XOXOX Press — Outstanding books.

Fred Andrle is known to many of us as the voice of WOSU/NPR radio. His twenty years of intelligent talk on WOSU's public affairs show "Open Line" have provided a rich, insightful alternative to normal talk-radio fare. What is less known is Fred's dedication to the craft of poetry. He is the recipient of a Thurber House/Greater Columbus Arts Council Poetry Fellowship (2003) and Playwriting Fellowship (2000). Fred's work has been published in Chiron Review, the anthology Prayers to Protest: Poems That Center and Bless Us (Pudding House) and The Columbus Dispatch. He is a member of the Columbus poetry writing and performing group "House of Toast."

Love Life is the first collection of Fred Andrle's poems to be widely available. Fred's poems are reflective and joyous—like his radio show, they are thoughtful, richly affirmative, careful and kind. The audio CD brings Fred's rich voice forward in performance of his favorite Love Life poems.

"I have had many conversations with Fred Andrle over the years and have always been impressed by his intelligence, culture, and sensitivity. This new book of poetry, Love Life, displays those qualities. The poems reveal the precious, subtle nuances of memory, a sense of place, family ties, love, and longing. They tell of the deep impact that nature and animals have on our personal lives. Whatever your longing, he says, talk to the old elm in the park. She will answer you without a word. These poems tell of mystical meanings hiding in ordinary life.

—Thomas Moore, author of Care of the Soul

Fred Andrle is an heir of Walt Whitman: the long lines, higher-than-ground-level point of view like a crane shot in a film, the sweeping of the ground too even while the vision is soaring, inclusive, exuberant. With rhythm and cadence, the speaker of these poems looks backwards and forwards in time, and all over this huge land of ours.

—Charlene Fix, author of Flowering Bruno: A Dography and Mischief.

A primer for newcomers, a haven for aficionados and a
baedeker for academicians, this book includes an in-depth interview
and critical inquiry into Barry Lopez's short fiction.

"With balance and grace... sharp clarity and an elaborate
mandala of insight into Lopez's life-work." (Patrick Meanor,
author of John Cheever Revisited and The Wrath of Grapes)

"This book shows once again why many of us think of Barry Lopez
as a national treasure. He is doing the real work."
Lewis Hyde, author of The Gift and Trickster Makes This World.

Backgrounder

Working on seasonal wildfires in the 1970's and 1980's across Alaskan tundra and mountain ranges, wildland firefighter Mike Newell developed a deep appreciation for an arctic and subarctic landscape whose scale dwarfs all human effort. Returning each fire season, Newell found himself increasingly transfixed by the primal allure of the Alaskan bush. Years later, he paused in a bookshop and pulled Barry Lopez's Arctic Dreams off the shelf. What he found there began to engender in Newell a sense of what one reader has described as "learned understanding of wild places." The chance encounter with Lopez's National Book Award winning non-fiction work began a pattern of inquiry for Newell that, over twenty years later, now culminates in the publication of No Bottom. Newell's book features an incisive interview with Barry Lopez accompanied by a careful inquiry into Lopez's short fiction books. Both the interview and the critical inquiry serve well as a primer for those coming new to Barry Lopez's work and as a valuable source of insight for scholars.

About the Author

Mike Newell is the author of three books of poetry —uNderground Fires, The Unlived Life and Aestivation—and the newly-issued No Bottom. Following his early years as a wildland firefighter, Newell taught at-risk students in public schools and correctional facilities for over two decades, retiring in 2004. After a 19-year hiatus from firefighting in Alaska, he re-certified his fire qualifications in 2000 and went to work on western wildfires. Mike Newell lives and writes in upstate New York.

About the Press

XOXOX Press is an independent publisher of contemporary fiction, non-fiction, oral history and poetry. Among its offerings are short story collections from Fielding Dawson (The Land of Milk & Honey, The Dirty Blue Car); P.F. Kluge (Final Exam); Bruce Haywood (The Essential College, Allerton Bywater) and a diverse set of other titles from other authors in fiction, non-fiction, oral history and poetry. XOXOX Press is based in Gambier, Ohio.

Availability

No Bottom is distributed to bookstores nationally by Small Press Distribution of Berkeley, CA (www.spdbooks.org) and is available at the XOXOX web store, at http://xoxoxpress.com and at Amazon.com and other web stores.

Please contact the publisher by e-mail with requests for review copies and interviews.