Some things last. No matter what. Even when we expect them to fall apart and break away from the supports and nails that bind them. The old wooden chair is one of those things. I'm sitting in that same chair today. It's made the move with me from Saint Paul, to Alpena, to Detroit, and back again to Alpena. THE CROOKED STEEPLE is another of those things. It's been with me for many years. It's taken me a while to put it together. Part of that has to do with my creative process. Something that happened thirty years ago could finally come to life as a story today. The other part has to do with the fact that it's taken me a while to find writers worth publishing that I believe have what it takes. To tell a good story. And to make it last. So here is THE CROOKED STEEPLE. A collection of literary fiction and two poems. Writing that has hit my sweet spot. Give it read. Take a shot. Spread the word. Best to you and yours. ~ K.J.

There is a talent to describing the natural world that resists mere wonder for the sake of what used to be called the sublime, in which the mind willingly puts out its own light in the glow of more profound illumination. Marcus Whalbring has such talent. He also has a voice so human and sensible we think this sort of going into the world should be for all of us. These poems are spun from thought; they take that thought not to where it ends, but to where it rightly disappears. There the poet's intelligence-arranged in patterns of language and rhythm-meets a different intelligence, that of a particular landscape, arranged in its patterns of season, weather, morning and night, according to its ineffable being. ~Maurice Manning