Manuscript Readings on Hiatus

Woodley Press is currently in a manuscript reading hiatus, as books published has outweighed funds available to publish them. Sadly, we will need to pass on outstanding work, but we hope all of those interested in submitting to continue checking back.

Thank you for your support,

Dennis

Save Your Own Life by Amy Sage Webb

122 pages
paperback
2012
$15.00

ISBN-13: 978-0-9854586-0-7

These are stories rooted in Kansas soil, in country roads and small towns, in characters you swear you have met before, men and women who tug at your heart and get under your skin. The landscape where they live is both familiar and exotic, deeply felt and vividly described, from a writer clearly at home in the natural world. Save Your Own Life is a strong and satisfying collection, with language that can punch you in the solar plexus-just the right phrase, just what you have always known. -Sharman Apt Russell, author of Standing in the Light: My Life as a Pantheist and Hunger: An Unnatural History

In Save Your Own Life Amy Sage Webb establishes herself as a major Midwestern voice who is not afraid to both love and critique the people of her region. Webb cares about her characters, and she instills them with personality and heart-and with needs we can both feel and understand. She knows the world of work, and what she turns her narrative lens upon teaches us something about who we are and how we can live: fully, completely, intentionally. Her characters' struggles-for love, for appreciation, for success-mirror our own. Webb is a writer who knows her stuff. From the details within her stories to the architecture of story itself, her hand is steady, her gaze is sure. -Kevin Rabas, author of Bird's Horn, Lisa's Flying Electric Piano, Spider Face

Reading Amy Sage Webb is a delight. Save Your Own Life is full of mismatched people attracting and repelling each other. Brothers are in love with the same woman at different times. An LA artist and KC food writer meet in his mis-built studio. The husband of a mentally ill woman remains "fixed and ever-blooming," like dreams doomed in a desert. In "The Memory of Water" a woman older than any in her veterinary class has the task of running donor horses until they die, but dealing with death brings her warmth and romance. "The Wedding Gift" is a gift in itself. The robust stories in Save Your Own Life are full of surprises, are clear, open and singing all through. -Thomas Fox Averill, author of rode and Secrets of the Tsil Café

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Point of Departure by Marina Jaffe

82 pages
paperback
2012
$12.00

ISBN-13: 978-0-9828752-9-2

In her dazzling first book, POINT OF DEPARTURE, Marina Jaffe explores regions of place and regions of identity in a collection of poems that is so much more than a travelogue. The poet interacts with street kids in Central America, writing poems with heart, but also with a hard eye at the unfortunate realities these children face. The book also examines the lives of fellow continent hoppers, including the tough decisions they make, towards or against conformity, society, and stasis. Poems also examine family and its legacy, its identity blueprint in a postmodern age.

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Everything I Learned by Age 40 by G W Clift

122 pages
paperback
2012
$17.00


ISBN-13: 978-0-9828752-6-1


Short stories of a unique milieu. Some are humorous and others are hard-hitting portraits of the characters and settings in Kansas and other places.


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This Ecstasy They Call Damnation by Israel Wasserstein

94 pages
paperback
2012
$12.00


ISBN-13: 978-0-9828752-8-5


"The poems in This Ecstasy They Call Damnation walk a razor's edge, bristling with intensity as they tackle the hard work of survival, both physical and spiritual. In this wide-ranging collection, Israel Wasserstein tells and re-tells myths, legends, Bible stories, and his own brilliant poems of Highway 54. The speedometer's always broken in this life, Wasserstein reminds us, and how we cope with this knowledge, and this lack of knowledge, seems to be at the heart of this rich, sure-handed debut." -Jim Daniels, author of Having a Little Talk with Capital P Poetry and other books

"An evocative and lyrical storyteller, Israel Wasserstein takes on Bible stories and zombies, politics and myth. Like the angels that "we might entertain...unaware" these poems bless us with startling beauty and intelligence as they plumb the depths of the human condition. A deft and stunning debut that lingers long after the last page has been turned." -Lisa D. Chávez, Professor of Creative Writing at the University of New Mexico, author of Destruction Bay and In an Angry Season


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Links

Kansas Links Center for Kansas Studies: A multitude of information regarding Kansas literature, books in print, Kansas in the movies and much more  Kansas State Historical Society: Archives, exhibits, publications and other resources related to Kansas history Sunflower Journeys: Travel around Kansas for many exciting sites Kansas Web: Information about Kansas history, educational institutions, cities, businesses, and entertainment Washburn University: Campus, students, faculty and course offerings The Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library: A homepage featuring services available at the library Center for Great Plains Studies, Emporia State University: Information, resources, and publications from ESU Kansas Collection: The voices of the past are heard again through nearly-lost books, letters, diaries, photographs, and other materials Blue Skyways: A shared information service intended to help Kansas libraries serve as vital information utilities for their communities. Blue Skyways Poetry Page: Explore the poetry of Kansas here
Literary Links Prairie Poetry: A site dedicated to offering images from the plains, images to feed the vast open places of the soul Poetry Society of America: An organization whose goal is to raise the awareness of poetry, to deepen the understanding of it and to encourage more people to read, listen to, and write poetry BookWire: The most comprehensive guide to the book-related resources of the Internet Flint Hills Review: Literary Magazine of Emporia State University

Atlas of Our Birth by Serina Allison Hearn

146 pages
paperback
2010
$15.00


ISBN-13: 978-0981733470


A poetry collection about place, the environment, colonialism and its current path, and family. Atlas of Our Birth is a map of an ongoing journey beginning in Trinidad and Tobago while including Kansas.

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