Every life is a story, and every story a journey. We are born, our story begins, and life happens. Each story develops over time from infancy through adulthood and from changes due to choices we make and many times by events over which we have no control. How our story ends is determined by how we react to those events. It is the life’s lessons and what we learn from them that help us grow, gain experience and wisdom, and move us along our journey. We decide if we are in charge of our destiny or if destiny is in charge of us. We drift aimlessly, or we paddle in the direction of our goals. Crooked Sidewalks will guide you as you tell your own story.

At our darkest hours we find truth . . . When your life is on hold and you can’t fight your way up the ladder of success and you can’t pay your bills and you can’t even get across the hall to the bathroom, all you can do is lie there and wait. Running away is no longer an option . . . What happens when medicine, other people, and self-reliance are no longer enough to heal the human body and sustain the human spirit? Still Life is a memoir that details the medical odyssey of an ordinary young woman who, when physically-challenged, questions the meaning of her inherited religion. As she slowly descends into the world of disability, she is forced to put her faith into practice in the laboratory of her life, and she undergoes a spiritual metamorphosis.

School’s out for the summer and public school teacher, Cat LaFievre, is ready to blow off some steam. A few nights of no-strings, mindless distraction with a sexy guy is exactly what she needs. Lucky for her, the perfect specimen lives across the hall from her. He’s gorgeous, a little ridiculous, and, according to a neighbor, very good at sex. Quentin Foster has had a thing for Cat since they hit if off a few months ago. She’s smart, funny, and loves exploring the neighborhood—just like him. He thought he had a shot…until she admits she’s interested in hooking up with his clueless chick-magnet roommate. Cat thought she needed a fling. But as their connection deepens, Cat realizes Quentin might be the real thing. Thing is, she may have ruined her shot with him… Forever Yours series When We First Met (prequel novella) Just a Heartbeat Away And coming soon Can’t Help Falling Flirting with Forever “An utterly satisfying and delicious read. One for the keeper shelf!”—JILL SHALVIS, New York Times bestselling author on Just a Heartbeat Away “Gorgeous, brilliant, with characters so unique and real they leap right off the page.”—SARINA BOWEN, USA Today bestselling author on Just a Heartbeat Away

Of all the styles of jazz to emerge in the twentieth century, none is more passionate, more exhilaratingly up-tempo, or more steeped in an outsider tradition than Gypsy Jazz. And there is no one more qualified to write about Gypsy Jazz than Michael Dregni, author of the acclaimed biography, Django. A vagabond music, Gypsy Jazz is played today in French Gypsy bars, Romany encampments, on religious pilgrimages--and increasingly on the world's greatest concert stages. Yet its story has never been told, in part because much of its history is undocumented, either in written form or often even in recorded music. Beginning with Django Reinhardt, whose dazzling Gypsy Jazz became the toast of 1930s Paris in the heady days of Josephine Baker, Picasso, and Hemingway, Dregni follows the music as it courses through caravans on the edge of Paris, where today's young French Gypsies learn Gypsy Jazz as a rite of passage, along the Gypsy pilgrimage route to Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer where the Romany play around their campfires, and finally to the new era of international Gypsy stars such as Bireli Lagrene, Boulou Ferre, Dorado Schmitt, and Django's own grandchildren, David Reinhardt and Dallas Baumgartner. Interspersed with Dregni's vivid narrative are the words of the musicians themselves, many of whom have never been interviewed for the American press before, as they describe what the music means to them. Gypsy Jazz also includes a chapter devoted entirely to American Gypsy musicians who remain largely unknown outside their hidden community. Blending travelogue, detective story, and personal narrative, Gypsy Jazz is music history at its best, capturing the history and culture of this elusive music--and the soul that makes it swing.

A collection of poems by Megan Theodore on love, growth, normalizing the tension and depth of human emotion that often gets obfuscated by society.

The world sways to an invisible music. We are the orchestra and our stories its symphony. And our loneliness is a song, which leads us through pasts and presents, towards new friends, and acquaintances... That girl on the road swaying to an invisible rhythm... That lady at the next table reading a book... What’s their music? A Symphony of Chance Encounters has suspense, love, rage, passion, contemplation and myriad human emotions sung into its stories. A murderess. A child’s relationship with her father. An indifferent author. An unusual friendship. A couple in love. Writers exploring their creations. The fragrance of a new life; a new hope. A woman trapped in a life she does not want – will the rhythm be hers? Their tunes merge. Their songs intertwine to create a symphony. But, which tune do you sway to? Which melody lingers on your lips? Which story is yours?

Evening Street Review is centered on the belief that all men and women are created equal, that they have a natural claim to certain inalienable rights, and that among these are the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. With this center, and an emphasis on writing that has both clarity and depth, it practices the widest eclecticism. Evening Street Review reads submissions of poetry (free verse, formal verse, and prose poetry) and prose (short stories and creative nonfiction) year round. Submit 3-6 poems or 1-2 prose pieces at a time. Payment is one contributor’s copy. Copyright reverts to author upon publication. Response time is 3-6 months. Please address submissions to Editors, 2881 Wright St, Sacramento, CA 95821-4819. Email submissions are also acceptable; send to the following address as Microsoft Word or rich text files (.rtf): [email protected].

Revised and updated through "O" Is for Outlaw, the Edgar Award Winner for Best Biographical Work is the essential reader's companion to the world of Sue Grafton's Kinsey Millhone With the cooperation of Sue Grafton, who provided unprecedented access to her working journals, authors Natalie Hevener Kaufman and Carol McGinnis Kay have created a fully dimensional biography of Kinsey Millhone that will answer every question readers have ever had. Here is a feast for Kinsey's fans, including such features as time lines, maps, floor plans, case logs, and photographs. But this book is also a revealing journey into the mind and work habits of Kinsey's creator. You'll learn why Grafton chose to write detective fiction and how she responds to runaway plot lines and unruly characters. You will find out what titles she has discarded in the series, what she plans for Kinsey's future, and how she sees their evolving relationship. Ultimately, you'll understand why Grafton is so esteemed in the field of detective fiction and, from an analysis of her craft, why she has earned so prominent a place in American letters.

"Meet Danny Lim. He spends his days working as a wedding photographer and his nights cruising Stanley Park, far from the family home in East Vancouver that he once fled, and where his parents and sister still live. When he rediscovers a green silk belt he had hidden years earlier, he remembers a fleeting but powerful connection he formed with a burlesque dancer named Miss Val, a.k.a. the Siamese Kitten. On that day in 1958, in an alley behind a nightclub in Chinatown, Miss Val offered eight-year-old Danny an understanding kindness and easy acceptance he had never before experienced. As the memory triggered by Miss Val's belt washes over him, Danny decides he must find her"--Jacket flap.

Toy Sooner has dealt with enough rough waves in her troubled past. It's only been through the enduring love of a close-knit group of women on this tiny island that she's finally started to find her footing. But as new challenges in her career arise for this young single mother, the choices and demons of her past will catch up to her. Soon Toy will learn that, like the steadfast sea turtles she cares for, a mother must find the strength within herself to make it safely to shore.