DEER BLACK OUT by Ulrich Jesse K. Baer featured on Chill Subs’ list of “30 Books We Can’t Wait to Read: April 2024”!
Deer Black Out by Ulrich Jesse K. Baer – April 16 (Red Hen Press)
“My favorite poetry is when we get to be creative with the poet. Ulrich Jesse K Baer provides space between his corresponding brilliant ideas for us to climb into the poem with him. Arrive at this book by leaning into the gears of your imagination! Deer Black Out reminds me walking is falling and catching ourselves with our feet. I am grateful for his challenging, emotional labor– “departed, yr stanzas/my withheld image of you/thins its swung moonlight.” Let’s get falling and catching ourselves! Let’s go upstream to Baer country! I am an enormous fan of this poet and his book!”–CAConrad, author of You Don’t Have What It Takes to Be My Nemesis: And Other (Soma)tics
“I’ve long been an ardent, near-obsessive fan of Amy Shearn’s sophisticated, hilarious, big-hearted fiction, and with Dear Edna Sloane, she once again knocks it out of the park. This charming, compulsively readable novel–which I read in one sitting, laughing out loud every few minutes–brilliantly satirizes the literary world in a manner that reminded me, somehow, of both Laurie Colwin and Candace Bushnell, Curtis Sittenfeld and, more than any other writer, Taffy Brodesser-Akner. But what fuels this tour de force–aside from Shearn’s pitch-perfect tone and precise, urgent sentences–are her complex, lovable characters and their emotionally resonant thoughts and ideas. I wanted to live inside this book forever.” –Joanna Rakoff, author of My Salinger Year
Join DEER BLACK OUT author Ulrich Jesse K Baer with artist olivier for a philosophical dialogue presented by The Poetry Foundation
On the occasion of the book launch for Ulrich Jesse K Baer’s Deer Black Out, join us for a philosophical and ufological reading and trans-genre dialogue with Ulrich Jesse K Baer and artist olivier. This is a hybrid event, which will be offered in-person and via livestream. The event name comes from a line in Deer Black Out.
Diane Seuss writes that this poetry collection “exquisitely performs the way trauma—the utter loss of self-determination, of choice—can turn a life to seawater, to drift, to ‘somehow, the might still be—’ mapping ‘constellations of in-between,’ suspended between deciding and undeciding, from a space outside of the circumference of longing, where poetry lives.”
Susan Rich discusses her latest book, BLUE ATLAS, with the Crab Creek Review
Susan Rich sat down with Crab Creek Review to discuss her latest book Blue Atlas, the themes of the book, and her writing in general. Blue Atlas is a lyrical abortion narrative unlike any other. This one-of-a-kind collection follows a Jewish woman and her ghosts as they travel from West Africa to Europe, and finally, to the High Atlas Mountains of Morocco. The speaker searches repeatedly for a new outcome, seeking answers in a myriad of mediums such as an on-line questionnaire, a freshman composition essay, and a curriculum vitae. The raw, often far from idyllic experience of a global love affair which results in an unplanned pregnancy, is examined and meditated upon through a surreal prism. The Blue Atlas, a genus of the common cedar tree first found in the High Atlas of Morocco and known for its beauty and resilience, becomes a metaphor for the hardship and power of a fully engaged life.
Co-Founder and managing editor of Red Hen Press Dr. Kate Gale shares advice on how to sell international rights with “Inside Independent Publishing (with IBPA)”
There is a huge market for books outside the United States, so how can U.S. publishers break into the international market, and how do publishers know which markets are a good fit for their titles? Co-Founder and Managing Editor of Red Hen Press Dr. Kate Gale joins “Inside Independent Publishing (with IBPA)” to share details about how her publishing company succeeded with international sales, as well as the challenges and opportunities publishers face based on the city where they set up their business; tips on book distribution; and much more.
Helen Benedict, author of THE GOOD DEED, recommends 7 novels set in refugee camps on Electric Lit
“Every refugee’s story opens in horror, passes through betrayal, and ends in a question.”
This sentence, spoken by a protagonist in my new novel, The Good Deed, came to me on one of my visits to the overcrowded, fetid refugee camp on the Greek island of Samos. I began going there in 2018 when I learned that the island had become a major gateway to Europe for people fleeing war or persecution in the Middle East and Africa. I wanted to see for myself how people live from day to day in such inhumane conditions, and how they manage to cope with the trauma and tragedy they left behind.
