Novels
The Home For Wayward Clocks
When James Elgin opens his clock museum, he only wants to survive after being laid off. Instead, he saves his entire town. As tourists descend on What Cheer, other businesses in the depressed farm area adopt a clock theme and soon, What Cheer is on the map, providing welcome relief for travelers moving through monotonous Iowa.
Raised by an abusive mother, James felt his first connection to clocks when he was locked in the root cellar, an alarm clock his only company. The Home is a haven for thousands of clocks, which James restores. He believes every clock has its own soul.
While repairing the town’s clock tower, it suddenly chimes, bursting James’ eardrums. James descends into a tickless vacuum. He must reach for human hands.
Every other chapter is a short story, tales of the clocks before they came into the Home.
This is the story of redemption, of a man who should have died at the hands of his mother, but insisted on surviving. It is the story of his ultimate recovery and his ability to fix clocks and heal friends, proving that the strength of the human soul can transcend the most profound and unthinkable of cruelties.
To purchase, click here: The Main Street Rag Online Bookstore
Also available from IndieBound
Learning To Tell (A Life)Time
Sixteen years after The Home For Wayward Clocks ends, Learning To Tell (A Life)Time begins with a police officer at the clock museum’s door, delivering news of Cooley Dander’s mother’s solitary death. Cooley hasn’t seen her mother since James Elgin rescued her as a teenager from that home. Now thirty-two and running the clock museum on her own, she’s left to wonder how her mother came to be the woman Cooley remembers: an abusive alcoholic, wielding burning cigarettes as weapons against Cooley’s skin. In alternating chapters, short stories reveal the secrets that Cooley’s mother, Mara Rose Mayfield, held close for a too-brief lifetime, beginning with the first puff of an offered cigarette when she was ten years old. Cooley must sift through the flicked ashes of her mother’s life and come face to face with two pasts–her own and her mother’s–in order to step into a whole future.
To purchase, click here: The Main Street Rag Online Bookstore
Rise From The River
What would you do if you found yourself pregnant after being brutally raped? Abort? Carry the baby for nine solid months of everyday reminders of your night from hell and then adopt it out as if the nightmare never happened? Keep the baby and raise it as if it wasn’t a product of unthinkable violence and invasion?
On a fall evening, 24-year old single mother Rainey Milbright walks through a park past curfew with her four-year old daughter, Tish. A shadow steps out of the bushes. Rainey knows what he is after. Quickly, she tells Tish to run back to the playground, then she turns to face her attacker. She is brutally raped. Tish, who comes back, observes it all.
The reader follows Rainey through the next ten weeks as she struggles with the resulting pregnancy. Rainey is no stranger to the surprise of unplanned pregnancy, nor is she stranger to the joys and challenges that a child can bring. She is also no stranger to abortion; Rainey became pregnant at the age of fifteen and aborted. But this time, this isn’t simply an unplanned pregnancy; it’s a violent one, the result of a rape by a total stranger. The book details Rainey’s battle as she fights with herself, her guilt, her grief and her own healing process as she tries to figure out the right thing to do.
Rise From The River is a brave novel, addressing many social and taboo issues, treating them with honesty and compassion. Readers will go through this ordeal with Rainey, and come out of it with a new perspective, a deeper realization and a greater appreciation for the strength and resilience of women.
To purchase, click here: The Main Street Rag Online Bookstore
In Grace’s Time
56-year old Grace faces her worst nightmare: the death of her son. When Grace’s daughter confesses she’s at fault, Grace knows she should reassure her. But she can’t.
Virgil is about to leave for his once-a-year cross-country trip, building inventory for his doll shop. In a haze of grief, Grace asks if she can go along. 65-year old Virgil is gay and unsure how he feels about the gay rights battle. His longtime long-distance lover proposes marriage, something never before possible. But it would require Virgil to give up his home and business.
Their journey takes them to a farm with five-legged cows and two-headed calves and a factory that makes the sweetest candy corn. Their futures are predicted over leftovers in a roadside diner, and they forage in flea markets and auctions and old barns.
Together, Grace and Virgil cross road after crossroad, trying to find home and family.
Giorgio’s seventh book and fourth novel, In Grace’s Time, was released on September 7th, 2017 and is available from Black Rose Writing!
To purchase, click here: The Black Rose Writing Online Bookstore
Also available from IndieBound and Bookshop.org
If You Tame Me – Pencraft Award Winner, 2nd Place – 2019
On the morning of her 55th birthday, Audrey takes stock of her life and finds it lacking. While she’s done well, she’s missing something important – a mate. She is also rocked by the 2016 election and wonders if it’s possible to be a feminist in the current political environment. In a fit of desperation, she ponders adopting a cat…but comes home with an iguana named Newt instead. Newt is destined to change Audrey’s life.
