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