The Woodpecker Menace — Ted Olinger

ForeWord Reviews' 2013 Book of the Year Honorable Mention award winner for short stories. The Key Peninsula floats quietly through time in Puget Sound but lives more like an island in the hearts of her residents. Descendants of the First People and pioneers mingle with newcomers washed ashore from distant cities in these stories of small town life in a community too small to have a town. Young homeowners grapple with the depredations of heartsick woodpeckers. Anarchist loggers nail indignant poems to roadside trees. Shamanic gardeners work to heal a damaged world one lawn at a time. Deceptively simple stories with deep feeling.