Books published by Atmosphere Press

"He hated his vagina." Thus begins the story of Officer Sam Munroe, a trans-gendered man, the head and lone member of the San Felipe Police Department Gay and Lesbian Liaison Unit.Harboring his own doubts about his relatively new-found masculinity, and barely tolerated, much less acknowledged, in his new job, Munroe is one day handed a follow up to domestic dispute, given to him because it involves two lesbians, Gloria and Grace.Munroe's follow up leads to not only a murder investigation that other officers in the force don't want to deal with because of the deceased's sexual practices, but also leads to his first time ever relationship with a female.Between taking care of his chronically ill sister Elizabeth, keeping his own Obsessive Compulsive Disorder under control, and having to endure being referred to as GLLU Boy by his fellow officers, Munroe unwittingly becomes part of a story of revenge murder and mayhem that ultimately finds its way to his own living room.GLLU BOY AND THE ONE SAVING GRACE is a story of love and redemption. While it will find immense appeal with the LGBTQ community, it will likewise find great acceptance by all those trying to find their place in an intolerant society. --- William H. Waxman has had an extensive career as an actor, director, playwright, and educator. He has worked for the last decade with the Dijo Productions Theatre Company, a company committed to promoting the public interest by culturally enriching the people, places, and organizations of California's Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, and surrounding counties through the presentation of theatrical performances. His recent playwriting credits include The Sorrow Cart, a musical about homelessness; Fighting the Invisible, a play with music about fibromyalgia; Timmons' Retreat, an American College Theatre Festival Finalist; and The Most Famous Man in America. He lives in southern California, and GLLU BOY AND THE ONE SAVING GRACE is his first novel.

On a Lark (The Fidelia McCord Series, Book 2) ¿In¿On a Lark, Fidelia McCord has become the only surviving child of John and Mariah McCord of Pond Springs. After having borne great loss and hardship in mid-nineteenth century Texas - where moments of jubilation and jeopardy carry a girl to womanhood - Fidelia knows the weight of her choices. At the same time, far away in North Carolina, the Maloney brothers, cooking mash into whiskey in the Appalachian mountains, are making their own life-changing decisions, with Miles Maloney trying to keep his brother Jackson in check and away from the gallows. But, as Fidelia and Miles each forge their own path to a future, destiny has plans of its own. ¿¿ "A riveting and realistic novel of the westward expansion, inspired by real people. Life on the trail and on the Texas frontier was not easy for anyone, much less a seven-year old girl whose faith was tested…but those who persevered and survived would find new joys."-Miles O'Neal, author of¿The Dragon Lord Chronicles "Ms. Murphy develops the powerful characters of this story in such a way that they come alive and you feel that you know each one of them personally. On a Lark will linger long after reading it."-Jane Caraway, author of Baby in a Mailbox*******Sandra Fox Murphy is the author of the novels¿That Beautiful Season and¿A Thousand Stars, as well as the Fidelia McCord Series, including¿Let the Little Birds Sing. Her collection of poems,¿Aging Without Grace, was released in July 2019. Originally from Glasgow, Delaware, she lives in central Texas where she hunts down small-town history.

The surviving son of a germophobic mother, Cecil Reitmeister embraces all forms of bacteria and formulates an elaborate plan to lead humanity out of the Anthropocene and into a new era of interspecies harmony. His idiosyncratic plan requires years of experimentation and precise manipulation of his microbiome, the totality of microorganisms present in or on the human body. His mad-scientist mission leads to extreme social isolation, with the memory of his dead mother becoming his most frequent visitor. Cecil's quest to save the world comes to a screeching halt when his social worker and the police show up to condemn the only home he has ever known. Thrown in jail for assaulting the police, Cecil soon finds himself homeless and struggles to adjust to life on the streets. When he meets a group of Freegans (people who reject consumerism and seek to reduce waste by collecting discarded food) led by a magnetic red-headed woman, Cecil is forced to confront demons from his past and to reassess his self-imposed alienation, the rigidity of his worldview, and, ultimately, his plan to save humanity.

During their annual vacation, Caitlyn and her family sightsee and relax around the various Florida attractions. But when Caitlyn visits Gator World, she learns that Florida is more than just sunshine and butterflies. She is about to find out that deep in the southern swamps, off the beaten path, living among the flora and fauna are hungry creatures that are as old as dinosaurs and just as unpredictable. She's about to discover firsthand how intimidating those creatures can be, as she is introduced to somebody who isn't afraid to interact with them, safely of course, and have a little fun at the same time.The Girls Can Do Anything book series was written to inspire young girls to explore how women can impact the everyday world around them. These stories aren't about competing with boys, or how much money they can make doing a certain job. Instead, these stories are about empowering young girls to think outside the box about their future and realize they possess within themselves the power, imagination, and potential to control their own destiny.Find us on Facebook, Instagram, and at girlscandoanything.com.

