"Even in death, who has ownership over Black women's bodies? Questions like this lurk between the lines of these stunning stories engaging with the nuance of African women’s histories."Questions like this sit between the lines of this stunning collection of stories that engage the nuance of African women's histories. Their history is not just one thing, there is heartbreak and pain, and joy, and flying and magic, so much magic. An avenging spirit takes on the patriarchy from beyond the grave.An immigrant woman undergoes a naturalization ceremony in an imagined American state that demands that immigrants pay a toll of the thing they love the most to be allowed to stay. A first-generation Zimbabwean-American woman haunted by generational trauma is willing to pay the ultimate price to take her pain away - giving up her memories. A neighborhood gossip wakes up to find that houses are mysteriously vanishing in the night. A shapeshifting freedom fighter leaves a legacy of resistance to her granddaughter.In Drinking from Graveyard Wells, Yvette Lisa Ndlovu assembles a collection of poignantly reflective stories that ventilate the voices of African women charting a Black history across oceans between southern Africa and America. Ndlovu's stories play with genres ranging from softly surreal to deeply fantastical. Each narrative is wrapped in the literary eloquence and tradition of southern African mythology, in a way that transports readers into the lives of African women who have fought across time and space to be seen.Drawing on her own experiences as a Zimbabwean whose early life was spent under the Mugabe dictatorship, Ndlovu's stories are grounded in truth and empathy. Ndlovu boldly offers up alternative interpretations of a past and a present that speculates into the everyday lives of a people disregarded. Her words explore the erasure of African women - while highlighting their beauty potential and limitless possibility. Immersed in worlds both fantastical and familiar, readers find themselves walking alongside these women, grieving their pain, and celebrating their joy, all against the textured backdrop of African histories, languages, and cultures.

Native puppeteers from the White Earth Reservation travel to the 1962 World's Fair. In the summer of 1962, a group of young Native American puppeteers travel in a converted school bus from the White Earth Reservation to the Century 21 Exposition, World's Fair in Seattle, Washington. The five Natives, three young men and two young women, have endured abandonment, abuse, poverty, and find solace, humor, and courage with a mute puppeteer—a Native woman in her seventies who writes original dream songs, and creates hand puppets and ironic parleys that mock the ghosts of authority. Dummy Trout, the mute puppeteer, also figured in Native Tributes and Satie on the Seine. The troupe attends a performance of Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett and they create a puppet parley for Wovoka, the inspiration of the Native American Ghost Dance Religion.

This book contains six works that each reflect the different styles of the author in each period of his work, paying attention to men of low status, memories of childhood, campus life, and the living conditions of Beijing’s drifters. Told in a straightforward manner, all the stories in this book are told in the first person and can be regarded together as a spiritual autobiography. Xu Zechen won the sixth Lu Xun Literature Award for short stories, and short stories have always been the focus and intention of his creation.

The brutality of war and abuse is juxtaposed with the banal in this story of two women who spend their days transcribing the testimonies of Abu Ghraib prisoners. The prisoners' gruesome accounts of physical and sexual abuse, torture, sodomy, and murder interrupt the ordinary lives and concerns of the typists, and reveal deeper – and more troubling – truths. Sylvia is a single mother, haunted by the words of the prisoners' testimonies. Her job strains her already-fragmented relationship with her capricious teenage son. Marina's submissive ignorance allows her to become involved in a disturbing relationship with a man who engages her in humiliating and abusive sexual acts and indirectly involves her six-year-old daughter, causing the child to suffer troubling effects from bearing witness to the trauma. Interjected within the lyrical prose is commentary about the history, development, and qualities of ink, as well as of other objects and elements (such as urine and water) that are part of the accounts of tortured prisoners as well as the lives of Sylvia and Marina. Taken together, this illuminating and meditative work reveals how correlations between the abuse of women, domestic violence, rape, and the abuse and torture of prisoners of war are not as disparate or detached as they might first appear.

