Collections
Short Stories:
Louella Bryant
Louella Bryant writes, teaches, teaches writers, and sometimes writes about teachers.
Her previous book, WHILE IN DARKNESS THERE IS LIGHT (Black Lawrence Press), investigated the mysterious death of Charles Dean, brother of presidential candidate Howard Dean. The book, which shows how different cultures can tragically overlap, won the 2007 Southwest Writers Award for Non-fiction.
Bryant is the author of two novels for young adults, THE BLACK BONNET and FATHER BY BLOOD, which was awarded the Silver Bay Children's Literature Prize.
The awards she has received for her short stories, poems, and essays could fill up a room in the house she shares with her husband--the brilliant and enigmatic Harry Reynolds.
Bryant is a faculty member of the Spalding University MFA in Writing Program in Louisville, and has shared her love of writing with students everywhere from Costa Rica to Breadloaf, Vermont.
Website: louellabryant.com
FULL BLOOM
"It's not right to leave your grief all over the sidewalk."
In this age when you can't be on television unless you can cry for the camera, Louella Bryant writes stories about real people and how they really deal with emotion.
You've been there: a scene plays out in your life--it is understated, quiet, maybe even silent, while the buried emotion of everything is making the earth tremble under your feet, trembling so violently that you can feel the vibration in your shoes.
FULL BLOOM is a collection of sixteen short stories. Each is peopled with real women, real men, teenagers, seniors-- some are in love, some have lost love, some are dying and know how fleeting love and life can be.
You will live out these quiet scenes with these individuals, with these familes. You won't forget any of them.
To download a copy of FULL BLOOM, simply press here: FULL BLOOM
To purchase an old-fashioned hard copy of FULL BLOOM, please go to louellabryant.com
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Political Commentary:
Philip Baruth
Philip Baruth is more than a Renaissance man, he is an entire Renaissance posse.
As an English professor at the University of Vermont, Vice-Chair of the Department, an honored novelist (DREAM OF THE WHITE VILLAGE, THE EX-PRESIDENT, THE BROTHER BOSWELL), a radio commentator, a state senatorial candidate, and the best political blogger in the Northeast, he gives Sinatra (“a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet, a pawn and a king”) serious competition for the title of “Busiest Guy in the Land of Cool.”
Baruth’s VERMONT DAILY BRIEFING is perennially named best blog in the state and is nationally considered a touchstone of good blogging. Now, BROWN FEDORA BOOKS is proud to present the very first compilation of the best posts of VERMONT DAILY BRIEFING. Without a doubt there will be more to follow.
The book is entitled SLED DOGS AND HEAVYWEIGHTS and it will make you laugh, think, bubble in anger, and rethink the political views you’ve harbored since you first got hung up trying to slide closed that curtain on your first voting booth.
To download SLED DOGS AND HEAVYWEIGHTS, click here: SLED DOGS
Baruth's Blog: VERMONT DAILY BRIEFING
Politicians are always bugging Baruth for a mention in his blog.
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Humor:
Jim DeFilippi
Here's a shot of Jim at the Hamburg Summit. We have no idea who the guy in the Hawaiian shirt is.
website: jimdefilippi.com
Jim says:
I am a crime novelist (DUCK ALLEY, BLOOD SUGAR) and humor writer; sometimes my crime novels are humorous, sometimes my humor writing is criminal. Yet I have managed to fool a few critics. Newsday called my stuff “Suspenseful, often hilarious,” Publishers Weekly said, “Excellently paced and imaginatively told,” and my favorite blurb is “Whoa, that was good.”
When I decided to leave the paper and ink crowd (HarperCollins, etc.) in favor of e-Publishing, I chose Brown Fedora Books because they promised me a free hat. Working with Chet and Sonny has been like working with Michelangelo, although they often seem as brain-dead as he is. Actually, it’s been a total pleasure. Never have I had so much fun and made so little money.
To download Jim's collection of humor pieces, click here: EVERYDAY MALFEASANCE
PLUS:
MORE MALFEASANCE is the sequel to Jim’s collection of humor writing, EVERYDAY MALFEASANCE. MORE has much shorter entries (each running a sentence or so) and a lot more of them (about 342). To be read at your own risk.
