Nikki Nash’s frank, funny memoir "Collateral Stardust" is about growing up in an offbeat Los Angeles family. Nash was the sensitive oldest child in an unconventional family in the 1960s. Her father was a show-business trombonist and... Read More

"High Desert Blood" covers the 1980 New Mexico prison riot and two brothers with the unfortunate luck of getting caught in the middle. After a failed arson attempt in service of his father’s insurance fraud scheme, Gary Williams... Read More

The nine intricate essays in Margot Singer’s collection "Secret Agent Man" braid investigations of womanhood, Jewishness, and family memory. The sly title piece contrasts spy movie clichés with the reality of Singer’s Czech-born... Read More

A Toronto woman tries to balance motherhood with being a musician in Lindsay Zier-Vogel’s heartfelt novel "The Fun Times Brigade". Amy’s newborn daughter, Alice, screams, won’t sleep, and won’t take a bottle. Amy’s husband,... Read More

Jennifer Kabat’s pensive, poetic memoir "Nightshining" explores the connections between local waterways and stories of family, community, and climate change. Using “hydrology as a governing principle,” the narrative addresses the... Read More

In his rollicking essay collection "Double Hyenas and Lazarus Birds", Charles Hood reckons with the ocean’s simultaneous allure and risk through stories of seabird-watching and of his father’s wartime service in the Pacific Theater.... Read More