THIS HERE AND NOW

Robyn Parnell

The twenty-three tales of THIS HERE AND NOW explore those moments when people simultaneously lunge toward and recoil from the challenge of living lives filled with contemporary accouterments and ageless predicaments. A vagrant exchanges knowledge for charity ("The Anti-Cancer Diet"); lovers plan a garden rather than deal with illness ("Landscape"); a child turns embarrassing information into a bargaining tool ("We'll Talk Later"); a woman plots against her thuggish in-law ("Morning Paper"); an inventive teen recounts a foe's come-up-pence ("Kiss Me I'm Irish"); a bigoted woodsman assaults young hikers ("How Heavy is Blood"). In situations both transitory and timeless, vindicating and vindictive, comical and ghastly, Parnell's protagonists seek emotional, physical and spiritual justice in ordinary and exceptional circumstances.

"...these stories are so powerful they never cease to grab me by the throat, even after several readings." (Leila Joiner, editor, Imago Press publisher, author of Seven Days in December)

Robyn Parnell has published numerous short stories, essays, works of children's poetry, and a theatrical play. THIS HERE AND NOW is the first book-length collection of Parnell's work. Parnell lives and writes in Hillsboro, Oregon.

THIS HERE AND NOW 

is available at bookstores or from the author: robyn@wagnell.com 

255 pp. ▫ Paper ▫ $16.95 ▫ ISBN 1-893818-09-8 ▫ Scrivenery Press

My Closet Threw a Party

By Robyn Parnell

"Ever wonder what goes on in your closet when you're not looking?  Here's a hint:  it's not monsters you need to fear -- it's socks and underwear!  In this unique rhyming tale for young children, aptly illustrated by Jimmy Pickering's (www.jimmypickering.com) wild and whimsical pictures, the author describes the shenanigans that occur when the occupants of a child's closet decide to thrown a party without her knowledge...or her mother's approval."

Available in bookstores