Saving Ben is the story of one family coping with autism told from the viewpoint of a father struggling to understand his sons strange behavior and rescue him from a downward spiral. Bens father Dan Burns puts the reader in the passengers seat as he struggles with medical service providers the school system extended family and his own limitations in his efforts to pull Ben out of his darkening world. Ben now 21 years old is a work in progress. The full force and fury of the autism storm ha...

“We’re all flawed and confronted daily with sometimes slight but often apparently insurmountable challenges. But if we dig deep, what we unearth from the depths of our souls, if we’re lucky, can allow us to overcome and carry on to live another day with an untortured heart.”This is the sentiment Dan Burns explores in his exciting new collection. Five stories and a novella highlight Burns’s range as a storyteller and his ability to see life and all its emotions through a un...

When a struggling author with a secret government past is hired by a wealthy philanthropist to investigate a cold murder case, he has no choice but to expose the dark and buried secrets of a powerful political family in Chicago.Sebastian Drake is a novelist working out of a dilapidated apartment in the city who’s trying to come up with his next story idea. But he’s stuck.Drake receives an unexpected visit from a man interested in hiring him for a p...

Children’s ministry has the power to change the lives of kids and families. Unfortunately, it’s not always clear that the work a person does with kids is really making a lasting difference. Ask children’s ministry leaders and kid-influencers if they are making the impact on children’s lives as they had hoped and most likely the responses will be mixed. And for good reason. Research over the past decade has revealed an alarming lack of long-term growth in the faith community as children pro...

A Necessary Explosion is an act Dan Burns performs daily to expel the stories pressing on his mind. Only by getting words down onto the page can he make room for all that comes next. Exploring the themes of life, love, family, writing, music, travel, history, and humanity's future, this collection artfully conveys the words of a craftsman in relatable, accessible poems.In "Afterimage," a man struggles with his diminishing memory but takes comfort in knowing that he...

Chicago architect Peter O'Hara had a plan, a blueprint, for how he wanted to build his life. He had goals and ambitions and his path was clear. He had a loving wife and son, career success, and his final career goal was close within reach. The opportunity to become a partner in his firm was there for the taking. He almost had it all.But life and fate do not consider such plans. An unbelievable and unplanned event sets off a domino effect of repercussions that turn Peter's life upsi...

In No Turning Back, author Dan Burns shares an eclectic mix of stories that expand the boundaries of genre and imagination. Told with realistic and thought-provoking prose, each of the stories shine light on characters who, as a result of a particular experience, realize that they can't go back—in time or to the way life used to be. Moving forward is the only option, and what comes next is anyone’s guess.Published by Chicago Arts Press, this beautifully crafted hardcover e...

An anthology celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of the Predator franchise, If It Bleeds includes seventeen brand new, never-before-seen stories—exclusive to this collection—featuring the Predators throughout space and time. Based entirely on the original films, novels, and comics, Predator: If It Bleeds (a quote from the original movie) reveals the Predators stalking prey in twelfth-century Japan, ninth-century Viking Norway, World War I, Vietnam, the Civil War, Hurric...

When Jane Ryan discovers she's pregnant with twin girls, she faces a heart wrenching decision. On her own and unable to afford to care for both babies, she sees no choice but to keep one and give up the other for adoption. But fourteen years later, Jane's decision comes full circle."Family is everything." It's one of the first things Isabel, the twin Jane gave up, says when they unexpectedly meet. Without warning, she and her adoptive mother have moved to the town where Jane and he...

The issue is church health, not church growth—if your church is healthy, growth will occur naturally. So how do we make healthy churches, driven by purpose?In order for any church to thrive, it must be built around the five New Testament purposes given to the church by Jesus Christ. In this classic of Christian church stability, pastor and bestselling author of The Purpose Driven Life Rick Warren unpacks this proven five-part strategy tha...

Marc Lewis's relationship with drugs began in a New England boarding school where, as a bullied and homesick fifteen-year-old, he made brief escapes from reality by way of cough medicine, alcohol, and marijuana. In Berkeley, California, in its hippie heyday, he found methamphetamine and LSD and heroin. He sniffed nitrous oxide in Malaysia and frequented Calcutta's opium dens. Ultimately, though, his journey took him where it takes most addicts: into a life of addiction, desperation, decept...

From a Black Ops veteran and author of Deep Cover, a military thriller about a retired CIA agent forced back into action by a lethal conspiracy.Once a trained killer for the CIA, Dan Morgan has built a new life for himself. But when he receives a desperate plea from his former Black Ops partner—reportedly killed in a foreign battle zone—he flies to help. It should be a routine mission, extracting a human asset from the region. But it's not routine; it's an...