In The Golden Stairs, John Michael Flynn's second book of essays, the focus is on the quirky, the common, and the sublime. Through the personal, he examines universal themes, writing of passions and victories as well as losses and disappointments.
These are the essays as they appear in the collection:
Gentian
A Spark Must Jump Its Gap
The Wandering Gene
Talking The Notion Of Satisfaction
Answers For My Noses And Neuroses
The Perch, The Tube
Two Ways To Enter A Classroom
Without Papers
Salvador Mulligatawny, Or What Is A Poem?
With A Calendar In Fading Light I Remember Amiri Baraka
Imperfection
Kin, Friend, Mentor
Dances With The Imagined
Radio Days: Me And My Dad In The Theatre Of The Mind
Aloft Somewhere Beyond Comprehension
Chase Scenes
Living Between The Leaves
One Face From Corner To Corner A Decahedron
Some Say It Didn't Happen
Leap Into The Sun
Starting From Normal
Some of these essays appeared in slightly different form and under the name Basil Rosa in the following publications.
1. "Without Papers," and "Radio Days" in Redwood Coast Review
2. "Imperfection" in Anti-Heroin Chic"
3. "Leap Into The Sun" in the anthology Beyond The Plots
4. "The Perch, The Tube" in Spank The Carp
5. "Living Between The Leaves" in the anthology Being Home
6. "The Wandering Gene" was presented as an address to The History Club at Watford Grammar School For Boys.
7. "Gentian" and "Chase Scenes" and "Aloft Somewhere Beyond Comprehension" in The Argyle
8. "Starting From Normal" in Masque & Spectacle
9. "With A Calendar In Fading Light I Remember Amiri Baraka" in Juste Literary
10. "Dances With The Imagined" in Hedge Apple