i am a 31 y/o mother of 11 children and 10 grandchildren in which i love all very much i do live in a small town in Michigan. i have been a writer for 18 years and i am really looking forward to having more come out soon. you can contact me through my publisher if you would like your book signed or to comment on what you have read and they will make sure that i receive your requests. (note to publisher) please put contact info here for them to get ahold of you then you can contact me letting me know their requests.

A 21st Century Canterbury Tale a continuum of Keep Your Pecker Up. A pilgrimage in pursuit of the American Dream burnished with humor and adventure.

Throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, countless distinguished writers made the long and arduous voyage across the seas to Australia. They came to give lecture tours and make money, to sort out difficult children sent here to be out of the way; for health, for science, to escape demanding spouses back home, or simply to satisfy a sense of adventure. In 1890, for example, Robert Louis Stevenson and his wife Fanny arrived at Circular Quay after a dramatic sea voyage only to be refused entry at the Victoria, one of Sydney's most elegant hotels. Stevenson threw a tantrum, but was forced to go to a cheaper, less fussy establishment. Next day, the Victoria's manager, recognising the famous author from a picture in the paper, rushed to find Stevenson and beg him to return. He did not. In Brief Encounters, renowned author and speaker Susannah Fullerton examines a diverse array of writers including Charles Darwin, Rudyard Kipling, Stevenson, Anthony Trollope, Mark Twain, Arthur Conan Doyle, DH Lawrence, Joseph Conrad, HG Wells, Agatha Christie and Jack London to discover what they did when they got here, what their opinion was of Australia and Australians, how the public and media reacted to them, and how their future works were shaped or influenced by this country.

For many years, lesbian and gay representation in British cinema escaped the attention of critics and historians. Informative and entertaining, Brief Encounters examines performers, directors and a wide range of films to reveal a cinema more varied, vital and sensuous than we could have imagined. Through a close reading of mid-twentieth century British films, Bourne explores a range of lesbian and gay screen images from movies including Soldiers of the King, Pygmalion, In Which We Serve, Brief Encounter, Black Narcissus, The Red Shoes and A Hard Day's Night. In addition, he looks in detail at the ground-breaking Victim and brings together the moving reminiscences of gay men who first saw the film in the hostile climate of 1961, and the reactions of contemporary critics. This fluent chronology of over 150 famous, half-remembered and forgotten films is a testament to the contribution of gays and lesbian to British cinema culture.

Many introductory books in theatre offer theory and exercises. Brief Encounters provides students with a frequently missing element — scripts that allow them to transform those concepts into performances. Darren Michael has written twenty-two short plays designed specifically for students and instructors in undergraduate acting and directing classes. Each play involves only two actors and minimal technical elements, all with running times under fifteen minutes. Most can be cast very flexibly to accommodate a wide range of students. For each play, the author has included specific challenges that actors will hone their skills on, as well as questions for readers to reflect on while preparing their performances.

Have you ever set out on a train journey not knowing where on earth you'll end up? Hope is overworked - and so over relationships - when she embarks on a mystery tour arranged by her sister Faith, who has promised her a mini break guaranteed free of romantic four-posters, red roses or dinners for two. Hope's trying to travel light - yet as she leaves London Euston, her emotional baggage begins to catch up with her. Will the journey finish her off . . . or will it be the start of something new? This exclusive short story was written by bestselling novelist Kate Harrison as she travelled as Virgin Trains Writer in Residence from London Euston to Penrith for the Romantic Novelists' Association Conference in July 2012. Included are Kate's top tips for writing on a train (or a boat, or a plane)... who knows, your next bus ride could be the beginning of your first novel. Also includes an extract from Kate's brand new novel, THE BOOT CAMP.

Swan McKenna's racy men's underwear company, Brief Encounters, is on the brink of incredible success...when she's accused of stealing five million dollars! How can she launch her newest naughty designs with a federal agent watching her every move? Of course, once she gets a glimpse of Special Agent Rob Gaines, all she can think about is seeing his moves. With his government-issue good looks, he'd bring down the house modeling for her upcoming fashion show. And she desperately needs models.... But little does Swan expect Rob to help her out by reluctantly agreeing to strut his stuff. Nor does she realize that once she sees Rob in his underwear, she won't be able to resist catching him out of it....

