Arts Mart
New FROM Marisa Labozzetta
Author of Stay With Me, Lella, and At the Copa, a John Gardner Fiction Award Finalist
Thieves Never Steal in the Rain
Linked stories about loss, love, and the supernatural
To order as an eBook, CLICK HERE.
For Kindles, Computers, and other electronic devices
To download the eBook on your computer or other electronic device:
• Go to www.amazon.com
• Scroll down to Kindle under shop all departments
• Click on appropriate device button at the right of the page
• Click download now
• Order any eBook
 Black, White, Other
By Joan Steinau Lester
The tenderness and truth of your book moved my heart. As well as the enormous love you have.
--Alice Walker
Like the current U.S. president, Nina Armstrong is biracial. Unlike him, the character is a teenager, and her black father, Silas, and white mother, Maggie, have decided to divorce. Nina lives with Maggie, a lefty whose family roots are in union organizing; her little brother, Jimi, lives with his dad, who is busy rediscovering his African-American roots, which include an enslaved great-grandmother Sarah, whose story Silas is writing. Nina is emotionally, socially, and historically conflicted: who is she, and whose is she? She's got white friends and black friends who inhabit different peer worlds, and the family tension shapes everything.
Lester (Fire in My Soul) conjures a credible plot and complications; divorce is a fact of life and racially mixed heritage is conspicuously becoming one. The simple contrapuntal narrative of Sarah Armstrong's escaping slavery distinguishes the book emotionally and psychologically, raising it above other issue-oriented YA novels. Lester writes with social sensitivity and an ear for teen language and concerns. This is engaging treatment of a challenging subject that comes with little precedent."
--Publisher's Weekly Starred Review
To watch the YouTube trailer, CLICK HERE.
Black, White, Other is widely available online and at bookstores nationally. Buy several as gifts for the teens and older folks in your life.
For reviews and signing events, CLICK HERE.
The Pantyhose Declarations
By Nan Lundeen
Meet powerful women who love to laugh, find joy in the feminine Divine, honor Earth, and amuse themselves even as they vow to jump off that duty train, dance bare-legged, and invite the slightly fallen to new life through an uplifting, redemptive red bra in Nan Lundeen’s book of poems, The Pantyhose Declarations.
Drawing upon strength in her Iowa ancestral women, Lundeen, who devoted thirty years to a career in journalism, breaks out her debut book of thirty-eight poems with delight that finally she can speak in her own voice.
mirror, mirror, on the wall/what's this dangling? oh, my God, the ------fall!”
--From "The Redemptive Red Bra"
Aunt Geneva damp from her bath/tosses more powder/into the breach,/yanks, shifts, pulls,/dances from leg to leg/like a sumo wrestler/fighting with that damn corset/on her wedding day.
--From “The Women in our Family Wore Corsets”
Bedraggled August garden/shrieks orange and fire red/into hot skies/like an old, old woman/eyes defiant/refusing to take her bath.
--From “Victory Garden”
When we are awed/by the spiral dance of life,/the awful mystery,/a circle is our place to reach out/and find a sister’s hand.
--From “What a Circle Can Do”
The collection of poems is delightful. I enjoy picking it up often and becoming a part of the ‘sisterhood’ Nan brings to life in the poems.
--Diane Lawrence, Greenville, SC
To enjoy Nan’s video, or to order her book of poetry, CLICK HERE.
 Solace:
Readings for Transforming Childhood Trauma
By Elizabeth Oakes
It's Never Too Late to Transform Your Childhood
Solace: Readings for Transforming Childhood Trauma is for anyone dealing with the residue of childhood trauma of any form. It is different from other books on the subject in that it moves beyond surviving the past and recovering the self to transforming the past and the self. It is also different in that it appeals to the imagination and brings in the spiritual component.
The forty-five readings, which are written in the form of "I," enable the reader to self-identify, with the six affirmations/visualizations an additional aid. Together, they trace a journey of healing into wholeness.
The overall arc of Solace is the resolution and transcendence of childhood trauma and bonding with others imaginatively and spiritually to embrace life as a whole, healed person, a whole, healed tribe.
