The Poacher's Son

Game Warden, Mike Bowditch returns home one evening to find an alarming voice from the past on his answering machine: it belongs to his father, Jack, a hard drinking womanizer who makes his living poaching illegal game. An even more frightening call comes the next morning from the police; they are searching for the man who killed a beloved local cop the night before, and his father is their prime suspect. Jack has escaped from police custody, and only Mike believes that his tormented father might not be guilty.

Now, alienated from the woman he loves, shunned by colleagues who have no sympathy for the suspected cop killer, Mike must come to terms with his haunted past. He knows first hand Jack's brutality, but is the man capable of murder? Desperate and alone, Mike strikes up an uneasy alliance with a retired warden pilot, and together the two men journey deep into the Maine wilderness in search of a runaway fugitive. There they meet a beautiful woman who seems to be guarding a dangerous secret. The only way for Mike to save his father now is to find the real killer, which means putting everyone he loves in the line of fire.

The first in a series featuring Mike Bowditch.

Miss You Most of All

Sassy Spinster Farm is a place to find solace. At least, that's what it's been since Rue Anderson and her sister Laura transformed their childhood Texas homestead into a successful tourist destination. It's where guests flock to get their hands dirty and taste food fresh from the garden. An it's where Rue is raising her preteen daughter on her own, where trying to keep her outspoken sister in check. It's not easy, but together, it seems there's nothing the two can't handle until an unexpected, and not entirely welcome guest shows up in the middle of one warm summer night.

Heidi Bogue, one time stepsister to Rue and Laura is back, and she's hiding from something. Why else would she return to the place she was dragged to, kicking and screaming, as a teenager? A place she was thrilled to leave when, three years later, she and her mother bolted, leaving Rue and Laura's father heartbroken? And while Laura is irate, Rue won't turn Heidi away. Technically, they were once sisters and to Rue, sisterhood is forever.

Soon, Sassy Spinster Farm is turned upside down by Heidi's complicated presence. Still, Rue is determined that Heidi, like all their guests, finds the farm a safe place to discover or remember what really matters. In a revelation that will come sooner than any of them expected, when devastating news shakes the foundation of their tenuous sisterhood.

A beautifully written novel about the bonds we are born into and those we create for ourselves, and of the strength that comes in loving without limits.

Illuminating Fiction

These interviews include questions drawn from the text of the work, questions about narrative, voice, character, place, point of view, plot, revision, questions about the arc of the story/novel, questions about the writing process, questions about the trajectory of the writer's career and questions about the role and importance of writing courses and mentoring. The reader is thereby able to gain an intimate and specific understanding of the writer's words and craft, and what was going on in the author's mind as they created their novel, short stories, and poems.

Interviews with Chris Abani, Steve Almond, Amy Bloom, Ron Carlson, Lan Samantha Chang, Julia Glass, Arthur Golden, Lisa Haines, Edward P. Jones, Fred Leebron, Joan Leegant, Yiyum Li, Paul Lisicky, Margot Livesey, Jill McCorkle, Matthew Sharpe, Kathleen Spivack, and Mary Yokari Waters.