Frances Webb

The small dramas that happen in public places are like mini stories that can entertain, make us think, or touch a certain emotion. They are played out without a producer or editor, but maybe with a writer taking notes. These twenty or so stories are perhaps those notes.The Memoir Man: and Others in Public Places is a collection of both short stories and poems that range from a camouflaged homeless person pushing a grocery cart carrying a typewriter, to a man walking on Fifth Avenue with a television on his head. The main characters are either slightly mentally or emotionally challenged, and happen to be out in public.Bits and pieces of lives such as these are played out, with an involved narrator or without.A man sits at a table in a library peeling an egg while being watched by a woman quietly and obsessively reviewing highlights of her ancestor's life.A man on a train is peeling an egg and wondering what to do with the tiny pieces of shells lodged in the creases of his hands.A woman watches and judges a woman filling her pockets with napkins at a Barnes and Noble caf .In a museum lobby, a woman notices a couple trying to check their baby along with their coats.Both long and short stories capture obsession, loneliness, nosiness, and brief moments of guilt or compassion.He's back. He looks at the kid holding his pen. He looks pained. He walks to the window. He can't sit down. He rubs his eyes and pushes his gray hair to a stick-out straight-up position. Then smooths it down. Rubs his head again. I think: Maybe he has a publisher. Maybe he is a retired professor on a mission for the Center for Advanced Learning or the Fellowship of Spanish Believers or the Salvation Army ... Karl Marx wrote Das Kapital in the British Museum. The man could be another Karl Marx and I am watching him change the course of history. It's a shame they don't supply him with an office. I think too: If that kid speaks to him, he will cry.(About the Author)Frances Webb has been writing for over sixty years while raising a family and teaching. This is her fifth book. The first three are novels, while the fourth and fifth are collections of short stories, many of which have been published in literary journals.The author grew up in a small town in New Jersey, and has lived and worked in Pennsylvania and New York. She is now retired and lives in a retirement community close to family.

This mixed genre of short stories and poems set in the 1950s, '60s, and '70s have one thing in common: They show how travel opens the world to new ideas, yet expresses the universality of mankind.Roamers and Wanderers is a collection of short stories and some poetry set in different countries or cities and written over a period of about forty years. Each is about travel and the effect the trip has on the traveler. Characters may react in negative or positive ways. In one case, memories surface, resulting in emotional turmoil. Primarily in the poems, political issues are visited.In the first short story, "Markers," a newly married woman confronts the controlling behavior exhibited by her husband.The poem "Take Off" reveals the universal fear of flying. In the poem "Nobody Knows," a woman reflects on how she appears to others - looking crazy? - in the airport as she walks back and forth looking for the ground transportation sign.In "Remembering Caracas," the narrator is waiting in a Rhode Island train station and notices a provocative sentence built into the tile floor: "I travel not to get someplace but travel for travel's sake." This exemplifies all the stories in this collection.(About the Author)Retired teacher Frances Webb has written many short stories over the years and plans her next book to be another short story collection. She grew up in a small town in North Jersey in a house built in the 1890s by her grandfather.

After Eutropius' mother dies while giving birth to him, the newborn is raised by a shepherd and his wife. The shepherd castrates the baby to increase his worth and sells him into slavery, where Eutropius eventually becomes part of a young woman's dowry. He develops a close relationship with his new mistress, Sophie, until he is caught pandering and is released from service without financial support. Eutropius' struggle with his lack of social and sexual power translates into lust for political power and wealth. He is determined to overcome his outcast status and concocts devious schemes (switching brides on the Emperor and kidnapping a bishop) to reach a powerful position in society. However, as he works his way up, public outrage over such a high standing for a eunuch threatens to knock him back down again. With physical violence and verbal insults raging against him, is it possible for him to keep everything he has earned? After 18 years of teaching, author Frances Webb lives near Philadelphia and is enjoying retirement. Webb's research took her to Turkey, as well as reading the ancient poets, writers, and historians. Innocence and Gold Dust is alive with real history.Many scenes of historical events surround crazy emperors, greedy politicos, well-meaning bishops, and womanizing generals. It all happens in the latter half of the fourth century in a place and at time not often frequented in fiction.