The poems in James Najarian’s debut collection are by turns tragic and mischievous, always with an exuberant attention to form. Najarian turns his caprine eye to the landscapes and history of Berks Country, Pennsylvania, and to the middle east of his extended Armenian family. These poems examine our bonds to the earth, to animals, to art and to desire.

Anthology of writing by the ten winners of the 2016 Best American Newspaper Narrative Writing Contest at the Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference. The pieces are published in order of places awarded: McCoy, “It Was an Accident, Baby” (1st place); Dreier, “A Child’s Scraped Knee” (2nd place); Baker, “The Power of Will” (3rd place), and runners up, Cox, “A Marine’s Conviction”; Goffard, “Framed”; Thompson, “The Long Way Home”; Kleinfield, “Fraying at the Edges”; Kuchment and Thompson, “Seismic Denial”; Caruba, “55 Minutes”; and Wangsness, “In Search of Sanctuary.”