Solace can help you transform your past, transform your self, and transform your spirit in its vision of a fulfilling, joyful life for you and others.
Elizabeth Oakes is an award-winning poet and the co-owner of Ethereal Publications, which is dedicated to art and writing from the spiritual imagination.
To order, CLICK HERE.
Burning Bright
Passager Celebrates 21 Years
The words that appear on the page amaze me. I feel I am tapping into what my mother termed the ‘all surrounding good,’ where anything is possible. I have never felt so alive.
Joyce LaMers, age 91
Burning Bright is an anthology of poetry, fiction and memoir by writers over 50. It features strong, memorable writing about childhood, the body, death and loss, politics and war, social justice, sex and love. Over half of the 111 writers are in their 70s, 80s, and 90s and still writing. The work has been selected from 21 years of Passager, a journal and press dedicated to older writers.
To order CLICK HERE.
To order Grace Paley: Collected Shorts on DVD, CLICK HERE.
Dreams of Repair
By Eleanor Rubin
With a Foreword by Howard Zinn
Among the 37 images reproduced in color are watercolors and prints from 1978 to the present.
If the role of art is to join beauty to a deep caring for people in trouble, for a world in trouble, if it is to transcend the artificial boundaries that keep us apart, if it is to join us in solidarity with other sentient beings and with the natural world, then Eleanor Rubin fulfills the most profound responsibilities of the artist.
--Howard Zinn, from the Foreword to Dreams of Repair
Born in Hollywood, California, Eleanor Rubin is a print-maker and watercolor artist whose work is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Her human rights posters, “Sticks and Stones” and “Celebrate Community” were published in the 1970s and 1980s by Human Policy Press and Syracuse Cultural Workers. Using her artwork, she has collaborated with poets and research scientists. Her stunning images have been selected as cover art for many publications. Rubin is an avid amateur cellist whose artwork is influenced by music. The qualities of narrative and protest in her work are indebted to courageous artists including Nancy Spero, May Stevens, Tomiyama Taeko, and Charlotte Salomon.
Rubin’s book is available at the store of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and in independent book stores nationally and internationally.
To order, CLICK HERE.
 What’s Left Is The Singing
By Mary Kay Rummel
In this accomplished book, Mary Kay Rummel spins words into mysticism and magic. “Not to be ordinary,” she was drawn into the convent where she was forbidden to read fiction because the Superior didn’t like it. In “Patterns of Obedience,” she writes that she was able to leave when “words whispered in that wind/telling her to go forth and read, to never ask again.” Set free, she read and wrote and traveled, visiting early Irish history and myth ... her words become exquisite lyric poems.
—Jill Breckenridge
Just finished reading Mary Kay Rummel's What's Left Is The Singing. Beautiful language, lovely images. Read it!
—Kb Ballentine
When one reads the poems of Mary Kay Rummel, one expects a certain precision of language, a vigilant detail, a concentrated lyric whisper that elevates the ordinary life’s ordinary aspirations. On these counts, What’s Left Is The Singing does not disappoint. But these poems are also transformative. Here we find beauty that resists adoration, caution that armors raised fists, and belief that survives religion. Here we find metaphors for life’s passion in the scapes of sand and tides and endless stars that shine through us. And if we don’t find distraction from our ignorance, we do find elegant language touched with music and some blessings and a few reasons to go on. This is exactly what we ask from our poetry.
—David Oliveira
To order, CLICK HERE.
 Sculpting Classes
For Beginners, Intermediate and Advanced Students
With Zahava Sherez
Discover the passion of playing with mud or carving on a piece of soap again… Come, have fun and embark on a creative inner journey.
In a nonjudgmental environment you will be guided while respecting your individual process and encouraging you to move forward into unfamiliar creative territories. Topics covered include design, carving and modeling techniques, tools and safety, finishing processes and effects to create abstract and figurative sculptures in clay and stone.
Zahava Sherez has been teaching adults how to recover their inner creativity since 1994. She is the stone carving teacher of Pixar Animation Studios and the sculpture teacher at St. Paul’s Towers, a retirement community in Oakland, CA. She has ongoing morning and evening classes at her studio in Oakland, California.
