Showing results by narrator "Jennifer Nittoso" in All Categories

An athletic, handsome, all-American type mathematician and a wears-only-black, sophisticated translator discover, despite their differences, a fierce attraction. Yet the closer they become, the warier she gets - until a camping trip helps her see that the path to true intimacy lies outside of bed.

A girl betrays a longtime friend for a chance at popularity and finds she has cut off her connection to childhood forever. Set in the fog-shrouded artichoke fields of coastal California, this story won second place in the River City Writing Awards in Fiction (1997) for its attention to character and freshness of setting.

In Harrow's eerie tale of madness and heartache, Patience, diagnosed with a "nervous disposition," is forced to take up residence in the rural, dilapidated Gravely House, in hopes that she will "calm down and get better" before her senior year begins. But when she discovers a girl living inside her bedroom mirror, the past comes back to haunt, in more ways than one.

Eleven-year-old Joey is angry. All the time. And she doesn’t understand why. She has two loving moms, a supportive older half brother, and, as a triplet, she’s never without company. Her life is good. But sometimes she loses her temper and lashes out, like the time she threw a soccer ball—hard—at a boy in gym class and bruised his collarbone. Or when jealousy made her push her (former) best friend (and crush), Layla, a little bit too roughly.

Hamish Brewer (aka the Tattooed Skateboarding Principal) grew up in a home disrupted by poverty, addiction, and family dysfunction. He understands the feelings of fear, lostness, and desperation that overwhelm too many children today - because that was his life. That experience is what drives him to work relentlessly to empower people living in the toughest areas to envision and create a better future for themselves. Disrupt the norm. That is the challenge Hamish, a Nationally Distinguished Principal, calls educators, students, families, and communities to accept.

Isabel Lawson is standing on the balcony of her suite at the Hotel de Crillon as she gazes at the twinkling lights of the Champs-Élysées and wonders if she’s made a terrible mistake. She was supposed to be visiting the Christmas tree in the Place de la Concorde and eating escargots and macaroons with her new husband on their honeymoon. But a week before the wedding, she called it off.

The people you love are taken from you. That’s what Maddie DiMarco learned when she survived the plane crash that killed her parents. Fifteen years later, the scars remain. And the ones no can see are hardest to heal. Since the accident, Maddie’s avoided the unpredictable and uncaring outside world, including any relationships - except for the one with her devoted older sister, Kat, who has always been there for her.

Winner of the 1996 Writers@Work Fellowship in Fiction, this story takes place in a remote and eerie ghost town in the Eastern Sierra. Holly, a young archeologist grieving the death of her brother, finds that the bleak landscape holds surprising discoveries - from the promise of romance to professional opportunity. In the end she turns her back on both to choose a more lasting, if lonely, devotion.

Kit and Jeff move to the idyllic coastal town of Bodega Boy when he gets a postdoc fellowship at a marine lab. As a grant deadline looms at Jeff's lab, Kit begins pursuing her own professional interests while uncovering memories of her deceased father - both of which challenge her role as support to Jeff and her own notion of who she is and wants to be.

Honour Metcalf’s quilting needlework is admired by a wealthy customer of the Boston Mantua-maker for whom she works. In need of increasing her earnings, she agrees to create an elaborate white work bridal quilt for the dowager’s niece. A beautiful design emerges as she carefully stitches the intricate patterns and she begins to dream of fashioning a wedding quilt of her own.

Grayson McDonough has no use for teal ribbons, 5k runs, or ovarian cancer support groups now that his beautiful wife Jenna is gone. But their nine-year-old daughter Sadie seems to need the connection. When Annabelle Curtis, the beautiful cancer survivor organizing the memory quilt project for the Ovacome support group, begins to bring out the silly and fun side of his precious daughter again, Gray must set aside his own grief to support the healing of Sadie's young heart. But is there hope for Gray's heart too along the way?

Frog loves nothing more than to sing, and his friends love nothing more than to listen. But when he accidentally swallows the moon, Frog must make a choice: Should he let the night skies remain unlit or give up his beautiful voice forever?

Twelve-year-old Abigail (she/her/hers) is so excited to spend her summer at Camp QUILTBAG, an inclusive retreat for queer and trans kids. She can’t wait to find a community where she can be herself—and, she hopes, admit her crush on Laura Dern to kids who will understand. Thirteen-year-old Kai (e/em/eir) is not as excited. E just wants to hang out with eir best friend and eir parkour team. And e definitely does not want to think about the incident that left eir arm in a sling.

March 1987. The FDA has just approved AZT as the first drug to treat AIDS. But it's too late for Iris’s dad. He’s dying, confined to a hospital bed in the apartment he shares with his boyfriend, J.R. (who Iris hates), four floors above Iris and her mom. Soon, all Iris has left of her kind, loving dad are memories, photos, and a binder full of the poems they used to exchange. As Iris navigates her rage and grief, she resolves to speak out against the rampant fear, misinformation, and prejudice surrounding AIDS—and find the pieces of Dad that she never knew before.