Next door, Frank, a widow, lives with his six parakeets. He develops a crush on Audrey, but is at a loss as to how to approach her. He’s shocked when his first wife, who he divorced, shows up on his doorstep to offer help, but he’s gobsmacked when his second wife, who died three years prior, shows up as a ghost to be his dating coach.
Their journey takes them to a farm with five-legged cows and two-headed calves and a factory that makes the sweetest candy corn. Their futures are predicted over leftovers in a roadside diner, and they forage in flea markets and auctions and old barns.
Birds, a lizard, a man, a woman…what happens is magic.
Giorgio’s tenth book and fifth novel, If You Tame Me, released on September 26th, 2019 is available from Black Rose Writing!
Winner of second place in the Women’s Fiction division of the 2019 Pencraft Award For Literary Excellence!
To order, click here: The Black Rose Writing Online Bookstore
Also available from IndieBound and Bookshop.org
All Told
Imagine being an “other woman,” and then finding out that you’re not the only one. There have been many other women, before you and even standing alongside you right now.
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Hope Always Rises
“Rich with empathy, humor, and imagination, Giorgio paints a beautiful picture of the afterlife that is a balm for anyone who has ever lost someone.” –Marisa Dondlinger, author of Open and Gray Lines
In Heaven, there is a gated community for those who end their lives by choice. This is a complete surprise to 43-year old Hope, who ends her life one morning on the banks of the Fox River in Waukesha, Wisconsin.
Hope has always dealt with deep sadness. From childhood on, she visited therapists, doctors, alternative medicine practitioners, Reiki artists, etc., to no avail. In Heaven, God reassures her that he knows what caused the sadness, but he won’t reveal it yet.
All community residents are required to attend weekly group therapy. Hope’s first group is led by Virginia Woolf.
Several of the book’s chapters tell the stories of other members of this group. Filled with many moments of striking humor, uplifting realizations, and difficult challenges, Hope finds her way in Heaven. She meets many people like herself, who help her restore her forgotten artistic talent and passion, and God himself, who is amazingly human in the most inhuman of ways. Hope finds understanding and forgiveness, and most importantly, friends.
To order, click here: amazon
Don’t Let Me Keep You
“Don’t Let Me Keep You is a lyrical meditation on motherhood seven times over, gestating, unfurling with rhythmic, poignant prose.” –Maggie Ginsberg, author of Still True
Hildy Halverson, a genius in math and science, is pushed by her parents to step into a male-dominated field and change the world for women. But Hildy, enamored of the scientific force of the human body, and her own body’s ability to create and sustain life, decides to go against contemporary expectations. She marries young and raises a houseful of kids.
Hildy wants her children to choose their own life paths. As each child is born, she tells them, “You can be whatever you want to be, and whatever you want to be will be great.” Despite her efforts to not influence her children, Hildy does so, often in unexpected ways. Each child is introduced in that first private moment between Hildy and her new baby. This is followed by a chapter revealing that child’s life, years later. Woven throughout is an underlying grief over the death of the sixth baby soon after birth. That grief is more pervasive than any of them expect.
In this ambitious novel, the struggles and joys, fatigue, and exhilaration of motherhood, are captured in the full panorama of family life. Hildy lovingly raises her children, then lets them go, finding herself along the way.
To order, click here: The Black Rose Writing Online Bookstore
Collections
Olivia In Five, Seven, Five; Autism In Haiku
Kathie Giorgio was forty years old when she gave birth to the baby she and her husband, Michael, planned for, hoped for, dreamed of. But Olivia wasn’t anyone this veteran mother of three teenagers expected. Olivia cried all the time. She wouldn’t eat table food. She wouldn’t speak. Her favorite toy was a bucket of hundreds of tiny plastic bears in rainbow colors that she spent hours every day arranging in a long looping line through the house. And finally…she was diagnosed as autistic when she was three years old. Kathie and Michael, both writers, were told that their daughter would never have words, and that she would only see them as “bumps on a log”. Yet she smiled at them every day.
Olivia In Five, Seven, Five; Autism In Haiku is the story, in poetic form, of a mother’s love for her autistic child, and the way that love could blast through a diagnosis and lift this little girl who smiled. Kathie smiled back.
To purchase, click here: The Finishing Line Press Online Bookstore
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No Matter Which Way You Look, There Is More To See
Kathie Giorgio’s poetry chapbook, When You Finally Said No, was released by Finishing Line Press in February of 2019.
In Kathie Giorgio’s stunning new collection, No Matter Which Way You Look, There Is More to See, we witness the full spectrum of life, with all of its beautiful and painfully challenging complexities. Giorgio invites us to explore the human cave of vulnerability, and we feel less alone. There are also poems like, “Menu,” where Giorgio skillfully takes everyday moments and makes them dream-like before our eyes. In another section, Giorgio takes us on a journey through the delights of love and earthly pleasures—poems as sumptuous as a gourmet feast. There is also an artful dive into the world of words and creation, when giving voice to the writing process. Giorgio tenderly shares thoughts about the fierce, protective, and unconditional love of motherhood. This is a collection to be savored and admired for all of its heartbreakingly exquisite swerves and curves through life.