Sherez studied at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and at The Avni Institute of Fine Arts in Tel Aviv. She is included in the 2007 Best of America Sculpture Artists and Artisans, Vol.1, as well as the 2010 Vol. 2. She teaches in English, Spanish, and Hebrew.
What others say:
Zahava is an exceptionally talented artist and art instructor. She has worked with a wide range of professionals from Pixar… She is personable, smart and a clear communicator.
--Elyse Klaidman, Director, Pixar University and Archive at Pixar Animation Studios, Emeryville, CA
We often hear Benjamin Zander when we're in Boston. He is so great! Everybody leaves feeling high. Not so different from your classes. In fact, you are the same kind of teacher he is, believing in your students from the very beginning and knowing in your heart what the transforming power of art is. Music or stone or clay or whatever it is, it brings us to a different place. A place of endless possibilities.
-- Jane T. R., St. Paul’s Towers, Oakland, CA
For more information, CLICK HERE.
 The Living Spirit of the Crone
Turning Aging Inside Out
By Sally Palmer Thomason
This is a fascinating and exciting book - part history, part anthropology, some science, some medicine, part psychology and philosophy and theology - but principally it is a call to optimism, a call for us to realize that we are never finished but perpetually created, and for us to live fully, to fully live. A must read for the over 60 set!
--T. Eaglemon, Amazon comment
Unlike many in its field, this book really does deliver what its title promises…. Those of us who have been granted long life will find in these generous pages the confirmation of our own experiences, while those who have not yet attained full maturity will find Thomason’s work to be an informing prophet and welcome guide.
--Phyllis Tickle, The Graces We Remember
Thomason's research and reflection on aging disclose the scientific and medical oversights and cultural biases that inform our attitudes toward aging. Based on the personal experiences and stories recounted in dozens of interviews, Thomason proposes strong, new, holistic perspectives that can overcome our cultural misconceptions and animate personal, medical, and religious work by and with the aging.
Sally Palmer Thomason teaches courses at the Memphis Theological Seminary and presents workshops to medical, church, and lay groups on holistic aging.
To order, CLICK HERE.
 BRIGHT FUTURE GLOBAL TOURS
Fun, Inspiring, Responsible Small Group Tours
Led by Louise Wisechild, PhD
Guatemala: In the Land of the Mayans
Winter Solstice in Peten: Light & Rebirth
December 18 – 28 2011
20% late availability discount!
Welcome the new light of winter solstice in the land of the ancient Mayan astronomers! The Peten region of northern Guatemala is regarded as the “cradle of Mayan civilization,” claiming the magnificent site of Tikal. Peten is also known for its natural beauty and abundance of birds and other wildlife. Christmas is enthusiastically celebrated with unique crafts, music, and holiday foods. Join us in experiencing the magnificent achievements of the Mayans and the living magic of Guatemala.
Day of the Dead Tour: Giant Kites & Baby Sea Turtles
October 29 – November 8, 2012
Experience one of Latin America's most unique celebrations of Dia de los Muertos in Sacatepequez, Guatemala, where the Mayan people honor their ancestors and culture by sending messages on the wind with kites. Learn from Mayan healers and Guatemalan artists. Participate in the preservation of sea turtles in the coastal town of Monterrico. Explore the magic of Guatemala in a tour which honors death and celebrates resilience and life.
Custom tours also available.
~ Engaging with People, Projects and Places
~ Showcasing Global Creativity, Human Rights, Mother Earth & Local Business
~ Sustainable, Supportive, Participatory Small Group Travel
Louise Wisechild, PhD, is an author, creative artist, life-long traveler, and experienced tour guide currently blogging from Guatemala.
For further information,
CLICK HERE.
 Provocaciones
Letters from the Prettiest Girl in Arvin
By Rafaela Castro
Rafaela Castro grew up in Arvin, California, a small agricultural town near Weedpatch Camp, the labor camp in John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath. Her pre-teen and teenage years were spent in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she has lived most of her adult life. After two years in Brazil with the Peace Corps, in the mid-1960s, she returned home to start her education. Attending the University of California, Berkeley, she received degrees in English Literature, Library Science, and a Masters degree in Folklore.
