Gala, a young New Zealand woman, is fleeing a relationship. She leaves a note on the table next to her wedding ring. With her guitar and daughter in tow, she leaves LA and takes the bus to Texas. Three days later she arrives at midnight with only a few dollars in her pocket and a single phone number. Will she be able to find sanctuary, love and fortune in this unfamiliar country where people struggle to even understand her accent?

'and there's nothing so lonesome,

nothing quite so sad

than pulling into Denton at midnight

with your whole life in a bag.'

Katy Soljak is a writer, musician, singer-song writer and artist, living on Waiheke Island. In the late eighties she moved to California where she studied creative writing at Long Beach Community College. She then became involved with the LB poetry scene, reading poetry on trains and in laundromats with the Carma Bums. She performed regularly in the nineties in Los Angeles and Long Beach, was a featured poet at Beyond Baroque in Venice Beach and was published in On Target, Pearl and Brainchild. Katy began writing short stories when she retired from teaching in 2008. They have variously been read on the radio or published in literary journals. She still performs songs and poetry at 'The Song and Poetry Thing' on Waiheke Island. Her debut short story collection, My First Real Pash and Other Stories, was published by Lasavia Publishing in 2021. Her songs featured in this novella, Denton and Heaven, are available for download from Spotify and iTunes.