BJ Ward, an award-winning poet whose poetry and essays have been featured on National Public Radio and in publications such as The Sun Magazine, TriQuarterly, The Literary Review, and the New York Times, has brought together in one volume the fruits of his labor spanning over twenty years. Winner of the 2014 Paterson Award for Literary Excellence, this rich collection of thoughtful and often ironic reflections reveals both the reverence and irreverence of human e...

Baptists are not often thought of as leading theologians and practitioners of worship. But forgotten in history is one crucial fact: the Baptist tradition formed out of a desire to worship God purely. Early Baptists devoted immense energy to questions of worship and drew conclusions of even contemporary value. Through the seismic liturgical shifts of English society in the seventeenth century, worship was both their most galvanizing and disintegrating impulse. As time passed and terminolog...

Cloak And Dagger.These words were the inspiration, the dare I put to the writers out there. Create for me art on that theme. They responded with music, words, and excitement.Science fiction, urban fantasy, or sword and sorcery fantasy. Come explore the many places that twenty-odd visionaries went when they heard those words and enjoy all the bright and dark places you might go.Part of the Blaze Ward Presents anthology series, be sure to get them all wherever you get yo...

Sometimes, crime pays after all. And sometimes, things go wrong.When theft goes to the edge, can you survive? Professional crews. Intricate plans. Possibly even comedy and a few Bollywood numbers.What happens when you gather up the crew for a night of adventure?

Love or infatuation? Who will ever know? Not the boys of Rock Hard, the aspiring number one rock group in the Australian music scene, wanting to make it big overseas in the American market. Their lead singer Eddy, adored by his fans, fronts the group on their meteoric rise, only to be besotted by a singer in a visiting American Girl group.When the group returns home, he becomes depressed, missing her greatly. News of a brief promotional tour of the American West Coast brings some r...

With his life in tatters, Vietnam veteran Richard hits the road hoping to find work where he can forget his past and leave his demons behind. He finds work on a rundown farm owned by a woman with two children whose husband is away at the war.Rebecca struggles with everyday life, including an overbearing father-in-law, a retired army officer, the Major, who objects to Richard’s being there and wants him gone. Things are not what they seem as Richard soon learns and the marihuana cro...

After six years of excuses for why she can’t get home for Christmas, the excuses run out and Griselda has no choice but to attend.For Griselda, tormented by the thought of a father obsessed with making money, a mother who is always tipsy, an arrogant older brother and her other siblings she just gets on with, the only bright light is seeing her eighty-something-year-old grandfather once again.The relatives are not much better with crude innuendoes, wandering hands, and obno...

Life deals a cruel blow to Sera. Her family gone, homeless and near penniless she makes her way to Sydney Town toward the turn of the nineteenth century, taking work where she can, only to find with youth and good looks, the prospects of meaningful work are not always what they seem, and she soon becomes installed with one of the more affluent procurers of the town. After a gentle initiation, she is seduced by the allure and excitement of the profession, where she learns not everything is ...

Author David E.B. (DEB) Ward was fortunate to have had a fantastic military career in the Air Force and the Oregon Air National Guard. PORTLAND, CHECK OUR CONTRAILS outlines David's impressive military career. David was operationally qualified in two different jet trainers and a progression of jet fighters, including the F-102 Delta Dagger and F-101 Voodoo interceptors, the F-4C Phantom tactical fighter, and the air superiority F-15 A and B model Eagles. All of these aircrafts hav...

Pull the Chocks, I'm Launching is an inspirational metaphor for removing obstacles in your path to obtaining your dream. In August 1967 I fulfilled my dream of becoming a fighter pilot when I was accepted into the 123rd Fighter Interceptor Squadron, the Redhawks, of the Oregon Air National Guard. That dream became indelibly ingrained in my psyche when on the morning of my first day in Anchorage, Alaska during the Korean War, at the age of 12, I watched F-80 fighter jets make simulated gun ...

Contrary to what many church people (particularly church "professionals") say, God does not dwell in church, and church doesn't have the franchise on good news. Instead, author Peter Keese proposes the optimistic view that good news is much larger and more all-encompassing than any church can contain or convey, and that good news is everywhere to be found and experienced. In this imaginary dialogue between a traditionalist and his protagonist for a god-in-the-world perspective, Keese's ser...

"The singles section at Le Glamour is designed like a sex relay with various stops. The air is so heavy with testosterone that you can almost touch it. It's warm. The first stop consists of a wall of black-painted Masonite with round holes of various sizes in it. On one side, guys insert their cocks; on the other side, women suck them off."In an attempt to spice up their honeymoon, Julia and Jonathan follows José to a nudist village, sex club and swingers party at Cap d'Agde. The i...