Showing results by author "Kate James" in All Categories

Represented here are 16 short stories by seven great American writers, dating from the 19th and 20th centuries. Different in atmosphere and writing style, they nevertheless caught the mood and concerns of the day in a way that was distinctly American.

High on God gives the first robust and plausible explanation for why megachurches have conquered the churchgoing market of America. Without condescension or exaggeration, the authors show the genius of megachurches: the power of charisma, the design of facilities, the training of leaders, the emotional dynamics, and the strategies that bring people together and lead them to serve and help others.

Chiyo Matsutani is a young college student in San Francisco and Hiro Fujimoto has nearly paid off the loan on his Sacramento farm. Both are American citizens when they’re rounded up in 1942 and sent to an incarceration camp where they meet, fall in love, and marry. But when they’re released three years later, Hiro’s farm - like the property of so many Japanese Americans - has been seized. They take the only jobs available to them, as housekeeper and gardener for a wealthy family in Oakland where they face casual racism, harassment, and an unending future of dreary servitude. Based on a ...

Short stories have always been a sort of instant access into an author’s brain, their soul and heart. They can lift our lives into locations, people and experiences with a sweep of landscape, narration, feelings and emotions that is difficult to achieve elsewhere. Some you may disagree with but they will get you thinking; about our choices and about those you would have made. If this volume takes you on a path to discover more of these miniature masterpieces then we have all gained something.

The American literary tradition has, in a far shorter span of time than others throughout history, achieved a glowing and glittering reputation. From its transatlantic roots it has absorbed the sons and daughters of other cultures, other lands and made them part of her own. Within this melting pot of styles, genres and wordplay one fact stands out: In the American short story, literary tradition has a strong, vibrant and almost inclusive history, if you know where to look.