Finishing Line Press
Share
Providing a Place for Poets, Writers, and Playwrights, since 1998
FLP is a proud member of CLMP Please click on the book title to purchase the books.
Please visit our New Releases page—The New Releases page is where you will find, and can purchase, our most recently published and forthcoming books (you can find the links at the top of this page.) Also, please visit our online bookstore to see who have published (more to be added soon). The books listed in our bookstore are listed under the authors' last names, and can be purchased from amazon.
06/23/2026
FLP BOOK OF THE DAY: Dust and Diesel: Poetry of Perseverance in Rural Hawai’i by Darlene M. Javar
On SALE: https://finishinglinepress.com/product/dust-and-diesel-poetry-of-perseverance-in-rural-hawaiʻi-by-darlene-m-javar/
Dust and Diesel: Poetry of Perseverance in Rural Hawaiʻi exposes how work across decades—the labor of the hands, the heart, the soul—is a journey of human resilience amidst turbulent times; truth-deception-loyalty, diseases of the body-mind-heart. Macadamia nut fields, Hawaiian hawks, Mauna Loa—imagery and voice transport the reader to confront life’s complexities. Beds—beds of leaves, bone, salt, barren ocean; a bed pan, dump truck bed; bedroom windows. Poems seeking resolve in rugged Hawaiʻi.
Darlene M. Javar, a retired principal, relishes her rural life in Kaʻū, Hawaiʻi. She treasures time with ohana, especially her moʻopuna/grandchildren, time for poetry, time for the aina/land—Hawaiʻi and beyond. Her poems are published by Bamboo Ridge Press, Chaminade Literary Review, Hawaiʻi Pacific Review, Earth’s Daughters, Gyroscope Review and others. Her first chapbook, Patsy’s Gingerbread Fantasy, was published in 2024 by Finishing Line Press. Dust and Diesel: Poetry of Perseverance in Rural Hawaiʻi is her first full-length collection.
PRAISE:
Darlene Javar’s Dust and Diesel: Poetry of Perseverance in Rural Hawaiʻi is a compelling collection of eye-opening and provocative poems that’s hard to put down, a significant contribution to Hawaiʻi’s literature. Javar is a natural wordsmith and truthteller who illuminates her Kaʻū plantation community and family with vivid imagery, unobstructed emotions, and startling storytelling twists. She shines a bright light on her experiences that is sometimes harsh, but never blinding. And her verses about poetry’s potential to liberate will inspire others to pick up their pens and unearth their own truths. Highly recommended!
–Tom Peek, author of the nationally award-winning Hawaiʻi novels Mauna Kea and Daughters of Fire.
Dust and Diesel: Poetry of Perseverance in Rural Hawaiʻi is the second collection of Darlene M. Javar’s mele and moʻolelo drawn from Hawaiʻi’s rural landscapes and the people rooted in them. Her poems honor the words and places that shape us, showing the ways we learn to hold both sorrow and joy in the same breath. With language that feels unadorned and deeply felt she writes of work that strains the body, of grief carried across generations, and of love that persists even in its most difficult seasons. Whether she is remembering the smell of diesel and dust or tracing the ways women write themselves into visibility and survival, these poems move seamlessly between the intimate and the communal. Dust and Diesel: Poetry of Perseverance in Rural Hawaiʻi is a testament to those who labor with their hands and carry their stories in their chests. Javar’s vision remains compassionate and unafraid, gathering these poems with heart and clarity of detail, creating a collection that continues the important work of writing from and for Hawaiʻi.
–Misty-Lynn Sanico, Writer, Editor. Communications Manager, Bamboo Ridge Press. Co-Editor, Hawaiʻi Reads
Dust and Diesel: Poetry of Perseverance in Rural Hawaii, Javar’s newest collection of emotionally charged poems, offers the reader a glimpse into the poet’s personal life—so intimate, I sometimes felt like an intruder. Javar is a truly skilled word weaver!
–Jacquolyn McMurray, author of Sheltered from Love and Mele Kalikimaka: Sweet Hawaiian Romances
Darlene Javar’s poem collection spans several lifetimes, like a photo album, poem by poem, flipping through the good times and the bad; travel, family, friendship, as well as death, drug abuse and betrayal. With her simple words, she takes you right into the heart of it, leaving no feeling unexplored. Whether you’re from Hawaiʻi or never visited, Javar’s poems will transport you to a deeper understanding of life here, its beauty and its heartache.
