2019 was awesome! On to 2020!
And this year the Wapshott Press has an Angel! Our Angel will match each donation up to a total of $1,000. So your donation to the Wapshott Press will go twice as far in 2020!
www.Donate.WapshottPress.org
where paypal charges no fees to either of us, and until December 31, 2019, will add 1% to each donation
2019 was a great year at Wapshott Press! With your help, here’s what we did, that we said we were going to do:
Storylandia 28, Winter 2019: Make me DisappearBy Jenni Wilson
Website: https://wp.me/P7Z8T2-4uzo
Mabel Banner, age fifteen, is a girl on the run. Escaping a dark and tumultuous life in the foster care system in Oklahoma, she runs to Key West, where she becomes first mate on board the sailboat Stella Luna, with the amiable Jake Ennis as captain. In Florida she forges a new life with a new name and tries to forget the circumstances that brought her there. But can Mabel keep her past a secret from Jake? Will the authorities looking for her eventually catch up? And mostly, will she ever have a chance at a normal life? Mabel finds that no matter how hard she tries, she can’t outrun the ghosts that haunt her dreams and the feeling that, eventually, everything she has fought so hard to gain will slip out from between her fingers like the sugar white sand of a Gulf Coast beach. (Donate)
(Thank you, John Griogair Bell, for the excellent proofread.)
Storylandia 29, Spring 2019: Crime Spree and Other Stories
By Tom Larsen
Webpage: https://wp.me/P7Z8T2-4uA8
From journeyman printer to small-time crook, pothead senior to retired nun, Tom Larsen has captured a wide range of life experiences in these self-contained stories. This collection is an homage to the random fortunes of the baby boom. Whether set in the inner city, suburbia or the northwest coast, Larsen’s colorful cast confirms he knows of what he speaks. (Donate)
(Thanks, Tom, now I want to visit Philadelphia again.)
Storylandia 30, Summer 2019: Letters to S.
By George Gad Economou
Website: https://bit.ly/2YUdlAA
A love story that challenges beliefs, lifestyles, and desires. He searches for a replacement to his greatest love (whom he lost way too soon to reasons better left untold); she seeks for a safe harbor to shelter her from her tumultuous relationship that rapidly reaches its end. Passion and lust are born the moment they lay eyes on each other; however, their story quickly turns into a tale of brutal irony and of obstacles that cannot be overcome. (Donate)
(Many thanks to Laura Matulac for the lovely watercolor cover art.)
Storylandia 31, Autumn 2019: The Beasthood
By Dawn Cunningham
Website: https://wp.me/P7Z8T2-4uBM
Deloris Jaguer is assigned to investigate The Beasthood which many women declare exist. In her search—through various evidence presented—to find the truth, she discovers more about herself and the literal meaning of The Beasthood. (Donate)
(Many thanks to KMW for the thorough and candid proofread.)
And our first foray into poetry with Mr. John Brantingham, the first poet laureate of the Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks.
finding mr pembrooke: Poetrylandia 1
By John Brantingham
Website: https://wp.me/P7Z8T2-4uBk
When Mr. Pembrooke, a high school physics teacher, is eating breakfast on a Tuesday, and he finds that he no longer has the emotional strength to stand up and go to the job he has loved for almost forty years, his principal does not believe that he is actually serious about retiring. He is given a short leave of absence, but Mr. Pembrooke cannot imagine spending one more minute in the classroom. With some time to himself finally, he forms an awkward family with the woman who lives next door and one of his former students who is failing the class Mr. Pembrooke used to teach. He falls accidentally into a life he never had, and he begins to see the world differently in this emotional interlude in his late fifties, as he tries to understand the pain of his childhood and the burnout and secondary trauma so many educators face. (Donate)
(Thank you, Ann Brantingham, for the cover image suggestion.)
And here’s what we plan to do in 2020:
The perk for 2020 is a complete set of everything we publish in print and eBooks for any donation over $100.
Poetrylandia 2, stay tuned for a title, with poets Ellaraine Lockie, Connie Post, Erica Goss, and Karla Huston. (Donate)
Poetrylandia 3, also stay tuned for a title, with poetry by Eileen Murphy. (Donate)
Storylandia 32, Winter 2020: Drunk on Time
By J. H. Malone
Past, present, and future on view in a wondrous machine. Everything everywhere in every universe. Better than YouTube, but can this device bring happiness to a young slacker looking for love and life’s meaning? (Donate)
Storylandia 33, Spring 2020: Our first multi-author issue since 2014 made possible by your generosity.
“Brexit Swan”, by Alice Frances Wickham, a bittersweet tale about two sisters coming to terms with their opposing personalities. A darkly comic story set in London, UK during the pre-Brexit years. The title symbolises the conflict within the narrator as she establishes her identity outside the restrictive bonds of blood sisterhood.
“Of Cows and Corn”, by Jason Feingold. Best friends Jason and Bill drive from Pittsburgh to Stanford to deliver Bill to graduate school. It’s the end of their friendship, and Jason counts down the days until they part, and he goes home. Driving west, Jason ponders the coming loss to understand it and reconcile himself to it.
“Two Wrongs and a Right”, by Chip Jett. Forbidden love. An abusive past. Promises and murder among friends. Christopher made a vow to the woman he can’t forget and to the woman who stole her heart. Their past returns to test the strength of friendship in a world that forces choices that should never have to be made.
“Girl in the TV”, by James R. McCullen. In this story about a man’s perception of time and the memories that comprise his life, he learns that a girl he once knew has been strangely erased from existence. He discovers that the same fate might soon befall him.
“Curse of the Lighthouse”, frequent Storylandia contributor Arthur Davis. ‘It’s all common sense, and caution,’ he was told. Finally, an assignment at a lighthouse on an island sanctuary where peace and quiet would allow him to piece his life back together. If only he had taken the signs seriously. If only he hadn’t gone deaf to the obvious. If only…. (Donate)
Storylandia 34, Summer 2020: Crossing at the Light
By David Meischen
Nopalito, Texas—1965, 1985, 2005. An aging liquor store proprietor faces the confines of small-town life 5,000 miles from the one place that offered happiness. A young man evades attraction to his charismatic but erratic cousin. An elderly widower is beset by visits from the dead in the aftermath of a near-fatal heart attack. Albert, Dusty, Berndt—each one faces a wordless question: how to live with an impossibility that cannot be changed. (Donate)
Storylandia 35, Autumn 2020: Odd Goings on at Ferndell Farm and Other Stories
By Kathyrn L. Ramage
Finding the late Mrs. Taggart’s missing jewels had made Freddie Babington famous. People with problems began to come to him, hoping to engage his services as a private detective.
Freddie expected his new career to involve thrilling cases such as restoring diamond necklaces to Duchesses and secret plans to government ministers, perhaps rescuing a kidnapped heiress or two. Most of his cases were more mundane–but every once in a while, a client with a truly strange and interesting problem came to his door.
This issue of Storylandia continues a series of mysteries set in the 1920s with a collection of whimsical short stories about Freddie Babington’s investigations of stolen umbrellas, a farm under a curse, and a ducking in a pond during a New Year’s Eve dance. (Donate)
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www.Donate.WapshottPress.org all donations are 100% tax deductible.
Thank you!