Deriving from a conference organised by the Tavistock Marital Studies Institute, the present volume draws the main focus of its inquiry from a few fundamental questions. In its various brief encounters, and in disparate contexts, how effective can a psychoanalytic approach be when it addresses the parental/child or adult couple relationship? What specific quality of contact can be achieved in the relationship between client(s) and therapist in shorter-term work? This compilation of essays, written by experienced practitioners, engages directly and positively these, and other questions, demonstrating with clinical material the efficacious contribution of a psychoanalytic psychotherapy. In both the similarity and variety of responses to the complex issues explored the authors display a creative engagement and theoretical understanding that will be of great interest and stimulus to all professionals working in this field.

The first short story collection from a writer who calls to mind such luminaries as Denis Johnson, George Saunders, and Nathan Englander FINALIST FOR THE PEN/ROBERT W. BINGHAM PRIZE • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY BOOKPAGE AND BOOKISH When The New Yorker published a short story by Saïd Sayrafiezadeh in 2010, it marked the emergence of a startling new voice in fiction. In this astonishing book, Sayrafiezadeh conjures up a nameless American city and its unmoored denizens: a call-center employee jealous of the attention lavished on a co-worker newly returned from a foreign war; a history teacher dealing with a classroom of maliciously indifferent students; a grocery store janitor caught up in a romantic relationship with a kleptomaniac customer. These men’s struggles and fleeting triumphs—with women, with cruel bosses, with the morning commute—are transformed into storytelling that is both universally resonant and wonderfully strange. Sometimes the effect is hilarious, as when a would-be suitor tries to take his sheltered, religious date on a tunnel of love carnival ride. Other times it’s devastating, as in the unforgettable story that gives the book its title: A soldier on his last routine patrol on a deserted mountain path finally encounters “the enemy” he’s long sought a glimpse of. Upon giving the author the Whiting Writers’ Award for his memoir, When Skateboards Will Be Free, the judges hailed his writing as “intelligent, funny, utterly unsmug and unpreening.” These fiercely original stories show their author employing his considerable gifts to offer a lens on our collective dreams and anxieties, casting them in a revelatory new light. Praise for Brief Encounters with the Enemy “With impressive guile and design, Mr. Sayrafiezadeh uses the arrival and escalation of that war as the through-line connecting each personal drama. . . . These calculated echoes work to unify [his] haunting book in a way that story collections rarely manage.”—Sam Sacks, The Wall Street Journal “In his memoir, Sayrafiezadeh told the remarkable tale of a childhood steeped in doomed dogma. His stories . . . offer something more: a searing vision of his wayward homeland, delivered not in the clamoring rhetoric of a revolutionary, but in the droll monologues of young men who kill because they lack the moral imagination to do otherwise.”—Steve Almond, The New York Times Book Review (Editors’ Choice) “Sayrafiezadeh’s eight interlinked stories are just as fulfilling as any novel you’re likely to read this summer.”—The Boston Globe “A tantalizing fiction debut . . . [that] menaces and mesmerizes.”—Elle “The recurring motifs include 99-cent American flags, putting in a word with the boss, idealistic Army recruitment brochures and unseasonable temperatures. Each time they recur they are more potent, and poignant. The collection is readable, and real, and hopefully a harbinger of more fiction to come from Sayrafiezadeh.”—Minneapolis Star Tribune “Funny and surprising . . . Sayrafiezadeh’s simple style can fool you into thinking that his struggling narrators are plain and unassuming. They are anything but. . . . Each story compels you to read the next, and no character escapes unscathed.”—The Daily Beast

The best of short literary memoirs, essays, and reflections, many of which were written expressly for this collection. Also available The late Judith Kitchen, editor of the perennially popular anthologies Short Takes, In Short, and In Brief, was greatly influential in recognizing and establishing flash creative nonfiction as a form in its own right. In Brief Encounters, she and writer/editor/actor Dinah Lenney expand this vibrant field with nearly eighty new selections: shorts—as these sharply focused pieces have come to be known— representing an impressive range of voices, perspectives, sensibilities, and forms. Brief Encounters features the work of the emerging and the established—including Stuart Dybek, Roxanne Gay, Eduardo Galeano, Leslie Jamison, and Julian Barnes—arranged by theme to explore the human condition in ways intimate, idiosyncratic, funny, sad, provocative, lyrical, unflinching. From the rant to the rave, the meditation to the polemic, the confession to the valediction, this collection of shorts—this celebration of true and vivid prose—will enlarge your world.