Dear reader,

With great pride, we offer you the debut catalog of Avasta Press. If you are like us, you are someone who strives, as Ralph Waldo Emerson said, to not only live the length of life, but also the depth of it. You fall in love with all kinds of books, savoring how they make your world bigger.

Perhaps, like me, you have surrounded yourself with books and stories your whole life. From that very first murder mystery I typed out on our household desktop, to love letters I write in my diaries, the words I lay down function as dock lines, tying my shifting soul and experiences to the physical world in which I live. When we read the stories of others, we take hold of their lines. We bind together.

Writing a book is a revolutionary act. Reading a book is a revolutionary act. When we see how other people live and think, we are able to see our own lives more clearly. We expand what might be possible in our personal universe and gain clarity and bravery to craft a most pleasurable life.

At Avasta, the authors we publish, the amazing group of people that lend their talents to running the press and creating the books-- these are people I cherish for giving me more roads, more perspectives, more capacity to love and feel loved in our global village.

For myself, I can think of no greater occupation than laboring to publish the stories of talented writers so that they may reach their destined readers. This first catalog we offer thrills me. We give you fictions, poetries, creative manifestos and even some really good cocktail recipes.

If life is indeed a journey, you captain your own way. We offer you these books to bring along on your travels.

Welcome aboard,Kelsye NelsonAvasta Founder, Captain

Avasta Press Maiden Catalog

BOOKS FALL 2015

Widow Walkby Gar LaSalle historical fiction

Isthmus by Gar LaSalle historical fiction

Not F*ing Around by Jeff Leisawitz creative manifesto

I Could Tell You Some Stories by Kay Kinghammer memoir in poetry

A Goddamn Infinite Emergencyby John Mandel literary short stories

Dracula: Book Lush Edition by Bram Stoker literature & libations

Curious Poe Collection: Book Lush Edition by Edgar Allan Poe literature & libations

Pride and Prejudice: Book Lush Edition by Jane Austen literature & libations

Avasta Press Fall Catalog 2015 www.AvastaPress.com4 5

about the author

Gar LaSalleGar LaSalle is an award-winning historical fiction author and documentary filmmaker from Seattle, Washington. He holds degrees from California Institute of the Arts, Reed College in Portland, and Cornell University Medical School. Gar created the LaSalle Storyteller Grant, which awards $10,000 or more annually to an artist demonstrating excellence in storytelling. When not welding massive sculptures or traversing the globe, he can be found in his Vashon Island studio.

IsthmusWidow Walk Saga Book Two

Gar LaSalleA convenient ride through the jungle. An inconvenient assault. A run for their lives. It is 1860 and revolution is erupting throughout the world over universal emancipation. Civil war looms in the Unites States. In the midst of it all, a young woman is moving back to Boston with what is left of her family, devastated and bankrupted by savage, tragic events that occurred less than a year ago in the Pacific Northwest. They traverse a hostile terrain on the new Panama isthmus railroad, the most modern transportation in the world. From inside their coach they watch the humid forest, a different type of green from what they knew up north, slipping by in a blur. Looking down the aisle they see an uncomfortable array of fellow travelers, an international mix of characters they will get to know all too well . . . each with hidden hopes and dreams . . . predators and victims, desperadoes and hangmen, widows and widow makers.

In book two of the Widow Walk Saga, author Gar LaSalle returns to deliver the next true chapter of gritty American history.

Widow WalkWidow Walk Saga Book One

Gar LaSalleThe Pacific Northwest in 1858 was a land of breathtaking beauty and unrelenting danger. Small settlements dotted the wilds of streams and dense woods. The United States and Britain both attempted to control the vast, fertile lands and contain the indigenous peoples. It was on this land that homesteaders Isaac and Emmy Evers lived, loved, and fought for survival in a story that echoes the story of the true American frontier.

Based on true events surrounding the real-life story revenge murder of Isaac Ebey, a prominent citizen who lived on Whidbey Island in the mid-1800s, Widow Walk traces the interweaving fates of the settlers and Native Americans fighting for survival, and the British and U.S. governments fighting for control of the land they lived on.

Author Gar LaSalle combines his love of history with a compelling story of a woman’s determination to find her kidnapped son. Winner of the 2015 First Horizon Award from the Eric Hoffer Award for Excellence in Independent Publishing, this book is a new classic for lovers of real American history.

Also available in bilingual English and Italian editions. German and Spanish editions coming soon.

Get it:www.AvastaPress.com/Widow(Widow Walk)

www.AvastaPress.com/Isthmus(Isthmus)

Avasta Press Fall Catalog 2015 www.AvastaPress.com6 7

Not F*ing AroundThe No Bullsh*t Guide for Getting Your Creative Dreams Off the Ground

Jeff LeisawitzCan’t quite get your creative juices flowing? The day job sucking your soul? Fizzled out before you put the finishing touches on your amazing creation?

Not F*ing Around is an inspirational guide to claiming your creative mojo and turning your ideas into art. With relentless positivity, unapologetic authenticity, and a stiff middle finger to the establishment, Leisawitz pulls back the curtain on the creative process and shows us that we are, indeed, capable of great things—if we can stop f*ing around and make it happen.

It’s time to get off the couch and get on the path. It’s time to tap into the cosmic heartbeat that thumps in your chest and shines from your soul. It’s time to get NFA.

