First published in 1982. The intent of this book is to build an understanding of the people who create humor and are expert at making people laugh. Who are the comedians and clowns of the world? Where do they come from? Why are they so dedicated to tickling funny bones? In what ways are they unique? It is primarily to studying comedians, clowns, and other funny people. It seeks to provide an understanding of the origins, the motivations, and personalities of those who make humor and in exploring the factors that shape actors and other public entertainers.
Pretend the World confronts our false sense of safety in our self-created worlds. From her St. Paul kitchen to the historical shores of Lake Superior, from an airplane above Bagdad to a clothing factory in Guangdong, Kathryn Kysar pretends the glimmering and the sordid in these honest, searing poems that explore the inequities, cracks, and fissures in women's constructed lives. Kathryn Kysar is the author of Dark Lake (Loonfeather Press, 2002), a book of poetry, and is the editor of Riding Shotgun: Women Write About Their Mothers (Borealis Books, 2008). She has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Anderson Center, and she has published poems in many anthologies and magazines, including Great River Review, Mizna, and Painted Bride Quarterly. She serves on the board of directors for the Association of Writers and Writing Programs.
It's a busy day at the fire station! Children can see and learn how the firefighters at the fire station work in this multi-layered, die-cut board book from the My World series. Children's interests are encouraged as they explore the many layers of life in this book of real-life imaginative role-play that takes place at a Fire Station. My World is an engaging series inspired by the Montessori method of education where each title features hands-on, practical learning. Enthusiastic young learners can explore many exciting topics presented in creative, unique formats.
The #1 New York Times bestselling (mostly true) memoir from the hilarious author of Furiously Happy. “Gaspingly funny and wonderfully inappropriate.”—O, The Oprah Magazine When Jenny Lawson was little, all she ever wanted was to fit in. That dream was cut short by her fantastically unbalanced father and a morbidly eccentric childhood. It did, however, open up an opportunity for Lawson to find the humor in the strange shame-spiral that is her life, and we are all the better for it. In the irreverent Let’s Pretend This Never Happened, Lawson’s long-suffering husband and sweet daughter help her uncover the surprising discovery that the most terribly human moments—the ones we want to pretend never happened—are the very same moments that make us the people we are today. For every intellectual misfit who thought they were the only ones to think the things that Lawson dares to say out loud, this is a poignant and hysterical look at the dark, disturbing, yet wonderful moments of our lives. Readers Guide Inside
What could have been a quiet afternoon at home turns into an adventure for Jimmy and his dad. Their couch turns into a boat! The staircase becomes a mountain! And blankets become a cozy hut, just right to cuddle inside. The one thing they don't have to pretend is how much they love one another. Jennifer Plecas's bold artwork and lively text come together in a celebration of imagination and the love between a parent and child. Great for Father's Day, but wonderful for any day that parent and child spend together.
Fans of Real Friends and Be Prepared will love this energetic, affecting graphic memoir, in which a young girl uses her active imagination to navigate middle school as well as the fallout from her parents' divorce. Tori has never lived in just one world. Since her parents' divorce, she's lived in both her mom's house and her dad's new apartment. And in both places, no matter how hard she tries, her family still treats her like a little kid. Then there's school, where friendships old and new are starting to feel more and more out of her hands. Thankfully, she has books-and writing. And now the stories she makes up in her head just might save her when everything else around her—friendships, school, family—is falling apart. Author Tori Sharp takes us with her on a journey through the many commonplace but complex issues of fractured families, as well as the beautiful fantasy narrative that helps her cope, gorgeously illustrated and full of magic, fairies, witches and lost and found friendships.
In her debut collection of stories, Pretend We Live Here, Genevieve Hudson explores the idea of home and what it means to find one: in the body, in the world, in other people. Her characters are seekers, whose actions are influenced by their slippery identities and by the strange landscapes that surround them. In "Boy Box," a young woman yearns to test her luck with a wild punk girl crush. In "God Hospital," a character journeys deep into the woods of Alabama in search of an infamous religious healer, hoping he can fix her teeth. In "Adorno," someone in need of forgiveness crosses paths with a band of radical vegan activists and gets subsumed into their world. In "Dance!," a recluse writes a breakthrough song for her pink dolphin, but the song's success only drives her further away from society. Set in Amsterdam, the Pacific Northwest, and the Deep South, these stories hum with sexual tension, queerness, displacement, longing, humor, and dark nostalgia. "A terrific collection of stories. There are echoes here of Flannery O'Connor, Barry Hannah, and Denis Johnson, but Genevieve Hudson is her own writer--impressively and gloriously so. Her eye for the clinching detail is unnerving and her sympathies are fascinatingly conflicted. I hope, and suspect, this book will be the start of a long and inspiring career." -Tom Bissell, author of The Disaster Artist and Magic Hours "In Pretend We Live Here, characters bleed and breathe with a caustic energy that dares the reader to keep pace as they are taken from the Deep South to Western Europe and back again. Genevieve Hudson is a new, coming-of-age voice that spotlights rural America, injecting it with a queer freshness that makes her writing impossible to forget." -Jing-Jing Lee, author of How We Disappeared Genevieve Hudson is also the author of A Little in Love with Everyone (Fiction Advocate, 2018), a book on Alison Bechdel's Fun Home. Her writing has been published in Catapult, Hobart, Tin House online, Joyland, Vol.1 Brooklyn, Split Lip, The Collagist, No Tokens, Bitch, The Rumpus, and other places. Her work has been supported by the Fulbright Program and artist residencies at the Dickinson House, Caldera Arts, and the Vermont Studio Center. She received an MFA in Creative Writing from Portland State University, where she occasionally teaches Fiction Writing and Gender Studies courses. She lives in Amsterdam.
Jen Beagin’s funny, moving, fearless debut novel introduces an unforgettable character, Mona—almost 24, cleaning houses to get by, emotionally adrift. Handing out clean needles to drug addicts, she falls for a recipient who proceeds to break her heart in unimaginable ways. She decamps to Taos, New Mexico, for a fresh start, where she finds a community of seekers and cast-offs. But they all have one or two things to teach her—the pajama-wearing, blissed-out New Agers, the slightly creepy client with peculiar tastes in controlled substances, the psychic who might really be psychic. Always just under the surface are her memories of growing up in a chaotic, destructive family from which she’s trying to disentangle herself. The story of her journey toward a comfortable place in the world and a measure of self-acceptance is psychologically acute, often surprising, and entirely human.
Mega-bestselling author Luanne Rice returns with a ripped-from-the-headlines story of a girl who is kidnapped by her friend's family. Emily Lonergan's best friend died last year.And Emily hasn't stopped grieving. Lizzie Porter was lively, loud, and fun -- Emily's better half. Emily can't accept that she's gone.When Lizzie's parents and her sister come back to town to visit, Emily's heartened to see them. The Porters understand her pain. They miss Lizzie desperately, too.Desperately enough to do something crazy.Something unthinkable.Suddenly, Emily's life is hurtling toward a very dark place -- and she's not sure she'll ever be able to return to what she once knew was real.From New York Times bestselling author Luanne Rice comes a breathless, unputdownable story of suspense, secrets -- and the strength that love gives us to survive even the most shocking of circumstances.
