Our Orbit
a novel
As a series of misfortunes scatters the Winslow children to different homes, nine-year-old Miriam finds herself in foster care. A college-educated couple, Rick and Deanne Fletcher, are happy to welcome her. But Miriam has never worn new clothes, was not permitted to cut her hair, and believes that children must repent their sins with dramatic displays of remorse, or harm will come to their loved ones. Now she must adapt to a secular lifestyle while struggling not to lose her connection to the past.
The Fletchers quickly come to love their “new little girl” with her unusual ideas. Then they encounter the rest of Miriam’s family: Uncle Dan believes he was the subject of an invasive experiment. Sister Rachelle, just released from juvenile detention, harbors many painful secrets. Brother Josh is outraged that the Fletchers disrespect Christian teachings. When his plan to remove Miriam from their home fails, Josh reacts with growing hostility to interference in the Winslow way of life.
Richly detailed with small-town ethos, Anesa Miller’s new novel, Our Orbit, captures the tension between modernity and tradition in the Appalachian corner of bellwether Ohio. Among the conflicts of her finely drawn and compelling characters, we glimpse the spirit that binds us in our common humanity—all of this in a literary novel that reads at the pace of a thriller.
“A deftly woven, complex and compelling novel, “Our Orbit” showcases the literary work of an imaginative and skilled author able to craft memorable characters, whose lives and circumstances will hold the reader’s total attention from beginning to end. Thought-provoking entertainment, “Our Orbit” by Anesa Miller is wholeheartedly recommended for personal reading lists and community library Contemporary Fiction collections.” – The Midwest Book Review
“A compassionate, thoughtful narrative about hard-won self-realizations.” – Kirkus Reviews
To Boldly Go:
Essays for the turning years
A summer of lush flowers and perfect weather. Girls dancing on a moonlit field. A cold house overgrown with abandoned gardens. These images come together in Anesa Miller’s To Boldly Go, which explores the “turning years” of our new century from both a personal and a universal perspective. The author reveals the intimate pains of anger and loss at the death of her estranged father, but looks beyond emotional damages toward the wider horizon of environmental issues, runaway technology, and the implications of 9/11. This journey toward healing and hope traverses the landscape of memory with an eye for a better future.
“These are provocative and eloquent essays, fierce meditations on our human capacities and frailties, the nature of memory, acts of forgiveness. Anesa Miller summons our better angels and makes firm reckonings with the devil, casting it away. A stunning collection.”
– Tiffany Midge author of The Woman Who Married a Bear (Salt Publishing) and Outlaws, Renegades and Saints; Diary of a Mixed-up Halfbreed (Greenfield Review Press)
“The world is blessed to have creative souls who write out of a need to make sense of what we experience when senseless things happen. Anesa is one of those people. …These essays reflect the healing of a fine poetic mind. They explore the inner life of an exceptional artist, intertwined with the history of our times, the lives of her family and friends, some of whom brought her joy, some misery. …Her moving thoughts come as a revelation…”
– From the Foreword by Jaak Panksepp author of The Archeology of Mind: Neuroevolutionary Origins of Human Emotions (W. W. Norton & Company)
Read all reviews for To Boldly Go.
Essays for the Turning Years
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COMING SOON—
To Green Camp, short stories
On the eve of high school graduation, a young man is tricked into burning down his grandmother’s house. One autumn morning, a woman hears pagan gods telling her to abandon her family. Two art school roommates share plans for projects that will determine their future but fail to see creativity come alive around them. These and other unexpected discoveries animate the stories in Anesa Miller’s new collection To Green Camp, forthcoming from Booktrope Publishing in 2015.
From a review by Anne Leigh Parrish, prize-winning author of All the Roads that Lead from Home—
The mark of a brilliant fiction writer is the ability to present the inner lives of a diverse group of characters. The ten stories in Anesa Miller’s story collection, To Green Camp, give us a wide array of souls – married couples, retirees, a man coming to grip with his father’s racism, among many others – all rendered with grace, compassion, and an unflinching spirit that depicts life as it is.
…almost impossible to choose a favorite piece in the book… subtle persuasion that has a magical quality… What the stories in To Green Camp do is quite simple – they lift off from reality and startle us into recognition.
A Road Beyond Loss
Three Cycles of Poems & an Epilogue
Buy print from Anesa – $8
For an author signature or dedication at no extra cost, please send us your request via the contact page.
A Road Beyond Loss is subtitled “Three Cycles of Poems & an Epilogue.” The book presents a journey into the depths of grief–specifically, the loss of a beloved child–through the pain of failed love, and out the other side into healing and a life renewed. Derived from personal experience, these poems offer an intimate view of emotional upheaval, as well as survivorship.
Music
Song Cycles for Healing
Music Therapist Jane Click became a composer on the inspiration from Anesa’s poetry. Her CD and musical score contain 21 songs, including parts for one or two voices and piano. Some also include flute and percussion.
“Lovely and deeply spiritual” —Kathy DiMeglio, KALLIOPE Magazine
Click here to read about the origins of Jane’s music and to hear samples from the CD.
Purchase CD – $12
Purchase Score – $22
Packages
A Road Beyond Loss (print book) and CD – $18
Buy book and CD for $18
A Road Beyond Loss (print book), CD, and musical score. – $36
Buy book, CD and Score for $36