With humor, grace, and vulgarity, Not F*ing Around delivers the swift kick in the ass anyone who wants to make art needs, and reading this book is the first step to stop f*ing around and start making art that matters.

about the author

Jeff LeisawitzJeff Leisawitz is an award-winning musician/producer and filmmaker who has devoted his life to the art of creating. As the artist behind Electron Love Theory, he fused interviews with Seattle’s WTO demonstrators in 1999 into electronic music. He has more than 500 music placements in film, TV and multimedia to his credit, including work created for HBO, MTV, and Playboy. NFA is his first book.

NFA

Not F*ing Around is the passion, the power, the bang bang bang that drives you to take real action to manifest a life worth living.

NFA is focus and free form, karma and art, improv and strategy. When you’re Not F*ing Around you know it. So does everybody else in the room.

Get it:www.AvastaPress.com/NFA

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about the author

Kay KinghammerKay Kinghammer is a poet living and working in Seattle, Washington. Her work focuses on the human quest for raw truth and the bravery needed to tell our deepest stories. She is a founding organizer and reader at Red Sky Poetry Theater, and she has been a featured reader at the Whidbey Island Poetry Festival, Seattle’s Bumbershoot Festival, and at the Fermoy International Poetry Festival in County Cork, Ireland.

I Could Tell You Some StoriesComing of Age in 30 Poems

Kay KinghammerRun away to San Francisco and become a burlesque dancer before you can legally drink the cocktails the men send your way.

Stuff your most precious belongings, your distant boyfriend, young son and over-sized dog into a van and drive across the USA.

Finally experience real love from a man who can best be described as a pimp, only to lose him to his wife.

Poet Kay Kinghammer invites you to ride along her incredible, mostly-true stories about coming of age in a revolutionary decade. Sex, drugs, and trumpet music offer meager distractions to the greater business finding love and a sanctuary for her son. In reading these narrative poems, may you find the bravery to witness and love your own personal truths.

I need a friend, someone to talk to,Someone to give me advice, save meFrom the stupid things I do, someone

Who’ll help me find a costume, someoneWho doesn’t want to share my bed.Most of the girls here are older,

Quite a lot older than me. Certainly,They all are so much wiser than me.Between shows we all go to the same

Place. We meet our lovers, bottles andBoyfriends in the bar across the street.None of us pays for our drinks. One

Woman whispers her knowledge, answersQuestions I don’t know enough to ask.See that one? she says. The one in

The black slacks, play your cards rightAnd he’ll pay your rent. But don’tCount on him too much, he’s only

Good for a week. No matter whatStories he tells you, he’s only goodFor a week. So he becomes my new

Boyfriend, takes up most of my timeWhen I’m not drinking or dancing,Professes his undying love. I do and

I don’t believe him. It could happen?But it doesn’t. At week’s end, heGoes home to his wife. He’s sorry,

But he’s sure I’ll be all right.I go to the bar again.

Sadie Muchinfuchan excerpt from

Get it:www.AvastaPress.com/Stories

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Coming December

Pride and Prejudice

A Goddamn Infinite EmergencyLove Stories

John MandelThis intimate and jarring collection dives deep into the heads of men in love, but not the kind of love found in fairy tales and movies. In a culture where too easily we divide men into heroes and anti-heroes, these stories focus on the heart of the everyman.

At times surly and at others sulking, these are men filled with desire but stymied at how to communicate. These are men trying desperately to make contact with the outside world but constantly tripping and falling over their best intentions. These are men yearning for intimacy, but getting stuck in fear, desire, and excruciating hesitation.

With dense language and vivid imagery, these stories expose an intimate picture of modern man on the inside. Full of fear and desire, but capable of a kind of love in his way, these

narrators tell the awkward, fragile stories we are afraid to speak out loud.

about the author

John MandelJohn Mandel is an author and artist based in Los Angeles, California. His work explores the layers of humanity and masculinity with deliberate and compassionate nuance, revealing our deepest fears in a way that gives us power over how we define ourselves. In over four decades as a visual artist, his work appeared in galleries across the country, including the Los Angeles Institute of Contemporary Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, and more than fifty solo shows.

Get it:www.AvastaPress.com/Emergency about the author

Bram StokerBram Stoker - brought back to, errr, life? by Kelsye Nelson. Based on Kelsye’s successful Book Lush Kickstarter project that paired what to drink with what to read, Avasta is proud to be releasing the first in a series of classic novels accompanied by classic cocktail recipes that pair well with the pages.

DraculaBook Lush EditionBram Stokerwith custom libations, criticism and commentary by Kelsye Nelson

Sink your teeth into Bram Stoker’s classic tale of romance and horror back to life, with a twist. Dear reader, when you accompany Jonathan Harker on his ill-fated journey to Transylvania and down the creaking halls of Count Dracula’s mansion, you’ll be better off with a stiff drink in hand to calm your nerves.

What is the perfect cocktail to pair with a vampire? Perhaps a blood martini with two olives on a wooden stake? Or a whiskey old-fashion garnished with a blood orange? We won’t tell you-- but you can be sure it will be to die for!

The Book Lush Classics series pairs classic books with classic cocktails so that when you have a great book in one hand, you’ve got a great cocktail in the other.

Coming late November

Curious Poe Collection

Get it:www.AvastaPress.com/Dracula

Coming December

Pride and Prejudice

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