Through the Shards
by Steff Mena
From the second collective of ChapLip Library selectees, Central California’s Steff Mena (they/them) writes deeply personal poetry about having grown through abuse and living queer life, that is when they’re not spending their time illustrating. Their first published piece “As Long as I’m Bleeding” was featured in the inaugural issue of the queer menstruation magazine Bleeding Thunder. They have also had several illustrations published in many small zines. Steff is pursuing a healing journey through the production of visual and written art and hopes others find the courage and resilience to do the same.
Wandering with Words
by Molly Wahl
From the second collective of ChapLip Library selectees, Molly Wahl is a dabbler in many things. For years she has enjoyed trying her hand at gardening, cooking, photography and herbalism. An avid reader and lover of words, she has finally decided to have a go at scribbling down some of what goes on in her head. She is frequently inspired by the world around her, including the students she sees every day. With a Masters in Teaching and many years spent in classrooms, she now can be found in the school library at Tully C. Knoles in Stockton. Molly lives in Lodi, California with two cats and a yard that she has ceded to the birds.
All of Me to All of You: Poems
by Robert Miller
From the second collective of ChapLip Library selectees, Robert Miller has been actively writing poetry for seven years. His journey began when someone he really cherished gifted him a journal for his 20th birthday. Once he started writing, he couldn’t stop. That’s when he discovered reading and writing poetry, and it’s been a runaway train ever since.
At the time of submission, Miller was a student at San Joaquin Delta College with plans to graduate with an associate’s degree in English and transfer to Sac State.
About his writing, he says, “My poems are selfishly my own. I do not want them to be objectively definable. They are what they are to me, and I want them to be what they are to you when you read them. Find faces, feelings, friends, anything in my poems. They are built for the individual and simple without being plain. Emily Dickinson is a favorite of mine, so is Sylvia Plath, and they are both major influences on my style.”
My Forty-Sixth Birthday
by Cassi W. Nesmith
From the second collective of ChapLip Library selectees, Cassi is a multifaceted writer, poet, and educator based in the San Joaquin Valley of California. Her diverse professional background includes roles as a legislative intern, behavior therapist for autistic children, barista, Special Education high school teacher, and a member of the Youth Conservation Corps in Yosemite National Park.
She earned her bachelor’s degree in Comparative Literature from the University of California, Berkeley, with a focus on English and Spanish. Cassi also completed a language and culture certificate at The Institute of Spanish and Language Culture in Costa Rica and holds a credential from San Francisco State University to teach students with mild to moderate disabilities.
Cassi has received notable recognition for her work, including a fellowship from Tuleburg Press and participation in the Sligo Scholars Program, where she studied at the Yeats International Summer School in Sligo, Ireland. Her poetry has been featured in various publications, including Center of Attention: Poems on Stockton and San Joaquin, Poet’s Espresso Review, the Sligo Review, Begin Again, and the 2024 California Writers Club anthology, The Smalls. She also created and published her own ‘zine, Play and Tattle.
Trinkets
by Darcy Rose
From the second collective of the ChaLip Library selectees, Darcy Rose is a neuroqueer latinx poet from Stockton, CA. Growing up, they believed if they learned all the words and then put them together in the perfect order, they would finally be understood. As mistaken as they were, their efforts gave them an unparalleled linguistic precision. Nowadays, they write for self-expression, healing, and catharsis.
Earth Angeling Ain’t Easy
by Lishe’a Wilkerson aka QueenRajah
From the second collective of ChapLip Library selectees, Lishe’a Denin Wilkerson, known as QueenRajah, is a Diviner, Ordained Minister, Healer, Master of Ceremonies, human rights activist, and creative force whose voice rises from the meeting place of ancestral wisdom and modern truth. For over a decade, she has cultivated sacred spaces through ritual, performance, and community organizing, most notably as co-founder of InnerG and host of The River open mic for eight years. Her work weaves poetry, spirituality, and activism into an unflinching celebration of resilience and transformation.
In Earth Angeling Ain’t Easy, QueenRajah offers a crown of words—equal parts prayer, protest, and prophecy exploring the divine labor of living with an open heart in a world that often forgets its own sacredness. Guided by a Pisces soul’s deep questioning and an unyielding devotion to truth, her debut invites readers into a realm where vulnerability becomes power, and every poem is a ceremony mixed with a little tarot-themed journey to self!
Still Kickin’
By Billie Hanson-Dupree
“I was immediately drawn to these vulnerable characters who tempt fate for love. The story resonates long after the final page.”
—Lucy Sanna, author of The Cherry Harvest
“A moving tribute to a generation who sacrificed so much—with precious little recognition for all they gave.”
—John D. Britto, author of Cybil’s Gift and U.S. Navy veteran
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Booklegger: Anecdotal Recollections of a Skid Row Bookseller
By William Maxwell
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Sorry I’m Late
By Melchor Sahagun
Melchor Sahagun’s Sorry I’m Late is a virtuoso exercise in disarming, fantastical self-definition by a true poet—one who can only live authentically in his own carefully chosen yet sometimes reckless words. If, as his book’s title implies, Sahagun has arrived late to the party, he is sure to be its life (or death) when his unmistakable voice is heard.
—Bradley W. Buchanan
Poet | Author of The Scars, Aligned and Chimera
Professor Emeritus, Department of English California State University Sacramento
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Center of Attention: Poems on Stockton and San Joaquin
Paula Sheil, Editor-in-Chief | Joshua Gill-Sutton, Assistant Editor
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My Spiritual Walk As A Wolfhound: A Grunt in Vietnam
By Joseph F. Maes
If you want to know what Vietnam was like on the ground for the men who fought it, this book will take you there. Joe was drafted at age 19 and sent to kill or be killed in a war he was too young to understand – in a country he knew nothing about.