At a dusty intersection in Baghdad, Sergeant Thomas Kirkland is seconds away from unleashing a hail of bullets on a possible suicide bomber when he's stopped by the unexpected — the piercing dark eyes of a young girl sitting on her mother's lap in the passenger seat. For a split second he'd held the life of this child and her family in his hands. Plagued by fear and anxiety, Sergeant K struggles with his own inner demons as he confronts a population around him that wishes him dead. But he confronts more than just an external enemy, as he discovers the darkness that exists not just within himself, but in his fellow soldiers. A starkly honest and gut-wrenching account of the Iraq war from the perspective of an infantry soldier patrolling the dusty and lethal roads of south-west Baghdad. The threat of IEDs and ambushes are ever-present, but as Sergeant K and his comrades soon learn, modern war can take many shapes and forms. Grappling with a myriad of emotions — fear, anger, confusion, and anxiety — they face many external threats, but they begin to discover that the enemy within themselves can often be more challenging and dangerous than the one they were sent to fight.

Summer 1942, and the nascent French Resistance is asking the Allies for help as they become increasingly active against the German occupiers. Their requests for arms and equipment are urgent, but the Allies are hesitant to respond until they know more about the willingness of the French to fight. The decision is made to parachute special operatives – Jedburghs – into France to determine the state of the Resistance. The Jedburghs follows one of these clandestine three-person commando team attached to the super-secret British Special Operations command. The team parachutes into Nazi-occupied France to lead the local Resistance forces in conducting sabotage and guerrilla warfare against the German occupiers in a deadly kill or be killed series of sabotage operations. The specially selected team members – a combat-hardened U.S. Marine, a tough-as-nails French commando, and a female French émigré out for revenge – must first undergo a series of tests and field operations to determine if they have what it takes to be a behind-the-lines agent. In the process they develop an unbreakable bond of loyalty that unites them as they lead the fractious members of the Resistance against the battle-hardened Germans and face the ultimate test of loyalty when one of their number is captured.

An early American adage proclaimed: "The frontier was heaven for men and dogs – hell for women and mules." Since the 1700s, when his name first appeared in print, Daniel Boone has been synonymous with America's westward expansion and life on the frontier. Traces is a retelling of Boone's saga through the eyes of his wife, Rebecca, and her two oldest daughters, Susannah and Jemima. Daniel became a mythic figure during his lifetime, but his fame fueled backwoods gossip that bedeviled the Boone women throughout their lives, most notably the widespread suspicion that one of Rebecca's children was fathered by Daniel's younger brother. Traces explores the origins of these rumors, exposes the harsh realities of frontier life, and gives voice to the women whose vibrant lives have been reduced to little more than scattered footnotes within the historical record. Daniel's restless wandering made the women eyewitnesses to the clash of cultures between the settlers and the indigenous tribes who fought to retain control of their native lands made life on the frontier an ongoing struggle for survival. Patricia L. Hudson gives voice to these women, each of whom were pioneers in their own right. The Boone women's joys and sorrows, as well as those of countless other forgotten women who braved the frontier, are invisibly woven into the fabric of America's early years and the story of this country's westward expansion.

During World War I, Major William Orpen, a highly successful commercial painter in Ireland and the UK, takes up a posting as official British war artist. Full of high hopes he sets off to the front with a Rolls-Royce and a driver. But nothing in his privileged life prepared him for the horrors he encounters. Based in Amiens, he is initially unable to capture on canvas the sights that haunt him, but eventually his inspired output becomes prolific – Tommies in rat-infested, water-sodden trenches; men charging across the tortured earth with fixed bayonets; generals in luxurious quarters; nurses ministering gently to the wounded in the hell-hole hospitals. Commissioned to paint the Paris Peace Conference he settles in Paris with Yvonne, his model and muse. His epic, To the Unknown British Soldier in France, is hailed by some as ‘symbolic’; but by others as a ‘blasphemous disgrace’. Disheartened at the ending of the war, he is consumed by its futility and what he sees as the fighting men’s betrayal by the politicians. At war with himself, he divides his time between Paris and London but suffers from depression and ill health. Alienated from his family, he dies in 1931 of alcohol-related complications. This illustrated biographical novel – featuring dozens of Orpen’s paintings and B&Wdrawings – will enthral anyone interested in the brutal reality of World War I, and help us to appreciate one artist’s remarkable personal and creative journey.

