This book includes teenage written fiction, poetry, essays, memoirs centered around the themes of learning, family, teenage angst and dreams of the future. It showcases some local award winning high school writing. It also includes samples of teacher writing created in the last year alongside students as well as a 2013 Norman Mailer Award For High School and Middle School Teachers of English National Semi-finalist entitled "ADDing and Subtracting."

Peter Sonderling attempts suicide with a loaded Luger to his own temple in the Michigan darkness. He thinks he knows who will die, but first he must ricochet off his mother Claudia's death camp past to finally understand himself. His suicidal thoughts question his wife Doreen's fidelity and his children's paternity, yet his sights should aim at Claudia for answers. The loaded chamber of her memory fires a forty-year-old secret into Peter's notion of Father. At Dachau's concentration camp an SS doctor trades chocolates for Claudia's body. He tortures her future husband, Isaac, who stands naked...

Waiting for Bells grows from the rows of a Michigan classroom. Teachers tire of the expression that the real world starts once students matriculate or that those who cannot, teach. Instead, school halls teem with tales of tragedy, talent, love, loss, depression, desire, betrayal and hope for both students and staff. Those real life themes tug a thread through the first and title short of this 16 story collection of fiction.



There are five sections to this book including: Teaching, Prep School, Bachelors, Study Abroad & Graduates. Teaching touches raw nerves of a profession that sees an...