Debut novelist’s provocative tale reveals casualties of war through a camera lens
In college, her favorite professor gave her some good advice: Write the book you’d most like to read but haven’t yet found. “I loved big adventure novels—[Joseph] Conrad and stuff like that,” says Tatjana Soli, debut author of “The Lotus Eaters,” an ambitious work of literary fiction that captures the Vietnam War through the lens of a female photojournalist. “I remember it really bothering me that there were never women as main characters. They were always wives and girlfriends that got left behind. I really wanted to write a strong woman character that had exciting things happen to her.”

When Soli’s short fiction attracted the attention of an agent, he contacted her to ask if she had a novel. She told him her idea of writing a war story from the point of view of a woman. “He said that the Vietnam literature is very unpopular,” recounts Soli, “that there was no way women were going to be interested. I had no encouragement. I thought it would be my practice novel. But it was the only thing I really wanted to do.”

I Love a Broad Margin to My Life
Tonight No Poetry Will Serve: Poems 2007–2010
Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas
Where the God of Love Hangs Out
Stories of Your Life and Others
We Have Met the Enemy
Nothing to Envy
Parrot & Olivier in America
Inside of a Dog

GT Editor hopes to tweak the conversations we have about ‘dieting,’ eating disorders and the hunger to be ‘thin’ in the new read,  ‘Shut Up, Skinny Bitches!’
I met him more than 10 years ago. The door in the Good Times office slammed shut and in walked Greg Archer, wearing a black vest, and exuding the type of charm that he’s well known for. For about six months, we sat next to each other, me in a boring cubicle and his section decked out with Christmas tree lights, streamers coming down from the ceiling and so on. We became fast friends. And then he became my boss when the previous editor moved on. Over the years, I’ve been able to watch Greg Archer evolve. He is known for his catchy style with language, his seamless leadership qualities, his genuine concern for his employees and his desire to create a newspaper that the community can rely on. And now, on top of all his accomplishments—a freelancer for magazines such as O Magazine, The Advocate, and others, the numerous awards he’s garnered, and much more—the man has taken on a new endeavor, co-author of the book, “Shut Up, Skinny Bitches! (The Common Sense Guide To Following Your Hunger and Your Heart).”

Well, not quite. Peter Arnell’s book often misses the mark
The title “Shift” by Peter Arnell attracted me instantly when I came upon it while browsing in my bookstore. The word shift, to my way of thinking, refers to inner shifts or changes, and I hoped that by learning how the author had examined his life, I might be better able to make some necessary shifts of my own.

Inner shifts are a great challenge; they require that we notice our thoughts, and inquire into our inner nature. Inner shifts tend to come about when we are still, when we are in the state of “being;” they rarely come about as we hasten to complete our daily “to do” list.

Arnell is good at “doing,” and his book focuses on what he did to realize his two formidable goals: one, losing 256 pounds, thereby taking his weight down from 406 pounds to 150; the other, forging a successful career as a consumer brand marketing consultant for large companies such as Pepsi, Samsung, Reebok, to name a few.

Editor’s note: In this week’s Poetry Corner, we feature the work of partners C.J. Sage and J.P. Dancing Bear. (Their bios are below their poems.)
The Dark Pelican
by C.J. Sage
Her nest is crude (though on the shore it rests,   
it rests on stone). Her nest: a twiggy hole, the crib   
from which she watches water as it crests   

the seawall. Between hard and arching ribs   
of rock around her home she spans her wings—   
on a foggy screen of saltspray how they scribble!