Where Fish Can Breathe (The Star of Atlantis). This item is unavailable.Where Fish Can Breathe (The Star of Atlantis)

“In this tender maritime yarn about a boy with a heart too big for his own good, Wagner paints a portrait of a sea whose surface-level beauty belies the brutality that lurks beneath, an apt metaphor for a masculine coming of age. Through virtuosic lyricism and evocative natural imagery, Wagner plumbs the depths of the painful and sometimes disillusioning transition into adulthood, and she does so with a large-hearted and clear-eyed apprehension of a boy’s view of manhood.”
-Tim Storm, award-winning writer, freelance teacher, mentor, and editor, with work published in a number of journals, including the spring 2017 issue of Copper Nickel.

“In the spirit of The Old Man and the Sea and Moby Dick, Tricia D. Wagner tells a grand story of the sea, brotherhood, manhood, fear, and fathers and sons in taut, vivid prose that evokes the power of a Greek fable. There is deep meaning in this tale; a story ripe with rings of significance. Read again and again, and you’ll discover another poignant layer each time.”
-David W. Berner, award-winning author of October Song.

“An incredibly moving story, richly written in a lyrical style that captures your heart. Tricia D. Wagner skillfully brings us along with Swift from the moment we step aboard this delightful tale.”
-Valerie Biel, author of the award-winning Circle of Nine series.

Ten-year-old Swift is weary of being “the Lad,” and he longs to feel a sense of belonging with his three older brothers. When a chance strikes to go night fishing together on their father's mighty brigantine, the Regulus, it seems the perfect chance for Swift to prove himself. When night falls, however, when stars rise and the fishing begins—as Swift ventures into the wilds of the sea and its creatures—a sense of alienation creeps in. To realize his place in the strange water world, he must summon the courage to confront the North Atlantic with all its savagery. And to learn what it means to be one of four brothers, Swift must rally the bravery to reveal to them, at the heart, who he is. Come sail the North Atlantic with Swift and his family in this poignant coming-of-age novelette.

As a young reader, writers were like gods and goddesses to now author Tricia D. Wagner. She never could have imagined weaving tales like her favorite storytellers, until a fateful April dinner conversation with her husband about a lecture he attended got her mind whirling. By the end of that summer, she'd written 400,000 words: a speculative fiction trilogy. Wagner felt as if she'd emerged from a chrysalis as some new sort of creature. She was hooked.It was important to Tricia to sharpen her skills, and she immersed herself in workshops, guides, and writing communities, learning from editors how to hone her craft. She did this for years, and the result is her a growing collection of published novels, novelettes, and poetry collections. She found writing to be a method for becoming the person she felt she was born to be. In writing her stories, Wagner was surprised and delighted to discover how real the characters become to an author; that for many writers, their characters end up as their most treasured friends. She loves to delve into them to mine their natures, secrets, and desires-to tell their stories with the legitimacy they deserve. In studying her characters, she finds she has the opportunity to shape herself, inching closer to the person she wants to become.Wagner hopes her readers feel enchanted when they read her stories. This is exactly how she feels when she finishes writing a story. She hopes that her writing might expand their minds, spirits, and worlds, and she hopes they fall in love with her characters and are moved by her artistry of language. When she isn't writing poignant works of literary fiction, Wagner works as a Director in Higher Education. In her spare time she enjoys refining her writing craft to discover new angles and landscapes that might enrich her writing palette. One such example is a recent course she took in learning to read ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, something that's sure to end up in a story at some point. Wagner lives in Rockford, Illinois, with her husband and darling cats.