Everyone has a story to tell, and some people need help telling it. Far too many stories go unpublished and unshared. We're working to help change that.
Our mission is to help authors bring their stories to light with professional editing, design, and good exposure to the marketplace. Through Belle Isle Books, we offer personal guidance and accessibility, encourage authors to actively participate in the publishing process, and produce high-quality books that exhibit editorial quality of the highest caliber.
We treat the publishing process as a partnership because when the book comes off the press, we want our authors to be confident and successful.
Our mission is to help authors bring their stories to light with professional editing, design, and good exposure to the marketplace. Through Belle Isle Books, we offer personal guidance and accessibility, encourage authors to actively participate in the publishing process, and produce high-quality books that exhibit editorial quality of the highest caliber.
We treat the publishing process as a partnership because when the book comes off the press, we want our authors to be confident and successful.
New and Upcoming Releases
Mining Your Past
by Richard Lee Zuras
No one has ever seen the world the way you have.
This is a truth that noted author, poet, and professor Richard Lee Zuras knows well. Mining your past—for its characters, its lessons, its regrets, and its joys—can feel intimidating, but it leads to authenticity in a writer’s written work that cannot be replicated. No one has seen the world the way you do, and so learning how to tap into that world as you create new stories is an invaluable way of finding your voice.
In this accessible and informative writing guide, Zuras skillfully combines his previous written works and personal histories with concrete tools for any reader looking to integrate their own pasts into authentic writing. Refreshingly reader-focused, Mining Your Past provides its audience tangible methods for uncovering their unique worldview in order to create more compelling and genuine storytelling. Readers will step away with a greater faith in their potential as a writer and a better understanding of their own pasts, presents, and futures, making this an essential read for novice writers searching for a way to share their stories, as only they can tell them.
No one has ever seen the world the way you have.
This is a truth that noted author, poet, and professor Richard Lee Zuras knows well. Mining your past—for its characters, its lessons, its regrets, and its joys—can feel intimidating, but it leads to authenticity in a writer’s written work that cannot be replicated. No one has seen the world the way you do, and so learning how to tap into that world as you create new stories is an invaluable way of finding your voice.
In this accessible and informative writing guide, Zuras skillfully combines his previous written works and personal histories with concrete tools for any reader looking to integrate their own pasts into authentic writing. Refreshingly reader-focused, Mining Your Past provides its audience tangible methods for uncovering their unique worldview in order to create more compelling and genuine storytelling. Readers will step away with a greater faith in their potential as a writer and a better understanding of their own pasts, presents, and futures, making this an essential read for novice writers searching for a way to share their stories, as only they can tell them.
Bella Joins the Service
written by Julie Ellis Williams
illustrated by Penny Weber
Bella, a fun-loving Lab, spends her days with her person, Kirk. Together, they run, swim, hike, and climb through Colorado’s great outdoors. But one day, everything changes. While mountain biking, Kirk has a disabling fall that leaves him unable to use his arms and legs the way he used to. What’s a Lab to do?
Bella chooses to “join the service”—service dogs, that is. While Kirk learns a new way of life, Bella learns how to do many things with her nose, mouth, and paws that Kirk can no longer do with his hands.
Follow Bella and Kirk’s journey as they come full circle to live the same adventurous life they lived before—just differently.
illustrated by Penny Weber
Bella, a fun-loving Lab, spends her days with her person, Kirk. Together, they run, swim, hike, and climb through Colorado’s great outdoors. But one day, everything changes. While mountain biking, Kirk has a disabling fall that leaves him unable to use his arms and legs the way he used to. What’s a Lab to do?
Bella chooses to “join the service”—service dogs, that is. While Kirk learns a new way of life, Bella learns how to do many things with her nose, mouth, and paws that Kirk can no longer do with his hands.
Follow Bella and Kirk’s journey as they come full circle to live the same adventurous life they lived before—just differently.
Waiting for Scotland
by S.A. Borders-Shoemaker
Waiting for Scotland is a poetry collection about reconciling the past with hopes for the future. Within these pages is the direct confrontation between youthful expectations and sobering realities. Born from the labors of deep soul work, it is all at once a comprehensive story and a series of meditations on identity. This collection acknowledges what has come before and how the past contends with a very real and powerful present. Borders-Shoemaker’s words declare a hope for a different future, rooted in honesty and compassion.
Waiting for Scotland is a poetry collection about reconciling the past with hopes for the future. Within these pages is the direct confrontation between youthful expectations and sobering realities. Born from the labors of deep soul work, it is all at once a comprehensive story and a series of meditations on identity. This collection acknowledges what has come before and how the past contends with a very real and powerful present. Borders-Shoemaker’s words declare a hope for a different future, rooted in honesty and compassion.
Curious Design
by Bonnie Stanard
We don't all think alike, but to some of us, life is an ever-present enigma. Stanard writes that life “chases me in cycles defying viewpoint.” With Bratecceli's cubist art as inspiration, she skillfully renders compositions that introduce us to an original and unexpected reading experience. This is a mix of pithy poems, some profound and others amusing.
We don't all think alike, but to some of us, life is an ever-present enigma. Stanard writes that life “chases me in cycles defying viewpoint.” With Bratecceli's cubist art as inspiration, she skillfully renders compositions that introduce us to an original and unexpected reading experience. This is a mix of pithy poems, some profound and others amusing.
