Dan Lucas

Layla is a schnoodle dog who belongs to a diverse family held together by love, respect, and five very important rules that include wise advice that biting is only for emergencies and that toilet water is not for drinking. Layla loves her days taking walkies in all kinds of weather and playing with her siblings. But when Layla's family adopts a baby girl from China, the schnoodle learns that with a little patience, love, and respect, there is always room for acceptance. Layla's Rules is a delightful, mostly true story for both children and adults about adoption, acceptance, and family as told by an adorable, rule-oriented schnoodle dog.

"The Hut Beneath the Pine" was a finalist for the 2012 Oregon Book Award, sponsored by Oregon Literary Arts. In his judge's statement, American poet, writer, and Academy of American Poets Chancellor Carl Phillips writes: "I admire here how simplicity doesn't have to compromise authority. How, in fact, the spare directness of attention can often be more persuasive. Reminiscent of the Tang poets...I think of Wang Wei...these poems allow us to 'shake off the dust of the world, ' meanwhile quietly illuminating the tea ceremony's role as a possible way toward the Tao, toward 'letting whatever unfolds be enough.'"Commenting on this collection of 32 tea-infused poems, award-winning poet and author Margaret Chula says: "Reading these poems, I feel like I'm in a Sung dynasty landscape painting, sitting in a mountain hut with a sage who pours me tea and recites poetry. The poems in 'The Hut Beneath the Pine' embody the spirit of the Tao, the rhythmic flow of nature."