From "Knoxville News-Sentinel" humor columnist Venable comes a rollicking view of life after 50 that will leave readers laughing and happy to be members of the AARP set.

A novel about Black life.

The majority of the poems incorporated in this book of poetry have been inspired through my association with the former base for poets from the Philadelphia and New Jersey area known as Poetry in the Park. This venue was located inside of Cooper river Park in New Jersey. The group met twice a month and shared poetic ideas, we were like a family, exchanging ideas and encouraging each other as brothers and sisters. Our ring leader was Brother Daoud Bey who was Mr. everything, doing anything that need to be done from MC, keeping things in order, providing music, encouragement, food for thought. And a big kind heart.! Brother Bey was the right hand of Sandra Turner Barnes, Executive Director of Camden County Cultural Heritage Commission. She worked tirelessly to maintain Poetry in The Park for 10 years at the aforementioned location. I was a part of seven of those years at my home away from home. We have found another location in a larger better venue, located in the City of Camden, New Jersey a part of The IDEA Center at the Susquehanna Bank Center.

A schizophrenic woman must grapple with the pain of losing not only a daughter, but a sister and a lover, in this compelling and highly emotional novel.

In the late nineteenth century, black musicians in the lower Mississippi Valley, chafing under the social, legal, and economic restrictions of Jim Crow, responded with a new musical form -- the blues. In Jim Crow's Counterculture, R. A. Lawson offers a cultural history of blues musicians in the segregation era, explaining how by both accommodating and resisting Jim Crow life, blues musicians created a counterculture to incubate and nurture ideas of black individuality and citizenship. These individuals, Lawson shows, collectively demonstrate the African American struggle during the early twentieth century. Derived from the music of the black working class and popularized by commercially successful songwriter W. C. Handy, early blues provided a counterpoint to white supremacy by focusing on an anti-work ethic that promoted a culture of individual escapism -- even hedonism -- and by celebrating the very culture of sex, drugs, and violence that whites feared. According to Lawson, blues musicians such as Charley Patton and Muddy Waters drew on traditions of southern black music, including call and response forms, but they didn't merely sing of a folk past. Instead, musicians saw blues as a way out of economic subservience. Lawson chronicles the major historical developments that changed the Jim Crow South and thus the attitudes of the working-class blacks who labored in that society. The Great Migration, the Great Depression and New Deal, and two World Wars, he explains, shaped a new consciousness among southern blacks as they moved north, fought overseas, and gained better-paid employment. The "me"-centered mentality of the early blues musicians increasingly became "we"-centered as these musicians sought to enter mainstream American life by promoting hard work and patriotism. Originally drawing the attention of only a few folklorists and music promoters, popular black musicians in the 1940s such as Huddie Ledbetter and Big Bill Broonzy played music that increasingly reached across racial lines, and in the process gained what segregationists had attempted to deny them: the identity of American citizenship. By uncovering the stories of artists who expressed much in their music but left little record in traditional historical sources, Jim Crow's Counterculture offers a fresh perspective on the historical experiences of black Americans and provides a new understanding of the blues: a shared music that offered a message of personal freedom to repressed citizens.

Halloween is rapidly approaching. In the chill of late October, three childhood friends gather in the forest to partake in a dangerous rite: David Sullivan and Alec McLean, who once walked the world of Faerie...and young Aikin Daniels, a “Mighty Hunter” desperate to join the select brotherhood of those who have trod the Straight Tracks. In the moonlight, in separate dreams, their quests are revealed to them—enticing each into the Otherworlds with promises of glorious adventure, lost love regained...and vengeance. But All Hallows is no time for a group of inquisitive college students to be traipsing back and forth across forbidden borders. For this Samhain night is owned by a dark and hideous power older than Faerie itself—an irresistible force that combs the Tracks in search of blood and souls. Only the dawn can save those whom he pursues—an eternity for David, Alec, Aikin and their friend Liz Hughes, who find themselves at the mercy of unrestrained chaos in a perilous, uncertain place. But suddenly there is no escape—not even in their own familiar mortal realm of cars and friends and rock ’n’ roll. For the World Walls are breaking down—and can no longer restrain the terrible mad ride of the Wild Hunt.

"So, when are you going to let me take you out again?" asked Dillon, leaning over the armrest between us. "Well, I'm not sure, I'll have to check my calendar" I said, bashfully leaning away from him and the pull I was feeling to kiss his lips. Ouch. I hope he didn't see me bump the back of my head against the window, I thought. I think she bumped her head, mused Dillon. He leaned over closer. It must be the moon, I thought. The moon works in mysterious ways. People are oftentimes inclined to do things in the night that they might find unthinkable by the light of day. It has got to be the moon. I tried to reason with myself. Why am I sitting here playing hard to get when I know darn well that I want to kiss this man? I searched Dillon's eyes for an answer but his facial expression betrayed his thought process. I think she wants to kiss me. Nah, maybe it's just the Grand Marnier talking. I'll let her make the first move. -Excerpt, An Infrequent Pairing Whimsical and provocative. An Infrequent Pairing is an arousing narrative of life's conundrums and passions.

As seen through the eyes of Sam Venable, the world is indeed bizarre and filled with nuttiness. The archives of the Knoxville News Sentinel offer ample evidence that Venable is a bit of the former and has made a career out of drawing attention to the latter. For his latest book, Venable has gathered and organized 139 of his newspaper columns—his biggest collection yet—to create a trove of wit and wisdom. In the spirit of “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” he points a finger at human nature, the environment, civil rights and wrongs, and an eclectic mix of other targets, drawing our attention to the foibles, failings, and just plain absurdities that surround us all. As a native son and treasured institution in East Tennessee, Venable has earned the right to poke fun at its local history, habits, and happenings. He takes full, loving advantage of this license in essays such as “How to Tawlk Good,” “Shall We Gather with a Reptile,” and “The Good, the Bad, the Kudzu.” He takes on the government in a section titled “A Two-Ring Circus with Elephants and Donkeys,” and in another called “Still Waiting for Y2K,” he offers up “A Lesson in Dollars and Sense” and “Blowing the Budget for Bowser.” Some have called him a modern-day Mark Twain, others the Dave Barry of Knoxville; but while there may be some similarities, Sam Venable is wonderfully unique. He sees—and sees through—the pervasive silliness and stupidity in our world. It evokes wonder in him, and with many a deft turn of phrase, he interprets that wonder for us. Warning! This Product Contains Nuttiness will make you smile, certainly, but it will also make you think and sometimes even touch your heart.

For Crying Out Loud centers around a one damn thing after another, conflicted modern day relationship. Humorous, poignant and unpredictable, the reader laughs, cries and rides the emotional roller coaster with the two main characters. Unique in its style, Alex and Marissa are both separately relating the story of their budding romance to their mutual therapist. Twists, turns and shocking surprises will keep the reader glued to every page. Definitely not your run-of-the-mill romance, For Crying Out Loud will leave you crying for "More!"

Sam Venable is a humor columnist for the Knoxville News Sentinel. The winner of numerous writing awards, he is the author of ten books, including Id Rather be Ugly than Stuppid, From Ridgetops to Riverbottoms: A Celebration of the Outdoor Life in Tennessee, and You Gotta Laugh to Keep from Cryin: A Baby Boomer Contemplates Life beyond Fifty.