Nothing counts for much in this life until you're brought to the edge. Only then do we each find out who we truly are. These twenty stories explore tipping points internal or otherwise.

For centuries scientists have used math to predict what they will observe next. Their accuracy is remarkable. Verse serves us similarly. Brought to the edge of ourself the view often defies description. Keep at it and these efforts to speak back an understanding can predict who we become. This collection features only a few characters, most are a straight shot. Using words to scout that frontier. A path I suspect we each have known, its signposts both familiar and unknowable. Virgin territ...

Cutbacks in federal funding force a dingy urban mental institution to shutter its doors. Bewildered patients are given a bag lunch and shown the door. A nameless man wanders the streets of this strange new world homeless and scared. For the first time in twenty years his meds are wearing off. This whirling city begins to offer hint, long-lost recollection he was once a part of things. Burdened by the most basic questions -- Who am I? What am I? Where is this? -- he seeks to reclaim a blank...

In 1970 when the Beatles broke up, a humble Brit named Harold Glaub begins to experience remarkable dreams that continue for ten years though he never recalls a one. A real shame for each night our man becomes the fifth Beatle. John Lennon's old mate, puckish bridge-builder Harry helps the group soar to more unique heights. By day Harold doesn't realize the dreams inspire a parallel career for he and lifelong chums Don, Pat & Geoff as a quartet of carpenters.A history of the world'...

You're a hardworking family man in a tight spot. Your side-business is failing, as is your marriage, daughter Nora needs surgery, son Graham has college dreams you can't afford. It chafes because you were raised to be a winner and never shook that expectation. The lengths a father goes to hold family together can make living with yourself a bit crowded. It's not 99% of a man that must be accounted, just the little sliver nobody knows. Can it be undone? How much does it matter if the questi...

It's not so far off as you suppose.In our looming future, marketing has finally turned the tables. Once upon a time their appeals were shaped to a target audience. In 2084 Americans strive for the mentality that ads hand down. Commercials are the favored part of any show, fieldtrips to the mall teach kids how to shop, and the RealiTV complex keeps everyone suitably distracted.It's an election year and the Presidential Sweepstakes offers voters a chance to win a bundle. Hit ...

Shooting a period piece a film crew arrives at The Hornburg, a reclusive alpine German estate. Art-house movie hero Morgan Essex isn't sure why the stately location troubles him. Maybe his reunion with bankable star Julie Beth Pohlter whose career has eclipsed his own. Maybe the vague familiarity of young actress Vanesse Lasterson with whom he must share a difficult scene. Maybe how the house just beckons. A dark draw of history soon opens doors he can't imagine, but must.

These stories offer myriad view of ourselves. Men, women, children, teens, adults, oldsters, each with a certain self to face down. From a neo-noir gumshoe to the vast empties of a lost child, a dropped wallet to the end of our universe, Wilderness of Mirrors seeks to mix it up. Of course nobody ever really shakes their own approach, not that they shouldn't try. What you won't find are stories of cruelty. That being said life in time spares nobody; these dings add up to everyone we are not...

With all the attention heaped upon the most deadly sexually transmitted infection of all, HIV, other non-fatal forms of infection have been somewhat neglected, and even overlooked in sexual education. However, incidences of STIs such as chlamydia and gonorrhoea have been dramatically and silently rising in many parts of the world in recent years - though receiving far less attention. It is now recognized that this is a major public health issue, affecting thousands of people, irrespective ...

For the first time, Slipknot and Stone Sour frontman Corey Taylor speaks directly to his fans and shares his worldview about life as a sinner. And Taylor knows how to sin. As a small-town hero in the early '90s, he threw himself into a fierce-drinking, drug-abusing, hard-loving, live-for-the moment life. Soon Taylor's music exploded, and he found himself rich, wanted, and on the road. His new and ever-more extreme lifestyle had an unexpected effect, however; for the first time, he began to...

Shane Koyczan: Stickboy Book (2007) Shane Koyczan’s Stickboy: A Novel in Verse is currently available. The highly acclaimed re-issue of Shane Koyczan’s heart-wrenching and intense novel—about a bullied kid who becomes a bully.  “The narrator is devastatingly observant, and Koyczan’s descriptions through him are poignant, sharp, and surprising… Full of unexpected humour and razor-sharp wit, Stickboy delves into the humiliation and humanity of bullying.” -Gloss Magaz...

**From actor and comedian Joel McHale comes the most important celebrity-penned book of this, or any, generation. Part shocking tell-all memoir, part aspirational how-to guide, and mostly all book, this one-of-a-kind tome is required reading for anyone who enjoys Hollywood gossip, get-rich-gradually tips, and copious illustrations and charts.“…Thanks for the Money is a clever, much-needed antidote to the age of celebrity book deals. If the tide can’t be stopped, at least i...