Books published by Gival Press

Winner of the Gival Press Poetry Award "A 19th-century automaton and other museum exhibits narrate this collection of poems . . . . Uncanny, heart-wrenching, and beautifully craftedpoems by an original voice." -Kirkus Reviews, August 5, 2020, starred review "Vast in scope, passionately imagined, and constructed with as much ingenuity as the famed contraption at its narrative''s heart, MatthewPennock''s second book hints at serious ontological questions as it invents its hero''s journey from automaton to autonomy. Like all contrivances that simulate human life, Pennock''s synthetic boy compels us to interrogate our own materiality, and to ask, if we are all just portions of the twisting / stew of particles and light assembled by mechanical chance, then what puts the lonely in us? Packed with insight and wit and told by a congress of oddities-the narration travels back and forth in time and juggles various perspectives, including that of a trained seal, a fortune teller machine, and both halves of P.T. Barnum''s bogus mermaid-The Miracle Machine is an irresistible, at times provocative, and often powerfully affecting book."-Timothy Donnelly, author of The Problem of the Many

Theory and Praxis: Women’s and Gender Studies at Community Colleges is the first book that focuses on women’s and gender studies at community colleges. It brings together voices from faculty, researchers, program administrators, and students to examine the promise and challenges that these programs have in higher education.The topics addressed include: historical narratives and current data on women’s and gender studies at community colleges; theoretical discussions of critical and liberatory pedagogies in the community college classroom and an articulation of these spaces as inherently activist sites; strategies and suggestions for curriculum development, co-curricular programming, and assessment; and critiques of the positioning of community colleges within neoliberal frameworks.

Leave Smoke is a personal and down-to-earth collection of poetry that speaks to the ordinary and the ups and downs of life and relationships. Told with vivid language and raw emotion, the reader is easily whirled into the realm of the poetic voice. The poems capture the malaise of a society rarely redeemed by love in a world of hard work, chronic exhaustion, few pleasures: reminders of how we create an easy camaraderie to substitute for deeper connections. Jeff Walt's bluesy, compassionate poems are rooted in the real world of chance and transitory struggle and suffering, but they evoke an otherworldliness that perfectly complements their dabbling in pop-culture-infused daydreams and nightmares. Leave Smoke is one of those rare books of poems that you'll wish, like life, would never end."- Jeremy Halinen

"Miss Lucy is essential reading for anyone interested in Bram Stoker or his bestknown work Dracula. Orem, who is obviously knowledgeable about Stoker's life, and especially his work with the Lyceum Theatre, has created a haunting novel that explores possible origins. Anyone interested in Bram Stoker or Dracula must read Miss Lucy."-Carol Senf

Winner of the Gival Press Novel Award / "Dream of Another America" is set in Central America, where a family dreams about leaving for America, the land of dreams. A current "Grapes of Wrath" with a Latin twist; this is a timely novel, given the current climate against immigration in the USA."McMahon's contribution to the body of immigrant literature is entrenched in questions of nationality, poverty, and family. He achieves a storytelling feat by creating an incredibly realistic narrative that is as poignant as it is breathtaking."- KIRKUS REVIEWS

"I love the clarity and precision of Linwood Rumney's poems and his restrained yet intense voice. Intense because it is restrained, pressurized by his deft use of stanzaic structures and forms. Robert Frost and William Carlos Williams seem to be among his influences, but his voice and vision are clearly his own. Rumney writes about the natural world and the human world, and he sees in both of them a terrible 'excess' and a brutal 'lack'. But, as in 'A Mystery on the Greyhound Bus', he also recognizes that 'simple beauty persists', like the finch feeding her chicks in a bus station eave while a man on the platform, both laughing and crying, waves to a woman on the departing bus. Far more than simple beauty, that image-and Rumney's poetry throughout this book-is resonant and complex in the most compelling way."--Eric Nelson, judge and author of "Some Wonder: poems"

Winner of the Gival Press Poetry Award. The 2007 Adirondack Literary Award for the Best Book of Poetry

a well chosen anthology of Herman Melville's most thought provoking texts in what Schellenberg has called "Melville's most lavender moments." Without preaching his stance, Schellenberg adeptly introduces each selection and then allows the reader to reach his own conclusion.

"John Domini is a master of suspense and of psychological complexity. The result is an edgy, richly peopled and thoroughly absorbing novel."-Margot Livesey"

A collection of animal fables suited for elementary school children.

A collection of animal fables suited for elementary school children.

A collection of poetry in English and French. 2013 Paris Book Festival-Honorable Mention for Poetry

Winner of the Gival Press Poetry Award."From the horrors of the Holocaust to the grace of plie, from the pyramids of Egypt to her father's passing, Yvette Neisser Moreno's noble voice in Grip explores the 'arc out of thinking' between a dawn that 'trembles with faint prayers' and death like a 'fluidity of grain.'--Clifford Bernier."