Tune in to an interview with Helen Benedict, author of THE GOOD DEED, and New York Times bestselling author Caroline Leavitt on “A Mighty Blaze” Thursday April 11th at 4PM ET
A MIGHTY BLAZE vision: “a book may seem like a small candle in a dark time, but when you put many books together, they make a mighty blaze to light the way for writers and readers to find each other and a way forward in the darkness.”
Mark your calendars and set your reminders for Helen Benedict on THE GOOD DEED, Thursday April 11th at 4PM ET!
Amy Shearn, author of upcoming novel DEAR EDNA SLOANE, discusses the creative benefits of writing in letters
Looking for a direct line to your character’s innermost thoughts? In our world of digital noise, it can be overwhelming all the time, never mind when you need a quiet moment to tap into the voice of your writing project. In our guest essay this week, Amy Shearn, author of the forthcoming novel, Dear Eda Sloane, discusses how writing in letters can unlock creativity for the writer and offer the reader a sense of intimacy and connection.
Literary Hub features excerpt from Helen Benedict’s THE GOOD DEED!
The following is from Helen Benedict’s The Good Deed. Benedict is a British-American writer whose most recent work is about war and refugees. Her war novels received citations as best book of the year from the Los Angeles Times and Publishers Weekly, while her nonfiction won the Ida B. Wells Award for Bravery in Journalism, and the PEN Jean Stein Grant for Literary Oral History, and inspired a lawsuit against the Pentagon and the Oscar-nominated film, The Invisible War.
Darkness had already closed in by the time we reached the coast of Turkey, the moon a mere wisp in a sky clotted with clouds, and because it was too dangerous to light up a torch or a telephone, we could see little beyond the sand and stones beneath our feet. A rough-looking man appeared out of the night, almost invisible in black clothes, and hustled us into a cove crowded with people. I could just make out the shape of a gray, inflatable dinghy on the water about seven meters long; too small for even the fifteen passengers we’d been promised, let alone the dozens waiting on the shore. I glanced at Leila, my skin tightening.
Shadowy figures moved about distributing orange life jackets to those who paid. Leila managed to buy one for each of the children but the jackets ran out before she, Farah or I could buy our own. None of us knew how to swim.
“Look how fat I am, Mama!” Dunia said with a giggle as Farah buckled the jacket around her chest.
The man in black walked over to us while we were strapping the boys into their own jackets. “No bring so many people ’less you pay,” he said to Leila in pidgin Arabic. I couldn’t see him well but I could see that he was large and muscular.
Read an excerpt from Helen Benedict’s upcoming novel THE GOOD DEED on The Brooklyn Rail
Helen Benedict’s new novel, The Good Deed, follows four refugee women whose lives suddenly collide with an American tourist’s on the Greek island of Samos after she rescues a drowning child. To write the novel, Benedict, a Professor of Journalism at Columbia University and a winner of the Ida B. Wells Award for Bravery in Journalism, drew from four years of interviews with refugees in Samos as well as her past coverage of the Iraq War. Kirkus Reviews praised The Good Deed for “prompting the reader to consider why and how we ask a person to prove their own humanity.”
Lynnell Edwards reads from THE BEARABLE SLANT OF LIGHT on Accents Radio
This 38-minute interview features some of Edward’s poems from her upcoming collection, and dives into the meaning behind them. Listen to the insightful segment below.
Helen Benedict, author of upcoming novel “The Good Deed”, shares the most honest novels about being a refugee on Shepherd
I am a novelist and journalist who has been writing about war and refugees for nearly two decades. In 2018, I went to the Greek island of Samos, which held one of the most inhumane refugee camps in Europe, to talk to people there about their lives and hopes. Out of this, I wrote several articles and later two books, including The Good Deed. My hope is to counteract the demonization of refugees, so rife in the world today, by bringing out all that we humans have in common, such as our need for shelter, food, family, safety, and love.
Pamela Uschuk shares her poem, “Green Flame,” from REFUGEE on episode of Poems You Need!
Poets Melissa Studdard and Kelli Russell Agodon share the poems “Green Flame” from Refugee (Red Hen Press, May 2022) and “Self Help Manual” from Crazy Love (Wings Press, 2009) by Pamela Uschuk.
The Wall Street Journal praises Percival Everett, author of SONNETS FOR A MISSING KEY: “How a Literary Darling Finally Broke Through to the Mainstream”!
Between an Oscar-winning movie adaptation of one of his books and a new novel with rave reviews, Percival Everett’s gone from cult favorite to superstar
