Bøger af Alan Hilfiker

Dale Petersen is a respected, reliable trusts and estates attorney practicing in Southwest Florida. His idyllic world is shattered when a notorious drug lord, J. Esteban Morales, is executed by a gang in the streets of Miami. Decades earlier, when Dale was a Peace Corps volunteer in Guatemala, he knew Morales as a counterpart and trusted friend. Now, fatefully tasked as executor of Morales's estate, Dale is in control of a vast, illicit fortune. As he works to carry out Morales's uncharacteristically charitable wishes and impassioned plea for redemption, he gradually becomes entangled in a web of intrigue involving promises, secrets, and deception. Ultimately, he is forced to confront challenges to his integrity and ethical convictions. Will Dale uphold his character as an esteemed, reputable attorney? Or will he lose himself, forever altered by the complexities of morality, transgression, and temptation?

In his first full book of poetry, Alan Hilfiker explores two central themes that have defined his creative work for decades: the beauty and order of the natural world, and the experience of aging through the function and muse of memory. From the perspective of a cobblestone street in Germany, to an elderly woman about to write her last will, to a carefully decorated Appalachian fireplace mantle, Sources of the Morning invites the reader, in accessible language, to contemplate the question: what sacred balance of past and present, man and nature, spirit and the material, makes a life? PRAISE FOR SOURCES OF THE MORNING Alan Hilfiker's poetry captures and presents emotion in life-be it human or animal or nature at large-and presents it in vivid pictures, asking both what happened and what could have happened. This book is an excellent collection of observations of what it means to look more deeply into the mysteries of existence. -Berdjouhi Esmerian, co-author of According To Us

An old man with a lifelong secret seeks out a German priest in "Old Soldiers." A rancher tracks down a wolf ravaging his livestock in "Alpha Lupus." An army radio technician with a history of running away seeks to escape death in wartime Holland in "The Deserter." In keenly observed encounters ranging from the German battlefields of World War II to a quiet communion on a New York City park bench, Alan Hilfiker's "Journeys Off the Road" is a collection of poignant, intimate, and memorable stories about men and women trying to find some measure of grace, or power, in a morally complex world.

Alan Hilfiker's cinquain style could be called modern pastoral elegy in lightening flashes. He leverages the style of the cinquain, a 5-line poetic form similar to haiku/tanka, to bring poignancy and punch to the pastoral. His collection is capped with an essay on the cinquain poetic form and its inventor Adelaide Crapsey, a fellow Rochester, New York native. Here is the fruit of a life-long exploration of a lesser-known poetic style lovingly adhered to and revived.

What do a bear, a boy and his dog, two trees, a prince, and a pelican have in common? They do the right thing! "Grizzlies Win" is the story of Tobey, a ten-year-old bear who wants to make friends with the kids in his class. When he is ridiculed on the football field, he is determined to find another way to fit in. "What if the Stars Could Speak?" is a story of wonder and curiosity. Billy admires a magnificent oak tree, which is hundreds of years old, and imagines the stories it could tell. He gazes at the stars in the midnight sky. What have they seen? What stories could they tell? "The Fable of Two Trees" is the tale of Rudy and Cesar, trees who grow side by side in the forest. They are brothers and love each other very much, yet each has his own idea of how to thrive among the other trees in the woods. However, just one of the brothers makes the right choices and flourishes in the forest. "How Pelicans Got a Pouch" is a myth that takes place when a prince becomes king and inherits a magical, sacred chalice. One night the chalice mysteriously disappears, and the newly crowned king knows he must find it for the good of his kingdom. The key to finding it may lie with a white pelican.