Impspired Authors

The Taste of Your Music by Sarah Mackey Kirby

A mood-swing journey through lyrical ups and gut-punches, fly-on-the-wall time stops, and a few unique palate cleansers.

“I love Sarah Mackey Kirby’s book. Whether talking about the alignment of the planets or something funny on TV or standing on the beach early in the morning, every one of her poems is intimate and strong and clever and surprising. Sarah Mackey Kirby is like the best friend you ever had if that best friend was also a terrific poet. If you want to know what I mean, just read her poem ‘We Love For Real.’ “


–John Guzlowski (Author, Poet: Echoes of Tattered Tongues)
As Viewed by a Poet Protagonist by Shiloh Osheen

It is hard to believe that “Poet Protagonist” by Shiloh Osheen is their debut book of poetry. Shiloh molds images and viewpoints into words with such a deft hand. Their poems flow beautifully throughout the entire book. They will make you feel things you may never have felt before as they explore inner emotions and external observations of life through new eyes. Beauty and pain meld to make a remarkable book of verse. One of Shiloh’s poems “Beautifully Incomplete,” says it all.  This book will open your mind and your heart to new possibilities.
Ann Christine Tabaka, Poet & Writer

‘Charlie Zamarripa’s poetry is melodious, engaging, touching and often funny. He is an exciting new and unique voice in poetry.’ -Professor Bret Kofford, San Diego State University English Professor

‘Charlie Zamarripa’s work is both nostalgic and fun! His writing brims with euphemistic expressions that speak to the heart. Topics such as loss, love and laughter are sure to keep you craving for more. -Theresa Montoya Gonzalez, MA Language Arts Instructorhttps://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1914130154

Periodic Stories – by Jim Bates
The first thirty-one elements of the periodic table are each used in the thirty-one stories in this unique collection. Will Warren always be lonely? Why does Lonny’s grandfather like balloons so much? How come Derek’s new fishing rod is so important to him? Why is Paul excited to learn how to test for chlorine in swimming pools. How did Eric’s spoon melt when he stirred the coffee? These are lovingly written stories that deal with human beings and their relationship with themselves and others. Oh, yes, sometimes science plays a role. https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1914130081
What weaves the fourteen stories together in Stepping Up, are characters who on the brink of change must choose between fear or transformation. Whether it’s because of sexism, racism, or homophobia, the stories lay bear the valor of the human spirit. Diamondopolous brings humor and hope to her award-winning stories.

This incandescent collection of stories by writer DC Diamondopolous knocked me to the ground. Heartbreaking, revealing, numbing, and provocative, each page touched me, not lightly, but with a fist of shards.
– Sharon Lovejoy, author of Running Out of Night

This collection is a vigorous examination of American culture—a gutsy probe into social divide, including fractious family dynamics. Diamondopolous writes with exuberance and emotional understanding. It’s the human element that reaches out and pulls us in.
– Sherry Shahan, PURPLE DAZE: A Far Out Trip, 1965

Each story in this collection is a passport to places where characters are challenged to be their true selves, no matter the risk. Every protagonist compels the reader to revisit them. Their diverse stories span eras and genres, yet always target the heart. DC Diamondopolous creates worlds with striking images and surprising twists that resonate long after the last line. Stepping Up is an astonishing tour de force.
– Cindy Rankin, author of Under the Ashes

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1914130057
Stolen by Candace Meredith – Jolene Conroy, a recently widowed writer and photographer, is approaching her fortieth birthday living in modern day Southern California. After losing her wealthy corporate attorney husband in a tragic car accident, Jolene tries to rebuild her life and make sense of her loss. One serendipitous day, Jolene meets handsome police officer, Jodi McCain. After her journals are stolen and Jodi responds to the call they begin to plan a future together and Jolene further discovers that Jodi may be keeping secrets from her. After the death of a close acquaintance, Jodi’s true identity is called into question, and it is up to Jolene to discover who, exactly, is the real Jodi McCain. 

Candace Meredith earned her Bachelor of Science degree in English Creative Writing from Frostburg State University in the spring of 2008. Her works of poetry, photography and fiction have appeared in literary journals Bittersweet, The Backbone Mountain Review, The Broadkill Review, In God’s Hands/ Writers of Grace, A Flash of Dark, Greensilk Journal, Saltfront, Mojave River Press and Review, Scryptic Magazine, Unlikely Stories Mark V, The Sirens Call, The Great Void, BAM Writes, Foreign Literary, Lion and Lilac Magazine and various others. 
Pondering the Shoreline of Existence by Christine Ann Tabaka

In moments of warmth and echoing heartbreak Christine Tabaka explores our lives with insight and intimacy. Touching tenderly both our memories of joy and bitterness, then expressing that insight in a way that makes it impossible not to be drawn in by the emotional journey in “Pondering the Shoreline of Existence”. You won’t be able to stop yourself from turning the page! .
– Elaine Marie Carnegie-Padgett, author

