Books for Purchase

Story in Literary Fiction

Story in Literary Fiction: A Manual for Writers, by William H. Coles, is a succinct and clearly written reference for fiction writers. Principles and guidelines for writing present the essence of creating a memorable story. More info…

Literary Story as an Art Form: A Text for Writers

This textbook helps writers become the best storytellers possible. Part I provides clear, useful ways of structuring and writing a great literary story. Part II takes a sample of an original short story created for the text and details options and choices in writing the story from beginning idea to the last revision. More info…

The Necklace and Other Stories

Nine short stories about American life, unrequited love, familial distrust, and unfair parental control, and a novella where cultures clash and humans survive with caring and selflessness overcoming the default of violence and destruction. More info…

The Short Fiction Of William H. Coles 2001-2011

Award-winning short stories of characters facing moral decisions that stretch their lives to mirror who they are and what they might become. And a novella, set in New Orleans, that pits and adulterous, deeply-in-love couple against society, family, and themselves as they struggle to regain self-respect and acceptance among threats of violent revenge. More info…

Facing Grace with Gloria and Other Stories

Facing Grace with Gloria and Other Stories was a finalist in The Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction, 2010. Twelve award winning stories.
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Guardian of Deceit

Darwin Hastings is seventeen and his dying aunt sends him from Pittsburgh to New York to a new guardian, a famous wealthy football player. He is excited and afraid; he wants to recapture the love he knew with his parents before they died and become a doctor like his father. Read More…

The Spirit of Want

Lucy MacMiel, a beautiful, successful lawyer, marries a doctor colleague of her father, but falls in love with a client–a dynamic, TV evangelist–accused of sex with a child. She loses the case and is disbarred and her family and her profession disown her. Read More…

The Surgeon's Wife

Mike Boudreaux, as a trauma surgeon Chief of Service, must discipline an impaired surgeon performing unnecessary and dangerous surgery for the obese. He is Boudreaux's former teacher and mentor, and Boudreaux falls in love with his young, beautiful, New-Orleans-socially-prominent wife. Read More…

The Illustrated Fiction of William H. Coles 2000-2012

The award-winning fiction of William H. Coles including fourteen short stories, five short shorts, a novella (The Surgeon's Wife), and a novel (The Spirit of Want). Color illustrations enhance each story, and the variety of stories in the collection provide hours of pleasurable reading.
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