The Crucifix is Down

by Kate Gale (Editor), Mark E. Cull (Editor)

By the next century, one blue alien may stand on the shores of Earth holding a skull in the wreck we've made of this once beautiful planet and say, "I knew them once. A fair race, a proud race." What energy and foul nesting instinct consumes us and causes us to ruin our own home while over-populating it? Human passions and failures are the stuff of literature, the grist of good writing and none is more captivating than this monumental failure of civilization. Such is the fabric of this collection. Features short fiction by Margaret Atwood, Italo Calvino, Wanda Coleman, Ursula K. Le Guin, Kate Noonan, and Terry Wolverton.

264 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 2005

About the author

Dr. Kate Gale is managing editor of Red Hen Press, editor of the Los Angeles Review, and president of the American Composers Forum, LA. She was the 2005-2006 president of PEN USA. She is author of five books of poetry: her most recent, Mating Season, from Tupelo Press; a novel, Lake of Fire; and Rio de Sangre, a libretto for an opera with composer Don Davis. Her most recent projects include a co-written libretto, Paradises Lost with Ursula K. LeGuin and composer Stephen Taylor, and a libretto adapted from Kindred by Octavia Butler with composer Billy Childs. Her new poetry collection, Goldilocks Zone, will be released by University of New Mexico Press in February 2014. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and children.