Books of Literary Fiction & Poetry & Other Items for Mature, Culturally Savvy Readers
offers us a diverting ride through the landscape of family relationships, Tibetan Buddhist practice, present and absent friends, food, music, art, sex, memories, aging, toe shoes, and toaster ovens—the ever-expanding whizbang that is our collective life at this impermanent moment, expressed with candor and affection.
Radner’s work has appeared in numerous literary and commercial magazines, anthologies and textbooks.
For over 20 years she reviewed books regularly for the San Francisco Chronicle and other publications.
Mrs. Frog’s Improbable Search for Love
by Pam Glenn
The redoubtable Mrs. Frog has moved to the marsh, and no one’s quite sure what to to with her—least of all Mrs. Frog herself, who is loudly opinionated, bold, bossy, flirtatious . . . and bereft. Still, she does what she can to maintain her spirits and her figure: Her overhead claps and eagle pose, unlike some of her pronouncements, are models of form and timing.
This is not The Wind in the Willows. Nobody drives a wee roadster or lives in a tree-root grotto furnished from tiny garage sales. Mrs. Frog is damp, hefty, bumpy, blotched. Walt and the geezers are real blackbirds. In light of which, some of the pairings in the community are,
well, odd. So show us one that isn’t.
Selected Poems
by Susan Rawlins
reveals layers of meaning in the language we use to communicate with and confuse each other; to share our feelings and hide them at the same time; to embark on a task in hope and collapse under systems and instructions gone awry. Murphy sometimes rules this world—If something can go wrong, it will!—and Susan Rawlins catalogs the glorious disarray in her witty, distinctive voice.
Rawlins’ work has appeared in numerous literary magazines, on newsstands and online.
She has reviewed for the San Francisco Chronicle; edited fiction, nonfiction and poetrry for publication; and taught writing in schools, in workshops, and online.
Once upon a time,
a young girl traded a story for her life;
a painter traded his art for stones;
a farmer traded his mending for the love
of a beautiful woman;
a boy traded his knowledge and patience
for the moonagate shooter.
And through it all, over centuries,
the red stone necklace passed
from hand to hand,
generation to generation,
around the globe.