Happiness and connection prove fickle in this debut collection of eleven linked stories introducing Babbie and Donnie. She is a thrice-divorced former call girl, and he is a sobriety-challenged trucker turned yogi. Along with their community of exes, in-laws, and coworkers, Babbie and Donnie share a longing to re-forge their lives, a task easier said than done in Mobile, Alabama, which bears its own share of tainted history. Despite overwhelming challenges and the ever-looming specters of status, race, and class, the characters in It Falls Gently All Around and Other Stories strive for versions of the American dream through modern and often unconventional means. Told with humor and honesty, these stories remind us not only about the fallibility of being human and the resistance of some to change but also about finding redemption in unlikely places.

The Drue Heinz Literature Prize was established in 1980 to encourage and support the writing and reading of short fiction, and first awarded in 1981, to David Bosworth for his collection The Death of Descartes. Over the past forty years judges such as Raymond Carver, Joyce Carol Oates, Margaret Atwood, Joan Didion, Amy Hempel, Anne Patchett, and Michael Chabon have selected the best collections from the hundreds submitted annually by up-and-coming writers. 20 More features one story from each of the past twenty winners of the prize. It builds on the previously released collection 20: The Best of the Drue Heinz Literature Prize, edited by John Edgar Wideman, that collects stories from the prize’s first twenty years. This book includes stories by: Joanna Pearson, Caroline Kim, Kate Wisel, Brad Felver, William Wall, Melissa Yancy, Leslie Pietrzyk, Kent Nelson, Anthony Wallace, Beth Bosworth, Shannon Cain, Tina May Hall, Anne Sanow, Anthony Varallo, Todd James Pierce, David Harris Ebenbach, Darrell Spencer, Suzanne Greenburg, John Blair, and Brett Ellen Bock.

James Still left eastern Kentucky for Europe in 1941 after enlisting in the U.S. Army during World War II, leaving behind a recently published, semiautobiographical work of fiction, On Troublesome Creek. Even as he developed a broader worldview, his work continued to draw from the agrarian and regional sources of life in the Cumberland Plateau that supported the American war effort. Like the riverbeds and creeks he so often evoked, Still reminds readers of the local and regional founts that they were fighting for in the century's second great war. The "Dean of Appalachian Literature," James Still grew up in Alabama before settling down in Knott County, Kentucky in the early 1930s. In On Troublesome Creek, he describes the ebbs and flows of Appalachian living while celebrating the culture defined by family, self-sufficiency, and hard work. The colloquial dialogue brings to life a community attached to the land on which they had lived for generations and the victuals and rituals that kept their world in motion amidst uncertainty.

Twice torpedoed during the Battle of the Atlantic, LT. Tony Colombo USNR, a former merchant marine officer, is appointed to command a new Navy ship, PC-450, a 173 foot, steel-hulled and much advanced submarine chaser carrying five officers and sixty-five men. After a period of escorting convoys up and down the Atlantic coast, Tony suddenly finds himself escorting ships loaded with Marine Corps equipment all the way to Wellington, New Zealand and then to Brisbane, Australia. Once arrived, he is instantly ordered to begin escorting small convoys up and down the Australian coast. Some weeks later, Tony and PC-450 engage in battle with a dangerous Japanese midget submarine which is attempting to penetrate Brisbane Harbour. In the summer of 1942, as PC-450 begins to escort numerous convoys from Australia to Noumea in New Caledonia, the United States suddenly invades Guadalcanal with the result that Tony begins guiding convoys north in support of the invasion while fending off the multiple day and night air raids that the Japanese throw down The Slot. Subsequently, following the hard fought victory on Guadalcanal, PC-450 participates in the invasion of the Russell Islands and then, during the grinding fight for New Georgia, PC-450 not only helps to fend off Japanese air attacks on the fleet but twice engages in surface actions when the Japanese attempt to infiltrate troops onto the island. Wounded in a sudden air attack that radar could not detect in advance, Tony finds himself back in Australian territory awaiting new orders. Reviews for Splinter on the Tide, also by Phillip E. Parotti: "A deftly crafted novel of naval combat in World War II" – Midwest Book Review "People won't forget the visceral impact of these real-life characters. Ordinary people, pushed to extraordinary ends, surviving the true horrors of war accurately portrayed. A military, naval, novel you won’t want to put down." – Ron Lealos, author of Pashtun: A Military Thriller and 'Don't Mean Nuthin' "A page-turning historical portrayal of love, war, hardship and discovery of the true cost for sailors’ survival. Those who were at sea in any war time will savor every page." – Maria Riva, best-selling author of Marlene Dietrich: The Life

