Showing results by publisher "Radiant Press" in All Categories

A grief-stricken soldier accompanies his best friend’s body home after eight years away, only to find his nonspeaking sister, Mary, missing and wanted for questioning by the police in the murder of an infant in the city’s central park. As Mary’s life hangs in the balance, Jes must follow the obscure clues she has left behind, the only way to find her and absolve her of wrongdoing. In his labyrinthine search, the mystery of the park’s infamous Harron tree and its connection to his sister, and their community, is slowly revealed.

A high school poetry contest that may or may not be linked to the end of the world. The characters in this collection are under attack. A grief-baffled son hopes to save an innocent insect from a toxic genocide, a daughter struggles to accept loss while visiting a community overwhelmed by denial, a sorrow-stricken father recalls his bizarre final conversation with his only child; the individuals in these stories discover how difficult it can be to let go of what’s gone in order to live with what’s left.

Meet Sylvie—funny, sly, sensual, and flawed. She can’t always count on herself to make good choices. Like all of us, Sylvie must make decisions that have reverberations for years to come. Unlike the rest of us, Sylvie gets to live more than one life.

Archaeological illustrator Beatrix Forster accompanies her husband, retired archaeology professor William Forster, to excavate the cemetery at San Miguel in Excelsis, an isolated medieval sanctuary in the mountains of northern Spain. Bill's former student, now a priest in Navarre, has enticed them out of comfortable retirement with the rumor that the infamous medieval knight and founder of the sanctuary, Teodosio de Goñi, may be buried at the church.

Luka Dekker and her sister Connie are the inheritors of a secretive and disturbing family history going back three generations to the disappearance of their great-grandfather. Their troubled mother, Lark, also mysteriously disappeared; and their beloved grandmother, who raised the two girls, had a life haunted by a traumatic event that is only revealed after her death.

A playwright possessed by her muses, an actress desperate to succeed, and a doctor haunted by a lost love. Three people cross time and space to meet through the playwright's bizarre creative process.

Katherin Edwards examines the fine line between what we remember and forget; how the memories we retain become cloudy and altered by the passage of time. This book of poems is also a compilation of the wonder and surprise we discover when we manage to endure in the midst of grief and loss.

A microscopic and intense view of the sometimes invisible and ignored parts of the world we inhabit. Peering into cities and our place within them, the poet searches for meaning after the death of his father, and observes the flora and fauna, which provide beauty and nourish us. This book delights the senses and poses the question, are we contributing to, or ultimately destroying our planet?

Glimmer is an incredibly off-beat and unconventional collection about the human experience—in long short stories alternating with 12 "experimental one-sentence novels". The stories are diverse, and deal with strange and surreal relationships.

Forced intimacies, dead dogs, errant balloons, a troubled chef's encounter with ethereal Swedish lesbians, all form this remarkable short story collection, Bodies in Trouble, depicting characters coping with faltering relationships, simmering violence, and light-drenched visions. Stories of damaged daughters and abandoned sons, of near-crashes, lost loves, and late nights steeped in regret. Lurking within these tales is the glimmer of hope from a brave choice, a bold action, the recalibration of a dangerous path.

With awe and wonder leading the way, Leedahl’s poems chronicle a journey that speaks of resilience, of joy experienced in simple things, and of the solace in discovering—finally, and late in life—exactly where one belongs. Leedahl’s fifth poetry collection lyrically documents major life transitions and reveals how loneliness—the other contemporary epidemic—compels one to keep moving.

Earth-Cool, and Dirty is a timely debut collection by Jacob Lee Bachinger, full of wisdom and beautiful reflections on the state of humanity. It is a call to pay careful attention to the Earth, to nurture it in the same way that we attend to the people we love.

Thelma's marriage is unraveling as her oblivious husband Wally rediscovers his youthful obsession with Che Guevara. When Rosa, a young Cuban poet, joins his writing group, he unexpectedly books a trip to Cuba. Thelma decides to join him and discovers that he has inexplicably disappeared. As she searches for Wally, she converses with the ghost of her father, confronts her abandoned dreams, and relies on the help of odd strangers.

Kelley Jo Burke embarks on a wild journey to understand many things, including the part where her grandfather sort of murdered her grandmother. Returning to a house filled with her first memories of childhood, she begins to explore the complex origins of her own anxiety. Along the way, she reflects on alienation and immigration, mental health and generational trauma, and the nature of memory itself. A memoir filled with raw honesty, comedy, tragedy, and grace.

The Neyhiyawak (Plains Cree) word "Kitotam" translates into English as, "He Speaks to It". This is a collection of free-verse poetry by Indigenous poet and artist John McDonald. Written in two parts, these poems chronicle John's life and experiences as an urban Indigenous youth during the 1980s. The second half of the book is a look into the inspirations and events that shaped John's career as an internationally known spoken-word artist, beat poet, monologist, and performance artist.

A motley collection of characters populate these short, short stories, shaped by the daily barrage of media aimed at the general populace. Dramatic, and darkly funny, they revolve around Jewish identity. The schlemiel - a figure in Jewish folklore who is unlucky and inept at the same time - is not always apparent, but is evoked as a guiding concept. People cling to would-be wisdoms, memes, and TV tag-lines, while failing to locate their misplaced communities. A particularly apt audiobook for our current world, where chaos and anxiety reign.

Inside the phobic and the crushing we trudge through the wreckage, the slippage, and the comic, in our search for joy. The beauty in these poems is an amalgam, like a gathering storm, of the meteorological and political, the mundane and the distressing.

Crooked at the Far End, the latest book of poems in a series called The Man from Saskatchewan, travels, plays, and has a look around. Voices emanate from celebrities who inhabit cabins at Emma Lake, an old man sitting on a bench in Portugal, and the patrons of a fictional pub among others, all taking stock of the world we inhabit. This collection is an homage to the natural and physical world and how "We still and always love the tender fits / our language endures, lost souls asleep before the gate".

These poems peel back the layers of suburban life and the "American Dream". Vivian Maier was a self-taught street photographer who worked as a nanny for wealthy employers in New York and Chicago. The poet imagines her as a documentarian who is compassionate, abrasive, and meditative, while her subjects provide their own narrative. More than anything, the poems are a response to her work, which is all we have that comes directly from her. It is a deliberate challenge to the “mystery nanny” she is reduced to in much of the constructed narrative of her life.

Tiny Ruins is a coming-of-age and coming-out story that follows Alana as she grows up, discovers, and tries to understand her bisexuality. Small windows offer us a glimpse of Alana's memories, often fragmentary, fleeting, and touching. When she confides in her sister that she is attracted to girls, she is met with disbelief. And so, the secret is kept, and Alana continues as the outsider looking in.