Coming to You from the Blue Room is the bright debut of a true new voice.

For the past several years, Loranne and I have been part of a writing group in Gambier, first at the Red Door Cafe, then at the new Middle Ground Cafe. With other locals, we gather each week to read each others' work, critique it, offer support and advice where we can, and mainly, encourage each other to keep at it. Loranne has kept at it more faithfully than most, resulting in this marvellous series of stories. It is with great pride and affection that we present this, her first collection. Loranne is now in the MFA writing program at The Ohio State University in Columbus, where she will no doubt dazzle. Her performances of her work in public readings are always worth double or triple the price of admission.

"Loranne Temple's extraordinarily graceful stories are as inviting as a cool drink on a hot day. And like certain kinds of cool drinks, the stories in Coming To You from the Blue Room are deceptive, revealing their power only after we try to move away from them. Focusing on characters who come to understand themselves through the communities they live in, these stories balance sometimes devastating vision with a saving compassion, and are filled with a great wisdom about the ways life carries us away. A pleasure to read, these stories linger long in the mind."

Erin McGraw, author of The Baby Tree and The Good Life.

"Loranne Temple writes with vividness & grace about people, about brothers & sisters & mothers & fathers, about babies, about extended families & old friends, who become so real to the reader that they seem to rise up from the page into lives of their own. These are wise & compassionate stories & we come to care about the characters as though they are our own family members, for better or worse, & like all family members we must carry their burdens carefully in our hearts, for better or worse."

Chuck Kinder, author of Honeymooners; Director, Writing Program, University of Pittsburgh.

"Coming to You from the Blue Room is a lovely coming of age story that captivated me from the very first paragraph. It's written in second person, which usually makes me grimace, since it's so hard to pull off, but this writer knew what she was doing, and it works wonderfully. The voice is charming, descriptive, and deceptively simple: the author writes tightly, yet poetically, giving us just what we need to put ourselves into the story, to feel we are right there in the narrator's mind, which becomes our own through the use of second person. And the ending is just right. Read it, and you'll see what I mean."

Sarah Willis, author of Some Things That Stay and A Good Distance.

The cover design is by Rebecca Taylor.