The Kojo Hand

A novel about a young woman's pursuit of her dreams through encounters with a wide range of characters ? from advertising representatives to construction workers, and a scholar from Ghana with a calling to produce positive social change.

Tom Gatten's fiction has appeared in such publications as Art and Literature (Lausanne), The Quest (New York), and Tales, formerly Fiction Midwest (St. Louis). His poems have appeared in numerous publications and have been anthologized in The Sumac Reader (The Michigan State University Press, East Lansing), and Earth, Air, Fire & Water (Coward, McCann & Geohegan, New York, and Longmans Canada Limited, Toronto). Mapper of Mists, poems and translations, includes the Spanish of Rafael Alberti.On the author's writing prior to The Kojo Hand: 'I think Tom Gatten's Mapper of Mists is a remarkable book of poems. For years I've been familiar with Gatten's work and here we have it together with a great deal of grace, intensity and energy. 'Riding West on the Window Train,' a long sequence and the core of the book, is especially durable and powerful. --Jim Harrison, whose books include the novels Dalva, Sundog, and Legends of the Fall, and such books of poems as Returning to Earth and The Theory & Practice of Rivers & Other Poems. Tom Gatten was born in north central Nebraska and grew up in southwestern Michigan. He was educated at Michigan State University, the University of the Americas in Mexico City, and the University of Iowa. He played for two years with the Bamboushay Steel Band (Folkways Records LP FS 3835). After Michigan State, he went to the University of Iowa, where he earned an M.F.A. His college teaching credits include Fresno, Stony Brook, Lincoln Land Community College, The University of Hartford and Penn State. He lives in central Pennsylvania with his wife.