Tabaka reflects upon her life as she comes to a new age in a year filled with tragedy. She ponders her existence in a time where so much is changing. These pieces accompanied by photographs tell stories of pain and how one continues after loss.
–Tim Heerdink, author of Razed Monuments, The Human Remains, and Red Flag and Other Poems
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This is poetry from the friend who understands your pain and your joy, because she has felt them both; who shares her dreams, and takes you on her journeys, both real and imagined, because being alone isn’t a desired option; and who reminds us all of our humanity and the universal need to give and receive love.
– Steve Carr, author
The Blue, Red Lyrea by MehreenAhmed is a twin novella book, Offing and The Cheshire Grins. They have both been written in a stream-of-consciousness style. 
Either way both stories are tied like the constellations of the lyre of the deep skies. Hence, the title The Blue, Red Lyrea to mean the colours of two of five main constellations. Blue is indicative of hot and red, indicative of cold, an existential allusion to life, dancing at cosmic tune of a symbolic harp that Lyra stands for.
Portrait of a City on Fire – by Reece Beckett Portrait of a City on Fire is a collection of poems (centered around a short story) consisting of glimpses into the lives of a group of people, seemingly stranded in an unnamed city. As they fall prey to various, increasingly harmful pressures, the origins of which are unknown, it becomes clear that there may be no escape from the Hell on Earth they’ve had the misfortune of landing in.
Masquerading as a Poet – By Charlotte Neal Fresh from her wandering travels this is Charlotte Neal’s first collection of poetry.
P.O.N.D – By john Stanizzi
With a poet’s voice and a naturalist’s eye, John Stanizzi takes us on a daily journey in verse and photographs to a pond near his home where he reveals the secrets of nature hidden in plain view. These artfully crafted four-line acrostics using the letters P.O.N.D., cycle through the seasons, painting a bold phenological picture of nature’s ever-changing events. He takes to heart Thoreau’s comment that a pond “is the landscape’s most beautiful and expressive feature. It is earth’s eye; looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature.” Stanizzi’s keen observations and metaphorical connections not only delight in the reading, they forever enlarge and give meaning to our experiences outdoors.
David K. Leff, author of Canoeing Maine’s Legendary Allagash; former deputy commissioner, Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection.Visit my website at http://www.davidkleff.com
Dreams of My Heart by Aminath Neena
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/191413009X
In this resplendent collection of her poetry, Aminath provides enough romantic poems to fill dozens of Valentine’s Days with the glow of love, an equal number of poems for the broken hearted, as well as poetry full of heartfelt longing, and even some that shines the glow of love between mother and child. It takes great skill to write such a wide variety of poetry in various styles around one central theme, the complexity of love and relationships, and Aminath doesn’t disappoint. I didn’t want to wake up from her Dreams of My Heart except to read it all over again.  
– Steve Carr, author
Lost in Thought is a collection of poetry by Charlie M. Zamarripa.
Visions of the World and Other Poems by Pranab Ghosh – is an intriguing collection of finely structured poetry, nuanced and compact, wherein word-play and concerns about the self and the world are skillfully fused. This is poet Pranab Ghosh’s third volume of published poetry. The titles of his earlier books of poems Air and Age followed by Soul Searching and Other poems indicate a consistent and concerted effort by the poet to balance the vagaries and variations of life experiences from the deeply subjective to the realm of spiritual transcendence. Ghosh therefore invites the readers to explore the world without and the world within by enticing their attention by referring to the inexplicable unspoken love to the kiss of death, from bullet-riddled poetry to prose poems of existential dilemma. These poems will linger in the mind long after they have been read and appreciated.
 
By Sanjukta Dasgupta, Poet, academician, translator.
Member, General Council,  Sahitya Akademi, India
When Moonlight Falls – By Angelina Der Arakelian – A collection of poetry thriving off both the irony and mastery of existence, cut into bits and pieces of an endless puzzle known as life. Written by one soul for another, it invites you to have a seat onboard a plane of stargazing into the abyss.
 
“There lies, 
A truth ever so strong
Euphoria unbound to present sight 
I crave it in doses, 
Reality aims to provide.”

– Memories of Never 
Winters Breath by Polly Richardson Munnelly – Winter’s Breath, Polly Richardson-Munnelly’s riotous, rambunctious first collection is jam-packed with poems that trot, canter and gallop across the page. The poet’s deep and abiding love of horses takes centre stage, ably supported by a host of other themes: family, legends, sensuality, the insistent pull of Dublin in one direction, and of earth, sea and shoreline in the other. The poems reveal a poet reveling in her life, choosing to inhabit it fully, on no one’s terms but her own.

 Language is often deployed with scant regard for convention or form, obeying only the poet’s swooping, soaring, inner flights of fancy. Here is a poet enjoying herself thoroughly, relaxed in the saddle, giving each poem free rein to do as it pleases, trusting it knows how to find its way home.
  – Anne Tannam
Impspired Volume One
By Impspired Magazine
Impspired Magazine is a print anthology, combining the work of a host of international writers. The work was first sourced and published on the online literary magazine impspired.com. This edition contains work from issues 1 & 2 online.
Faking Nature
By Stephen Meek
‘Faking Nature’ is my third collection of poetry, the previous two being ‘the Bad Traveller’ and ‘July’.  Many of the poems were written to commission – many for a Cruse Bereavement poetry event and others for Arts Council funded exhibitions and performances, notably the Bird After Bird and After Bird exhibitions in Brigg.
Conveniently for these events, many of my poems cover the same themes – the beauty and permanence of nature contrasted with the transience of human existence. However, I also perform at poetry readings at venues where more light-hearted and (hopefully) comedic poems are what the crowd expects – so hopefully some of these poems will force the reader, if not to smile, at least to grimace!


Shouting At Lesbians
By Robbie Taylor
A book for those people who really shouldn’t judge books by their covers… or their titles.
Notes from the STATE of OMNESIA
By Henry Bladon
Somewhere in the near-future, the State of OMNESIA is ruled over by the TYRANT. Bureaucracy and an obsession with rule-making are paramount within this semi-dystopian social structure. Paperwork is done in triplicate, people actually measure pavement widths, and numerous departments and sub-departments ensure the efficiency of their unique system of Bureaucratic Idealism.

Impspired Magazine Volume Two
370 pages by 90 writers from across the world. It contains all the published works from Issues 3 & 4 online.