Jim Heynen: 5 books

From a bar hosting its nightly Sad Hour to the moonlit sandbox of a retired army general, Jim Heynen’s new collection of micro fiction presents character sketches of strange yet fascinating men and women. Modeled after Theophrastus' Characters - brief, verbal snapshots of people created by the Greek...

"It's not as if grown-ups will let you be average if you're youngest. If you're not fat, they call you Skinny or Bones. If you're not skinny, they call you Hippo or Tubby." Henry and Gretchen are the youngest children in two Iowa farm families. Being youngest, they get left out, blamed,...

In this truly modern teenage love story, spirituality and sensuality burn equally bright. "I have these two characters I hide behind. The real one is Cosmos Coyote and the phony one is William the Nice. But sometimes I get them mixed up, like now and almost all the time when I'm with you." Cosmos...

Seventeen-year-old Alice Marie Krayenbraak is beautiful, witty, a star student, and a gifted athlete. On the surface, she has it all. But in Alice’s hometown of Dutch Center, Iowa, nothing is as it seems. Behind the façade of order and tidiness, the family farm is failing. Alice’s mother is behaving...

This collection examines the power and transformative potential of movements that fight against poverty and inequality. Broadly, poverty politics are struggles to define who is poor, what it means to be poor, what actions might be taken, and who should act. These movements shape the sociocultural...