"2:12 a.m." is an insomniac's tour of counterproductive bedtime stories, Vegas weddings, Southern funerals, Nevada's nuclear testing grounds, Patty Hearst, Marina Oswald, sleepwalking murderers, Louise Bourgeois's "Insomnia Drawings" and more, revealing what wakeful nights conjure for a North Carolinian turned Californian, a farm child turned suburbanite, a 1960s romantic turned fatalist and a once-but-no-longer "gifted" sleeper.
The collection, comprised of "Best American Essays" notables, Pushcart Prize nominees and the winner of "Drunken Boat"'s Editors' Choice nonfiction award, mixes the strictly autobiographical with voice-driven reportage and includes essays that are factual, meditative, investigatory and lyrical to take full advantage of the versatility of the form. "2:12 a.m." is a book for all who revisit the past and brood on the future--a book about the dislocations of contemporary life, the hauntings of memory, and the perennial search, late night or otherwise, for meaning in existence.

From D. H. Lawrence to Philip Roth, acclaimed male writers have depicted sex from the perspective of female characters. Now, women writers from Aimee Bender to Jennifer Egan engage in provocative fictional cross-dressing, exploring sexuality from the male point of view. With a foreword by Steve Almond, this provocative collection includes work from twenty-six women in all, including Bender, Egan, Susan Minot, Elizabeth Benedict, Alicia Erian, and Diane Williams. Edited by Gina Frangello, Stacy Bierlein, Cris Mazza and Kat Meads--four women with a great deal of experience as editors ("Other Voices Magazine," OV Books, anthologies) and authors.