George Fairbanks is certain God is dead, a stillborn of the clouds. He has been poisoned to death by our indifference and gluttony. George discovers his conjecture in middle age, but develops the theory throughout his life. He was an infinitely curious boy, his interest in the meaning of life piqued by the house he grew up in. George remains an ardent student and proponent of religion throughout his life though he has trouble believing it despite his desire to and worse still is the sense of forsakenness he feels from God. Because he cannot so easily accept what is being presented to him based solely on blind faith, George can no longer believe in a greater being and what's more, can no longer justify the barbarity of the Bible. George must examine and evaluate his own existence in the realization there is no great orchestrator, no benevolent vigilant; he is alone in this world. What now are the implications of this discovery? Is life worth continuing if it will end sooner or later? Where does our moral code come from and what force governs those around us? Is the love of a good woman enough to revive him?

A desperate mother embarks on a chaotic, crime-laden road trip in search of her missing transgendered son…A frustrated woman discovers a problematic shortcut to physical perfection in the bowels of her gym locker...A working man finds himself at severe odds with the cult-like popularity of his lazy roommate’s magical bellybutton... Come Kill Me! is an absurd, satirical, and often searing debut collection from Mackinley Greenlaw, author of Pushcart Prize nominated “A Fresh Dog.” Confident and relentless, these voice-driven stories rip into modern themes of identity, gender, and body image with a serrated, socially conscious edge. As his characters bumble from one extremity to the next, Greenlaw constructs a stark, funny, violent world in which no one is safe from the ultimate pitfall—their own ego.

With an offbeat sense of humor, Garrett Socol delves into the lives of seemingly ordinary women and the secrets that lurk beneath their pristine surfaces. Whether it’s a neglected wife seeking revenge on her cheating husband or a female electrician who deliberately causes power failures or an attorney confronting her childhood rapist thirty years later, each story is charged with vivid language, heartbreaking truth, and a touch of quirky, sometimes macabre humor.The stories range from the deeply unsettling (“Looking For Last Year”) to the absurdly humorous (“Island Envy”) to everything in between. There’s a wonderfully warped yet entirely honest portrayal of the human condition on display. The female protagonists are anxiety-ridden, unpredictable and flawed, but they refuse to give in or give up. In her chaotic universe, each woman faces challenges that are fierce, funny and often traumatic. And yes, you’ll find a couple of male protagonists along for the ride, too.

Caterpillar dreams of one day soaring through the sky. She doesn't know how or when, but she knows it's coming.That is...if she makes it out of Spider's web. J.P. Hostetler, (Jake) is an explorer of the worlds, big and small. He is fascinated most by unanswerable questions, undiscovered words, and the overlooked extra-ordinaries of the every day.A native of the USA, Jake currently resides in Europe, where he writes, travels, and plays music.“The Sky Belongs to the Dreamers” is his first illustrated fiction story. You can find out more of his other and upcoming publications at jphostetler.com

George Martian is a child prodigy on the cusp of greatness.  Despite his immense promise, he is deeply conflicted as he weighs the burden of being a child-star with that of having a normal childhood.   At an existential crossroad, his life-altering decision to sabotage his chance at greatness has dire consequences not only for him, but his entire family.  As George pulls himself from the wreckage of what remains of his life, he has to reconcile his newfound place in the world against numerous personal demons, all the while dealing with an increasingly challenging family structure. What follows is a series of turbulent events that run the gamut of both the comic and tragic.  The George Stories explores themes of identify, regret and the fragility of life But it is most chiefly, the story of a man laid bare.Christopher Gould is a graduate of Nazareth College of Rochester where he earned a degree in Writing.  His fiction and poetry have appeared in several literary magazines and anthologies.  Gould is a  teacher in upstate New York where he lives with his wife and daughter.  The George Stories is his first novel.

Magic is, and always has been, all around us. At least, Innes has always believed so. Kahrin? She's more skeptical. After all, she's never seen proof. That doesn't stop her from supporting her best friend in his belief, as in all things in their lives.One accident and a near-miss later, the pair are forced to grapple with the realities of the world of magic, whether they believe in it or not. Innes is sure that the mysterious Yelena is more than just a beautiful girl with amnesia and a prickly brother. Kahrin is sure she's going to regret going along with it. Still, she does, because she trusts him, and that has always been the foundation upon which their love and friendship is built.The Hole in the World is a story of love, friendship, and knowing that sometimes that is all you need to have trust.