James Still (1906-2001) remains one of the most beloved and important writers in Appalachian literature. Best known for his acclaimed novel River of Earth (1940), the Alabama native and adopted Kentuckian left an enduring legacy of novels, stories, and poems during his nearly 70-year career. The Hills Remember: The Complete Short Stories of James Still honors the late writer by collecting all of Still's short stories, including those from On Troublesome Creek (1941), Pattern of a Man and Other Stories (1976), and The Run for the Elbertas (1980), as well as twelve prose pieces originally published as short stories and later incorporated into River of Earth. Also included are several lesser-known stories and ten that were previously unpublished. Recognized as a significant writer of short fiction in his day - many such pieces initially appeared in The Atlantic and The Saturday Evening Post and were included in The O. Henry Memorial Award Stories and The Best American Short Stories collections - Still's short stories, while often overshadowed in recent years by his novels and poetry, are among his most enduring literary works. Editor Ted Olson in his introductory essay offers a reassessment of Still's short fiction within the contexts of the author's body of work and within Appalachian and American literature. Compiling all of James Still's compelling and varied short stories into one volume, The Hills Remember is a testament to a master writer.

Everything works out - except in the end. In the meantime, concentrate on temptations of the flesh; on naked desire. Being properly damned brings its own joy: that's what Richard Meadows is thinking on his way to the city dump to retrieve his wife's favourite chair, which he had thrown away earlier. And that’s where he meets old flame Virginia Coates. So begins a dance of circumstance that feeds on Richard’s newfound fearlessness, and his desire to be daring. Time to lean in to the danger. How can a nice man like him get things so wrong? For some reason, the sudden closeness between Richard and Virginia doesn't yield the desired intimacy, doesn’t satisfy the passion. It is Richard’s wife, Gloria, who truly fastens on her chance for fulfilment. Quiet City is a literate, satisfying work of fiction which crosses Richard Ford with Kinky Friedman, with a noir undercurrent. Spellbinding storytelling from a novelist at the height of his powers.

In war, every action has a beginning and an end. Echo Among Warriors is a story of close combat between two opposing, equally committed adversaries. The powerful narrative immerses the reader in both sides of the battle, playing and replaying the same battle sequence from alternating viewpoints – through the eyes of the Marines and through the eyes of the North Vietnamese. The bullet fired from a Marine's M-16 at a silhouetted enemy solider crouched on the jungle path will in the next chapter tear into the flesh of that crouched NVA trooper. The story – unfolding from the initial contact to the final horrific ending – represents just one of perhaps thousands of deadly encounters that reflect the reality of battle: a mind-numbing, intensely personal experience, that forever changes the participant.

Pickett's charge has just ended, the battle of Gettysburg is over. The Confederate army is defeated and must retreat to the Potomac River forty miles away with thousands of wagons full of wounded soldiers, provisions and tens of thousands of animals. Asa Helms, a private in the Twenty-Sixth North Carolina Infantry, joined the army to oppose the Yankee's invasion of his "country. " He is torn between serving his country with honor and going home to take care of his wife who is in great need. He faces a long, seemingly impossible march with little food, little hope and the Yankees on his heels. Captain Louis Young, aide-to-camp to Confederate General James Pettigrew, is fighting to preserve a culture and a lifestyle and possible domination by the despicable Yankees. The defeat at Gettysburg, the horrendous condition of the army and the endless resources of the enemy are causing him to doubt the ability of the Confederacy to gain another major victory and thus independence. His objective is to get the rebel army across the Potomac River to preserve it to fight another day. Colonel George Gray, an Irishman, is colonel of the Sixth Michigan Cavalry. He is hell-bent on putting down the rebellion before it divides the country that has been so good to him. He is neither a soldier, nor an accomplished equestrian, and has gotten on the wrong side of his superior, General George Custer, with whom he is in constant conflict. He sees a chance to cut off the Confederate army and end the war before it reaches the Potomac River.The journey ends at the Potomac River where each soldier must face the bitter realities of this unnatural war. Asa must choose between escaping across the river or remaining with his wounded friend and facing certain captivity.