To purchase, click here: The Finishing Line Press Online Bookstore
Also available from IndieBound and Bookshop.org
When You Finally Said No
Kathie Giorgio’s poetry chapbook, When You Finally Said No, was released by Finishing Line Press in February of 2019.
In this story told through poetry, a gang-rape throws a teenage girl into adulthood on a path of promiscuity and abusive relationships. Giorgio incorporates several poetic forms, including haiku, villanelle and prose poem, to capture the shadow of a difficult past coloring the present and dimming the possibilities for a positive future. When the woman finally finds the courage to say no to abuse and submission, she faces herself and discovers her own worth. She learns to put herself first, even if it means being alone.
To purchase, click here: The Finishing Line Press Online Bookstore
Also available from IndieBound and Bookshop.org
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Today’s Moment of Happiness Despite the News
Today’s Moment of Happiness Despite the News, Kathie Giorgio’s year long collection of spontaneous essays, was released in September 27th, 2018, and is available from Black Rose Writing!
It wasn’t a typical response to depression. Reaching a new low in her life, Kathie Giorgio, a natural skeptic, decides to fight her sadness by publicly posting one moment of happiness every day on Facebook.
The response is overwhelming. People flock to her page to see each day’s new post. Soon, Kathie launches Today’s Moment Of Happiness Despite The News as her blog. She vows to continue this daily Today’s Moment for a year.
And what a year! Her husband loses his job not once, but twice. Her autistic daughter is so bullied on social media, she is moved to a new school. And Kathie herself is diagnosed with Stage 2 breast cancer.
In a year of Down, Kathie finds Up. Today’s Moment Of Happiness Despite The News is a powerhouse movement, a force that goes beyond positive thinking. One year. One woman. And many, many lives touched and changed.
Please enjoy these three examples of Kathie Giorgio’s acclaimed journey through finding a moment of happiness every day:
To purchase, click here: The Black Rose Writing Online Bookstore
Also available from IndieBound and Bookshop.org
Enlarged Hearts
Somewhere in Milwaukee, there is a mall with a specialty boutique called Large & Luscious. The women who work there, while of different ages and backgrounds and hair color and heritage, all carry the same name: The Fat Girl. They are as society sees them. And they are as they see themselves.
This collection of linked short stories takes the reader through cancer and sex, motherhood and death, rejection and acceptance. There are Fat Girls at the state fair, Fat Girls in Starbucks, and Fat Girls in bars, in bed, and alone.
All of the Fat Girls are seekers. The anonymity of their name and the barrier of their bodies lead some into discovering their own abundance. Others sink further into struggle. All readers, regardless of size, will learn that there is so much more to a Fat Girl than her weight. We are all so much more than our bodies.
To purchase, click here: The Main Street Rag Online Bookstore
Also available from IndieBound
Oddities And Endings: The Collected Stories of Kathie Giorgio
Giorgio’s stories are filled with quirky characters doused with a heaping helping of humanity. Readers will recognize these characters from their own lives and possibly from the reflections they see in their mirrors every morning. There’s the woman who battles loneliness by searching for dead birds during her lunch hour, bringing them home to her special angels’ cemetery in her back yard. The man who becomes obsessed with finding the voice already recorded on his newly purchased answering machine. The woman who decides to dub herself a widow and gain new friends and sympathy at a retirement village in Florida. And the couple who struggle to restore intimacy after the husband’s emergency surgery leaves him with a stoma and colostomy bag he names Mick, creating an odd threesome in bed. Plus many more, covering the full spectrum of the oh so human spectrum.
Kathie Giorgio’s first published short story, accepted when she was fifteen years old, launched a career that has now spanned forty years. Oddities & Endings is a collection of forty of Giorgio’s stories, the majority of which originally appeared in literary magazines. A few special “never before seen” stories specifically written for this collection are included as well. Oddities & Endings; The Collected Stories of Kathie Giorgio delivers everything its title promises.
To purchase, click here: The Main Street Rag Online Bookstore
True Light Falls In Many Forms
True Light is a poetry chapbook, released by the Main Street Rag Publishing Company in 2016.
To purchase, click here: The Main Street Rag Online Bookstore
Edited by Kathie Giorgio
It’s About Time
In 2016, Main Street Rag Publishing Company released an anthology titled, It’s About Time. Giorgio served as guest editor and selected all of the poems, short stories and short memoir for the anthology.
To purchase, click here: The Main Street Rag Online Bookstore