Douglas Atwill

These poems celebrate the words that crunch against each other or glide along without seams, exploring in detail a single, curious idea. The subjects are the varied ones that interest Atwill, from the mundane happenings in the garden to classic questions of existence. Objects around the house have their own stories and a group of nine poems describe some events during a Grand Tour of Europe with his family, long ago. Atwill has lived in Santa Fe for many years, painting canvases of the New Mexico landscape and his garden, and writing stories about a painter's life.

Graham Obermann is an established biographer of the Post-Impressionists. He is married to Celia Prosper, a modernist painter well-regarded by critics and collectors. As Obermann organizes a birthday party for Celia, looking after all the details, he describes in a single day the odd Prosper family and his attraction to his novelist brother-in-law Karl. Several significant events test all the characters in this family saga with subplots of many generations, and a new generation making its mark. Other books by Douglas Atwill, all from Sunstone Press, are "Why I Won't Be Going to Lunch Anymore," "The Galisteo Escarpment," "Imperial Yellow," "Creep Around the Corner," "The Oyster Shell Driveway," "Husband Memory Pickles," and "Douglas Atwill Paintings." Atwill lives in Santa Fe, painting New Mexico landscapes and gardens.

Douglas Atwill is a painter who lives in Santa Fe, painting the New Mexico landscape and gardens, often his own studio garden. His paintings are in collections coast to coast and he continues to have solo exhibits. Atwill's observations accompany each illustration. His other books from Sunstone Press include: "Why I Won't Be Going to Lunch Anymore," "The Galisteo Escarpment," "Imperial Yellow," "Creep Around the Corner," "The Oyster Shell Driveway," "Dinner in the Labyrinth," and "Husband Memory Pickles."

A summer on the California coast calls to Mattox Williams, a writer wanting quiet days to do the finishing work on his novel. He leases his Santa Fe house for three months and finds an ocean-facing room at Glitter Bay. While meeting the other people of the beach community, a love affair develops as well as the surrounding strife. He makes a deep emotional mark on the neighbors, particularly on Hayden Danning and his sister, Sylvan. A surprise offer from a film producer opens his horizons and requires trips south to Hollywood and Laguna Beach. At the end of summer, Mattox tries to find a way to keep alive the love he has found. Other books by Douglas Atwill, all from Sunstone Press, are "Why I Won't Be Going to Lunch Anymore," "The Galisteo Escarpment," "Imperial Yellow," and "Creep Around the Corner." Atwill lives in Santa Fe, painting New Mexico landscapes and gardens.

Europe in the Cold War years was a dangerous place for Harold Bronson and his buddies, draftees commandeered into espionage and counterintelligence. Their low echelon escapades take them to Berlin, Ulm, the South of France, and Zurich. Bronson chooses this time of his life to explore a personal coming out, creating secrets within secrets in a disapproving military. In his off-time, Bronson paints portraits of the other denizens of Schloss Issel, earning money for trips and adventures to Paris and Nice. Always on the edge of life, he taunts the higher-ups with a light-hearted acceptance of life in the spy world of 1957. Real danger is further off from his circle at the Schloss, but it is an insistent melody they can always hear.

An unexpected death in Donovan Merrill's family makes it necessary that his grandmother, Anna, and he leave the rectory in San Miguel. They move into her summer cottage in the midst of the artist colony in the Laguna Beach of 1938, starting life over. It will be difficult with their diminished resources, but Donovan and Anna prove up to the task. They find friends and mentors among the painters and bohemians, Donovan early on deciding that he will become a painter himself. After the war years, Anna encourages him to study in Paris; he paints for a summer in Provence and survives a difficult winter in Rome. On his return to the states, he finds a place in Santa Fe, starting his painting career in a rented adobe. When he meets Tomas de la Pena, a young Mexican writer, his life begins to tumble. Tomas's efforts at writing are unformed, not so flourishing as Donovan's career, so competitive troubles ensue. After building a house together, they must face Tomas's continuing disquiet. Time in Laguna is good to Anna, happy in her growing circle of artist friends. A love affair and a later marriage to a German expatriate make a striking contrast to her old life as a minister's wife in San Miguel. She worries as Donovan finds his way, and supports him emotionally and financially. But Donovan proves he can succeed on his own.

