Brett Ramseyer

Waiting for Bells grows from the rows of a Michigan classroom. Teachers tire of the expression that the real world starts once students matriculate or that those who cannot, teach. Instead, school halls teem with tales of tragedy, talent, love, loss, depression, desire, betrayal and hope for both students and staff. Those real life themes tug a thread through the first and title short of this 16 story collection of fiction. There are five sections to this book including: Teaching, Prep School, Bachelors, Study Abroad & Graduates. Teaching touches raw nerves of a profession that sees an all time high of teachers leaving schools permanently and few young filling that void. Prep School braves the minefields of adolescent love and loss. Bachelors puts a foot in the past and a tentative step in the future to straddle a precarious present of "friendship." Study Abroad leaves the country forever changing those who return and Graduates toss their mortar boards too high to catch them again.

Peter Sonderling attempts suicide with a loaded Luger to his own temple in the Michigan darkness. He thinks he knows who will die, but first he must ricochet off his mother Claudia's death camp past to finally understand himself. His suicidal thoughts question his wife Doreen's fidelity and his children's paternity, yet his sights should aim at Claudia for answers. The loaded chamber of her memory fires a forty-year-old secret into Peter's notion of Father. At Dachau's concentration camp an SS doctor trades chocolates for Claudia's body. He tortures her future husband, Isaac, who stands naked and wet against the wind of a German winter and somehow thaws into the only father Peter ever loves. Peter must learn to accept the evil inside him and embrace the good that surrounds him. Only then will three lessons work to set him free: Isaac's love is stronger than biology, faces write the best poetry, and fairy tales protect his truth.

This book includes teenage written fiction, poetry, essays, memoirs centered around the themes of learning, family, teenage angst and dreams of the future. It showcases some local award winning high school writing. It also includes samples of teacher writing created in the last year alongside students as well as a 2013 Norman Mailer Award For High School and Middle School Teachers of English National Semi-finalist entitled "ADDing and Subtracting."