About Arborwood Press
Arborwood Press began in 1985 as Cross Cultural Press to publish the book, Gaijin! Gaijin! the first book of the series an American Family in Japan.
The 1980 saw the rise of the Small Press movement as conglomerates began buying the mainstream publishers and drying up the outlet for first time authors.
Kenneth Fenter by the mid 80s had been in essence the publisher of a weekly newspaper and yearly book as advisor to both publications at Springfield high school for 12 years. He had worked for a commercial printer, and had supervised a print shop in the high school for three years.
Three original Cross Cultural Press non-fiction books
After the publication of Gaijin!, Gaijin!, and MoIchido, he was approached by author Leighton Willgeroot to publish a series of books on Japan and China. Missionary Henrietta B. Alsdorf contacted him to publish her memoir about her families lifelong postings in the orient. That was followed by a scholarly book of Senryu by professor Shuho Ohno, of Seattle, Washington.
And finally a major undertaking was The Long Road to Denial by Richar Carper as the Aids epidemic awareness began to spread across America.
Fenter suspended activity with Cross Cultural Press after his third Japanese Book, Stained Glass in 1989 to concentrate on teaching.
In 2006 under the imprint of Arborwood Press Fenter and his siblings published a memoir of short stories about growing up on the farm on Summit Ridge. At that time the ISBN numbers for the original books covered under Cross Cultural Press were updated to be under the name of Arborwood Press.
Since that time, Arborwood Press has published seven novels, and three non-fiction books with three authors: Kenneth Fenter, Jim Henson and Linda Mitchell Maddox.
The Scattering of Leaves, the legacy of Charlie and Annie Fenter was also published in 2008 in a limited edition for the Fenter Reunion under the Arborwood Press imprint.