Living the dream of the endless vacation “Anyone who has ever dreamed of leaving the city and taking their lives back to nature (and who hasn't?) will find much to contemplate in this warm and hilarious tale of rural misadventure and small town quirk, even if they have never chased a goat in a bathing suit or called 911 because there were cows in the road. Stimson's voice is endearing: both in its self-deprecation and its rapture, as she sings an only slightly conflicted love song to Vermont.” —Pam Houston, author of Contents May Have Shifted “Taking a plunge that wimpier sorts (i.e. most of us) only fantasize about, Ellen Stimson and her family packed up their house in St. Louis and threw themselves into a wildly different life in small-town Vermont. Armed with the passion-and haplessness-of wide-eyed newcomers they rescue goats and adopt chickens, do battle with skunks and bats and falling ice, and, most disastrously, buy a black hole of a general store. Through it all they manage to retain their love for their adopted home as well as one another. This is a tale to which all the cliché words absolutely apply: hilarious, heartwarming, rollicking, and, most of all, rich in the real stuff of life.” —Julia Reed, author of But Mama Always Put Vodka in Her Sangria!

"How one woman's dream of moving to Vermont--raising children, chickens, and sheep & running the old country store--pretty much led to one calamity after another"--Jacket.

Originally published: Woodstock, Vermont: The Countryman Press, 2013.

Fiction. In a text that doubles back on itself, revising and reinventing its own trajectory several times over, THE MUDDY SEASON is an excavation into narrative form and political oppression. Set in the steaming jungle of a colonial dystopia somewhere in the developing world, THE MUDDY SEASON depicts the struggle of an indigenous village to maintain its freedom and dignity in the face of the repressive policies of a racialized bureaucratic state. The villagers alternately press back and stand by as armed forces arrive to impose their tyrannical will: removing newborn babies from their mothers for indoctrination in the capital. Against the backdrop of poverty and overt political conflict, Matthew Raymond presents us with the complex inner struggle of the government agent tasked with overseeing the removal of the infants. As he carries out his duty on behalf of the state, the agent finds himself caught between bureaucratic obligation and his own burgeoning desires. At once enthralling and unflinching, brutal and impassioned, THE MUDDY SEASON is a sophisticated, narratively complex story that is as alluring as it is dark. "'Pulling her blue and wet from her mother and saying quietly, Life is suffering, the midwife smacked her'- and, thus, the reader finds herself thrust into the damp murk of afterbirth and the muddy season: into an absolutely captivating story that is as unflinching as it is bewitching. Told in four parts, THE MUDDY SEASON is a sophisticated, scorching story whose narrative choreography unfurls in an electrifying dance between soldiers and villagers, a girl and an agent. With a literary nod to the great innovative novelists Julio Cortázar and John Fowles, Raymond upends conventional fiction, while maintaining the brutal realism of the world's bureaucracies and oppressions. Analogous to the two central characters in section IV, in which one character leads and the other trails 'into the dark of the jungle beyond, ' when this author beckons, I too must follow." —Simone Muench "Matthew Raymond's THE MUDDY SEASON is a beguiling and prismatic gem of short fiction, yet bursting with a novel's share of action, drama, pathos, and idea. In it, Raymond has precision-extracted the best of Cormac McCarthy and Graham Greene and injected the resulting mixture into a universe out of Kafka. Painterly, structurally inventive and darkly moving." —Adrian Van Young

It's mud season, but there's more than mud in the middle of the road: There are pigs, hens, sheep, and bulls in the way. That won't do. For a car to get through, somebody's gotta shoo! But who? Plourde's trademark style blends alliteration and rhyme into an elegantly simple mix that children-and adults-enjoy reading aloud.

Chronicle of the unmaking of a gardener with explorations into the ecology of backyard gardens.

Boots McFarland is an adventurous outdoor-loving cartoon character who has been hiking the trails for over 15 years. On the Trail with Boots McFarland-Volume 1 is a collection of humorous comics capturing the highs and lows of backpacking life, interspersed with entries from the author's Pacific Crest Trail hiking journal. The ideas for most of these cartoons come directly from personal trail experiences... real or imagined. Over the years, Boots cartoons have become popular in the worldwide hiking community and now for the first time, the artist Geolyn J. Carvin is offering these images in book form. You'll be ready to hit the trail after reading these pages!

In this eloquent plea for compassion and respect for all species, journalist and gardener Nancy Lawson describes why and how to welcome wildlife to our backyards. Through engaging anecdotes and inspired advice, profiles of home gardeners throughout the country, and interviews with scientists and horticulturalists, Lawson applies the broader lessons of ecology to our own outdoor spaces. Detailed chapters address planting for wildlife by choosing native species; providing habitats that shelter baby animals, as well as birds, bees, and butterflies; creating safe zones in the garden; cohabiting with creatures often regarded as pests; letting nature be your garden designer; and encouraging natural processes and evolution in the garden. The Humane Gardener fills a unique niche in describing simple principles for both attracting wildlife and peacefully resolving conflicts with all the creatures that share our world.

What if society looked at addiction without judgement? Unstitched shares the powerful story of one librarian’s quest to understand the impact of addiction fed by stigma and inevitable secrecy. The opioid epidemic has hit people in communities large and small and across all socio-economic classes. What should each of us know about it, and do about it? Unstitched moves readers from feelings of helplessness and blame into empathy, ultimately helping friends, family, and community members separate the disease of addiction from the person underneath. A stranger, rumored to be a heroin addict, repeatedly breaks into the small-town library Brett Ann Stanciu runs. After she tries to get law enforcement to take meaningful action against him—elementary school children and young parents with babies frequent the place after all—he dies by suicide. When she realizes how little she knows about opioid misuse, she sets out on a mission, seeking insight from others, such as people in recovery, treatment providers, the town police chief, and Vermont's US attorney. Stanciu’s journey leads to compassionate generosity, renewed faith, and ultimately a measure of personal redemption as she realizes she has a role to play in helping the people of her community stitch themselves back together.

A comprehensive, accessible guide to a subject near and dear to every New Englander's heart: the weather.