Unsolicited Press Announces Availability of "BLOOD FIRE VAPOR SMOKE" by Shann Ray

Unsolicited Press announced immediate availability of BLOOD FIRE VAPOR SMOKE by Shann Ray, a poetic narrative of stories that consider the intersection of violence and forgiveness.

A cycle akin to the seasons of a life, Blood Fire Vapor Smoke asks questions of the ancient struggle between life and death amidst landscapes new and old. Does ultimate forgiveness answer to ultimate violence in the world? What is the nature of grace? Who determines the fates that move us? A collection of stories opening upon the inner world with the abandon and gravity involved in personal and collective responsibility, the book responds to the present age of enragement, and the collapsing binary of two hungers: violence and forgiveness.

Blood Fire Vapor Smoke considers the human myth of regeneration through violence, and the aftermath of loneliness, love, and yearning found in a more merciful expression of human existence.  Violence is caught by love, changed, transcended, and transformed into a yearning for restoration, atonement, and the fusion embodied in greater humanity. 

Poet, short story writer, and novelist Shann Ray grew up in Montana and Alaska and spent part of his childhood on the Northern Cheyenne reservation.  His work has been featured in Poetry, Esquire, McSweeney's, Prairie Schooner, Big Sky Journal, Narrative, and Salon.  A National Endowment for the Arts Fellow and winner of the American Book Award and the High Plains Book Award, he is the author of American Masculine, American Copper, Atomic Theory 432, Balefire, Sweetclover, and Forgiveness and Power in the Age of Atrocity.  A clinical psychologist specializing in the psychology of men, he teaches leadership and forgiveness studies at Gonzaga University.  Because of his wife and three daughters, he believes in love.

Blood Fire Vapor Smoke will be published June 4, 2019 and is distributed through Ingram in both hardback and paperback. The title is returnable and set at a discount. Active marketing and publicity efforts are in place including podcasts, book reviews, and advertisements.

Unsolicited Press was founded in 2012 and is based in Portland, OR. The press strives to produce exceptional works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from award-winning authors. 

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