This collection of personal essays and stories give shape to rich cultural and historical narratives of Mexican-American family life. As an intimate study of the writer’s parent’s marriage, the essays also examine a loving but challenging mother–daughter relationship.
…Her tantalizingly short book contains rich and multifaceted stories. Highly recommended for high school, academic, and public libraries.
LibraryJournal.com
Overall, I found the essays were a delight to read, refreshing, thoughtful and, yes, very provocative.
Peacecorpswriters.org
Like letters to be shared with friends or a writing group, these are the musings of a cultural observer reflecting on her own life. This is clean, graceful, unadorned prose posing questions….
Tucson Weekly
To order, CLICK HERE.
 Crone
Women Coming of Age
A twice-yearly magazine written by and for women over 50
At Crone, we believe that the experience of aging is rich with spiritual meaning. That's why we have created a unique magazine that honors our deep wisdom as eldering women.
Join our circle by subscribing today! Crone is a richly-illustrated, advertising-free 128-page magazine for eldering women 50 and up, published twice yearly in both perfect-bound paperback and digital PDF eZine formats and available by subscription only.
Founded in 2008 by Anne Newkirk Niven, Editor.
To subscribe, CLICK HERE. For a free sample (via PDF download), CLICK HERE and use coupon code Crone03-CG112bbi. For a paper sample by mail, email your name and address to editor2@bbimedia.com or write to: Crone Magazine, PO Box 687, Forest Grove, OR 97116.
Subscriptions: 2 issues - $22 in USA ($20 for low/fixed income). In Canada, $31USD, overseas $36USD. Free subscriptions available upon request (letterhead or official email address required) to senior/women's centers, public libraries and women's prisons.
Know the Mystery
By Scottie Daugherty
Know the Mystery is a collection of thirteen personal essays. It is essentially about growth and change – how they really can happen in our lives. It is about how I brought myself into Being by wanting me more than anything or any one else. It is my life story – one that seems quite miraculous to me now.
When I was 41, I left my husband of 21 years and my three children and went to Boston where I got an M.A. from Goddard Cambridge Graduate School for Social Change. I
would do it again and am only grateful for the growth and change it enabled me to experience. Before that, I figured that others must benefit from me. Now I benefit from me.
To order, CLICK HERE.
To visit the site, CLICK HERE.
The Waterhauler
A Desert Story
By Cooper Gallegos
The Waterhauler, a collection of sixteen linked stories, follows the lives of a group of loners who populate the fictional town of Goat’s Corner in the Mojave Desert. Together they confront progress as it paves its way down the dirt roads of their town. A woman’s growing pack of dogs explodes through the kitchen door one night, holding her hostage; a 67-year old woman lives in a Sears Roebuck shed and is stalked by a social worker; the local feed store owner turns arsonist; a teacher disappears with his entire fifth-grade class. Velma, the water hauler, wends her way through each story, guarding a secret that in the end drives her from Goat’s Corner. Bound together by the limits of their environment, these desert denizens struggle to survive with dignity, courage, and often misguided choices.
Cooper Gallegos developed a passion for the desert as a child when she spent summers in a one-room adobe in a small Mexican village. Twenty years later, as a young widow, she left Los Angeles with her two pre-teen sons and bought five acres with no water or electricity in the Mojave Desert, six miles from town. There, she found a home, a community, and inspiration for a wealth of stories. Her work has been published in several anthologies as well as in Persimmon Tree.
She is currently at work on a novel entitled, Chicken Coop Chronicles.
To order CLICK HERE.
 Swimming in Circles Is Better than Drowning
By Leanne Garrett Flanagan
Swimming in Circles Is Better than Drowning chronicles the story of a less-than-graceful, tragicomic transformation from privileged daughter of her “perfect” 1950’s family to middle-aged wife, mother and daughter.
Set apart from the current popular narrative memoir style, this book will engage you from the beginning by revealing, reflective memories through essays and poetry. Flanagan takes you through childhood and adolescence in “Fitting In,” “My 15 Minutes of Fame” and “The Train Station.” Her marriage and family life is portrayed in “None Other than Motherhood” and “The Other Side of the Waiting Room.”