Gathered is a story of disconnection and redemption. Sol Severson is successful in every observable way, living with his wife and daughter in an exclusive Chicago suburb. But inwardly, Sol is an empty soul, cut off from any relationship with his family of origin and merely going through the motions with others.After a tragedy sends him reeling, Sol embarks on a mission to explore his roots and resolve long-repressed questions about the father he barely knew. Much like his boyhood hero, Huckleberry Finn, Sol's journey leads him to an adventure on the Mississippi River. In the end, by looking for his father, Sol discovers himself.

You need to be strong to read these powerful poems, but they are worth the journey along the course of aging. The title of the collection may be Aging Without Grace, but the poems carry a special grace. It is the grace of truthfulness captured in stunning images such as, "Now your vacant chair sighs when I pass by," in "When You Lay Dying."The poems also touch the sensitivity of all ages as when a woman visiting the grave of a friend thinks of "The day when a friend might visit me," in "The Shift of Time."Each piece in this startling collection of poems captures touchable shifts of time. Aging Without Grace illuminates Nobel Prize winner Salvatore Quasimodo's definition of poetry as "the revelation of a feeling that the poet believes to be interior and personal which the reader recognizes as their own." ~ Anna M. Carroll,author of the poetry collections Gulag and Pieces of a Thief

Consciousness arises in the body.The body arises in the world.The world arises in consciousness. This book is a literary work in the manner of T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets, i.e. a unified collection of metaphysical poetry exploring ideas about time, consciousness, and Reality. The poetry is somewhat unconventional in that it seeks to lead the reader away from the realm of worldly experience and toward one of greater abstraction. But such is the nature of the quest, which, in this instance, also incorporates aspects of understanding from the fields of philosophy, literature, mythology, religion and science in its attempt to address questions about the nature of human consciousness and its place in the scheme of things. the oneness of Reality, as its name suggests, deals with a problem that has vexed thinkers, east and west, through the ages: how, from the perspective of this dualistic manifestation that is the basis for our everyday experience, human beings can perceive the unicity which both science and religion indicate is the essential characteristic of an underlying (imperceptible) Reality. And, as the subtitle geometrical poetry notes, the book attempts to address that problem by means of a visually-based poetry that imposes its own rigorous requirements on top of those already demanded by reason and logic.

At every moment of our existence, emotions play an important social role, having perhaps the major influence on our perception of the world, and how we interact with it.Successful communication, mutual understanding, and agreement are the keys to success in nearly all areas of life. For example...How much are you aware of your emotional state and the non-verbal signals you send during a conversation? How much are you aware of the emotional state of others, and how constructively are you dealing with it? What is the impact cultural differences have on the course of a conversation? What other psychological aspects are able to distort your objective view of a situation?Decades of psychological research has thorough answers to all of these questions, and A User Guide to The Unconscious Mind explains the latest science in simple terms and examples. It will be a fascinating journey, full of discoveries that will change your life for the better!

In poems well-honed and riveting, Barry Amis bears witness to the world's struggles and enigmas. He ponders lost opportunities, the universal concerns of good vs. evil, gifts and losses, the ravages of world unrest, and the tribulations of inner cities. Profound and intense, Mere Being ultimately offers hope that one day the riddle of life's paradoxes will be solved, and equality and stability will come to all.-Carolyn Kreiter-Foronda, author of Gathering Light and Poet Laureate of Virginia, 2006-2008There is uncommon linguistic agility in Barry Amis' work that brings words like "cradle" and "cactus" into insightful proximity, and offers us such pairs as "saxophoning gossamer" and "wellwanting grief." Thus, language draws us into the intelligible world, even as it skirts a mystery. Many of the poems point toward survival: birds that "rise and hum" and leave us with wise and lasting admonitions: "Say it, / stone is no substitute / for manna." Indeed, with each verse in Mere Being, we are being gracefully, wordfully fed.-Sofia M. Starnes, author of The Consequence of Moonlight and Poet Laureate of Virginia, 2012-2014One could do worse than trip in the tradition of Gerard Manley Hopkins and Charles Wright. These pieces may be "Unprayered" but, on Easter Island, the speaker in Amis' "Moai," who has traveled his own version of the via negativa, says, "Lie down my guardians, / We go to meet miracles." -Ron Smith, author of The Humility of the Brutes and Poet Laureate of Virginia, 2014-2016

