Common Good Books welcomes local poets Sharon Chmielarz and J.P. White. Chmielarz, a seasoned author, has two new books: Calling and The Sky is Great, The Sky is Blue and White’s new collection is entitled All Good Water. The poets will be joined by Mary Rose O’Reilley, the author of The Love of Impermanent Things (2008) and Half Wild: Poems (2006).

Cynthia Kraack, author of Minnesota Cold, reads from her newest book, Ashwood

Anne Hartford must find the way to rebuild not only Ashwood, but her own dreams.

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Ashwood explores one slice of America’s reconstruction following a severe global economic depression. Straining under the responsibility of simply feeding its people, the U.S. government struggles to restore cultural institutions and create jobs.  In a model borrowed from giant international corporations, the Bureau of Human Capital Management is created to assess skills of every citizen and assign job matches.

For Anne Hartford, an out-of-work teacher caught in early sweeps of the unemployed, the system provides training for her to become an estate Matron.  These newly created agricultural sites help feed a metropolitan area, provide a safe place for resettled kids to live, and offer a comfortable home for intellectual elite citizens.  The consulting work of the elite fills the government’s coffers.

Anne arrives at Ashwood, a Minnesota estate, with one suitcase and two boxes plus memories of the child she carried as a surrogate for an intellectual elite couple.  She finds the estate houses hungry child workers plus an emotionally unbalanced intellectual while facing threats from a corrupt bureaucrat.  She must find the way to rebuild not only Ashwood, but her own dreams.

“Ashwood is a brilliant synthesis of historic events and calculated probability, with all of the twists and turns of a spellbinding thriller.”--www.streetinsider.com