–Kristin Noelle Wolfgang, author of Star of My Heart and 102 Reading Response Lessons
Dust and Diesel: Poetry of Perseverance in Rural Hawaii includes very thought-provoking poems highlighting the variety of stories from the many relationships of a woman’s life through marriage, family, but also with the land and cultural symbols common to Hawaiʻi. The poems include serious ups and the downs of life as over time relationships evolve or in some cases are revealed to be built on lies. Dealing with family in ill health and transitioning beyond to the realm of death. But also included are poems on a lighter note, with joy and at least one surprise ending.
–Diane B. Revell, Hawaiʻi Writers Guild former President, for 30+ years authored technical documentation and articles as an aerospace software engineer and manager. Has published poetry in the Kohala Mountain News and currently publishes poetry in Latitudes.
Dust and Diesel: Poetry of Perseverance in Rural Hawaii is Darlene Javar’s first full-length poetry book, but it is not the work of a novice. Thirty of the 65 poems in the book have been previously published over the past 27 years. Over this period, Javar has honed her poetic skills in service to experiences from her own life, including many on even the starkest of topics—poverty, mortality and death—which she confronts head-on with an unsparing clarity that makes her poems unforgettable.
–Joy Fisher, co-author of First Words, a book of feminist poetry, is the Public Relations Director of Hawaiʻi Writers Guild.
Please share/please repost
TO ORDER: https://finishinglinepress.com/product/on-the-lip-of-night-by-julie-esther-fisher/
In this debut collection of twenty-six poems, Fisher is not afraid to unearth from the pried open chest of secrets old wounds, the gnaw of loneliness and death, counterbalanced by the forces that heal: nature, music, and the redemptive power of abiding connection. On the Lip of Night journeys into the world—at times the underworld—of family, trauma, grief, and recovery. Daughter, mother, sister, wife: with lyricism, even wry humor, Fisher probes the nuances of these roles, evoking their sometimes silent, sometimes clamorous ruptures, their singular hauntings and simmering legacies. family
Julie Esther Fisher’s poems and short stories appear or are forthcoming in Alaska Quarterly Review, Sheila-Na-Gig, Waxwing, Chicago Quarterly Review, Radar Poetry, The Citron Review, Prime Number Magazine, Tahoma Literary Review, On the Seawall, Sky Island Journal, Litmosphere, Leon Literary Review, Passager’s 2025 Contest Issue, and elsewhere. Winner of several awards, including Grand Prize Recipient of the Stories That Need to be Told Anthology, and Sunspot Lit’s Rigel Award, she has been shortlisted in numerous other contests. A grateful recipient of a Massachusetts Cultural Council grant, she has received multiple Best of the Net and Pushcart nominations. Her novel in stories, A Pearl Is Just an Accident, is forthcoming from Silent Clamor Press. Raised in London, she holds degrees in fiction writing and counseling psychology. She lives today on conserved land in western Massachusetts. Julie Esther Fisher
06/22/2026
A Poem by Julie Esther Fisher
https://paddockreview.com/2026/06/22/a-poem-by-julie-esther-fisher/
A Poem by Julie Esther Fisher At the Hour of Milk When the barn lit up for the very first time the cows in their stanchions gave no milk The galvanized buckets deep black holes anthracitic as the ravens on the fence five…
TO ORDER: https://finishinglinepress.com/product/the-island-of-ghost-ships-by-jamy-bond/
When Jamy Bond’s younger sister, Shelby, followed in her footsteps and joined the Peace Corps, it should have been a shared legacy of service. Instead, Shelby is killed in a violent car crash in South Africa, and Jamy is left devastated and desperate to understand her sister’s final moments. In The Island of Ghost Ships, Jamy Bond navigates the wreckage of grief through a series of short essays and a central haunting narrative. Part memoir, part investigative journey, this collection follows Bond as she travels to southern Africa and locates Shelby’s boyfriend, Idasse, who survived the crash. Together they retrace Shelby’s steps across a landscape of memory and loss. Through lyrical prose that is honest and tender, this collection is a powerful meditation on the bonds of sisterhood and the courageous search for light from the depths of darkness.