To The Next Step is the perfect guide for any high school or college student who wants to understand what the real world is actually like. Written by Kyle Grappone, a college graduate with real world experience, Kyle shares his insights and advice about how to make the most of your time in high school and college. Everything in this book is geared towards preparing students for the world and life that awaits them.This book acts as a guide for a student to follow throughout all of their high school and college years. Each year is broken down into goals and strategies designed to make the most of their time and get ready for the next step on their journey to adulthood. It includes the advice of many graduates about what they wish they could do differently and the opportunities they regret not taking advantage of.In this book Kyle will touch on everything from changing your attitude towards education, the importance of taking control of your future, discovering the type of person you want to become, what to look for during the college selection process, how to make connections, and what it takes to thrive when you finally enter the workforce. Kyle Grappone is a youth motivational speaker, book author, and student coach. His goal is to inspire students to think differently about their education and future. If you would like to learn more about Kyle, his speaking engagements, or coaching services, please visit him online at kylegrappone.com, or e-mail him at kyle@kylegrappone.com.

Tag along with Caitlyn as she enjoys some fun with her brothers during summer break. She has an important summer project to do for school, but it's okay because she has plenty of time to do it. At least, she thinks she does. The next thing she knows, she finds herself in the middle of a construction site. There she meets Jo, the construction company's owner. Through this new friendship, Caitlyn comes to realize that swinging a hammer and wielding a saw are much more fun than she thought...and can even help her with her homework.The Girls Can Do Anything book series was written to inspire young girls to explore how women can impact the everyday world around them. These stories aren't about competing with boys, or how much money they can make doing a certain job. Instead, these stories are about empowering young girls to think outside the box about their future and realize they possess within themselves the power, imagination, and potential to control their own destiny. Find us on Facebook, Instagram, and at girlscandoanything.com.

what happens to timewhen you're 1100 metres above Earth half way across the Pacific Ocean about to cross from daylight to dark... No Home Like a Raft explores the nomadic part of the human existence, and how imprisoned instincts can find a way to flow again. Landing in the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico and crescendoing at the Inca Trail in Peru, Martin Jon Porter's first full-length collection of poetry reveals what it's like to breathe the primordial particles of wanderlust in Latin America. Martin Jon Porter grew up in Ballarat and studied teaching in Adelaide, but now lives in Melbourne with his family. His first collection of poetry, Traits, was a chapbook published in 2016. His poems have been published in Canada, USA, UK, Australia and online.

Forget what you know about poetry...we're counting down to an apocalypse. On a planet that suffers from two suns above and an overly pragmatic culture below, people have evolved to live underground, eat minerals, and suppress creativity. Their society is focused on supporting a war with an alien race that their soldiers strangely fail to remember. Meanwhile, unexplained phenomena play out in the sky, and a religion is growing around a paleontological find and a group of mystics uncovering more than what's been buried underground.Having figured out that the end is near, a Journalist is faced with the angst of too much information and not enough power. Collecting and preserving the stories of the planet's people becomes the Journalist's focus. Each poem is a different character sharing the details of their job, describing not only the intricacies of their profession but also revealing bits of the larger story as well as their own humanity. Together these twenty voices weave a tale of a civilization concealing smoldering secrets and a hidden intergalactic political agenda, all while using clever scientific, military, artistic and literary references to tie them to our own world in unexpected ways.You already know what becomes of the planet, but what happens to the people? Will they heed the warnings, revolt, and hop on the next flight-ship before it's too late? Or will these interviews be all that remain?

Drop Dead Red brings the reader to the grittier side of America. Drop Dead Red tackles the author's voice on religion, history, and modern conflict. Drop Dead Red sheds light on the eccentricities of style, the mind, and the world.- - - - -In Elizabeth Carmer's third manuscript, her unique style and deft formal moves grant readers an opportunity to look at the normal in a wildly different way. Without a specific time nor region, each poem dances on the knife's edge of possibility. With this book, Carmer asserts herself as a vivid and surprising voice in American poetry, and the experience of reading it is one you will not forget.

Caitlyn and her family are off on their annual vacation, and this year they're going to sightsee and relax at the Florida beaches on the Atlantic coast. But Caitlyn is about to discover there is much more to this peaceful location than just sand, sea, and sun. At Kennedy Space Center she learns about the history of space exploration and the different missions that launched people into orbit and beyond. She also learns how chimpanzees were sent on some of those missions, and even how to use a toilet in space. Plus, she's about to meet up with someone who could inspire all young girls who want to follow their dreams and reach for the stars.The Girls Can Do Anything book series was written to inspire young girls to explore how women can impact the everyday world around them. These stories aren't about competing with boys, or how much money they can make doing a certain job. Instead, these stories are about empowering young girls to think outside the box about their future and realize they possess within themselves the power, imagination, and potential to control their own destiny.Find us on Facebook, Instagram, and at girlscandoanything.com.