Two Masters of the Familiar Essay Join Madville in 2019
The World was My Garden, Too, by Sam Pickering
978-1-948692-14-4 paper 19.95
978-1-948692-15-1 ebook 9.99
5½x8½, 304 pp.
Familiar Essays
May 2019
The World Was My Garden, Too is a collection of familiar essays in which Sam Pickering wanders the blooming world. He roams New England, Arkansas, the Caribbean, Nova Scotia and the familiar and odd plots of mind and thought. He explores shorelines and climbs “hillish” mountains. He sits on porches and talks to passersby and their dogs. He meets strange and delightful people, most of whom are real. “Reading Pickering,” a reviewer wrote in The Smithsonian decades ago, “is like taking a walk with your oldest, wittiest friend.” “Now,” Pickering says, “I am old, and the friends who thought me witty have fallen off the perch. But that’s okay. What I write makes me smile and mutter, ‘What a guy.’” And what wonderful essays these are—pages that awaken the affections and make readers smile and embrace the beauty of this bruised world.
Sam Pickering grew up in Nashville, Tennessee. He spent 67 years in classrooms learning and teaching and has long been a rummager and writer wandering New England and the South, the Mid-East, Britain, Australia, and Canada. He has written some thirty books and is a member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers.
A Third Place: Notes in Nature, by Bob Kunzinger
978-1-948692-16-8 paper 16.95
978-1-948692-17-5 ebook 9.99
5½x8½, 144 pp.
Familiar Essays
August 2019
A Third Place exists in the extremes, pinpointing the details in nature which demand attention, and finding within those details our place in the bigger picture. Set in a series of observations and experiences, A Third Place on the one hand brings us all closer to nature through the eyes of the author yet makes us wonder if he has been following us around on our afternoon walks.
Bob Kunzinger is the author of eight collections of non-fiction, and has been widely published in publications such as World War Two History, Southern Humanities Review, the Washington Post, St Anthony Messenger, and more, including notations for essays in Best American Essays. He lives and writes in Virginia.
We also want to give a shout out to our long-time friend, Nancy Parsons at Graphic Design Group in Conroe, Texas, who designed these two beautiful covers.