The Oregonian: Poems for the Pandemic
Date: June 4, 2020
Kim Stafford’s days have a rhythm, a routine. Oregon’s poet laureate wakes before dawn. He takes a long walk around his neighborhood. When he returns to his home in Southwest Portland, […]
News & Reviews
News:
KUER 90.1: To Be Alive — Is Power: Poetry For The Pandemic
Date: June 4, 2020
With all that’s going on right now, it may be more important than ever to remember to take a beat and appreciate something beautiful — even if that’s just a […]
Ms. Magazine: A Word Person Thinks About Bodies
Date: June 4, 2020
It was recently brought to my attention that my characters are obsessed with bodies—their own and everyone else’s.
CBC: Milton’s Paradise Lost: a survival guide for a fractured world
Date: June 4, 2020
Vietnamese-American writer Andrew Lam considers Paradise Lost “the first refugee story.” “When I learned about it, as someone who had lost his homeland, it resonated, naturally, because Vietnam was everything to my […]
Black Earth Institue: Social Distancing
Date: June 4, 2020
In dreams I walk through crowds, brushing arms, knocking elbows. Skin to skin: hands are bare. Crocuses congregate in beds, along sidewalks. Unlatching city gates,
Poets.org: Aerial, Wild Pine
Date: June 4, 2020
A flare of russet,green fronds, surpriseof flush againstthe bare grey cypressin winter woods. Cardinal wild pine,quill-leaf airplantor dog-drink-water.Spikes of bright bloom–exotic plumage.
Arts At MIT: A Writer’s Voyage: Mia Heavener, MIT Course 1, 2000
Date: June 4, 2020
“Be stubborn and ultimately believe in your writing,” advises first-time novelist Mia Heavener ’00, “especially if you are having crappy writing days.” On April 13, Heavener visited Wyn Kelley’s literature […]
Lithub: Writing Place in a Time of Crisis
Date: June 4, 2020
Tess Taylor’s new poetry collection Rift Zone is published this month. She shares five books about writing place in a time of crisis.
Datebook: How Bay Area authors stay creative amid the coronavirus pandemic
Date: June 4, 2020
Poet Tess Taylor questioned what it means to be creative, when every day feels like a radical reinvention of life. “These days, helping myself and my family steer a way around sadness, […]
NY Times: We’re Doing What We Can to Keep Truckers on the Road
Date: June 4, 2020
LINCOLN, Neb. — My mother was born into a flu-stricken household at the height of the pandemic of 1918. Within minutes she was swaddled in a homemade quilt and placed […]
Reviews:
TREE SPIRITS AROUND THE WORLD by Louise Wannier reviewed in Crafty Moms Share
Date: October 14, 2025
This book is so interesting. After meeting Tilly, Tilly travels around the world and shares trees from around the world. With each tree there is Tilly in a boat with […]
Booklist reviews TIMBER & LUA by Vi Khi Nào and Lily Hoàng
Date: October 8, 2025
Award-winning interdisciplinary writers Hoàng and Nào provocatively interrogate language,comprehension, and communication in a global world. Their collaborative result is a polyglotshowcase that combines English, Vietnamese, and a hybrid Vietlish to […]
BIND ME TIGHTER STILL by Lara Ehrlich reviewed in PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Date: October 7, 2025
With nods to “The Little Mermaid,” Ehrlich’s lovely sophomore outing (after Animal Wife) again probes themes of womanhood and monstrosity. Ceto, a siren and hunter of men, yearns to break the […]
Midwest Book Review places Jade Shyback’s AQUEOUS on their September 2025 Bookshelf
Date: September 30, 2025
This is the debut novel written by author Jade Shyback. I believe this is the first book in the new young adult series. While the focus may be young adult, […]
A Review of Alison Hawthorne Deming: To Make the Broken Whole
Date: September 18, 2025
I finished Alison Hawthorne Deming’s latest poetry collection, Blue Flax and Yellow Mustard Flower, and sat quietly absorbing it, stunned by its power. Deming is a writer whose work in […]
TIMBER & LUA by Vi Khi Nào and Lily Hoàng reviewed in Publishers Weekly
Date: September 16, 2025
Nào (The Six Tons of Water) and Hoàng (Underneath) join forces for a lyrical bilingual story collection. Each tale is presented three times, first in a combination of English and […]
“Nimbly probes the corporeal, familial, and flighted,” West Trade Review on M. Soledad Caballero’s FLIGHT PLAN
Date: September 9, 2025
M. Soledad Caballero’s Flight Plan spans geographies both physical and psychological—from cells to continents, from quotidian to unusual, from grounded to soaring. Intertwining seemingly dissimilar topical threads that include cancer, a […]
Review of Cai Emmons’s THE BELLS featured in Kirkus Reviews
Date: September 2, 2025
An immersive psychological portrait of one man’s battle with lifelong anger and guilt. A young man’s troubles follow him after he trades his spiritual calling for life as a teacher. […]
A Review of Lara Ehrlich’s BIND ME TIGHTER STILL featured in Booklist
Date: August 28, 2025
Ehrlich, the author of the story collection Animal Wife (2020) presents a short and disturbing novel. Ceto is the cruel taskmaster of the sirens, women who are the main attraction in Sirenland, […]
Don’t let your child get the “summer slide”: TREE SPIRITS by Louise Wannier Reviewed in She Scribes
Date: August 7, 2025
This is not a reading book, however, it does encourage children to use their imaginations and “think outside the box.” That skill will help them later in life with critical […]