Mato's Journey
ON SALE 2/2/23!!!
written by Dave Bowles
illustrated by Elizabeth Lester
Mato knows he's supposed to be proud of being a mockingbird, but the loud, flashy blue jay and the other backyard birds taunt him for his dull gray feathers and his dreams of adventure. He wants to peck insects like the woodpecker, sip nectar like the hummingbird, or join the waxwings on their exciting trip to the faraway place. However, as Mato grows up, he begins to realize that colorful feathers aren't the only things that make a bird special.
Join Mato on his adventures in the backyard and beyond in a coming-of-age story that reveals the hidden lives of the birds right outside your back door.
written by Dave Bowles
illustrated by Elizabeth Lester
Mato knows he's supposed to be proud of being a mockingbird, but the loud, flashy blue jay and the other backyard birds taunt him for his dull gray feathers and his dreams of adventure. He wants to peck insects like the woodpecker, sip nectar like the hummingbird, or join the waxwings on their exciting trip to the faraway place. However, as Mato grows up, he begins to realize that colorful feathers aren't the only things that make a bird special.
Join Mato on his adventures in the backyard and beyond in a coming-of-age story that reveals the hidden lives of the birds right outside your back door.
Peter Polo and the White Elephant of Lan Xang
ON SALE 2/16/23!!!
written by Craig Bradley
illustrated by Laurie A. Conley
Peter Polo is off on another thrilling mission for the Great Khan! This time, Peter and his friends travel across the rivers, mountains, and cities of ancient China to the kingdom of Lan Xang, to try and stop a war over a rare white elephant. According to legend, whoever possesses the elephant will rule over all the Tai people—and the sinister King Naja, ruler of neighboring Lan Na, will stop at nothing to steal it.
Where Do They Go?
ON SALE 3/6/23!!!
written by Carolyn Sullivan Moore
illustrated by Natalia Logvanova
Where do frogs snooze when the pond freezes over? Where do butterflies land when flowers lie dormant? Curious children want to know where animals and other creatures go when summer fades and chilly temperatures send us all inside for the cozy winter months. Written in verse, Where Do They Go? is a delightfully illustrated study on hibernation, written for young children, that introduces the idea of changing seasons in a rhyming sing-song style. This is a title kids will insist on reading, “one more time!”
written by Carolyn Sullivan Moore
illustrated by Natalia Logvanova
Where do frogs snooze when the pond freezes over? Where do butterflies land when flowers lie dormant? Curious children want to know where animals and other creatures go when summer fades and chilly temperatures send us all inside for the cozy winter months. Written in verse, Where Do They Go? is a delightfully illustrated study on hibernation, written for young children, that introduces the idea of changing seasons in a rhyming sing-song style. This is a title kids will insist on reading, “one more time!”
Odette’s Alphabet
ON SALE 4/4/23!!!
written by Sandrine Marlier
illustrated by Leonardo Schiavina
One day, Odette the ant wakes up feeling stressed. After realizing that all she does is work, Odette decides to leave her anthill in search of the freedom to create her own world. Along the way, she meets Marcus, a lost mouse, and together they discover simple ways to feel better. Inspired by her journey and this wonderful new friendship, Odette finds her way back home to the colony with a new sense of being.
Odette’s Alphabet is a mindful story that offers a map to handle big emotions with kindness, unity, and courage. Fun and easy activities support each of the chapters, along with letters of the alphabet to provide additional opportunities for learning while encouraging young readers to explore meditation practices.
That You Remember
ON SALE 5/3/23!!!
by Isabel Reddy
In 2019, Aleena Rowan, adrift in the wake of a failed marriage, receives a box of her father's desk diaries from the years he worked as a coal executive. She expects to find nothing more than the cost of business lunches and meeting notes. Instead, she finds a mysterious name, Sara, scrawled on a slip of paper in her father's handwriting.
Frank Rowan meets Sara Stone while fishing on a frigid January day, and sees her again waiting tables at Otter Creek’s only restaurant. It is 1970, and Frank and Sara’s relationship grows despite the impossible distance between a New York corner office and a Kentucky coal hollow. Initially, Sara sees Frank as her ticket to a better life, but other forces compete with her dreams – like protecting her town from the increasingly perilous coal slurry dam.
In her debut novel, told from both sides of the coal industry, Isabel Reddy brings to life the conflicts and undercurrents of an Appalachian mining town on the eve of disaster.
by Isabel Reddy
In 2019, Aleena Rowan, adrift in the wake of a failed marriage, receives a box of her father's desk diaries from the years he worked as a coal executive. She expects to find nothing more than the cost of business lunches and meeting notes. Instead, she finds a mysterious name, Sara, scrawled on a slip of paper in her father's handwriting.
Frank Rowan meets Sara Stone while fishing on a frigid January day, and sees her again waiting tables at Otter Creek’s only restaurant. It is 1970, and Frank and Sara’s relationship grows despite the impossible distance between a New York corner office and a Kentucky coal hollow. Initially, Sara sees Frank as her ticket to a better life, but other forces compete with her dreams – like protecting her town from the increasingly perilous coal slurry dam.
In her debut novel, told from both sides of the coal industry, Isabel Reddy brings to life the conflicts and undercurrents of an Appalachian mining town on the eve of disaster.