Jamy Bond is an American prose writer. Her debut chapbook Combat Zones won the 2025 Boudin Flash Fiction Chapbook Contest judged by Roxane Gay and was published in March 2026. Her hybrid chapbook, The Island of Ghost Ships, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press. Her stories and essays have been widely published and anthologized, including in Best Microfiction 2023, The Sun Magazine, The Rumpus, and Wigleaf. She earned a BA in Philosophy and an MFA in Creative Writing, both from George Mason University where she co-founded So To Speak Journal. She lives with her family near Washington, DC. Jamy Bond www.jamybond.com Jamy Bond
TO ORDER: https://finishinglinepress.com/product/moonshine-shared-with-a-mishmash-of-musings-by-lori-rosenlof-drake/
Lori Rosenlof Drake‘s debut chapbook is a luminous collection of poems that highlight the joys and sorrows of a life well-lived. Her words—sometimes playful, sometimes profound—capture moments that reflect the extraordinary in the ordinary: like a teacher’s devotion to her students; a daughter’s love of family; and a writer’s enduring curiosity about the world. In Moonshine, Drake invites her readers to laugh out loud, linger over words, and listen to their own stories as she illuminates her memories. Written in both free verse and rhyme, Drake’s words and wit remind readers that the world is full of wonder.
Lori Rosenlof Drake is a former journalist and educator who observes the world and reports her findings through free verse and rhymed poems. In her debut poetry chapbook, Moonshine Shared with a Mishmash of Musings, Drake captures life moments, records history, and prompts laughter. The recipient of several Honorable Mentions in the Writer’s Digest Competition, her work has appeared in The Christian Century, San Diego Woman, Mothers Always Write and Nebraska Alumnus. She resides in Farmville, NC with her husband and they have six grown children and two grandchildren.
06/21/2026
A Poem by Lori Rosenlof Drake
https://paddockreview.com/2026/06/21/a-poem-by-lori-rosenlof-drake/
A Poem by Lori Rosenlof Drake …. This poem is from the chapbook Moonshine Shared with a Mishmash of Musings by Lori Rosenlof Drake (Finishing Line Press), and can be found at Lori Rosenlof Drake is a former journalist and …
06/21/2026
Still glowing from reading at Elliott Bay Book Company in Seattle last night, I will read next Tuesday the 23rd at Eagle Harbor Books on Bainbridge Island, 6:30 p.m. I'm so excited to read in the round with Kelli Russel Agodon and Sandra Yannone. Looking forward to meeting Islanders and seeing friends! ❤️ 📖
If you can RSVP on their website, they will have a good idea of attendance. Link in the comments.
Finishing Line Press
Kelli Russell Agodon
Sandy Yannone
Eagle Harbor Book Co.
TO ORDER: https://finishinglinepress.com/product/digging-beneath-bones-by-teri-elam/
Digging Beneath Bones, teri elam’s debut poetry collection travels through memory, lineage, rupture, and return, illuminating the body that navigates this rite of passage—a Black, Southern woman of a certain age—moving through the comfort and discomfort of relationships, dysfunction, family, truth, and self. It explores memory as a concept, a need, and a loss. A portrait of caretakers, aunties, nieces, and Black boy joy, it highlights meaning through music, television, myth, prayer, and the small altars of daily life. Above all, it is a love letter to a mother from a daughter, looking through their kaleidoscope, shining light on the broken bits of colored glass that create an infinite number of shapes, holding their testimony and memory. caretakers
Artwork by: Alice Y. Traore Alice Traore
teri elam is a poet, essayist, and screenwriter. She has been a Two Sylvias Wilder Series Poetry Book Prize and Perugia Press finalist. Her poems have been published in Prairie Schooner, The Future of Black: Afrofuturism and Black Superheroes, Let Me Say This: A Dolly Parton Poetry Anthology, and Kwame Alexander’s This Is The Honey. Her poem “Counterpoint,” about legendary jewel thief Doris Payne, received honorable mention in december magazine’s Jeff Marks Memorial Prize contest. A Cave Canem and The Watering Hole Graduate Poetry Fellow, elam has film and poetry reviews and artist interviews in Birmingham Poetry Review, Heavy Feather Review, Callaloo, The Rumpus, Incluvie, and Rough Draft Atlanta. Teri Elam
Teri Elam
06/19/2026
A Poem by Teri Elam
https://paddockreview.com/2026/06/19/a-poem-by-teri-elam/ .stories
A Poem by Teri Elam ….. This poem is from the book Digging Beneath Bones by teri elam (Finishing Line Press), and can be found at teri elam is a poet, essayist, and screenwriter. She has been a Two Sylvias Wilder…
Click here to claim your Sponsored Listing.
Category
Contact the business
Website
Address
P O Box 1626
Georgetown, KY
40324