Midlife demons interrupt the good life where the pieces turn intense and deeply emotional with “Circling the Drain” and “To and Fro.” The heroine begins her recovery from desolation with a lot of help, hence the poem, “Celebration.” More of her humorous side is shown in a witty, tongue-in-cheek observation, “The Virgin Commute.” Regained spirit and hope are evident in final chapters with “Increasing Fits of Happiness” and her ending “My Obit”
As Flanagan puts it, “I have dogpaddled through the deep end of life, but now I know style doesn’t matter; it’s okay to be flawed. I finally made it to shore and I’m on solid ground (most of the time).”
To order , CLICK HERE.
 Journeywell
A Guide to Quality Aging
By Trish Herbert
Wake Up, Show Up, Lighten Up
Journeywell gives you a framework to think about how you can make your last years as fulfilling as they can be. You are given questions to ponder, information and suggestions that have worked well for others, and are asked to think about what might work best for you. This is not a how-to-do-aging book. There is no right way to grow old. What is “right” for one person may not fit for you at all. Journeywell talks of the joys of aging as well as the tough subjects like surviving loss, caregiving, and dying, believing that you can reshape those times and make them richer, deeper, and more loving. Journeywell is practical, uplifting, and aims to help you be the person you want to be. Herbert summarizes with the 3-Ups: Wake Up, Show Up, and Lighten Up. The book includes a group facilitator guide because of its growing use in colleges, churches, retirement centers, and other group settings.
I've read numerous books on the topic and this is definitely the best I've come across. Journeywell comes from Trish's lived experience as well as having been a licensed psychologist with a PhD in gerontology.
--Joyce Rupp, Praying Our Goodbyes: A Spiritual Companion Through Life's Losses and Sorrows, Open the Door: A Journey to the True Self, and more
Journeywell is a treasure chest of wisdom, practical tips, and hand-holding that invites deep reflection and smart planning. I felt nurtured by its guidance, wit, and down-to-earth perspectives I quickly came to trust.
-- Pat Samples, Daily Comforts for Caregivers
To order, CLICK HERE.
 PASTEL PAINTINGS
OF MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS
KAREN HONNOLD, ARTIST
Present your favorite musician with a timeless and personal representation of a special instrument.
Your painting will be created on black pastel paper used by the artist to enhance the intricacy of the instrument.
The paintings are delivered matted, framed, and ready to hang.
Karen Honnold was attracted to the arts in early childhood. She routinely engages in multiple disciplines including poetry and the visual arts.
Most recently Karen's passion has been the use of pastels to depict musical instruments.
The painting is of my grandfathers violin found in a local museum. The condition is unfortunate, but also a source of inspiration. The beauty of music is a constant source of inspiration to me. I'm moved by the music and the elegance of each musical instrument represented in an orchestra, a blue grass band, or the mellow tones of my daughters “saxophone."
--Karen Honnold
For additional information, CLICK HERE.
 Cairo
The Practical Guide
By Lesley Lababidi
The new, fully-revised edition for post-revolution Egypt
The guide described by The New York Times as “indispensable,” fills a vital niche for expatriates and Cairenes alike who need a helping hand to organize and enjoy the challenges of a sojourn in Cairo. The basics of daily life—finding a flat, transporting personal goods, investigating school options for children, navigating Egypt’s famous bureaucracy, and the intricacies of feeding and clothing oneself and one’s family from the local market—are all detailed here. Advice gathered from a wide range of Cairo insiders, both native and foreign, gives the reader a cornucopia of current facts on prices, neighborhoods, products availability, work and business opportunities, and the dizzying range of cultural and leisure pursuits for which Cairo is famous. Cairo The Practical Guide is the key to deciphering the complexities of living, working, and enjoying life in one of the world’s most exciting and dauntingly complex mega-cities.
To watch Lesley Lababidi’s interview CLICK HERE.
Read more books by Lesley Lababidi: Paddle Your Own Canoe, An American Woman's Passage into Nigeria; Cairo The Family Guide; Cairo Street Stories,Silent No More: Special Needs People in Egypt.
To order, CLICK HERE.
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