Praise for MORE MALFEASANCE:
“This book was so dull only the page numbers are memorable.”
“It’s the only book I’ve ever read that poor spelling would have improved.”
“Some jokes make people laugh. These will make them cough.”
“This book is only suitable for people dead and older.”
“Some books are so good you are unable to put them down. This book needs a fly-paper cover.”
To download MORE MALFEASANCE, click here: MORE MALFEASANCE
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Poetry:
Tony Magistrale
MORE MALFEASANCE is the sequel to Jim’s collection of humor writing, EVERYDAY MALFEASANCE. MORE has much shorter entries (each running a sentence or so) and a lot more of them (about 342). To be read at your own risk.
Praise for MORE MALFEASANCE:
“This book was so dull only the page numbers are memorable.”
“It’s the only book I’ve ever read that poor spelling would have improved.”
“Some jokes make people laugh. These will make them cough.”
“This book is only suitable for people dead and older.”
“Some books are so good you are unable to put them down. This book needs a fly-paper cover.”
To download MORE MALFESANCE, click here: MORE MALFEASANCE
Go to the Novels page to see Jim's crime novels.
Tony Magistrale has often been referred to as “The Greatest of the Italian-American Poets.” The Bordighera Society put its imprimatur on this distinction when they awarded Tony the prestigious Bordighera Poetry Prize in 2008 and published What She Says About Love, a collection of Tony’s poetry in both English and Italian. His poems have appeared in The Harvard Review, Reflections, and many other publications.
Tony chairs the English Department at the University of Vermont. His prose books include Hollywood’s Stephen King, The Dark Descent, and Poe’s Children. He has served as the Visiting Professor at the University of Augsburg, Germany.
The poems in THE LAST SOLDIERS OF LOVE bring us to a football game in Buffalo, to a biergarten in Munich, to buying shoes at Barney’s in Manhattan, to watching school kids in Bavaria. Many concern fathers and their sons; most concern love, both experimental and faded; all are as moving as tough guys with tear-stained faces.
Please download THE LAST SOLDIERS OF LOVE here: Download SOLDIERS
Tony with a young writer who wants to learn his secret of selling lots of books
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Performance Poetry:
Geof Hewitt 
Photo by Jeb Wallace-Brodeur
Geof Hewitt has been performing and practicing the art of poetry for over forty years, with poems featured in places like Harper's Magazine and on Garrison Keillor's Writer's Almanac, as well as on stages and in Slam competitions from New England to Honolulu. Like Geof himself, his poems are funny, lively, kinetic, surprising, quirky, quiet, loud, goofy, heretical, and intelligent. They sometimes read the same backwards and forwards. So does he.
He has opened for Arlo Guthrie and later, like a rhythmic Rocky X or XI, Geof defeated multiple contenders half his age to win and then defend his state's title of Slam Poetry Champion. He has no intention of retiring or relinquishing.
ONLY WHAT'S IMAGINED
BROWN FEDORA BOOKS is privileged to present Geof's poetry collection, ONLY WHAT'S IMAGINED. To get a look at the front and back covers, let your mouse nibble here... COVERS
The great American poet Hayden Carruth said of ONLY WHAT'S IMAGINED, "His poems are tough, sentimental, usually keen and caustic...vivacious, witty poems." Carruth added, "I can draw a straight line from Andrew Marvel to Geof Hewitt, and the line is perfectly secure at both ends despite the distance between them." Supreme praise from a guy who knew.
To download this entire book for free, take a nibble here...ONLY WHAT'S IMAGINED
To purchase a hard copy of the book, send ten bucks (includes postage and handling) to: The Kumquat Press, P.O. Box 51, Calais, VT 05648.
You can contact Geof for his other books at: geof.hewitt@myunion.edu
Geof "Fuzzy" Hewitt demonstrates his unique method of typing out his poems, which is at least five times slower than traditional typing.
Brown Fedora Books is a Rogue Publishing Company