An unexpected death in Donovan Merrill's family makes it necessary that his grandmother, Anna, and he leave the rectory in San Miguel. They move into her summer cottage in the midst of the artist colony in the Laguna Beach of 1938, starting life over. It will be difficult with their diminished resources, but Donovan and Anna prove up to the task. They find friends and mentors among the painters and bohemians, Donovan early on deciding that he will become a painter himself. After the war years, Anna encourages him to study in Paris; he paints for a summer in Provence and survives a difficult winter in Rome. On his return to the states, he finds a place in Santa Fe, starting his painting career in a rented adobe. When he meets Tomas de la Pena, a young Mexican writer, his life begins to tumble. Tomas's efforts at writing are unformed, not so flourishing as Donovan's career, so competitive troubles ensue. After building a house together, they must face Tomas's continuing disquiet. Time in Laguna is good to Anna, happy in her growing circle of artist friends. A love affair and a later marriage to a German expatriate make a striking contrast to her old life as a minister's wife in San Miguel. She worries as Donovan finds his way, and supports him emotionally and financially. But Donovan proves he can succeed on his own. This is Douglas Atwill's fourth book for Sunstone Press, after "Why I Won't Be Going to Lunch Anymore" in 2004, "The Galisteo Escarpment" in 2008, and "Creep Around the Corner" in 2009. Atwill grew up in California and Texas, lived in Europe and on the East Coast before moving to Santa Fe to paint. His canvases are shown in galleries thoughout the nation and his avocation is the design and construction of vernacular Santa Fe residences.

Neil Bronson, new from the Royal Academy, summers in Provence, teaching himself to paint outside. Before returning home, he and his friends, Sam and Carrie, rent a cottage on the coast, playing a langorous triangle of seaside sexual attraction. Neil's uncle interrupts the idyll, urgently seeking their help teaching at his art school in Santa Fe. A month later, Bronson and Sam move into Casa Marriner and meet the faculty members, several jealous and difficult. Bronson teaches plein air classes, often at the Galisteo escarpment. At first, the students are confrontational and awkward, but they soon grasp his enthusiasm with the New Mexico landscape. While they learn new skills, he refines his, taking the escarpment as a major motif. Crisis at the school involves Bronson in a curious project and a trip abroad to Greece. Besides discovering himself in Santa Fe, he explores the world of sex and love with one of his students, Salazar. New York must wait.

Outsiders seldom understand the curious amalgam of artists, galleries, misfits and hangers-on known as the Santa Fe Art Scene. Douglas Atwill, a painter living and working in its midst for many years, writes stories with an insider's eye, tales of facing the easel every day, as well as those of dealing with the commercial demands from collectors, galleries and their crabby owners. In this collection of stories, we witness a group of Santa Fe painters confronting their art and life in creative ways, solving the ages-old problems of painting the perfect canvas, making that obstinate muse smile. Each story contains the secret to a Santa Fe painter, facing craft and life, and how he or she confounds the conventional view of what it is to be an artist.DOUGLAS ATWILL was born in Pasadena, California, earned a BA from the University of Texas at Austin and he served in the Army Counterintelligence Corps. After a long sojourn on a Piedmont cattle farm in Virginia and on the move throughout Europe, he settled in Santa Fe to pursue painting full-time. From a studio on Canyon Road, he paints landscapes and paintings of his own gardens. His work is shown in galleries throughout the West. Atwill's avocation of restoring adobe houses and building them anew has earned him a reputation for excellence in taste and design, and his houses have been featured in many magazines and books.This is his first collection of short stories.