In the midst of war’s horrors, Joe touchingly describes how his Southern Ute Native American heritage and his parents’ wisdom and love helped him make it home alive. He arrived in Vietnam in 1968, the war’s most brutal year. Assigned to the Infantry – the “Tip of the Spear” – he survived jungle ambushes, mortar attacks, and the terrible loss of men he served with. He endured relentless hunger, thirst, and brutal weather conditions, never knowing what dangerous duty he’d be assigned to next.
Veterans will identify with Joe’s blunt, personal story. Civilians, young and old, will hear an important perspective on America’s most misunderstood war, from one of the young men who came home to controversy and mistreatment – instead of parades and respect for his service and sacrifices.
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Doughboys of San Joaquin
By Elaine Dixon-Ugarkovich
The Doughboys of San Joaquin honors the young men from Stockton and San Joaquin County who made the supreme sacrifice during World War 1. This book explores each of the names listed and tells their stories. In includes biographical information on each soldier and explains how each died in service to our country, whether it be killed in action or succumbing to the Spanish influenza.The book begins with our first “contingent” leaving Stockton by train supported by the local citizenry. It includes a short background of World War, and a battle history of the 91st Division that trained out of Camp Lewis, Washington.
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There’s a Goose in my Tree
By Debra K. Johnson
There’s a Goose in My Tree is based upon an unusual, but true event that happened during the spring migration of Canada geese through California’s delta region. It became much more than a story about a courageous goose when the author accepted the challenge to “go out on a limb” and do something she never thought she could do. Author Debra K. Johnson retired from a career in consumer research and healthcare to begin a new adventure as an author. She lives in California’s Central Valley with her husband. There’s a Goose in My Tree is the first children’s book in a series about life lessons learned from nature.
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Lost and Found
By Barron Sudderth
Barron Sudderth did not know he was setting out to pen a novel when he undertook his year long quest to write one haiku per day. However after a year of scavenging around Stockton and the Bay Area with a DSLR camera, a sharpie, and a list of haiku, Sudderth came up with a books-worth of color photographic poems. The book’s poems cover the dynamics of a loving relationship where people find themselves reflected in the other, lose themselves, and then rediscover who they are. Barron’s self-reflective haiku explains “I never wanted / to be anything other / than the thing I am.”
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The Last Real Hobo
By Terry Albritton
When a handsome, young hobo jumps off a train in a small town, he becomes embroiled in a murder and infatuated with a beautiful primary school teacher. She is involved with the charismatic high school principal suspected of Communist sympathies. The Last Real Hobo is a nostalgic look at the 1950’s when changing mores and political controversy begin to intrude in the bucolic lives California’s Central Valley farmers.
An F.B.I. investigation and a love triangle unfold among rumors of Reds and perverts, the nasty senate election between Richard Nixon and Helen Douglas, and the chaos created by the Korean War. Contemporary themes of bigotry, misogyny, and conspiracy resonate as a hobo comes of age among a colorful cast of characters who wrestle with personal integrity and professional ethics.
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A Lady’s Place
By Mary Jo Gohlke
A Lady’s Place by Mary Jo Gohlke is a look at the rich history of the Philomatheon Club and the first women of Stockton who came here in the mid 1800s when Stockton was a jewel in the crown of California and a major transportation hub along the Delta. A Lady’s Place introduces us to the women who were hosts to some of the most powerful political figures in California. The Philomathean Club members fostered cultural and intellectual gatherings to share their global experiences and provide a backdrop for the political and industrial arena during one of Stockton’s most expansive periods of growth.
This group of women grew as the decades passed. They raised the funds necessary to hire designers and contractors to build the structure that stands today as part of historical Stockton. A Lady’s Place is an informative look at a part of Stockton’s rich history that is often overlooked and forgotten but serves as a poignant reminder of the role women played in that history.
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55 Words and Counting
By David Waldon
Stockton poet David Waldon never set out to be a writer, but once he found his voice, the muse inspired thousands of poems on life, love, politics and the ticking clock in a dying man’s ear.
CRITICS SAY:
“Dave Waldon is one of the most talented writers I’ve encountered in forty years of college teaching. Having him in my class was like team-teaching with an inspired Full Professor of Life.”— Phil Hutcheon, Nobody Roots for Goliath and Desperation Passes
“There are two categories of 55-Word Writing Contest entrant: Dave Waldon and everybody else.” — Michael Fitzgerald, The Record columnist
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Waldon is the master of the 55-word poem:
One More Night
Ghosts of lost summers
Always touching, yet never touched
Specters on a guitar note
Kisses sweetened by root beer popsicles
Wildflowers beguiling through rolling hills
Ketchup at the corners of your mouth
Floating carefree down the Mokelumne
Top down in the moonlight
A star, our navigator
I wish I may … I wish I might
Have …
Desperation Passes (Out of Print)
By Phil Hutcheon
A sex scandal, a pair of shootings, and internal racism complicate an obscure college team’s quest for an epic bowl game victory. Black alumni leader Arthur Allenby and white counselor Malcolm Wade join forces to help the CSU team face these and other challenges while struggling to salvage their own embattled romances. Desperation Passes celebrates interracial friendships and emerging leadership roles for African-Americans but ridicules the hypocrisy of administrators who overpay opportunistic head coaches while ignoring the academic deficiencies and dismal graduation rates of student-athletes.
