Raven's New Imprint

Raven introduces Dark Trails Press

Darker content, but still True Fiction

True Fiction—fiction because the stories and characters are made up—is true in the sense that it mirrors real life and explores important real-life problems and solutions.  As we go deeper into the world of true fiction with books that confront serious, contemporary, but difficult and often unpleasant issues, we see the need for a new publishing arm—one for stories that are not suited for the children who read our Miranda and Starlight series and other novels written for elementary and middle-grade kids. 

Oh, yes, we have published some very good, very poignant, and very grown-up stories for adults. They do not, however, contain any but the mildest curse words, let alone any vulgar language, nor any overly violent or explicit sexual content. However, our new imprint may publish books that include any or all of the above—even as it follows our definition for true fiction—or moral non-fiction. 

By moral, we use John Gardner’s definition as supplied in his book, On Moral Fiction. “True art seeks to improve life, not debase it. It ought to be a force bringing people together, breaking down barriers of prejudice and ignorance, and holding up ideals worth pursuing.” Our new imprint will publish books or short pieces that confront dark, but true-to-life issues—using these principles.

Dark Trails Press, will soon publish its first book, Caught at the Edge by Raymond Storm, as an ebook. It portrays the life of the kids in the warring street gangs of East L. A. and shows how men in the big drug cartels entice them with drugs, guns, and sexy women, only to exploit—and then dispose of them when they are no longer useful.

The book also introduces the type of organizations laboring to rescue these children and turn their lives around. It shows how a young life is redeemed by a program established to offer troubled boys a better—and far less dangerous—way of life.