, Detective Inspector Mark Tartaglia, begins the case with one set of assumptions about the young woman, but gradually discovers that she was not nearly as proper as the superficial details of her life would lead one to believe.

Like all good mysteries, the plot is full of twists and turns, and once you start the book you feel that wonderful compulsion to finish. Elena’s greatest strength as writer, though, may be her ability to capture the fascinating nuances of human relationships. The members of the Barnes Murder Squad are full-bodied, credible characters, and the subtle dynamics of the relationship between Mark Tartaglia and his partner, Samantha Donovan, are particularly compelling. In that sense I see Elena as part of a great tradition of writers—Ruth Rendell, Donna Leon, Lynda La Plante, Tana French—who have brought a more sophisticated understanding of human relationships, and especially male-female relationships, to the police procedural.

What can you tell us about the author?
Elena lives in London with her husband and two children. She worked in portfolio management for a number of international investment groups before becoming a full-time writer. Her first book, Die With Me, was shortlisted for the 2008 John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger Award. She likes opera and Italy—Mark Tartaglia was inspired by a well-known Italian bass baritone.

Who will enjoy this book?
Fans of the TV show Prime Suspect. Readers of Ruth Rendell, Elizabeth George, Ian Rankin, P. D. James, etc. Mystery readers who like their plots to come with some real psychological depth. People looking to get in on the ground floor of a series with a great deal of potential.

What can you tell us about the excerpt published online?
The first two chapters of Our Lady of Pain are a great example of what distinguishes Elena in the very crowded field of crime writers. The book opens with a brief glimpse of our victim going for a jog in a snowy Holland Park—it is a descriptive, atmospheric beginning, and the moment of tension at the end is well done, if somewhat familiar. What is more unique, and really compelling, I think, is where we go from there—to Tartaglia’s sister’s house, where our main character is trapped in a rather probing discussion with a woman who has very obviously been invited to the family’s regular Sunday lunch as a potential romantic interest for the longtime bachelor Tartaglia. Their conversation and the family dynamics of the scene are awkward and all-too-real, and Tartaglia, polite as he may be, is visibly relieved to get the call that a young woman’s frozen body has been found in the park.

This week, Candlewick President and Publisher Karen Lotz and Editorial Director and Associate Publisher Liz Bicknell talk about their favorite picks for fall. Gorgeous full-color excerpts of Our White House and Sword are available for download for one week.

“Our White House: Looking in, Looking Out, created by 108 renowned authors and illustrators and the National Children’s Book and Literacy Alliance, is one of the most exceptional projects I’ve ever been involved in,” said Karen Lotz, President and Publisher of Candlewick Press. “A treasury of personal essays, nonfiction, short stories, poetry, humor, primary source materials, and an extraordinary range of illustration, it is an entirely fresh and engaging presentation that serves as a gateway for looking at two hundred years of American history with new eyes. The subtitle of the book captures its essence; it is designed to explore the dwelling at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue through multiple perspectives, including the views of those who built it, of those who have lived and made history there, and of those who keep its integrity as the center of our democracy by electing the leaders who will serve in it every four years.”

“We believe this is the most exceptional roster of authors in any fundraising collection of its kind. Their dedication to the book has been profound, with all contributing not only their writing and artwork, but also significant original research, and, most importantly, their personal thoughts and philosophies on our democracy: why it works, and how it could work even better. All agree on one important principle: the engagement of young people in learning about history and participating in the political process is vital to our collective future.”

“Swords: An Artist’s Devotion is a 96-page, full-color celebration of swordsmanship,” said Liz Bicknell, Editorial Director and Associate Publisher of Candlewick Press.

“Agent Rosemary Stimola sent me three sample spreads of the chapter “Kings” back in July 2005 and I immediately took them home to my two sons, Rowan and Corin, who at the time were 14 and 11 and big into things medieval. Rowan said reverently, ‘Mom, you have to get this book!’ and that pretty much convinced me there was going to be a market.”

“Ben Boos is an incredible artist, as you can see from the sample, and his detailed illustrations took two years to complete, a true ‘artist’s devotion.’ Before this book, he worked as an illustrator on the Diablo computer game franchise. I think we’ve successfully lured him away, though, as we are signed up for another book, which Ben is working on now.”

Codependence and the Power of Detachment: How to Set Boundaries and Make Your Life Your Own by Karen Casey.

A generation ago, when codependence was first talked about and defined, a lot of people who were living with or relating to alcoholics or addicts realized that they needed support in figuring out what was going wrong in their lives and how to regain some sanity. So, the people who read the initial books were people who had problems in their lives “caused” by their situation. Now we realize a bit more--a lot more of us are affected in one way or another through our family of birth, our colleagues, etc.--by alcoholism or addiction. And, whether or not we’re addicted or relating to an addict, almost all of us get caught up in the drama of family life or everyday situations in which we’re not clear about who we are and what we think. In short, this book is for anyone who ever was tempted to live her or his life by someone else’s rules or values, or who tried to control the outcome of a situation by changing someone else’s mind or controlling them. -- Publisher Jan Johnson of Red Wheel/Weiser Books/Conari Press

Get Up: A 12-Step Guide to Recovery for Misfits, Freaks, and Weirdos by Bucky Sinister.

Bucky Sinister is a veteran spoken word artist who has published several books of poetry and short stories, as well as a seasoned stand-up comic. His poetry evolved as his drinking waned, and he has this amazing ability to pepper the cold, sad truth with hilarity. Honestly, I think this book will appeal not just to those in recovery. It was written for people who are thinking about starting a twelve-step program but are afraid of the church basements and Higher Power jargon. But it also reads really well and helps anyone who needs to learn to draw boundaries with their addictions—I think there is an element of that in all of us. Even if you aren’t in a program, or should be, the clever writing and wit of the author shines. -- Editor Amber Guetebier of Red Wheel/Weiser Books/Conari Press

Dali-Roo’s troubles began in the last year of the drought that spanned the millennium and sucked the green from the countryside.

So begins our short story offering of the week, “Aibo or Love at First Sight” by Eleanor Bluestein, winner of the G.S. Sharat Chandra Prize for Short Fiction.

Because of the drought, Dali-Roo trades farm work for factory work, riding off on his motorbike each morning to the Sony plant and leaving his ox to stand idly on the cracked earth of his front yard.

As if this forced life change wasn’t bad enough, Dali-Roo goes on to make the awful discovery that he’s a thief. “[P]owerless even though he understood he was gambling his family’s future, even though he believed that a thief in this life returns as a worm in the next.”

This collection of stories, Tea & Other Ayama Na Tales (BkMk Press, 978-1-886157-64-4), takes place in a small country in South East Asia. Like many small countries of the day, it struggles with peace after war and returning to the old versus embracing the new. What is different is that this particular country does not physically exist. Yet Bluestein’s canny storytelling, her perfectly imagined dialogue, her vibrant characters, both native and foreign, create a place familiar, intimate, and utterly believable. Tea & Other Ayama Na Tales is a wry and thoughtful reckoning of the human condition.

Eleanor Bluestein’s work appears in the GSU Review (Georgia State University) and other magazines. She lives in La Jolla, California, with her husband. For thirteen years, she co-edited a magazine called Crawl Out Your Window featuring the work of local writers and photographers. Tea & Other Ayama Na Tales is her first book.