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As she breaks 200 lbs, and not in a good way, 29-year-old Rita finds herself married to a self-focused widower with two difficult kids and a mother who almost makes Rita’s own mother look like a role model – which is really saying something. Graham’s first wife, being dead, just keeps getting better and better in everyone’s memories while Rita just gets fatter and more aggravated. She’s tried every diet in the book, but it’s not until a family crisis forces her out the door that she discovers that the easiest way to lose weight is to get rid of the baggage on the inside. Funny and insightful, RITA JUST WANTS TO BE THIN is sure to make readers of all shapes and sizes feel better about themselves—and ultimately maybe even about Rita.
Rita is a fabulous, oversized character, flawed but always earning our sympathy, and Mary W. Walters is a witty and perceptive writer. The story clips along, crowded with eccentric characters. I laughed out loud and i was touched. This novel is not just about a woman trying to lose weight, but a woman trying to find herself. A perfect book club choice. – Caroline Adderson
From the Publisher
"In these sixteen stories, celebrated storyteller Mary W. Walters reveals the bizarre workings of seemingly normal minds. Walters enlivens the commonplace, finds joy in the intimate details of the surface, and then takes her readers into the infinitely varied landscape of the mind with humour, clarity and purpose."
"When he finally looked at her again, she was smiling, swinging one foot in the water, her eyes looking far off in the corner where the dead man was." (from the title story, "Cool") Cool showcases the short fiction of Mary W. Walters, author of The Woman Upstairs and Bitters, in a collection of sixteen stories which look into the lives of ordinary people in extraordinary ways.
Limited copies of this collection are available directly from the author.
The West will never be the same . . . .
New Mexico, 1922.
The orphaned eighteen-year-old stablehand Rosalind Grundy is seduced by a married woman, and faces a lynching after the pair is surprised in flagrante delicto. But she manages to escape with the aid of a strange and aristocratic old man who calls himself Don Valiente.
Don Valiente, having read too many dime westerns, has come to believe that he is a famous gunfighter. He thinks Roz is a young man named Ross, and he takes her under his wing, intending to teach her and to revive "The Code Of The Caballeros."
Don Valiente and Roz embark on a series of comic adventures. But when they come upon a grisly murder scene and the trail of three escaped-convict killers, Roz realizes that her only chance to survive the imminent showdown and to reunite with her true love lies in her ability to separate Don Valiente's madness from the eternal truths in his teaching.
The western dime novel meets Don Quixote and goes digital in this mash-up of hair-raising tales. It’s a bold and sexy chase from end to end.” — Fred Stenson
Diana Guthrie is a young woman struggling between her sense of “what she ought to do” and her need to believe that she is more than a puppet manipulated by other people. When she learns that her powerful and controlling mother – whom she hasn’t seen in 15 years – is dying, she hurries back to her childhood home. But there, her memories and conflicts threaten to prevent her from climbing the stairs that will take her mother’s bedside until it is too late.
Winner of a Writers Guild of Alberta award for Excellence in Writing, The Woman Upstairs was published to widespread acclaim in 1989 by Newest Press. Mary W. Walters (who started writing as Mary Walters Riskin) is also the author of Bitters (NeWest Press, now out of print), a collection of short stories (Cool, River Books, available from the author), and a book of non-fiction (Write an Effective Funding Application: A Guide for Researchers and Scholars, The Johns Hopkins University Press) and dozens of short stories and articles.
The Woman Upstairs went out of print several years ago, but has been reprinted in its entirety.
“It is an absorbing and well-crafted book, a broody mystery, a puzzle whose closely interlocking pieces are tossed out, flash-back style, at just about the perfect pace for the reader." – Alberta Report
In a world where the opportunity to advance scholarly and scientific knowledge is dependent on the ability to secure sufficient funding, researchers and scholars must write funding proposals that stand out from the competition. The practical advice in this guidebook is designed to aid academics in writing successful applications at all stages of their careers.
This book will help grant applicants plan and craft funding proposals that are concise, complete, and impressive―and that satisfy the mandates of the agencies to which they are applying. Applicants will learn how to
• Avoid common writing blunders
• Understand the central importance of the research budget
• Overcome procrastination
• Choose and secure professional references
• Develop a career path with a view toward funding opportunities
• Maintain a winning attitude that will improve the chances of success
Write an Effective Funding Application details the all-important preparation stage in drafting a grant application, from identifying sources of funding and securing registration numbers to creating a schedule for meeting the application deadline. It reviews the nuts and bolts of writing and polishing a winning application, stressing the importance of logical thinking and thoughtful presentation. The book includes detailed information on developing budgets, "before" and "after" versions of proposals, and descriptions of common pitfalls that everyone can avoid.
When Maggie Townsend, wife of Archie Townsend, MLA, longs for a more interesting, artistic, and bohemian life she is drawn into an illicit affair with the sexy writer and thinker Zeke Avery, a man she has not seen since university. Maggie soon has her hands full trying to manage a job, a family, and her affair with the tormented writer. Things become even more complicated on the eve of the provincial election when Maggie's worlds collide.
“On a metaphorical level the novel hums.... Walters' prose is clearly lucid and a pleasing read." – The Edmonton Journal
Note: This novel is out of print.
