Ralph Bland

A Baker's dozen's worth of short stories and a novella from the author of ACE and STARS RAIN SUN MOON.

Stories By Ralph Bland

Close Your Eyes And I'll Kiss You

Michael Braswell

Corvettes and Thunderbirds are parked next to Studebakers, Beetles, and, in some cases, cars that may defy description of any kind in this collection of twenty-six original essays and stories about first cars, family cars, and even dream cars that traveled the highways and backroads of the authors' lives. Often hilarious, sometimes bittersweet, the stories are about growing up--although for some of us, where cars and trucks are concerned, we never quite do.

Life in Cars

Driving Southern

Ralph Bland's fourth novel, ACE, follows the flights, fancies, and comic pratfalls of John (Ace) Hardaway as he navigates eight months of life in 2005 Nashville, Tennessee. Ace, former pitching phenom and athlete extraordinaire, is now 55 years old and attempting to weather the midlife crisis threatening to envelop him - sexual temptations, ghostly visitations, Burmese Pythons beneath his porch, even a mysterious stalker who wants him dead - but through it all, Ace, oft-poetic and unflappable, continues to seek answers for the overwhelming questions swirling about him, while also learning a few things about baseball, women, and why sometimes a fellow's talents refuse to stay buried in the ground.

Anthony Cavender

Donald Ball

From drinking sweet tea on a beloved grandmother’s porch to playing army to witnessing prejudice and violence or receiving the lash, these stories illustrate growing up in the South during the 1950s and 1960s, what it felt, tasted, and looked like through the eyes of the boys who lived it.

13 Stories

Growing Up South of the Mason-Dixon Line

Stars Rain Sun Moon Part 1 There comes a moment in time when all things past must be put to rest. In Stars Rain Sun Moon that notion results in a cross-country road trip in a 1958 Buick Special in search of the lost chords of friendship. When Donovan Hart receives word at his home outside Savannah, Georgia, that his longtime friend, Morgan Palmer, is suffering from the effects of early-onset dementia, he knows he must go and see him before the inevitability of Alzheimer's Disease takes its final toll. Donovan contacts old pal Coop McCord in nearby Saint Simons to let him know of Morgan's condition and see if Coop will go with him to Morgan's home in Oklahoma City. The two take off on the journey traveling in Gladys, a 1958 Buick Special that Coop, Donovan, Morgan, and Ed Moore bought from two migrating hippies back in the summer of 1968, the year the four of them departed from their hometown of Tybee Island to go to school at a small college outside Macon.

Stars Rain Sun Moon

From drinking sweet tea on a beloved grandmother's porch to playing army to witnessing prejudice and violence or receiving the lash, these stories illustrate growing up in the South during the 1950s and 1960s, what it felt, tasted, and looked like through the eyes of the boys who lived it.

Ralph Bland

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