Here’s to another year of celebrating poetry! Each one of the books I reviewed in 2019 moved me in unique and unforeseen ways, from Shaindel Beers’ harrowing escape from an abusive marriage to Cynthia Anderson’s evocative descriptions of the Mojave Desert. These books went with me on […]
I admit it. I’m a sucker for books that claim to help me be a better writer. I even wrote one myself. I keep my favorite books on writing poetry, memoir, and nonfiction on the shelf closest to my desk. These books are old friends I turn to again and […]
I like to tell my friends that I never, ever have writer’s block, and yes, I rarely have the full-blown version. I do, however, experience creative slowdowns, periods where I produce less work than I’d like, or my ideas seem stale, or I feel a lack of interest […]
I asked writers who’d published their first books of poetry at or beyond the age of fifty to discuss their experiences. Was there any particular reason they’d waited to publish? Did they think there was an advantage to publishing later in life? How had publishing a first book […]
More than two years ago, I started tinkering with a poem about my long drives up and down Interstate Highway 5, drives that began when I was a child and continued, with regularity, until the present day. My first note was an entry in my journal, dated December […]
Attending an AWP Conference is exhilarating and exhausting. Watching thousands of introverted writers awkwardly networking is, of course, part of the fun; being too overwhelmed to even nod at someone you know is not. At the most recent AWP (Portland 2019) I admit to moments of complete and […]
I’m happy to share that my haiku collection, STONE empty chair, has received its first review! I self-published it late last year, and had an enjoyable time selecting the poems, designing the book, and then, of course, receiving the box of copies. I’m also grateful to Serena Agusto-Cox, […]
In January of this year, I spent four days at a retreat for women entrepreneurs. Located on the Oregon Coast, we were blessed with amazing weather, a lovely beachside house, great food, and each other’s company. I brought my journal, because I always bring it wherever I go. […]
I was reading my Christmas present, The Letters of Sylvia Plath, Volume 2: 1956-1963, when I came across a mention of syllabic verse. Plath’s poem “Mussel-Hunter at Rock Harbor” is written in stanzas of seven lines, each line containing seven syllables. In a letter to her brother Warren, dated […]
Two of the books I received for review consideration in 2018 came from poets who live and write in the Mojave Desert of southeastern California: Starshine Road by L.I. Henley, and Waking Life by Cynthia Anderson. Henley writes of growing up in the Mojave, of walking down dirt roads […]
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